As time passed in the second garden, the consequences of default became increasingly apparent. Adam and Eve greatly missed their former home of beauty and tranquillity as well as their children who had been deported to Edentia. It was indeed pathetic to observe this magnificent couple reduced to the status of the common flesh of the realm; but they bore their diminished estate with grace and fortitude.
Adam wisely spent most of the time training his children and their associates in civil administration, educational methods, and religious devotions. Had it not been for this foresight, pandemonium would have broken loose upon his death. As it was, the death of Adam made little difference in the conduct of the affairs of his people. But long before Adam and Eve passed away, they recognized that their children and followers had gradually learned to forget the days of their glory in Eden. And it was better for the majority of their followers that they did forget the grandeur of Eden; they were not so likely to experience undue dissatisfaction with their less fortunate environment.
The civil rulers of the Adamites were derived hereditarily from the sons of the first garden. Adam’s first son, Adamson (Adam ben Adam), founded a secondary center of the violet race to the north of the second Eden. Adam’s second son, Eveson, became a masterly leader and administrator; he was the great helper of his father. Eveson lived not quite so long as Adam, and his eldest son, Jansad, became the successor of Adam as the head of the Adamite tribes.
The religious rulers, or priesthood, originated with Seth, the eldest surviving son of Adam and Eve born in the second garden. He was born one hundred and twenty-nine years after Adam’s arrival on Urantia. Seth became absorbed in the work of improving the spiritual status of his father’s people, becoming the head of the new priesthood of the second garden. His son, Enos, founded the new order of worship, and his grandson, Kenan, instituted the foreign missionary service to the surrounding tribes, near and far.
The Sethite priesthood was a threefold undertaking, embracing religion, health, and education. The priests of this order were trained to officiate at religious ceremonies, to serve as physicians and sanitary inspectors, and to act as teachers in the schools of the garden.
Adam’s caravan had carried the seeds and bulbs of hundreds of plants and cereals of the first garden with them to the land between the rivers; they also had brought along extensive herds and some of all the domesticated animals. Because of this they possessed great advantages over the surrounding tribes. They enjoyed many of the benefits of the previous culture of the original Garden.
Up to the time of leaving the first garden, Adam and his family had always subsisted on fruits, cereals, and nuts. On the way to Mesopotamia they had, for the first time, partaken of herbs and vegetables. The eating of meat was early introduced into the second garden, but Adam and Eve never partook of flesh as a part of their regular diet. Neither did Adamson nor Eveson nor the other children of the first generation of the first garden become flesh eaters.
The Adamites greatly excelled the surrounding peoples in cultural achievement and intellectual development. They produced the third alphabet and otherwise laid the foundations for much that was the forerunner of modern art, science, and literature. Here in the lands between the Tigris and Euphrates they maintained the arts of writing, metalworking, pottery making, and weaving and produced a type of architecture that was not excelled in thousands of years.
The home life of the violet peoples was, for their day and age, ideal. Children were subjected to courses of training in agriculture, craftsmanship, and animal husbandry or else were educated to perform the threefold duty of a Sethite: to be priest, physician, and teacher.
And when thinking of the Sethite priesthood, do not confuse those high-minded and noble teachers of health and religion, those true educators, with the debased and commercial priesthoods of the later tribes and surrounding nations. Their religious concepts of Deity and the universe were advanced and more or less accurate, their health provisions were, for their time, excellent, and their methods of education have never since been surpassed.