Page:Ginzburg - The Legends of the Jews - Volume 5.djvu/44

75] $undefined$ on account of their pride, would not thrive unless moistened by masculine waters.According to PRE 5 and Aguddat Aggadot 7, tne plants of paradise were created first and were afterwards utilized for the purpose of the cultivation of the earth.For the opposite view comp. BR 15.1, which reads: God took cedars of Lebanon, which were not larger than the tentacles of a grasshopper, and planted them in paradise.Comp. note 96 on vol. I, p. 82.The shooting up of the trees is only a special application of the view that the first things in creation were produced in their fully developed form (comp. note 21 on vol. I, p. 59).This view is especially emphasized by Philo, De M. Opif, 13, with reference to plants, which God brought forth out of the ground in their complete form, “as if the earth had been pregnant with them for a long time”.PRE 5 similarly speaks of the pregnancy of the earth, where, in connection with the conception of rain as the consort of the earth (comp. note 39 on vol. I, p. 162), the legitimate fecundation is differentiated from the illegitimate.When the earth is fructified by rain, it is considered a legitimate fecundation, whereas when it is artificially watered, it is an illegitimate fecundation.As to the statement made in PRE concernfrig the origin of rain, comp. also BR 13.9–10 and the parallel passages cited by Theodor, where various views are expressed on this point.The view that the clouds drew their water from the ocean, and the objection raised against it, is also found in the Slavonic version of III Baruch 10.8.  $undefined$ Hullin 60a; comp. Back, Monatsschrift XXIX, 307, with reference to this talmudic passage.The Palestinian sources, BR 5.9, and Yerushalmi Kilayim 1, 27b, mention two views: according to one the earth did not follow God’s bidding; it only produced edible fruits, but not edible trees, which it was also commanded by God to produce.On account of this disobedience it was cursed by God after Adam’s fall.The opposite view maintains that the earth was so eager to obey God ’s orders that it went one step further and produced all trees bearing fruit; but after Adam’s fall the fertility of the earth was diminished, and it produced barren trees as well; comp. vol. I, p. 80 (top).“The prince of the world” mentioned in Hullin, ''loc. cit., bears no relation to the demiurge of the Gnostics, nor to Satan, “the prince of the earth” (John 12.31, and in many other places of the New Testament), but it signifies, here as elsewhere in rabbinic literature (comp. Index, s.v.'')t the angel in charge of the world, or, to be more accurate, the earth.Comp. Joel, Blicke, I, 124–128.The 