A piece of the Cross was afterwards sent to Rome, where it duly arrived after a very stormy voyage,63 and it was there preserved for the adoration of the faithful.64
JOHN ASHTON.
FOOTNOTES:
[A]“And for as moche as this sayd worke was grete & over chargeable to me taccomplisshe, I feryd me in the begynnynge of the translacion to have contynued it / bycause of the longe tyme of the translacion / & also in thenpryntyng of ye same and in maner halfe desperate to have accomplissd it / was in purpose to have lefte it / after that I had begonne to translate it / & to have layed it aparte ne had it be(en) at thynstance & requeste of the puyssant noble & vertuous erle my lord wyllyam erle of arondel / whych desyred me to procede & contynue the said werke / & promysed me to take a resonable quantyte of them when they were acheyeued & accomplisshed / and sente to me a worshypful gentylman a servaunt of his named John Stanney which solycyted me in my Lordes name that I shold in no wyse leve it but accomplisshe it promysyng that my sayd lord shold duringe my lyf geve & graunt to me a yerely fee / that is to wete a bucke in sommer / & a doo in Wynter / with whiche fee I holde me wel contente,” &c.
Length of Adam’s life.
[B]This apparently long life of Adam is admitted on all hands, even in the Revised Version of the Bible. The Talmud says that God promised him one thousand years of life, and it is recorded that he begat Seth when he was a hundred and thirty years old. On this the Talmud (Eruvin, fol. 18, col. 2) has the following comment: “Rav Yirmyah ben Elazer said: All those years, which Adam spent in alienation from God, he begat evil spirits, demons, and fairies; for it is said, ‘And Adam was an hundred and thirty years, and begat a son in his own likeness, after his image’; consequently, before that time, he begat after another image.”
This term of one hundred and thirty years seems to have been a period in Adam’s existence, for we again find (Eruvin, fol. 18 b.): “Adam was a Chasid, or great saint, when he observed that the decree of death was occasioned by him; he fasted a hundred and thirty years, and all this time he abstained from intercourse with his wife.”