may not be reckoned incredible when it relates that one man built
a city at a time in which there seem to have been but four men
upon earth, or rather indeed but three, after one brother slew the
other,--to wit, the first man the father of all, and Cain himself,
and his son Enoch, by whose name the city was itself called. But they
who are moved by this consideration forget to take into account that
the writer of the sacred history does not necessarily mention all the
men who might be alive at that time, but those only whom the scope of
his work required him to name. The design of that writer (who in this
matter was the instrument of the Holy Ghost) was to descend to Abraham
through the successions of ascertained generations propagated from one
man, and then to pass from Abraham's seed to the people of God, in
whom, separated as they were from other nations, was prefigured and
predicted all that relates to the city whose reign is eternal, and to
its king and founder Christ, which things were foreseen in the Spirit
as destined to come; yet neither is this object so effected as that
nothing is said of the other society of men which we call the earthly
city, but mention is made of it so far as seemed needful to enhance the
glory of the heavenly city by contrast to its opposite. Accordingly,
when the divine Scripture, in mentioning the number of years which
those men lived, concludes its account of each man of whom it speaks,
with the words, "And he begat sons and daughters, and all his days were
so and so, and he died," are we to understand that, because it does
not name those sons and daughters, therefore, during that long term
of years over which one lifetime extended in those early days, there
might not have been born very many men, by whose united numbers not one
but several cities might have been built? But it suited the purpose of
God, by whose inspiration these histories were composed, to arrange
and distinguish from the first these two societies in their several
generations,--that on the one side the generations of men, that is to
say, of those who live according to man, and on the other side the
generations of the sons of God, that is to say, of men living according
to God, might be traced down together and yet apart from one another as
far as the deluge, at which point their dissociation and association
are exhibited: their dissociation, inasmuch as the generations of both
lines are recorded in separate tables, the one line descending from the
fratricide Cain, the other from Seth, who had been born to Adam instead
of him whom his brother slew; their association, inasmuch as the good
so deteriorated that the whole race became of such a character that it
was swept away by the deluge, with the exception of one just man, whose
name was Noah, and his wife and three sons and three daughters-in-law,
which eight persons were alone deemed worthy to escape from that
desolating visitation which destroyed all men.
Therefore, although it is written, "And Cain knew his wife, and
she conceived and bare Enoch, and he builded a city and called the
name of the city after the name of his son Enoch,"[158] it does not
follow that we are to believe this to have been his first-born; for
we cannot suppose that this is proved by the expression "he knew his
wife," as if then for the first time he had had intercourse with
her. For in the case of Adam, the father of all, this expression
is used not only when Cain, who seems to have been his first-born,
was conceived, but also afterwards the same Scripture says, "Adam
knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bare a son, and called his
name Seth."[159] Whence it is obvious that Scripture employs this
expression neither always when a birth is recorded nor then only when
the birth of a first-born is mentioned. Neither is it necessary to
suppose that Enoch was Cain's first-born because he named his city
after him. For it is quite possible that though he had other sons,
yet for some reason the father loved him more than the rest. Judah
was not the first-born, though he gives his name to Judæa and the
Jews. But even though Enoch was the first-born of the city's founder,
that is no reason for supposing that the father named the city after
him as soon as he was born; for at that time he, being but a solitary
man, could not have founded a civic community, which is nothing else
than a multitude of men bound together by some associating tie.
But when his family increased to such numbers that he had quite a
population, then it became possible to him both to build a city,
and give it, when founded, the name of his son. For so long was the
life of those antediluvians, that he who lived the shortest time of
those whose years are mentioned in Scripture attained to the age of
753 years.[160] And though no one attained the age of a thousand
years, several exceeded the age of nine hundred. Who then can doubt
that during the lifetime of one man the human race might be so
multiplied that there would be a population to build and occupy not
one but several cities? And this might very readily be conjectured
from the fact that from one man, Abraham, in not much more than four
hundred years, the numbers of the Hebrew race so increased, that
in the exodus of that people from Egypt there are recorded to have
been six hundred thousand men capable of bearing arms,[161] and this
over and above the Idumæans, who, though not numbered with Israel's
descendants, were yet sprung from his brother, also a grandson of
Abraham; and over and above the other nations which were of the same
stock of Abraham, though not through Sarah,--that is, his descendants
by Hagar and Keturah, the Ishmaelites, Midianites, etc.
9. _Of the long life and greater stature of the antediluvians._
Wherefore no one who considerately weighs facts will doubt that Cain
might have built a city, and that a large one, when it is observed
how prolonged were the lives of men, unless perhaps some sceptic take
exception to this very length of years which our authors ascribe to
the antediluvians and deny that this is credible. And so, too, they
do not believe that the size of men's bodies was larger then than
now, though the most esteemed of their own poets, Virgil, asserts the
same, when he speaks of that huge stone which had been fixed as a
landmark, and which a strong man of those ancient times snatched up
as he fought, and ran, and hurled, and cast it,--
"Scarce twelve strong men of later mould
That weight could on their necks uphold;"[162]
thus declaring his opinion that the earth then produced mightier men.
And if in the more recent times, how much more in the ages before the
world-renowned deluge? But the large size of the primitive human body
is often proved to the incredulous by the exposure of sepulchres,
either through the wear of time or the violence of torrents or some
accident, and in which bones of incredible size have been found or
have rolled out. I myself, along with some others, saw on the shore
at Utica a man's molar tooth of such a size, that if it were cut
down into teeth such as we have, a hundred, I fancy, could have
been made out of it. But that, I believe, belonged to some giant.
For though the bodies of ordinary men were then larger than ours,
the giants surpassed all in stature. And neither in our own age nor
any other have there been altogether wanting instances of gigantic
stature, though they may be few. The younger Pliny, a most learned
man, maintains that the older the world becomes, the smaller will
be the bodies of men.[163] And he mentions that Homer in his poems
often lamented the same decline; and this he does not laugh at as
a poetical figment, but in his character of a recorder of natural
wonders accepts it as historically true. But, as I said, the bones
which are from time to time discovered prove the size of the bodies
of the ancients,[164] and will do so to future ages, for they are
slow to decay. But the length of an antediluvian's life cannot
now be proved by any such monumental evidence. But we are not on
this account to withhold our faith from the sacred history, whose
statements of past fact we are the more inexcusable in discrediting,
as we see the accuracy of its prediction of what was future. And
even that same Pliny[165] tells us that there is still a nation in
which men live 200 years. If, then, in places unknown to us, men
are believed to have a length of days which is quite beyond our own
experience, why should we not believe the same of times distant from
our own? Or are we to believe that in other places there is what is
not here, while we do not believe that in other times there has been
anything but what is now?
10. _Of the different computation of the ages of the antediluvians,
given by the Hebrew manuscripts and by our own._[166]
Wherefore, although there is a discrepancy for which I cannot account
between our manuscripts and the Hebrew, in the very number of years
assigned to the antediluvians, yet the discrepancy is not so great
that they do not agree about their longevity. For the very first man,
Adam, before he begot his son Seth, is in our manuscripts found to
have lived 230 years, but in the Hebrew MSS. 130. But after he begot
Seth, our copies read that he lived 700 years, while the Hebrew give
800. And thus, when the two periods are taken together, the sum agrees.
And so throughout the succeeding generations, the period before the
father begets a son is always made shorter by 100 years in the Hebrew,
but the period after his son is begotten is longer by 100 years in the
Hebrew than in our copies. And thus, taking the two periods together,
the result is the same in both. And in the sixth generation there is
no discrepancy at all. In the seventh, however, of which Enoch is the
representative, who is recorded to have been translated without death
because he pleased God, there is the same discrepancy as in the first
five generations, 100 years more being ascribed to him by our MSS.
before he begat a son. But still the result agrees; for according to
both documents he lived before he was translated 365 years. In the
eighth generation the discrepancy is less than in the others, and of
a different kind. For Methuselah, whom Enoch begat, lived, before he
begat his successor, not 100 years less, but 100 years more, according
to the Hebrew reading; and in our MSS. again these years are added
to the period after he begat his son; so that in this case also the
sum-total is the same. And it is only in the ninth generation, that is,
in the age of Lamech, Methuselah's son and Noah's father, that there
is a discrepancy in the sum-total; and even in this case it is slight.
For the Hebrew MSS. represent him as living twenty-four years more than
ours assign to him. For before he begat his son, who was called Noah,
six years fewer are given to him by the Hebrew MSS. than by ours; but
after he begat this son, they give him thirty years more than ours; so
that, deducting the former six, there remains, as we said, a surplus of
twenty-four.
11. _Of Methuselah's age, which seems to extend fourteen years
beyond the deluge._
From this discrepancy between the Hebrew books and our own arises
the well-known question as to the age of Methuselah;[167] for it
is computed that he lived for fourteen years after the deluge,
though Scripture relates that of all who were then upon the earth
only the eight souls in the ark escaped destruction by the flood,
and of these Methuselah was not one. For, according to our books,
Methuselah, before he begat the son whom he called Lamech, lived 167
years; then Lamech himself, before his son Noah was born, lived 188
years, which together make 355 years. Add to these the age of Noah
at the date of the deluge, 600 years, and this gives a total of 955
from the birth of Methuselah to the year of the flood. Now all the
years of the life of Methuselah are computed to be 969; for when he
had lived 167 years, and had begotten his son Lamech, he then lived
after this 802 years, which makes a total, as we said, of 969 years.
From this, if we deduct 955 years from the birth of Methuselah to
the flood, there remain fourteen years, which he is supposed to
have lived after the flood. And therefore some suppose that, though
he was not on earth (in which it is agreed that every living thing
which could not naturally live in water perished), he was for a time
with his father, who had been translated, and that he lived there
till the flood had passed away. This hypothesis they adopt, that
they may not cast a slight on the trustworthiness of versions which
the Church has received into a position of high authority,[168]
and because they believe that the Jewish MSS. rather than our own
are in error. For they do not admit that this is a mistake of the
translators, but maintain that there is a falsified statement in
the original, from which, through the Greek, the Scripture has been
translated into our own tongue. They say that it is not credible that
the seventy translators, who simultaneously and unanimously produced
one rendering, could have erred, or, in a case in which no interest
of theirs was involved, could have falsified their translation; but
that the Jews, envying us our translation of their Law and Prophets,
have made alterations in their texts so as to undermine the authority
of ours. This opinion or suspicion let each man adopt according to
his own judgment. Certain it is that Methuselah did not survive
the flood, but died in the very year it occurred, if the numbers
given in the Hebrew MSS. are true. My own opinion regarding the
seventy translators I will, with God's help, state more carefully
in its own place, when I have come down (following the order which
this work requires) to that period in which their translation was
executed.[169] For the present question, it is enough that, according
to our versions, the men of that age had lives so long as to make it
quite possible that, during the lifetime of the first-born of the two
sole parents then on earth, the human race multiplied sufficiently
to form a community.
12. _Of the opinion of those who do not believe that in these
primitive times men lived so long as is stated._
For they are by no means to be listened to who suppose that in those
times years were differently reckoned, and were so short that one
of our years may be supposed to be equal to ten of theirs. So that
they say, when we read or hear that some man lived 900 years, we
should understand ninety,--ten of those years making but one of
ours, and ten of ours equalling 100 of theirs. Consequently, as they
suppose, Adam was twenty-three years of age when he begat Seth, and
Seth himself was twenty years and six months old when his son Enos
was born, though the Scripture calls these months 205 years. For,
on the hypothesis of those whose opinion we are explaining, it was
customary to divide one such year as we have into ten parts, and to
call each part a year. And each of these parts was composed of six
days squared; because God finished His works in six days, that He
might rest the seventh. Of this I disputed according to my ability
in the eleventh book.[170] Now six squared, or six times six, gives
thirty-six days; and this multiplied by ten amounts to 360 days, or
twelve lunar months. As for the five remaining days which are needed
to complete the solar year, and for the fourth part of a day, which
requires that into every fourth or leap-year a day be added, the
ancients added such days as the Romans used to call "intercalary,"
in order to complete the number of the years. So that Enos, Seth's
son, was nineteen years old when his son Cainan was born, though
Scripture calls these years 190. And so through all the generations
in which the ages of the antediluvians are given, we find in our
versions that almost no one begat a son at the age of 100 or under,
or even at the age of 120 or thereabouts; but the youngest fathers
are recorded to have been 160 years old and upwards. And the reason
of this, they say, is that no one can beget children when he is ten
years old, the age spoken of by those men as 100, but that sixteen
is the age of puberty, and competent now to propagate offspring; and
this is the age called by them 160. And that it may not be thought
incredible that in these days the year was differently computed from
our own, they adduce what is recorded by several writers of history,
that the Egyptians had a year of four months, the Acarnanians of
six, and the Lavinians of thirteen months.[171] The younger Pliny,
after mentioning that some writers reported that one man had lived
152 years, another ten more, others 200, others 300, that some had
even reached 500 and 600, and a few 800 years of age, gave it as
his opinion that all this must be ascribed to mistaken computation.
For some, he says, make summer and winter each a year; others make
each season a year, like the Arcadians, whose years, he says, were
of three months. He added, too, that the Egyptians, of whose little
years of four months we have spoken already, sometimes terminated
their year at the wane of each moon; so that with them there are
produced lifetimes of 1000 years.
By these plausible arguments certain persons, with no desire to
weaken the credit of this sacred history, but rather to facilitate
belief in it by removing the difficulty of such incredible longevity,
have been themselves persuaded, and think they act wisely in
persuading others, that in these days the year was so brief that
ten of their years equal but one of ours, while ten of ours equal
100 of theirs. But there is the plainest evidence to show that this
is quite false. Before producing this evidence, however, it seems
right to mention a conjecture which is yet more plausible. From the
Hebrew manuscripts we could at once refute this confident statement;
for in them Adam is found to have lived not 230 but 130 years before
he begat his third son. If, then, this mean thirteen years by our
ordinary computation, then he must have begotten his first son when
he was only twelve or thereabouts. Who can at this age beget children
according to the ordinary and familiar course of nature? But not to
mention him, since it is possible he may have been able to beget his
like as soon as he was created,--for it is not credible that he was
created so little as our infants are,--not to mention him, his son
was not 205 years old when he begat Enos, as our versions have it,
but 105, and consequently, according to this idea, was not eleven
years old. But what shall I say of his son Cainan, who, though by our
version 170 years old, was by the Hebrew text seventy when he beget
Mahalaleel? If seventy years in those times meant only seven of our
years, what man of seven years old begets children?
13. _Whether, in computing years, we ought to follow the Hebrew
or the Septuagint._
But if I say this, I shall presently be answered, It is one of the
Jews' lies. This, however, we have disposed of above, showing that it
cannot be that men of so just a reputation as the seventy translators
should have falsified their version. However, if I ask them which
of the two is more credible, that the Jewish nation, scattered
far and wide, could have unanimously conspired to forge this lie,
and so, through envying others the authority of their Scriptures,
have deprived themselves of their verity; or that seventy men, who
were also themselves Jews, shut up in one place (for Ptolemy king
of Egypt had got them together for this work), should have envied
foreign nations that same truth, and by common consent inserted these
errors: who does not see which can be more naturally and readily
believed? But far be it from any prudent man to believe either that
the Jews, however malicious and wrong-headed, could have tampered
with so many and so widely-dispersed manuscripts; or that those
renowned seventy individuals had any common purpose to grudge the
truth to the nations. One must therefore more plausibly maintain,
that when first their labours began to be transcribed from the copy
in Ptolemy's library, some such misstatement might find its way into
the first copy made, and from it might be disseminated far and wide;
and that this might arise from no fraud, but from a mere copyist's
error. This is a sufficiently plausible account of the difficulty
regarding Methuselah's life, and of that other case in which there is
a difference in the total of twenty-four years. But in those cases
in which there is a methodical resemblance in the falsification, so
that uniformly the one version allots to the period before a son and
successor is born 100 years more than the other, and to the period
subsequent 100 years less, and _vice versâ_, so that the totals may
agree,--and this holds true of the first, second, third, fourth,
fifth, and seventh generations,--in these cases error seems to have,
if we may say so, a certain kind of constancy, and savours not of
accident, but of design.
Accordingly, that diversity of numbers which distinguishes the Hebrew
from the Greek and Latin copies of Scripture, and which consists of
a uniform addition and deduction of 100 years in each lifetime for
several consecutive generations, is to be attributed neither to the
malice of the Jews nor to men so diligent and prudent as the seventy
translators, but to the error of the copyist who was first allowed to
transcribe the manuscript from the library of the above-mentioned king.
For even now, in cases where numbers contribute nothing to the easier
comprehension or more satisfactory knowledge of anything, they are both
carelessly transcribed, and still more carelessly emended. For who
will trouble himself to learn how many thousand men the several tribes
of Israel contained? He sees no resulting benefit of such knowledge.
Or how many men are there who are aware of the vast advantage that
lies hid in this knowledge? But in this case, in which during so many
consecutive generations 100 years are added in one manuscript where
they are not reckoned in the other, and then, after the birth of the
son and successor, the years which were wanting are added, it is
obvious that the copyist who contrived this arrangement designed to
insinuate that the antediluvians lived an excessive number of years
only because each year was excessively brief, and that he tried to draw
the attention to this fact by his statement of their age of puberty at
which they became able to beget children. For, lest the incredulous
might stumble at the difficulty of so long a lifetime, he insinuated
that 100 of their years equalled but ten of ours; and this insinuation
he conveyed by adding 100 years whenever he found the age below 160
years or thereabouts, deducting these years again from the period after
the son's birth, that the total might harmonize. By this means he
intended to ascribe the generation of offspring to a fit age, without
diminishing the total sum of years ascribed to the lifetime of the
individuals. And the very fact that in the sixth generation he departed
from this uniform practice, inclines us all the rather to believe that
when the circumstance we have referred to required his alterations, he
made them; seeing that when this circumstance did not exist, he made
no alteration. For in the same generation he found in the Hebrew MS.
that Jared lived before he begat Enoch 162 years, which, according to
the short year computation, is sixteen years and somewhat less than
two months, an age capable of procreation; and therefore it was not
necessary to add 100 short years, and so make the age twenty-six years
of the usual length; and of course it was not necessary to deduct,
after the son's birth, years which he had not added before it. And thus
it comes to pass that in this instance there is no variation between
the two manuscripts.
This is corroborated still further by the fact that in the eighth
generation, while the Hebrew books assign 182[172] years to Methuselah
before Lamech's birth, ours assign to him twenty less, though usually
100 years are added to this period; then, after Lamech's birth, the
twenty years are restored, so as to equalize the total in the two
books. For if his design was that these 170 years be understood as
seventeen, so as to suit the age of puberty, as there was no need for
him adding anything, so there was none for his subtracting anything;
for in this case he found an age fit for the generation of children,
for the sake of which he was in the habit of adding those 100 years
in cases where he did not find the age already sufficient. This
difference of twenty years we might, indeed, have supposed had happened
accidentally, had he not taken care to restore them afterwards as he
had deducted them from the period before, so that there might be no
deficiency in the total. Or are we perhaps to suppose that there was
the still more astute design of concealing the deliberate and uniform
addition of 100 years to the first period and their deduction from the
subsequent period,--did he design to conceal this by doing something
similar, that is to say, adding and deducting, not indeed a century,
but some years, even in a case in which there was no need for his doing
so? But whatever may be thought of this, whether it be believed that
he did so or not, whether, in fine, it be so or not, I would have no
manner of doubt that when any diversity is found in the books, since
both cannot be true to fact, we do well to believe in preference
that language out of which the translation was made into another by
translators. For there are three Greek MSS., one Latin, and one Syriac,
which agree with one another, and in all of these Methuselah is said to
have died six years before the deluge.
14. _That the years in those ancient times were of the same length
as our own._
Let us now see how it can be plainly made out that in the enormously
protracted lives of those men the years were not so short that ten
of their years were equal to only one of ours, but were of as great
length as our own, which are measured by the course of the sun. It is
proved by this, that Scripture states that the flood occurred in the
six hundredth year of Noah's life. But why in the same place is it
also written, "The waters of the flood were upon the earth in the six
hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the twenty-seventh
day of the month,"[173] if that very brief year (of which it took ten
to make one of ours) consisted of thirty-six days? For so scant a year,
if the ancient usage dignified it with the name of year, either has not
months, or its month must be three days, so that it may have twelve
of them. How then was it here said, "In the six hundredth year, the
second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month," unless the months
then were of the same length as the months now? For how else could it
be said that the flood began on the twenty-seventh day of the second
month? Then afterwards, at the end of the flood, it is thus written:
"And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day
of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased
continually until the eleventh month: on the first day of the month
were the tops of the mountains seen."[174] But if the months were
such as we have, then so were the years. And certainly months of three
days each could not have a twenty-seventh day. Or if every measure of
time was diminished in proportion, and a thirtieth part of three days
was then called a day, then that great deluge, which is recorded to
have lasted forty days and forty nights, was really over in less than
four of our days. Who can away with such foolishness and absurdity?
Far be this error from us,--an error which seeks to build up our faith
in the divine Scriptures on false conjecture, only to demolish our
faith at another point. It is plain that the day then was what it now
is, a space of four-and-twenty hours, determined by the lapse of day
and night; the month then equal to the month now, which is defined by
the rise and completion of one moon; the year then equal to the year
now, which is completed by twelve lunar months, with the addition of
five days and a-fourth to adjust it with the course of the sun. It was
a year of this length which was reckoned the six hundredth of Noah's
life; and in the second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month,
the flood began,--a flood which, as is recorded, was caused by heavy
rains continuing for forty days, which days had not only two hours and
a little more, but four-and-twenty hours, completing a night and a
day. And consequently those antediluvians lived more than 900 years,
which were years as long as those which afterwards Abraham lived 175
of, and after him his son Isaac 180, and his son Jacob nearly 150,
and some time after, Moses 120, and men now seventy or eighty, or not
much longer, of which years it is said, "their strength is labour and
sorrow."[175]
But that discrepancy of numbers which is found to exist between our
own and the Hebrew text does not touch the longevity of the ancients;
and if there is any diversity so great that both versions cannot
be true, we must take our ideas of the real facts from that text
out of which our own version has been translated. However, though
any one who pleases has it in his power to correct this version,
yet it is not unimportant to observe that no one has presumed to
emend the Septuagint from the Hebrew text in the many places where
they seem to disagree. For this difference has not been reckoned a
falsification; and for my own part I am persuaded it ought not to
be reckoned so. But where the difference is not a mere copyist's
error, and where the sense is agreeable to truth and illustrative
of truth, we must believe that the divine Spirit prompted them to
give a varying version, not in their function of translators, but in
the liberty of prophesying. And therefore we find that the apostles
justly sanction the Septuagint, by quoting it as well as the Hebrew
when they adduce proofs from the Scriptures. But as I have promised
to treat this subject more carefully, if God help me, in a more
fitting place, I will now go on with the matter in hand. For there
can be no doubt that, the lives of men being so long, the first-born
of the first man could have built a city,--a city, however, which was
earthly, and not that which is called the city of God, to describe
which we have taken in hand this great work.
15. _Whether it is credible that the men of the primitive age
abstained from sexual intercourse until that date at which it
is recorded that they begat children._
Some one, then, will say, Is it to be believed that a man who
intended to beget children, and had no intention of continence,
abstained from sexual intercourse a hundred years and more, or even,
according to the Hebrew version, only a little less, say eighty,
seventy, or sixty years; or, if he did not abstain, was unable to
beget offspring? This question admits of two solutions. For either
puberty was so much later as the whole life was longer, or, which
seems to me more likely, it is not the first-born sons that are here
mentioned, but those whose names were required to fill up the series
until Noah was reached, from whom again we see that the succession
is continued to Abraham, and after him down to that point of time
until which it was needful to mark by pedigree the course of the
most glorious city, which sojourns as a stranger in this world, and
seeks the heavenly country. That which is undeniable is that Cain
was the first who was born of man and woman. For had he not been the
first who was added by birth to the two unborn persons, Adam could
not have said what he is recorded to have said, "I have gotten a man
by the Lord."[176] He was followed by Abel, whom the elder brother
slew, and who was the first to show, by a kind of foreshadowing of
the sojourning city of God, what iniquitous persecutions that city
would suffer at the hands of wicked and, as it were, earth-born
men, who love their earthly origin, and delight in the earthly
happiness of the earthly city. But how old Adam was when he begat
these sons does not appear. After this the generations diverge, the
one branch deriving from Cain, the other from him whom Adam begot
in the room of Abel slain by his brother, and whom he called Seth,
saying, as it is written, "For God hath raised me up another seed
for Abel whom Cain slew."[177] These two series of generations
accordingly, the one of Cain, the other of Seth, represent the two
cities in their distinctive ranks, the one the heavenly city, which
sojourns on earth, the other the earthly, which gapes after earthly
joys, and grovels in them as if they were the only joys. But though
eight generations, including Adam, are registered before the flood,
no man of Cain's line has his age recorded at which the son who
succeeded him was begotten. For the Spirit of God refused to mark the
times before the flood in the generations of the earthly city, but
preferred to do so in the heavenly line, as if it were more worthy
of being remembered. Further, when Seth was born, the age of his
father is mentioned; but already he had begotten other sons, and who
will presume to say that Cain and Abel were the only ones previously
begotten? For it does not follow that they alone had been begotten
of Adam, because they alone were named in order to continue the
series of generations which it was desirable to mention. For though
the names of all the rest are buried in silence, yet it is said that
Adam begot sons and daughters; and who that cares to be free from the
charge of temerity will dare to say how many his offspring numbered?
It was possible enough that Adam was divinely prompted to say, after
Seth was born, "For God hath raised up to me another seed for Abel,"
because that son was to be capable of representing Abel's holiness,
not because he was born first after him in point of time. Then
because it is written, "And Seth lived 205 years," or, according to
the Hebrew reading, "105 years, and begat Enos,"[178] who but a rash
man could affirm that this was his first-born? Will any man do so to
excite our wonder, and cause us to inquire how for so many years he
remained free from sexual intercourse, though without any purpose
of continuing so, or how, if he did not abstain, he yet had no
children? Will any man do so when it is written of him, "And he begat
sons and daughters, and all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he
died?"[179] And similarly regarding those whose years are afterwards
mentioned, it is not disguised that they begat sons and daughters.
Consequently it does not at all appear whether he who is named as the
son was himself the first begotten. Nay, since it is incredible that
those fathers were either so long in attaining puberty, or could not
get wives, or could not impregnate them, it is also incredible that
those sons were their first-born. But as the writer of the sacred
history designed to descend by well-marked intervals through a series
of generations to the birth and life of Noah, in whose time the flood
occurred, he mentioned not those sons who were first begotten, but
those by whom the succession was handed down.
Let me make this clearer by here inserting an example, in regard to
which no one can have any doubt that what I am asserting is true.
The evangelist Matthew, where he designs to commit to our memories
the generation of the Lord's flesh by a series of parents, beginning
from Abraham and intending to reach David, says, "Abraham begat
Isaac;"[180] why did he not say Ishmael, whom he first begat? Then
"Isaac begat Jacob;" why did he not say Esau, who was the first-born?
Simply because these sons would not have helped him to reach David.
Then follows, "And Jacob begat Judah and his brethren:" was Judah
the first begotten? "Judah," he says, "begat Pharez and Zara;" yet
neither were these twins the first-born of Judah, but before them he
had begotten three other sons. And so in the order of the generations
he retained those by whom he might reach David, so as to proceed
onwards to the end he had in view. And from this we may understand
that the antediluvians who are mentioned were not the first-born, but
those through whom the order of the succeeding generations might
be carried on to the patriarch Noah. We need not, therefore, weary
ourselves with discussing the needless and obscure question as to
their lateness of reaching puberty.
16. _Of marriage between blood-relations, in regard to which the
present law could not bind the men of the earliest ages._
As, therefore, the human race, subsequently to the first marriage
of the man who was made of dust, and his wife who was made out
of his side, required the union of males and females in order
that it might multiply, and as there were no human beings except
those who had been born of these two, men took their sisters for
wives,--an act which was as certainly dictated by necessity in these
ancient days as afterwards it was condemned by the prohibitions
of religion. For it is very reasonable and just that men, among
whom concord is honourable and useful, should be bound together by
various relationships; and that one man should not himself sustain
many relationships, but that the various relationships should be
distributed among several, and should thus serve to bind together
the greatest number in the same social interests. "Father" and
"father-in-law" are the names of two relationships. When, therefore,
a man has one person for his father, another for his father-in-law,
friendship extends itself to a larger number. But Adam in his single
person was obliged to hold both relations to his sons and daughters,
for brothers and sisters were united in marriage. So too Eve his wife
was both mother and mother-in-law to her children of both sexes;
while, had there been two women, one the mother, the other the
mother-in-law, the family affection would have had a wider field.
Then the sister herself by becoming a wife sustained in her single
person two relationships, which, had they been distributed among
individuals, one being sister, and another being wife, the family tie
would have embraced a greater number of persons. But there was then
no material for effecting this, since there were no human beings but
the brothers and sisters born of those two first parents. Therefore,
when an abundant population made it possible, men ought to choose for
wives women who were not already their sisters; for not only would
there then be no necessity for marrying sisters, but, were it done,
it would be most abominable. For if the grandchildren of the first
pair, being now able to choose their cousins for wives, married their
sisters, then it would no longer be only two but three relationships
that were held by one man, while each of these relationships ought to
have been held by a separate individual, so as to bind together by
family affection a larger number. For one man would in that case be
both father, and father-in-law, and uncle[181] to his own children
(brother and sister now man and wife); and his wife would be mother,
aunt, and mother-in-law to them; and they themselves would be not
only brother and sister, and man and wife, but cousins also, being
the children of brother and sister. Now, all these relationships,
which combined three men into one, would have embraced nine persons
had each relationship been held by one individual, so that a man had
one person for his sister, another his wife, another his cousin,
another his father, another his uncle, another his father-in-law,
another his mother, another his aunt, another his mother-in-law; and
thus the social bond would not have been tightened to bind a few, but
loosened to embrace a larger number of relations.
And we see that, since the human race has increased and multiplied,
this is so strictly observed even among the profane worshippers
of many and false gods, that though their laws perversely allow a
brother to marry his sister,[182] yet custom, with a finer morality,
prefers to forego this licence; and though it was quite allowable in
the earliest ages of the human race to marry one's sister, it is now
abhorred as a thing which no circumstances could justify. For custom
has very great power either to attract or to shock human feeling. And
in this matter, while it restrains concupiscence within due bounds,
the man who neglects and disobeys it is justly branded as abominable.
For if it is iniquitous to plough beyond our own boundaries through
the greed of gain, is it not much more iniquitous to transgress
the recognised boundaries of morals through sexual lust? And with
regard to marriage in the next degree of consanguinity, marriage
between cousins, we have observed that in our own time the customary
morality has prevented this from being frequent, though the law
allows it. It was not prohibited by divine law, nor as yet had human
law prohibited it; nevertheless, though legitimate, people shrank
from it, because it lay so close to what was illegitimate, and in
marrying a cousin seemed almost to marry a sister,--for cousins are
so closely related that they are called brothers and sisters,[183]
and are almost really so. But the ancient fathers, fearing that near
relationship might gradually in the course of generations diverge,
and become distant relationship, or cease to be relationship at all,
religiously endeavoured to limit it by the bond of marriage before
it became distant, and thus, as it were, to call it back when it
was escaping them. And on this account, even when the world was
full of people, though they did not choose wives from among their
sisters or half-sisters, yet they preferred them to be of the same
stock as themselves. But who doubts that the modern prohibition of
the marriage even of cousins is the more seemly regulation,--not
merely on account of the reason we have been urging, the multiplying
of relationships, so that one person might not absorb two, which
might be distributed to two persons, and so increase the number of
people bound together as a family, but also because there is in
human nature I know not what natural and praiseworthy shamefacedness
which restrains us from desiring that connection which, though for
propagation, is yet lustful, and which even conjugal modesty blushes
over, with any one to whom consanguinity bids us render respect?
The sexual intercourse of man and woman, then, is in the case of
mortals a kind of seed-bed of the city; but while the earthly city
needs for its population only generation, the heavenly needs also
regeneration to rid it of the taint of generation. Whether before the
deluge there was any bodily or visible sign of regeneration, such
as was afterwards enjoined upon Abraham when he was circumcised, or
what kind of sign it was, the sacred history does not inform us. But
it does inform us that even these earliest of mankind sacrificed to
God, as appeared also in the case of the two first brothers; Noah,
too, is said to have offered sacrifices to God when he had come
forth from the ark after the deluge. And concerning this subject we
have already said in the foregoing books that the devils arrogate to
themselves divinity, and require sacrifice that they may be esteemed
gods, and delight in these honours on no other account than this,
because they know that true sacrifice is due to the true God.
17. _Of the two fathers and leaders who sprang from one
progenitor._
Since, then, Adam was the father of both lines,--the father, that is
to say, both of the line which belonged to the earthly, and of that
which belonged to the heavenly city,--when Abel was slain, and by his
death exhibited a marvellous mystery, there were henceforth two lines
proceeding from two fathers, Cain and Seth, and in those sons of
theirs, whom it behoved to register, the tokens of these two cities
began to appear more distinctly. For Cain begat Enoch, in whose name
he built a city, an earthly one, which was not from home in this
world, but rested satisfied with its temporal peace and happiness.
Cain, too, means "possession;" wherefore at his birth either his
father or mother said, "I have gotten a man through God." Then Enoch
means "dedication;" for the earthly city is dedicated in this world
in which it is built, for in this world it finds the end towards
which it aims and aspires. Further, Seth signifies "resurrection,"
and Enos his son signifies "man," not as Adam, which also signifies
man but is used in Hebrew indifferently for man and woman, as it is
written, "Male and female created He them, and blessed them, and
called their name Adam,"[184] leaving no room to doubt that though
the woman was distinctively called Eve, yet the name Adam, meaning
man, was common to both. But Enos means man in so restricted a
sense, that Hebrew linguists tell us it cannot be applied to woman:
it is the equivalent of the "child of the resurrection," when they
neither marry nor are given in marriage.[185] For there shall be no
generation in that place to which regeneration shall have brought
us. Wherefore I think it not immaterial to observe that in those
generations which are propagated from him who is called Seth,
although daughters as well as sons are said to have been begotten,
no woman is expressly registered by name; but in those which sprang
from Cain at the very termination to which the line runs, the last
person named as begotten is a woman. For we read, "Methusael begat
Lamech. And Lamech took unto him two wives: the name of the one was
Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. And Adah bare Jabal: he was
the father of the shepherds that dwell in tents. And his brother's
name was Jubal: he was the father of all such as handle the harp
and organ. And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-Cain, an instructor of
every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubal-Cain was
Naamah."[186] Here terminate all the generations of Cain, being
eight in number, including Adam,--to wit, seven from Adam to Lamech,
who married two wives, and whose children, among whom a woman also
is named, form the eighth generation. Whereby it is elegantly
signified that the earthly city shall to its termination have carnal
generations proceeding from the intercourse of males and females.
And therefore the wives themselves of the man who is the last named
father of Cain's line are registered in their own names,--a practice
nowhere followed before the deluge save in Eve's case. Now as Cain,
signifying possession, the founder of the earthly city, and his son
Enoch, meaning dedication, in whose name it was founded, indicate
that this city is earthly both in its beginning and in its end,--a
city in which nothing more is hoped for than can be seen in this
world,--so Seth, meaning resurrection, and being the father of
generations registered apart from the others, we must consider what
this sacred history says of his son.
18. _The significance of Abel, Seth, and Enos to Christ and
His body the Church._
"And to Seth," it is said, "there was born a son, and he called his
name Enos: he hoped to call on the name of the Lord God."[187] Here
we have a loud testimony to the truth. Man, then, the son of the
resurrection, lives in hope: he lives in hope as long as the city of
God, which is begotten by faith in the resurrection, sojourns in
this world. For in these two men, Abel, signifying "grief," and his
brother Seth, signifying "resurrection," the death of Christ and His
life from the dead are prefigured. And by faith in these is begotten
in this world the city of God, that is to say, the man who has hoped
to call on the name of the Lord. "For by hope," says the apostle, "we
are saved: but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth,
why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope for that we see not, then do
we with patience wait for it."[188] Who can avoid referring this to a
profound mystery? For did not Abel hope to call upon the name of the
Lord God when his sacrifice is mentioned in Scripture as having been
accepted by God? Did not Seth himself hope to call on the name of the
Lord God, of whom it was said, "For God hath appointed me another
seed instead of Abel?" Why then is this which is found to be common
to all the godly specially attributed to Enos, unless because it was
fit that in him, who is mentioned as the first-born of the father
of those generations which were separated to the better part of the
heavenly city, there should be a type of the man, or society of men,
who live not according to man in contentment with earthly felicity,
but according to God in hope of everlasting felicity? And it was not
said, "He hoped in the Lord God," nor "He called on the name of the
Lord God," but "He hoped to call on the name of the Lord God." And
what does this "hoped to call" mean, unless it is a prophecy that a
people should arise who, according to the election of grace, would
call on the name of the Lord God? It is this which has been said by
another prophet, and which the apostle interprets of the people who
belong to the grace of God: "And it shall be that whosoever shall
call upon the name of the Lord shall be saved."[189] For these two
expressions, "And he called his name Enos, which means man," and "He
hoped to call on the name of the Lord God," are sufficient proof
that man ought not to rest his hopes in himself; as it is elsewhere
written, "Cursed is the man that trusteth in man."[190] Consequently
no one ought to trust in himself that he shall become a citizen of
that other city which is not dedicated in the name of Cain's son in
this present time, that is to say, in the fleeting course of this
mortal world, but in the immortality of perpetual blessedness.
19. _The significance of Enoch's translation._
For that line also of which Seth is the father has the name
"Dedication" in the seventh generation from Adam, counting Adam. For
the seventh from him is Enoch, that is, Dedication. But this is that
man who was translated because he pleased God, and who held in the
order of the generations a remarkable place, being the seventh from
Adam, a number signalized by the consecration of the Sabbath. But,
counting from the diverging point of the two lines, or from Seth,
he was the sixth. Now it was on the sixth day God made man, and
consummated His works. But the translation of Enoch prefigured our
deferred dedication; for though it is indeed already accomplished in
Christ our Head, who so rose again that He shall die no more, and who
was Himself also translated, yet there remains another dedication
of the whole house, of which Christ Himself is the foundation, and
this dedication is deferred till the end, when all shall rise again
to die no more. And whether it is the house of God, or the temple of
God, or the city of God, that is said to be dedicated, it is all the
same, and equally in accordance with the usage of the Latin language.
For Virgil himself calls the city of widest empire "the house of
Assaracus,"[191] meaning the Romans, who were descended through
the Trojans from Assaracus. He also calls them the house of Æneas,
because Rome was built by those Trojans who had come to Italy under
Æneas.[192] For that poet imitated the sacred writings, in which the
Hebrew nation, though so numerous, is called the house of Jacob.
20. _How it is that Cain's line terminates in the eighth
generation, while Noah, though descended from the same father,
Adam, is found to be the tenth from him._
Some one will say, If the writer of this history intended, in
enumerating the generations from Adam through his son Seth, to
descend through them to Noah, in whose time the deluge occurred, and
from him again to trace the connected generations down to Abraham,
with whom Matthew begins the pedigree of Christ the eternal King of
the city of God, what did he intend by enumerating the generations
from Cain, and to what terminus did he mean to trace them? We reply,
To the deluge, by which the whole stock of the earthly city was
destroyed, but repaired by the sons of Noah. For the earthly city
and community of men who live after the flesh will never fail until
the end of this world, of which our Lord says, "The children of this
world generate, and are generated."[193] But the city of God, which
sojourns in this world, is conducted by regeneration to the world to
come, of which the children neither generate nor are generated. In
this world generation is common to both cities; though even now the
city of God has many thousand citizens who abstain from the act of
generation; yet the other city also has some citizens who imitate
these, though erroneously. For to that city belong also those who
have erred from the faith, and introduced divers heresies; for
they live according to man, not according to God. And the Indian
gymnosophists, who are said to philosophize in the solitudes of
India in a state of nudity, are its citizens; and they abstain
from marriage. For continence is not a good thing, except when it
is practised in the faith of the highest good, that is, God. Yet
no one is found to have practised it before the deluge; for indeed
even Enoch himself, the seventh from Adam, who is said to have been
translated without dying, begat sons and daughters before he was
translated, and among these was Methuselah, by whom the succession of
the recorded generations is maintained.
Why, then, is so small a number of Cain's generations registered, if
it was proper to trace them to the deluge, and if there was no such
delay of the date of puberty as to preclude the hope of offspring
for a hundred or more years? For if the author of this book had
not in view some one to whom he might rigidly trace the series of
generations, as he designed in those which sprang from Seth's seed
to descend to Noah, and thence to start again by a rigid order,
what need was there of omitting the first-born sons for the sake of
descending to Lamech, in whose sons that line terminates,--that
is to say, in the eighth generation from Adam, or the seventh from
Cain,--as if from this point he had wished to pass on to another
series, by which he might reach either the Israelitish people,
among whom the earthly Jerusalem presented a prophetic figure of
the heavenly city, or to Jesus Christ, "according to the flesh, who
is over all, God blessed for ever,"[194] the Maker and Ruler of the
heavenly city? What, I say, was the need of this, seeing that the
whole of Cain's posterity were destroyed in the deluge? From this it
is manifest that they are the first-born sons who are registered in
this genealogy. Why, then, are there so few of them? Their numbers in
the period before the deluge must have been greater, if the date of
puberty bore no proportion to their longevity, and they had children
before they were a hundred years old. For supposing they were on an
average thirty years old when they began to beget children, then, as
there are eight generations, including Adam and Lamech's children,
8 times 30 gives 240 years; did they then produce no more children
in all the rest of the time before the deluge? With what intention,
then, did he who wrote this record make no mention of subsequent
generations? For from Adam to the deluge there are reckoned,
according to our copies of Scripture, 2262 years,[195] and according
to the Hebrew text, 1656 years. Supposing, then, the smaller number
to be the true one, and subtracting from 1656 years 240, is it
credible that during the remaining 1400 and odd years until the
deluge the posterity of Cain begat no children?
But let any one who is moved by this call to mind that when I
discussed the question, how it is credible that those primitive
men could abstain for so many years from begetting children, two
modes of solution were found,--either a puberty late in proportion
to their longevity, or that the sons registered in the genealogies
were not the first-born, but those through whom the author of the
book intended to reach the point aimed at, as he intended to reach
Noah by the generations of Seth. So that, if in the generations of
Cain there occurs no one whom the writer could make it his object
to reach by omitting the first-borns and inserting those who would
serve such a purpose, then we must have recourse to the supposition
of late puberty, and say that only at some age beyond a hundred years
they became capable of begetting children, so that the order of the
generations ran through the first-borns, and filled up even the
whole period before the deluge, long though it was. It is, however,
possible that, for some more secret reason which escapes me, this
city, which we say is earthly, is exhibited in all its generations
down to Lamech and his sons, and that then the writer withholds
from recording the rest which may have existed before the deluge.
And without supposing so late a puberty in these men, there might
be another reason for tracing the generations by sons who were not
first-borns, viz. that the same city which Cain built, and named
after his son Enoch, may have had a widely extended dominion and many
kings, not reigning simultaneously, but successively, the reigning
king begetting always his successor. Cain himself would be the first
of these kings; his son Enoch, in whose name the city in which he
reigned was built, would be the second; the third Irad, whom Enoch
begat; the fourth Mehujael, whom Irad begat; the fifth Methusael,
whom Mehujael begat; the sixth Lamech, whom Methusael begat, and who
is the seventh from Adam through Cain. But it was not necessary that
the first-born should succeed their fathers in the kingdom, but those
would succeed who were recommended by the possession of some virtue
useful to the earthly city, or who were chosen by lot, or the son who
was best liked by his father would succeed by a kind of hereditary
right to the throne. And the deluge may have happened during the
lifetime and reign of Lamech, and may have destroyed him along with
all other men, save those who were in the ark. For we cannot be
surprised that, during so long a period from Adam to the deluge, and
with the ages of individuals varying as they did, there should not be
an equal number of generations in both lines, but seven in Cain's,
and ten in Seth's; for as I have already said, Lamech is the seventh
from Adam, Noah the tenth; and in Lamech's case not one son only is
registered, as in the former instances, but more, because it was
uncertain which of them would have succeeded when he died, if there
had intervened any time to reign between his death and the deluge.
But in whatever manner the generations of Cain's line are traced
downwards, whether it be by first-born sons or by the heirs to
the throne, it seems to me that I must by no means omit to notice
that, when Lamech had been set down as the seventh from Adam, there
were named, in addition, as many of his children as made up this
number to eleven, which is the number signifying sin; for three
sons and one daughter are added. The wives of Lamech have another
signification, different from that which I am now pressing. For at
present I am speaking of the children, and not of those by whom the
children were begotten. Since, then, the law is symbolized by the
number ten,--whence that memorable Decalogue,--there is no doubt
that the number eleven, which goes beyond[196] ten, symbolizes the
transgression of the law, and consequently sin. For this reason,
eleven veils of goat's skin were ordered to be hung in the tabernacle
of the testimony, which served in the wanderings of God's people as
an ambulatory temple. And in that haircloth there was a reminder of
sins, because the goats were to be set on the left hand of the Judge;
and therefore, when we confess our sins, we prostrate ourselves in
haircloth, as if we were saying what is written in the psalm, "My
sin is ever before me."[197] The progeny of Adam, then, by Cain
the murderer, is completed in the number eleven, which symbolizes
sin; and this number itself is made up by a woman, as it was by the
same sex that beginning was made of sin by which we all die. And
it was committed that the pleasure of the flesh, which resists the
spirit, might follow; and so Naamah, the daughter of Lamech, means
"pleasure." But from Adam to Noah, in the line of Seth, there are
ten generations. And to Noah three sons are added, of whom, while
one fell into sin, two were blessed by their father; so that, if you
deduct the reprobate and add the gracious sons to the number, you get
twelve,--a number signalized in the case of the patriarchs and of
the apostles, and made up of the parts of the number seven multiplied
into one another,--for three times four, or four times three, give
twelve. These things being so, I see that I must consider and mention
how these two lines, which by their separate genealogies depict the
two cities, one of earth-born, the other of regenerated persons,
became afterwards so mixed and confused, that the whole human race,
with the exception of eight persons, deserved to perish in the deluge.
21. _Why it is that, as soon as Cain's son Enoch has been named,
the genealogy is forthwith continued as far as the deluge,
while after the mention of Enos, Seth's son, the narrative
returns again to the creation of man._
We must first see why, in the enumeration of Cain's posterity, after
Enoch, in whose name the city was built, has been first of all
mentioned, the rest are at once enumerated down to that terminus of
which I have spoken, and at which that race and the whole line was
destroyed in the deluge; while, after Enos the son of Seth has been
mentioned, the rest are not at once named down to the deluge, but a
clause is inserted to the following effect: "This is the book of the
generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness
of God made He him; male and female created He them; and blessed them,
and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created."[198]
This seems to me to be inserted for this purpose, that here again the
reckoning of the times may start from Adam himself,--a purpose which
the writer had not in view in speaking of the earthly city, as if God
mentioned it, but did not take account of its duration. But why does
he return to this recapitulation after mentioning the son of Seth,
the man who hoped to call on the name of the Lord God, unless because
it was fit thus to present these two cities, the one beginning with a
murderer and ending in a murderer (for Lamech, too, acknowledges to
his two wives that he had committed murder), the other built up by him
who hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God? For the highest and
complete terrestrial duty of the city of God, which is a stranger in
this world, is that which was exemplified in the individual who was
begotten by him who typified the resurrection of the murdered Abel.
That one man is the unity of the whole heavenly city, not yet indeed
complete, but to be completed, as this prophetic figure foreshows. The
son of Cain, therefore, that is, the son of possession (and of what
but an earthly possession?), may have a name in the earthly city which
was built in his name. It is of such the Psalmist says, "They call
their lands after their own names."[199] Wherefore they incur what is
written in another psalm: "Thou, O Lord, in Thy city wilt despise their
image."[200] But as for the son of Seth, the son of the resurrection,
let him hope to call on the name of the Lord God. For he prefigures
that society of men which says, "But I am like a green olive-tree in
the house of God: I have trusted in the mercy of God."[201] But let him
not seek the empty honours of a famous name upon earth, for "Blessed
is the man that maketh the name of the Lord his trust, and respecteth
not vanities nor lying follies."[202] After having presented the two
cities, the one founded in the material good of this world, the other
in hope in God, but both starting from a common gate opened in Adam
into this mortal state, and both running on and running out to their
proper and merited ends, Scripture begins to reckon the times, and in
this reckoning includes other generations, making a recapitulation
from Adam, out of whose condemned seed, as out of one mass handed over
to merited damnation, God made some vessels of wrath to dishonour and
others vessels of mercy to honour; in punishment rendering to the
former what is due, in grace giving to the latter what is not due:
in order that by the very comparison of itself with the vessels of
wrath, the heavenly city, which sojourns on earth, may learn not to
put confidence in the liberty of its own will, but may hope to call on
the name of the Lord God. For will, being a nature which was made good
by the good God, but mutable by the immutable, because it was made out
of nothing, can both decline from good to do evil, which takes place
when it freely chooses, and can also escape the evil and do good, which
takes place only by divine assistance.
22. _Of the fall of the sons of God who were captivated by the
daughters of men, whereby all, with the exception of eight
persons, deservedly perished in the deluge._
When the human race, in the exercise of this freedom of will,
increased and advanced, there arose a mixture and confusion of the
two cities by their participation in a common iniquity. And this
calamity, as well as the first, was occasioned by woman, though
not in the same way; for these women were not themselves betrayed,
neither did they persuade the men to sin, but having belonged to the
earthly city and society of the earthly, they had been of corrupt
manners from the first, and were loved for their bodily beauty by the
sons of God, or the citizens of the other city which sojourns in this
world. Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not
think it a great good, God dispenses it even to the wicked. And thus,
when the good that is great and proper to the good was abandoned by
the sons of God, they fell to a paltry good which is not peculiar to
the good, but common to the good and the evil; and when they were
captivated by the daughters of men, they adopted the manners of the
earthly to win them as their brides, and forsook the godly ways
they had followed in their own holy society. And thus beauty, which
is indeed God's handiwork, but only a temporal, carnal, and lower
kind of good, is not fitly loved in preference to God, the eternal,
spiritual, and unchangeable good. When the miser prefers his gold to
justice, it is through no fault of the gold, but of the man; and so
with every created thing. For though it be good, it may be loved with
an evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when it is
loved ordinately; evilly, when inordinately. It is this which some
one has briefly said in these verses in praise of the Creator:[203]
"These are Thine, they are good, because Thou art good who didst
create them. There is in them nothing of ours, unless the sin we
commit when we forget the order of things, and instead of Thee love
that which Thou hast made."
But if the Creator is truly loved, that is, if He Himself is loved
and not another thing in His stead, He cannot be evilly loved; for
love itself is to be ordinately loved, because we do well to love
that which, when we love it, makes us live well and virtuously.
So that it seems to me that it is a brief but true definition of
virtue to say, it is the order of love; and on this account, in the
Canticles, the bride of Christ, the city of God, sings, "Order love
within me."[204] It was the order of this love, then, this charity
or attachment, which the sons of God disturbed when they forsook
God, and were enamoured of the daughters of men.[205] And by these
two names (sons of God and daughters of men) the two cities are
sufficiently distinguished. For though the former were by nature
children of men, they had come into possession of another name by
grace. For in the same Scripture in which the sons of God are said to
have loved the daughters of men, they are also called angels of God;
whence many suppose that they were not men but angels.
23. _Whether we are to believe that angels, who are of a spiritual
substance, fell in love with the beauty of women, and sought them
in marriage, and that from this connection giants were born._
In the third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing reference
to this question, but did not decide whether angels, inasmuch as
they are spirits, could have bodily intercourse with women. For it
is written, "Who maketh His angels spirits,"[206] that is, He makes
those who are by nature spirits His angels by appointing them to
the duty of bearing His messages. For the Greek word ἄγγελος, which
in Latin appears as "angelus," means a messenger. But whether the
Psalmist speaks of their bodies when he adds, "and His ministers a
flaming fire," or means that God's ministers ought to blaze with love
as with a spiritual fire, is doubtful. However, the same trustworthy
Scripture testifies that angels have appeared to men in such bodies
as could not only be seen, but also touched. There is, too, a very
general rumour, which many have verified by their own experience,
or which trustworthy persons who have heard the experience of
others corroborate, that sylvans and fauns, who are commonly called
"incubi," had often made wicked assaults upon women, and satisfied
their lust upon them; and that certain devils, called Duses by the
Gauls, are constantly attempting and effecting this impurity is so
generally affirmed, that it were impudent to deny it.[207] From
these assertions, indeed, I dare not determine whether there be some
spirits embodied in an aerial substance (for this element, even when
agitated by a fan, is sensibly felt by the body), and who are capable
of lust and of mingling sensibly with women; but certainly I could by
no means believe that God's holy angels could at that time have so
fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter said,
"For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down
to hell, and delivered them into chains of darkness, to be reserved
unto judgment."[208] I think he rather speaks of those who first
apostatized from God, along with their chief the devil, who enviously
deceived the first man under the form of a serpent. But the same holy
Scripture affords the most ample testimony that even godly men have
been called angels; for of John it is written: "Behold, I send my
messenger (angel) before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way."[209]
And the prophet Malachi, by a peculiar grace specially communicated
to him, was called an angel.[210]
But some are moved by the fact that we have read that the fruit of
the connection between those who are called angels of God and the
women they loved were not men like our own breed, but giants; just
as if there were not born even in our own time (as I have mentioned
above) men of much greater size than the ordinary stature. Was
there not at Rome a few years ago, when the destruction of the city
now accomplished by the Goths was drawing near, a woman, with her
father and mother, who by her gigantic size overtopped all others?
Surprising crowds from all quarters came to see her, and that which
struck them most was the circumstance that neither of her parents
were quite up to the tallest ordinary stature. Giants therefore might
well be born, even before the sons of God, who are also called angels
of God, formed a connection with the daughters of men, or of those
living according to men, that is to say, before the sons of Seth
formed a connection with the daughters of Cain. For thus speaks even
the canonical Scripture itself in the book in which we read of this;
its words are: "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on
the face of the earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the
sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair [good];
and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord God
said, My Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is
flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred and twenty years. There were
giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons
of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to
them, the same became the giants, men of renown."[211] These words of
the divine book sufficiently indicate that already there were giants
in the earth in those days, in which the sons of God took wives of
the children of men, when they loved them because they were good,
that is, fair. For it is the custom of this Scripture to call those
who are beautiful in appearance "good." But after this connection had
been formed, then too were giants born. For the words are: "There
were giants in the earth in those days, _and also after that_, when
the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men." Therefore there
were giants both before, "in those days," and "also after that."
And the words, "they bare children to them," show plainly enough
that before the sons of God fell in this fashion they begat children
to God, not to themselves,--that is to say, not moved by the lust
of sexual intercourse, but discharging the duty of propagation,
intending to produce not a family to gratify their own pride, but
citizens to people the city of God; and to these they as God's angels
would bear the message, that they should place their hope in God,
like him who was born of Seth the son of resurrection, and who hoped
to call on the name of the Lord God, in which hope they and their
offspring would be co-heirs of eternal blessings, and brethren in the
family of which God is the Father.
But that those angels were not angels in the sense of not being
men, as some suppose, Scripture itself decides, which unambiguously
declares that they were men. For when it had first been stated that
"the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and
they took them wives of all which they chose," it was immediately
added, "And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not always strive
with these men, for that they also are flesh." For by the Spirit of
God they had been made angels of God, and sons of God; but declining
towards lower things, they are called men, a name of nature, not of
grace; and they are called flesh, as deserters of the Spirit, and
by their desertion deserted [by Him]. The Septuagint indeed calls
them both angels of God and sons of God, though all the copies do
not show this, some having only the name "sons of God." And Aquila,
whom the Jews prefer to the other interpreters,[212] has translated
neither angels of God nor sons of God, but sons of gods. But both
are correct. For they were both sons of God, and thus brothers of
their own fathers, who were children of the same God; and they were
sons of gods, because begotten by gods, together with whom they
themselves also were gods, according to that expression of the psalm:
"I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most
High."[213] For the Septuagint translators are justly believed to
have received the Spirit of prophecy; so that, if they made any
alterations under His authority, and did not adhere to a strict
translation, we could not doubt that this was divinely dictated.
However, the Hebrew word may be said to be ambiguous, and to be
susceptible of either translation, "sons of God," or "sons of gods."
Let us omit, then, the fables of those scriptures which are called
apocryphal, because their obscure origin was unknown to the fathers
from whom the authority of the true Scriptures has been transmitted
to us by a most certain and well-ascertained succession. For though
there is some truth in these apocryphal writings, yet they contain
so many false statements, that they have no canonical authority.
We cannot deny that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, left some divine
writings, for this is asserted by the Apostle Jude in his canonical
epistle. But it is not without reason that these writings have no
place in that canon of Scripture which was preserved in the temple
of the Hebrew people by the diligence of successive priests; for
their antiquity brought them under suspicion, and it was impossible
to ascertain whether these were his genuine writings, and they were
not brought forward as genuine by the persons who were found to have
carefully preserved the canonical books by a successive transmission.
So that the writings which are produced under his name, and which
contain these fables about the giants, saying that their fathers were
not men, are properly judged by prudent men to be not genuine; just
as many writings are produced by heretics under the names both of
other prophets, and, more recently, under the names of the apostles,
all of which, after careful examination, have been set apart from
canonical authority under the title of Apocrypha. There is therefore
no doubt that, according to the Hebrew and Christian canonical
Scriptures, there were many giants before the deluge, and that these
were citizens of the earthly society of men, and that the sons of
God, who were according to the flesh the sons of Seth, sunk into this
community when they forsook righteousness. Nor need we wonder that
giants should be born even from these. For all of their children were
not giants; but there were more then than in the remaining periods
since the deluge. And it pleased the Creator to produce them, that
it might thus be demonstrated that neither beauty, nor yet size and
strength, are of much moment to the wise man, whose blessedness lies
in spiritual and immortal blessings, in far better and more enduring
gifts, in the good things that are the peculiar property of the good,
and are not shared by good and bad alike. It is this which another
prophet confirms when he says, "These were the giants, famous from
the beginning, that were of so great stature, and so expert in war.
Those did not the Lord choose, neither gave He the way of knowledge
unto them; but they were destroyed because they had no wisdom, and
perished through their own foolishness."[214]
24. _How we are to understand this which the Lord said to those who
were to perish in the flood: "Their days shall be_ 120 _years."_
But that which God said, "Their days shall be an hundred and twenty
years," is not to be understood as a prediction that henceforth men
should not live longer than 120 years,--for even after the deluge we
find that they lived more than 500 years,--but we are to understand
that God said this when Noah had nearly completed his fifth century,
that is, had lived 480 years, which Scripture, as it frequently uses
the name of the whole for the largest part, calls 500 years. Now the
deluge came in the 600th year of Noah's life, the second month; and
thus 120 years were predicted as being the remaining span of those
who were doomed, which years being spent, they should be destroyed
by the deluge. And it is not unreasonably believed that the deluge
came as it did, because already there were not found upon earth any
who were not worthy of sharing a death so manifestly judicial,--not
that a good man, who must die some time, would be a jot the worse of
such a death after it was past. Nevertheless there died in the deluge
none of those mentioned in the sacred Scripture as descended from
Seth. But here is the divine account of the cause of the deluge: "The
Lord God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and
that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil
continually. And it repented[215] the Lord that He had made man on
the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the Lord said, I will
destroy man, whom I have created, from the face of the earth; both
man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air: for
I am angry that I have made them."[216]
25. _Of the anger of God, which does not inflame His mind, nor
disturb His unchangeable tranquillity._
The anger of God is not a disturbing emotion of His mind, but a
judgment by which punishment is inflicted upon sin. His thought
and reconsideration also are the unchangeable reason which
changes things; for He does not, like man, repent of anything He
has done, because in all matters His decision is as inflexible as
His prescience is certain. But if Scripture were not to use such
expressions as the above, it would not familiarly insinuate itself
into the minds of all classes of men, whom it seeks access to for
their good, that it may alarm the proud, arouse the careless,
exercise the inquisitive, and satisfy the intelligent; and this it
could not do, did it not first stoop, and in a manner descend, to
them where they lie. But its denouncing death on all the animals of
earth and air is a declaration of the vastness of the disaster that
was approaching: not that it threatens destruction to the irrational
animals as if they too had incurred it by sin.
26. _That the ark which Noah was ordered to make figures in
every respect Christ and the church._
Moreover, inasmuch as God commanded Noah, a just man, and, as the
truthful Scripture says, a man perfect in his generation,--not indeed
with the perfection of the citizens of the city of God in that
immortal condition in which they equal the angels, but in so far as
they can be perfect in their sojourn in this world,--inasmuch as God
commanded him, I say, to make an ark, in which he might be rescued
from the destruction of the flood, along with his family, _i.e._ his
wife, sons, and daughters-in-law, and along with the animals who, in
obedience to God's command, came to him into the ark: is certainly
a figure of the city of God sojourning in this world; that is to
say, of the church, which is rescued by the wood on which hung the
Mediator of God and men, the man Christ Jesus.[217] For even its
very dimensions, in length, breadth, and height, represent the human
body in which He came, as it had been foretold. For the length of
the human body, from the crown of the head to the sole of the foot,
is six times its breadth from side to side, and ten times its depth
or thickness, measuring from back to front: that is to say, if you
measure a man as he lies on his back or on his face, he is six times
as long from head to foot as he is broad from side to side, and ten
times as long as he is high from the ground. And therefore the ark
was made 300 cubits in length, 50 in breadth, and 30 in height. And
its having a door made in the side of it certainly signified the
wound which was made when the side of the Crucified was pierced with
the spear: for by this those who come to Him enter; for thence flowed
the sacraments by which those who believe are initiated. And the fact
that it was ordered to be made of squared timbers, signifies the
immoveable steadiness of the life of the saints; for however you turn
a cube, it still stands. And the other peculiarities of the ark's
construction are signs of features of the church.
But we have not now time to pursue this subject; and, indeed, we
have already dwelt upon it in the work we wrote against Faustus the
Manichean, who denies that there is anything prophesied of Christ
in the Hebrew books. It may be that one man's exposition excels
another's, and that ours is not the best; but all that is said
must be referred to this city of God we speak of, which sojourns
in this wicked world as in a deluge, at least if the expositor
would not widely miss the meaning of the author. For example, the
interpretation I have given in the work against Faustus, of the
words, "with lower, second, and third storeys shalt thou make it,"
is, that because the church is gathered out of all nations, it is
said to have two storeys, to represent the two kinds of men,--the
circumcision, to wit, and the uncircumcision, or, as the apostle
otherwise calls them, Jews and Gentiles; and to have three storeys,
because all the nations were replenished from the three sons of Noah.
Now any one may object to this interpretation, and may give another
which harmonizes with the rule of faith. For as the ark was to have
rooms not only on the lower, but also on the upper storeys, which
were called "third storeys," that there might be a habitable space
on the third floor from the basement, some one may interpret these
to mean the three graces commended by the apostle,--faith, hope, and
charity. Or even more suitably they may be supposed to represent
those three harvests in the gospel, thirty-fold, sixtyfold, an
hundredfold,--chaste marriage dwelling in the ground floor, chaste
widowhood in the upper, and chaste virginity in the top storey. Or
any better interpretation may be given, so long as the reference to
this city is maintained. And the same statement I would make of all
the remaining particulars in this passage which require exposition,
viz. that although different explanations are given, yet they must
all agree with the one harmonious catholic faith.
27. _Of the ark and the deluge, and that we cannot agree with
those who receive the bare history, but reject the allegorical
interpretation, nor with those who maintain the figurative and
not the historical meaning._
Yet no one ought to suppose either that these things were written for
no purpose, or that we should study only the historical truth, apart
from any allegorical meanings; or, on the contrary, that they are
only allegories, and that there were no such facts at all, or that,
whether it be so or no, there is here no prophecy of the church.
For what right-minded man will contend that books so religiously
preserved during thousands of years, and transmitted by so orderly
a succession, were written without an object, or that only the bare
historical facts are to be considered when we read them? For, not
to mention other instances, if the number of the animals entailed
the construction of an ark of great size, where was the necessity of
sending into it two unclean and seven clean animals of each species,
when both could have been preserved in equal numbers? Or could not
God, who ordered them to be preserved in order to replenish the race,
restore them in the same way He had created them?
But they who contend that these things never happened, but are only
figures setting forth other things, in the first place suppose that
there could not be a flood so great that the water should rise
fifteen cubits above the highest mountains, because it is said
that clouds cannot rise above the top of Mount Olympus, because it
reaches the sky where there is none of that thicker atmosphere in
which winds, clouds, and rains have their origin. They do not reflect
that the densest element of all, earth, can exist there; or perhaps
they deny that the top of the mountain is earth. Why, then, do these
measurers and weighers of the elements contend that earth can be
raised to those aerial altitudes, and that water cannot, while they
admit that water is lighter, and liker to ascend than earth? What
reason do they adduce why earth, the heavier and lower element, has
for so many ages scaled to the tranquil æther, while water, the
lighter, and more likely to ascend, is not suffered to do the same
even for a brief space of time?
They say, too, that the area of that ark could not contain so many
kinds of animals of both sexes, two of the unclean and seven of the
clean. But they seem to me to reckon only one area of 300 cubits long
and 50 broad, and not to remember that there was another similar
in the storey above, and yet another as large in the storey above
that again; and that there was consequently an area of 900 cubits by
150. And if we accept what Origen[218] has with some appropriateness
suggested, that Moses the man of God, being, as it is written,
"learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,"[219] who delighted
in geometry, may have meant geometrical cubits, of which they say
that one is equal to six of our cubits, then who does not see what a
capacity these dimensions give to the ark? For as to their objection
that an ark of such size could not be built, it is a very silly
calumny; for they are aware that huge cities have been built, and
they should remember that the ark was an hundred years in building.
Or, perhaps, though stone can adhere to stone when cemented with
nothing but lime, so that a wall of several miles may be constructed,
yet plank cannot be riveted to plank by mortices, bolts, nails,
and pitch-glue, so as to construct an ark which was not made with
curved ribs but straight timbers, which was not to be launched by its
builders but to be lifted by the natural pressure of the water when
it reached it, and which was to be preserved from shipwreck as it
floated about rather by divine oversight than by human skill.
As to another customary inquiry of the scrupulous about the very
minute creatures, not only such as mice and lizards, but also
locusts, beetles, flies, fleas, and so forth, whether there were not
in the ark a larger number of them than was determined by God in
His command, those persons who are moved by this difficulty are to
be reminded that the words "every creeping thing of the earth" only
indicate that it was not needful to preserve in the ark the animals
that can live in the water, whether the fishes that live submerged
in it, or the sea-birds that swim on its surface. Then, when it is
said "male and female," no doubt reference is made to the repairing
of the races, and consequently there was no need for those creatures
being in the ark which are born without the union of the sexes from
inanimate things, or from their corruption; or if they were in the
ark, they might be there as they commonly are in houses, not in any
determinate numbers; or if it was necessary that there should be a
definite number of all those animals that cannot naturally live in
the water, that so the most sacred mystery which was being enacted
might be bodied forth and perfectly figured in actual realities,
still this was not the care of Noah or his sons, but of God. For
Noah did not catch the animals and put them into the ark, but gave
them entrance as they came seeking it. For this is the force of the
words, "They shall come unto thee,"[1]--not, that is to say, by man's
effort, but by God's will. But certainly we are not required to
believe that those which have no sex also came; for it is expressly
and definitely said, "They shall be male and female."[220] For there
are some animals which are born out of corruption, but yet afterwards
they themselves copulate and produce offspring, as flies; but others,
which have no sex, like bees. Then, as to those animals which have
sex, but without ability to propagate their kind, like mules and
she-mules, it is probable that they were not in the ark, but that
it was counted sufficient to preserve their parents, to wit, the
horse and the ass; and this applies to all hybrids. Yet, if it was
necessary for the completeness of the mystery, they were there; for
even this species has "male and female."
Another question is commonly raised regarding the food of the
carnivorous animals,--whether, without transgressing the command
which fixed the number to be preserved, there were necessarily others
included in the ark for their sustenance; or, as is more probable,
there might be some food which was not flesh, and which yet suited
all. For we know how many animals whose food is flesh eat also
vegetable products and fruits, especially figs and chestnuts. What
wonder is it, therefore, if that wise and just man was instructed
by God what would suit each, so that without flesh he prepared and
stored provision fit for every species? And what is there which
hunger would not make animals eat? Or what could not be made sweet
and wholesome by God, who, with a divine facility, might have enabled
them to do without food at all, had it not been requisite to the
completeness of so great a mystery that they should be fed? But none
but a contentious man can suppose that there was no prefiguring
of the church in so manifold and circumstantial a detail. For the
nations have already so filled the church, and are comprehended in
the framework of its unity, the clean and unclean together, until
the appointed end, that this one very manifest fulfilment leaves no
doubt how we should interpret even those others which are somewhat
more obscure, and which cannot so readily be discerned. And since
this is so, if not even the most audacious will presume to assert
that these things were written without a purpose, or that though the
events really happened they mean nothing, or that they did not really
happen, but are only allegory, or that at all events they are far
from having any figurative reference to the church; if it has been
made out that, on the other hand, we must rather believe that there
was a wise purpose in their being committed to memory and to writing,
and that they did happen, and have a significance, and that this
significance has a prophetic reference to the church, then this book,
having served this purpose, may now be closed, that we may go on to
trace in the history subsequent to the deluge the courses of the two
cities,--the earthly, that lives according to men, and the heavenly,
that lives according to God.
FOOTNOTES:
[130] 1 Cor. xv. 46.
[131] Rom. ix. 21.
[132] Gen. iv. 17.
[133] Comp. _De Trin._ xv. c. 15.
[134] Gal. iv. 21-31.
[135] Rom. ix. 22, 23.
[136] Wisdom viii. 1.
[137] Lucan, _Phar._ i. 95.
[138] Gal. v. 17.
[139] Gal. vi. 2.
[140] 1 Thess. v. 14, 15.
[141] Gal. vi. 1.
[142] Eph. iv. 26.
[143] Matt. xviii. 15.
[144] 1 Tim. v. 20.
[145] Heb. xii. 14.
[146] Matt. xviii. 35.
[147] Rom. vi. 12, 13.
[148] Gen. iv. 6, 7.
[149] Literally, "division."
[150] 1 John iii. 12.
[151] We alter the pronoun to suit Augustine's interpretation.
[152] Gal. v. 17.
[153] Rom. vii. 17.
[154] Rom. vi. 13.
[155] Gen. iii. 16.
[156] Eph. v. 28, 29.
[157] _C. Faustum. Man._ xii. c. 9.
[158] Gen. iv. 17.
[159] Gen. iv. 25.
[160] Lamech, according to the LXX.
[161] Ex. xii. 37.
[162] Virgil, _Æneid_, xii. 899, 900. Compare the _Iliad_, v. 302,
and Juvenal, xv. 65 et seqq.
"Terra malos homines nunc educat atque pusillos."
[163] Plin. _Hist. Nat._ vii. 16.
[164] See the account given by Herodotus (i. 67) of the discovery of
the bones of Orestes, which, as the story goes, gave a stature of
seven cubits.
[165] Pliny, _Hist. Nat._ vii. 49, merely reports what he had read in
Hellanicus about the Epirotes of Etolia.
[166] "Our own MSS.," of which Augustine here speaks, were the Latin
versions of the Septuagint used by the Church before Jerome's was
received; the "Hebrew MSS." were the versions made from the Hebrew
text. Compare _De Doct. Christ._ ii. 15 et seqq.
[167] Jerome (_De Quæst. Heb. in Gen._) says it was a question famous
in all the churches.--VIVES.
[168] "Quos in auctoritatem celebriorum Ecclesia suscepit."
[169] See below, book xviii. c. 42-44.
[170] C. 8.
[171] On this subject see Wilkinson's note to the second book
(appendix) of Rawlinson's _Herodotus_, where all available references
are given.
[172] One hundred and eighty-seven is the number given in the Hebrew,
and one hundred and sixty-seven in the Septuagint; but notwithstanding
the confusion, the argument of Augustine is easily followed.
[173] Gen. vii. 10, 11 (in our version the seventeenth day).
[174] Gen. viii. 4, 5.
[175] Ps. xc. 10.
[176] Gen. iv. 1.
[177] Gen. iv. 25.
[178] Gen. v. 6.
[179] Gen. v. 8.
[180] Matt. i.
[181] His own children being the children of his sister, and
therefore his nephews.
[182] This was allowed by the Egyptians and Athenians, never by the
Romans.
[183] Both in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, though not uniformly, nor in
Latin commonly.
[184] Gen. v. 2.
[185] Luke xx. 35, 36.
[186] Gen. iv. 18-22.
[187] Gen. iv. 26.
[188] Rom. viii. 24, 25.
[189] Rom. x. 13.
[190] Jer. xvii. 5.
[191] _Æneid_, i. 288.
[192] _Æneid_, iii. 97.
[193] Luke xx. 34.
[194] Rom. ix. 5.
[195] Eusebius, Jerome, Bede, and others, who follow the Septuagint,
reckon only 2242 years, which Vives explains by supposing Augustine
to have made a copyist's error.
[196] _Transgreditur._
[197] Ps. li. 3.
[198] Gen. v. 1.
[199] Ps. xlix. 11.
[200] Ps. lxxiii. 20.
[201] Ps. lii. 8.
[202] Ps. xl. 4.
[203] Or, according to another reading, "Which I briefly said in
these verses in praise of a taper."
[204] Cant. ii. 4.
[205] See _De Doct. Christ._ i. 28.
[206] Ps. civ. 4.
[207] On these kinds of devils, see the note of Vives _in loc._,
or Lecky's _Hist. of Rationalism_, i. 26, who quotes from Maury's
_Histoire de la Magie_, that the Dusii were Celtic spirits, and are
the origin of our "Deuce."
[208] 2 Pet. ii. 4.
[209] Mark i. 2.
[210] Mal. ii. 7.
[211] Gen. vi. 1-4. Lactantius (_Inst._ ii. 15), Sulpicius Severus
(_Hist._ i. 2), and others suppose from this passage that angels had
commerce with the daughters of men. See further references in the
Commentary of Pererius _in loc_.
[212] Aquila lived in the time of Hadrian, to whom he is said to
have been related. He was excommunicated from the Church for the
practice of astrology; and is best known by his translation of the
Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, which he executed with great care and
accuracy, though he has been charged with falsifying passages to
support the Jews in their opposition to Christianity.
[213] Ps. lxxxii. 6.
[214] Baruch iii. 26-28.
[215] Lit.: "The Lord thought and reconsidered."
[216] Gen. vi. 5-7.
[217] 1 Tim. ii. 5.
[218] In his second homily on Genesis.
[219] Acts vii. 22.
[220] Gen. vi. 19, 20.
BOOK SIXTEENTH.
ARGUMENT.
IN THE FORMER PART OF THIS BOOK, FROM THE FIRST TO THE TWELFTH
CHAPTER, THE PROGRESS OF THE TWO CITIES, THE EARTHLY AND
THE HEAVENLY, FROM NOAH TO ABRAHAM, IS EXHIBITED FROM HOLY
SCRIPTURE: IN THE LATTER PART, THE PROGRESS OF THE HEAVENLY
ALONE, FROM ABRAHAM TO THE KINGS OF ISRAEL, IS THE SUBJECT.
1. _Whether, after the deluge, from Noah to Abraham, any families
can be found who lived according to God._
It is difficult to discover from Scripture, whether, after the
deluge, traces of the holy city are continuous, or are so interrupted
by intervening seasons of godlessness, that not a single worshipper
of the one true God was found among men; because from Noah, who,
with his wife, three sons, and as many daughters-in-law, achieved
deliverance in the ark from the destruction of the deluge, down to
Abraham, we do not find in the canonical books that the piety of
any one is celebrated by express divine testimony, unless it be in
the case of Noah, who commends with a prophetic benediction his two
sons Shem and Japheth, while he beheld and foresaw what was long
afterwards to happen. It was also by this prophetic spirit that,
when his middle son--that is, the son who was younger than the first
and older than the last born--had sinned against him, he cursed him
not in his own person, but in his son's (his own grandson's), in the
words, "Cursed be the lad Canaan; a servant shall he be unto his
brethren."[221] Now Canaan was born of Ham, who, so far from covering
his sleeping father's nakedness, had divulged it. For the same reason
also he subjoins the blessing on his two other sons, the oldest and
youngest, saying, "Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and Canaan shall
be his servant. God shall gladden Japheth, and he shall dwell in the
houses of Shem."[222] And so, too, the planting of the vine by Noah,
and his intoxication by its fruit, and his nakedness while he slept,
and the other things done at that time, and recorded, are all of them
pregnant with prophetic meanings, and veiled in mysteries.[223]
2. _What was prophetically prefigured in the sons of Noah._
The things which then were hidden are now sufficiently revealed
by the actual events which have followed. For who can carefully
and intelligently consider these things without recognising them
accomplished in Christ? Shem, of whom Christ was born in the flesh,
means "named." And what is of greater name than Christ, the fragrance
of whose name is now everywhere perceived, so that even prophecy
sings of it beforehand, comparing it in the Song of Songs[224] to
ointment poured forth? Is it not also in the houses of Christ, that
is, in the churches, that the "enlargement" of the nations dwells?
For Japheth means "enlargement." And Ham (_i.e._ hot), who was the
middle son of Noah, and, as it were, separated himself from both,
and remained between them, neither belonging to the first-fruits of
Israel nor to the fulness of the Gentiles, what does he signify but
the tribe of heretics, hot with the spirit, not of patience, but of
impatience, with which the breasts of heretics are wont to blaze,
and with which they disturb the peace of the saints? But even the
heretics yield an advantage to those that make proficiency, according
to the apostle's saying, "There must also be heresies, that they
which are approved may be made manifest among you."[225] Whence,
too, it is elsewhere said, "The son that receives instruction will
be wise, and he uses the foolish as his servant."[226] For while the
hot restlessness of heretics stirs questions about many articles of
the catholic faith, the necessity of defending them forces us both to
investigate them more accurately, to understand them more clearly,
and to proclaim them more earnestly; and the question mooted by an
adversary becomes the occasion of instruction. However, not only
those who are openly separated from the church, but also all who
glory in the Christian name, and at the same time lead abandoned
lives, may without absurdity seem to be figured by Noah's middle
son: for the passion of Christ, which was signified by that man's
nakedness, is at once proclaimed by their profession, and dishonoured
by their wicked conduct. Of such, therefore, it has been said,
"By their fruits ye shall know them."[227] And therefore was Ham
cursed in his son, he being, as it were, his fruit. So, too, this
son of his, Canaan, is fitly interpreted "their movement," which is
nothing else than their work. But Shem and Japheth, that is to say,
the circumcision and uncircumcision, or, as the apostle otherwise
calls them, the Jews and Greeks, but called and justified, having
somehow discovered the nakedness of their father (which signifies
the Saviour's passion), took a garment and laid it upon their backs,
and entered backwards and covered their father's nakedness, without
their seeing what their reverence hid. For we both honour the passion
of Christ as accomplished for us, and we hate the crime of the Jews
who crucified Him. The garment signifies the sacrament, their backs
the memory of things past: for the church celebrates the passion of
Christ as already accomplished, and no longer to be looked forward
to, now that Japheth already dwells in the habitations of Shem, and
their wicked brother between them.
But the wicked brother is, in the person of his son (_i.e._ his
work), the boy, or slave, of his good brothers, when good men make
a skilful use of bad men, either for the exercise of their patience
or for their advancement in wisdom. For the apostle testifies that
there are some who preach Christ from no pure motives; "but," says
he, "whether in pretence or in truth, Christ is preached; and I
therein do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice."[228] For it is Christ
Himself who planted the vine of which the prophet says, "The vine of
the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel;"[229] and He drinks of its
wine, whether we thus understand that cup of which He says, "Can ye
drink of the cup that I shall drink of?"[230] and, "Father, if it
be possible, let this cup pass from me,"[231] by which He obviously
means His passion. Or, as wine is the fruit of the vine, we may
prefer to understand that from this vine, that is to say, from the
race of Israel, He has assumed flesh and blood that He might suffer;
"and he was drunken," that is, He suffered; "and was naked," that is,
His weakness appeared in His suffering, as the apostle says, "though
He was crucified through weakness."[232] Wherefore the same apostle
says, "The weakness of God is stronger than men; and the foolishness
of God is wiser than men."[233] And when to the expression "he was
naked" Scripture adds "in his house," it elegantly intimates that
Jesus was to suffer the cross and death at the hands of His own
household, His own kith and kin, the Jews. This passion of Christ is
only externally and verbally professed by the reprobate, for what
they profess they do not understand. But the elect hold in the inner
man this so great mystery, and honour inwardly in the heart this
weakness and foolishness of God. And of this there is a figure in Ham
going out to proclaim his father's nakedness; while Shem and Japheth,
to cover or honour it, went in, that is to say, did it inwardly.
These secrets of divine Scripture we investigate as well as we can.
All will not accept our interpretation with equal confidence, but
all hold it certain that these things were neither done nor recorded
without some foreshadowing of future events, and that they are to be
referred only to Christ and His church, which is the city of God,
proclaimed from the very beginning of human history by figures which
we now see everywhere accomplished. From the blessing of the two sons
of Noah, and the cursing of the middle son, down to Abraham, or for
more than a thousand years, there is, as I have said, no mention of
any righteous persons who worshipped God. I do not therefore conclude
that there were none; but it had been tedious to mention every one,
and would have displayed historical accuracy rather than prophetic
foresight. The object of the writer of these sacred books, or rather
of the Spirit of God in him, is not only to record the past, but
to depict the future, so far as it regards the city of God; for
whatever is said of those who are not its citizens, is given either
for her instruction, or as a foil to enhance her glory. Yet we are
not to suppose that all that is recorded has some signification; but
those things which have no signification of their own are interwoven
for the sake of the things which are significant. It is only the
ploughshare that cleaves the soil; but to effect this, other parts of
the plough are requisite. It is only the strings in harps and other
musical instruments which produce melodious sounds; but that they may
do so, there are other parts of the instrument which are not indeed
struck by those who sing, but are connected with the strings which
are struck, and produce musical notes. So in this prophetic history
some things are narrated which have no significance, but are, as it
were, the framework to which the significant things are attached.
3. _Of the generations of the three sons of Noah._
We must therefore introduce into this work an explanation of the
generations of the three sons of Noah, in so far as that may illustrate
the progress in time of the two cities. Scripture first mentions that
of the youngest son, who is called Japheth: he had eight sons,[234]
and by two of these sons seven grandchildren, three by one son, four
by the other; in all, fifteen descendants. Ham, Noah's middle son, had
four sons, and by one of them five grandsons, and by one of these two
great-grandsons; in all, eleven. After enumerating these, Scripture
returns to the first of the sons, and says, "Cush begat Nimrod; he
began to be a giant on the earth. He was a giant hunter against the
Lord God: wherefore they say, As Nimrod the giant hunter against the
Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, Erech, Accad, and
Calneh, in the land of Shinar. Out of that land went forth Assur, and
built Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between
Nineveh and Calah: this was a great city." Now this Cush, father of
the giant Nimrod, is the first-named among the sons of Ham, to whom
five sons and two grandsons are ascribed. But he either begat this
giant after his grandsons were born, or, which is more credible,
Scripture speaks of him separately on account of his eminence; for
mention is also made of his kingdom, which began with that magnificent
city Babylon, and the other places, whether cities or districts,
mentioned along with it. But what is recorded of the land of Shinar
which belonged to Nimrod's kingdom, to wit, that Assur went forth from
it and built Nineveh and the other cities mentioned with it, happened
long after; but he takes occasion to speak of it here on account of
the grandeur of the Assyrian kingdom, which was wonderfully extended
by Ninus son of Belus, and founder of the great city Nineveh, which
was named after him, Nineveh, from Ninus. But Assur, father of the
Assyrian, was not one of the sons of Ham, Noah's middle son, but is
found among the sons of Shem, his eldest son. Whence it appears that
among Shem's offspring there arose men who afterwards took possession
of that giant's kingdom, and advancing from it, founded other cities,
the first of which was called Nineveh, from Ninus. From him Scripture
returns to Ham's other son, Mizraim; and his sons are enumerated, not
as seven individuals, but as seven nations. And from the sixth, as
if from the sixth son, the race called the Philistines are said to
have sprung; so that there are in all eight. Then it returns again to
Canaan, in whose person Ham was cursed; and his eleven sons are named.
Then the territories they occupied, and some of the cities, are named.
And thus, if we count sons and grandsons, there are thirty-one of Ham's
descendants registered.
It remains to mention the sons of Shem, Noah's eldest son; for to
him this genealogical narrative gradually ascends from the youngest.
But in the commencement of the record of Shem's sons there is an
obscurity which calls for explanation, since it is closely connected
with the object of our investigation. For we read, "Unto Shem also,
the father of all the children of Heber, the brother of Japheth the
elder, were children born."[235] This is the order of the words:
And to Shem was born Heber, even to himself, that is, to Shem
himself was born Heber, and Shem is the father of all his children.
We are intended to understand that Shem is the patriarch of all
his posterity who were to be mentioned, whether sons, grandsons,
great-grandsons, or descendants at any remove. For Shem did not beget
Heber, who was indeed in the fifth generation from him. For Shem
begat, among other sons, Arphaxad; Arphaxad begat Cainan, Cainan
begat Salah, Salah begat Heber. And it was with good reason that he
was named first among Shem's offspring, taking precedence even of his
sons, though only a grandchild of the fifth generation; for from him,
as tradition says, the Hebrews derived their name, though the other
etymology which derives the name from Abraham (as if _Abrahews_) may
possibly be correct. But there can be little doubt that the former
is the right etymology, and that they were called after Heber,
_Heberews_, and then, dropping a letter, Hebrews; and so was their
language called Hebrew, which was spoken by none but the people
of Israel among whom was the city of God, mysteriously prefigured
in all the people, and truly present in the saints. Six of Shem's
sons then are first named, then four grandsons born to one of these
sons; then it mentions another son of Shem, who begat a grandson;
and his son, again, or Shem's great-grandson, was Heber. And Heber
begat two sons, and called the one Peleg, which means "dividing;"
and Scripture subjoins the reason of this name, saying, "for in
his days was the earth divided." What this means will afterwards
appear. Heber's other son begat twelve sons; consequently all Shem's
descendants are twenty-seven. The total number of the progeny of the
three sons of Noah is seventy-three, fifteen by Japheth, thirty-one
by Ham, twenty-seven by Shem. Then Scripture adds, "These are the
sons of Shem, after their families, after their tongues, in their
lands, after their nations." And so of the whole number: "These
are the families of the sons of Noah after their generations, in
their nations; and by these were the isles of the nations dispersed
through the earth after the flood." From which we gather that the
seventy-three (or rather, as I shall presently show, seventy-two)
were not individuals, but nations. For in a former passage, when the
sons of Japheth were enumerated, it is said in conclusion, "By these
were the isles of the nations divided in their lands, every one after
his language, in their tribes, and in their nations."
But nations are expressly mentioned among the sons of Ham, as I
showed above. "Mizraim begat those who are called Ludim;" and so also
of the other seven nations. And after enumerating all of them, it
concludes, "These are the sons of Ham, in their families, according
to their languages, in their territories, and in their nations." The
reason, then, why the children of several of them are not mentioned,
is that they belonged by birth to other nations, and did not
themselves become nations. Why else is it, that though eight sons are
reckoned to Japheth, the sons of only two of these are mentioned; and
though four are reckoned to Ham, only three are spoken of as having
sons; and though six are reckoned to Shem, the descendants of only
two of these are traced? Did the rest remain childless? We cannot
suppose so; but they did not produce nations so great as to warrant
their being mentioned, but were absorbed in the nations to which they
belonged by birth.
4. _Of the diversity of languages, and of the founding of Babylon._
But though these nations are said to have been dispersed according to
their languages, yet the narrator recurs to that time when all had
but one language, and explains how it came to pass that a diversity
of languages was introduced. "The whole earth," he says, "was of one
lip, and all had one speech. And it came to pass, as they journeyed
from the east, that they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and
dwelt there. And they said one to another, Come, and let us make
bricks, and burn them thoroughly. And they had bricks for stone, and
slime for mortar. And they said, Come, and let us build for ourselves
a city, and a tower whose top shall reach the sky; and let us make
us a name, before we be scattered abroad on the face of all the
earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which
the children, of men builded. And the Lord God said, Behold, the
people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin
to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have
imagined to do. Come, and let us go down, and confound there their
language, that they may not understand one another's speech. And God
scattered them thence on the face of all the earth: and they left
off to build the city and the tower. Therefore the name of it is
called Confusion; because the Lord did there confound the language of
all the earth: and the Lord God scattered them thence on the face of
all the earth."[236] This city, which was called Confusion, is the
same as Babylon, whose wonderful construction Gentile history also
notices. For Babylon means Confusion. Whence we conclude that the
giant Nimrod was its founder, as had been hinted a little before,
where Scripture, in speaking of him, says that the beginning of
his kingdom was Babylon, that is, Babylon had a supremacy over the
other cities as the metropolis and royal residence; although it did
not rise to the grand dimensions designed by its proud and impious
founder. The plan was to make it so high that it should reach the
sky, whether this was meant of one tower which they intended to
build higher than the others, or of all the towers, which might be
signified by the singular number, as we speak of "the soldier,"
meaning the army, and of the frog or the locust, when we refer to the
whole multitude of frogs and locusts in the plagues with which Moses
smote the Egyptians.[237] But what did these vain and presumptuous
men intend? How did they expect to raise this lofty mass against God,
when they had built it above all the mountains and the clouds of
the earth's atmosphere? What injury could any spiritual or material
elevation do to God? The safe and true way to heaven is made by
humility, which lifts up the heart to the Lord, not against Him;
as this giant is said to have been a "hunter _against_ the Lord."
This has been misunderstood by some through the ambiguity of the
Greek word, and they have translated it, not "against the Lord," but
"before the Lord;" for ἔναντιον means both "before" and "against."
In the Psalm this word is rendered, "Let us weep _before_ the Lord
our Maker."[238] The same word occurs in the book of Job, where it is
written, "Thou hast broken into fury _against_ the Lord."[239] And
so this giant is to be recognised as a "hunter _against_ the Lord."
And what is meant by the term "hunter" but deceiver, oppressor, and
destroyer of the animals of the earth? He and his people, therefore,
erected this tower against the Lord, and so gave expression to their
impious pride; and justly was their wicked intention punished by
God, even though it was unsuccessful. But what was the nature of the
punishment? As the tongue is the instrument of domination, in it
pride was punished; so that man, who would not understand God when
He issued His commands, should be misunderstood when he himself gave
orders. Thus was that conspiracy disbanded, for each man retired from
those he could not understand, and associated with those whose speech
was intelligible; and the nations were divided according to their
languages, and scattered over the earth as seemed good to God, who
accomplished this in ways hidden from and incomprehensible to us.
5. _Of God's coming down to confound the languages of the builders
of the city._
We read, "The Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the
sons of men built:" it was not the sons of God, but that society
which lived in a merely human way, and which we call the earthly
city. God, who is always wholly everywhere, does not move locally;
but He is said to descend when He does anything in the earth out of
the usual course, which, as it were, makes His presence felt. And
in the same way, He does not by "seeing" learn some new thing, for
He cannot ever be ignorant of anything; but He is said to see and
recognise, in time, that which He causes others to see and recognise.
And therefore that city was not previously being seen as God made
it be seen when He showed how offensive it was to Him. We might,
indeed, interpret God's descending to the city of the descent of
His angels in whom He dwells; so that the following words, "And the
Lord God said, Behold, they are all one race and of one language,"
and also what follows, "Come, and let us go down and confound
their speech," are a recapitulation, explaining how the previously
intimated "descent of the Lord" was accomplished. For if He had
already gone down, why does He say, "Come, and let us go down and
confound?"--words which seem to be addressed to the angels, and to
intimate that He who was in the angels descended in their descent.
And the words most appropriately are, not, "Go ye down and confound,"
but, "Let us confound their speech;" showing that He so works by His
servants, that they are themselves also fellow-labourers with God, as
the apostle says, "For we are fellow-labourers with God."[240]
6. _What we are to understand by God's speaking to the angels._
We might have supposed that the words uttered at the creation of man,
"Let us," and not Let me, "make man," were addressed to the angels,
had He not added "in our image;" but as we cannot believe that man
was made in the image of angels, or that the image of God is the
same as that of angels, it is proper to refer this expression to the
plurality of the Trinity. And yet this Trinity, being one God, even
after saying "Let _us_ make," goes on to say, "And God made man in
His image,"[241] and not "Gods made," or "in their image." And were
there any difficulty in applying to the angels the words, "Come,
and let us go down and confound their speech," we might refer the
plural to the Trinity, as if the Father were addressing the Son and
the Holy Spirit; but it rather belongs to the angels to approach God
by holy movements, that is, by pious thoughts, and thereby to avail
themselves of the unchangeable truth which rules in the court of
heaven as their eternal law. For they are not themselves the truth;
but partaking in the creative truth, they are moved towards it as
the fountain of life, that what they have not in themselves they may
obtain in it. And this movement of theirs is steady, for they never
go back from what they have reached. And to these angels God does not
speak, as we speak to one another, or to God, or to angels, or as the
angels speak to us, or as God speaks to us through them: He speaks
to them in an ineffable manner of His own, and that which He says is
conveyed to us in a manner suited to our capacity. For the speaking
of God antecedent and superior to all His works, is the immutable
reason of His work: it has no noisy and passing sound, but an energy
eternally abiding and producing results in time. Thus He speaks to
the holy angels; but to us, who are far off, He speaks otherwise.
When, however, we hear with the inner ear some part of the speech
of God, we approximate to the angels. But in this work I need not
labour to give an account of the ways in which God speaks. For either
the unchangeable Truth speaks directly to the mind of the rational
creature in some indescribable way, or speaks through the changeable
creature, either presenting spiritual images to our spirit, or bodily
voices to our bodily sense.
The words, "Nothing will be restrained from them which they have
imagined to do,"[242] are assuredly not meant as an affirmation, but
as an interrogation, such as is used by persons threatening, as,
_e.g._, when Dido exclaims,
"They will not take arms and pursue?"[243]
We are to understand the words as if it had been said, Shall nothing
be restrained from them which they have imagined to do?[244] From
these three men, therefore, the three sons of Noah we mean, 73, or
rather, as the catalogue will show, 72 nations and as many languages
were dispersed over the earth, and as they increased filled even the
islands. But the nations multiplied much more than the languages. For
even in Africa we know several barbarous nations which have but one
language; and who can doubt that, as the human race increased, men
contrived to pass to the islands in ships?
7. _Whether even the remotest islands received their_ FAUNA _from
the animals which were preserved, through the deluge, in the ark_.
There is a question raised about all those kinds of beasts which are
not domesticated, nor are produced like frogs from the earth, but are
propagated by male and female parents, such as wolves and animals of
that kind; and it is asked how they could be found in the islands
after the deluge, in which all the animals not in the ark perished,
unless the breed was restored from those which were preserved in
pairs in the ark. It might, indeed, be said that they crossed to
the islands by swimming, but this could only be true of those very
near the mainland; whereas there are some so distant, that we fancy
no animal could swim to them. But if men caught them and took them
across with themselves, and thus propagated these breeds in their new
abodes, this would not imply an incredible fondness for the chase. At
the same time, it cannot be denied that by the intervention of angels
they might be transferred by God's order or permission. If, however,
they were produced out of the earth as at their first creation, when
God said, "Let the earth bring forth the living creature,"[245]
this makes it more evident that all kinds of animals were preserved
in the ark, not so much for the sake of renewing the stock, as of
prefiguring the various nations which were to be saved in the church;
this, I say, is more evident, if the earth brought forth many animals
in islands to which they could not cross over.
8. _Whether certain monstrous races of men are derived from the
stock of Adam or Noah's sons._
It is also asked whether we are to believe that certain monstrous
races of men, spoken of in secular history,[246] have sprung from
Noah's sons, or rather, I should say, from that one man from whom
they themselves were descended. For it is reported that some have
one eye in the middle of the forehead; some, feet turned backwards
from the heel; some, a double sex, the right breast like a man, the
left like a woman, and that they alternately beget and bring forth:
others are said to have no mouth, and to breathe only through the
nostrils; others are but a cubit high, and are therefore called by
the Greeks "Pigmies:"[247] they say that in some places the women
conceive in their fifth year, and do not live beyond their eighth.
So, too, they tell of a race who have two feet but only one leg, and
are of marvellous swiftness, though they do not bend the knee: they
are called Skiopodes, because in the hot weather they lie down on
their backs and shade themselves with their feet. Others are said to
have no head, and their eyes in their shoulders; and other human or
quasi-human races are depicted in mosaic in the harbour esplanade of
Carthage, on the faith of histories of rarities. What shall I say
of the Cynocephali, whose dog-like head and barking proclaim them
beasts rather than men? But we are not bound to believe all we hear
of these monstrosities. But whoever is anywhere born a man, that
is, a rational mortal animal, no matter what unusual appearance he
presents in colour, movement, sound, nor how peculiar he is in some
power, part, or quality of his nature, no Christian can doubt that he
springs from that one protoplast. We can distinguish the common human
nature from that which is peculiar, and therefore wonderful.
The same account which is given of monstrous births in individual
cases can be given of monstrous races. For God, the Creator of
all, knows where and when each thing ought to be, or to have been
created, because He sees the similarities and diversities which can
contribute to the beauty of the whole. But he who cannot see the
whole is offended by the deformity of the part, because he is blind
to that which balances it, and to which it belongs. We know that
men are born with more than four fingers on their hands or toes on
their feet: this is a smaller matter; but far from us be the folly
of supposing that the Creator mistook the number of a man's fingers,
though we cannot account for the difference. And so in cases where
the divergence from the rule is greater. He whose works no man justly
finds fault with, knows what He has done. At Hippo-Diarrhytus there
is a man whose hands are crescent-shaped, and have only two fingers
each, and his feet similarly formed. If there were a race like him,
it would be added to the history of the curious and wonderful. Shall
we therefore deny that this man is descended from that one man who
was first created? As for the Androgyni, or Hermaphrodites, as
they are called, though they are rare, yet from time to time there
appear persons of sex so doubtful, that it remains uncertain from
which sex they take their name; though it is customary to give them
a masculine name, as the more worthy. For no one ever called them
Hermaphroditesses. Some years ago, quite within my own memory, a man
was born in the East, double in his upper, but single in his lower
half--having two heads, two chests, four hands, but one body and two
feet like an ordinary man; and he lived so long that many had an
opportunity of seeing him. But who could enumerate all the human
births that have differed widely from their ascertained parents? As,
therefore, no one will deny that these are all descended from that
one man, so all the races which are reported to have diverged in
bodily appearance from the usual course which nature generally or
almost universally preserves, if they are embraced in that definition
of man as rational and mortal animals, unquestionably trace their
pedigree to that one first father of all. We are supposing these
stories about various races who differ from one another and from
us to be true; but possibly they are not: for if we were not aware
that apes, and monkeys, and sphinxes are not men, but beasts, those
historians would possibly describe them as races of men, and flaunt
with impunity their false and vainglorious discoveries. But supposing
they are men of whom these marvels are recorded, what if God has seen
fit to create some races in this way, that we might not suppose that
the monstrous births which appear among ourselves are the failures
of that wisdom whereby He fashions the human nature, as we speak of
the failure of a less perfect workman? Accordingly, it ought not to
seem absurd to us, that as in individual races there are monstrous
births, so in the whole race there are monstrous races. Wherefore, to
conclude this question cautiously and guardedly, either these things
which have been told of some races have no existence at all; or if
they do exist, they are not human races; or if they are human, they
are descended from Adam.
9. _Whether we are to believe in the Antipodes._
But as to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on
the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to
us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours, that is on no ground
credible. And, indeed, it is not affirmed that this has been learned
by historical knowledge, but by scientific conjecture, on the ground
that the earth is suspended within the concavity of the sky, and that
it has as much room on the one side of it as on the other: hence they
say that the part which is beneath must also be inhabited. But they do
not remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated
that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not
follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even,
though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled. For
Scripture, which proves the truth of its historical statements by the
accomplishment of its prophecies, gives no false information; and it is
too absurd to say, that some men might have taken ship and traversed
the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the
other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are
descended from that one first man. Wherefore let us seek if we can find
the city of God that sojourns on earth among those human races who are
catalogued as having been divided into seventy-two nations and as many
languages. For it continued down to the deluge and the ark, and is
proved to have existed still among the sons of Noah by their blessings,
and chiefly in the eldest son Shem; for Japheth received this blessing,
that he should dwell in the tents of Shem.
10. _Of the genealogy of Shem, in whose line the city of God
is preserved till the time of Abraham._
It is necessary, therefore, to preserve the series of generations
descending from Shem, for the sake of exhibiting the city of God
after the flood; as before the flood it was exhibited in the series
of generations descending from Seth. And therefore does divine
Scripture, after exhibiting the earthly city as Babylon or "Confusion,"
revert to the patriarch Shem, and recapitulate the generations from
him to Abraham, specifying besides, the year in which each father
begat the son that belonged to this line, and how long he lived. And
unquestionably it is this which fulfils the promise I made, that it
should appear why it is said of the sons of Heber, "The name of the
one was Peleg, for in his days the earth was divided."[248] For what
can we understand by the division of the earth, if not the diversity
of languages? And, therefore, omitting the other sons of Shem, who
are not concerned in this matter, Scripture gives the genealogy of
those by whom the line runs on to Abraham, as before the flood those
are given who carried on the line to Noah from Seth. Accordingly this
series of generations begins thus: "These are the generations of Shem:
Shem was an hundred years old, and begat Arphaxad two years after
the flood. And Shem lived after he begat Arphaxad five hundred years,
and begat sons and daughters." In like manner it registers the rest,
naming the year of his life in which each begat the son who belonged
to that line which extends to Abraham. It specifies, too, how many
years he lived thereafter, begetting sons and daughters, that we may
not childishly suppose that the men named were the only men, but may
understand how the population increased, and how regions and kingdoms
so vast could be populated by the descendants of Shem; especially the
kingdom of Assyria, from which Ninus subdued the surrounding nations,
reigning with brilliant prosperity, and bequeathing to his descendants
a vast but thoroughly consolidated empire, which held together for many
centuries.
But to avoid needless prolixity, we shall mention not the number of
years each member of this series lived, but only the year of his life
in which he begat his heir, that we may thus reckon the number of
years from the flood to Abraham, and may at the same time leave room
to touch briefly and cursorily upon some other matters necessary to
our argument. In the second year, then, after the flood, Shem when
he was a hundred years old begat Arphaxad; Arphaxad when he was 135
years old begat Cainan; Cainan when he was 130 years begat Salah.
Salah himself, too, was the same age when he begat Eber. Eber lived
134 years, and begat Peleg, in whose days the earth was divided.
Peleg himself lived 130 years, and begat Reu; and Reu lived 132
years, and begat Serug; Serug 130, and begat Nahor; and Nahor 79, and
begat Terah; and Terah 70, and begat Abram, whose name God afterwards
changed into _Abraham_. There are thus from the flood to Abraham 1072
years, according to the Vulgate or Septuagint versions. In the Hebrew
copies far fewer years are given; and for this either no reason or a
not very credible one is given.
When, therefore, we look for the city of God in these seventy-two
nations, we cannot affirm that while they had but one lip, that is,
one language, the human race had departed from the worship of the
true God, and that genuine godliness had survived only in those
generations which descend from Shem through Arphaxad and reach to
Abraham; but from the time when they proudly built a tower to
heaven, a symbol of godless exaltation, the city or society of the
wicked becomes apparent. Whether it was only disguised before, or
non-existent; whether both cities remained after the flood,--the
godly in the two sons of Noah who were blessed, and in their
posterity, and the ungodly in the cursed son and his descendants,
from whom sprang that mighty hunter against the Lord,--is not easily
determined. For possibly--and certainly this is more credible--there
were despisers of God among the descendants of the two sons, even
before Babylon was founded, and worshippers of God among the
descendants of Ham. Certainly neither race was ever obliterated from
earth. For in both the Psalms in which it is said, "They are all
gone aside, they are altogether become filthy; there is none that
doeth good, no, not one," we read further, "Have all the workers of
iniquity no knowledge? who eat up my people as they eat bread, and
call not upon the Lord."[249] There was then a people of God even at
that time. And therefore the words, "There is none that doeth good,
no, not one," were said of the sons of men, not of the sons of God.
For it had been previously said, "God looked down from heaven upon
the sons of men, to see if any understood and sought after God;" and
then follow the words which demonstrate that all the sons of men,
that is, all who belong to the city which lives according to man, not
according to God, are reprobate.
11. _That the original language in use among men was that which was
afterwards called Hebrew, from Heber, in whose family it was
preserved when the confusion of tongues occurred._
Wherefore, as the fact of all using one language did not secure the
absence of sin-infected men from the race,--for even before the
deluge there was one language, and yet all but the single family of
just Noah were found worthy of destruction by the flood,--so when
the nations, by a prouder godlessness, earned the punishment of the
dispersion and the confusion of tongues, and the city of the godless
was called Confusion or Babylon, there was still the house of Heber
in which the primitive language of the race survived. And therefore,
as I have already mentioned, when an enumeration is made of the
sons of Shem, who each founded a nation, Heber is first mentioned,
although he was of the fifth generation from Shem. And because, when
the other races were divided by their own peculiar languages, his
family preserved that language which is not unreasonably believed to
have been the common language of the race, it was on this account
thenceforth named Hebrew. For it then became necessary to distinguish
this language from the rest by a proper name; though, while there was
only one, it had no other name than the language of man, or human
speech, it alone being spoken by the whole human race. Some one will
say: If the earth was divided by languages in the days of Peleg,
Heber's son, that language, which was formerly common to all, should
rather have been called after Peleg. But we are to understand that
Heber himself gave to his son this name Peleg, which means Division;
because he was born when the earth was divided, that is, at the very
time of the division, and that this is the meaning of the words, "In
his days the earth was divided."[250] For unless Heber had been still
alive when the languages were multiplied, the language which was
preserved in his house would not have been called after him. We are
induced to believe that this was the primitive and common language,
because the multiplication and change of languages was introduced
as a punishment, and it is fit to ascribe to the people of God an
immunity from this punishment. Nor is it without significance that
this is the language which Abraham retained, and that he could not
transmit it to all his descendants, but only to those of Jacob's
line, who distinctively and eminently constituted God's people, and
received His covenants, and were Christ's progenitors according to
the flesh. In the same way, Heber himself did not transmit that
language to all his posterity, but only to the line from which
Abraham sprang. And thus, although it is not expressly stated,
that when the wicked were building Babylon there was a godly seed
remaining, this indistinctness is intended to stimulate research
rather than to elude it. For when we see that originally there was
one common language, and that Heber is mentioned before all Shem's
sons, though he belonged to the fifth generation from him, and that
the language which the patriarchs and prophets used, not only in
their conversation, but in the authoritative language of Scripture,
is called Hebrew, when we are asked where that primitive and common
language was preserved after the confusion of tongues, certainly, as
there can be no doubt that those among whom it was preserved were
exempt from the punishment it embodied, what other suggestion can we
make, than that it survived in the family of him whose name it took,
and that this is no small proof of the righteousness of this family,
that the punishment with which the other families were visited did
not fall upon it?