Cave of Treasures

Historical source scan page 30

Inasmuch as thou hast transgressed my commandments get thee forth, but be not sad. After the fulfilment of the times which I have allotted that you shall be in exile outside [Paradise], in the land which is under the curse, behold, I will send my Son. And He shall go down [from heaven] for thy redemption, and He shall sojourn in a Virgin, and shall put on a body [of flesh], and through Him redemption and a return shall be effected for thee. But command thy sons, and order them to embalm thy body after thy death with myrrh, cassia, and stakte. And they shall place thee in this cave, wherein I am making you to dwell this day, until the time when your expulsion shall take place from the regions of Paradise to that earth which is outside it. And whosoever shall be left in those days shall take thy body with him, and [Fol. 7b, col. 2] shall deposit it on the spot which I shall show him, in the centre of the earth; for in that place shall redemption be effected for thee and for all thy children. And God revealed unto Adam everything which the Son would suffer on behalf of him. Adam's expulsion from Paradise And when Adam and Eve had gone forth from Paradise, the door of Paradise was shut, and a cherub bearing a two-edged sword stood by it. [Note: According to the Book of the Bee, the cherub, or, as some think, a "terrible form endowed with a body," was armed with a spear and sword, each being made of fire.] And Adam and Eve went down in....... of spirit over the mountains of Paradise, and they found a cave in the top of the mountain, and they entered and hid themselves therein. [Note: When Adam and Eve left Paradise they no longer had fruit and wine and bread and flesh to live upon, and they subsisted on cooked grain and vegetables and the herbs of the earth, of which they ate sparingly. Moreover, the four-footed beasts and fowl and reptiles rebelled against them, and some of them became enemies and adversaries unto them. Book of the Bee (chapter xvii.)] Now Adam and Eve were virgins, and Adam wished to know Eve his wife. And Adam took from the skirts of the mountain of Paradise, gold, and myrrh, and frankincense, and he placed them in the cave, and he blessed the cave, and consecrated it that it might be the house of prayer for himself and his sons. And he called the cave "Me Arath Gazzé" (i.e. "Cave Of Treasures") [Fol. 8a, col. 1]. So Adam and Eve went down from that holy mountain [of Eden] to the slopes which were below it, and there Adam knew Eve his wife. [A marginal note in the manuscript 30 of 130