Life of Adam and Eve

Ancient Adam and Eve traditions preserved in Greek and Latin forms.

Historical English Source Edition

The reader presents the historical English source wording below.

THE Book, or rather Books, which bear the name of Adam belong to a cycle of legendary matter, of which the Jews were fond, and which the Christians took, and developed, from them. It is hard to tell how much belongs to the original Jewish kernel.

Ginzberg (Fewish Encyc. i. 179-81, ‘Book of Adam’), in reconstructing this, combines most of the matter to be found in the Greek and Latin versions of the story, even including those parts of the Latin which the editor of the Slavonic saw fit to omit.

The Book opens with the period immediately following the expulsion from paradise, which is treated as a garden of fruit-trees; not in Heaven, but separated only by a low wall from the earth (cf. Apoc. Mos. xvii. 1). If we endeavour to reconstruct the Greek ‘ Apocalypsis Mosis’ by the aid of the Slavonic Life of Adam, we shall be compelled to pass over the opening sections of the Latin ‘Vita’ and begin with the dream of Eve, which follows immediately on their departure to the west, where they sojourn eighteen years and two months, and where Cain and Abel are born. This dream foreshadows Abel’s murder which is then 26[2160. The parents are overcome with grief, but comforted by the appearance of Michael, who promises them another son. After this Seth is born.

The story then hastens at once to the death-bed scene where Adam is lying ill, surrounded by his sixty-three children, whom he intends to bless before he dies. Seth is distressed and surprised at his condition, for pain and sickness is to him a thing unknown. Adam tells the story of his fall and God’s curse upon him. Adam’s cries of woe rouse Seth to action, and at his father’s request he undertakes to go with Eve to the gate of paradise, there to pray God to give him oil from the Tree of Life to anoint Adam. On their way they are attacked by a beast (which the Vita wrongly calls a serpent and identifies with the devil); this is merely a sign of the beast’s revolt, which followed the Fall (Apoc. Mos. xi). Eve is powerless before it, Seth is bitten, Vit. xxxvii. 1, xxxix. 2 = Apoc. Mos. xii. 1-2 (A) x. 3, but succeeds in escaping by frightening it with God’s judgement. Their prayers for mercy are answered by a promise of a pure heart in the future, Apoc. Mos. xiii. 3-5. The Vita turns this into a prophecy of Christ (xlii. 2).

They are told to go back, as Adam will die ‘in six days’. On their return Adam abuses Eve, who has brought a curse on all mankind, and asks her to tell their children how she was deceived (the Vita evades this by adding ‘ after my death’), which she proceeds to do; cf. Apoc. Mos. x, xiv, with Vita xliv. Her fall is told in such a way as to suggest a double element in the source of the narrative. The devil sometimes appears as the inspirer, sometimes rather as the aézas of the serpent, Apoc. Mos. xvii. The story is brought down to the time of their expulsion from paradise, when they were comforted by a gift of perfumes, seeds for their food, and a promise of future resurrection, Apoc. Mos. xxviii. 4, xxix.

Thereupon Eve witnesses marvellous scenes accompanying Adam’s reconciliation, but falls asleep when God comes down to paradise before the burial of Adam.

In answer to the prayer of the angels Adam is pardoned, and his soul given to Michael to be cleansed in the Acherusian stream, Apoc. Mos. xxxvii-xxxix, and kept in paradise till the end of the times, when a resurrection is promised. His body is then buried by the archangels in the neighbourhood of the earthly paradise, Apoc. Mos. xl-xliii = Vita xlviii.

The book ends with a typical Jewish admonition given by Michael, Israel's guardian angel, to Seth not to mourn מס‎ the Sabbath day, Vita li, Apoc. Mos. xviii ; cf. Jubilees ii. 23, &c.

Chapters xxviii-xl of the Slavonic Vita are in reality a recension of the same subject-matter of the Latin Vita i-x. It deals with the penitence of Adam and Eve and the second temptation of Eve by Satan, and chapters xii-xvii of the Latin Vita explain the envy and fall of Satan.

The Vita also inserts before Eve’s death an account of her directions to Seth concerning memorials of her life, which are mentioned by Josephus. Lastly, this version expands in non-