Bl. Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend: Adam to Noah

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Bl. Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend: Adam to Noah
Part I
Taken from here.



Hans Baldung Grien - Adam

"God saw that all these works /six days of Creation/ were good and said: 'Faciamus hominem, etc. Make we man unto our similitude and image.' Here spake the Father to the Son and Holy Ghost, or else as it were the common voice of three persons, when it was said 'make we,' and 'to our' in plural number. Man was made to the image of God in his soul.

...And man was made in the field of Damascus; he was made of the slime of the earth. Paradise was made on the third day of Creation, and was beset with herbs, plants and trees, and is a place of most mirth and joy. In the midst whereof be set two trees, that is the tree of life, and the other the tree of knowledge of good and evil.

God said it is not good for a man to be alone, make we to him a helper like to himself for to bring children...Therefore God brought to Adam all living beasts of the earth and air, in which be understood them of the water also, which with one commandment all came tofore him...And he named them in Hebrew tongue which was only the language and none other at the beginning. God sent to Adam a lust to sleep, which was no dream, but as is supposed in an ecstasy or in a trance; in which it was showed to him the celestial court. Wherefore when he awoke he prophesied of the conjunction of Christ and His Church, and of the flood that was to come, and of the doom and destruction by fire, he knew, which afterward he told to his children."

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Bl. Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend: Adam to Noah
Part II: Creation of Eve and Fall of Our Parents
Taken from here.

"Whiles that Adam slept, God took one of his ribs, both flesh and bone, and made that a woman, and set her tofore Adam. Which then said: This is now a bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; and Adam gave her a name like as her lord, and said she should be called virago, which is as much as to say as made of a man, and is a name taken of a man. And anon, the name giving, he prophesied, saying: Because she is taken of the side of a man, therefore a man shall forsake and leave father and mother and abide and be adherent unto his wife, and they shall be two in one flesh; and though they be two persons, yet in matrimony and wedlock they be but one flesh, and in other things twain. For why, neither of them had power of his own flesh. They were both naked and were not ashamed, they felt nothing of the moving of their flesh, ne to refrain them as we now do, for they stood both in the state of innocence. Then the serpent which was hotter than any beast of the earth and naturally deceivable, for he was full of the devil Lucifer, which was deject and cast out of heaven, had great envy to man that was bodily in Paradise, and knew well, if he might make him to trespass and break God's commandments, that he should be cast out also. Yet he was afeard to be taken or espied of the man, he went to the woman, not so prudent and more prone to slide and bow. And in the form of the serpent, for then the serpent was erect as a man. Bede saith that he chose a serpent having a maiden's cheer, for like oft apply to like, and spake by the tongue of the serpent to Eve, and said: Why commanded you God that ye should not eat of all the trees of Paradise? This he said to find occasion to say that he was come for. Then the woman answered and said: Ne forte moriamur, lest haply we die, which she said doubting, for lightly she was flexible to every part. Whereunto anon he answered: Nay in no wise ye shall die, but God would not that ye should be like him in science, and knowing that when ye eat of this tree ye shall be as gods knowing good and evil, he as envious forbade you. And anon the woman, elate in pride and willing to be like to God, accorded thereto and believed him. The woman saw that the tree was fair to look on, and clean and sweet of savour, took and ate thereof, and gave unto Adam of the same; happily desiring him by fair words. But Adam anon agreed, for when he saw the woman not dead he supposed that God had said that they should die to fear them with, and then ate of the fruit forbidden. And anon their sight was opened that they saw their nakedness, and then anon they understood that they had trespassed, for anon their flesh began to move and stir to concupiscence. For before that they had eaten of the forbidden fruit, the movings were repressed and closed as in young children. And then, after they had sinned, they were opened like springs of water and began to move, and then they were expert and knew them. And like as they were inobedient to their superior, right so their members began to move against their superior, which is reason, and they felt their first moving in their privy members, and thereof they were ashamed. And thus they knew that they were naked, and they took fig leaves and sewed them together for to cover their members in manner of breeches."

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Bl. Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend: Adam to Noah
Part III: Expulsion from Paradise
Taken from here.

"And anon after, they heard the voice of our Lord God walking, and anon they hied them. Our Lord called the man and said: Adam, where art thou? Calling him in blaming him and not as knowing where he was, but as who said: Adam, see in what misery thou art. Which answered: I have hid me, Lord, for I am naked. Our Lord said: Who told thee that thou wert naked, but that thou hast eaten of the tree for bidden? He then not meekly confessing his trespass, but laid the fault on his wife, and on him as giver of the woman to him, and said: The woman that thou gavest to me as a fellow, gave to me of the tree, and I ate thereof. And then our Lord said to the woman: Why didst thou so? Neither she accused herself, but laid the sin on the serpent, and privily she laid the fault on the maker of him. The serpent was not demanded, for he did it not of himself, but the devil by him. And our Lord, cursing them, began at the serpent, keeping an order and congruous number of curses. The serpent was the first and sinned most, for he sinned in three things. The woman next and sinned lese than he, but more than the man, for she sinned in two things. The man sinned last and least, for he sinned but in one. The serpent had envy, he lied, and deceived, for these three he had three curses. Because he had envy at the excellence of man, it was said to him: Thou shalt go and creep on thy breast; because he lied he is punished in his mouth, when it was said: Thou shalt eat earth all the days of thy life. Also he took away his voice and put venom in his mouth. And because he deceived, it was said: I shall put enmity between thee and woman, and thy seed and her seed. She shall break thy head, etc. In two things the woman sinned, in pride and eating the fruit. Because she sinned in pride, he meeked her, saying: Thou shalt be under the power of man, and he shall have lordship over thee, and he shall put thee to affliction. Now is she subject to a man by condition and dread, which before was but subject by love; and because she sinned in the fruit, she is punished in her fruit, when it was said to her: Thou shalt bring forth children in sorrow; in the pain of sorrow standeth the curse, but in bringing forth of children is a blessing. And so, in punishing, God forgat not to have mercy, which is to be noted, etc. And because Adam sinned but only in eating of the fruit, therefore he was punished in seeking his meat, as it is said to him: Accursed be the earth in thy work, that is to say for thy work of thy sin, for which is made that the earth that brought forth good and wholesome fruits plenteously, from henceforth shall bring forth but seldom, and also none without man's labour, and also sometime weeds, briars, and thorns shall grow. And he added: Thereto shalt thou eat herbs of the earth, as who saith thou shalt be like a beast or jument. He cursed the earth because the trespass was of the fruit of the earth and not of the water. He added thereto to him of labour: In the sweat of thy cheer thou shalt eat thy bread unto the time thou return again into the earth; that is to say till thou die, for thou art earth, and into earth thou shalt go again.

Then Adam, wailing and sorrowing the misery that was to come of his posterity, named his wife Eve, which is to say, mother of all living folk. Then God made to Adam and Eve two leathern coats of the skins of dead beasts, to the end that they bare with them the sign of mortality, and said: Lo, Adam is made as one of us, knowing good and evil, now lest he put his hand and take of the tree of life and live ever, as who saith: beware and cast him out, lest he take and eat of the tree of life. And so he was cast out of Paradise, and set in the field of Damascus where as he was made and taken from, for to work and labour there. And our Lord set Cherubim to keep Paradise of delight with a burning sword and pliant, to the end that none should enter there ne come to the tree of life.

After then that Adam was cast out of Paradise and set in the world, he knew his wife and engendered Cain, the fifteenth year after he was made, and his sister Calmana. They came out of Paradise virgins, as Methodius saith, and when Adam was made, he was made a perfect man as a man of thirty years of age when he was but one day old, and he might well have gotten many children tofore Cain, but after another fifteen years was Abel born, and his sister Delbora."

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Bl. Jacobus de Voragine's Golden Legend: Adam to Noah
Part IV: After the Flood. Noah and His Three Sons.
Taken from here.

"...Our Lord said to Noah: Go out of the ark, thou and thy wife, thy sons and the wives of thy sons. He commanded them to go conjointly out which disjointly entered, and let go out with them all the beasts and fowls living, and all the reptiles, every each after his kind and gender, to whom our Lord said: Grow ye and multiply upon the earth. Then Noah issued out and his wife, and his sons with their wives, and all the beasts, the same day a year after they entered in, every one after his gender. Noah then edified an altar to our Lord and took of all the beasts that were clean and offered sacrifice unto our Lord; and our Lord smelled the sweetness of the sacrifice and said to Noah:

'From henceforth I shall not curse the earth for man, for he is prone and ready to fall from the beginning of his youth. I shall no more destroy man by such vengeance. And then our Lord blessed them and said: Grow ye and multiply the earth and be ye lords of all the beasts of the earth, of the fowls of the air, and of the fishes. I have given all things to you, but eat no flesh with the blood. I command you to slay no man, nor to shed no man's blood. I have made man after mine image. Whosomever sheddeth his brother's blood, his blood shall be shed. Go ye forth and grow and multiply and fill the earth. This said our Lord to Noah and his sons: Lo! I have made a covenant with you and with them that shall come after you, that I shall no more bring such a flood to slay all people, and in token thereof I have set my rainbow in the clouds of heaven: for who that trespasseth I shall do justice otherwise on him.'

Noah lived after the flood three hundred and fifty years. From the time of Adam until after Noah's flood, the time and season was alway green and tempered; and all that time men ate no flesh, for the herbs and fruits were then of great strength and effect, they were pure and nourishing. But after the flood the earth was weaker and brought not forth so good fruit, wherefore flesh was ordained to be eaten. And then Noah began to labour for his livelihood with his sons, and began to till the earth, to destroy briars and thorns and to plant vines.

And so on a time Noah had drunk so much of the wine that he was drunk, and lay and slept, and his privy member lay bare and open. Ham, his middlest son espied it, and laughed and scorned his father, and called his brethren to see, which came backward for to cover their father, and would not look on it, and rebuked Ham of his folly and sin. And when Noah was covered with the mantle, anon he awoke, and when he understood how Ham his son had scorned him, he cursed him and also his son Canaan, and blessed Shem and Japhet because they covered him.

All the days of Noah were nine hundred and fifty years and then he died. And after his death his sons dealed all the world between them, Shem had all Asia, Ham Africa, and Japhet all Europe. Thus was it departed. Asia is the best part and is as much as the other two, and that is in the east. Africa is the south part, and therein is Carthage and many rich countries, therein be blue and black men. Ham had that to his part of Africa. The third part is Europe which is in the north and west, therein is Greece, Rome and Germany. In Europe reigneth now most the Christian law and faith, wherein is many a rich realm. And so was the world departed to the three sons of Noah."