Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets: And Other Old Testament Characters from Various SourcesBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets: And Other Old Testament Characters from Various Sources
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Bible. Old Testament -- Legends
The throne recoiled from them and exclaimed, “Depart from me, ye
disobedient ones!” The horse Meimun, which Adam sought to mount,
plunged and refused to allow him to touch it, saying, “How hast thou
kept God’s covenant?” All the inhabitants of Paradise turned their
backs on the pair, and prayed God to remove the man and the woman from
the midst of them.
God himself addressed Adam with a voice of thunder, saying, “Did
not I forbid thee to touch of this fruit, and caution thee against
the subtlety of thy foe, Eblis?” Adam and Eve tried to fly these
reproaches, but the branches of the tree Talh caught Adam, and Eve
entangled herself in her long hair.
“From the wrath of God there is no escape,” cried a voice from the tree
Talh; “obey the commandment of God.”
“Depart from Paradise,” then spake God, “thou Adam, thy wife, and the
animals which led you into sin. The earth shall be your abode; in the
sweat of thy brow shalt thou find food; the produce of earth shall
cause envy and contention; Eve (Hava) shall be afflicted with a variety
of strange affections, and shall bring forth offspring in pain. The
peacock shall lose its melodious voice, and the serpent its feet; dark
and noisome shall be the den in which the serpent shall dwell, dust
shall be its meat, and its destruction shall be a meritorious work.
Eblis shall be cast into the torments of hell.”
Our parents were then driven out of Paradise, and one leaf alone was
given to each, wherewith to hide their nakedness. Adam was expelled
through the gate of Repentance, that he might know that through it
alone could Paradise be regained; Eve was banished through the gate of
grace; the peacock and the serpent through that of Wrath, and Eblis
through the gate of Damnation. Adam fell into the island Serendib
(Ceylon), Eve at Jedda, the Serpent into the desert of Sahara, the
Peacock into Persia, and Eblis into the river Eila.[70]
Tabari says that when the forbidden wheat had entered the belly of
Adam and Eve, all the skin came off, except from the ends of the
fingers. Now this skin had been pink and horny, so that they had been
invulnerable in Paradise, and they were left naked and with a tender
skin which could easily be lacerated; but as often as Adam and Eve
looked on their fingernails, they remembered what skin they had worn in
Eden.[71]
Tabari also says that four trees pitying the shame of Adam and Eve, the
Peacock, and the Serpent, in being driven naked out of Paradise, bowed
their branches and gave each a leaf.
Certain Rabbis say that Adam ate only on compulsion, that he refused,
but Eve “took of the tree,”--that is, broke a branch and “gave it him,”
with the stick.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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