BOOK FIFTEENTH.

Argument

HAVING TREATED IN THE FOUR PRECEDING BOOKS OF THE ORIGIN OF THE TWO
CITIES, THE EARTHLY AND THE HEAVENLY, AUGUSTINE EXPLAINS THEIR
GROWTH AND PROGRESS IN THE FOUR BOOKS WHICH FOLLOW; AND, IN
ORDER TO DO SO, HE EXPLAINS THE CHIEF PASSAGES OF THE SACRED HISTORY
WHICH BEAR UPON THIS SUBJECT. IN THIS FIFTEENTH BOOK HE
OPENS THIS PART OF HIS WORK BY EXPLAINING THE EVENTS RECORDED IN
GENESIS FROM THE TIME OF CAIN AND ABEL TO THE DELUGE.

1. Of the two lines of the human race which from first to last divide it.

OF the bliss of Paradise, of Paradise itself, and of the life
of our first parents there, and of their sin and punishment,
many have thought much, spoken much, written much.
We ourselves, too, have spoken of these things in the foregoing
books, and have written either what we read in the
Holy Scriptures, or what we could reasonably deduce from
them. And were we to enter into a more detailed investigation
of these matters, an endless number of endless questions
would arise, which would involve us in a larger work than the
present occasion admits. We cannot be expected to find
room for replying to every question that may be started by
unoccupied and captious men, who are ever more ready to ask
questions than capable of understanding the answer. Yet I
trust we have already done justice to these great and difficult
questions regarding the beginning of the world, or of the soul,
or of the human race itself. This race we have distributed
into two parts, the one consisting of those who live according
to man, the other of those who live according to God. And
these we also mystically call the two cities, or the two communities
of men, of which the one is predestined to reign
eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment
with the devil. This, however, is their end, and of it
we are to speak afterwards. At present, as we have said[Pg 50]
enough about their origin, whether among the angels, whose
numbers we know not, or in the two first human beings, it
seems suitable to attempt an account of their career, from the
time when our two first parents began to propagate the race
until all human generation shall cease. For this whole time
or world-age, in which the dying give place and those who
are born succeed, is the career of these two cities concerning
which we treat.

Of these two first parents of the human race, then, Cain
was the first-born, and he belonged to the city of men; after
him was born Abel, who belonged to the city of God. For
as in the individual the truth of the apostle’s statement is
discerned, “that is not first which is spiritual, but that which
is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual,”[130] whence
it comes to pass that each man, being derived from a condemned
stock, is first of all born of Adam evil and carnal,
and becomes good and spiritual only afterwards, when he is
grafted into Christ by regeneration: so was it in the human
race as a whole. When these two cities began to run their
course by a series of deaths and births, the citizen of this
world was the first-born, and after him the stranger in this
world, the citizen of the city of God, predestinated by grace,
elected by grace, by grace a stranger below, and by grace a
citizen above. By grace,—for so far as regards himself he is
sprung from the same mass, all of which is condemned in its
origin; but God, like a potter (for this comparison is introduced
by the apostle judiciously, and not without thought),
of the same lump made one vessel to honour, another to dishonour.[131]
But first the vessel to dishonour was made, and
after it another to honour. For in each individual, as I have
already said, there is first of all that which is reprobate, that
from which we must begin, but in which we need not necessarily
remain; afterwards is that which is well-approved, to
which we may by advancing attain, and in which, when we
have reached it, we may abide. Not, indeed, that every
wicked man shall be good, but that no one will be good who
was not first of all wicked; but the sooner any one becomes
a good man, the more speedily does he receive this title, and[Pg 51]
abolish the old name in the new. Accordingly, it is recorded
of Cain that he built a city,[132] but Abel, being a sojourner,
built none. For the city of the saints is above, although
here below it begets citizens, in whom it sojourns till the
time of its reign arrives, when it shall gather together all in
the day of the resurrection; and then shall the promised
kingdom be given to them, in which they shall reign with
their Prince, the King of the ages, time without end.

2. Of the children of the flesh and the children of the promise.

There was indeed on earth, so long as it was needed, a
symbol and foreshadowing image of this city, which served
the purpose of reminding men that such a city was to be,
rather than of making it present; and this image was itself
called the holy city, as a symbol of the future city, though
not itself the reality. Of this city which served as an image,
and of that free city it typified, Paul writes to the Galatians
in these terms: “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law,
do ye not hear the law? For it is written, that Abraham
had two sons, the one by a bond maid, the other by a free
woman. But he who was of the bond woman was born after
the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. Which
things are an allegory:[133] for these are the two covenants;
the one from the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage,
which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and
answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with
her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is
the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren
that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not:
for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath
an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children
of promise. But as then he that was born after the
flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it
is now. Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture? Cast out
the bond woman and her son: for the son of the bond woman
shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. And
we, brethren, are not children of the bond woman, but of
the free, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.”[Pg 52][134]
This interpretation of the passage, handed down to us with
apostolic authority, shows how we ought to understand the
Scriptures of the two covenants—the old and the new. One
portion of the earthly city became an image of the heavenly
city, not having a significance of its own, but signifying
another city, and therefore serving, or “being in bondage.”
For it was founded not for its own sake, but to prefigure
another city; and this shadow of a city was also itself foreshadowed
by another preceding figure. For Sarah’s handmaid
Agar, and her son, were an image of this image. And as the
shadows were to pass away when the full light came, Sarah,
the free woman, who prefigured the free city (which again was
also prefigured in another way by that shadow of a city Jerusalem),
therefore said, “Cast out the bond woman and her son;
for the son of the bond woman shall not be heir with my
son Isaac,” or, as the apostle says, “with the son of the free
woman.” In the earthly city, then, we find two things—its
own obvious presence, and its symbolic presentation of the
heavenly city. Now citizens are begotten to the earthly city
by nature vitiated by sin, but to the heavenly city by grace freeing
nature from sin; whence the former are called “vessels of
wrath,” the latter “vessels of mercy.”[135] And this was typified
in the two sons of Abraham,—Ishmael, the son of Agar the
handmaid, being born according to the flesh, while Isaac was
born of the free woman Sarah, according to the promise. Both,
indeed, were of Abraham’s seed; but the one was begotten by
natural law, the other was given by gracious promise. In the
one birth, human action is revealed; in the other, a divine
kindness comes to light.

3. That Sarah’s barrenness was made productive by God’s grace.

Sarah, in fact, was barren; and, despairing of offspring, and
being resolved that she would have at least through her handmaid
that blessing she saw she could not in her own person
procure, she gave her handmaid to her husband, to whom she
herself had been unable to bear children. From him she required
this conjugal duty, exercising her own right in another’s
womb. And thus Ishmael was born according to the common[Pg 53]
law of human generation, by sexual intercourse. Therefore it
is said that he was born “according to the flesh,”—not because
such births are not the gifts of God, nor His handiwork, whose
creative wisdom “reaches,” as it is written, “from one end to
another mightily, and sweetly doth she order all things,”[136]
but because, in a case in which the gift of God, which was
not due to men and was the gratuitous largess of grace, was
to be conspicuous, it was requisite that a son be given in
a way which no effort of nature could compass. Nature
denies children to persons of the age which Abraham and
Sarah had now reached; besides that, in Sarah’s case, she was
barren even in her prime. This nature, so constituted that
offspring could not be looked for, symbolized the nature of
the human race vitiated by sin and by just consequence condemned,
which deserves no future felicity. Fitly, therefore,
does Isaac, the child of promise, typify the children of grace,
the citizens of the free city, who dwell together in everlasting
peace, in which self-love and self-will have no place, but a
ministering love that rejoices in the common joy of all, of
many hearts makes one, that is to say, secures a perfect
concord.

4. Of the conflict and peace of the earthly city.

But the earthly city, which shall not be everlasting (for it
will no longer be a city when it has been committed to the
extreme penalty), has its good in this world, and rejoices in
it with such joy as such things can afford. But as this is
not a good which can discharge its devotees of all distresses,
this city is often divided against itself by litigations, wars,
quarrels, and such victories as are either life-destroying or
short-lived. For each part of it that arms against another
part of it seeks to triumph over the nations through itself in
bondage to vice. If, when it has conquered, it is inflated with
pride, its victory is life-destroying; but if it turns its thoughts
upon the common casualties of our mortal condition, and is
rather anxious concerning the disasters that may befall it
than elated with the successes already achieved, this victory,
though of a higher kind, is still only short-lived; for it cannot
abidingly rule over those whom it has victoriously subjugated.[Pg 54]
But the things which this city desires cannot justly
be said to be evil, for it is itself, in its own kind, better than
all other human good. For it desires earthly peace for the
sake of enjoying earthly goods, and it makes war in order to
attain to this peace; since, if it has conquered, and there
remains no one to resist it, it enjoys a peace which it had not
while there were opposing parties who contested for the enjoyment
of those things which were too small to satisfy both.
This peace is purchased by toilsome wars; it is obtained by
what they style a glorious victory. Now, when victory remains
with the party which had the juster cause, who hesitates
to congratulate the victor, and style it a desirable peace?
These things, then, are good things, and without doubt the
gifts of God. But if they neglect the better things of the
heavenly city, which are secured by eternal victory and peace
never-ending, and so inordinately covet these present good
things that they believe them to be the only desirable things,
or love them better than those things which are believed to
be better,—if this be so, then it is necessary that misery
follow and ever increase.

5. Of the fratricidal act of the founder of the earthly city, and the corresponding
crime of the founder of Rome.

Thus the founder of the earthly city was a fratricide.
Overcome with envy, he slew his own brother, a citizen of
the eternal city, and a sojourner on earth. So that we cannot
be surprised that this first specimen, or, as the Greeks say,
archetype of crime, should, long afterwards, find a corresponding
crime at the foundation of that city which was destined
to reign over so many nations, and be the head of this earthly
city of which we speak. For of that city also, as one of their
poets has mentioned, “the first walls were stained with a
brother’s blood,”[137] or, as Roman history records, Remus was
slain by his brother Romulus. And thus there is no difference
between the foundation of this city and of the earthly
city, unless it be that Romulus and Remus were both citizens
of the earthly city. Both desired to have the glory of founding
the Roman republic, but both could not have as much
glory as if one only claimed it; for he who wished to have[Pg 55]
the glory of ruling would certainly rule less if his power were
shared by a living consort. In order, therefore, that the
whole glory might be enjoyed by one, his consort was removed;
and by this crime the empire was made larger indeed,
but inferior, while otherwise it would have been less, but
better. Now these brothers, Cain and Abel, were not both
animated by the same earthly desires, nor did the murderer
envy the other because he feared that, by both ruling, his own
dominion would be curtailed,—for Abel was not solicitous to
rule in that city which his brother built,—he was moved by
that diabolical, envious hatred with which the evil regard the
good, for no other reason than because they are good while
themselves are evil. For the possession of goodness is by no
means diminished by being shared with a partner either permanent
or temporarily assumed; on the contrary, the possession
of goodness is increased in proportion to the concord and
charity of each of those who share it. In short, he who is
unwilling to share this possession cannot have it; and he who
is most willing to admit others to a share of it will have the
greatest abundance to himself. The quarrel, then, between
Romulus and Remus shows how the earthly city is divided
against itself; that which fell out between Cain and Abel
illustrated the hatred that subsists between the two cities, that
of God and that of men. The wicked war with the wicked;
the good also war with the wicked. But with the good, good
men, or at least perfectly good men, cannot war; though,
while only going on towards perfection, they war to this extent,
that every good man resists others in those points in
which he resists himself. And in each individual “the flesh
lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.”[138]
This spiritual lusting, therefore, can be at war with the carnal
lust of another man; or carnal lust may be at war with the
spiritual desires of another, in some such way as good and
wicked men are at war; or, still more certainly, the carnal
lusts of two men, good but not yet perfect, contend together,
just as the wicked contend with the wicked, until the health
of those who are under the treatment of grace attains final
victory.

[Pg 56]

6. Of the weaknesses which even the citizens of the city of God suffer during this
earthly pilgrimage in punishment of sin, and of which they are healed by
God’s care.

This sickliness—that is to say, that disobedience of which
we spoke in the fourteenth book—is the punishment of the
first disobedience. It is therefore not nature, but vice; and
therefore it is said to the good who are growing in grace, and
living in this pilgrimage by faith, “Bear ye one another’s
burdens, and so fulfil the law of Christ.”[139] In like manner it
is said elsewhere, “Warn them that are unruly, comfort the
feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men.
See that none render evil for evil unto any man.”[140] And in
another place, “If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which
are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness;
considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted.”[141] And elsewhere,
“Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”[142] And
in the Gospel, “If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go
and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.”[143] So too
of sins which may create scandal the apostle says, “Them
that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear.”[144] For
this purpose, and that we may keep that peace without which
no man can see the Lord,[145] many precepts are given which
carefully inculcate mutual forgiveness; among which we may
number that terrible word in which the servant is ordered to
pay his formerly remitted debt of ten thousand talents, because
he did not remit to his fellow-servant his debt of two hundred
pence. To which parable the Lord Jesus added the words, “So
likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from
your hearts forgive not every one his brother.”[146] It is thus
the citizens of the city of God are healed while still they sojourn
in this earth and sigh for the peace of their heavenly
country. The Holy Spirit, too, works within, that the medicine
externally applied may have some good result. Otherwise,
even though God Himself make use of the creatures
that are subject to Him, and in some human form address our
human senses, whether we receive those impressions in sleep[Pg 57]
or in some external appearance, still, if He does not by His
own inward grace sway and act upon the mind, no preaching
of the truth is of any avail. But this God does, distinguishing
between the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy, by
His own very secret but very just providence. When He
Himself aids the soul in His own hidden and wonderful ways,
and the sin which dwells in our members, and is, as the
apostle teaches, rather the punishment of sin, does not reign
in our mortal body to obey the lusts of it, and when we no
longer yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness,[147]
then the soul is converted from its own evil and selfish desires,
and, God possessing it, it possesses itself in peace even
in this life, and afterwards, with perfected health and endowed
with immortality, will reign without sin in peace everlasting.

7. Of the cause of Cain’s crime and his obstinacy, which not even the word of
God could subdue.

But though God made use of this very mode of address
which we have been endeavouring to explain, and spoke to
Cain in that form by which He was wont to accommodate
Himself to our first parents and converse with them as a
companion, what good influence had it on Cain? Did he not
fulfil his wicked intention of killing his brother even after
he was warned by God’s voice? For when God had made a
distinction between their sacrifices, neglecting Cain’s, regarding
Abel’s, which was doubtless intimated by some visible
sign to that effect; and when God had done so because the
works of the one were evil but those of his brother good, Cain
was very wroth, and his countenance fell. For thus it is
written: “And the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth,
and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou offerest rightly,
but dost not rightly distinguish, hast thou not sinned? Fret
not thyself, for unto thee shall be his turning, and thou shalt
rule over him.”[148] In this admonition administered by God to
Cain, that clause indeed, “If thou offerest rightly, but dost
not rightly distinguish, hast thou not sinned?” is obscure, inasmuch
as it is not apparent for what reason or purpose it was
spoken, and many meanings have been put upon it, as each
one who discusses it attempts to interpret it according to the[Pg 58]
rule of faith. The truth is, that a sacrifice is “rightly offered”
when it is offered to the true God, to whom alone we must
sacrifice. And it is “not rightly distinguished” when we do
not rightly distinguish the places or seasons or materials of
the offering, or the person offering, or the person to whom it
is presented, or those to whom it is distributed for food after
the oblation. Distinguishing[149] is here used for discriminating,—whether
when an offering is made in a place where it ought
not or of a material which ought to be offered not there but
elsewhere; or when an offering is made at a wrong time, or
of a material suitable not then but at some other time; or when
that is offered which in no place nor any time ought to be
offered; or when a man keeps to himself choicer specimens
of the same kind than he offers to God; or when he or any
other who may not lawfully partake profanely eats of the oblation.
In which of these particulars Cain displeased God, it is
difficult to determine. But the Apostle John, speaking of
these brothers, says, “Not as Cain, who was of that wicked
one, and slew his brother. And wherefore slew he him? Because
his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.”[150]
He thus gives us to understand that God did not respect his
offering because it was not rightly “distinguished” in this, that
he gave to God something of his own but kept himself to himself.
For this all do who follow not God’s will but their
own, who live not with an upright but a crooked heart, and
yet offer to God such gifts as they suppose will procure from
Him that He aid them not by healing but by gratifying their
evil passions. And this is the characteristic of the earthly
city, that it worships God or gods who may aid it in reigning
victoriously and peacefully on earth not through love of doing
good, but through lust of rule. The good use the world that
they may enjoy God: the wicked, on the contrary, that they
may enjoy the world would fain use God,—those of them, at
least, who have attained to the belief that He is and takes an
interest in human affairs. For they who have not yet attained
even to this belief are still at a much lower level. Cain, then,
when he saw that God had respect to his brother’s sacrifice,
but not to his own, should have humbly chosen his good[Pg 59]
brother as his example, and not proudly counted him his
rival. But he was wroth, and his countenance fell. This angry
regret for another person’s goodness, even his brother’s, was
charged upon him by God as a great sin. And He accused him
of it in the interrogation, “Why art thou wroth, and why is thy
countenance fallen?” For God saw that he envied his brother,
and of this He accused him. For to men, from whom the
heart of their fellow is hid, it might be doubtful and quite
uncertain whether that sadness bewailed his own wickedness
by which, as he had learned, he had displeased God, or his
brother’s goodness, which had pleased God, and won His
favourable regard to his sacrifice. But God, in giving the
reason why He refused to accept Cain’s offering and why
Cain should rather have been displeased at himself than at
his brother, shows him that though he was unjust in “not
rightly distinguishing,” that is, not rightly living and being
unworthy to have his offering received, he was more unjust by
far in hating his just brother without a cause.

Yet He does not dismiss him without counsel, holy, just,
and good. “Fret not thyself,” He says, “for unto thee shall
be his turning, and thou shalt rule over him.” Over his
brother, does He mean? Most certainly not. Over what, then,
but sin? For He had said, “Thou hast sinned,” and then
He added, “Fret not thyself, for to thee shall be its turning,
and thou shalt rule over it.”[151] And the “turning” of sin to
the man can be understood of his conviction that the guilt of
sin can be laid at no other man’s door but his own. For this
is the health-giving medicine of penitence, and the fit plea
for pardon; so that, when it is said, “To thee its turning,” we
must not supply “shall be,” but we must read, “To thee let its
turning be,” understanding it as a command, not as a prediction.
For then shall a man rule over his sin when he does
not prefer it to himself and defend it, but subjects it by repentance;
otherwise he that becomes protector of it shall surely
become its prisoner. But if we understand this sin to be that
carnal concupiscence of which the apostle says, “The flesh
lusteth against the spirit,”[152] among the fruits of which lust he[Pg 60]
names envy, by which assuredly Cain was stung and excited
to destroy his brother, then we may properly supply the
words “shall be,” and read, “To thee shall be its turning, and
thou shalt rule over it.” For when the carnal part which the
apostle calls sin, in that place where he says, “It is not I who
do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,”[153] that part which the
philosophers also call vicious, and which ought not to lead the
mind, but which the mind ought to rule and restrain by reason
from illicit motions,—when, then, this part has been moved to
perpetrate any wickedness, if it be curbed and if it obey the
word of the apostle, “Yield not your members instruments of
unrighteousness unto sin,”[154] it is turned towards the mind and
subdued and conquered by it, so that reason rules over it as
a subject. It was this which God enjoined on him who was
kindled with the fire of envy against his brother, so that he
sought to put out of the way him whom he should have set
as an example. “Fret not thyself,” or compose thyself, He
says: withhold thy hand from crime; let not sin reign in
your mortal body to fulfil it in the lusts thereof, nor yield
your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. “For
to thee shall be its turning,” so long as you do not encourage
it by giving it the rein, but bridle it by quenching its fire.
“And thou shalt rule over it;” for when it is not allowed any
external actings, it yields itself to the rule of the governing
mind and righteous will, and ceases from even internal motions.
There is something similar said in the same divine
book of the woman, when God questioned and judged them
after their sin, and pronounced sentence on them all,—the devil
in the form of the serpent, the woman and her husband in
their own persons. For when He had said to her, “I will
greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow
shalt thou bring forth children,” then He added, “and thy
turning shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”[155]
What is said to Cain about his sin, or about the vicious concupiscence
of his flesh, is here said of the woman who had
sinned; and we are to understand that the husband is to rule
his wife as the soul rules the flesh. And therefore, says the
apostle, “He that loveth his wife, loveth himself; for no man[Pg 61]
ever yet hated his own flesh.”[156] This flesh, then, is to be
healed, because it belongs to ourselves: is not to be abandoned
to destruction as if it were alien to our nature. But Cain received
that counsel of God in the spirit of one who did not
wish to amend. In fact, the vice of envy grew stronger in him;
and, having entrapped his brother, he slew him. Such was
the founder of the earthly city. He was also a figure of the
Jews who slew Christ the Shepherd of the flock of men, prefigured
by Abel the shepherd of sheep: but as this is an allegorical
and prophetical matter, I forbear to explain it now;
besides, I remember that I have made some remarks upon it
in writing against Faustus the Manichæan.[157]

8. What Cain’s reason was for building a city so early in the history
of the human race.

At present it is the history which I aim at defending, that
Scripture 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[Pg 62]
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[Pg 63]
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[Pg 64]
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[Pg 65]
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[Pg 66]
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[Pg 67]
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[Pg 68]
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[Pg 69]
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[Pg 70]
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[Pg 71]
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[Pg 72]
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[Pg 73]
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[Pg 74]
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[Pg 75]
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[Pg 76]
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,[Pg 77]
“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[Pg 78]
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[Pg 79]
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[Pg 80]
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[Pg 81]
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[Pg 82]
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[Pg 83]
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[Pg 84]
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[Pg 85]
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[Pg 86]
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[Pg 87]
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[Pg 88]
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[Pg 89]
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[Pg 90]
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.

[Pg 91]

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[Pg 92]
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[Pg 93]
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[Pg 94]
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.

[Pg 95]

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[Pg 96]
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[Pg 97]
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[Pg 98]
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[Pg 99]
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[Pg 100]
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[Pg 101]
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[Pg 102]
“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[Pg 103]
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.

---

[Pg 104]