And what did Adam next perform? He drew up a legal document of transfer, and sealed it with his own seal, and God and Metatron did likewise.
To return to the Mussulman legend.
When all the posterity of Adam were assembled, God exclaimed to them, Acknowledge that I am the only God, and that Mohammed is my prophet. The company on the right eagerly made this acknowledgment; those, however, on the left long hesitated, some said only the former portion of the sentence, and others did not open their mouths.
The disobedient, said Allah to Adam, shall, if they remain obstinate, be cast into hell, but the true believers shall be received into Paradise.
So be it, replied Adam. And thus shall it be at the end of the world.
After the covenant, Allah rubbed Adams back once more, and all his little posterity retreated into it again.
When now God withdrew His presence from Adams sight for the remainder of our first parents life, Adam uttered such a loud and bitter cry that the whole earth quaked.
The All-merciful was filled with compassion, and bade him follow a cloud which would conduct him to a spot where he would be directly opposite His throne, and there he was to build a temple.
Go about this temple, said Allah, and I am as near to you as the angels who surround my throne. Adam, who was still the size that God had created him, easily strode from Ceylon to Mecca after the cloud, which stood over the place where he was to build. On Mount Arafa, near Mecca, to his great delight, he found Eve again, and from this circumstance the mountain takes its name (from Arafa, to recognize, to know again). They both began to build, and erected a temple having four doors one was called Adams door, another Abrahams door, the third Ishmaels door, and the fourth Mohammeds door. The plan of the temple was furnished by Gabriel, who also contributed a precious stone, but this stone afterwards, through the sin of men, turned black. This black stone is the most sacred Kaaba, and it was originally an angel, whose duty it had been to guard the Wheat-Tree of the knowledge of good and evil, and to warn off Adam should he approach it. But though his inattention the design of God was frustrated, and in punishment he was transformed into a stone, and he will not be released from his transformation till the Last Day.
Gabriel taught Adam also all the ceremonies of the great pilgrimage.
Adam now returned with his wife to India, and lived there till he died, but every year he made a pilgrimage to Mecca, till he lost his primitive size, and retained only the height of sixty eels.
The cause of his diminution in height was his horror and dismay at the murder of Abel, which made him shrink into himself, and he was never afterwards able to stretch himself out again to his pristine dimensions.88
The Book of the Penitence of Adam is a curious apocryphal work of Syriac origin; I give an outline of its contents.
God planted, on the third day, the Terrestrial Paradise; it is bounded on the east by the ocean in which, at the Last Day, the elect will wash away all those sins which have not as yet been purged away by repentance.
On leaving this garden of delights, Adam turned to take of it one last look. He saw that the Tree which had caused his fall was cursed and had withered away.
He was much surprised when night overtook him, for in Paradise he had not known darkness. As he went along his way, shedding tears, he overtook the serpent gliding over the ground, and licking the dust. That serpent he had last seen on four feet, very beautiful, with the hair of a young maiden, enamelled with brilliant colors. Now it was vile, hideous, and grovelling. The beasts which, before the Fall, had coveted its society, fled from it now with loathing.
Filled with rage at the sight of Adam and Eve, to whom it attributed its present degradation, the serpent flew at them and prostrated them. Thereupon God removed from it its sole remaining possession the gift of speech, and it was left only its hiss of rage and shame.
Adam soon felt exhaustion, heat, fear and pain; afflictions he had not known in Eden. As the shadows of night fell, an intense horror overwhelmed the guilty pair; they trembled in every limb and cried to God. The Almighty, in compassion, consoled them by announcing to them that day would return after twelve hours of night. They were relieved by this promise, and they spent the first night in prayer.
But Satan, who never lost sight of them, fearing lest their prayers should wholly appease the divine justice, assembled his host of evil angels, surrounded himself with a brilliant light, and stood at the entrance of the cave where the banished ones prayed. He hoped that Adam would mistake him for God, and prostrate himself before him.
But Adam said to Eve: Observe this great light and this multitude of spirits. If it were God who sent them, they would enter and tell us their message. Adam did not know then that Satan cannot approach those who pray. Then Adam addressed himself to God and said, O my God! is there another God but Thou, who can create angels and send them to us? Lord, deign to instruct us!
Then a heavenly angel entered the cavern and said, Adam, fear not those whom you see; it is Satan and his host. He sought to seduce you again to your fall.
Having thus spoken, the angel fell upon Satan and tore from off him his disguise, and exposed him in his hideous nakedness to Adam and Eve. And to console them for this trial, God sent Adam gold rings, incense and myrrh, and said to him, Preserve these things, and they will give you at night Light and fragrance; and when I shall come down on earth to save you, clothed in human flesh, kings shall bring me these three tokens.
It is because of this present that the cavern into which Adam and Eve retreated has been called the Treasure-cave.
Adam and Eve, greatly cheered, blessed the Lord, and thanked him for his goodness, and resolved to continue their repentance.
A short time after they committed a fault. Satan presented himself to them under the form of an angel of light, and announced that he was commissioned by the Most High to lead them to the brink of the River of the Water of Life, into which they were to plunge and wash away their sin.
They believed, and followed him by a strange road, and he led them to the edge of a precipice, down which he endeavored to fling them; for, he thought, were he to destroy the man and the woman, he would be supreme in the world God had made. But the Almighty rescued Adam and Eve, and drave Satan from them.
To punish themselves for their involuntary fault, Adam and Eve separated, so as not to see one another, and resolve to spend forty days up to their necks in the sea.
Before parting, Adam said to his wife, Remain in the water here, and do not quit it till I return, and spend your time in praying the Lord to pardon us.
Now, whilst they were undergoing this penance, Satan cast about how he might bring to naught our first parents, and he sought them but could not find them, till on the thirty-fifth day of their penance he perceived the two heads above the water; then he knew at once what was their intention, and he resolved to frustrate it. So he took upon him the form of an angel of Heaven, and flew over the sea singing praises to God; and when he came to the place where Eve was, he cried, Joy, joy to thee! God is with thee, and he has sent me to bring thee to Adam to announce to him that he has found favor with the Most High.
Eve instantly scrambled out of the water, and followed Satan to Adam, and the Evil One placed her before her husband, and vanished. When Adam saw his wife, he was filled with dismay, and beat his breast and wept. When she told him why she was there, he knew that the great Enemy had been again at his work of deception, and he fell into despair. But a voice from Heaven bade him return with Eve to the Treasure-cave.
Hunger, thirst, cold, and prayer had completely exhausted the pair, and Adam cried to the Lord, O God, my Creator! Thou hast given me reason and an enlightened heart. When Thou didst forbid me to eat of the fruit of the Tree, Eve was not yet made, and she did not hear Thy command; in Eden we hungered not, nor felt thirst or pain or fatigue. All this have we lost. And now we dare not touch the fruit of the trees or drink of water without Thy command. Our bodies are exhausted, our strength is gone; grant us wherewith to satisfy our hunger, and to quench our thirst.
God ordered the Cherubim who kept the gate of Eden, to carry to Adam two figs from the tree under which our first parents had concealed themselves after the Fall.
Take, said the Cherubim, presenting the figs to them, take the fruit of the tree whose leaves covered your shame.
Oh! cried Adam, may God grant us some of the fruit of the Tree of Life.
But God answered, I will give unto you this fruit and living water, to you and to your descendants, on that day that I shall descend into the abode of death and shall break the gates of iron in sunder, to bring you forth into my garden of pleasures. That which you ask of Me shall take place at the expiration of five long days and a half (i. e. 5,500 years), after that my blood has flowed upon thy head, O Adam, upon Golgotha.
Adam and Eve took the figs, which were very heavy, for the fruits of the earthly paradise were much larger than the fruit of this outer world in which we live. And when they were about to enter into the Cave of Treasures, they saw there a great fire; this mightily astonished them, for as yet they had not seen fire except in the flaming sword of the Cherub. Now this fire which surprised them was the work of Satan; he had collected branches and had fired them in the hope of burning down the cavern and driving Adam to despair.
The fire lasted till the morrow; Satan, without showing himself, keeping it supplied with fresh fuel. Adam and Eve did not venture to approach, but recommended themselves to God; and the Evil One, finding that his plan had failed, let the fire die out and departed.
Adam and Eve slept the following night at the foot of a mountain near their lost Eden. Satan beholding them, said, God has made a compact with Adam, whom he desires to save, but I will slay him, and the earth shall be mine.
He therefore summoned his attendant angels, and they dislodged a huge rock from the mountain and hurled it upon the sleepers. But as this mass was bounding down the flank of the mountain, and was in mid-air in one of its leaps, God arrested it above the heads of the sleepers, and it sheltered them from the dews of night.
Adam and Eve awoke greatly troubled by their dreams, and they asked of God garments to cover their naked bodies, for they suffered from the scorching sun by day, and the frost by night. God replied, Go to the shore of the sea; you will there find the skins of sheep which have been devoured by lions: of them make to yourselves raiment.
Satan heard the words of God, and he outran our first parents, that he might secure the skins and destroyed them, in the hopes that Adam and Eve, finding no hides, would doubt God and think that he had failed in His word. But God fastened Satan in his naked hideousness beside the skins, immovable, till Adam and Eve arrived, when he addressed them in these terms: Behold him who has seduced you; see what has become of his beauty. After having made you such promises, he was about to rob you of these hides. Adam and Eve took the skins and made of them garments. A few days after, God said to them, Go to the west till you arrive at a black land; there you will find food. They obeyed, and they saw corn full ripe, and God inspired Adam with knowledge how to make bread. But not having sickles they tore the corn up by the roots, and having made a rick of it, they slept, expecting to thrash it out and grind it on the morrow. But Satan fired this rick and reduced their harvest to ashes.
Whilst they wept and lamented, Satan came to them as an angel, and said, This is the work of your Enemy the Fiend, but God has sent me to bring you into a field where you will find better corn.
They followed him, nothing doubting, and he led them for eight days, and they fainted with exhaustion and were foot-sore. Then he left them in an unknown land; but God was their protector, He brought them back to their harvest and restored their rick of corn, and they made bread and offered to God the first sacrifice.89
But enough of this apocryphal work, which contains a string of absurd tricks played by Satan on our first parents, which are invariably defeated by God; of these the specimens given above are sufficient.
A curious legend exists among the Sclavonic nations by which the existence of elves is accounted for. It is said that Adam had by his wife Eve, thirty sons and thirty daughters. God asked him, one day, the number of his children. Adam was ashamed of having so many girls, so he answered, Thirty sons and twenty-seven daughters. But from the eye of God nothing can be concealed, and He took from among Adams daughters the three fairest, and He made them Willis, or elves; they were good and holy, and therefore did not perish in the Deluge, but entered with Noah into the ark and were saved.
The story of Adams penitence, as told by Tabari, is as follows:
The moment that Adam fell out of Paradise and touched the ground on the mountains in the centre of Ceylon, he understood in all its magnitude the greatness of his loss and his sin. He remained stupefied with his face on the earth, and did not raise it, but allowed his tears to flow upon and soak into the soil. For a hundred years he remained in this position, and his tears formed a stream which rolled down the mountain, which still flows from Adams Peak in the island of Ceylon, and gives their virtue to the healing plants and fragrant trees which there flourish, and are exported for medicinal purposes.
When a hundred years had elapsed, God had compassion on Adam, and sent Gabriel to him, who said, God salutes thee, O Adam! and He bids me say to thee, Did I not create thee out of the earth by My will? Did I not give thee Paradise to be thine abode? Why these tears and sighs?
Adam replied, How shall I not weep, and how shall I abstain from sighing? Have I not lost the protection of God, and have I not disobeyed His will?
Gabriel said, Do not afflict thyself. Recite the words I shall teach thee, and God will grant thee repentance which He will accept, as it is written in the Koran, Adam learnt of His Lord words; and the Lord returned to Him, for He is merciful, and He returns. Adam recited these words, and in the joy he felt at the prospect of finding mercy, he wept, and his joyous tears watered the earth, and from them sprang up the narcissus and the ox-eye.
Then said Adam to Gabriel, What shall I now do?
And Gabriel gave to Adam wheat-grains from out of Paradise, the fruit of the Forbidden Tree, and he bade him sow it, and he said, This shall be thy food in future.
Afterwards, Gabriel taught Adam to draw iron out of the rock and to make instruments of husbandry. And all that Adam sowed sprang up in the self-same hour that it was sown, for the blessing of God was upon it. And Adam reaped and thrashed and winnowed. Then Gabriel bade him take two stones from the mountain, and he taught him with them to grind the corn; and when he had made flour, he said to the angel, Shall I eat now? But Gabriel answered, Not so; and he showed him how to build an oven of iron. It was from this oven that the water of the deluge at Koufa flowed. He taught him also to make dough and to bake.