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BOOK XV
In Book XV Augustine begins his tracing of the two cities through historical time, covering the period from Adam to the flood. At the start he uses the story of Cain and Abel, which he interweaves with the story of Abraham’s two sons, Ishmael and Isaac, together with the Pauline opposition between the flesh and the spirit, to indicate the character of the two cities and to map the complex pattern of contrasts and conflicts between them, the one formed by nature, the other by grace, the one oriented to this world and its limited goods, which inevitably generate conflict and competition, the other to the eternal good, which engenders undivided love. Within this pattern, Israel—the Jews, the earthly Jerusalem—occupies a special place: it belongs to the earthly city but at the same time serves as an image of the heavenly city. Thus it is in the line of descent that leads from Seth, the son of Adam who replaced the murdered Abel, through Noah to Abraham, the patriarch from whom the Israelite people emerged, that Augustine tracks the course of the heavenly city in the first age of its pilgrimage on earth. In contrast, the line of descent from Cain represents the separate course of the earthly city. In fact, however, neither city completely excludes the other in their respective earthly histories; and, by the time of the flood, the two cities have become so completely intermingled—the members of the heavenly city submerging themselves in the wickedness of the earthly city as a result of their attraction to the merely physical beauty of the daughters of men—that only Noah, his wife, and their sons and daughters-in-law deserve to be saved from the general destruction. Throughout, Augustine is concerned to preserve both the historical reliability of Scripture and its figurative meaning, refusing to sacrifice either for the sake of the other. Thus, to support the credibility of the biblical narrative, he provides an extensive explanation for the longevity of the ancients who lived prior to the flood, while at the same time finding prophetic anticipations of the Church in the names of the men included in the line of descent leading from Seth to Noah; and again, at the end of the book, he insists that the prophetic meaning of the story of the flood and Noah’s ark as a prefiguration of salvation through Christ does not cancel its actual historicity any more than its reality as a historical event cancels its prophetic significance.
1. Many opinions have been held, and much has been said and written, about the felicity of paradise, about paradise itself, about the life there of the first human beings, and about their sin and punishment. We too have spoken about these matters in the preceding books, following Holy Scripture and presenting either what we read directly in Scripture or what we could draw from Scripture in accord with
its authority. To pursue these issues in more detail, however, would give rise to a great number and variety of discussions that would take more volumes to unravel than this work requires or our time permits. We do not have the leisure to linger over every puzzle that might be raised by people who have time on their hands and want to go into every detail, the kind of people who are more ready to pose questions than they are capable of understanding the answers.All the same, I think that I have already dealt adequately with the great and difficult questions concerning the beginning of the world, of the soul, and of the human race itself. We have divided the human race into two groups, one consisting of those who live according to man and the other of those who live according to God.318 Speaking allegorically, we also call these two groups two cities, that is, two human societies, one predestined to reign with God for all eternity, the other to undergo eternal punishment with the devil.319 But this is their final end, which is to be discussed later.320 At this point, since enough has been said about the rise of these two cities, whether in the angels, whose number is beyond our knowing, or in the two first human beings, it seems to me that I should now undertake to trace the course that each has followed from the point at which the first two human beings began to have children down to the point at which humans will cease to have children. For the course followed by the two cities that we are discussing runs through this whole period, or age, in which the dying pass away and the newborn take their place.
Cain and Abel, the Earthly City and the Heavenly City
Cain, then, was the first child born to those two parents of the human race,321 and he belonged to the city of men. Abel was born later,322 and he belonged to the city of God. Now, in the case of a single individual we find, in the words of the Apostle, that it is not the spiritual that is first, but the animal, and then the spiritual (1 Cor 15:46), and that is why each one of us, since he comes from a condemned stock, is of necessity first evil and carnal due to Adam, but, if he advances by being reborn in Christ, will afterwards be good and spiritual. And it is just the same in the case of the whole human race. When those two cities began to run their course of birth and death, the first to be born was the citizen of this world, and only after
him was there born the pilgrim in this world, who belonged to the city of God, predestined by grace and chosen by grace—by grace a pilgrim below and by grace a citizen above. So far as he himself is concerned, he comes from the same lump that was wholly condemned323 at the start; but, like a potter (and the Apostle uses this image not to be insolent but to be apt), God made from the same lump one vessel for honor and another for dishonor (Rom 9:21). The vessel for dishonor, however, was made first, and then the vessel for honor. For in the individual case also, as I have already said, the unworthy comes first. That is where we have to start, but that is not where we have to stay. Afterwards comes the worthy, which we may approach by advancing towards it and where we may remain once we have reached it. It is certainly not true, then, that every evil person will be good, but it is certainly true that no one will be good who was not previously evil. And the sooner a person changes for the better, the faster he will take on the name for what he has gained and cover over the earlier term with the later one.Scripture states, then, that Cain founded a city;324 but Abel, as a pilgrim, did not. For the city of the saints is on high, even though it brings forth citizens here below, in whom it is on pilgrimage until the time of its kingdom arrives. Then it will gather them all together as they rise again in their bodies, and the promised kingdom will be given to them, where, with their prince, the king of the ages (1 Tm 1:17), they will reign for time without end.
Israel: the Earthly Image of the Heavenly City
2. There was, to be sure, a kind of shadow and prophetic image of this city which served to signify it here on earth, although not to make it actually present, at the time when it needed to be made manifest. And this shadow was also called the holy city by virtue of the fact that it was an image signifying the truth, even though not presenting it as distinctly as it would come to be. The Apostle is speaking of this subservient city, and of the free city that it signifies, when he says to the Galatians, Tell me, you who desire to be under the law, have you not heard the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one by a slave woman and one by a free woman. But the one born of the slave was born according to the flesh, and the one born of the free woman was born through the promise. These things are an allegory. These women are two covenants. One woman, in fact, is from Mount Sinai, bearing children for servitude; this is Hagar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, and it corresponds to the present Jerusalem, which is in servitude with her children. But the Jerusalem above is free, and she is our mother. For it is written, Rejoice, you barren one who bears no children, exclaim and shout, you who are not in labor, for the children of the desolate woman outnumber those of the married woman. But we, brothers, are children of the promise, like Isaac. But, just as at
that time the child who was born according to the flesh persecuted the child who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. But what does Scripture say? Cast out the slave and her son, for the son of the slave shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. So then, brothers, we are children not of the slave but of the free woman, by virtue of the freedom with which Christ has set us free. (Gal 4:21-5:1)This mode of interpretation, which comes down to us by apostolic authority, shows us how we ought to understand the Scriptures of the two covenants, the old and the new. For one part of the earthly city, because it signifies not itself but another, was made an image of the heavenly city, and it is therefore in servitude. For it was not established for its own sake but for the sake of signifying another city; and, since it was itself preceded by a prior sign, the prefiguring image was itself prefigured. For Hagar, Sarah’s slave, together with her son, was a kind of image of this image. But the shadows were to pass away when the light came, and that is why Sarah, who was free and who signified the free city—which the prior shadow, Hagar, served to signify in another way—said, Cast out the slave and her son, for the son of the slave shall not be heir with my son Isaac (Gn 21:10), or, as the Apostle puts it, with the son of the free woman (Gal 4:30).
The Earthly City and the Heavenly City, Born of Nature and Born of Grace
In the earthly city, then, we find two features, one pointing to its own presence, the other serving by its presence to signify the heavenly city. What gives birth to citizens of the earthly city, however, is a nature vitiated by sin, and what gives birth to citizens of the heavenly city is grace liberating that nature from sin. Consequently, the former are called vessels of wrath (Rom 9:22) and the latter are called vessels of mercy (Rom 9:23). This is also signified in Abraham’s two sons. For one of them, Ishmael, was born of the slave named Hagar according to the flesh; and the other, Isaac, was born of Sarah, the free woman, according to the promise. Both sons, obviously enough, came from Abraham’s seed, but the one was begotten in the ordinary way, showing how nature works, while the other was given by the promise, signifying divine grace. In the one case, human practice is displayed; in the other, divine beneficence is acclaimed.
3. Sarah, plainly, was barren, and, in her despair of having children, she wanted at least to have from her slave what she realized that she could not have from herself. So she gave her slave to be made pregnant by her husband, with whom she had wanted to have children herself but could not.325 In this way, then, she exacted her due from her husband, exercising her own right in another’s womb.326 Ishmael was born, therefore, in the ordinary human way, by sexual intercourse according to the regular course of nature. That is why it says that he was born according to the flesh (Gal 4:23). It is not that such things are not benefits that come from God, or that they are not the work of God, whose creative wisdom reaches mightily, as
Scripture says, from one end to the other, and arranges all things sweetly (Wis 8:1). But, when it was a matter of signifying an unmerited gift of God, freely bestowed on humankind by divine grace, it was right for a son to be given in a manner that did not follow the usual course of nature. For nature denies children to the kind of sexual intercourse of husband and wife that was possible for Abraham and Sarah at their age; and, besides, because Sarah was barren, she was not even able to have children when the root of the problem was not that she had passed the age of fertility but that she lacked the fertility appropriate to her age.The fact that no fruit of posterity was owed to a nature in this condition signifies, then, that human nature—vitiated by sin and therefore justly condemned—did not deserve any true happiness for the future. Thus Isaac, who was born through the promise, is rightly taken to signify the children of grace, who are citizens of the free city and who share in eternal peace, where there is no love for one’s personal and, so to say, private will, but rather a love that rejoices in the common and immutable good and joins many hearts into one, namely, a love which is perfectly at one in the obedience of charity.
The Goods of the Earthly City and the Conflicts to Which They Give Rise
4. The earthly city, in contrast, will not be everlasting, for, when it is condemned to its final punishment, it will no longer be a city. It has its good here on earth, and its joy—such joy as can be had from things of this sort—comes from sharing in this good. And, since its good is not the sort of good that brings no anxieties to those who love it, the earthly city is often divided against itself by lawsuits, wars and conflicts, and by seeking victories that either bring death or are themselves doomed to be short-lived. For, if any part of it rises up in war against another part, it seeks to be the victor over nations when it is itself the prisoner of its vices; and if, when it triumphs, it is puffed up with pride, its victory brings death. But, if it takes the human condition and all its vicissitudes into account and is more distressed by the adversities that may occur than elated by its present prosperity, then its victory is at best short-lived. For it will not be able to rule for long over those whom it was able to subdue in the moment of victory.
It would be wrong, however, to say that the things which this city desires are not goods; for even this city, in its own human fashion, is better when it has them. For it desires a sort of earthly peace for the sake of the lowest goods, and it is that peace which it wants to achieve by waging war. For, if it triumphs and there is no one left to resist it, there will be peace, which the opposing parties did not have so long as they were fighting each other, in their wretched need, over things that they could not both possess at the same time. It is for this peace that grueling wars are fought, and it is this peace that supposedly glorious victory obtains.
And, when the victory goes to those who were fighting for the more just cause, who can doubt that the victory deserves to be celebrated or that the resulting peace
is very much to be desired?327 These are goods, and they are undoubtedly gifts from God. But, if the higher goods are neglected, which belong to the city on high, where victory will be secure in supreme and eternal peace, and if these lower goods are desired so much that people believe them to be the only goods or love them more than the goods that they believe to be higher, then misery will necessarily follow, and their previous misery will only be made worse.5. So it is that the first founder of the earthly city was a fratricide; for, overcome by envy, he killed his own brother, who was a citizen of the eternal city on pilgrimage on this earth. It is no wonder, then, that this first example—or archetype, as the Greeks call it—was reflected by an image of the same kind at the founding, long afterwards, of the city that was to be the head of the earthly city of which we are speaking and which was to rule over so many peoples. There also, as one of the poets says in telling of the crime, “the first walls dripped with a brother’s blood.”328 For this is how Rome was founded when, as Roman history attests, Remus was killed by his brother Romulus.329 These two, however, were both citizens of the earthly city. Both wanted the glory of founding the Roman republic, but, as cofounders, they could not both have as much glory as only one would have as the single founder of Rome. For the rule of anyone wishing to glory in his own dominion would obviously be less if his power were diminished by the presence of a living co-ruler. Therefore, in order for one to have total domination, his colleague was removed, and what would have been kept smaller and better by innocence grew into something larger and worse by crime.
In contrast, the brothers Cain and Abel did not both have the same desire for earthly gains. Nor did the one who killed the other feel envious of his brother because his own dominion would be restricted if they both held rule at once, for Abel did not want to have dominion in the city founded by his brother. Cain’s envy was rather the diabolical envy that the evil feel toward the good simply because they are good, while they themselves are evil. For a person’s possession of the good is by no means diminished when another comes or continues to share in it. On the contrary, goodness is a possession that spreads out more and more widely insofar as those who share it are united in undivided love. In fact, anyone who is unwilling to share this possession will find that he does not possess it at all, but, the more he is able to love the one who shares it with him, the greater he will find that his own possession of it becomes.
Conflict between the Two Cities: the Flesh and the Spirit
Thus, the conflict that arose between Remus and Romulus showed how the earthly city is divided against itself, and the conflict between Cain and Abel demonstrated the antagonism between the two cities themselves, the city of God
and the city of men. The evil, then, fight against each other, and, likewise, the evil and the good fight against each other. But the good, if they have attained perfection, cannot fight against each other. While they are making progress, however, but have not yet attained perfection, they can fight against each other in that someone who is good may fight against another due to that part of him by which he also fights against himself. Even in the case of a single individual, what the flesh desires is opposed to the spirit, and what the spirit desires is opposed to the flesh (Gal 5:17). Thus, one person’s spiritual desire can fight against another’s carnal desire, and his carnal desire can fight against another’s spiritual desire, in the same way that the good and the evil fight against each other. And the carnal desires of two good people who have not yet attained perfection can obviously fight against each other in just the same way that the evil fight against each other, at least until the health of those who are in the process of being healed is brought to its ultimate triumph.6. Now, infirmity of this kind—that is, the disobedience which we discussed in the fourteenth book330 —is the punishment for the first disobedience. It is not, therefore, a matter of nature but rather of moral fault, and this is why it is said to the good who are making progress and are living by faith during this pilgrimage, Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way you will fulfill the law of Christ (Gal 6:2). And elsewhere it is said, Correct the unruly, comfort the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient with everyone. See that no one repays evil for evil. (1 Thes 5:14-15) And again, in another passage, If anyone is caught in some sin, you who are spiritual should instruct such a person in a spirit of gentleness, taking care that you yourself are not tempted (Gal 6:1). And elsewhere, Do not let the sun go down on your anger (Eph 4:26). And in the Gospel, If your brother sins against you, correct him between yourselves (Mt 18:15). Again, in the case of sins which he feared might become a stumbling block for many, the Apostle says, As for those who sin, rebuke them in front of everyone, in order to instill fear in the rest (1 Tm 5:20).
It is for this reason, too, that so many precepts are given about forgiving one another and about the great care that we must take to maintain peace, without which no one will be able to see God.331 Just think of the terrifying experience of the slave who, because he did not forgive his fellow slave a debt of a mere hundred denarii, was ordered to repay a debt of ten thousand talents that had previously been forgiven to him.332 And, when the Lord Jesus had told this parable, he went on to say, So your heavenly Father will also do to you, if you do not each forgive your brother from your heart (Mt 18:35). It is in this way that the citizens of the city of God are healed while they are pilgrims here on earth, longing for the peace of their homeland above. And the Holy Spirit works inwardly to give effect to the medicine that is applied outwardly. Otherwise, even if God himself makes use of a creature subject to him to speak to the human senses in some human form,
whether to the bodily senses or to the very similar senses that we have when asleep, but does not rule and direct the mind with his inward grace, no preaching of the truth will be of any use.But this is in fact what God does, distinguishing the vessels of wrath from the vessels of mercy according to a deeply hidden and yet fully just dispensation known only to himself.333 For God helps us in wondrous and secret ways, and when, as the Apostle teaches, the sin that dwells in our members (which is now, rather, the punishment of sin) no longer reigns in our mortal bodies to make us obey its desires, and when we no longer present our members to it as weapons of wickedness,334 we are changed in mind. Under God’s rule, a person’s mind no longer consents to his own impulses to evil. For the present, he will have his mind exercising its rule with greater tranquility, and later, when he attains full health and receives immortality, he will himself reign without any sin at all in eternal peace.
Cain’s Sacrifice and its Rejection
7. But, with regard to the very point which I have just explained as best I could, what use was it to Cain when God spoke to him in his usual way of speaking with the first human beings, that is, by means of a creature subject to him, taking on an appropriate form as if he were himself one of the creatures?335 When Cain killed his brother, did he not carry out the crime he had conceived, even after God had warned him against it? For, when God distinguished between the sacrifices of the two brothers, honoring the one but despising the other, it is not to be doubted that the testimony of some visible sign made it possible to tell the difference. And God did this precisely because Cain’s works were evil, but his brother’s good. But Cain went into a sulk, and his countenance fell. For it is written, And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you sulking, and why has your countenance fallen? If your sacrifice is rightly offered but is not rightly divided, have you not sinned? Be quiet, for it shall return to you, and you shall master it. (Gn 4:6-7)
In this admonition or warning that God gave to Cain, it is not clear why or on what basis the passage says, If your sacrifice is rightly offered but is not rightly divided, have you not sinned? (Gn 4:7) As a consequence, the obscurity of the passage has given rise to many interpretations, as each commentator on Divine Scripture has tried to explain it according to the rule of faith.336 Obviously a sacrifice is rightly offered when it is offered to the true God, to whom alone we should offer sacrifice. But it is not rightly divided when we do not rightly select the places or times of sacrifice, or the thing offered in sacrifice, or the one who makes the
offering or the one to whom it is made, or those to whom the sacrificed victim is distributed to eat. Here, then, we understand divided to refer to a selection of this sort. An offering may be made at a place where it should not be made, or it may be an offering that should not be made in that place but in another place; or an offering may be made at a time when it should not be made, or it may be an offering that should not be offered at that time but at some other time; or an offering may be made which should not be made at any place or at any time whatsoever; or a person may keep for himself choicer parts of the same kind of thing than those that he offers to God; or someone profane may partake of the offering, or someone who may not lawfully partake of it.It is not easy, however, to discover in which of these ways Cain displeased God. But the apostle John, in speaking of these brothers, says, Do not be like Cain, who was from the evil one and murdered his brother. And why did he murder him? Because his own deeds were evil and his brother’s righteous. (1 Jn 3:12) We are given to understand, then, that the reason why God did not honor Cain’s gift is that it was wrongly divided in the sense that, although he gave something of his own to God, he gave himself to himself. And this is precisely what is done by all those who follow their own will rather than God’s—that is, who live in perversity of heart rather than righteousness of heart—and yet still offer gifts to God. They suppose that, by means of these gifts, they are buying God’s help not in healing their debased desires but rather in fulfilling them. And this is characteristic of the earthly city: to worship a god or gods with whose help it might reign in victory and earthly peace, not from love of caring for others but rather from the lust to exercise dominion over others. For the good make use of the world in order to enjoy God, but the evil, in contrast, want to make use of God in order to enjoy the world.337 This is true, at least, of those who still believe that there is a God and that he cares about human affairs, for those who do not believe even this are in a far worse state. Thus, when Cain saw that God had honored his brother’s sacrifice but not his own, he ought surely to have changed his ways and imitated his good brother rather than standing on his pride and envying his brother. In fact, however, he went into a sulk, and his countenance fell. This sin—sulking over another’s goodness, and a brother’s goodness at that—is one that God most especially rebukes, and it was precisely to rebuke it that God questioned Cain, asking, Why are you sulking, and why has your countenance fallen? (Gn 4:6) For God saw that he envied his brother, and that is what he rebuked.
To human observers, from whom the hearts of others are hidden, it might seem doubtful or even completely uncertain whether Cain was sulking over his own malice, by which, as he had just learned, he had displeased God, or over his brother’s goodness, which pleased God when God honored his sacrifice. But God himself gave the reason that he refused to accept Cain’s offering, and he did
this with the aim that Cain should rightly be displeased with himself rather than wrongly displeased with his brother. For, although Cain was unrighteous in not dividing rightly—that is, in not living rightly—and so was unworthy of having his offering approved, God showed how much more unrighteous he was in hating his righteous brother for no reason. Even so, however, God did not dismiss Cain without giving him a command that was holy, righteous, and good. Be quiet, he said, for it shall return to you, and you shall master it (Gn 4:7). Did he say, “You shall master him,” that is, “your brother”? Not at all! What, then, is he to master if not sin?338 For God said, Have you not sinned? And it was then that he added, Be quiet, for it shall return to you, and you shall master it. And the fact that there must be a return of sin to the man himself can certainly be understood to mean that he should know that he ought to ascribe his sin to no one but himself.For this is a health-bringing medicine of repentance and a plea for pardon that is by no means unfitting. And so, when God says, For it shall return to you, we should understand this to mean not “it shall” in the sense of a prediction but rather “it should” in the sense of a prescription. For a person masters sin only if he does not give it dominion over himself by defending it but instead makes it subject to himself by repenting of it. Otherwise, if he always defends it when it occurs, he will be its slave, and it will be his master.
But sin may also be understood to mean the very carnal desire of which the Apostle says, What the flesh desires is opposed to the spirit (Gal 5:17). Among the fruits of this flesh he mentions envy,339 and it was certainly envy that goaded and sparked Cain to destroy his brother. On this understanding, then, the verb is rightly understood to mean “it shall,” that is, For it shall return to you, and you shall master it. For this is what may happen when the carnal part is itself aroused, the part which the Apostle calls sin in the passage where he says, It is no longer I that do it, but sin that dwells in me (Rom 7:17). There are also some philosophers who say that this part of the soul is perverse, and that it ought not to drag the mind after it but ought rather to be under the mind’s control and to be restrained by reason from illicit acts. At any rate, when this part is aroused to commit some wrongful act, if we are quiet and obey the words of the Apostle, Do not present your members to sin as weapons of wickedness (Rom 6:13), it returns to the mind, subdued and vanquished, with the result that it is subject to reason, and reason masters it.
This is the very command that God gave to Cain, who was inflamed with the fires of envy against his brother and wanted to do away with the very one whom he ought instead to have taken as his model. Be quiet, God said, keep your hands away from crime, do not let sin reign in your mortal body to make you obey its desires, do not present your members to sin as weapons of wickedness.340 For it shall return to you—just so long as you do not help it along by loosening your hold but instead rein it in by being quiet—and you shall master it. For, if it is not
permitted to act outwardly, it will become accustomed, under the control of the ruling and benevolent mind, to remain unstirred inwardly as well.Something of this sort was also said concerning the woman in the same divine book. After their sin, when God questioned the sinners and judged them, they each received sentences of condemnation, the devil in the form of the serpent, and the woman and her husband in their own right. For, after God told the woman, I will multiply your sorrows and groaning many times over, and, in sorrows you shall bring forth children, he then added, you shall return to your husband, and he shall be master over you (Gn 3:16). What was said to Cain concerning sin, or the perverse desire of the flesh, is said in this passage concerning the sinful woman; and in this case it is to be understood that the man, in ruling his wife, should be like the mind in its rule over the flesh.341 It is for this reason that the Apostle says, He who loves his wife loves himself, for no one ever hated his own flesh (Eph 5:28-29).
We ought, then, to be healed of these sins, accepting them as our own rather than condemning them as if they were someone else’s. But Cain received God’s command like a transgressor. In fact, the vice of envy grew stronger within him, and he laid his plans and killed his brother. Such was the founder of the earthly city. Cain also signifies the Jews, by whom Christ was killed, the shepherd of the flock of men, who was himself prefigured by Abel, the shepherd of the flock of sheep. But because this is a matter of prophetic allegory, I say no more about it here. I recall, however, that I discussed it in my Answer to Faustus, a Manichean.342
The Presentation of the Two Cities in the Lines of Descent from Cain and Seth
8. What I need to do now, it seems to me, is to defend the historical record so that Scripture will not seem incredible in saying that a city was built by one man at a time when it appears that there were no more than four males on earth—or rather three, after Cain killed his brother. These three were the first man, the father of all, Cain himself, and Cain’s son Enoch, for whom the city was named.343 But people who feel troubled about this point have paid too little attention to the fact that the writer of this sacred history had no need to name all the men who might have existed at that time. He needed to name only those required by the plan of the work he had undertaken. The aim of this writer, in whom the Holy Spirit was at work, was simply to arrive at Abraham through a succession of specified generations descended from one man and then to go on from Abraham’s seed to the people of God, which was set apart from the other nations and in which was prefigured and foretold everything foreseen in the Spirit that was going to happen with regard to the city whose kingdom will be eternal and with regard to Christ, its king and founder. But he did not ignore that other human society which we call
the earthly city. Rather, he said enough about it to let the city of God stand out in contrast to its opposite.Thus Divine Scripture, when it records the number of years those early men lived, concludes by saying in each case, And he had sons and daughters, and all the days that this or that man lived were so many years, and he died (Gn 5:4-31). But the fact that it does not name these sons and daughters certainly does not keep us from presuming that, during all the years that men lived in that first age of this world, any number of people could have been born and any number of cities could have been founded as they joined together in groups. The intention of God, however, by whose inspiration these accounts were written, was to mark and distinguish these two societies from the start in their different generations. Thus, the generations of men—that is, of those living according to man—and the generations of the children of God—that is, of those living according to God—are interwoven in Scripture down to the time of the flood, where the differentiation and the combination of the two societies are narrated. Their differentiation is made clear by the fact that the generations of each are listed separately, the one deriving from the fratricide Cain and the other from the brother called Seth, who was also born to Adam, taking the place of the son who had been killed by his brother.344 And their combination is made clear by the fact that, as the good became worse and worse, they all became so evil that they were all wiped out by the flood—with the exception of one just man, whose name was Noah, along with his wife, his three sons, and his three daughters-in-law. These eight were the only human beings who were worthy to escape in the ark from that destruction of all mortal life.345
Therefore, even though Scripture says, And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bore Enoch, and he built a city in the name of his son Enoch (Gn 4:17), it does not follow that we must presume that Enoch was his first son. No such conclusion is to be drawn from the mere fact that it says that he knew his wife, as if that were the first time he had sexual intercourse with her. For the very same thing is said about Adam, the father of all, not only when Cain was conceived (who does seem to have been his firstborn),346 but also later where the same Scripture says, Adam knew his wife Eve, and she conceived and bore a son, and named him Seth (Gn 4:25). We see, then, that Scripture usually (although not always) speaks in this way when it tells us that someone was conceived, not just when a couple has intercourse for the first time. Nor does the fact that the city was named for Enoch necessarily mean that we should conclude that Enoch was his father’s firstborn. For it is not out of the question that his father, even though he had other sons, loved Enoch more than the others for some reason. It is also true, after all, that Judah was not a firstborn son,347 but Judea and the Jews were named after him.
But, even if Enoch was in fact the firstborn son of the founder of that city, that is no basis for presuming that his father founded the city and named it for his son at the very moment when Enoch was born. For a city, which is nothing other than a large group of people joined together by some social bond, could not have been established at that point by just one man. However, at the point when that man’s household had grown large enough to include a quantity of people, it was then certainly possible for him to establish a city and to name the city he established for his firstborn. Besides, in those days, men had such long lives that, among those mentioned whose ages are given, the one who had the shortest lifespan prior to the flood lived to be 753 years old.348 Many, in fact, lived longer than nine hundred years, although none lived to be a thousand.
Who can doubt, then, that it was perfectly possible for the human race to multiply so much during a single man’s lifetime that there were more than enough people to establish not just one city but a great many? This can easily be inferred from the case of Abraham. From this one man, in not much more than four hundred years, the Hebrew people reproduced in such numbers that there were, we are told, 600,000 young warriors in the exodus of the Hebrews from Egypt.349 And this is to say nothing of the Idumean nation, which does not count as part of the people of Israel because it descends from Israel’s brother Esau, Abraham’s grandson,350 or of the other nations that were born from Abraham’s seed but not through his wife Sarah.351
The Long Lives of the Ancients
9. Thus, no one who considers the matter with care can doubt that Cain could have founded not just a city of some sort but a city of considerable size at a time when the lives of mortals were so prolonged. But one of the unbelievers, perhaps, might take issue with us over the sheer number of years that people are reported to have lived, according to our authorities, in that period, claiming that this is incredible. Similarly, there are those who do not believe that human bodies were far larger then than they are now. But Virgil, the most distinguished of their poets,352 speaks of an enormous stone set up as a boundary marker between fields that a mighty warrior of those times snatched up in battle, who ran with it, whirled it round, and hurled it. “A dozen hand-picked men could hardly have lifted that stone,” Virgil says, “with bodies such as the earth produces now.”353 Plainly he is pointing out that in those days the earth regularly produced larger bodies than it does now. How much the more was that true, then, in the earlier ages of the world, prior to that famous and memorable flood.
With regard to the size of bodies, however, skeptics are generally convinced by the tombs that are uncovered by the passage of time or the force of rivers or by various other circumstances. Bones of incredible size have appeared in them or fallen out of them. On the shore at Utica, I myself—not alone, but with several others—saw a human molar so enormous that, if it had been cut up into pieces the size of our teeth, it would, we estimated, have made a hundred of them.354 But that tooth, I imagine, belonged to some giant. For not only were bodies in general larger then than ours are now, but the giants towered far above the rest, just as in later times, including our own, there have nearly always been some bodies that far surpassed the size of others.355 Pliny the Elder, a very learned man, testifies that as more and more time passes, the bodies produced by nature become smaller and smaller. He notes that even Homer often lamented this fact in his poetry; and he does not ridicule Homer’s laments as mere poetic fictions but rather—as himself a recorder of nature’s marvels—takes them as reliable history.356 But, as I have said, the frequent discovery of bones reveals the size of ancient bodies even to much later ages, simply because bones last for such a long time.
In contrast, no such tangible evidence can bring the longevity of the individuals who lived in those times into the realm of our current experience. That is no reason, however, to scoff at the reliability of our sacred history. In fact, the more certain it is that we are seeing its prophecies fulfilled before our very eyes, the more insolent it becomes to disbelieve what it tells us of the past. Furthermore, Pliny also reports that there still exists today a people whose members live to be two hundred years old.357 Thus, if we believe that even today places unknown to us show a human longevity beyond our experience, why should we not believe the same of unknown times in the past? Or is it somehow credible that something is true at another place that is not true here, but somehow incredible that something was true at another time that is not true now?
The Numerical Discrepancies between the Greek and Hebrew Versions
10. On this point, there does seem to be a considerable difference between the Hebrew texts and our own with respect to the precise number of years lived by the people of that period.358 I do not know how this happened, but in any case the difference is not so great that the two versions disagree on the point that those
men lived for a very long time. In our texts, for instance, Adam, the first man, was 230 years old before he had the son called Seth, and in the Hebrew texts it says that he was 130.359 But we read in our texts that, after he had Seth, he lived another seven hundred years and in the Hebrew texts that he lived another eight hundred years.360 Thus both versions agree on the total sum.And from then on, in the following generations, the fathers are found to be a hundred years younger in the Hebrew version than in ours at the time of the birth of the sons whose birth is recorded; but, after the birth of these sons, the fathers are found to have lived a hundred years less in our version than in the Hebrew version. Thus, the total number of years is the same in both cases. In the sixth generation there is no difference at all between the two versions. But in the seventh generation—where it is reported that Enoch was born and did not die but rather was translated into heaven because he pleased God361 —there is the same discrepancy as in the first five generations with respect to the age of the father before the son who is mentioned was born, and there is the same agreement on the total number of years that the father lived. For, according to both versions, Enoch lived for 365 years before he was translated.
The eighth generation does show a certain discrepancy, but it is smaller than the others and different from them. For in the Hebrew texts Methuselah, Enoch’s son, was not a hundred years younger; rather, he was twenty years older when he had the son who comes next in order. But, once again, in our texts those years are added after the birth of the son, and so the total number of years is the same in both cases. Only in the ninth generation, that is, in the number of years lived by Lamech, Methuselah’s son and Noah’s father, is there a difference between the two versions in the total number of years. But it is not very large. For Lamech is found to have lived only twenty-four years more in the Hebrew version than in ours. Before he had his son called Noah, he lived six years less in the Hebrew version than in ours, but after he had Noah he lived thirty years more in their version than in ours. Accordingly, when those six years are subtracted, the remainder, as I said, is twenty-four years.
11. It is this discrepancy between the Hebrew texts and our own that gives rise to the very famous question of the fourteen years that Methuselah is reckoned to have lived after the flood.362 For Scripture tells us that, of all the people who were then on earth, only eight escaped destruction by the flood in the ark, and Methuselah was not one of them. Now, according to our version, Methuselah lived for 167 years before he had the son he called Lamech, and Lamech, in turn, lived for 188 years before Noah was born to him. Taken together, these two figures make 355 years. Add to these the six hundred years of Noah’s age at the time of the flood, and
the total is 955 years from Methuselah’s birth to the year of the flood. But all the years of Methuselah’s life add up to 969. For he had lived 167 years when he had the son called Lamech, and he lived another 802 years after Lamech’s birth; and altogether, as I said, this makes 969 years. And, if the 955 years from the birth of Methuselah to the time of the flood are subtracted from this total, that leaves the fourteen years that Methuselah is believed to have lived after the flood.On this basis, some people hold that Methuselah was alive but not on earth, where, as everyone agrees, all flesh that nature does not permit to live under water was destroyed. They presume that he was for some time with his father, who had been translated into heaven, and that he lived there until the flood was over. For they are not willing to question the reliability of the texts which the Church has invested with higher authority, and they believe that it is the Jewish texts, rather than these, that have strayed from the truth. Furthermore, these people will not admit that there might be an error here on the part of the translators rather than a false statement in the language from which Scripture itself was translated, by way of the Greek version, into our tongue. Instead, they claim that it is beyond belief that seventy translators, who all made their translation at one and the same time and with one and the same meaning,363 could possibly have fallen into error or could have had any desire to lie on a matter that made no difference whatsoever to them. They insist, rather, that the Jews, in their resentment at having the law and the prophets transmitted to us in translation, altered certain things in their own texts in order to diminish the authority of ours.
Anyone may accept this opinion, or suspicion, as he sees fit. What is certain, however, is that Methuselah did not live past the flood; he died in the same year, if what we find in the Hebrew texts about the number of his years is true. As for the seventy translators, I must present my views on them in more detail in the proper place when, with God’s help, I come to discuss their times as far as the needs of this work require.364 For our present purpose it is enough that, according to both versions, the people of that time had such long lives that it was quite possible for the human race to multiply so much that it could establish a city, all within the lifetime of one man, who was the first child born to the two parents who were then the only ones on earth.
12. We can also safely ignore the people who imagine that years were calculated differently in those times, that is, that they were so short that one of our years contains ten of theirs. They claim that, when we hear or read that someone lived to be nine hundred years old, we should take this as ninety years old, since ten of their years equal one of ours, and ten of ours equal a hundred of theirs. On this basis, in their view, Adam was twenty-three when he had Seth, and Seth himself was only twenty years and six months old when Enosh was born to him. Scrip
ture, of course, says that Seth was 205 years old at the time.365 For in those days, in the view of the people whose opinion we are presenting here, they divided one year such as we have now into ten parts, and they called each part a year. Each of those parts consists of the square of six, because God completed his works in six days so that he might rest on the seventh day (a topic which I discussed, as best I could, in the eleventh book366 ). Six times six, which is the square of six, equals thirty-six days, and thirty-six multiplied by ten comes to 360 days, that is, twelve lunar months. Five more days are needed, then, to complete the solar year, plus a quarter of a day, which is why one day, called bisextus, is added every fourth year. These days, which the Romans called “intercalary days,” were later added by the ancients to make the number of years come out right.From this it also follows that Seth’s son Enosh was nineteen when his son Kenan was born, for Scripture says that he was 190 years old at the time.367 From that point on, through all the generations in which people’s ages are mentioned prior to the flood, no one is found in our texts who had a son when he was a hundred years old or younger, or even 120 years old or not much more. Rather, those who had sons are reported to have been at least 160 years old or more. For no one, they claim, can have sons at the age of ten, which equals one hundred according to their view. In fact, puberty is fully mature and capable of generating children only at the age of sixteen, which in those times was reckoned as 160 years old.
In order to make it seem less incredible that the year was computed differently in those days, they also note that many historians report that the Egyptians had a year of four months, the Acarnanians a year of six months, and the Lavinians a year of thirteen months. And it is true that Pliny the Elder mentioned reports in some writings that one man lived for 152 years and another lived ten years longer, that others lived to be two hundred and still others to be three hundred, that some lived to be five hundred, some to be six hundred, and several even lived to be eight hundred years old. But he considered all these cases to be due to an ignorance of chronology. “For some people,” he says, “counted summer as one year and winter as another, while some counted each of the four seasons as a year, like the Arcadians, whose years were three months long.” He adds that the Egyptians, whose short years, as I noted above, were four months long, sometimes set the end of the year at the waning of the moon. “And so,” he says, “we have reports among them of individuals who lived to be a thousand years old.”368
Some people take these as plausible arguments, not because they want to undermine the reliability of the sacred history but in order to support it, so that it does not seem incredible that the ancients are reported to have lived such long lives. They have persuaded themselves, and see nothing wrong in persuading others,
that the period of time which was then called a year was so short that ten of those years equal one of ours and ten of ours equal a hundred of theirs. The clearest evidence, however, shows that this claim is completely false. Before I demonstrate this, however, it seems to me that I should at least mention a suggestion which might be more credible.We could certainly have disproved and defeated their claim on the basis of the Hebrew texts. There we find that Adam was not 230 but 130 years old when he had his third son. And, if 130 of their years equal thirteen of ours, then it is beyond doubt that he was only eleven, or not much more, when he had his first son. But, in light of the regular law of nature that we know so well, who can possibly father a child at that age?
But let us leave Adam out of account. For perhaps Adam could have fathered a child even at the moment he was created, since it is hardly credible that, when he was created, he was as small as our infants are.369 His son Seth, however, was not 205, as we read in our version, but rather 105, when he had Enosh, and so, according to them, he was not yet eleven years old. And what are we to say about his son Kenan? In our version we find that he was 170 years old when he fathered Mahalalel, but in the Hebrew texts we read that he was only seventy.370 And if seventy years at that time was equivalent to seven of our years, who can father a child at the age of seven?
13. But, when I make this point, these people will immediately respond that all this is a lie on the part of the Jews, which is a matter I have sufficiently dealt with above.371 For they insist that the seventy translators, all of whom were praiseworthy and celebrated men, could not possibly have lied. But which is the more credible alternative, that the Jewish people, even though scattered far and wide, were able to conspire with one mind to write this falsehood and thus deprived themselves of the truth simply because they resented having the authority of their Scriptures pass to others, or that the seventy translators—who themselves, after all, were also Jews, and had all been brought together in one place when Ptolemy, the king of Egypt, employed them for this task—were the ones who resented sharing this truth with alien peoples and, with a common mind, carried out their plan? If I ask, then, which is the more credible alternative, who does not see which is the more easily and more readily believed?
But it would be absurd for any sensible person to believe either that the Jews, no matter how great their malice and perversity, could have accomplished such a thing in so many texts scattered over such a wide area or that those seventy celebrated translators, in their resentment, contrived a common plan to keep the truth from the gentiles. It is far more credible, therefore, to suggest that, when
the seventy translators’ work first began to be transcribed in Ptolemy’s library, some such discrepancy might have occurred in one copy and that, from that first transcription, the mistake spread more widely. It could be, then, that what actually happened was nothing more than a scribal error.It is certainly not unreasonable to suspect such an error with regard to the question of Methuselah’s life, or in that other case where the totals do not agree, the one total exceeding the other by twenty-four years. In some instances, however, the same error appears time after time: before the birth of a listed son a hundred years appear in one version and are missing in the other, but after the birth of that son the hundred years appear in the version in which they were missing and are missing in the version in which they appeared, so that the totals agree. This pattern is found in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh generations; and, in this case, the error seems to have a certain consistency, if I may put it that way, which suggests deliberate design rather than mere chance.
When this regular pattern of first adding and then subtracting a hundred years over a number of successive generations is not involved, however, the disparity between the numbers given in the Greek and Latin texts on the one side and the Hebrew texts on the other should not be ascribed either to the malice of the Jews or to any deliberate plotting on the part of the seventy translators but simply to an error on the part of the scribe who first received the text from King Ptolemy’s library to be transcribed. For even today numbers are carelessly transcribed, and even more carelessly checked, when they do not draw our attention to something that can easily be understood or that seems useful to learn. Who, for example, would imagine that he ought to learn how many thousands of people there might have been in each of the tribes of Israel?372 For such knowledge is not considered to be of any benefit, and how very few people there are who recognize its profound usefulness!
But in the case where, in successive generations, the hundred years are present in one version and missing in the other and then, after the birth of the son who is mentioned next, they are subtracted where they had been present and added where they had been missing, so that the totals match, the person who did this clearly wanted to persuade us that the reason that the ancients lived for so very many years was that what were called “years” at that time were so very short. And he was trying to show this specifically with reference to the sexual maturity required for fathering children. Thus, in order to keep the incredulous from rejecting the belief that the men of old lived such long lives, he thought that he should intimate to them that ten of our years equal a hundred of those years. More particularly, he added a hundred years where he did not find the age suitable for fathering children and then subtracted the same number of years after the children were born in order to keep the totals the same. For he wanted in this way to make the ages credible and appropriate for fathering children, but without cheating anyone of the total number of years he had lived.
And the very fact that he did not do this in the sixth generation suggests all the more clearly that he did it where the circumstances I have described required it, since he did not do it where the circumstances did not require it. For in the sixth generation he found that, according to the Hebrew text, Jared was 162 when he fathered Enoch,373 which, on the theory of short years, is equivalent to sixteen years and somewhat less than two months.374 But that age is already suitable for fathering children. Thus, there was no need to add a hundred short years (making his age twenty-six in our years), nor was there any need to subtract them after the birth of Enoch, since he had not added them before Enoch was born. And so it happened that there was no discrepancy between the two versions in this instance.
But again there is the question of the eighth generation. In the Hebrew texts we read that Methuselah was 182 years old before Lamech was born; but in our texts, instead of the usual addition of a hundred years, we find that Methuselah is twenty years younger.375 Then, after the birth of Lamech, the twenty years are restored in order to complete the total, which is the same in both versions. But, if the person who did this wanted us to take 170 years as equivalent to seventeen years, to meet the age of sexual maturity, then he ought not to have added or subtracted anything in this case. For in Methuselah’s case he already found an age suitable for the fathering of children, and in the other instances that was his reason for adding the hundred years where he did not find the age suitable. We could reasonably suppose, indeed, that these twenty years were simply inserted by careless error if it were not for the fact that, after first subtracting them, he took care to add them back in again so that the totals would come out right. Or should we suppose, perhaps, that he was acting more deviously here and was trying to disguise his usual practice of first adding and then subtracting a hundred years by doing something similar even where there was no need for it, that is, by first subtracting and then adding back not a hundred years but some smaller number?
But regardless of how we view the matter—whether or not we believe that things happened as I have suggested or, ultimately, whether or not they actually happened in this way—it would be utterly wrong for me to doubt that, when some discrepancy is found between the two versions and it is impossible for both to be true and reliable records of the facts, we should put our faith not in the translations but rather in the language from which the translators made their translations into another tongue. For, in point of fact, there are even c
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14. Now, however, let us see how clearly it can be shown that the years by which the exceedingly long lives of those men were calculated were not, in fact, so short that one of ours is equal to ten of theirs but were rather of exactly the same length as the years that we have now—which are, of course, determined by the revolution of the sun.377 Scripture plainly states that the flood took place in the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life. Why is it, then, that we read in that passage, And the waters of the flood came upon the earth in the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month (Gn 7:10-11)? Why say this if the very short year of that time, so short that one of our years equals ten of those years, had only thirty-six days? For such a short year—if, in fact, it was called a year in ancient practice—either had no months at all or, if it had twelve of them, had months that were just three days long. How, then, could this passage say, In the six-hundredth year, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, unless months then were just the same as they are now? How else could it say that the flood began on the twenty-seventh day of the second month? And again, later, at the end of the flood, we read, And in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the ark came to rest on the mountains of Ararat. And the water continued to abate until the eleventh month; and in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared. (Gn 8:4-5)
Therefore, if those months were like ours, then surely the years were also like the ones we have now. Three-day months obviously could not have had twenty-seven days. Or if—to reduce everything proportionally—it was a thirtieth part of three days that was then called a day, that great flood which is reported to have lasted for forty days and forty nights378 did not actually last as long as four of our days. But who can put up with such absurd nonsense? Enough of this error, which seeks to build up the reliability of our Scriptures by false conjecture, only to undermine it elsewhere. In short, the day was just as long then as it is now, determined by a twenty-four hour cycle of day and night; the month was just as long then as it is now, defined by the waxing and waning of the moon; the year was just as long then as it is now, made up of twelve lunar months with the addition of five and a quarter days to square it with the course of the sun. And the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life was a year of this length, and in the second month of that year, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the flood began. During this flood, we are told, heavy rain fell incessantly for forty days, days made up not of little more than two hours each but rather of a full twenty-four hours, including both day and night. It follows, then, that the years of the people of ancient times who lived to be nine hundred years old or more were just as long as those of Abraham, who lived to be 170;379 and of his son Isaac after him, who lived to be 180;380 and of Isaac’s son
Jacob, who lived to be almost 150;381 and, some time later, of Moses, who lived to be 120;382 and of the people of our day who live to be seventy or eighty or a bit more, of which ages it is said that more than this is only toil and trouble (Ps 90:10).
In fact the numerical differences that we find between the Hebrew texts and our own do not involve any real disagreement about the longevity of the men of old, and, if there is any difference such that it is impossible for both to be true, we must look for the reliable account of events in the language from which our version was translated. But, even though this opportunity is everywhere open to anyone who wishes to take advantage of it, it is worth noting that no one has actually presumed to use the Hebrew texts to amend all the many places where the seventy translators seem to say something different.383 For those differences have not been considered cases of error, nor do I think that they should be. Rather, where it is not a matter of scribal error, and where the sense is consistent with the truth and proclaims the truth, we should believe that, under the influence of the divine Spirit, the seventy translators wanted to state something differently, exercising their freedom as prophets rather than simply fulfilling their office as translators.384
It is with good reason, then, that apostolic authority is found to make use not only of the Hebrew text but also of the Septuagint when citing testimonies from Scripture.385 But I have promised that, with God’s help, I shall discuss this matter more fully in a more appropriate place.386 Here I shall stick to the issue at hand: we must have no doubt that, at a time when people lived such long lives, it was perfectly possible for a city to be established by the man who was the first son of the first man. This was, of course, an earthly city, not that which is called the city of God, concerning which we undertook the labor of writing this vast work.
The Issue of Sexual Maturity and the Lines of Descent
15. But someone is sure to ask, “Are we supposed to believe that a man who was going to father children, and who had no intention of remaining continent, simply abstained from sexual intercourse for a hundred years and more, or, according to the Hebrew version, for not much less (that is, for eighty, seventy, or sixty years),
or, if he did not abstain, that he was unable to have children?” There are two ways of solving this problem. Either sexual maturity was reached later in those days, in proportion to the greater length of life as a whole, or—and this seems the more plausible solution to me—it is not the firstborn sons who are mentioned here but only those required to bring the line of succession down to Noah, from whom, in turn, we see that the line extends down to Abraham, and then from Abraham down to a determinate point in time, recording the generations only so far as necessary to indicate the course of that most glorious city which is only on pilgrimage in this world and seeks its homeland above.There is no denying, of course, that Cain was the very first to be born from the union of man and woman. For we read that, when Cain was born, Adam said, I have gotten a man with God’s help (Gn 4:1), and he would not have said this unless Cain was the first person to be added by birth to the original two. Then came Abel, who was killed by his brother. He was the first to show a kind of prefiguration of the pilgrim city of God, indicating that it was going to suffer unjust persecution at the hands of those who are, so to speak, earthborn and ungodly, that is, who delight in their earthly origin and rejoice in the earthly happiness of the earthly city. But it is not clear how old Adam was when he had these sons.
From that point on, the generations divide into the line of Cain and the line of the son whom Adam fathered to take the place of the one who was killed by his brother. He called this son Seth, saying, as it is written, For God has raised up for me another seed, in place of Abel, whom Cain killed (Gn 4:25). There are, then, these two lines of descent, one from Seth and the other from Cain, and in their distinct lines of succession they hint at the two cities that we are discussing—one the heavenly city which is on pilgrimage here on earth, and the other the earthly city which craves earthly joys and clings to them as if there were no others. But, even though Cain’s descendants are listed in detail, from Adam down to the eighth generation, there is never any mention of the age at which any one of them fathered the one who is listed next. For the Spirit of God did not wish to mark the ages prior to the flood by the generations of the earthly city; the Spirit preferred, rather, to mark them by the generations of the heavenly city, as more worthy of being recorded and remembered.
Furthermore, when Seth was born, his father’s age did not go unmentioned.387 But Adam had already fathered other children, and who would dare to claim that Cain and Abel were the only ones? For the fact that they are the only ones named does not mean that we should think that they are the only ones Adam fathered. It is simply that they needed to be named for the sake of the lines of descent that had to be recorded. Thus, even though the names of all the others are veiled in silence, we read that Adam had sons and daughters.388 And who, if he wished to avoid blame for being rash, would presume to state how many children Adam had?
It is certainly possible that, after Seth was born, Adam was divinely prompted to say, For God has raised up for me another seed in place of Abel (Gn 4:25), not because Seth was the first one born after Abel in point of time but because he was the one who would fulfill his brother’s holiness. Again, it is written, And Seth lived 205 years (or, according to the Hebrew, 105 years), and he fathered Enosh (Gn 5:6). But who could be so unthinking as to assert that Enosh was Seth’s firstborn? In that case, we really would have good reason to be amazed and to ask how it could be that Seth abstained from intercourse for so many years without any deliberate intention to remain continent or, if he did have sex, how it could be that he fathered no children, especially when we also read of him, And he had sons and daughters, and all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died (Gn 5:7-8).
And, from this point on, it is the same with all of those whose ages are listed, and the fact that they had sons and daughters is not left unmentioned. It is by no means clear, then, whether the child mentioned by name is actually the firstborn. On the contrary, it is beyond belief that for such a long time those fathers were sexually immature or that they lacked wives and offspring, and so it is equally beyond belief that those sons were the first children to be born to them. Instead, since the aim of the writer of the sacred history was to mark the passage of time through the successive generations down to the birth and life of Noah, in whose time the flood occurred, he clearly listed not the first children born to their parents but rather those who came in the relevant line of descent.
By way of example, to clarify the matter, I shall bring in a point that leaves no doubt that what I am saying could have happened. When the evangelist Matthew wanted to put on record the descent of the Lord according to the flesh through a series of ancestors, starting with father Abraham and intending to arrive first at David, he began by saying, Abraham was the father of Isaac (Mt 1:2). Why did he not mention Ishmael, who was born first? And Isaac, he continued, was the father of Jacob (Mt 1:2). Why did he not mention Esau, who was his firstborn? Plainly he did not mention them because he could not get down to David through either Ishmael or Esau. Matthew then goes on to say, Jacob was the father of Judah and his brothers (Mt 1:2). Was Judah his firstborn, then? Then he adds, Judah was the father of Perez and Zerah (Mt 1:3). But neither of these twins was Judah’s firstborn, for he had already had three children before them. Thus, Matthew included in the line of descent only those through whom he would arrive at David and eventually at his intended goal. From this we can see that the men of old who lived prior to the flood were also listed not as the firstborn but rather as those through whom the line of successive generations would lead down to the patriarch Noah. There is no need, then, to weary ourselves over the obscure and unnecessary question of their delayed sexual maturity.
The Issue of Polygamy and Kinship Relations
16. After the first union of the man, made from dust,389 and his wife, created from his side,390 the human race needed the joining of males and females in order to have children and multiply, and, since there were no other human beings but the children of those two parents, men took their sisters as wives. This practice was as fully respectable at that time, when necessity compelled it, as it later became wholly reprehensible, when religion prohibited it. For the true scope of love was given its due, so that human beings, for whom social harmony is useful and honorable, might be joined together by the bonds of kinship in a variety of relationships.391 No single individual was to combine many relationships in his one person. Specific relationships would instead be spread out among specific individuals, and, as a result, many relationships would hold between many individuals with the effect of binding social life more thoroughly together. Thus “father” and “father-in-law” are the names for two different relationships; and so, when a person has one man as his father and another as his father-in-law, love extends itself out across a wider range of people. The one Adam, however, was compelled to be both father and father-in-law to his sons and daughters at the time when brothers and sisters were joined in marriage. And so too, his wife Eve was both mother-in-law and mother to her children of both sexes. But, if there had been two women, one the mother and the other the mother-in-law, the bond of social affection would have extended more widely. Finally, even a man’s sister, because she also became the man’s wife, combined two relationships in her one person. But again, if these two relationships had been distributed between two people, one the sister and the other the wife, the ties of social kinship would have expanded their reach.
There was, however, no way that this could happen at the time when the only people who existed were the brothers and sisters born of the first pair. It had to come about, therefore, when it was actually possible for it to come about. Thus, once the population was large enough, men took as wives women who were not also their sisters. At that point not only was there no need for brothers and sisters to marry, but it was also detestable for this to happen. For, if the grandchildren of the first human beings, who by now were able to take their cousins as wives, had married their sisters, there would have been conjoined in one person not just two relationships but three, and those relationships ought to have been separately distributed to separate individuals for the sake of joining more people in love by means of a wider kinship. For one man would have been not only father and father-in-law but also uncle to his own children, that is, to the brother and sister who married. And, by the same token, his wife would have been mother and aunt and mother-in-law of their shared children. And the children themselves would have been not only brothers and sisters and spouses to each other but also cousins, since they would
have been the children of brothers and sisters as well. But all these relationships, which linked three people to one person, would link nine people together if they were separately assigned to separate individuals. For one individual would then have one person as his sister, another as his wife, another as his cousin, another as his father, another as his uncle, another as his father-in-law, another as his mother, another as his aunt, and yet another as his mother-in-law. And so, instead of being restricted to a few, the social bond would spread out across a wider number due to the abundant ties of kinship relations.We note that, as the human race has increased and multiplied, this rule is observed even among the impious worshipers of many false gods. For, even though their perverse laws permit brothers and sisters to marry, their customary practice is better, and they actually prefer to abominate this licentiousness.392 And, even though it was permitted to take sisters in marriage during the first years of the human race, it is now so deeply repulsive as to seem that it must never have been allowed at all. For custom is immensely powerful in attracting or offending human feeling; and in this case, since it puts a check on immoderate lust, we are quite right to think that it is an abomination to disregard or to undercut what custom requires. For, if it is wicked to transgress the boundary of a field out of greed for possession, it is certainly far more wicked to violate a moral boundary out of lust for sexual intercourse. Experience also shows us that, on moral grounds, it is rare for cousins to marry, even in our own times, precisely because the degree of kinship involved is only once removed from the degree of kinship between brother and sister. Such marriages are allowed by law, since they are not prohibited by divine law and are not yet prohibited by human law. But even so, people were horrified at something legal simply because it bordered so closely on something illegal, and to marry a cousin seemed almost the same as to marry a sister, for cousins even call themselves brothers and sisters inasmuch as they are so closely related by blood and, in truth, are very nearly full brothers or sisters.
To the ancient fathers, however, it was also a matter of religious concern to keep the ties of kinship from gradually coming undone, as generation succeeded generation, and finally ceasing to exist at all; and so, before the ties of kinship became too remote, they took care to bind them together again with the bond of marriage and, as it were, to call those ties back from their flight. That is why, with the world now full of people, even though they did not want to marry a sister born of the same father or of the same mother or of the same parents that they were, they still wanted to take wives from within their own family. But who would doubt that the present situation is more honorable, when even marriage between cousins is banned? And this is true not only for the reason I have already discussed—that is, in order to multiply the relations of kinship so that one person would not embody two relationships when two people could embody them and, in that way, the num
ber of relationships could be increased. It is also true because there is something natural and laudable in the human sense of shame that keeps a man from directing lust towards a kinswoman, to whom he owes honor and respect; and, even if this lust is necessary for procreation, it is still lust—the lust at which, as we see, even the decency of marriage is embarrassed.393So far as the race of mortals is concerned, then, intercourse between man and woman is, as it were, the seedbed of a city. But, while the earthly city needs only generation, the heavenly city also has need of regeneration in order to escape from the harm of generation. The sacred history, however, does not tell us whether there was some corporeal and visible sign of regeneration prior to the flood, similar to the circumcision that was later enjoined on Abraham; and, if there was, neither does it tell us what form it took.394 But it does tell us that even those earliest humans offered sacrifices to God, as is made clear in the story of the first two brothers. We also read that after the flood, when Noah emerged from the ark, he sacrificed victims to God.395 And on this topic I have already said, in the preceding books,396 that the demons, who claim divinity for themselves and want us to think they are gods, demand sacrifices for themselves and rejoice in such honors for only one reason—because they know that true sacrifice is due only to the true God.
The Lines of Descent from Cain and Seth down to the Flood
17. Adam, then, was the father of both lines of descent, that is, of the line whose succession belongs to the earthly city and of the line whose succession belongs to the heavenly city. But, after Abel was killed and a wondrous mystery was intimated by his murder,397 there came to be two fathers, Cain and Seth, one for each line of descent; and in their sons, whose names were due to be listed, indications of these two cities began to appear with increasing clarity in the race of mortals.
Cain fathered Enoch, in whose name he founded a city—the earthly city, that is, which is not on pilgrimage in this world but rather rests content with its temporal peace and temporal happiness. Now Cain means “possession,”398 which is why, when he was born, either his father or his mother said, I have acquired a man by God’s help (Gn 4:1). And Enoch means “dedication,”399 for the earthly city is dedicated here, where it is built, since this is where it has the end that it strives for and longs for. But Seth, on the other hand, means “resurrection,”400 and Enosh, the name of his son, means “man,”401 although not in the same sense that Adam
does. For, although Adam’s name also means “man,” it is said to apply both to male and female in that language, that is, in Hebrew.402 Thus it is written, Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and named them Adam (Gn 5:2). There is no doubt, then, that, although the woman was called Eve as her own proper name, Adam, which means “man,” was the name of them both. Enosh, in contrast, means “man” in a sense that experts in Hebrew assert cannot possibly be applied to a woman. For Enosh means “man” as the son of “resurrection,” but in the resurrection people will neither marry nor take wives (Lk 20:35). For there will no longer be any generation, when regeneration has brought them to that point.For this reason I think it is worth noting that in the generations deriving from the man called Seth, even though they are said to have fathered both sons and daughters, no woman born in that line is ever expressly listed by name. In contrast, in the generations deriving from Cain, at the very end of that line, the last woman born is listed by name. For we read, Methushael fathered Lamech. And Lamech took two wives; the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other was Zillah. Adah gave birth to Jabal; he was the father of those who dwell in tents and have cattle. And his brother’s name was Jubal; he was the one who introduced the harp and the lyre. And Zillah gave birth to Tubal; he was a metalsmith, a worker in bronze and iron. And the sister of Tubal was Naamah. (Gn 4:18-22) This is the end-point of the generations descended from Cain. Starting from Adam, and including Adam himself, they come to eight in all; that is, there are seven generations down to Lamech, who was the husband of two wives, and the eighth consists of Lamech’s children, among whom a woman is also listed. Here, then, we have an elegant indication that the earthly city, right up to its very end, will continue to have carnal generations resulting from the union of men and women. That is also why the wives of this man, who is the last father named in this context, are themselves mentioned by their own names—something that, apart from Eve, is found nowhere else prior to the flood.
Thus Cain, which means “possession,” is the founder of the earthly city; and his son, in whose name that city was founded, is Enoch, which means “dedication.” Taken together, they indicate that this city has both its beginning and its end on earth, where there is no hope of anything more than can be seen in this world. But Seth, which means “resurrection,” is the father of generations that are listed separately in their own right, and we must now examine what the sacred history says of his son.
18. To Seth also, Scripture says, a son was born, and he named him Enosh; he hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God (Gn 4:26). This is clearly a testimony that trumpets the truth. It is in hope, therefore, that a person lives as a “son of resurrection”; it is in hope that the city of God lives, so long as it is on pilgrimage here on earth, itself born of faith in the resurrection of Christ. For in these two—Abel, whose name means “lamentation,” and his brother Seth, whose
name means “resurrection”—the death of Christ and his return to life from the dead are prefigured. And from faith in this is born the city of God here on earth, that is, the man who hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God.For in hope we were saved, says the Apostle, but hope that is seen is not hope. For who hopes for what is seen? But if we hope for what we do not see, we await it with patience. (Rom 8:24-25) Who could fail to recognize that this is full of profound mystery? For did not Abel hope to call upon the name of the Lord God to whom, as Scripture reports, his sacrifice was so pleasing?403 And did not Seth himself—of whom it is said, God has raised up for me another child in place of Abel (Gn 4:25)—hope to call upon the name of the Lord God? Why is it, then, that something understood to be common to all godly people is ascribed to Enosh in particular? Surely it is because Enosh is listed as the first offspring of the father of the generations marked out for the better part, that is, for the supernal city; and therefore it was fitting that he should prefigure the man—that is, the human society—that lives not according to man in the reality of earthly happiness but rather according to God in the hope of eternal happiness.404 Scripture did not say, “This son hoped in the Lord God,” nor did it say, “He called upon the name of the Lord God.” Rather it said, He hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God. And what does it mean to say that he hoped to call upon if not that this is a prophecy announcing that a people would arise who, according to the election of grace, would call upon the name of the Lord God? It is precisely this point, as stated by another prophet, that the Apostle understands to refer to the people that belongs to the grace of God: And it shall come to pass that everyone who calls upon the name of the Lord shall be saved (Jl 2:32). For when Scripture says, And he named him Enosh, which means “man,” and then adds, he hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God, this makes it quite clear that man ought not to put his hope in himself. For, as we read in another place, Cursed is everyone who puts his hope in man (Jer 17:5). Thus man must not put any hope in himself if he is to become a citizen of that other city which is not dedicated, like Cain’s son, to this present time, that is, to the transient course of this mortal age, but must rather put his hope in the immortality of eternal blessedness.
19. Now the line of descent of which Seth is the father also includes the name that means “dedication.” It appears in the seventh generation from Adam, counting Adam himself. For Enoch was born seventh from Adam in this line, and Enoch means “dedication.” But Enoch is the one who was translated into heaven because he pleased God,405 and this took place at the same distinctive number in the order of generations—namely, the seventh from Adam—as that on which the sabbath was consecrated. At the same time, he is the sixth from Seth, the father of those generations that are distinguished from the offspring of Cain, and it was on the
sixth day that man was created and God completed all his works.406 But the translation of this Enoch prefigures the delay of our own dedication. Now, however, our dedication has been accomplished in Christ, our head,407 who so rose from the dead that he will never die again,408 but he also was translated.There still remains another dedication, that of the whole house of which Christ is the foundation.409 It is delayed until the end, when there will be the resurrection of all those who will die no more. It is all the same whether this house is called the house of God or the temple of God or the city of God. None of these terms is at odds with customary Latin speech. Virgil himself calls the supreme imperial city the “house of Assaracus,” referring to the Romans, who take their origin from Assaracus through the Trojans.410 He also calls these same Romans the “house of Aeneas” because, when the Trojans came to Italy under Aeneas’s leadership, they founded Rome.411 In this regard, the celebrated poet imitated Sacred Scripture, in which the Hebrew people is still called the house of Jacob even after becoming very large.412
20. But someone will ask, “If the intention of the writer of this history in recording the generations from Adam down through his son Seth was to arrive at Noah, in whose time the flood occurred, and then to trace the sequence of births that leads to Abraham, with whom the evangelist Matthew begins his listing of the generations that lead to Christ,413 the eternal king of the city of God, what was his intention in listing the generations that derive from Cain and where did he want them to lead?” The answer is that he wanted his listing to lead down to the time of the flood, in which the whole race of the earthly city was wiped out. It was restored, however, from the sons of Noah. For this earthly city, this society of men who live according to man, cannot finally cease to exist until the end of this world, of which the Lord says, The children of this world generate and are generated (Lk 20:34). But the city of God, which is on pilgrimage in this world, is brought by regeneration to another world whose children neither generate nor are generated.
In this present world, then, it is common to both cities to be generated and to generate, although even here the city of God has many thousands of citizens who abstain from the act of generation.414 The other city also has those who imitate them after a fashion, but they are in error. For the earthly city also includes people who have strayed from the faith of the heavenly city and have established various heresies, and these live, of course, according to man, not according to God. The Indian gymnosophists also, who are said to practice philosophy naked in the
solitudes of India,415 are citizens of the earthly city, even though they refrain from generation. For such abstinence is good only when it is in accord with faith in the supreme good, which is God. No one is found, however, who lived in this way prior to the flood. Even Enoch himself, the seventh in line from Adam, who is said to have been translated into heaven rather than dying, fathered sons and daughters before he was translated, and one of these was Methuselah, through whom ran the line of descent that was to be recorded.416Why, then, are so few generations listed in the line descending from Cain, if the whole point was to trace them down to the flood, and if it is not true that their sexual development was so delayed that they went without children for a hundred years or more? For, if the author of this book did not have in mind a specific person to whom he needed to trace the sequence of generations from Cain in the same way that he intended to bring the sequence of generations from Seth down to Noah, from whom the necessary sequence would then continue, what need was there for him to pass over the firstborn sons in order to reach Lamech, in whose children the end of that series is reached, that is, in the eighth generation from Adam and the seventh from Cain? It is not as if there were some further line to be followed from that point on down to the Israelite people, in whom the earthly Jerusalem also presented a prophetic figure of the heavenly Jerusalem, or on down to Christ according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed forever (Rom 9:5), who is the builder and ruler of the Jerusalem on high. For all of Cain’s progeny was destroyed by the flood.
It seems quite possible, then, that it is the firstborn sons that are named in this sequence of generations. But why are there so few of them? For there could not possibly have been so few of them down to the time of the flood. Given that sexual maturity did not develop late in that era, in proportion to the longer lifespans of the time, it is not true that the fathers did not engage in the business of procreation until they finally reached sexual maturity at the age of a hundred. If we presume, then, that they were all thirty years old when they began to father children, and if we multiply thirty by eight (since there are eight generations if we include both Adam and Lamech’s children), we get 240 years. But how could it be that they produced no children in the whole period from that point down to the flood?
What reason, then, did the writer have for not wanting to record the generations that followed? According to our texts, the period from Adam to the flood is reckoned at 2262 years; and, according to the Hebrew texts, it is reckoned at 1656 years. Thus, taking the lower number as more correct, let us subtract 240 from 1656 years. Is it really credible, then, that for 1400 and some odd years, which is the period remaining down to the flood, Cain’s offspring could have gone without fathering children?
If anyone is bothered about this, however, let him remember that, when I asked how we could believe that the men of those ancient times could have refrained for so many years from fathering children, the problem turned out to have two solutions: either their sexual maturity was delayed, in proportion to their longer lifespan, or the sons recorded in the line of descent were not the firstborn but rather those through whom the author of the book could arrive at the person he had in mind, in the same way that he arrived at Noah in the case of the line of descent from Seth. Accordingly, in the line descending from Cain, if there is no one whom the author intended to reach by passing over the firstborn and recording only those through whom he could arrive at that person, the only remaining alternative is to assume that sexual maturity was delayed and that men only reached sexual maturity and became capable of fathering children when they were more than a hundred years old. On this assumption, the sequence of generations from Cain could in fact have run through the firstborn and still have reached all the way down through so vast a number of years to the flood.
It is possible, however, that there is some more hidden reason—which escapes me—why the successive generations of the city which I call earthly were presented down as far as Lamech and his children, but from that point on the author of the book stopped listing the remaining generations that might have existed down to the flood. And again, it is possible that there is another reason—one that would make it unnecessary to presume that sexual maturity was delayed in the case of these men—why the succession of generations was not traced through the firstborn. It is possible, that is, that the city which Cain founded in the name of his son Enoch was able to extend its rule far and wide yet did not have several kings at once but only one king in each age, with each king being succeeded by one of his sons. The first of these kings might have been Cain himself; the second, his son Enoch, in whose name was founded the city where he would reign; the third, Irad, whom Enoch fathered; the fourth, Mehujael, whom Irad fathered; the fifth, Methushael, whom Mehujael fathered; the sixth, Lamech, whom Methushael fathered, the seventh in the line of descent from Adam through Cain.417 It need not have followed, however, that the fathers were succeeded in the kingship by their firstborn sons. Instead, they might have been succeeded by a son who deserved to rule on account of some special virtue useful to the earthly city, or by a son who was chosen by some kind of lot. Or perhaps it was rather that, by some sort of hereditary right, the son who succeeded his father was the one whom the father loved more than his other sons.
It is possible, then, that the flood took place while Lamech was still alive and ruling and that it found him there and destroyed him along with all other people, with the sole exception of those in the ark. For, considering the variations in lifespan during the long period from Adam down to the flood, it should be no surprise if the two lines of descent do not show the same number of generations. The line from Cain had seven, and the line from Seth had ten, for, as I have already said,
Lamech was seventh from Adam and Noah was tenth. And the reason that Lamech has several sons listed rather than just one, as in the case of all those before him, is that it was uncertain which one of them would have succeeded him at his death, if any time had remained for another reign between him and the flood.
But whatever the case may be, whether the succession of generations from Cain runs through the firstborn sons or through the kings, I think it would be quite wrong to remain silent about the fact that, when Lamech was found to be the seventh from Adam, enough of his children were then listed to bring the whole count up to eleven, a number which signifies sin. For three sons and one daughter are added. But that Lamech’s wives may also signify something does not seem a point for discussion here, since we are now speaking of lines of descent, and Scripture says nothing about the lines into which his wives were born.
Therefore, since the law is designated by the number ten (from which stems the well-known Decalogue418 ), the number eleven—because it goes beyond ten— obviously signifies the transgression of the law, and thus signifies sin. This is why the people of God were commanded to make eleven curtains of goat’s hair for the tabernacle of the testimony, which served as a kind of portable temple for them during their wanderings.419 For in the goat’s hair there is a reminder of sin, since the goats will be set on the left;420 and, when we acknowledge our sins, we prostrate ourselves on goat’s hair, as if to say, in the words of the Psalm, And my sin is ever before me (Ps 51:3).421
Thus the line of descent from Adam through the criminal Cain ends with the number eleven, which signifies sin, and this number is itself completed with a woman, whose sex initiated the sin due to which we all die. And from the commission of this sin there also followed fleshly pleasure, which opposes the spirit. For Lamech’s daughter was named Naamah, which means “pleasure.”422 In contrast, the line running from Adam through Seth to Noah yields the number ten, the number of the law. To this the three sons of Noah are added, but one of these fell into sin, and the other two received their father’s blessing,423 so that, leaving out the reprobate son and adding in the sons who were approved, we get the number twelve. This is distinctive as the number of both the patriarchs and the apostles, inasmuch as it is the product of two parts of seven multiplied by each other, for three times four or four times three makes twelve.424
All this being so, I see that I must now consider and show how these two posterities, which by their separate lines of descent indicate the two cities, one the city of the earthborn and the other the city of the reborn, afterwards came to be so mixed and mingled together that the whole human race, except for eight people, deserved to perish in the flood.
The Two Cities as Represented in the Two Lines of Descent
21. We should note first, then, that, when the generations of Cain are enumerated, the one in whose name the city was founded—that is, Enoch—is listed before the rest of Cain’s posterity, and the others are then recorded in sequence down to the end of which I have spoken, namely, the destruction of that race and all of its progeny by the flood. In contrast, however, after one of Seth’s sons is listed, namely, Enosh, the remaining generations down to the flood are not yet added. Instead, there is first an insertion that says, This is the book of the generations of men. When God created Adam, he created him in the image of God. Male and female he created them, and he blessed them and gave them the name Adam when he created them. (Gn 5:1-2)
The purpose of this insertion, it seems to me, was to begin the chronological enumeration over again, starting from Adam himself. This is something that the writer did not want to do in the case of the earthly city, as if God only recorded that city in such a way as not to include it in the count. But why is it at this point that he goes back to give his recapitulation, just after listing Seth’s son, the man who hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God? The reason can only be that this was the right way to present the two cities, the one stemming from a murderer and leading to a murderer (for Lamech also confesses to his two wives that he had committed murder425 ), and the other stemming from the man who hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God. For calling upon God is the whole business and the supreme business of the city of God in this mortal existence, while it is on pilgrimage in this world; and it is this that was commended to us in the one man who was born of the “resurrection” of a murdered man. In fact, in this one man is represented the unity of the whole supernal city, a unity which is not yet fulfilled but is due to be fulfilled, as foreshadowed in his prophetic prefiguration of it.426
Therefore, let the son of Cain—that is, the son of “possession” (of earthly possession, of course)—have his name in the earthly city, since it was founded in
his name. For it is of such people that the Psalm sings, They shall call upon their names in their lands (Ps 49:11); and, as a consequence, there follows what is written in another Psalm, In your city, Lord, you shall bring their image to nothing (Ps 73:20). In contrast, let the son of Seth—that is the son of “resurrection”—hope to call upon the name of the Lord God. He prefigures the society of people that says, But I, like a fruit-bearing olive tree in the house of God, have put my hope in the mercy of God (Ps 52:8). But let him not seek the empty glory of a name famous on earth, for blessed is the man whose hope is in the name of the Lord, and who has no regard for vanities and witless lies (Ps 40:4).Here, then, we have the two cities set before us, the one existing in the reality of this world, the other in the hope of God. They came forth, as it were, from the common door of mortality, which was opened in Adam, to pursue and complete their respective courses to their own distinct and destined ends. Then begins the chronological enumeration in which, after a recapitulation from Adam, the other generations are added, and from this condemned beginning in Adam, as from one lump consigned to a deserved condemnation,427 God makes some vessels of wrath for dishonor and some vessels of mercy for honor.428 To the former he renders what they deserve by way of punishment, and to the latter he grants what they do not deserve by way of grace.429 And he does this so that, by this very comparison with the vessels of wrath, the heavenly city on pilgrimage here on earth may learn not to put its trust in its own freedom of will but rather may hope to call upon the name of the Lord God. For, although man’s nature was made good by God, who is good, it was also made mutable by God, who is immutable, because it was made out of nothing, and so the will in that nature can both turn away from the good to do evil, which happens by free choice, and turn away from the evil to do good, which does not happen without God’s help.
The Intermingling of the Two Cities: the Sons of God and the Daughters of Men
22. As the human race progressed and increased, then, it was by this free choice in willing that there took place a mixing and a kind of intermingling of the two cities due to their common participation in wickedness. This evil, once again, took its cause from the female sex, but not in the same way as did the evil at the beginning. In this case, the women were not seduced by anyone’s deceit into persuading men into sin. Rather, women who had been morally depraved from the beginning in the earthly city—that is, in the society of the earthborn—were loved for the beauty of their bodies by the sons of God, that is, by the citizens of the other city which is on pilgrimage in this world.430 Such beauty is certainly a
good, a gift from God, but it is a gift that is also given to the evil in order to keep the good from considering it a good of any great consequence.Thus, in departing from a great good and one that is reserved for the good alone, men fell into a minimal good, which is not reserved for the good alone but is common to the good and the evil alike. And so the sons of God were taken captive by love for the daughters of men; and, in order to enjoy them as wives, they deserted the godliness they had maintained in their holy society and sank down into the ways of the society of the earthborn. For bodily beauty is most certainly created by God. But it is a temporal, carnal, and lesser good, and it is loved wrongly when it is preferred to God, who is the eternal, inward, and everlasting good, just as gold is loved wrongly by misers when they desert justice for its sake, although the fault lies not with the gold but rather with the man. This is true of every created thing. For, although it is good, it can be loved both rightly and wrongly—rightly when the proper order is preserved, wrongly when the proper order is overturned. This is a point I made briefly in some verses in praise of the paschal candle: “These things are yours; they are good because you are good, and you made them. Nothing of ours is in them except for our sin, when we neglect right order and love the things you made in place of you yourself.”431
But if the creator is truly loved—that is, if he himself is loved and not something else in place of him—then he cannot be loved wrongly. For we must observe right order even in our love for the very love by which we love rightly what we ought to love.432 Otherwise, the virtue by which life is lived rightly will not be in us. Thus it seems to me that a brief and true definition of virtue is “rightly ordered love.” That is why, in the holy Song of Songs, Christ’s bride, the city of God, sings, Set charity in order in me (Song 2:4). It was, then, when they overturned the right order of this charity—that is, of this affection and love433 —that the sons of men neglected God and gave their affection to the daughters of men.
These two names are enough in themselves to distinguish the two cities. For it is not that the sons of God were not sons of men by nature; it is rather that they had begun to have another name by grace. In fact, in the same passage of Scripture where the sons of God are said to have given their affection to the daughters of men, they are also called angels of God.434 Thus many imagine that they were not men but angels.
23. In the third book of this work, I touched in passing on the question of whether it is possible for angels, since they are spirits, to have bodily sex with women, but there I left the issue unresolved.435 Now, Scripture says, He makes spirits his angels (Ps 104:4); that is, he makes those who are by nature spirits into
his angels by imposing on them the role of carrying messages. For the Greek word angelos, which becomes angelus in its Latin form, is translated “messenger” in Latin. But, when Scripture goes on to say, And he makes his ministers a flaming fire (Ps 104:4), it is unclear whether it is referring to their bodies or whether it means that his ministers ought to burn with love as with a spiritual fire.Nevertheless, the same completely truthful Scripture attests that angels have appeared to human beings in bodies of such a kind that they could be not only seen but also touched. It is widely reported, too, that Silvans and Pans, who are commonly called incubi,436 have often made lecherous appearances to women, lusting after them and having sex with them, and many people confirm this report either from their own immediate experience or from what they have heard of the experience of others whose reliability is beyond doubt. Again, it is said that certain demons, whom the Gauls call dusii,437 constantly attempt and achieve this indecency, and so many and such respected people assert this that it would seem impertinent to deny it. I cannot bring myself, then, to make any definitive statement as to whether it is possible for some spirits with bodies of air—for this element, even when only stirred by a fan, is felt by the body’s sense of touch—to experience this lust and so to have intercourse, in whatever way they can, with women who feel their presence.438
I simply cannot believe, however, that God’s holy angels could possibly have fallen in this way at that point. Nor can I believe that the apostle Peter was speaking of them when he said, For if God did not spare the angels when they sinned, but thrust them down into the dark dungeons of hell and gave them over to be held for punishment at the judgment (2 Pt 2:4). Instead he was speaking of those angels who turned against God at the beginning and fell with their leader, the devil, who through envy cast down the first man by the serpent’s deceit.439 What is more, Holy Scripture itself gives abundant testimony that men of God were also called angels. Speaking of John, for example, it says, See, I am sending my angel before your face, who will prepare your way (Mk 1:2); and the prophet Malachi is called an angel on account of a particular grace, that is, a grace bestowed on him in particular.440
But some people are troubled to read that the offspring of those who were called angels of God and the women they loved were not men of our kind but giants.441 Even in our own times, however, people are born with bodies far larger
than ours, as I have already mentioned.442 Just a few years ago in Rome, when the Goths were on the verge of destroying the city, was there not a woman living with her father and mother who towered over everyone else due to the gigantic size of her body? Wherever she went, an amazing crowd flocked to see her. And especially remarkable was the fact that neither of her parents was even as tall as the tallest people that we ordinarily see.It is quite possible, therefore, that giants were born even before the sons of God, who were also called angels of God, mated with the daughters of men, that is, with the daughters of those who were living according to man—even before, that is, the descendants of Seth mated with the descendants of Cain. In fact, this is exactly what canonical Scripture says in the book where we read of these things. Here are its words: And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on earth, and daughters were born to them, that the angels of God saw that the daughters of men were good, and they took wives for themselves of all that they chose. And the Lord God said, My spirit shall not abide in these men forever, for they are flesh; their days shall be one hundred twenty years. There were giants on earth in those days, and also afterwards, when the sons of God went in to the daughters of men and fathered children for themselves. These were the giants that were of old, men of renown. (Gn 6:1-4)
This passage from the divine book is enough to show that there were already giants on earth in those days, when the sons of God took as wives the daughters of men, whom they loved because they were good, that is, beautiful. For it is customary for Scripture to say that those who are physically attractive are also good.443 But giants were also born after this happened, for Scripture says, There were giants on earth in those days, and also afterwards, when the sons of God went in to the daughters of men (Gn 6:4). There were giants, therefore, both earlier in those days and also afterwards.
Again, when Scripture says, And they fathered children for themselves (Gn 6:4), it is enough to show that earlier, before the sons of God fell as they did, they fathered children for God rather than for themselves—that is, not with sexual desire dominating them but rather with sexual desire serving them in the function of procreation. At that point, then, they were not fathering a family for their own pride but rather fathering citizens for the city of God, to whom they, as angels of God, would deliver the message that they should put their hope in God,444 like the son of Seth, the son of “resurrection,” who hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God. And in this hope they would be coheirs, with their posterity, of eternal goods and would be brothers of their own children under God as their father.
But these sons of God were not angels of God—as some people suppose—in any sense that meant they were not human beings. Scripture itself unambiguously declares that they were undoubtedly human beings. For, after saying that
the angels of God saw that the daughters of men were good; and they took wives for themselves from all that they chose (Gn 6:2), it immediately goes on to say, And the Lord God said, My spirit shall not abide in these men forever, for they are flesh (Gn 6:3). It was, in fact, through the Spirit of God that they were made angels of God and sons of God; but, because they turned away to lower things, they are called men, the name they have by nature, not by grace. They are also called flesh, since they deserted the spirit and, in deserting it, were themselves deserted.The Septuagint also calls them both angels of God and sons of God, although it is true that not all copies have both terms, for some have only sons of God. But Aquila, the translator whom the Jews prefer above all others, gives neither angels of God nor sons of God but sons of gods.445 But both are right. For they were both sons of God, under whom as father they were also their own fathers’ brothers, and sons of gods, since they were born of gods and, together with them, were themselves gods, according to the passage from the Psalm, I have said, You are gods, children of the Most High, all of you (Ps 82:6). For it is with good reason that we believe that the translators of the Septuagint received the Spirit of prophecy; and so, if on its authority they altered anything and expressed what they were translating in a way that differed from the original, it is not to be doubted that what they said was itself divinely inspired446 (although it is said that, in this instance, the Hebrew itself is ambiguous and can be translated either as sons of God or as sons of gods).
Let us leave aside, then, the tales contained in those scriptures which are called apocryphal because their origin is hidden and was not clear to the fathers from whom the authority of the true Scriptures has come down to us by an utterly certain and wholly known succession.447 For, even if some truth is found in these apocryphal writings, they still have no canonical authority inasmusch as they also contain much that is false.448 We cannot deny, of course, that Enoch, the seventh in descent from Adam, wrote a number of things by divine inspiration, for the apostle Jude says so in a canonical epistle.449 But it is not without reason that these writings are not included in the canon of Scripture which was preserved in the Temple of the Hebrew people by the diligence of a succession of priests. Due to their great antiquity, the reliability of these works was held to be suspect, and it was impossible to discover whether they were in fact what Enoch himself had written, since those who put them forward were not found to have preserved them with religious care in unbroken succession. As a consequence, prudent men have rightly concluded that we should not believe that the works put forward under Enoch’s name, with
their tales of giants without human fathers, are really his. In the same way, many works have been put forward by heretics under the names of other prophets, and more recent works under the names of apostles. But, after careful examination, all of these have been denied canonical authority and designated apocrypha.450According to the canonical Scriptures, then, both Hebrew and Christian, there is no doubt that there were many giants before the flood, and there is no doubt that these were citizens of the earthborn society of men. And there is also no doubt that the sons of God, descendents of Seth according to the flesh, deserted righteousness and sank into that society. Nor should it be any surprise that the children of the sons of God could also be giants. It is not, of course, that all of them were giants, but there were certainly more giants then than there were in later times, after the flood. It pleased the creator to create them in order to show in this way, too, that not only physical beauty but also physical size and strength should not be assigned much value by anyone who is wise. For the wise man is blessed with spiritual and immortal goods which are far better and far more secure than these, and which are exclusive to the good alone, not common to both the good and the evil. Another prophet underscores this point when he says, Those renowned giants were there, who from the beginning were men of great stature, expert in war. God did not choose them or give them the way of knowledge, but they perished because they had no wisdom; they perished through their own thoughtlessness. (Bar 3:26-28)
24. There is the further point that God said, Their days shall be one hundred twenty years (Gn 6:3). We should not take this, however, as foretelling that from then on men would not live more than a hundred and twenty years, for we find that even after the flood they lived to be more than five hundred years old. Rather, we should recognize that God said this when Noah was close to five hundred years old—that is, when he was 480, which Scripture called five hundred, following its usual practice of signifying the greater part of a number by rounding it to the nearest whole. Now the flood occurred in the second month of the six hundredth year of Noah’s life. Thus the prediction simply meant that the people who were going to perish would live for another 120 years and would then be wiped out by the flood.
The Flood, Noah, and the Ark
And it is with good reason that we believe that, when the flood occurred, there were no longer any people to be found on earth who did not deserve to die the kind of death that is imposed on the ungodly as punishment. Such a death, of course, could not inflict any harm on the good (who, in any case, are going to die at some point451 ) after they die. It is still true, however, that none of those whom Holy Scripture mentions as descended from the seed of Seth died in the flood. Here, then, is the cause of the flood as told by divine inspiration: The Lord God saw that the wickedness of men had multiplied on the earth and that everyone
was relentlessly plotting evil in his heart all his days. And God considered the fact that he had made man on the earth, and he reconsidered, and God said, I will blot out man, whom I made, from the face of the earth, man and beast, and creeping things, and the birds of the air, for I am angry that I have made them. (Gn 6:5-7)25. God’s anger, however, is not any passionate upset of mind; rather, it is a judgment that imposes punishment on sin. And his consideration and reconsideration are simply his unchanging plan for things that are themselves subject to change. For, unlike human beings, God does not repent of any action he has taken, and his purpose with regard to absolutely everything is as fixed as his foreknowledge of it is utterly certain. But, if Scripture did not make use of terms of this kind, it would not present itself in an idiom familiar to all kinds of people—all of whom it wants to take under its care—so as to terrify the proud, arouse the uncaring, prod the inquirer, and nourish the intelligent. For it would do none of these things if it did not first stoop down and, as it were, descend to the level of the fallen.452 And, when it announces the destruction of all animals on the earth and in the air, it is showing us the sheer magnitude of the coming disaster; it is not threatening the destruction of creatures without reason, as if they too had sinned.
26. It was at this point, however, that God directed Noah to build an ark. Noah was a righteous man; and, as truthful Scripture truly says of him, he was perfect in his generation.453 He was not perfect, of course, in the sense in which the citizens of the city of God will be perfect when they are perfected in that immortality by which they will be made equal to the angels,454 but he was as perfect as they are able to be in this pilgrimage here on earth. In the ark, Noah and his family—that is, his wife, his sons, and his sons’ wives—were to be rescued from the devastation of the flood, along with the animals that came to him in the ark at God’s command.455 This is, beyond any doubt, a figure of the city of God on pilgrimage in this world, that is, a figure of the Church which is saved through the wood on which hung the mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus (1 Tm 2:5).456
For the very dimensions of the ark—its length, height, and breadth—signify the human body, in the reality of which it was foretold that Christ would come to humankind, and in the reality of which he did in fact come.457 For the length of the human body from the top of the head to the bottom of the foot is six times its breadth from side to side, and ten times its depth as measured on the side from back
to belly. Thus, if you measure a person lying either on his back or on his face, his length from head to foot is six times his breadth from right to left or left to right and ten times his height from the ground. That is why the ark was made three hundred cubits in length, fifty cubits in breadth, and thirty cubits in height.458 And as for the door that was cut in its side, it is clearly the wound that was made when the Crucified’s side was pierced by the spear. This is plainly the way of entrance for those who come to him, for from that wound flowed the sacraments by which believers are initiated.459 Again, the order that the ark be made of squared timbers signifies the life of the saints, which is stable on all sides; for, no matter which way you turn a squared object, it will be stable. And all the other details that are mentioned with regard to the construction of the ark are signs of aspects of the Church.It would take too long, however, to run through all of them here. Besides, we have already done this in the work that we wrote against Faustus the Manichaean, who denied that there are any prophecies of Christ in the books of the Hebrews.460 And in any case it is always possible that some other person may be able to explain these things more aptly than I or anyone else can. But, if the interpreter does not want to stray off from the sense intended by the author of this account, everything he says must refer in one way or another to the city of God of which we are speaking, which is on pilgrimage in the midst of this wicked world as though in the midst of a flood.
For example, there is the verse that says, Make it with lower, second, and third stories (Gn 6:16), and someone may wish to differ from the interpretation of this that I gave in that work.461 There I suggested that, because the Church is gathered together from all peoples, it is called two-storied on account of the two categories of men, the circumcised and the uncircumcised, or, as the Apostle also puts it, the Jews and the Greeks,462 and it is called three-storied due to the fact that, after the flood, all peoples were replenished from Noah’s three sons. Any alternate interpretation, however, must not be at odds with the rule of faith.463 Thus God wanted the ark to have living quarters not only on the lowest level but also on the higher level (which he called the second story) and again on the yet higher level (which he called the third story), so that the third living space might surge upward from the bottom toward the top; and these could also be understood as the threesome of faith, hope and love that the Apostle extols.464 Again, and far more suitably, the three stories could be the three abundant harvests of the Gospel—thirtyfold,
sixtyfold, and a hundredfold;465 and in this case marital chastity would occupy the bottom story, the chastity of widowhood the story above, and virginity the highest story.466 But it may be that still better interpretations are possible that are in keeping with the faith of this city. And I would say the same thing about all other details that require interpretation here: even if they are explained in more than one way, they must all be referred back to the unified harmony of the Catholic faith.The Flood: History and Allegory
27. No one should suppose, however, that the account of the flood was written without purpose; or that we should seek in it only historical truth without any allegorical meaning; or, conversely, that the events never actually took place and the words have only figurative meaning; or that, whatever else it may be, the account has no relation to prophecy about the Church. Only a twisted mind would claim that books preserved for thousands of years467 with such religious care and with such concern for their well-regulated transmission were written for no reason, or that we should see in them no more than bare historical events. For, leaving everything else aside, if it was only the sheer number of the animals that required the ark to be so large, what was it that required the inclusion of two of each unclean species, but seven of each clean species,468 when both could easily have been preserved in the same number? And besides, was not God—who ordered these animals to be preserved in order to restore their species—perfectly capable of re-establishing them in the same way that he had established them in the first place?
On the other hand, there are those who claim that there were no such actual events but only figures meant to signify something else. Their view is, first, that there could not possibly have been a flood so vast that the water rose fifteen cubits above the highest mountains. They cite the summit of Mount Olympus, above which, they say, clouds cannot form because that peak is already so high in the heavens that it lacks the denser air in which winds, clouds, and rain have their origin. But they overlook the fact that it is fully possible for earth, the densest element of all, to be there. Or are they going to deny that the mountain’s summit is made of earth? Why, then, do they argue that it is legitimate for earth to rise to that level of the heavens but not legitimate for water to do so—especially when those who measure and weigh the elements inform us that water both stands higher and weighs less than earth on the scale of elements? What reason do they offer, then, to explain why earth, which is heavier and lower, should have managed to invade the more rarified region of the heavens for years upon years, while water,
the lighter and higher element, has not been allowed to do this for even the briefest moment of time?469These people also insist that an ark of that size could not possibly have held so many kinds of animals of both sexes, two of each unclean and seven of each clean species. But it seems to me that they are only counting the three hundred cubits of length and the fifty cubits of breadth without taking into account the fact that there is the same amount of space on the next level, and the same again on the third level, so that, when those dimensions are multiplied by three, they actually come to 900 cubits by 150 cubits of living space. Furthermore, there is Origen’s shrewd observation that Moses, the man of God (Dt 33:1), as Scripture says, was instructed in all the wisdom of the Egyptians (Acts 7:22)—who loved geometry—and thus could have meant geometric cubits, one of which is said to equal six of ours.470 And if we keep that thought in mind, who does not see how much an ark of that vast size could hold?
As for their argument that it would have been impossible to build an ark of that size, here they are just being ineptly malicious. For they know full well that immense cities have been built, and they are simply ignoring the fact that the building of the ark went on for a hundred years.471 Besides, if stone can adhere to stone, joined only by a mortar of lime, to make an encircling wall many miles long, why is it not perfectly possible for wood to adhere to wood by means of pegs, bolts, nails, and bituminous glue in order to construct an ark that is extended in its length and breadth in straight rather than curved lines? Besides, no human effort would be required to launch this ark into the sea; rather, it would be lifted up by the water when it came, due to the natural difference in weights. And, once the ark was afloat, it would be steered not by human prudence but rather by divine providence, to keep it from being shipwrecked at any point.
People also often ask, in an overly scrupulous way, about the tiniest crea-tures—not just those like mice and lizards but also such insects as locusts, bees, and even flies and fleas. They wonder whether these were not present in the ark in greater number than was set by God’s command. To people who are troubled on this score, we must first point out that the phrase everything that creeps upon the earth (Gn 6:20) should be understood to mean that there was no need to save in the ark any creatures that are able to live in water, and this includes not only those that live underwater, such as fish, but also those that swim on the surface, such as many species of birds. In addition, when Scripture says, They shall be male and female (Gn 6:19), this is clearly meant to refer to species that would need to be restored, and so it was not necessary to include in the ark creatures that can
be generated from various substances, or from the decomposition of substances, without the mating of male and-position:right;width:200px;">- Edition Information
- 易經 \ Yi Jing (I Ching) \ The Book of Changes
- 論語 \ Lun Yu \ The Analects of Confucius
- 孟子 \ Mengzi (Mencius) \ The Works of Mengzi
- 禮記 \ Liji \ The Book of Rites
- 孝經 \ Xiao Jing \ The Classic of Filial Piety
- 墨子 \ Mozi (Mo-tzu) \ The Works of Mozi
- 道德經 \ Dao De Jing (Tao Te Ching) \ The Classic of the Way and its Virtue
- 莊子 \ Zhuangzi (Chuang-tzu) \ The Works of Zhuangzi
- 韓非子 \ Hanfeizi \ The Works of Han Feizi
- 孫子兵法 \ Sunzi Bingfa (Sun-tzu) \ The Art of War
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Annotation Guide:
 Chinese Classics I: Philosophy  孝經 \ Xiao Jing \ The Classic of Filial Piety |