Cave of Treasures

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thy life. And these offerings shall be placed in the east. And command thou Shem, thy firstborn, to take up with him, after thy death, the body of our father Adam, and to carry it and deposit it in the middle of the earth. And let him establish there a man from among his descendants who shall minister there. And he shall be one who is set apart (nezira) all the days of his life. He shall not take a wife, he shall not shed blood, he shall not offer up [Fol. 16a, col. 1] these offerings of wild animals and feathered fowl; but he shall offer unto God bread and wine, for by these redemption shall be made for Adam and all his posterity. And the Angel of God shall go before him, and he shall show him the place where the middle of the earth is situated. And the apparel of him that shall stand up there to minister before the body of Adam shall be the skins of wild animals. He shall not shave off the hair of his head, and he shall not cut his nails, but he shall remain alone (in his natural state?) because he is the priest of God, the Most High. [Note: According to the Book of Adam, (iii. 5), Shem was to appoint Melchisedek (see Gen. xiv. 18-24; Heb., chapter vii.), the son of Kainân, and grandson of Arphaxad, to be the priest of the Most High; and he was to stand and minister on the mountain which is in the middle of the earth. He was to wear a garment of skin, and have a leather girdle about his loins, and his apparel was to be humble and without ornament.] And when Methuselah had commanded Noah [to do] all these things, he died with tears in his eyes, and sorrow in his heart. He was nine hundred and sixty-nine years old when he died, on the fourteenth day of the month Adhar (March), on the first day of the week (Sunday), in the seventy-ninth year [Fol. 16a, col. 2] of the life of Shem, the son of Noah. And Noah, his grandson, embalmed the body of Methuselah with myrrh, and cassia, and stakte, and Noah and his sons buried him in the Cave of Treasures; and they and their wives made mourning for him forty days. And when the days of his mourning had passed, Noah went into the Cave of Treasures, and embraced and kissed the holy bodies of Seth, and Ânôsh, and Kainân, and Mahlalail, and Yaréd, and Methuselah, and Lamech his father, and he was greatly moved and tears gushed from his eyes. And Noah carried the body of our father Adam, and [the body of] Eve, and his firstborn Shem carried the gold, and Ham carried the myrrh, and Japhet the frankincense, and they went forth from the Cave of Treasures. [The Book of Adam does not mention Eve.]. And as they were coming down from that holy mountain they were smitten sorely with grief: and they wept in agony because they were to be deprived of that [Fol. 16b, col. 1] holy place, and the habitation of their fathers. And weeping painfully, and wailing sorrowfully, and enveloped in gloom, they said, Remain in peace! O holy Paradise, thou habitation of our father Adam. He went forth from thee alive, but stripped [of glory] and naked. And behold, at his death he was deprived of thy nearness. 48 of 130