Bible Stories and Religious Classics | Page 8

shall come with Elias for to convert
the hearts of the fathers into the sons. And Adam lived after he had
begotten Seth eight hundred years, and engendered sons and daughters.
Some hold opinion thirty sons and thirty daughters, and some fifty of
that one and fifty of that other. We find no certainty of them in the
Bible. But all the days of Adam living here in earth amount to the sum
of nine hundred and thirty years. And in the end of his life when he
should die, it is said, but of none authority, that he sent Seth his son
into Paradise for to fetch the oil of mercy, where he received certain
grains of the fruit of the tree of mercy by an angel. And when he came
again he found his father Adam yet alive and told him what he had
done. And then Adam laughed first and then died. And then he laid the
grains or kernels under his father's tongue and buried him in the vale of
Hebron; and out of his mouth grew three trees of the three grains, of
which trees the cross that our Lord suffered his passion on was made,
by virtue of which he gat very mercy, and was brought out of darkness
into very light of Heaven. To the which he bring us that liveth and
reigneth God, world without end.

HERE BEGINNETH THE HISTORY OF NOAH
The First Sunday in Sexagesima
After that Adam was dead, died Eve and was buried by him. At the
beginning, in the first age, the people lived long. Adam lived nine
hundred and thirty years, and Methuselah lived nine hundred and
sixty-nine years. S. Jerome saith that he died the same year that the
flood was. Then Noah was the tenth from Adam in the generation of
Seth, in whom the first age was ended. The seventy interpreters say that

this first age dured two thousand two hundred and forty-four years. S.
Jerome saith not fully two thousand, and Methodius full two thousand,
etc.
Noah then was a man perfect and righteous and kept God's
commandment. And when he was five hundred years old, he gat Shem,
Ham, and Japhet. This time men began to multiply on the earth, and the
children of God, that is to say of Seth, as religious, saw the daughters
of men, that is to say of Cain, and took them to their wives. This time
was so much sin on the earth, wherefore God was displeased and
determined in his prescience to destroy man that he had made, and said:
I shall put man away that I have made, and my spirit shall not abide in
man for ever, for he is flesh. As who said, I shall not punish man
perpetually as I do the devil, for man is frail, and yet ere I shall destroy
him I shall give him space and time of repentance and to amend him, if
he will. The time of repentance shall be one hundred and twenty years.
Then Noah, righteous and perfect, walked with God, that is in his laws,
and the earth was corrupt by sin and filled.
When God saw the earth to be corrupt, and that every man was corrupt
by sin upon the earth, he said to Noah: The end of all people is come
tofore me except them that shall be saved, and the earth is replenished
with their wickedness. I shall destroy them with the earth, id est [that
is], with the fertility of the earth. Make to thee an ark of tree, hewn,
polished, and squared. And make there divers places, and lime it with
clay and pitch within and without, that is to wit with glue which is so
fervent, that the timber may not be loosed. And thou shalt make it three
hundred cubits of length, fifty in breadth, and thirty of height. And
make therein divers distinctions of places and chambers and of
wardrobes. And the ark had a door for to enter in and come out, and a
window was made thereon, which that the Hebrews say was of crystal.
This ark was on making, from the beginning that God commanded first
to make it, one hundred and twenty years. In which time Noah oft
desired the people to leave their sin, and how he had spoken with God,
and that he was commanded to make the ship, for God should destroy
them for their sin, but if they left it. And they mocked him and said that
he raved and was a fool, and gave no faith to his saying and continued

in their sin and wickedness. Then, when the ark was perfectly made,
God bade him to take into it of all the beasts