Adam, name of the first man God created, and who was the stock of the entire human race, according to Scripture.

It is not exactly as a proper noun, but as a common noun, that we include in this Dictionary the name of Adam, which designates all men in general, and corresponds to the Greek ἄντρωπος in particular, the Hebrew אדם, corresponds to the Greek πυῤῥὸς, and to the Latin rufus , due to the reddish color of the earth, from which, according to the Commentators, Adam was formed.

One can find in Genesis, chap. 1, 2, 3 and 4 the complete history of Adam; how he was formed from the clay, and placed in the earthly paradise, and made chief and king of the earth, and of the animals created for his use; and what was his original innocence and his original justice; by what disobedience he fell from it, and what punishments he called upon himself and his posterity. It is necessary to return to this double state of happiness and misery, of weakness and grandeur, to conceive how man, even in his present state, is such a strange composite of vices and virtues, so quickly moved to the sovereign good, so often carried along toward evil, and subject to so many ills that seem to reason alone punishments for a crime committed long ago. Even the Pagans foresaw the shadows of this truth, and it is the foundation of their metempsychosis, and the single key to the system of Christianity.

Whereas all the [Church] Fathers have regarded these two different states of Adam as the first link from which essentially the entire chain of revelation hangs, one can say however that St. Augustine was the first to develop them in depth, and prove both of them solidly in his writings against the Manichaeans and the Pelagians. Persuaded that in order to combat these two opposing Sects successfully, he could not insist too much on the radical difference between these two states, he turned against the Manichaeans the power of free will in the innocent man, and combated the maxims of the Pelagians [with] the all-powerful force of grace after the fall: but he never negated in either state the necessity of grace, or the cooperation of free will.

The Commentators and the Rabbis have formed diverse opinions relative to Adam ; we shall go over [them] quickly, because one can find them treated extensively, either in Bayle's Dictionary, or in Father Calmet's Dictionary of the Bible.

It has been asked, 1, how long Adam and Eve stayed in the garden of delights. Some leave them there for several years, others for a few days, others for only a few hours. Dom Calmet thinks that they could have stayed there ten or twelve days and that they left there virgins.

2. Several Jewish authors have claimed that man and woman were created together and attached at the shoulders, having four feet, four hands, and two heads, in every way similar, besides their sex, and that God, having sent them a profound slumber, separated them and thereby formed two people, an idea that has a lot in common with Plato's Androgynes. See Androgyne. Eugubinus, in his Cosmopoeia , believes that they were united, not at the back, but at the sides; such that God, according to Scripture, pulled woman from Adam's side: but this opinion does not agree with the text of Moses, in which one would find even fewer traces of that extravagant vision of Antoinette Bourignon, who claimed that Adam was created a hermaphrodite, and that before his fall he alone had given birth to the body of Jesus Christ.

3. Stories about the beauty and height of Adam have been no less thoughtlessly repeated. It has been advanced that he was the most beautiful man who ever lived, and that to form him God invested himself in a perfectly beautiful human body. Others have said that he was the tallest giant there had ever been, and have claimed to prove this opinion by the words of the Vulgate, Joshua, ch. XIV . Nomen Hebron antea vocabatur Cariatharbe Adam maximus ibi inter Enacim situs est [And the name of Hebron before was Kirjatharba; which Arba was a great man among the Anakims]: but in the passage the word Adam is not the proper name of the first man, but a common noun that refers to Arba , such that the meaning of the passage is: this man (Arba) was the greatest or the father of the Enachims . On this foundation, and others like it, the Rabbis have taught that the first man was of such a prodigious height that he reached from one end of the world to the other, and that he passed from the Atlantic islands to our continent without, in the middle of the Ocean, having water above his waist; but that after his sin, God weighed down upon him with his hand and reduced him to a height of 100 ells. Others leave him the height of nine hundred cubits, that is, more than 1300 feet, and say that it was in response to the prayer of the Angels, frightened by the original height of Adam, that God reduced him to this one.

4. In the Schools, the innate science of Adam is still under dispute today. It is, however, difficult to fix its breadth. The name that he gave to the animals proves that he understood their properties, if at their origin, all names have meaning, as some claim. God having created him perfect, it cannot be doubted that he gave him a vast and enlightened mind; but this speculative science is not incompatible with the experimental ignorance of things that can only be learned by usage and reflection. It is thus without any basis that he has been credited by the Gnostics and other Innovators with the invention of the Hebrew alphabet, Psalm 41, and several other supposed works.

5. Whereas the certainty of the salvation of Adam may not be clearly revealed, the [Church] Fathers, based on the words of the Book of Wisdom ch. 10, vol. 2 custodivit & eduxi illum a deticto suo [he was created alone, And she brought him out of his sin], have taught that he made a solid penitence. This is also the feeling of the Rabbis, and the Church has condemned the contrary opinion in Tatien and in the Encatites. Adam died at the age of 930 years, and was buried at Hebron, according to some who support their view with the passage from Joshua that we have already cited. Others, in greater numbers, argue that he was buried on the Calvary, such that the foot of the Cross of Jesus Christ corresponded to the exact spot where the skull of the first man lay in rest, such that, they say, the blood of the Savior running first over the head of this first sinner, purified human Nature as at its source, and that the new man was grafted onto the old one. But St. Jerome remarks that this opinion, which is fit enough to flatter the ears of peoples, is no more certain for all that: favorabilis opinio, et mulcens aurem populi, nec tamen vera . In Matthew, ch. 27 .

The term Adam in matters of morality and spirituality, has very different meanings according to the diverse adjectives to which it finds itself attached. When it accompanies the following, first, old, and ancient , it sometimes has a literal meaning, and thus signifies the first man considered after the fall, as the example and cause of human frailty. Sometimes in a figurative sense, for the vices, the unregulated passions, all that comes from cupidity and nature depraved by the sin of Adam . When it is attached to the adjectives new or second , it always has a figurative meaning, and most often it signifies Jesus Christ, as the man-God, in essence a saint, as opposed to the human sinner, or the justice of a truly Christian soul, and in general all virtue or saintliness expressed through that of Jesus Christ, and produced by his grace.