In the beginning the Lord set in place the heaven and the earth: for the earth was without form and hidden beneath the flood, and God, immeasurable, moved over the vast waters. While chaos and black darkness shrouded all things, He commanded that these be parted, and from His throne He spoke: "Let there be light!" And all things shone bright in the world. When the Lord had completed the works of the first day, He fashioned the sky, white with rising clouds. The boundless sea received the wandering shores, sweeping up with its mighty currents the manifold rivers. The third light unveiled the tawny face of the lands. Soon, its name now bestowed, the dry land is told of. Flowering shoots rise up on the windswept plains, and the fruit-bearing boughs at once arch down their arms. On the fourth day He begets the moon together with the lamp of the sun, and fixes the stars that shine with trembling light.
These elements He gave as marks of distinction to the world set beneath Him, that they might teach the seasons to be changed through their varied risings. On the fifth day the flowing rivers receive their fish, and the various birds spread their wings aloft in the air. On the sixth the Father makes the chill serpents glide in their coils, and pours out whole herds of four-footed beasts over the fields, and bade all things grow everywhere with manifold seed, and roam and feed over the boundless lands. When the divine power had established these things by His command, perceiving that a ruler was lacking for the affairs of the world, He declared this: "Let us make man to the very likeness of our countenance, that he may reign over the whole globe." And though He could have framed him by a word alone, yet He Himself, deigning to fashion him with His holy right hand, breathed into the dull body a spirit from His divine breast.
After He had seen him formed in His own image, He judged that solitude rolls gnawing cares within. At once He flooded his eyes with a refreshing sleep, that from a rib drawn out the woman might be more softly fashioned, and that the mingled substance might strengthen the twin limbs; and a name is given, which is called of life, Eve. Wherefore, by custom, children leave their parents, and, their dwellings set aside, cleave to their spouses. On the seventh day God rested, having ended His works, appointing it as hallowed for the joys of the age to come. Then, the throngs of living creatures being brought forth in order, to each and every one a name that endures Adam bestows, one by one, the skillful wisdom granted to him. Him God deigns to address, and Eve joined with him:
"Be fruitful through many a birth in the ages to come, that the heaven and the full earth may be filled with your offspring, and as my heirs gather the various fruits which the groves and the fields yield from the rich turf." When He had spoken these things, paradise is set up in a joyful hall and beholds the light of the first sun. Among these there is begotten a tree with deadly fruits, bringing forth a joined savour of life and death. In the midst of these abodes a river flows in a pure stream, which waters the noble gardens from its liquid floods, and cuts four-cleft channels from its surging spring. Phison, exceeding rich, flows with gold-bearing waves and grinds conspicuous gems from its hoarse whirlpool — to this one the name is the green prase, to that the burning carbuncle — and with its clear shallows it laps the land of Havilah.
After this, Gihon, gliding past, enriches the Ethiopians; the third is Tigris, joined to the pleasant Euphrates, furrowing Assyria separately with its swift stream. Here Adam, set as guardian with his faithful spouse, and as a craftsman, is shaped by such a word of the Thunderer: "Do not fear to pluck the permitted fruits, which the unshorn grove has produced with leafy bough; but be anxious lest perchance you gather the harmful evil that grows green, set apart for divided uses by its twofold sap." Nor meanwhile any less did deep night hold the blind; and no garment had clothed their newly-formed limbs. Among these abodes and the gardens with their mild berries, the foaming serpent, surpassing the animals in cunning sense, was creeping silently in chill coils; rolling livid lies with biting intent, he tests the soft heart beneath the woman's breast:
"Tell me, why should you fear the happy shoots of the apple? Surely God did not hallow all the fruits that are born? And yet, if you should be eager to pluck honeyed nourishment, the golden world will smile from its star-bearing pole." She refuses and fears to touch the forbidden boughs: yet still her heart is overcome by its feeble sense. At once, when she now bit the ripe fruit with her snowy tooth, a serene sky shone, stained by no cloud. Then the taste, instilling allurement in her honeyed throat, drove her to bear the gift to her unwary husband. As soon as he took it, the night being wiped away, his shining eyes flashed serene with the world resplendent. So when each of them looked upon their naked body, the things they see as shameful they shade with fig leaves. By chance, when the light of the Lord, the sun now setting, they recognize a sound, and trembling make for trackless places.
Then the Lord of heaven addresses the sorrowful Adam: "Tell me, where do you now dwell?" As a suppliant he answered thus: "O Lord, great one, when addressed by you I tremble within my fearful heart, and naked I am worn out with chilling dread." Then the Lord: "Who gave you the harmful fruits?" "This the woman handed over, while she says that her eyes, suddenly suffused with shining day and a clear serenity, beheld the sun and the stars of heaven shine for her." At once the wrath of God terrifies the troubled Eve, while the Most High seeks the author of the forbidden deed. She under this discloses: "Persuaded by the serpent's speech I received it, by deceiving guile and flattering entreaty.
For weaving its words with viperous venoms, it told me these were the sweetest of all the fruits." At once the Almighty condemns the deeds of the dragon, charging that the hateful monster should live abhorred by all, that thereafter it should crawl with body laid low, and chew the soil alone with its bite, waging war that shall endure for all time among human feelings and against the very one who falls; that with head cast down, prone, it should creep behind the legs and heels of men, while gliding it presses close at hand. The woman, wretchedly deceived by his deceit-bearing persuasions, is commanded by a harsh sentence to bear her child, and to endure servitude in zeal for her husband. "But you, to whom your wife's counsel seemed true, who was conquered and yielded to the cruel dragon, shall bewail your wretched toil through long ages.
For instead of the wheaten shoot, the thistle and the buckthorn with sharp thorns shall spring up for you, so that with weary inner parts and a sorrowful breast, many a sigh shall furnish the anxious sustenance, until in the western season of coming death, you be rendered back to the lying earth, whence you bear your body." These things done, the Lord gives the trembling pair weariness of life, and removes them, cast down, far from the hallowed gardens, and sets them facing away, and shuts them out with a fire between, in which the Cherub is whirled with a most swift heat, while the hot peak boils down and rolls forth flames. To these, lest their limbs grow stiff with numbing cold, the Lord sewed together skins torn from the bodies of beasts, covering their naked limbs with warm garments.
So when faithful Adam now perceived himself to be a husband by the union, he sets forth to his wife the name of beloved mother. Twin offspring from his seed the father at once names with different beginnings: this one bears the name of Cain, joined to whom Abel guarded with much care his harmless sheep; but the other turned the earth with the curved plough. When these brought their gifts to the Thunderer perpetually, they gave dissimilar fruits as their feeling prompted. For the first offered what had been sown from the fertile clods, but the other devotes himself with a tender lamb, bearing pure entrails in his hand and snowy fat, and at once he pleases the Lord who regards pious vows. On account of this Cain glowed with chilly wrath. Him God, deigning to address, begins with such words:
"Tell me, if you live uprightly and discern what is harmful, could you not pass your days pure, with the charge contracted withdrawn? Cease to destroy your brother with biting intent, who, subject to you as to a lord, will offer his neck. Yet not broken by these words, he leads his brother off to the fields; and when he saw him caught in the deserted meadow, gnashing he crushes his pious throat with both his palms. This deed the Lord, watching from high heaven, investigates: where in the world does Abel dwell? The other denies that he was set as his brother's keeper. To him God declares: "Does not the voice of his blood, sent up to me, cry out and ascend to the lofty pole? Know therefore what awaits you for so great a crime:
for now the earth that was soaked with your brother's blood, accursed and committed to you whom it hates, shall deny its seed, and shall not bring forth fruit from consumed plants, so that, numb and clashing your limbs with much trembling, you may ever draw sighs as if at a death close at hand." Terrified, he groans and begs death from the deity: yet this was not granted by the hostile Thunderer; for, having deserved evil, he is made known by a branded mark, lest it be permitted to anyone to lay low the guilty one with iron, and lest a greater death prepare sevenfold reprisals. At once, like one lost, he goes out from the face of the Lord, his dwellings set facing away, in the turf of the land of Nod; and no less from his sons, whom his faithful mother bore, he founded a lofty city by the name of his firstborn.
Enoch begets Irad, he then Mehujael, from whom by degrees Methuselah came forth into the air under that father and prolonged the times of a long life; but Lamech, who struck down Cain with a dread sword, suffers things much heavier than the slain guilty one; for crimes deserving seventy times sevenfold restrain him. Groaning at his deeds, he upbraids himself unbidden to his wives, of whom the first was Adah and the other Zillah. But the first bears Jabal, who as a shepherd in the grassy fields fed his joyful flocks on the herbage. Whom Jubal then follows, who invented the musical quills and the strings harmonious with varied murmur. Soon Zillah bears Tubal, whose custom it was to pour streams of bronze and to shape iron forged on the anvil into diverse modes with the hissing furnace; whom Naamah follows, created from the one father.
Among these, Adam, not feeble in his vigorous years, gentle, begets Seth after the death of Abel. He then begets Enosh, on whom the Lord bestowed a pure heart; at his asking He consents to be entreated, and received the gifts of a peaceful mind. So when Adam had completed nine hundred and thirty years, lulled in death he rested. And thereafter long-lived for nine hundred and five years Enosh lived, whom Kenan, matching, was longer only by five protracted years. Younger by thrice five years again lies down old Mahalalel; then Jared lived bound by an age longer by thrice ten and three.
Enoch, whose care it was to serve the Mighty One and to unite his mind to God, considerably younger than these — if you should take pains to add five and sixty to three hundred completed — was covered by a sudden darkness and hidden, and, removed by the Lord who greatly pitied him, lives a happy life with a peaceful time. But Methuselah extends nine hundred cycles and seventy, to which it is right to add one. Lamech, sprung from this father, when Noah was begotten, spoke such things, while after the manner of prophets he foresees the future and sends his mind into the age to come:
"This one shall give us untroubled dealings of life and remove the hard burden and bring back peace, which was driven away by evil deeds and by our guilt and by sorrowful hands, by whose toil the earth, furrowed, denies fruit, the Lord speaking it accursed." Seven hundred years and seven this one lived, seventy added on top, as the summary requires. While this one begot Noah, noble for his upright deeds, who would give seed to a guiltless age, was brought forth, and he begets three sons, Shem and Ham and Japheth, accustomed to beat the softened iron into shape and to forge promptly the sparkling masses. Six hundred years this prophet had now lived.
When the Lord, wearied of the crimes of the dreadful world and the manifold guilt of men under the long light, in pity restrains the troubles of a prolonged life, and imposed a limit of twice sixty years, which no one set under that law could exceed. Among these, earthly pleasure suckles the holy ones and holds captive those moving from the heavenly citadel; while they behold faces smiling with fair body, the feminine ones, and cling too much to their pleasing embraces, they begot for themselves grim-massed giants — by whose crimes the Lord's patience at last is forced to be offended; while He conceives a long wrath and grieves that man, created by His starry right hand that formed him, He says, stirred in His holy breast:
"It is right for me to blot out the sins of the guilty world with the floods of the sea, and to envelop the whole earth, and to plunge the human race into the vast streams, and likewise all manner of beasts, which joyfully crop the grass through the fields while they wander on the lofty hills; let one destruction press down serpents and birds and wild beasts, that my wrath may grow mild, the frauds being blotted out." Noah therefore receives the mighty commands of God. He is bidden to fasten together an ark with double chambers, which should hold the nests of birds, abiding for their offspring; and, lest the oak-timbers should burst apart with splitting cracks, he smeared the ark with a very thick coating of bitumen. The ark itself was three hundred full cubits long, fifty broad, open across its hold.
But where the gables rise with lofty roof, it is raised aloft into the sky by thrice ten cubits, with squared beams, to yield to no floods, bearing at its middle door-posts with an easy hinge. When God had looked down upon these things finished from the stars, He addresses with such words the prophet to be sent upon the waters: "Climb swiftly, you and your sons and your daughters, into the bark that floats on the swelling floods, because your just heart and your purpose, long since known to me, has earned greater things than the present; and shut up together the herded gentle beasts of every kind, by sevens in pairs;
of the unclean herd you shall allow two to be with you, and you shall bring food for all these and for yourself, the accustomed kind, lest, when over the vast streams the tilling has ceased, you likewise suffer grievous hunger, being borne over the grey-green salt water with provisions not laid in beforehand; for when the bright light of the sun shall have come forth seventh in the sky, I prepare to pour out all the rain-clouds from the heavenly vault and to roll forth all the springs with a greater inrush, whereby the ocean may surge larger with its waters, receiving the foaming rivers more abundantly, and silting up all things with its outpoured course. For with twice ten days joined with night I shall fill the dripping clouds with perpetual hail, so that whatever lives may be drowned in the swelling waves."
When these things were spoken, the Lord's commands are done with His willing, and the old man hastening, noble for his long age, passing through six hundred years, entrusted himself to the waves and received his joined sons and daughters together, trusting, though he was hidden in a slender den. Meanwhile the clouds loosed all their rain-storms, and the abyss sent forth its watering springs into the sea-floods. And now all things are flooded over for twice ten days. The birds do not suspend their bodies on light wings, nor does the wild beast avoid the marble waters from a high-ridged hill; all things are buried in the deep, one death is for all. Nor any the less meanwhile, suspended over the swollen flood, the floating ark fortified the prophet shut within, hanging, and obedient to things to come it preserved the seeds for the ages, secure in its own shipwreck.
Soon the thinner air began to bind together the rain-clouds in the pitch-black clouds. And now the sea sinks back into the ebbing flood, and, after the bark floated in a moderate stream, the old man sends forth a raven black of breast, who, while he is borne on light wings by the flying breeze, did not return, frustrating the just prophet's hopes. After this he sends a white dove through the standing waters, which, weary with flight over the watery plain, finding ground nowhere, returned to the kindly prophet. And when the seventh light of the returning sun gleamed, he dismisses the bird with clapping wing, which, a grove being found, brought a mouth filled with the boughs of a very rich olive, when now through the stars the evening was rising and outrunning the night with trembling fire.
Thence again, seven days being duly passed through, the bird is sent into the sea, which, slipping away with most swift course, never returned itself to its companion's hall. The prophet then had now passed six hundred and one cycles. In the first month now following, and on the first day of the month, when the free land seemed to open up the mountains afar and to roll forth smoke, over which the sea had waved by thrice five cubits: a month now run through, then in the second, when three lights remained, the earth was now free of the whole flood and joyfully showed its own greenness. So when the ark settled on the bared mountains,
which bear the name of Ararat in ancient speech, the old man unbars the bolts, restoring new seeds to the earth, and gladly built festal sanctuaries for the Thunderer, and, mindful of his vow, while he burns up the altars with flames, the victim was worthy, while it begets mild odours, which breathe before the Lord with joyful exhalations. Then, lest the earth perish by a like destruction, the Lord lifts away the flood for the times to come, bidding the hastening months and the seasons of the moving year, restless, to roll their accustomed courses: but only the saffron bow is to be curved in the clouds, when the bright stars besprinkle with their cloudless shower. The Lord's blessing follows the gentle prophet, namely that of all things which the land and the sea beget he should command as a faithful one, since they are made subject to the ruler;
being warned to separate from his table the flesh of beasts which left their life with the blood not let out: therefore, since this spirit is set in many. "But if a man should be destroyed by iron or by a wild beast's tooth, I shall seek out," He said, "those who do such things; they shall give their necks in like manner, to pour forth blood." Hence the Lord soon divides the pledges of the pleasing prophet, and bids them take the fertile lands separately, that they might fill the empty world with thick seed. The prophet receives this reward, the Lord granting it, that as the inventor of the vine he might taste the white wines. Whom, when he had quickly filled with cups and was weighed down with sleep, Ham mocked, from whom the youth of Canaan is born, and named the nation from its tall name, displaying to his brothers the parent with his limbs laid bare.
But those equal in piety cover and veil him as he lies: with their backs joined in their zeal, while they turn away their eyes, they bore the slumbering old man, and they do not see the parts shameful to speak of, bending their necks with tender modesty. This work of piety, after the prophet now with a serene mind recognized it, he condemns the offender to the ages, making him so that he be the last among his brothers and subject to harsh rule, and that, terrified, he should pray to the strong. Thereafter the old man, his course completed, passes into nine hundred years, fifty more, as the rule of the law has decreed. His progeny, while it hastens to lead out walls, founded splendid cities with vast lofty heights; and while, intent on the work, they build the ramparts in rivalry, they mark them with the names Tarshish and Kition and Rhodes, standing out with their gates, which the sea laps with its flood.
From here Canaan has his name, from here Sidon rises, then the Jebusite, the Amorite joined to the Hittite; the Girgashite flourishes, the Hivite, the Arkite, the Sinite, the Zemarite, the Arvadite and the Orusite, and whoever inhabits the walls of Gaza, to which Gomorrah and Sodom are yoked, and Admah and Zeboiim, to which Lasha clings joined. Moreover they also make Mash and like-named Sephar, the high-ridged and the hill, which lifts cloudy citadels, where first the flame of the whitening day bursts forth. From the body of these is born Nimrod, accustomed to keen hunting and standing forth with huge limbs, and rejoicing to lift himself against the holy God, fierce after the manner of heroes, whom a steep neck and an immense head raise on high into the lofty air.
He places Babylon, and Erech and Accad and Calneh amid the glades of Shinar; then he founds Asshur, and set up Nineveh, eminent with its roofs, and Rehoboth, and thereafter Calah, of which Resen distinguishes the glades and rises in the middle boundary. And while, eager, they vie and give names to their walls, they come into a plain called by the name of Shinar, and, having striven to raise hollow towers to the stars, they make no lime by which inserted stones are bound, but the muddy bricks are baked in a fired kiln, so that first the walls might gleam with immense roofs, before a new migration should make the nations separate. Bitumen served for lime, which is drawn out with a soft fleece and with a tough body binds the rocks.
For among all, the tongue, conscious of speech, spoke through like utterances and civic words. At last the Lord came down and saw the walls, charging that various voices and diverse sounds should suddenly burst forth, by which the nations each speak. At once the world is filled with settled cultivators, and the divided place is soon called Confusion. These He follows, Abram, who greatly believed the Lord, whom Terah, called by ancient name, begot; and Lot is joined, a brother of joined blood. When these had now grown strong with their youthful years, they joined marriage to themselves: Lot rejoices in a covenant with Milcah, and Abram grows rich with Sarah his wife, who however led her life to old age without offspring.
These Terah anxiously removed from the Chaldean flock, while the fields of Canaan please with their leafy hills. But God, who would know the mind of His chosen Abram, commands that he take up a dwelling in another region: "Come now, hastening, remove yourself from your native lands and leave behind your kindred homes and accustomed thresholds; for I shall make you to become the chief of an immense nation. Besides these, I shall add that whoever wounds you with malicious words shall, accursed from the Lord's mouth, bear all manner of sorrows; but he who recounts your conveniences with kindly speech, let him be greater in joyful achievement." The dwellings are changed, the camp of Shechem is set up, which the Lord pledged to the prophet for a long age. There, hastening, he raises up hallowed altars:
climbing a mountain which spurns the broken waves and, ruddily swelling, looks out upon the lights of the sun, ... here too, with set-up masses, an altar is founded, and God is prayed to, when thereafter through the lonely fields the prophet drives on, where the land lies sundered from settlers; which, while it is parched with perpetual thirsting veins, drove on famine fasting, to which care clings. By this fear the fertile Nile-fields are sought. And because Sarah was white with conspicuous body, she is charged to say she is bound by no marriage-bond, but to be his sister, lest perchance, with monstrous daring, the unbridled crowd should beget harmful jealousy against the husband and that he, sorrowful, should have a rival as foe. Indeed the crowd of Canopus, marvelling at him as he comes, in every way surveys Sarah with desiring eye.
And when, praised through the nobles, she was handed over to the king, the prophet is received with sweet vows and words. Yet the King of heaven did not wish her imposed upon him; for, with many and great terrors at once, He drives off the king, smitten, who, guilty defendant of his harmful daring, upbraids the chief: why he had rather said his wife to be his sister and had mocked him with false cunning. Thereupon he bids him lead the bride away joyful with him, and whatever of the herd he had brought from his native shores. For God had ever consecrated to His servant who spoke in harmony huge wealth and all the greatest things. Lot too receives whatever he had brought thither, and at last, returning, they are set at their native shores. And there, while they wander with intermingling flocks, the shepherds of the cattle strike one another in contest, because the small pastures cramped the breeding stock of the two.
But the father, desiring to settle the untamed quarrels, offered that his nephew should take what fields he wished. He gladly obeys, seeking the shores of Jordan, which river, while it swells with its waters in place of the Nile, with overflowing stream enriched the rich fields. The old man receives by lot the Canaanite acres for the one coming and sets his herds through the green fields. But it was not permitted to settle perpetual dwellings: for the father, bidden to survey the land by beholding, which the flaming sun recurring from on high looks upon on either side, or which the twin Wains gaze upon continually, is promised to his progeny by so great a father to be created. He who is eager to grasp their number in speech will sooner tell the throngs of stars or of the sand, which the sea sometimes bares on its uncertain shore.
He proceeds also to the oak called by ancient name Mamre, and dedicates a most lofty altar to the eternal God. Without delay, after concord had made the divided brothers compose to their wish the realms through the fields, four kings rise up from a numerous nation and lay waste Sodom with much warlike soldiery, and four battle-lines, propped each by two princes, hurl iron through the clouds as far as the Salt Vale. Five tyrants take flight, abandoning the wars, and in headlong flight hide on the leafy mountains whatever could survive slaughter; who by their true names are called Arioch, Tidal, Bera the Gomorrite, and also Amraphel, agape for fair years. Among these things, which happen in great number in the crisis of war, Lot too is captured with his whole stock and household.
When a messenger with sorrowful mouth had recounted this, the prophet rises up, from the great flock of servants three hundred attendants, adding nine times twice more, the leader himself musters for war and handles iron afresh. Over the middle of the night he presses upon them now fearing nothing, and puts the victors to flight and slays many of the enemy. Moreover he receives his brother snatched from so great a crisis, and draws the plunder with him in a wide column. He is met with the joyful praise of the suitors of Sodom and of the priest of God, who, noble in holy deed — Melchizedek it was, prince and ruler of Salem — and he blessed him, presenting bread and wine, and took a tenth of the fruits from Abram's gift. He asks that the victor deign to return the captives, ready to bear off the rest by the law of war according to merits.
But the victorious virtue, content with its own moderation, receives the longed-for brother for its whole reward. Soon God, illumining the slumbering heart of the prophet, charges that he empty his breast of all dread, since he is safe under the protection of the unconquered right hand. He, eager, by the license granted to him speaks: "What do your gifts furnish me, for such great speech? For long-lived old age, joined to me, shakes me weary, nor is it granted to leave behind a deserving son after death. And because I have no offspring from a noble marriage-chamber, a degenerate heir shall be ours, whom a slave-woman bore." The Lord confirms the prophet, while He speaks such things: "Fear not, trusting; a slave shall not be your heir.
For if anyone is able to know the stars lacking number, or to run through all the sands of the sea, he alone will be able to number by reckoning the offspring which is to be furnished to you, as far as the whole globe is stretched, and which shall be born from your seed — a son who shall behold you and even be born of the eternal King: for I am the Lord, founder of the heavens, and I led you back safe by my aid from the Chaldean nation." The old man believed these things, nor does he reckon anything to be lacking from the Lord's words with the sincere keenness of his heart, and, relying, he asks, while he supplicates with peaceful beginnings, what signs of God he should bear in mind, which he should follow in his heart, in return for so great a gift, by which he should beget a son with a sluggish body, the times now run out for his cold limbs.
Being admonished, he prepares a heifer now of three years' age, joining with it a brisk young bullock of grim brow, then a ram and a goat and a shaggy she-goat, paired doves, joined with a like turtle-dove. Soon he splits the bodies of the cattle into twin divisions, sending forth the birds unharmed with their whole flesh; he arranges all things and fits them to the sacred altars, and places himself nearby, cunning in sense and ear. But behold, under the first hour of the dark night, the white breast of the sanctifying prophet is terrified, and the black darkness rushes in with confused light. Astonished at these things, he takes the comforts of the Lord, while he foreknows the new seeds of a coming nation, to be placed through various misfortunes under a harsh king of Egypt, whose name shall be that of bitter Pharaoh.