Enosh was asked who his father was, and he named Seth. The questioners,
the people of his time, continued: "Who was the father of Seth?" Enosh:
"Adam."—"And who was the father of Adam?"—"He had neither father nor
mother, God formed him from the dust of the earth."—"But man has not
the appearance of dust!"—"After death man returns to dust, as God said,
'And man shall turn again unto dust;' but on the day of his creation,
man was made in the image of God."—"How was the woman created?"—"Male
and female He created them."—"But how?"—"God took water and earth, and
moulded them together in the form of man."—"But how?" pursued the
questioners.
Enosh took six clods of earth, mixed them, and moulded them, and formed
an image of dust and clay. "But," said the people, "this image does not
walk, nor does it possess any breath of life." He then essayed to show
them how God breathed the breath of life into the nostrils of Adam, but
when he began to blow his breath into the image he had formed, Satan
entered it, and the figure walked, and the people of his time who had
been inquiring these matters of Enosh went astray after it, saying,
"What is the difference between bowing down before this image and
paying homage to a man?"[54]
The generation of Enosh were thus the first idol worshippers, and the
punishment for their folly was not delayed long. God caused the sea to
transgress its bounds, and a portion of the earth was flooded. This was
the time also when the mountains became rocks, and the dead bodies of
men began to decay. And still another consequence of the sin of
idolatry was that the countenances of the men of the following
generations were no longer in the likeness and image of God, as the
countenances of Adam, Seth, and Enosh had been. They resembled centaurs
and apes, and the demons lost their fear of men.[55]
But there was a still more serious consequence from the idolatrous
practices introduced in the time of Enosh. When God drove Adam forth
from Paradise, the Shekinah remained behind, enthroned above a cherub
under the tree of life. The angels descended from heaven and repaired
thither in hosts, to receive their instructions, and Adam and his
descendants sat by the gate to bask in the splendor of the Shekinah,
sixty-five thousand times more radiant than the splendor of the sun.
This brightness of the Shekinah makes all upon whom it falls exempt
from disease, and neither insects nor demons can come nigh unto them to
do them harm.
Thus it was until the time of Enosh, when men began to gather gold,
silver, gems, and pearls from all parts of the earth, and made idols
thereof a thousand parasangs high. What was worse, by means of the
magic arts taught them by the angels Uzza and Azzael, they set
themselves as masters over the heavenly spheres, and forced the sun,
the moon, and the stars to be subservient to themselves instead of the
Lord. This impelled the angels to ask God: "'What is man, that Thou art
mindful of him?' Why didst Thou abandon the highest of the heavens, the
seat of Thy glory and Thy exalted Throne in 'Arabot, and descend to
men, who pay worship to idols, putting Thee upon a level with them?"
The Shekinah was induced to leave the earth and ascend to heaven, amid
the blare and flourish of the trumpets of the myriads of angel
hosts.[56]