The Forgotten Books of Eden, by Rutherford H. Platt, Jr., [1926], at sacred-texts.com

CHAP. IV.

Adam laments the changed conditions. Adam and Eve enter the Cave of Treasures.

BUT Adam and Eve wept for having come out of the garden, their first abode.

2 And, indeed, when Adam looked at his flesh, that was altered, he wept bitterly, he and Eve, over what they had done. And they walked and went gently down into the Cave of Treasures.

3 And as they came to it Adam wept over himself and said to Eve, "Look at this cave that is to be our prison in this world, and a place of punishment!

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4 "What is it compared with the garden? What is its narrowness compared with the space of the other?

5 "What is this rock, by the side of those groves? What is the gloom of this cavern, compared with the light of the garden?

6 "What is this overhanging ledge of rock to shelter us, compared with the mercy of the Lord that overshadowed us?

7 "What is the soil of this cave compared with the garden-land? This earth, strewed with stones; and that, planted with delicious fruit-trees?"

8 And Adam said to Eve, "Look at thine eyes, and at mine, which afore beheld angels in heaven, praising; and they, too, without ceasing.

9 "But now we do not see as we did: our eyes have become of flesh; they cannot see in like manner as they saw before."

10 Adam said again to Eve, "What is our body to-day, compared to what it was in former days, when we dwelt in the garden?"

11 After this Adam did not like to enter the cave, under the overhanging rock; nor would he ever have entered it.

12 But he bowed to God's orders; and said to himself, "Unless I enter the cave, I shall again be a transgressor."