Chapter 3 (19).

While John, therefore, was thus teaching those in Hades, the first created and forefather Adam heard, and said to his son Seth:  My son, I wish thee to tell the forefathers of the race of men and the prophets where I sent thee, when it fell to my lot to die.  And Seth said:  Prophets and patriarchs, hear.  When my father Adam, the first created, was about to fall once upon a time into death, he sent me to make entreaty to God very close by the gate of paradise, that He would guide me by an angel to the tree of compassion and that I might take oil and anoint my father, and that he might rise up from his sickness:  which thing, therefore, I also did.  And after the prayer an angel of the Lord came, and said to me:  What, Seth, dost thou ask?  Dost thou ask oil which raiseth up the sick, or the tree from which this oil flows, on account of the sickness of thy father?  This is not to be found now.  Go, therefore, and tell thy father, that after the accomplishing of five thousand five hundred years¹⁹³⁹

1939 5300 b.c. was the date commonly assigned to the creation.  See Clem., Strom., i.; Theoph. Ant., ad Autol., iii.; comp. Just., Apol., xxxix.

1940 For this legend, see the Revelation of Moses.

When the patriarchs and the prophets heard these words, they rejoiced greatly.

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