Bible Stories and Religious Classics | Page 8

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 of the earth, and also of the fowls of the air, of each two, male and female, that they may live. And also of all the meats of the earth that be comestible, that they may serve and feed thee and them. And Noah did all that our Lord commanded him. Then said our Lord to Noah: Enter thou and all thy household into the ark, that is to say thou and thy wife and thy three sons and their three wives. I have seen that thou art rightful in this generation. Of all beasts that be clean thou shalt take seven, and of unclean beasts