Cave of Treasures

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and Eve entered it they were sorely troubled. God sent the birds, and beasts, and reptiles to Adam, and ordered them to be friendly to him and his descendants, and every kind of creature came to him except the serpent. In their grief Adam and Eve tried to drown themselves, but an angel was sent to drag them out of the water which flowed from the roots of the Tree of Life, and the Word restored them to life. Whilst they were living there God taught them how to wash their bodies, and told them what to eat and drink, and made known to them the use of wheat,1 and showed them how to clothe themselves with the skins of beasts, and other essentials of civilization. There was no night in Paradise, and when the sun set and night fell on Adam his terror was great; at length God told him that the night was made for the beasts and himself to rest in, and explained to him the divisions of time, years, months, days, etc. During the period of the abode of Adam and Eve in the Cave, Satan came and tempted them fourteen times, but whenever God saw that they were in danger of life or limb through the devilish wiles of the Evil One, He sent an angel to deliver them and put the Devil to flight. Adam suffered sorely from the heat of the sun, which caused him to fall down a precipice, and wound himself so severely that his blood flowed out of his body on to the ground. When God raised him up, he took stones, and builded an altar. And having wiped up his blood with leaves, and collected the dust which was saturated with blood, he offered both the leaves and the dust as an offering to God, Who accepted this, Adam's first offering, and sent a fire to consume it. As Adam shed his blood, and died through his wounds--which God healed--so also did the Word shed His blood and suffer death. Thus the blood-offering originated with Adam. When God saw that Adam was terrified by the darkness of the night, He sent Michael into Judea, and told him to bring back tablets of gold, and when they arrived God set them in the Cave to lighten the darkness of the night therein. And God sent Gabriel into Paradise to fetch incense, and Raphael to bring myrrh from the same place, and these symbolic substances being placed in the Cave, Adam was comforted. Because the Cave contained these precious substances, it was called the "Cave of Treasures." A little later God permitted figs to be brought to Adam from Paradise, and taught Adam and Eve to cook food on the fire which was brought to them out of the hand of the fiery angel who stood at the entrance to Paradise holding a fiery sword in his hand. As Adam could not obtain a supply of blood to maintain the blood-offering, he laid upon the altar outside the Cave an offering made of wheat, presumably a loaf or cake baked in hot ashes, and God accepted it and sent a fire to consume it, the Holy Ghost being present. And God said that He would, when He came down upon the earth, make it to be His flesh, which was to be offered up continually upon an altar for forgiveness and mercy. And an angel took a part of the offering with a pair of fire-tongs, and administered it to Adam and Eve. Thereupon Adam established the custom of offering the wheat-offering thrice in the week, viz. on the first, fourth, and sixth days of the week. 11 of 130