Fallen Angels and the Origins of Evil (45 page)

The angel said, “Fear not, Adam; for God shall give thee a son and thou shalt call his name Seth, which being interpreted is, ‘consolation’. He shall be the blessed seed, and the head of patriarchs, and shall be a comfort unto thee; forasmuch as Cain’s wickedness has caused thee sorrow, so much comfort shall Seth afford thee. And thy seed and the seed of Seth shall multiply, and the world shall be filled with it. But let not the seed of Seth, or the seed of others of thy children, be mixed with that of Cain’s generation; for if they mix themselves with that generation, thy good children shall become wicked, and then all shall be punished together.”

Now when the angel gave unto Adam the good tidings regarding Seth, he had no other child of the seed of Cain. When Seth was born, there were three hundred and ninety women, and twenty-four men. Cain, thirty years after he was married, murdered Abel, who would have been married in the same year; but this did not take place, and so he became a virgin martyr. When Seth and others of his brothers were born, his parents were comforted on account of him, according to the tidings of the angel. So the seed of Seth and of his brethren multiplied; but they chased away the seed of Cain and did not mix with them, and they lived virtuously.

And the son of Seth, Enoch, the good Fruit, asked his father, saying, “Why is Adam, our grandfather, grieved?”

Seth said, “He is afflicted for having tasted of the fruit, for which he was expelled from the Garden.”

And Enoch said unto his father, “The debt of the father must be paid by the son.”

Wherefore Enoch did not marry. He planted a vineyard. It was a large vineyard, filled with all good things, and he worked in it sixty-four years. Every man tasted of its fruits, but he, Enoch, did not taste at all. He wore on his head an iron helmet, that he should not look up into the fruits of the trees; and for sixty-four years he was a vine-dresser, but he did not eat of the vineyard. And God commanded His angels, and they took him up in his body, and placed him in Paradise, where he is until this day.

And when the other children of Seth and Adam saw that Enoch, on account of his purity and fasting, was taken up into Paradise, many of them departed and retired to mountains, and devoted themselves to purity and mortification.