Inherit and hand down

Meaning

Inheritance describes the supposed passage of the secret from Adam to the ancient fathers. The introduction combines this genealogy with claims of health, long life and wealth obtained through its powers. The inheritance is therefore of knowledge and beneficial possession, not a modern genetic claim. Its basis remains the narrator’s confident supposition that God originally revealed the secret to Adam. The aligned English “inherited it from him” accurately preserves the relation while not supplying a mechanism of transmission. This sacred genealogy gives authority to subsequent philosophers, but cannot serve as independent documentation that the patriarchs practised the art.