The Cave of Treasures 41

A¹🔗nd Abraham was ninety-nine years old when God went into his house and gave Sara a son, and he was one hundred years old when Isaac was born to him. And Isaac was thirteen years old when his father took him and went up to the mountain of Yabhos (Jebus) to Melchisedek, the priest of God, the Most High.

²🔗 Now Mount Yabhés is the mountain of the Amóráyé (Amorites), and in that place the Cross of Christ was set up, and on it grew the tree which held the ram that saved Isaac. And that same place is the centre of the earth, and the grave of Adam, and the altar of Melchisedek, and Golgotha, and Karkafta, and Gefifta (Gabbatha).

³🔗 And there David saw the angel bearing the sword of fire. There, too, Abraham took up Isaac his son for a burnt offering, and he saw the Cross, and Christ, and the redemption of our father Adam. The tree (i.e. thicket) was a symbol of the Cross of Christ our Lord, and the ram [caught] in its branches was the mystery of the manhood of the Word, the Only One.

⁴🔗 And, because of this, Paul cried out and said, “If they had only known [it] they were not crucifying the Lord of glory.” Let the mouths of the heretics be stopped who in their madness impute passibility to the Eternal God. Now, when Christ was eight days old, Joseph, the betrothed of Mary, rose up to circumcise the Child according to the Law, and he circumcised Him according to the custom that was the Law.

⁵🔗 In like manner Abraham took up his son as an Offering, but he at the same time [fore]saw in this [act] the crucifixion of Christ. And this thing did Christ openly proclaim before the multitudes of the Jews, saying, “Abraham, your father, wanted to see My days, and he saw and was glad” (John viii. 56). Abraham saw the day of the redemption of Adam, and he saw and rejoiced, and it was revealed unto him that Christ would suffer on behalf of Adam.