Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets. Baring-Gould Sabine
scattered by the wind over the island, and from this sprang the odoriferous plants which grow there.98
Adam is said to have not gone altogether empty-handed out of Paradise. Hottinger, in his Oriental History, quoting Jewish authorities, says: “Adam having gone into the land of Babel, took with him many wonderful things, amongst others a tree with flowers, leaves and branches of gold, also a stone tree, also the leaves of a tree so strong that they were inconsumable in fire, and so large as to be able to shelter under them ten thousand men of the stature of Adam; and he carried about with him two of these leaves, of which one would shelter two men or clothe them.”99 Of these trees we read in the Gemara that the Rabbi Canaan asked of the Rabbi Simon, son of Assa, who had gone to see them, whether this was true. He was told in reply that it was so, and that at the time of the Captivity the Jews had seated themselves under these trees, and in their shadow had found consolation.
But Palestine seems also to have possessed some of the trees of Adam’s planting, for Jacob Vitriacus in his Jewish History says: “There are in that land wonderful trees, which for their pre-excellence are called Apples of Paradise, bearing oblong fruit, very sweet and unctuous, having a most delicious savor, bearing in one cluster more than a hundred compressed berries. The leaves of this tree are a cubit long and half a cubit wide. There are three other trees producing beautiful apples or citrons, in which the bite of a man’s teeth is naturally manifest, wherefore they are called Adam’s Apples.”100 Hottinger says that at Tripoli grows a tree called Almaus, or Adam’s apple, with a green head, and leaves like outspread fingers, no branches, but only leaves, and with a fruit like a bean-pod, of delicious flavor, and an odor of roses. Buntingius, in his Itinerary, describes an Adam’s apple which he tasted at Alexandria, and he said the taste was like pears, and the clusters of prodigious size, with twenty in each cluster, like magnificent bunches of grapes. But the most remarkable fact about them was that, if one of the fruit were cut with a knife, the figure of a crucifix was found to be contained in it.101 And this tree was supposed to have been the forbidden tree, and the fruit to have thus brought hope as it also brought death to the eater. Nider, “In Formicario,” also relates that this fruit, thus marked with the form of the Crucified, grows in Granada.102
“At Beyrut, of which S. Nicodemus was the first bishop,” writes the Friar, Ignatius von Rheinfelden, “I saw a wonderful fruit which is called by the Arabs, Mauza, and by the Christians Adam’s fig. This fruit grows upon a trunk in clusters of fifty or more, and hangs down towards the ground on account of its weight. The fruit is in shape something like a cucumber, and is a span long, yellow, and tasting something like figs. The Christians of those parts say it is the fruit of which Adam and Eve ate in Paradise, and they argue thus: first, there are no apples in those parts; secondly, S. Jerome translated the word in the Bible, Mauza; thirdly, if the fruit be cut, within it is seen the figure of a crucifix, and they conclude thereby that the first parents were showed by this figure how their sin would be atoned; fourthly, the leaves being three ells long and half an ell wide, were admirably adapted to make skirts of, when Adam and Eve were conscious of their nakedness. And Holy Scripture says nothing of apples, but says merely – fruit. But whether this was the fruit or not, I leave others to decide.”103
Adam is said by the Easterns to have received from Raphael a magic ring, which became his symbol, and which he handed down to his descendants selected to know and read mysteries. This was no other than the “crux ansata,” or handled cross, so common on Egyptian monuments as the hieroglyph of Life out of death. The circle symbolized the apple, and thus the Carthusian emblem, which bears the motto “Stat crux dum volvitur orbis,” is in reality the mystic symbol of Adam. “Which,” says the Arabic philosopher, Ibn-ephi, “Mizraim received from Ham, and Ham from Noah, and Noah from Enoch, and Enoch from Seth, and Seth from Adam, and Adam from the angel Raphael. Ham wrought with it great marvels, and Hermes received it from him and placed it amongst the hieroglyphics. But this character signifies the progress and motion of the Spirit of the world, and it was a magic seal, kept secret among their mysteries, and a ring constraining demons.”104
VI
CAIN AND ABEL
After that the child given to Satan died, says Tabari, Adam had another son, and he called him Seth, and Seth was prophet in the room of his father, after the death of Adam.
Adam had many more children; every time that Eve bore, she bare twins, whereof one was male, the other female, and the twins were given to one another as husband and wife.
Now Adam sought to give to Abel the twin sister of Cain, when she was old enough to be married, but Cain (Kabil, in Arabic) was dissatisfied.105 Adam said to the brothers, Cain and Abel, “Go, my sons, and sacrifice to the Lord; and he whose sacrifice is accepted, shall have the young girl. Take each of you offerings in your hand and go, sacrifice to the Lord, and he shall decide.”
Abel was a shepherd, and he took the fattest of the sheep, and bore it to the place of sacrifice; but Cain, who was a tiller of the soil, took a sheaf of corn, the poorest he could find, and placed it on the altar. Then fire descended from heaven and consumed the offering of Abel, so that not even the cinders remained; but the sheaf of Cain was left untouched.
Adam gave the maiden to Abel, and Cain was sore vexed.
One day, Abel was asleep on a mountain. Cain took a stone and crushed his head. Then he threw the corpse on his back, and carried it about, not knowing what to do with it; but he saw two crows fighting, and one killed the other; then the crow that survived dug a hole in the earth with his beak, and buried the dead bird. Cain said, “I have not the sense of this bird. I too will lay my brother in the ground.” And he did so.
When Adam learned the death of his son, he set out in search of Cain, but could not find him; then he recited the following lines: —
“Every city is alike, each mortal man is vile,
The face of earth has desert grown, the sky has ceased to smile,
Every flower has lost its hue, and every gem is dim.
Alas! my son, my son is dead; the brown earth swallows him!
We one have had in midst of us whom death has not yet found,
No peace for him, no rest for him, treading the blood-drenched ground.”106
This is how the story is told in the Midrash:107 Cain and Abel could not agree, for, what one had, the other wanted; then Abel devised a scheme that they should make a division of property, and thus remove the possibility of contention. The proposition pleased Cain. So Cain took the earth, and all that is stationary, and Abel took all that is movable.
But the envy which lay in the heart of Cain gave him no rest. One day he said to his brother, “Remove thy foot, thou standest on my property: the plain is mine.”
Then Abel ran upon the hills, but Cain cried, “Away, the hills are mine!” Then he climbed the mountains, but still Cain followed him, calling, “Away, the stony mountains are mine!”
In the Book of Jasher the cause of quarrel is differently stated. One day the flock of Abel ran over the ground Cain had been ploughing; Cain rushed furiously upon him and bade him leave the spot. “Not,” said Abel, “till you have paid me for the skins of my sheep and wool of their fleeces used for your clothing.” Then Cain took the coulter from his plough, and with it slew his brother.108
The Targum of Jerusalem says, the subject of contention was that Cain denied a Judgment to come and Eternal Life; and Abel argued for both.109 The Rabbi Menachem, however, asserts that the point on which they strove was whether a word was written zizit or zizis in the
Selden, De Synedriis, ii. p. 452.
Hottinger, Historia Orientalis, lib. i. c. 8.
Jacobus Vitriacus, Hist. Hierosol., c. lxxxv.
As King Charles’s Oak may be seen in the fern-root.
Fabricius, i. p. 84.
Neue Ierosolymitanische Pilgerfahrt. Würtzburg, 1667, p. 47.
Stephanus Le Moyne, Notæ ad Varia Sacra, p. 863.
Abulfeda, p. 15. In the Apocryphal book, The Combat of Adam (Dillman, Das Christliche Adambuch des Morgenlandes; Göttingen, 1853), the same reason for hostility is given. In that account, Satan appears to Cain and prompts him to every act of wickedness.
Tabari, i. c. xxx.
Jalkut, fol. 11 a.
Yaschar, p. 1089.
Targums, ed. Etheridge, London, 1862, i. p. 172.