Daily inter mountain. [volume] (Butte, Mont.) 1881-1901, 1899-01-06
LEGENDS OF ADAM AND EVE.

When Milton wrote his paradise Lost"
SO DIR. Moses Caster Of London states,
he had access to a Latin translation called
chapters Of Eleazer,' made from the old
rabbinical mystery plays, and the legends
found therein about Adam and Eve We're
many of them embodied in his epic, says
the Literary Digest. Most of these legends
are almost as old as Christianity and,
besides the rabbinical, we have other
legends from Greek, Syriac, Ethiopian,
Slavonic and west European sources. They
influenced very considerably the fathers
of the early church and Mohammed in his
writings of the Koran.
DR.. Caster, who Is haham of the Portu-
guese congregation in London, delivered
lately a lecture on the subject of these
legends before ehe North London Literary
Society. The inquiring spirit of the ancient
times, says DR.. Caster, could not rest sat
isfied with the brief account of the creation
of man as found in the Bible. So it began
to amplify as follows:
God collected that dust from the four
corners of the world for the purpose that
wherever a man dies the earth should not
refuse his burial by saying, Thou hast
not been taken from me- When God ere
ated mar the earth shook and trembled
and said unto God. How can l feed that
vast multitude of men that will issue
from the first created?' and God said in
reply, We will divide the maintenance
OF man, llOu Will leu Id u ~ llC
daytime with all that thou producest,
while when the night will come l will
send my sheep upon man, and he will rest,
and he will be fed by me with the peace
of his slumber, and he will awake refresh
ed in the morning And then God
took eight parts to form man; the body
from earth, the bones from stone, and the
blood from the dew of heaven, and the
beauty from the heavenly host, and the
light of the eyes from the sun, and
thought from the quickness Of angels,
and the breath from the wind, and his
strength from God. Adam, when he was
created, was Of gigantic size; his head
reached the heavens, ana his eyes looked
upon the whole earth from one end to the
other. When he sinned his size was dimin-
ished."
Another legend is given by DR.. Caster
from an old Midrash (Rabba de Rabba
been recovered. DR.. Caster says:
"There we read that when God created
man he told the angels to go down and
PROSTATE themselves before Adam as be-
went down except Satan. He said: Why,
I am an angel standing near God, and
shall l go and worship a creature of the
earth while / am made of fire. So God
said unto Satan, Adam is superior unto
thee. and l will show it, So Satan went
down, and God called all the animals be,
fore Satan and the angels, and to tell
| how they should be called, but none OF
them could do it, and So God told Adam
to call them by their names, and to give
| them those names, which he did, showing
his superiority over the angels. In con-
| sequence of this refusal of Satan to bow
down and worship, God expelled him from
| heaven and told him, Go and tempt Adam
if thou canst.'"
En- one of the old legends, the serpent
| was the proudest and grandest in para
| disc, walked erect and had a human face.
| After his fall, Satan tried to induce one
or other of the animals to take him into
| Paradise, but the serpent alone was will
ing to do so, opening it's mouth and lodg-
| ing him in one of its teeth. 1t was Satan
| thus lodged in the serpent's mouth that
| addressed Eve.