1 And so I created all the heavens, and it was the
3 From the fire I made the... angels. So Pesikta 3%: see Weber L.d.J.161.
4 One of these... with the rank below him.
5 And? I placed the sun to give light to the day, and the moon and the stars to give light to the night; the sun that he should eo according to each sign of the Zodiac; and the course sixth Hermes; on the seventh the moon. lower air I adorned with the lesser stars. of the moon through the twelve signs of the Zodiac’.
6 And I fixed their names and existence, the thunders, and the revolutions of the hours, how they take place. 7 Then it was evening and the morning, the fifth day. On the fifth day’ I commanded the sea to produce fish, and 5 The twelve months, A. and multiply.. And I adorned it with the To every living thing, A. winged fowls of all kinds}, and all things that creep upon the earth, and four-footed things that go about the earth, and the things that fly in the air, male and female, and every living thing breathing with life.
8 And it was evening and morning the sixth day'. On the sixth day! I ordered My Wisdom to make man of seven substances. (1) His flesh from the earth; (2) his blood from the dew; (3) his eyes from the sun; (4) his bones from the stones; (5) his thoughts from the swiftness of the angels, and the clouds; (6) his veins and hair from the grass of the earth; (7) his 3 And when I had finished all I ordered My Wisdom
9 And I gave him seven natures: hearing to his body, sight to his eyes, smell to the perception, touch to the veins, taste to the blood, the bones for endurance, sweetness for thought.
10 I purposed a subtle thing?!: from the invisible and visible nature I made man. From both are his death and life, and his form”; and the word was like a deed both small in a
11 And I placed him upon the earth; like a second angel, in an honour-
12 And I made him a ruler to rule upon the earth, and to have My wisdom. great thing‘, and great in a small thing. able, great, and glorious way.’ A word Both in great Upon the earth having rule by pondus ignis, inde rubeus est sanguis et calidus; pondus salis, inde sunt salsae lacrimae; pondus roris, inde factus est sudor; pondus floris, inde est varietas oculorum; pondus nubis, inde est instabilitas mentium; pondus venti, inde est anhela frigida; pondus gratiae, inde est sensus hominis.’. Seven natures. Here again the text is very untrustworthy and the follow- And there was no one like him upon the earth of all My creations. substances: the and I gave him the name Adam.
13 And I gave him a name from the four East, the West, the North, and the
14 And I appointed for him four special stars,
15 And I gave him his will, and I showed him the two ways, the hight and the 1 A transposes. ‘angels.’ man shall be rightecus or wicked, but puts this in the hands of the man darkness. And I said unto him: ‘This is good and this 15 evil’; that I should know whether he has love for Me or hate: that he should appear in his race as loving Me. I knew his nature, he did not know his nature.
16 Therefore his ignorance is a woe to him that he should sin, and ism, and the idea of the text seems related, however distantly, to that ethical system which may be summed up in the words (Plato, Legg. 731 Cc): (Prot. 345D): (Tim. 86D). See also Legg. 7348; Rep. ix. 589c¢; Hipp. Maj. 296 ¢. Herein it is taught that no man wilfully chooses evil in preference to good; but in every act of moral judgement the determining motive is to be found in the real or seeming preponderance of good in the course adopted: and that, should this course I appointed death on account of his. I caused him to sleep, and he slumbered.
17 And? And I took from 1 Worse than sinning, and for sin there is nothing else but death, be the worse one, the error of judgement is due either to physical incapacities or faulty education, or to a combination of both. This view of sin as an involuntary affection of the soul follows logically from another Platonic principle already enunciated by our author (see xxiii., note). This principle is the pre-existence of the soul. The soul, as such, according to Platonic teaching, is wholly good. Evil, therefore, cannot arise from its voluntary preferences, but from its limitations, i.e. from its physical from its relation to the body and from wrong education. In the Book of Wisdom this view is widely diverged from. There the body is not held to be irredeemably evil, but souls and moral environment, are already good and bad on their entrance into this life (viii.
19). In Philo, on the other hand, there is in the main a return to the Platonic and Stoic doctrine. The body is irredeemably evil; it is in fact the tomb of the soul (--); and only the sensuously-inclined souls are incorporated with bodies (see above, xxiii., note). The views adopted by our author on these and kindred points stand in some degree in a closer relation to the Platonic principles than do those of Philo or the author of the Book of Wisdom. Thus he held: (1) That the soul was created originally good. (2) That it was not predetermined either to good or ill by God, but left to mould its own destiny (see xxx.). (3) That its incorporation in a body, however, with its necessary limitations served him a rib}, and I.made him a wife.. And by his wife death came, and I received his last word. And I called her by a name, the mother; that is Eve.