Adam

Family: Humanity · Role: the first man · First appears: The Fall Of Satan

The souls of all generations were created with Adam’s soul, and on the six days of creation the Creator formed him fully developed. Before Adam became alive, God revealed mankind’s history to him. When Adam was barely an hour old, he named the animals after the angels failed to do so, and named himself Adam because he was made from the dust. God showed him the earth, and Adam designated places for future settlement and places to remain waste. He also gave seventy years of his allotted lifespan to David, reducing his own span from a thousand years to nine hundred and thirty. After Satan was cast from heaven, Adam’s naming of the animals led Satan to acknowledge his superiority, and “from that moment dates the enmity between Satan and man.”

Lilith was first given to Adam as a wife, but left after insisting on equality with him; when Adam complained, God sent angels to capture her. God then formed Eve from Adam’s body as his companion and celebrated their wedding. Adam named her Ishah and himself Ish. In the Garden of Eden, God placed Adam there to tend it, and plants sprouted after he prayed for them. Before the fall, he forbade Eve to touch the tree, though God had forbidden only eating its fruit; Eve eventually prevailed upon him to eat. They lost their covering and stood naked and ashamed. Afterward, Adam became afraid of God’s voice, was allotted nine hundred and thirty years, and received punishments including labor, suffering, and death. God clothed Adam and Eve in serpent skin and expelled them from Paradise when they refused to repent, though Adam was permitted to settle nearby and received the Torah. During his penances with Eve, Satan disappeared after Adam prayed; later, after praying, Adam received a sacred book from Raziel.

After Eve left Adam and journeyed westward, Adam hurried to her when he heard her lamentation and prayed for help during her labor. He took Eve and Cain to his home in the east, then separated Cain and Abel, gave them separate abodes, and taught them different occupations. After Cain told him that repentance had propitiated God, Adam exclaimed, “So potent is repentance, and I knew it not!” He buried Abel after seeing a raven bury a dead bird.

After Abel’s death, Adam lived apart from Eve for 130 years. During that separation, he begot a son who later identified himself as Adam’s son; afterward Adam returned to Eve, and they had Seth. At the age of nine hundred and thirty, Adam fell ill. Michael told Eve and Seth that Adam would die and that his descendants would also be subject to death. Adam died before Eve and was buried with Abel; Seth, Enosh, Enoch, and Methuselah buried him with great honors. In another encounter with Samael’s household, Adam struck and killed Samael’s little son, then cooked and ate the remains with Eve. God later reassured Adam and gave him the book of Raziel, which Adam studied day and night.