and was parted into four parts. And Phison, which denotes a multitude, running into India, makes its exit into the sea, and is by the Greeks called Ganges. Euphrates also, as well as Tigris, goes down into the Red Sea.[1] Now the name Euphrates, or Phrath, denotes either a dispersion, or a flower: by Tigris, or Diglath, is signified what is swift, with narrowness; and Geon runs through Egypt, and denotes what arises from the east, which the Greeks call Nile.
4. GOD THEREFORE commanded that
Adam and his wife should eat of all the rest of
the plants, but to abstain from the
tree of knowledge; and foretold to
The temptation
of Adam
and Eve.them, that if they touched it, it
would prove their destruction.
But while all the living creatures
had one language,[2] at that time the serpent, which
then lived together with Adam and his wife,
shewed an envious disposition, at his supposal of
their living happily, and in obedience to the
commands of God; and imagining, that when they
disobeyed them, they would fall into calamities,
he persuaded the woman out of a malicious intention
to taste of the tree of knowledge, telling them,
that in that tree was the knowledge of good and
evil; which knowledge when they should obtain,
they would lead a happy life, nay, a life not
inferior to that of a god: by which means he
overcame the woman, and persuaded her to
despise the command of God. Now when she had tasted of
The fall of
Adam and Eve.
that tree, and was pleased with
its fruit, she persuaded Adam to
make use of it also. Upon this they perceived
that they were become naked to one another; and
being ashamed thus to appear abroad, they
invented somewhat to cover them; for the tree
sharpened their understanding; and they covered
themselves with fig-leaves; and tying these before
them out of modesty, they thought they were
happier than they were before, as they had
discovered what they were in want of. But when
God came into the garden, Adam, who was wont
before to come and converse with him, being
conscious of his wicked behaviour, went out of
the way. This behaviour surprised God; and he
asked what was the cause of this his procedure;
and why he, that before delighted in that
conversation, did now fly from it, and avoid it?
When he made no reply, as conscious to himself
that he had transgressed the command of God,
God said, "I had before determined about you
both, how you might lead a happy life, without
any affliction, and care, and vexation of soul;
and that all things which might contribute to your
enjoyment and pleasure should grow up, by my
providence, of their own accord, without your
own labour and pains-taking; which state of
labour and pains-taking would soon bring on old
age; and death would not be at any remote
distance: but now thou hast abused this my
goodwill, and hast disobeyed my commands; for thy
silence is not the sign of thy virtue, but of thy
evil conscience." However, Adam excused his
sin, and entreated God not to be angry at him,
and laid the blame of what was done upon his
wife; and said that he was deceived by her, and
thence became an offender; while
she again accused the serpent.
The punishment
of Adam and Eve. But God allotted him punishment
because he weakly submitted to
the counsel of his wife; and said,
the ground should not henceforth yield its fruits
of its own accord, but that when it should be
harassed by their labour, it should bring forth
some of its fruits, and refuse to bring forth others.
He also made Eve liable to the inconveniency of
breeding, and the sharp pains of bringing forth
children, and this because she persuaded Adam
with the same arguments wherewith the serpent
had persuaded her, and had thereby brought him
into a calamitous condition. He also deprived the
serpent of speech, out of indignation at his
malicious disposition towards Adam. Besides
this, he inserted poison under his tongue, and
made him an enemy to men; and suggested to
them that they should direct their strokes against
his head, that being the place wherein lay his
- ↑ By the Red Sea is not here meant the Arabian Gulf, which alone we now call by that name, but all that South Sea, which included the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf, as far as the East Indies, as Reland and Hudson here truly note from the old geographers.
- ↑ Hence it appears that Josephus thought several, at least, of the brute animals, particularly the serpent, could speak before the fall; and I think few of the more perfect kinds of those animals want the organs of speech at this day. Many inducements there are also to a notion that the present state they are in is not their original state; and that their capacities have been once much greater than we now see them, and are capable of being restored to their former condition. But as to this most ancient, and authentic, and probably allegorical account of that grand affair of the fall of our first parents, I have somewhat more to say in way of conjecture, but being only a conjecture, I omit it: only thus far, that the imputation of the sin of our first parents to their posterity, any farther than as some way the cause or occasion of man's mortality, seems almost entirely groundless; and that both man, and the other subordinate creatures, are hereafter to be delivered from the curse then brought upon them, and at last to be delivered from that bondage of corruption, Rom. viii. 19-23.
two of them at vast distances from the other two, by some means or other watered Paradise, is hard to say. Only, since Josephus has already appeared to allegorize this history, and take notice that these four names had a particular signification: Phison for Ganges, a multitude; Phrath for Euphrates, either a dispersion or a flower. Diglath for Tigris, what is swift, with narrowness; and Geon for Nile, what arises from the east,—we perhaps mistake him when we suppose he literally means those for rivers; especially as to Geon or Nile, which arises from the east, while he very well knew the literal Nile arises from the south, though what farther allegorical sense he had in view, is now, I fear, impossible to be determined.
