Cave of Treasures

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[The revolt of Satan, and the battle in Heaven.]

And when the prince of the lower order of angels saw what great majesty had been given unto Adam, he was jealous of him from that day, and he did not wish to worship him. And he said unto his hosts, "Ye shall not worship him, and ye shall not praise him with the angels.

It is meet that ye should worship me, because I am fire and spirit; and not that I should worship a thing of dust, which has been fashioned of fine dust.”

And the Rebel meditating these things would not render obedience to God, and of his own free will he asserted his independence and separated himself from God. But he was swept away out of heaven and fell, and the fall of himself and of all his company from heaven took place on the Sixth Day, at the second hour of the day.

And the apparel of their glorious state was stripped off them. And his name was called “Satana” because he turned aside [from the right way], and “Sheda” because he was out, and “Daiwa” because he lost the apparel of his glory. And behold, from that time until the present day, he and all his hosts have been stripped of their apparel, and they go naked and have horrible faces.

And when Satana was cast out from heaven, Adam was raised up so that he might ascend to Paradise in a chariot of fire. And the angels went before him, singing praises, and the Seraphim ascribed holiness unto him, and the Cherubim ascribed blessing; and amid cries of joy and praises Adam went into Paradise. And as soon as Adam entered Paradise he was commanded not to eat the fruit of a [certain] tree; his entrance into heaven took place at the third hour of the Eve of the Sabbath (i.e. on Friday morning).

[Notes. –The Fathers of the Egyptian and Ethiopian Churches treat the story of the Fall of Satan in great detail. According to them, Satan, or Satnael, was greatly astonished at the beauty of the sun and moon, and on the Fourth Day of the week he declared himself that he would set his throne above the stars, and make himself equal to God. One week after the creation of Adam, Satan declared war on the hosts of Almighty God.

The angels uttered their battle cries and began to fight, but Satan charged them and put them to flight. Then God gave the angels the Cross of Light, which bore the legend, “In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Ghost.” And when they attacked the hosts of darkness under this Cross, Satan became faint, and he and his forces withdrew, and Michael hurled them down into hell.

The prototype of the great fight in heaven between the powers of light and darkness is found in ancient Egyptian religious texts, in more than one form. In the oldest form Set, the Devil, rebels agains Her-ur, the God of heaven whose chief symbols are the sun and moon, and is utterly defeated. In the next form Set attacks the Sun-god Ra and is destroyed by him; the great ally of Set, called Apep (Apophis), and all his fiends and devils (the Sebau), are defeated and burnt up daily.

In another form Set makes war on Horus, the son of Osiris, and on Osiris himself, and is defeated utterly. The Coptic version of the legend was borrowed from the old hieroglyphic texts, and then Christianized. Compare the following:-

When Satan saw Adam seated on a great throne, with a crown of glory on his head and scepter in his hand, and all the angels worshipping him, he was filled with anger. And when God said to him, “Come thou also, for thou shalt worship My image and likeness,” Satan refused to do so, and, assuming an arrogant and insolent manner, he said, “It is meet that he should worship for me, for I existed before he came into being.”

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[Satan's attack on Adam and Eve.]

And when Satan saw that Adam and Eve were happy and joyful in Paradise, that Rebel was smitten sorely with jealousy, and he became filled with wrath. And he went and took up his abode in the serpent, and he raised him up, and made him to fly through the air to the skirts of Mount [Eden] whereon was Paradise.

Now, why did Satan enter the body of the serpent and hide himself therein? Because he knew that his appearance was foul, and that if Eve saw his form, she would betake herself to flight straightway before him.

Now, the man who wished to teach the Greek language to a bird – now the bird that can learn the speech of men is called “babbaghah” (i.e. parrot) – first bringeth a large mirror and placeth between himself and the bird. He then beginneth to talk to the bird, and immediately the parrot heareth the voice of the man, it turneth round, and when it seeth its own form [reflected] in the mirror, it becometh pleased straightway, because it imagineth that a fellow parrot is talking to it. Then it inclineth it’s ear with pleasure, and listeneth to the words of the man who is talking to it, and it becometh eager to learn, and to speak Greek.

In this manner (i.e. with the object of making Eve believe that it was the serpent that spoke to her) did Satan enter in and dwell in the serpent, and he watched for the opportunity, and [when] he saw Eve by herself, he called her name. And when she turned round towards him, she saw her own form [reflected] in him, and she talked to him; and Satan led her astray with his lying words, because the nature of woman is soft (or, yielding).

And when Eve had heard from him concerning that tree, straightway she ran quickly to it, and she plucked the fruit of disobedience from the tree transgression of the command, and she ate, then immediately she found herself stripped naked, and she saw the hatefulness of her shame, and she ran away naked, and hid herself in another tree, and covered her nakedness with the leaves thereof.

And she cried out to Adam, and he came to her, and she handed to him some of the fruit which she had eaten, and he also did eat thereof. And when he had eaten he also became naked, and he and Eve made girdles for their loins of the leaves of the fig-trees; and they were arrayed in these girdles of ignominy for three hours.

At mid-day they received [their] sentence of doom. And God made for them tunics of skin, which was stripped from the trees, that is to say, of the bark of the trees, because the trees that were in Paradise had soft barks, and they were softer than the byssus and silk wherefrom the garments worn by kings are made. And God dressed them in this soft skin, which was thus spread over a body of infirmities.

[Notes. – The Fathers of the Ethiopian Church emphasize the difficulty which Satan found in entering Paradise. He knew that he could not carry out his plan for ruining Adam if he entered Paradise in his own form, and he decided that he must assume the form of some bird or animal or reptile if he was to succeed. He applied to the white bird Arzel, and the green bird Besel, and a red bird, but each refused to take him to the place where Eve was. Then he applied to the elephant, and the lion, and the leopard, and the hyena, and the wild boar; the first four refused point blank to do what Satan wished, and the wild boar attempted to gore him with his tusks. On this Satan took flight.

He then went to the animal Sereg, which was commonly known as the “digger of graves”, but this animal refused to help him, and then Satan approached the animal called “Taman”, “the front part of which was like a camel’s foal.” This creature agreed to help him, and, mounted on his back, Satan entered Paradise and stood before Eve.

The serpent became spokesman for him, and Eve harkened to him and ate of the fruit. According to the “Book of the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth,” the tree was called “Sezen”, and each fruit cluster contained 150,000 grains, or berries. It is described as a large and handsome tree, and it has been identified with the “Sendale”, or sandal-wood tree. According to the same authorities, the Tree of Life was the prototype of the Cross on which our Lord was crucified.]