CHAPTER XLIV

The power of fire over man.

1 Yet Adam and Eve were standing and looking at the fire, and unable to come near the cave from their dread of the fire.

1. And Satan kept on bringing trees and throwing them into the fire,

   until the flames of the fire rose up on high, and covered the whole cave, thinking, as he did in his own mind, to consume the cave with much fire. But the angel of the Lord was guarding it.

2. And yet he could not curse Satan, nor injure him by word, because he

   had no authority over him, neither did he take to doing so with words from his mouth.

3. Therefore the angel tolerated him, without saying one bad word,

   until the Word of God came who said to Satan, "Go away from here; once before you deceived My servants, and this time you seek to destroy them.

4. Were it not for My mercy I would have destroyed you and your hosts

   from off the earth. But I have had patience with you, until the end of the world."

5. Then Satan fled from before the Lord. But the fire went on burning

   around the cave like a coal-fire the whole day; which was the forty-sixth day Adam and Eve had spent since they came out of the garden.

6. And when Adam and Eve saw that the heat of the fire had somewhat

   cooled down, they began to walk towards the cave to get into it as they usually did; but they could not, by reason of the heat of the fire.

7. Then they both began crying because of the fire that separated them

   from the cave, and that came towards them, burning. And they were afraid.

8. Then Adam said to Eve, "See this fire of which we have a portion in

   us: which formerly yielded to us, but no longer does so, now that we have transgressed the limit of creation, and changed our condition, and our nature is altered. But the fire is not changed in its nature, nor altered from its creation. Therefore it now has power over us; and when we come near it, it scorches our flesh."