Bible Stories and Religious Classics | Page 4

and to our, in plural number. Man was made to the image of God in his
soul. Here it is to be noted that he made not only the soul with the body,
but he made both body and soul. As to the body he made male and
female. God gave to man the lordship and power upon living beasts.
Thus in six days was heaven and earth made and all the ornation of
them. And then he made the seventh day on which he rested, not for
that he was weary, but ceased his operation, and showed the seventh
day which he blessed. Thus he shortly showed the generations of
heaven and earth, for here he determined the works of the six days and
the seventh day he sanctified and made holy. God had planted in the
beginning Paradise a place of desire and delices. And man was made in
the field of Damascus; he was made of the slime of the earth. Paradise
was made 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 that other the tree of knowing
good and evil. And there is a well, which casteth out water for to water
the trees and herbs of Paradise. This well is the mother of all waters,
which well is divided into four parts. One part is called Phison. This
goeth about Inde. The second is called Gijon, otherwise Nilus, and that
runneth about Ethiopia, the other two be called Tigris and Euphrates.
Tigris runneth toward Assyria, and Euphrates is called fruitful, which
runneth in Chaldea. These four floods come and spring out of the same
well, and depart, and yet in some place some of them meet again.
Then God took man from the place of his creation and brought him into
Paradise, for to work there, not to labor needily, but in delighting and
recreating him, and that he should keep Paradise. For like as Paradise
should refresh him, so should he labor to serve God, and there God
gave him a commandment. Every commandment standeth in two things,
in doing or forbidding, in doing he commanded him to eat of all the
trees of Paradise, in forbidding he commanded that he should not eat of
the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. This commandment was
given to the man, and by the man it went to the woman. For when the
woman was made it was commanded to them both, and hereto he set a
pain, saying: Whatsoever day thou eatest thereof thou shalt die by
death.
God said: It is not good a man to be alone, make we to him an helper
like to himself for to bring forth children. Adam supposed that some
helper to him had been among the beasts which had been like to him.
Therefore God brought to Adam all living beasts of the earth and air, in
which he understood them of the water also, which with one
commandment all came tofore him. They were brought for two causes,
one was because man should give to each of them a name, by which
they should know that he should dominate over them, and the second
cause was because Adam should know that there was none of them like
to him. And he named them in the Hebrew tongue, which was only the
language and none other at the beginning. And so none being found
like unto him, God sent in Adam a lust to sleep, which was no dream,
but as is supposed in an extasy or in a trance; in which was showed to
him the celestial court. Wherefore when he awoke he prophesied of the
conjunction of Christ to his church, and of the flood that was to come,
and of the doom and destruction of the world by fire he knew, which

afterward he told to his children.
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,