The very considerable literature on Antediluvian libraries which has been already mentioned is, in general, confined chiefly to the line of the patriarchs, whom the various writers on the Preadamites often describe as Adamites to distinguish thus the patriarchal or Caucasian line from its Mongolian and negro contemporaries—Adam, Cain, Abel, Seth, Noah, Ham, etc.

According to some of these veracious historians, on the seventh day of the first month of the first year Jehovah wrote a work on the creation in several volumes, primarily to teach Adam the alphabet, and secondarily, to preserve the record of the creation. This seems to have formed Adam’s entire library, until the fall. After this, however, Jehovah published a new edition of this work in one volume on stone, and added another work on another stone. These were placed by him in a “Beth” or “House” on a mount east of the Garden of Eden, where were also the Cherubim. This was according to them the first library building, and by inference the Cherubim were the first librarians. This library was bequeathed by Adam to Seth and by Seth to Enoch. It formed a part of the library of Noah, and was consulted by Moses, who incorporated, it is alleged, from it the Elohistic and Jehovistic documents into Genesis.

The libraries of Cain, Seth, Enoch and Ham were also famous among these old chroniclers—Seth’s for its astrological and astronomical works, and Ham’s for the heretical works, which he was not allowed to take into the ark with him.

Far the most famous however of all these libraries is the library of Noah. It contained that of Adam, with very many additions. At the time of the flood Noah was commanded to bury his books—“the earliest, middle, and recent”—in a pit dug at Sippara—and from this it appears that the library must have been very large since there was room in the ark for all kinds of animals, but not enough for the books.

After the flood this library was dug up by Noah, and preserved in his Beth at Nisibis, or, according to Berosus, was dug up by the sons of Noah, after their father had been translated, and formed the nucleus of the Babylonian libraries. A legend of the digging up of the library still exists, it is said, on the spot, where re-excavations are now going on.

The Hindu account of this library (Sir William Jones’ works. I, 288) has an interesting variation. It states that the flood came because, the sacred books having been stolen away, men had become wicked. After the deluge Vishnu slew the thief, and restored the books to Noah.

If Cassianus may be believed, however, these buried books were not all of Noah’s library since he took with him into the Ark at least a select collection, presumably for use on the voyage.

Nor were these the only libraries supposed to have been in existence when the flood came, for the Egyptian priests told Solon of many libraries which were destroyed by it. One rather wonders at this too, for in those days of course they were apt to make their books fire and water proof (rather than the buildings as now) and the flood should not have hurt them, but if they were in fact destroyed it simply shows that they were made of papyrus, leather or unbaked clay!

These writers not only tell us in detail about many of the books which Noah must have had in his library, but even in some cases give us a list of the books themselves. We find thus e.g. that the library must have contained the following works at least by Adam (a) “De nominibus animantium”, (b) a census report of the Garden of Eden, which included all living things, (c) The 92d psalm, (d) A poem on the creation of Eve, and various other works, all, it is to be presumed, written after the fall; for the very same authentic chroniclers who ascribe these works to Adam declare that he was born at three o’clock, sinned at eleven, was “damnatus” at twelve of one day and driven out of Eden early next morning—which left little time for literary work on his part, one may suppose, while in Eden.

The library must have contained also, if our sources are correct, works by Eve (“conversation with the serpent”), Cain, Seth, Enos, Enoch, Methuselah and others, and various works by Noah himself, including his history of the world to his own time, written before the flood and published in two editions, one on wood and one on stone.

The surviving samples of these alleged works are not calculated to make one regret anything about the deluge so much as its failure to be more thorough. Take e.g. Adam’s poems on the creation of Eve. Imagine Noah’s sons, “In the Springtime, when a young man’s fancy lightly turns to thought of love”, drawing out a tablet or two of this poem for inspiration and reading how calmly the new bride is invited by Adam to “shake hands and kiss him”!

The efforts to date the library of Adam have been various. A terminus ad quem is offered by Berosus, who asserts that the capital of the world before the Flood was named “The Library” or the “Book All”. He puts this at 250,000 years B.C., but this of course implies considerable development between Adam and the time when the world was populous enough to need a capital at all. There is, therefore, no necessary conflict between the veracious Berosus and the veracious modern historians of science, who place the terminus a quo at sixty million years ago. There is, however, considerable discrepancy between even the later of these two on the one hand and the very earliest of the one hundred and forty different dates between 3483 and 6984 B.C. actually assigned by more timid historians of the beginnings of Adamic civilization. As sober historians are bound to confess that at best the historical evidence for some 243,016 years on the one hand and 59,748,087 or so years on the other of Berosus’ date is not wholly continuous and 6984 B.C. may be regarded as about the earliest exact date known to have been ventured for Adamite libraries.

It hardly needs to be added that all these alleged patriarchal books and libraries are apocryphal although many of them have a respectable antiquity of more than two thousand years and most of them belong either to pre-Christian, early Christian or Mohammedan times. They have been by no means without their influence on human thought and on the actions of those who believed their statements to be historical truth. They are therefore not to be ignored in reckoning the influences which have shaped library development.