Whatever varied toils the human race performs, whence mortal times pluck their brief span of life, or that our morals are debased, defiled from their origin, morals which the ancestral deeds of our forefathers press upon us—though from our own part guilt be added, since the honor long lost is even now sinned against—I will ascribe to thee, first father, who by the seed of death didst bear away the vital germs from thy fallen offspring. And though Christ paid all this in himself, so far as the stock, once struck, drew it together; yet by the fault of the author, who established the debts of death and sent diseases and funerals to his own, there lives in our mortal flesh the scar of sin.
Now the almighty Father, by the weight of his balancing word, had separated the dry land from the waters gathered on every side, binding the seas with the shores of their havens, the rivers with their banks. Now with fair light he showed forth their proper forms; and while dim day sat still, an abundant grace painted the varied world, marked out with diverse color. Then the lights, allotted their turns by the seasons, shone with the alternating course of sun and moon. Nay, the starry radiance also at night-time tempers the bristling darkness with the light of the stars. Then, bringing forth all things with sweet offspring, the fair earth was clothed with sudden grass. Bidden to be created, they received their kind without any seed, and to have willed the seed was enough. At the fecundity of the word, the woods put forth leaves; the tree hardened its vast branches from tender roots in a little while.
Straightway many living creatures rise up into varied shapes, and the beasts run to and fro through the empty world; birds, borne aloft, with swift motion cut their hanging ways, and in the clear air one balances with the weight of its limbs upon nimble wings. Afterward too the fish, enclosed beneath the vast abyss, breathe in the waters, and draw their breath beneath the sea. What the elements deny to us, to them the moist gives life. No less in the deep the great whales come to life, and receive dwellings worthy of their hollow lairs; and the monsters which the rare sea is wont now to bring forth, cunning fashions, hiding them, to shapeless forms. And what the ignorant mind of men falsely believes foul, is by its own kind beautiful, with nature as judge.
Therefore when all things shone forth with their contents fulfilled, and the world stood complete with its own adornment, then the almighty Father turned from the lofty ether his glad countenance toward the lands with eternal light, illuminating whatever he beheld. The making pleases the maker himself as he gazes, and the Creator praises the world he had founded, set in order in fair arrangement. Then at last his wisdom spoke in such a voice: 'Behold, the frame of the world shines with earthly adornment; and yet what does it profit that the world, filled and made perfect in all things, be held further by no cultivator? But lest long idleness sadden the new earth, now let man be formed, whom the image of the highest Godhead may touch, and who, endowed with lofty honor, may within put on our figure in a beautiful mind.'
'Him I would set upright of face, before the creatures that bend downward, that he may rule the world made subject by an eternal covenant, tame the brutes, set law and names upon all, mark the stars, and know the ways of heaven and the constellations; let him learn also, by inspecting the signs, to discern the seasons; let him subdue the savage sea, and by tenacious wit possess whatever he beholds; whom the gnashing beast may serve, and, its fury laid aside, let the tame cattle learn to endure command, and, being bidden, let the trembling bullocks hasten to be bound in the accustomed bonds. And that the nature of man may stand the more sublime, let him receive to raise his upright face toward heaven: let him seek his own Maker, on whom with faithful mind he may spend a servant's life in long-enduring time.'
This he said, and deigning to touch the frail earth, he tempered the moist clay with sprinkled dust, and rich wisdom molded a new body. Not otherwise than now the craftsman, whose skill it is to bend the softened waxes into every pliant shape, and to fill out features with his hand, or to fashion bodies of gypsum, or to compose a form from sluggish mass—so the almighty Father handled the soil that was straightway to live, and shaped its inner parts in the yielding mud. Hence he marks the citadel of the head on the lofty summit, fitting the seven-fold countenance to the senses of reason, potent in smell, hearing, sight, and taste. Touch alone there shall be, which as judge over the whole body may feel, and spread its own vigor through the limbs.
The pliant tongue is thus confined by the hollow palate, so that, pressed as in a vaulted chamber by the strokes of the beating plectrum, speech may resound, modulated in the smitten air. Next the breast, stretched forth in the drooping body, spreads its branching hands after the strong arms. The belly comes to the middle beneath the stomach, which with soft covering may cherish the vital parts between either side. The thigh receives the divided part, so that the alternate step may move the more fitly with doubled knee. But on the high part, which the founder fashions as its roof, the neck, lowered beneath its own occiput, begins to descend, and to add vast sinews to the joints.
The stiff spine, with frequent knots along its junctions, spreads out the twofold row of ribs in order. The inner part is fashioned for the new uses of life: the vital organs prepare a natural covering for the heart, and the mass, hanging amid the heaped-up entrails, is hidden. To these is added the lung, to be fed by thin air, which, drawing in the breathings of a slow blast, may receive them and give them back, and give back the airs which it took in, and in turn the breath may be driven by frequent gasping. The right hand holds the fount of the liver, to be quickened by blood, whence the veins spread the enclosed stream through the inner parts. The rule allots to the spleen the left part, whereby, they say, the hair and nails grow back, though cut, and feel no pain; hence now they take again their increase, which live yet lack sense in the body's use.
After the clay of the newly perfected being lay there, and the fashioned mud came into complete appearance, the gift is turned into flesh, and the hardened bones drew soft marrow into the midst of the inner parts. Blood is set into the veins, and a ruddy hue tinges the face with living color: then from the whole body pallor is driven off, and purple paints the snow-white countenance. Thence, when the whole man grows accustomed to live with perfected limbs, and the warmed inner parts await the soul alone that they may take it up, which the Creator may bring forth from a pure fount, and send it, about to govern, into the upraised frame—he pours a gentle breath from his everlasting mouth, and breathes into the man; which straightway he, receiving it, draws in, and learns the airs of frequent breathing.
After skillful prudence had imbued the newborn sense, and shone with the pure light of reason, he rises, and with upright soles steadies his footsteps. Then, as he marvels at the varied kinds of the world and the shapes of heaven, the Creator addresses him with such a voice: 'These fairest increases which thou dost discern among the things of the world, the adornment stretched throughout the world—have thou alone, and, foremost of all, be lord in the enjoying. Let all things serve thee, thou me: the greatest order it is, that thou obey the loving Father, who has subjected all things to thee. Let no kinds be worshiped, nor vain divinities; not if aught lofty and new flashes in the sky, not the things that live formed on the lands or in the waters, nor what nature, perchance pressing, forbids to be seen. Remember that these are for thy uses, not for thy worship: excelling in deeds, bow down and adore the Maker.'
Meanwhile the sixth evening brought back the beginnings of night, driving away the light in its alternate turn; and while all breathing things seek sweet rest, Adam too, his body relaxed, is dissolved in sleep, into whose heart the almighty Father cast a deep-pressed slumber, and dulled his senses with an immense weight, so that no force could loose his lulled mind—not if perchance a crash should beat upon his careless ears, nor if heaven should then thunder with its axis shaken, nor even had his limbs, pressed by a hand, broken off their rest. Then indeed from all the bones of his ribs he draws forth one from the left side, and replaces the flesh. There rises up a bridal form in fair beauty, and suddenly the woman comes forth into a new countenance. Her God, joining to the husband by an eternal law, compensates the loss of the member by the fruit of wedlock.
The token of this sleep was that death which followed, which Christ of his own accord underwent, having taken a body. When, about to suffer, he hung fastened aloft on the high tree, while he paid the debt of the world's faults, the soldier fixed a missile into the side of the outstretched one. Straightway, leaping forth, water flowed from the wound, whereby, already promising the living laver to the peoples, there flowed also a wave of blood, marking martyrdom. Then, while for a twofold night he lay at rest, the Church, rising from the member of his side, was wedded. In the beginning the Ruler, disposing to consecrate the figure of so great a bond, knits the marriage with a word: 'Live with harmonious zeal, and fill the world; let the long-lived offspring grow with happy seed: let there be no number to the years, nor term to life.'
'Offspring without end have I given, which through all time thou shalt behold, thou who art set as the first author of the race. Let the great-grandson, scattering his descendants forth through the ages, number his living forefathers, and let the aged sons lead the pledges of their sons' children before the faces of their parents. Then the law of wedlock, venerable through every age, shall be kept inviolate in its order by all. Let the woman, taken from the male's flesh, persist to keep faith in wedlock; nor let another separate what God joins and unites; and let the husband, bound by just love, leave father and mother. Let not the cares of parents break these bonds, but let the life of both be held to one flesh.' Thus, joining them by an eternal covenant, he was speaking the festive wedding-song, and the angelic strain sang together with joined measure to chaste modesty.
For a bridal chamber there was Paradise, and the world was given as dowry, and the stars rejoiced with glad flames. There is a place kept in the eastern pole of the world, secret, O nature, in thy recesses, where, rising from the sun's uprising, the newborn dawn strikes back its neighboring games. Here a race lies beneath the burning axis of heaven, whom the boiling whiteness darkens out of the whitening ether. To them ever comes pure light, and, heaven being near, their blackening bodies keep the native night. Yet shining lights gleam in their dark limbs with captive brightness, and, as the gaze shines, a surer dread grows upon their darkened faces: their unkempt hair stiffens, which, drawn back with upturned lock, is bound so that the bare brow may lack the receding hair. But whatever great thing is borne to our uses, all this nature gave to these, out of a rich soil.
Whatever fragrant and fair thing glides hither, it is from there. Of the same color with these, the ebony branch rises from its pitch-black tinder; and here the beast that offers to the world the gift of ivory lays down, from its shapeless self, its beautiful teeth. Therefore, where, the games of the world being passed by, the head of the world begins—where they say the borders join earth to heaven—a grove remains, inaccessible to all mortals, in its citadel, enclosed by an eternal boundary, since the author of the first crime fell, expelled; and the guilty being worthily torn away from the happy seat, this holy hall now receives the heavenly ministers. Here no winter of alternating season ever succeeds, nor do the summer suns return after the cold, when the lofty circle brings back the warm year, nor do the fields grow white with hoarfrost as the frost thickens.
Here the clemency of heaven keeps an unending spring: the turbulent south wind is far away, and forever, beneath a clear bright sky, the clouds scatter and yield to a perpetual serenity. Nor does the nature of the place demand the rains it does not have, but the springing shoots, content with their own kind, are endowed with their own dew. Every soil is forever green, and the gracious face of the warm earth shines bright; the grasses stand always upon the paths, and the foliage upon the trees. When these spread themselves out in abundant blossom, they strengthen their shoots with swift-flowing sap. For whatever is now brought to birth among us in a whole year, there the seasons of each month yield in ripened fruit. The lilies gleam translucent, drooping under no sun, nor does the touch of hand violate the violets, and a grace, preserving forever its rosy blush, is suffused over the countenance.
Thus, since winter is absent and no scorching summer burns, autumn fills the year with fruits and spring with flowers. Here is born that cinnamon which rumour falsely claims is given to the Sabaeans, which the long-lived bird gathers: the bird that perishes at the moment of its own birth, and, consumed upon its nest, rises again to succeed itself, sought out through death. Nor content to be born only once in its own order, the long span of its aged and slumbering body is renewed, and frequent new beginnings lift up its kindled old age. There the branch, exuding fragrant balsams, pours forth a perpetual flow from its rich stem. Then, if perchance a light breeze stirs the airs, driven by faint gusts and a gentle whisper, the rich forest trembles with its leaves and its healthful blossom, which, scattered far and wide, dispenses sweet fragrances. Here a fountain rises, glittering with its transparent pool.
No such grace gleams in silver, nor does crystal draw so great a light from its shining coldness. Along the edges of its banks green pebbles glitter, and there lie strewn those gems the world's vaunting admires; the fields yield varied colours and paint the plains with a natural diadem. The stream, drawn out from the gentle summit of the fountain, is straightway split into four broad rivers. Two they call Euphrates and Tigris, which along a fixed boundary form the long frontier of the arrow-bearing Parthians. The third from there is Geon, which by its Latin name is called the Nile, more noble than all in its origin unknown to any; its gentle wave glides down into Egypt, destined to enrich its own land at an appointed time.
For as often as the channel bursts its banks with swollen flood and inundates the fields with black sands, its fertility is measured by the water, and, while the sky lies idle, the outspread river extends an earthly rain. Then Memphis lies hidden, enclosed beneath the broad flood, and the landowner sails over his vanished fields. Every boundary is gone; all is levelled by the arbitrating waters, and the covered boundary-mark holds in suspense the yearly quarrels. The glad shepherd sees the familiar grasses sink beneath the water, and in place of the flocks, over the acres of the once-green field, swimming fishes glide through waters not their own. But after the moisture, fertilizing the shoots with lavish draught, has wedded the entrails of the thirsting earth, the Nile withdraws and gathers back its scattered waves: the river forms again as the lake dies away;
then to the channel is restored the ancient barrier of the banks, its floods once more enclosed, until, scattering its divided end through byways, it runs out into the broad plain with a sevenfold flood. But why should only your peak, O Nile, be said to lie hidden within the world? For you, unknown from your source, were not alone, but the fourth, flowing out from that river which, moving on its lofty course, looks down upon all streams. Yet the father of the sea itself towers above them all—those waters that the mountains, that the plains, that the clouds pour forth. The fourth will be Phison, which India possesses as the Ganges, whenever, stirred, it has risen at its fragrant source, plundering as it flows past the falling wealth which the rivers scatter through the beautiful grove, and carrying it off in exile from our world by its flood.
For, generous on either bank—as it is the custom of our rivers to bear the smooth papyrus, or to draw down the rushes and light seaweed—so the great Ganges, dragging along its rich deposits, gives even to this world what it casts up from its channel. Meanwhile the first parents, whom the supreme Author had joined together, are set in the seat of paradise. Then the Ruler sets forth rewards on such terms as these: 'O supreme work of the Maker, whom our hand alone created, when I bade all other things be born by my word alone—do you behold how this most beautiful grove serves you with so rich a bounty, through so many riches? All this shall be given for your food without end; from here let sustenance be sought: take the fruits granted you, and pluck the apples. Here, secure, let life rest in the sweet delight of labour, and, enjoying its pleasures, endure through a long age.'
'Yet there is in the midst of the grove a tree which you behold, bearing in its seed the knowledge of right and wrong: from approaching this, restrain your forbidden touch. And let no rash desire perchance press upon you to learn what your teacher forbids: it is better for the blessed not to know what it harms them to have sought. I call to witness the world we have made—that if anyone shall presume upon the forbidden fruit of the tree, that bold offence shall hang in the peril of death. I speak no vast thing; the safeguarding of the right is easy: he who keeps it shall have life, he who profanes it shall have his end.' The young pair receive the saying, and duly obey, pledging that the law shall be kept for all time. Thus their newness, ignorant of evil and unaware of deceit, no dread had yet touched their unguarded minds.