Adams Contract with Satan The Legend of the Cheirograph of Adam

Adam's Contract with Satan

The Legend of the Cheirograph of Adam

Michael E. Stone

The legend of Satan's second deception of Adam and Eve throughout Oriental Christian cultures.

According to a legend known from Greece in the West to Armenia and Georgia in the East, Satan deceived Adam and Eve a second time. The Devil tricked them into concluding a contract, submitting their offspring to his rule "until the Unbegotten is born and the Undying One dies." Christ's baptism puts an end to this contract and their servitude. Though it never became incorporated into Christian belief, this legend spread by way of popular and artistic sources through Eastern Christendom, and is alive still in the popular tales of Bulgaria and Greece. The legend of the Contract is painted on Romanian churches and has spread in Armenian legends. In Adam's Contract with Satan, Michael Stone pursues the tale through its sometimes exotic transmission and explores the world-view that emerges from it, contrasting it with the Western view, perpetuated by Augustine, of Adam's sin in the Garden. This fascinating tale becomes a detective story that involves the pursuit of a tradition and its transmission, and an exploration of its implications for the understanding of the human condition.

Michael Stone is on the faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, where he holds the double appointment of Gail Levin de Nur Professor of Religion and Professor of Armenian Studies. He is author of over 40 books and 250 articles in the fields of ancient Judaism and Armenian Studies.

July 2001

265 pages, 10 b&w photos, 6 x 9, index, append.

cloth 0-253-33902-2 $39.95 s / £30.50

Michael Stone was educated at the University of Melbourne and holds the degrees of PhD from Harvard University and D:Litt from the University of Melbourne. He has, since 1965, been on the Faculty of the Hebrew University of Jerusalem where he holds the double appointment of Gail

Levin de Nur Professor of Religion and Professor of Armenian Studies. He is the author of over 40 books and 250 articles in the fields of Ancient Judaism and Armenian Studies. His work has encompassed Jewish Literature of the Second Temple Period, including the Dead Sea Scrolls, and many aspects of Armenian Studies, with special emphasis on the Bible and biblical traditions in Armenian, the Armenians in the Holy Land and the history of Armenian writing.

Abbreviations

Preface

1. The Primary Adam Books and the Legend of Adam and Eve

2. Contract Penance and Redemption

3. Adam Ploughs and Satan Forbids: The Slavonic Story

4. The Legend in Balkan Art, Folklore and Tradition

5. Armenian Apocryphal Tales

6. The Story in Greek

7. The Cheirograph According to Colossians

Conclusion and Implications

Appendix 1: Texts in the Original Languages

Appendix 2: An Ethiopic Text close to the Legend

Appendix 3: The term [Greek characters] in the Papyri

Bibliography