First Book of Adam and Eve Part 20

5 Then Adam said to them, "But how do you multiply?"

6 And they answered him, "We have husbands who have married us, and we bear them children, who grow up, and who in their turn marry and are married, and also bear children; and thus we increase. And if so be, O Adam, you will not believe us, we will show you our husbands and our children."

7 Then they shouted over the river as if to call their husbands and their children, who came up from the river, men and children; and every man came to his wife, his children being with him.

8 But when Adam and Eve saw them, they stood dumb, and wondered at them.

9 Then they said to Adam and Eve, "See all our husbands and our children? You should marry Eve, as we have married our husbands, so that you will have children as we have." This was a device of Satan to deceive Adam.

10 Satan also thought within himself, "G.o.d at first commanded Adam concerning the fruit of the tree, saying to him, 'Eat not of it; else of death you shall die.' But Adam ate of it, and yet G.o.d did not kill him; He only decreed on him death, and plagues and trials, until the day he shall come out of his body.

11 Now, then, if I deceive him to do this thing, and to marry Eve without G.o.d's permission, G.o.d will kill him then."

12 Therefore Satan worked this apparition before Adam and Eve; because he sought to kill him, and to make him disappear from off the face of the earth.

13 Meanwhile the fire of sin came over Adam, and he thought of committing sin. But he restrained himself, fearing that if he followed this advice of Satan, G.o.d would put him to death.

14 Then Adam and Eve got up, and prayed to G.o.d, while Satan and his hosts went down into the river, in presence of Adam and Eve; to let them see that they were going back to their own world.

15 Then Adam and Eve went back to the Cave of Treasures, as they usually did; about evening time.

16 And they both got up and prayed to G.o.d that night. Adam remained standing in prayer, yet not knowing how to pray, by reason of the thoughts in his heart regarding his marrying Eve; and he continued so until morning.

17 And when light came up, Adam said to Eve, "Get up, let us go below the mountain, where they brought us gold, and let us ask the Lord concerning this matter."

18 Then Eve said, "What is that matter, O Adam?"

19 And he answered her, "That I may request the Lord to inform me about marrying you; for I will not do it without His permission or else He will make us perish, you and me. For those devils have set my heart on fire, with thoughts of what they showed us, in their sinful apparitions.

20 Then Eve said to Adam, "Why need we go below the mountain? Let us rather stand up and pray in our cave to G.o.d, to let us know whether this counsel is good or not."

21 Then Adam rose up in prayer and said, "O G.o.d, you know that we transgressed against you, and from the moment we transgressed, we were stripped of our bright nature; and our body became brutish, requiring food and drink; and with animal desires.

22 Command us, O G.o.d, not to give way to them without Your permission, for fear that You will turn us into nothing. Because if you do not give us permission, we shall be overpowered, and follow that advice of Satan; and You will again make us perish.

23 If not, then take our souls from us; let us be rid of this animal l.u.s.t. And if You give us no order respecting this thing, then sever Eve from me, and me from her; and place us each far away from the other.

24 Then again, O G.o.d, if You separate us from each other, the devils will deceive us with their apparitions that resemble us, and destroy our hearts, and defile our thoughts towards each other. Yet if it is not each of us towards the other, it will, at all events, be through their appearance when the devils come to us in our likeness." Here Adam ended his prayer.

Chapter LXXIII - The marriage of Adam and Eve.

1 Then G.o.d considered the words of Adam that they were true, and that he could long await His order, respecting the counsel of Satan.

2 And G.o.d approved Adam in what he had thought concerning this, and in the prayer he had offered in His presence; and the Word of G.o.d came to Adam and said to him, "O Adam, if only you had had this caution at first, before you came out of the garden into this land!"

3 After that, G.o.d sent His angel who had brought gold, and the angel who had brought incense, and the angel who had brought myrrh to Adam, that they should inform him respecting his marriage to Eve.

4 Then those angels said to Adam, "Take the gold and give it to Eve as a wedding gift, and promise to marry her; then give her some incense and myrrh as a present; and be you, you and she, one flesh."

5 Adam obeyed the angels, and took the gold and put it into Eve's bosom in her garment; and promised to marry her with his hand.

6 Then the angels commanded Adam and Eve to get up and pray forty days and forty nights; when that was done, then Adam was to have s.e.xual intercourse with his wife; for then this would be an act pure and undefiled; so that he would have children who would multiply, and replenish the face of the earth.

7 Then both Adam and Eve received the words of the angels; and the angels departed from them.

8 Then Adam and Eve began to fast and pray, until the end of the forty days; and then they had s.e.xual intercourse, as the angels had told them. And from the time Adam left the garden until he wedded Eve, were two hundred and twenty-three days, that is seven months and thirteen days.

9 Thus was Satan's war with Adam defeated.

Chapter LXXIV - The birth of Cain and Luluwa. Why they received those names.

1 And they lived on the earth working in order to keep their bodies in good health; and they continued so until the nine months of Eve's pregnancy were over, and the time drew near when she must give birth.

2 Then she said to Adam, "The signs placed in this cave since we left the garden indicate that this is a pure place and we will be praying in it again some time. It is not appropriate then, that I should give birth in it. Let us instead go to the sheltering rock cave that was formed by the command of G.o.d when Satan threw a big rock down on us in an attempt to kill us with it.

3 Adam then took Eve to that cave. When the time came for her to give birth, she strained a lot. Adam felt sorry, and he was very worried about her because she was close to death and the words of G.o.d to her were being fulfilled: "In suffering shall you bear a child, and in sorrow shall you bring forth a child."

4 But when Adam saw the distress in which Eve was, he got up and prayed to G.o.d, and said, "O Lord, look at me with the eye of Your mercy, and bring her out of her distress."

5 And G.o.d looked at His maid-servant Eve, and delivered her, and she gave birth to her first-born son, and with him a daughter.

6 The Adam rejoiced at Eve's deliverance, and also over the children she had borne him. And Adam ministered to Eve in the cave, until the end of eight days; when they named the son Cain, and the daughter Luluwa.

7 The meaning of Cain is "hater," because he hated his sister in their mother's womb; before they came out of it. Therefore Adam named him Cain.

8 But Luluwa means "beautiful," because she was more beautiful than her mother.

9 Then Adam and Eve waited until Cain and his sister were forty days old, when Adam said to Eve, "We will make an offering and offer it up in behalf of the children."

10 And Eve said, "We will make one offering for the first-born son and then later we shall make one for the daughter."

Chapter LXXV - The family revisits the Cave of Treasures. Birth of Abel and Aklia.

1 Then Adam prepared an offering, and he and Eve offered it up for their children, and brought it to the altar they had built at first.

2 And Adam offered up the offering, and asked G.o.d to accept his offering.

3 Then G.o.d accepted Adam's offering, and sent a light from heaven that shown on the offering. Adam and his son drew near to the offering, but Eve and the daughter did not approach it.

4 Adam and his son were joyful as they came down from on the altar.