Cave of Treasures

Historical source scan page 43

country, and ye shall no longer have your habitation on the skirts [of the mountain] of Paradise. And take ye good heed to this. Let him that is among you who shall go forth from that holy country take with him the body of our father Adam, and the offerings [of gold, frankincense, and myrrh] that are in the Cave of Treasures, and let him carry away and deposit the body in the place wherein he shall be commanded by God to set it down. And thou, my son Enoch, depart thou not from before the body of Adam, but minister before God purely and holily all the days of thy life. And Yaréd died, [being] nine hundred and sixty-two years old, on the thirteenth day of the month of Îyâr (May), on the day of the Eve of the Sabbath (Friday), at sunset, in the three hundred and sixty-sixth year of the life of Noah. And Enoch his son embalmed him, and buried him in the Cave of Treasures; and they made mourning for him forty days. [Note: The Book of the Bee says that Yaréd was 962 years old when he died, and that he begot Enoch when he was 162 years old. The Book of Adam says that he was 989 years old when he died, and that he died on Friday, the 12th day of the month of Takhsds (December) in the 360th year of the life of Noah (ii. 21).] [Fol. 13b, col. 2] The Rule of Enoch And Enoch stood up to minister before God in the Cave of Treasures. And the children of Seth turned aside from the right path and willed to go down [to the children of Cain on the plain]. And Enoch and Methuselah, and Lamech and Noah mourned over them. And Enoch had ministered before God for fifty years in the three hundred and [sixty] fifth year of the life of Noah. And when Enoch knew that God was about to remove him [from the earth], he called Methuselah, and Lamech, and Noah, and said unto them: I know that God is wroth with this generation, and that a pitiless judgment hath been decreed for the people thereof. Ye are the chiefs of this generation and the remnant thereof, for no other man shall be born on this mountain who shall be the chief of the children of his people. But take ye good heed to yourselves, and see that ye minister before God in purity and holiness. And when Enoch had given them his commandment in these words, God removed him to the Land of Life, and to the [Fol. 14a, col. 1] delectable mansions which are round about Paradise, and to that country which is beyond the reach of death. And of all the children of Seth there remained only these three Patriarchs in the "Mountain of the Triumphant Ones," viz. Methuselah, Lamech, and Noah, for all the others had betaken themselves to the encampment of the sons of Cain. 43 of 130