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CHAPTER EIGHT The Adam Books
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The Adam Books • • • 35 Again the rebel angels are imprisoned in the second heaven (as the text stands, some are also detained in the fifth), but elsewhere they are said to be confined under the earth. And after devoting much space to these angelic-demonic matters, the author derives sin from the limitations of man's own nature. Plainly, he too felt the difficulties of a dualistic outlook, from which, however, he could not free himself. CHAPTER EIGHT The Adam Books '•'hough the story of the lustful angels faded from JLJewish literature before the Christian era, it lingered —as we shall see—in the minds of the people. Meantime, writers continued to discourse about the Devil, by one name or another. Among the works which display this dualistic outlook, few are more interesting than a group of writings about Adam and Eve. We possess several such documents in Greek, Latin, Slavonic and other translations, which seem to go back to one Hebrew original composed before the fall of the Second Temple. In reading these texts, one cannot escape the feeling that they had acquired a certain Christian coloration. The following account is a combination of the different versions: the sources are indicated in the notes.1 Expelled from Eden, Adam and Eve resolved to do penance for their sin. Eve's act of expiation was to stand for thirty-seven days in the waters of the Tigris River. After eighteen days Satan appeared in the guise of a radiant angel and assured her that she had tortured herself long enough; but Adam returned in the nick of time and unmasked him.2 Eve cried out against Satan: Why are you our enemy? Did we take away your glory? Yes, answered Satan to her great surprise, it is all your fault. Formerly I was one of the greatest of the angels. When Adam was created, the decree went forth that we must all worship him. Michael obeyed at once and summoned me to do likewise. But in my pride I refused to worship a young and inferior being, and the angels subordinate to me followed my 36 • • • Fallen Angels example. Michael threatened me with God's anger; but I replied: If He be wroth with me, "I will set my seat above the stars of the heaven, and will be like the highest" (Is. 14.14). The boast proved empty: God hurled Satan and his angels down to earth in perpetual banishment. Grief over his fall and envy of Adam and Eve led Satan to encompass their ruin.3 After learning the reason for Satan's hatred, Adam prayed: "Banish this Adversary far from me, who seeketh to destroy my soul; and give me his glory, which he himself hath lost." Satan vanished, and the pair resumed their penance. This story, like that in II Enoch, clearly represents Satan as a fallen angel, drawing for proof on Isaiah 14. Here too his fault was that of pride; but we read for the first time that his specific sin was the refusal to worship Adam. This notion does not appear in standard Jewish literature, but in the Koran it becomes the accepted explanation for the fall of "Iblis."4 The fall of man is related by Eve in later chapters. She had been assigned to guard the western and southern sides of Paradise . The Devil went to the sector defended by Adam, where the male creatures were, and suborned the serpent: "Be my vessel, and I will speak through thy mouth words to deceive him."5 The serpent, then, is the tool of Satan; but this conception is not carried through consistently. In telling of the temptation of Eve, Satan and the serpent are confused. In one strand of the narrative , the Adversary remains outside the wall of Paradise, while the temptation is accomplished by the snake; in another version Satan persuades Eve to admit him to the garden.6 After eating of the forbidden fruit, Eve swore to give some to Adam; thereupon "he" (Satan or the serpent?) poured upon the fruit the poison of his wickedness, which is lust, "the root and beginning of every sin."7 When I urged Adam to eat, Eve confesses, the Devil spoke through my mouth.8 But in God's judgment of the sinful pair, Satan is not mentioned . Eve ascribed her downfall to the serpent, who was punished as a serpent—not as Satan incarnate. Yet in denying Adam permission to eat of...