The Testament of Adam — True Church Edition
The Testament of Adam 20
1When sixty years of Isaac’s life had passed, he built a city which he called Ail, and in his sixty-fourth year Jericho was built by the hand of seven kings, the king of the Hittites, the king of the Amorites, the king of the Jebusites, the king of the Canaanites, the king of the Girgashites, the king of the Hivites and the king of the [Perizzites?], and every one of them built a wall to it.
2But the town which was called Masr (Egypt), the king of the Copts had built. Ishmael was the first to work with a hand- mill, and it was called the mill of the kingdom. After one hundred and thirty years of the life of Isaac; that is in the seventy-seventh year of Jacob, God blessed Jacob, and he received the blessings of Isaac, and the blessing of Esau his brother by deceit.
3He journeyed to the land of the East. While he was on his journey, behold, a deep sleep came upon him. He prepared below his head seven stones and slept upon them. In his sleep he saw a ladder of fire whose top was in heaven, and its bottom on the earth. On it Angels were descending from it and ascending, and he saw the Lord sitting on the top. When he awoke he said, “Doubtless this place is the house of God.”
4He took the stones which were beneath his head and built them into an altar and anointed it with oil, and vowed there that he would give to God the tenth of all his goods as an offering.
5The power of this vision, O my son Clernent, is not difficult to those who know, for it is a prophecy of the coming of our Lord the Christ. Verily the ladder which Jacob saw was a sign of the Crucifixion, and the Angels coming down from Heaven [were] for the Gospel to Zacharia, and Mary, and the Magi and the shepherds. The place of the Lord’s seat at the top of the ladder was like the descent of our God the Christ from Heaven for our salvation, and the place where Jacob saw it was a type of the Church, which is being interpreted, the House of God. The stones are a type of the altar, and their being anointed with oil [a type] of the union of Godhead with Manhood.
6The vow which he made of a tenth of his goods is a type of the Eucharist. Jacob journeyed from the place of the vision till he came to the town of his uncle Laban. He saw a well of water, at which three flocks of sheep were lying down; over the mouth of the well was a great stone. Rachel, the daughter of Jacob’s uncle, was standing there with the sheep. Jacob came near to the well, removed the stone from its mouth, and watered the sheep that were with Rachel. Then he approached Rachel and kissed her. Jacob’s uncovering of the well was a type of Baptism, which was veiled from of old, and uncovered in the latter [days].
7That which the priest gives to those whom he baptizes in the water is in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.
8Know, O my son, that Jacob did not come forward to kiss Rachel until he had uncovered the well and watered her sheep from it. Likewise, I say that it is not permitted in the law of the Christ for any one to enter the Church till after baptism, for if he is baptized, he has become one of Christ’s sheep.
9The prophet Moses said in his book that Jacob wrought with his uncle Laban seven years for Rachel, whom he loved of Laban’s daughters, for she was at the height of beauty, but he gave him his eldest daughter.
10Like this was the story of Moses with the Jews whom God saved from the bondage of Pharaoh. On account of them he did not give the young girl, but he gave her who was old and faded.
11Verily the first girl whom he gave to Jacob was plain and shy, and the second one was perfect in face and had beautiful eyes. The face of the first one was covered lest the children of Israel should look at its beauty; the second one had her face uncovered, and had a bright, and shining and beautiful personality.
12Leah, who was the first spouse of Jacob, was the type of the people of his day whom he ruled; in his time there were prophets, and saints and pure ones, and there was little sin in them.
13The faded old woman whom Moses describes, she is the people of the children of Israel which went astray in the worship of idols, and left the worship of God; and the girl whose face was covered so that it was not possible for the children of Israel to look at her was the tribe that was established on the holy mount, which did not mingle with the children of Israel, and did not look at them, and if they had looked at it (the tribe), verily they would have imitated its good works.
14The more raidant and brighter girl is the tribe which received the Lord of the world, the Christ, and worshipped Him in His Godhead. He enlightened our hearts by His holiness.