Josephus said that when Abel was slain and Cain fled away, Adam when he was one hundred and thirty years old engendered Seth like to his similitude, and he to the image of God.  This Seth was a good man, and he gat Enos, and Enos Cainan, and Cainan begot Malaleel, and Malaleel Jared, and Jared Enoch, and Enoch Methuselah, and Methuselah Lamech, and Lamech Noah.  And like as in the generation of Cain the seventh was the worst, so in the generation of Seth the seventh was the best, that was Enoch whom God took and brought him into Paradise, unto the time that he shall come with Elias for to convert the hearts of the fathers into the sons.  And Adam lived after he had begotten Seth eight hundred years, and engendered sons and daughters.  Some hold opinion thirty sons and thirty daughters, and some fifty of that one and fifty of that other.  We find no certainty of them in the Bible.  But all the days of Adam living here in earth amount to the sum of nine hundred and thirty years.  And in the end of his life when he should die, it is said, but of none authority, that he sent Seth his son into Paradise for to fetch the oil of mercy, where he received certain grains of the fruit of the tree of mercy by an angel.  And when he came again he found his father Adam yet alive and told him what he had done.  And then Adam laughed first and then died.  And then he laid the grains or kernels under his father’s tongue and buried him in the vale of Hebron; and out of his mouth grew three trees of the three grains, of which trees the cross that our Lord suffered his passion on was made, by virtue of which he gat very mercy, and was brought out of darkness into very light of Heaven.  To the which he bring us that liveth and reigneth God, world without end.

HERE BEGINNETH THE HISTORY OF NOAH

The First Sunday in Sexagesima

After that Adam was dead, died Eve and was buried by him.  At the beginning, in the first age, the people lived long.  Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years, and Methuselah lived nine hundred and sixty-nine years.  S. Jerome saith that he died the same year that the flood was.  Then Noah was the tenth from Adam in the generation of Seth, in whom the first age was ended.  The seventy interpreters say that this first age dured two thousand two hundred and forty-four years.  S. Jerome saith not fully two thousand, and Methodius full two thousand, etc.

Noah then was a man perfect and righteous and kept God’s commandment.  And when he was five hundred years old, he gat Shem, Ham, and Japhet.  This time men began to multiply on the earth, and the children of God, that is to say of Seth, as religious, saw the daughters of men, that is to say of Cain, and took them to their wives.  This time was so much sin on the earth, wherefore God was displeased and determined in his prescience to destroy man that he had made, and said:  I shall put man away that