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The Apocalypse of Adam





APOCALYPSIS ADAM [Apocalypse of Adam] -- This is usually called APOCALYPSIS MOSIS [Apocalypse of Moses] since there is a different (gnostic) Apocalypse of Adam, and people get confused.




i 1 This is the story of Adam and Hawah [Eve] after they went out of Paradise.
2 Adam knew his wife Hawah, went upwards to the sun-rising, and abode there eighteen years and two months.
3 Hawah conceived and bore two sons: Adiaphotos who is called Cain, and Amilabes who is called Abel.

ii 1 After this Adam and Hawah were with one another. While they were sleeping, Hawah said to Adam her lord: My lord, Adam, behold,
2 I saw in a dream tonight the blood of my son Amilabes who is styled Abel being poured into the mouth of Cain his brother, and he went on drinking it without pity. Abel begged him to leave him a little of it.
3 Yet he did not hearken to him, but gulped down the whole. It did not stay in his stomach, but came out of his mouth.
4 Adam said: Let us arise and go see what has happened to them. [I fear] lest the adversary may be assailing them somewhere.

iii 1 They went and found Abel, murdered by the hand of Cain his brother.
2 Yahweh said to Michael the archmalak: Say to Adam; Do not reveal the secret to Cain your son, for he is a son of wrath. Do not grieve, I will give you another son in Abel's stead. He will show [you] all that you will do. Tell Cain nothing.
3 So spoke the archmalak to Adam. He kept the word in his heart, and with him Hawah, though they grieved concerning Abel their son.

iv 1 After this, Adam knew Hawah his wife, she conceived, and bore Seth. Adam said to Hawah:
2 See! We begot a son in place of Abel, whom Cain slew. Let us give glory and sacrifice to Yahweh.

v 1 Adam begat thirty sons and thirty daughters, and Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years. He fell sick, cried with a loud voice, and said:
2 Let all my sons come to me that I may see them before I die.
3 All assembled, for the earth was divided into three parts. Seth his son said to him:
4 Father Adam, what is your complaint?
5 He said: My children, I am crushed by the burden of trouble. And they say to him: What is trouble?

vi 1 Seth answered, and said to him: Do you call to mind, father, the fruit of paradise of which you used to eat, and were grieved in yearning for it? If this is so, tell me, I will go and bring you fruit from paradise.
2 I will set dung upon my head. I will weep and pray that Yahweh will hearken to me and send His malak (and bring me a plant from paradise). I will bring it to you that your trouble may cease from you.
3 Adam said to him: Nay, my son Seth, I have [much] sickness and trouble! Seth said to him: How did this come upon you?

vii 1 Adam said to him: When Yahweh made us, me and your mother through whom I die, He gave us power to eat of every tree which is in paradise, but, concerning that one only, He charged us to not eat of it, and through this one we are to die.
2 The hour drew near for the malaks who were guarding your mother to go up and worship Yahweh, and I was far from her. The enemy knew that she was alone and gave to her, and she ate of the tree of which she was told to not eat.
3 Then she gave to me to eat.

viii 1 Yahweh was angry with us. Yahweh came into paradise, called me in a terrible voice, and said: Adam, where are you? Why do you hide from my face? Shall the house be able to hide itself from its builder? He said to me: Since you abandoned my covenant, I bring seventy-two strokes upon your body. The trouble of the first stroke is a pain of the eyes, the second stroke an affection of the hearing, and likewise in turn all the strokes will befall you.

ix 1 As he said this to his sons, Adam groaned sore, and said: What will I do? I am in great distress.
2 Hawah wept, and said: My lord Adam, rise up, give me half of your trouble and I will endure it. It is on my account that this happens to you, on my account you are beset with toils and troubles.
3 But Adam said to Hawah: Arise and go with my son Seth near to paradise. Put earth upon your heads, weep and pray Yahweh to have mercy upon me and send his malak to paradise, to give me of the tree out of which the oil flows. Bring it to me, I will anoint myself and will have rest from my complaint.

x 1 Then Seth and Hawah went towards paradise. Hawah saw a wild beast assailing her son. Hawah wept, and said:
2 Woe is me. If I come to the day of the Resurrection, all those who have sinned will curse me, saying: Hawah did not keep the commandment of Yahweh.
3 She spoke to the beast: You wicked beast, do you not fear to fight with the image of Yahweh? How was your mouth opened? How were your teeth made strong? How did you not call to mind your subjection? For long ago you were made subject to the image of Yahweh.
4 Then the beast cried out, and said:

xi 1 Your greed and your wailing is not our concern, Hawah, but your own. It is from you that the rule of the beasts arose.
2 How was your mouth opened to eat of the tree concerning which Yahweh enjoined you to not eat of it? On this account, our nature also is transformed.
3 You can not endure if I begin to reprove you.

xii 1 Then Seth spoke to the beast: Close your mouth, be silent, stand off from the image of Yahweh until the day of Judgment.
2 The beast said to Seth: Behold, I stand off from the image of Yahweh. And he went to his lair.

xiii 1 Seth went with Hawah near paradise, they wept there, and prayed Yahweh to send His malak and give them the oil of mercy.
2 Yahweh sent the archmalak Michael, and he spoke to Seth: Seth, man of Yahweh, do not weary yourself with prayers and entreaties concerning the tree which flows with oil to anoint your father Adam. It will not be yours now, but in the end of the times.
3 Then all flesh will be raised up from Adam till that great day, all that will be of the holy people. The delights of paradise will be given to them, and Yahweh will be in their midst. They will no longer sin before His face, for the evil heart will be taken from them and there will be given them a heart understanding the good and to serve Yahweh only. Go back to your father.
6 The term of his life is fulfilled, he will live three days from today, and will die. When his soul is departing, you will behold the awful [scene of] his passing.

xiv 1 Thus spoke the malak, and departed from them. Seth and Hawah came to the hut where Adam was laid. Adam said to Hawah:
2 Hawah, what did you do to us? You brought upon us great wrath, which is death. He said to her:
3 Call all our children and our children's children, and tell them the manner of our transgression.

xv 1 Then Hawah said to them: Hear, all my children and children's children, I will relate to you how the enemy deceived us.
2 It befell that we were guarding paradise, each of us the portion allotted to us from Yahweh.
3 I guarded in my lot, the west and the south. The devil went to Adam's lot, where the male creatures were (for Yahweh divided the creatures, all the males He gave to your father and all the females He gave to me).

xvi 1 The devil spoke to the serpent, saying: Rise up, come to me, I will tell you a word whereby you may have profit.
2 He arose, and came to him. The devil said to him:
3 I hear you are wiser than all the beasts, and I came to counsel you. Why do you eat of Adam's weeds, and not of paradise? Rise up, we will cause him to be cast out of paradise, even as we were cast out through him.
4 The serpent said to him: I fear lest Yahweh is angry with me.
5 The devil said to him: Do not fear, be my vessel, through your mouth I will speak words to deceive him.

xvii 1 Instantly he hung himself from the wall of paradise. When the malaks ascended to worship Yahweh,
2 Satan appeared in the form of a malak, and sang hymns like the malaks. I bent over the wall and saw him, like a malak. He said to me: Are you Hawah?
3 I said to him: I am. What are you doing in paradise? And I said to him: Yahweh set us to guard and to eat of it.
4 The devil answered through the mouth of the serpent: You do well, but you do not eat of every plant.
5 And I said: Yea, we eat of all, save one only, which is in the middle of paradise, concerning which Yahweh charged us to not eat of it. He said to us: In the day on which you eat of it, you will die the death.

xviii 1 The serpent said to me: May Yahweh live! But I am grieved on your account, for I would not have you ignorant. Arise, [come] here, hearken to me. Eat, and mind the value of that tree.
2 But I said to him, I fear lest Yahweh is angry with me as He told us.
3 He said to me: Do not fear. As soon as you eat of it, you will be as Yahweh, in that you will know good and evil.
4 Yahweh perceived that you would be like Him, so He envied you, and said: You will not eat of it.
5 Nay, give heed to the plant, and you will see its great glory.
6 Yet I feared to take of the fruit. He said to me: Come here, I will give it you. Follow me.

xix 1 I opened to him, he walked a little way, then turned, and said to me: I have changed my mind.
2 I will not give you to eat until you swear to me to give also to your husband. I said: What sort of oath will I swear to you?
3 What I know, I say to you: By the throne of the Master, by the Cherubim, and the Tree of Life! I will give to my husband to eat.
4 When he received the oath from me, he went and poured upon the fruit the poison of his wickedness (which is lust, the root and beginning of every sin). He bent the branch to the earth, I took of the fruit, and I ate.

xx 1 In that very hour my eyes were opened, and forthwith I knew that I was bare of the righteousness with which I had been clothed.
2 I wept, and said to him:
3 Why did you do this to me? You deprived me of the glory with which I was clothed. I wept also about the oath, which I had sworn. But he descended from the tree, and vanished.
4 In my nakedness I began to seek for leaves to hide my shame. I found none, for as soon as I ate, the leaves showered down from all the trees in my part, except the fig tree only.
5 I took leaves from it, and made a girdle for myself, it was from the very same plant of which I ate.

xxi 1 I cried out in that very hour: Adam, Adam, where are you? Rise up, come to me and I will show you a great secret.
2 When your father came, I spoke to him words of transgression which brought us down from our great glory.
3 When he came, I opened my mouth, and the devil was speaking. I began to exhort him, and said: Come here, my lord Adam, hearken to me. Eat of the fruit of the tree of which Yahweh told us to not eat of it, and you will be as Yahweh.
4 Your father answered, and said: I fear lest Yahweh is angry with me. I said to him:
5 Do not fear, as soon as you eat you will know good and evil. Speedily I persuaded him. He ate, straightaway his eyes were opened, and he too knew his nakedness.
6 To me he said: O wicked woman! What did I do to you that you have deprived me of the glory of Yahweh?

xxii 1 In that same hour, we heard the archmalak Michael blowing with his trumpet, calling to the malaks, and saying:
2 Thus says Yahweh; Come with me to Paradise, and hear the judgment with which I judge Adam.
3 When Yahweh appeared in Paradise (mounted on the chariot of His cherubim with the malaks proceeding before Him singing hymns of praises), all the plants of paradise, both of your father's lot and mine, broke out into flowers.
4 The throne of Yahweh was fixed where the Tree of Life was.

xxiii 1 Yahweh called Adam, saying: Adam, where are you? Can the house be hidden from the presence of its builder?
2 Then your father answered: It is not because we think to not be found by you, Yahweh, that we hide. I was afraid, because I am naked, and I was ashamed before your might, Master.
3 Yahweh said to him: Who showed you that you are naked, unless you broke my commandment, which I delivered to you to keep.
4 Adam called to mind the word which I spoke to him: I will make you secure before Yahweh.
5 He turned, and said to me: Why did you do this? And I said: The serpent deceived me.

xxiv 1 Yahweh said to Adam: Since you disregarded my commandment, and hearkened to your wife, cursed is the earth in your labors. You will work it, and it will not give its strength. Thorns and thistles will spring up for you, and in the sweat of your face you will eat your bread. [You will be in manifold toils, you will be crushed by bitterness, of sweetness you will not taste.]
3 Weary you will be, and will not rest. By heat you will be tired, by cold you will be straitened. Abundantly you will busy yourself, but not be rich. You will grow fat, but come to no end.
4 The beasts, over whom you did rule, will rise up in rebellion against you, for you did not keep my commandment.

xxv 1 Yahweh turned to me, and said: You hearkened to the serpent, and turned a deaf ear to my commandment.
2 You will be in throes of travail and intolerable agonies, you will bear children in much trembling. In one hour you will come to the birth, and lose your life from your sore trouble and anguish.
3 You will confess, and say: Master, Master, save me, and I will not turn to the sin of the flesh.
4 On this account, from your own words I will judge you, by reason of the enmity which the enemy planted in you.

xxvi 1 He turned to the serpent [in great anger], and said: Since you did this, became a thankless vessel, and you deceived the innocent hearts, accursed are you among all beasts.
2 You will be deprived of the victuals of which you did eat, and will feed on dust all the days of your life.
3 On your breast and your belly you will walk, and be robbed of hands and feet. There will not be left you ear nor wing, nor one limb of all that with which you did ensnare them in your malice, and cause them to be cast out of Paradise.
4 I will put enmity between you and his seed. He will bruise your head, and you will bruise his heel, until the day of Judgment.

xxvii 1 Thus He spoke, and bade the malaks to cast us out of Paradise. As we were being driven out amid our loud lamentations, your father Adam begged the malaks, and said:
2 Leave me a little [space], that I may entreat Yahweh that He have compassion on me and pity me, for I have sinned.
3 They left off driving him, so Adam cried aloud and wept, saying: Pardon me my deed, O Yahweh. Yahweh said to the malaks: Why did you cease from driving Adam from Paradise? Why do you not cast him out? Is it I who did wrong? Or is my judgment badly judged?
5 The malaks fell down on the ground and worshipped Yahweh, saying: You are just, O Yahweh, and you judge righteous judgment.

xxviii 1 Yahweh turned to Adam, and said: I will not allow you to be in Paradise any more.
2 Adam answered, and said: Grant me, O Yahweh, of the Tree of Life that I may eat of it, before I am cast out.
3 Yahweh spoke to Adam: You will not take of it now, for I commanded the cherubim with the flaming sword that turns [every way] to guard it from you, that you not taste of it.
4 You have the war which the adversary put into you. Yet when you are gone out of Paradise, if you should keep yourself from all evil (as one about to die), when the Resurrection comes to pass, I will raise you up, and then the Tree of Life will be given to you.

xxix 1 Thus spoke Yahweh, and ordered us to be cast out of paradise.
2 Your father Adam wept before the malaks opposite Paradise, and the malaks said to him: What would you have us to do, Adam?
3 And your father said to them: Behold, you cast me out. I pray you, allow me to take away fragrant herbs from Paradise, so that I may offer an offering to Yahweh after I go out of Paradise, that He hear me.
4 The malaks approached Yahweh, and said: YA'EL, Eternal King, command, my Master, that there be given to Adam incense of sweet odor from Paradise, and seeds for his food.
5 Yahweh bade Adam go in and take sweet spices and fragrant herbs from Paradise, and seeds for his food.
6 The malaks let him go, and he took four kinds: crocus, nard, calamus, and cinnamon (and other seeds for his food). After taking these, he went out of Paradise.
7 And we were on the earth.

xxx 1 My children, I showed you the way in which we were deceived. Guard yourselves from transgressing against the good.

xxxi 1 Hawah said this in the midst of her sons.
2 Adam was lying ill, bound to die after a single day from the sickness which had fastened upon him. She said to him:
3 How is it that you die and I live? How long do I have to live after you are dead? Tell me. Adam said to her: You do not tarry after me, both of us are to die together. She will lie in my place. When I die, anoint me and let no man touch me till the malak of Yahweh will speak somewhat concerning me.
4 Yahweh will not forget me, but will seek His own creature. Now arise, pray to Yahweh, till I give up my spirit into His hands who gave it to me. We do not know how we are to meet our Maker, whether He is angry with us, or is merciful, and intends to pity and receive us.

xxxii 1 Hawah rose up, went outside, fell on the ground, and began to say: I sinned, O Yahweh. I sinned, O Yahweh of All, I sinned against you.
2 I sinned against the elect malaks. I sinned against the Cherubim. I sinned against your fearful and unshakable Throne. I sinned before you. All sin in the creation was begun through my doing.
3 Hawah prayed on her knees. Behold, the malak of humanity came to her, raised her up, and said:
4 Rise up [from your penitence], Hawah. Behold, Adam your husband goes out of his body.
5 Rise up, behold his spirit borne aloft to his Maker.

xxxiii 1 Hawah rose up, wiped off her tears with her hand, and the malak said to her: Lift yourself up from the earth.
2 She gazed steadfastly into heaven, and beheld a chariot of light, borne by four bright eagles. It was impossible for any man born of woman to tell the glory of them or behold their face.
3 When the Seraphim (malaks going before the chariot) came to the place where your father Adam was, the chariot halted. I beheld golden censers, between your father and the chariot. All the malaks with censers and frankincense came in haste to the incense-offering.
4 They blew upon it, and the smoke of the incense veiled the firmaments. The malaks fell down and worshipped Yahweh, crying aloud and saying: YA'EL, Holy One, have pardon, for he is your image, and the work of your holy hands.

xxxiv 1 I, Hawah, beheld two great and fearful wonders standing in the presence of Yahweh. I wept for fear.
2 I cried aloud to my son Seth, and said: Rise up, Seth, from the body of your father Adam. Come to me, and you will see a spectacle which no man's eye has yet beheld.

xxxv 1 Then Seth arose, came to his mother, and he said to her: What is your trouble? Why do you weep?
2 She said to him: Look up and see with your eyes the seven heavens opened. See how the soul of your father lies on its face, and all the holy malaks are praying on his behalf, saying: Pardon him, Father of All, for he is your image.
3 Pray, my child Seth, what does this mean? Will he be delivered one day into the hands of the Invisible Father, even Yahweh?
4 Who are the two who stand by at the prayers for your father Adam?

xxxvi 1 Seth told his mother: They are the sun and moon, and themselves fall down and pray on behalf of my father Adam.
2 Hawah said to him: Where is their light, why do they take on such a black appearance?
3 Seth answered her: The light has not left them, they can barely shine before the Light of the Universe, the Father of Light. On this account their light is hidden from them.

xxxvii 1 Now while Seth was saying this to his mother, lo, a malak blew the trumpet. There all the malaks stood up [who were] lying on their faces. They cried aloud in an awful voice, and said:
2 Blessed [is] the glory of Yahweh from the works of His making, for He pitied Adam the creature of His hands.
3 When the malaks said these words, lo, there came one of the seraphim with six wings. He snatched up Adam and carried him off to the Acherusian lake, and washed him thrice in the presence of Yahweh.

xxxix 1 Yahweh said to him: Adam, what did you do? If you had kept my commandment, there would now be no rejoicing among those who are bringing you down to this place. Yet, I tell you that I will turn their joy to grief and your grief I will turn to joy.
2 I will transform you to your former glory, and set you on the throne of your deceiver.
3 He will be cast into this place to see you sitting above him, then he will be condemned (and those who heard him). He will be grieved sore when he sees you sitting on his honorable throne.

xxxvii 1 He stayed there three hours, lying down. The Father of all, sitting on His holy throne, stretched out His hand, took Adam, and handed him over to the archmalak Michael, saying:
2 Lift him up into Paradise unto the third Heaven. Leave him there until that fearful day of my reckoning, which I will make in the world.
3 Then Michael took Adam, and left him where Yahweh told him.

xxxviii 1 After all this, the archmalak asked concerning the laying out of the remains.
2 Yahweh commanded that all the malaks should assemble in His presence, each in his order. All the malaks assembled, some having censers in their hands, and others trumpets.
3 Lo! The Master of Hosts came on (four winds drew Him, cherubim mounted on the winds and the malaks from heaven escorting Him), they came on the earth, where the body of Adam was.
4 They came to Paradise, and all the leaves of Paradise were stirred so that all men begotten of Adam slept from the fragrance save Seth alone, because he was born according to the appointment of Yahweh.
5 Adam's body lay there in paradise on the earth, and Seth grieved exceedingly over him.

xl 1 Yahweh spoke to the archmalak[s] Michael, [Gabriel, Uriel, and Raphael]:
2 Go away to Paradise in the third heaven. Strew linen clothes, cover the body of Adam, bring oil of the oil of fragrance, and pour it over him. And the three great malaks prepared him for burial. Yahweh said: Let the body of Abel also be brought.
3 They brought other linen clothes, and prepared his [body] also.
4 For he was unburied since the day when Cain his brother slew him. Wicked Cain took great pains to conceal [him], but could not, for the earth would not receive him. The body sprang up from the earth, and a voice went out of the earth saying:
5 I will not receive a companion body, till the earth which was taken and fashioned in me comes to me. At that time, the malaks took it and placed it on a rock, till Adam his father was buried.
6 Both were buried, according to the commandment of Yahweh, in the spot where Yahweh found the dust. He caused the place to be dug for two. Yahweh sent seven malaks to Paradise.
7 They brought many fragrant spices and placed them in the earth, and they took the two bodies and placed them in the spot which they had dug and built.

xli 1 Yahweh called, and said: Adam, Adam. The body answered from the earth, and said: Here I am, Yahweh. And Yahweh said to him:
2 I told you [that] earth you are and to earth you will return. Again I promise to you the Resurrection, I will raise you up in the Resurrection with every man who is of your seed.

xlii 1 After these words, Yahweh made a seal and sealed the tomb, that no one might do anything to him for six days till his rib should return to him. Then Yahweh and His angels went to their place.
2 Hawah fell asleep when the six days were fulfilled.
3 While she was living, she wept bitterly about Adam's falling asleep, for she did not know where he was laid. When Yahweh came to Paradise to bury Adam she was asleep (and her sons too, except Seth) while He bade Adam be prepared for burial. No man on earth knew, except her son Seth.
4 Hawah prayed (in the hour of her death) that she might be buried in the place where her husband Adam was. After she finished her prayer, she said:
5 Yahweh, Master, Yahweh of all rule, do not estrange me your handmaid from the body of Adam, for from his members you made me.
6 Deem me worthy (even me unworthy that I am, and a sinner) to enter into his tabernacle, even as I was with him in Paradise, both without separation from each other. In our transgression, we were [both] led astray and transgressed your command, but were not separated.
7 Even so, Yahweh, do not separate us now.
8 After she prayed, she gazed heavenwards, groaned aloud, smote her breast, and said: Yahweh of All, receive my spirit. And she delivered up her spirit to Yahweh.

xliii 1 Michael came and taught Seth how to prepare Hawah for burial. There came three malaks, they buried her where Adam's body was (and Abel's).
2 Michael spoke to Seth, and said: Lay out in this way every man who dies till the day of the Resurrection. And after giving him this rule, he said to him:
3 Do not mourn beyond six days. On the seventh day, rest and rejoice on it. On that very day Yahweh rejoices [yea] and we malaks [too] with the righteous soul, who has passed away from the earth.
4 Even thus spoke the malak, and ascended into heaven, glorifying [Yahweh], saying: Alleluyah.
5 Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh, in the glory of Yahweh the Father. To Him it is meet to give glory, honor, and worship, with the eternal life-giving spirit now, always, and forever. Amein.
6 [Holy, holy, holy is Yahweh of Hosts. To whom is glory and power forever and forever. Amein.
7 Then the archmalak Ya'el glorified Yahweh, saying: Holy, Holy, Holy Yahweh, heaven and earth are full of your glory.]








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