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
Abulfaraj, in his history, says that Seth discovered letters, and that,
desirous to recover the Blessed Life, he and his sons went to Mount
Hermon, where they served God in piety and continence, and associated
not with the people of the land, nor took to themselves wives;
wherefore they were called the sons of God.[148]
Flavius Josephus relates that after the things that were to take
place had been revealed to Seth,--how the earth was to be destroyed,
first with water and then with fire,--lest those things which he had
discovered should perish from the memory of his posterity, he set up
two pillars, one of brick, the other of stone, and he wrote thereon all
the science he had acquired, hoping that, in the event of the brick
pillar perishing by the rain, the stone would endure.[149]
Freculphus adds that Jubal assisted the sons of Seth in engraving on
the columns all that was known of the conduct and order of the heavens,
and all the arts then known.[150]
The stone pillar was to be seen, in the time of Josephus, in Syria.
Anastasius of Sinai says that, when God created Adam after His image
and likeness, He breathed into him grace, and illumination, and a
ray of the Holy Spirit. But when he sinned, this glory left him, and
his face became clouded. Then he became the father of Cain and Abel.
But afterwards it is said in Scripture, “_He begat a son in his own
likeness, after his image; and called his name Seth_;” which is not
said of Cain and Abel; and this means that Seth was begotten in the
likeness of unfallen man and after the image of Adam in Paradise; and
he called his name Seth, that is, by interpretation, Resurrection,
because in him he saw the resurrection of his departed beauty, and
wisdom and glory, and radiance of the Holy Spirit. And all those then
living, when they saw how the face of Seth shone with divine light, and
heard him speak with divine wisdom, said he is God; therefore his sons
were commonly called the sons of God.[151]
As Seth was an ancient Egyptian Sun-god, the origin of the myth of his
shining face can be ascertained without difficulty.
To Seth were attributed several apocryphal writings.
IX.
CAINAN SON OF ENOS.
“_And Seth lived an hundred and five years, and begat Enos: and Seth
lived after he begat Enos eight hundred and seven years, and begat
sons and daughters: and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and
twelve years: and he died. And Enos lived ninety years, and begat
Cainan._”[152]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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