Adam and Eve: The Beasts of the Creation

This story is part of the Adam and Eve unit. Story source: The Forgotten Books of Eden, edited by Rutherford H. Platt, Jr. (1926): The First Book of Adam and Eve 7-8-9.


The Beasts of the Creation

 [LIBRIVOX AUDIO]

VII. When Adam and Eve heard these words from God, they wept and sobbed yet more, but they strengthened their hearts in God, because they now felt that the Lord was to them like a father and a mother, and for this very reason, they wept before Him, and sought mercy from Him.

Then God had pity on them, and said: "O Adam, I have made My covenant with thee, and I will not turn from it, neither will I let thee return to the garden, until My covenant of the great five days and a half is fulfilled."

Then Adam said unto God, "O Lord, Thou didst create us, and make us fit to be in the garden, and before I transgressed, Thou madest all beasts come to me, that I should name them. Thy grace was then on me, and I named every one according to Thy mind, and Thou madest them all subject unto me. But now, O Lord God, that I have transgressed Thy commandment, all beasts will rise against me and will devour me, and Eve Thy handmaid, and will cut off our life from the face of the earth. I therefore beseech Thee, O God, that, since Thou hast made us come out of the garden, and hast made us be in a strange land, Thou wilt not let the beasts hurt us."

When the Lord heard these words from Adam, He had pity on him and felt that he had truly said that the beasts of the field would rise and devour him and Eve, because He, the Lord, was angry with them two on account of their transgression. Then God commanded the beasts, and the birds, and all that moves upon the earth, to come to Adam and to be familiar with him, and not to trouble him and Eve, nor yet any of the good and righteous among their posterity.




Then the beasts did obeisance to Adam, according to the commandment of God, except the serpent, against which God was wroth. It did not come to Adam, with the beasts.

VIII. Then Adam wept and said, "O God, when we dwelt in the garden, and our hearts were lifted up, we saw the angels that sang praises in heaven, but now we do not see as we were used to do; nay, when we entered the cave, all creation became hidden from us."

Then God the Lord said unto Adam, "When thou wast under subjection to Me, thou hadst a bright nature within thee, and for that reason couldst thou see things afar off. But after thy transgression thy bright nature was withdrawn from thee, and it was not left to thee to see things afar off, but only near at hand after the ability of the flesh, for it is brutish."

When Adam and Eve had heard these words from God, they went their way, praising and worshipping Him with a sorrowful heart. And God ceased to commune with them.

IX. Then Adam and Eve came out of the Cave of Treasures, and drew near to the garden gate, and there they stood to look at it, and wept for having come away from it. And Adam and Eve went from before the gate of the garden to the southern side of it, and found there the water that watered the garden, from the root of the Tree of Life, and that parted itself from thence into four rivers over the earth. Then they came and drew near to that water, and looked at it and saw that it was the water that came forth from under the root of the Tree of Life in the garden.

And Adam wept and wailed, and smote upon his breast, for being severed from the garden and said to Eve: "Why hast thou brought upon me, upon thyself, and upon our seed, so many of these plagues and punishments?"

And Eve said unto him, "What is it thou hast seen, to weep and to speak to me in this wise?"

And he said to Eve, "Seest thou not this water that was with us in the garden, that watered the trees of the garden, and flowed out thence? And we, when we were in the garden, did not care about it, but since we came to this strange land, we love it, and turn it to use for our body."

But when Eve heard these words from him, she wept, and from the soreness of their weeping, they fell into that water and would have put an end to themselves in it, so as never again to return and behold the creation, for when they looked upon the work of creation, they felt they must put an end to themselves.


(800 words)