CHAPTER XVII1.

Sacred-Texts Christianity   

p. 23

OF THE EXPULSION OF ADAM AND EVE FROM PARADISE.

   AFTER God had expelled them from Paradise, like wicked servants driven forth from the inheritance of their master, and had cast them into exile, over the gate at the eastern side of Paradise He set a cherub with a sword and spear to frighten Adam from approaching Paradise. Some say that the cherub was one of the heavenly hosts, of the class of the p. 24 Cherubim; and others say that he did not belong to the spiritual powers, but was a terrible form endowed with a body. So also the spear point and the sword were made of fire extended like a sharp sword, which went and came round about Paradise to terrify Adam and his wife. And God made for them garments of skin to cover their shame. Some say that they clothed themselves with the skins of animals, which they stripped off; but this is not credible, for all the beasts were created in couples, and Adam and Eve had as yet no knives to kill and flay them; hence it is clear that he means the bark of trees¹. Only the blessed Moses called the bark of trees 'skins,' because it fills the place of skins to trees. In the land of India there are trees whose bark is used for the clothing of kings and nobles and the wealthy, on account of its beauty. After God had expelled Adam and his wife from Paradise, He withheld from them the fruits of trees, and the use of bread and flesh and wine, and the anointing with oil; but they cooked grain and vegetables and the herbs of the earth, and did eat sparingly. Moreover, the four-footed beasts and fowl and reptiles rebelled against them, and some of them became enemies and adversaries unto them. They remained thus until Noah went forth from the ark, and then God allowed them to eat bread and to drink wine and to eat flesh, after they had slain the animal and poured out its blood. They say that when Adam and Eve were driven out of Paradise, Adam cut off a branch for a staff from the tree of good and evil; and it remained with him, and was handed down from generation to generation unto Moses and even to the Crucifixion of our Lord; and if the Lord will, we will relate its history in its proper place².

Footnotes

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¹ Chap. xviii in the Oxford MS.

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¹ These garments were softer than the linen and silk worn by kings; Bezold, Die Schatzhöhle, p. 7; Brit. Mus. Add. 25,875, fol. 7 a, col. 2.

² See chap. xxx.