FIRST AGE OF THE WORLD

1. God created everything in six days. On the first day he fashioned light; on the second, the firmament of heaven; on the third, the land and the sea; on the fourth, the stars; on the fifth, the fish and the birds; on the sixth, the animals and the beasts of burden and finally the first man, Adam, in his image.

2. Adam, at age 230, bore Seth, who was born in the place of Abel. Seth means "resurrection" because in him was resuscitated the first seed, that is, the seed of the sons of God. Seth, at age 205, bore Enosh, who was the first to begin invoking the name of God. Enosh, at age 190, bore Kenan, whose name means "the nature of God." At the same time, Cain became the first, before the flood, to build a city, which he filled solely with the multitude of his own descendents.

3. Kenan, at age 170, bore Mahalalel, whose name means "plantation of God." Mahalalel, at age 165, bore Jared, which means "descending" or "beseeching." Jared, at age 162, bore Enoch, who was lifted up by God, and who is reported to have written quite a few things, but which, on account of their antiquity, are refuted by the fathers as of suspect faith.

4. Enoch, at age 165, bore Methuselah, who, according to his lifespan, is discovered to have lived fourteen years after the flood, yet he is not found to have been on the ark. On account of this, some conjecture, with false opinion, that he might have lived after the flood, having spent some time with his father Enoch, who was lifted up. In this generation, the sons of God lusted after the daughters of men. Methuselah, at age 167, bore Lamech. In this generation, giants were born. In this age also, Jubal, from the line of Cain, discovered the art of music and his brother Tubal Cain was the inventor of the arts of copper and iron.

5. Lamech, at age 190, bore Noah who, by divine oracle, was ordered to build the arc in the five-hundredth year of his life. In these times, as Josephus reports, some men, who knew that they were about to die by either fire or water, inscribed their discoveries on two columns made of brick and stone, so that the memory of those things which they had discovered in their wisdom might not be erased. Their stone columns are reported to have withstood the flood and remain in Syria to this very day.

6. In Noah's six-hundredth year, the flood is recorded to have occurred. Josephus reports that his ark came to rest among the mountains of Armenia, which are called Ararat. There were three sons of Noah, out of which seventy-two nations were born, that is, fifteen from Japheth, thirty from Ham, and twenty-seven from Shem.

The first age came to an end in the year 2,242.