The first human, he who was shaped by the hand of God and formed in the image and likeness of the Creator and Founder; he was also deemed worthy of a dwelling in Paradise. He could justly be called the first wise man, since he was the first likeness created and an image wrought by God, and also because he had a full share of all the graces that exist. And all the senses of the body and the soul he possessed in a pure and unadulterated state. For rays of a certain sort, so to speak, flashed from the soul of that man, rays teeming with divine thoughts and energies, and they coursed through all nature, accurately and unerringly anticipating the particular virtue of each thing. Those who judged him were not men, who often make judgments in an erroneous fashion, but the God of everything, who makes every decision and judgment correctly, and, before his mind was stirred to action, by the soul, which labors over such things and gives birth to ideas. And as Scripture says: 'God made all the domesticated and wild animals and the things that crawl and the winged things, and he brought them before Adam to see what he would call them, and whatever Adam called them, that was their name.'[1] And what is more perfectly clear than this statement and this testimony? What more sublime than this wisdom and this discrimination? He gave names to nature itself, as though prescribing the essence of each animal, without practice, without prior consideration, with no preparatory effort at the things which people take pains to learn. And although many, nay, innumerable species were brought before him no one has managed to change the name even of some insignificant animal, nor did anyone manage to attain even a fraction of his great wisdom and discrimination. Instead all humans scattered across the entire earth continue following his pronouncements unaltered. And the first-born one's surpassing judgment in all things did not stop there, but also extended to the varieties of seeds and plants and the uses of roots and herbs. And whatever in the way of prevention and treatment nature assigned to each of the living things he determined and made clear. He, the first to see woman, spoke about her not as with a human mouth. As though he were echoing some divine pronouncement he uttered incisively that celebrated and awe-inspiring saying: 'this now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh. She will be called woman, because she was taken out of her man.'[2] He, moreover, is the one who assesses each thing and establishes rules, precise standards, and incontestable boundaries for all. His are the crafts and letters, his are rational and non-rational sciences, his are prophethoods, priesthoods, purifications and laws both written and unwritten; his are all discoveries and doctrines and whatever needs and regimens are essential for life. He is the first representation of mankind, the image summoned from God; all image-making among men starts out from him as a model, though more and more they sink to a level inferior to his blessed and God-like image, which had no starting point upon which one who molded or painted images after him might depend; to such an extent that the Abomination, the Apostate, the deceiving Devil toppled him from his original foundation and position and caused him to be borne headfirst into pit-like and unlit places which reach all the way down to the joyless recesses of Hades. And from this point human nature became caricatured and falsified and was stamped with the shapings and designs of the Tyrant. From this source that bastard wisdom had its beginnings, for divine wisdom had made its escape and had flown up toward heaven, whence it had previously started out. Whence the Imposter expropriated the name of God and dealt it out it in many directions, giving himself different names, such as 'Kronos' and 'Zeus', and -- the most wicked thing of all -- the Criminal even had the gall to drag down the blessed and ineffable nature [of God] and associate it with names that were female and unworthy of respect, such as those 'Rheas' and 'Aphrodites' and 'Athenas' and thousands of others, and into strange forms and shapes of illogical things which the Creator of Evil and the Hatcher of Heresy invented and carved out. Hence the wretched tales of the Egyptians about Osiris and Typhon and Isis, and the chicanery of the Persian Magi, and the gymnosophistry and impertinent fantasies of the Brahmans, the fabled sayings of the Skythians and the orgies of the Thracians and the flutes and Corybantes of the Phyrgians. Hence the deceitful and damaging astrology of the Chaldaeans. Hence poetry, the midwife of lies, the pretentious diction of Greek storytelling. Hence Orpheus and Homer and that portrayer of improper begettings, Hesiod. Hence the reputation of Thales and the glorious Pythagoras and Socrates the wise and Plato, the much-ballyhooed pride of the Academy of the Athenians. Hence the Parmenideses and the Protagorases and the Zenos. Hence the Stoas, and the Areopaguses and the Epicureans. Hence the dirges and breast-beatings of the tragedians and the jestings and raillery of the comics. Hence the dishonest divinations of Loxias the liar[3] and the remaining shenanigans and omen-mongering of Greek sophistication. And lest I prolong my essay by getting caught up in rotten and malodorous myths, the Imposter, having taken the burden of the entirety of creation on himself, and having taken man under his control as though he were a slave, went through all that is below heaven and patrolled the earth and kept watch over everything like a hen on her eggs, as he himself says in his lying fashion. He thought that it was necessary to set his throne above the clouds of heaven and to be equal to the Highest One. But the only begotten Son of God, the primordial Word, took pity on mankind since it had been deceived by the serpent, removed himself from the lap of the Father and became flesh by the Holy Spirit and by the Holy Virgin and Mother of God, Mary. He defeated his rival through the hallowed cross and through his suffering and went down to the lowest reaches of the earth and from there dragged back the fallen first-formed one, restoring the primordial beauty to his image and the original worth to his nature. And at that point the entire regime and conformity of the Tyrant vanished, as the light of piousness beamed more brightly than the rays of the sun on the entirety of creation. From this light the godly wisdom once again shone through and gave voice to the tongues of the fishermen and made the unwise teachers of the wise. From this came the birth of thunder, as follows: 'In the beginning was the word.'[4] It flashed forth from heavenly clouds and thundered and brought light to the entire inhabited world. And through this light Paul is carried to the Third Heaven and sees the unseeable and hears the unspoken sayings and speeds across the entire earth like a bird bringing the Gospel of Jesus in mid air. Thence Peter named Christ the son of the living God, and he is entrusted with the keys of the kingdom of the heavens, so that he may open the entrance to the divine palace for those who believe and lock it against those who do not. Thence flocks of martyrs cast down idols and hasten readily toward their death, displaying their wounds as crowns and their blood as robes of purple, beautiful in victory. The first-formed one should be considered the one who directs this writing, in my opinion and judgment at any rate, as a river the spring and the sea, and roots and branches and shoots, and as the one who originates all human nature, the beginning offerings and the first-fruits.
From Adam until the flood: 2242 years; from the flood until the building of the tower [sc. of Babel], 525 years; from the building of the tower until Abraham, 425. From Abraham until the Exodus of the sons of Israel from Egypt, 430. From the Exodus until the building of the Temple of Solomon, 757 years. From the building of the temple until the captivity of Israel, 425. Altogether 4880 years.[5] From the captivity until king Alexander [sc. the Great], 318. From Alexander until Christ our God, 303. Altogether 5500 years.[6] From Christ until Constantine the Great, 318. From Constantine until Michael son of Theophilos, 555. The whole span altogether 6375 years.[7] From Michael to Romanos son of Constantine Porphyrogennetos ... years.[8] From Porphyrogennetos to the death of John Tzimiskes ... years.[9]
Also [sc. attested is the adjective] Adamiaios, [meaning he who is descended] from Adam.