In the Armenian Christian poem “Adamgirk’ 1” (1403), the text uses “black” to denote something evil:
Adam says
How black was that rib, hidden in
me,
that became the cause of evils for me.
It robbed me of eternal life,
And invited me into Tartarus.
How black was that day reserved
for me,
That I did not take a companion from other animals.
Therefore he created Eve from me,
So that she might be pleasing to my wish.
How black was that hour when I
fell asleep,
In which they took the rib out of me.
In its place my body was filled in,
For it took me out of God’s favour.
It was a rib of my left side,
Therefore it acted sinisterly,
For everything according to order,
Is moved to action according to its nature. (1.16.2-5 in Michael E. Stone, Adamgirk’:
The Adam Book of Aṙak’el of Siwnik’ [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007],
178-79)
Elsewhere, we read of a contrast of the “evil” or “black” rib that
produced Eve and the pierced rib/side of Jesus on the cross:
The rib that was the cause of
death,
[Is] bitter and rough and most
hard.
Here from His side came blood and water,
it was clear and fluid and most sweet.
With the water He washes the first
one’s sin,
Of the stink of poisonous venoms.
He colours [it] with joyful red blood,
And gives [it] to the soul to consume.
The thirst of the first ones who
[are] in the prison,
Is longing for water on a finger-tip.
The water from His side is from them to drink,
For us the blood is the covenant of the Eucharist. (1.24-74-76 in ibid., 248;
also note the reference to baptismal regeneration in this text)
