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ST. AUGUSTIN'S CITY OF GOD

Book 15

Argument—Having treated in the four preceding books of the origin of the two cities, the earthly
and the heavenly, Augustin explains their growth and progress in the four books which follow; and,
in order to do so, he explains the chief passages of the sacred history which bear upon this subject.
In this fifteenth book he opens this part of his work by explaining the events recorded in Genesis
from the time of Cain and Abel to the deluge.
Chapter 1.—Of the Two Lines of the Human Race Which from First to Last Divide It.
Of the bliss of Paradise, of Paradise itself, and of the life of our first parents there, and of their
sin and punishment, many have thought much, spoken much, written much. We ourselves, too,
have spoken of these things in the foregoing books, and have written either what we read in the
Holy Scriptures, or what we could reasonably deduce from them. And were we to enter into a more
detailed investigation of these matters, an endless number of endless questions would arise, which
would involve us in a larger work than the present occasion admits. We cannot be expected to find
room for replying to every question that may be started by unoccupied and captious men, who are
ever more ready to ask questions than capable of understanding the answer. Yet I trust we have
already done justice to these great and difficult questions regarding the beginning of the world, or
of the soul, or of the human race itself. This race we have distributed into two parts, the one
consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God. And
these we also mystically call the two cities, or the two communities of men, of which the one is
predestined to reign eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment with the devil.
This, however, is their end, and of it we are to speak afterwards. At present, as we have said enough
about their origin, whether among the angels, whose numbers we know not, or in the two first
765 Rom. i. 21–25.
766 1 Cor. xv. 28.
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human beings, it seems suitable to attempt an account of their career, from the time when our two
first parents began to propagate the race until all human generation shall cease. For this whole time
or world-age, in which the dying give place and those who are born succeed, is the career of these
two cities concerning which we treat.
Of these two first parents of the human race, then, Cain was the first-born, and he belonged to
the city of men; after him was born Abel, who belonged to the city of God. For as in the individual
the truth of the apostle’s statement is discerned, “that is not first which is spiritual, but that which
is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual,”767 whence it comes to pass that each man, being
derived from a condemned stock, is first of all born of Adam evil and carnal, and becomes good
and spiritual only afterwards, when he is grafted into Christ by regeneration: so was it in the human
race as a whole. When these two cities began to run their course by a series of deaths and births,
the citizen of this world was the first-born, and after him the stranger in this world, the citizen of
the city of God, predestinated by grace, elected by grace, by grace a stranger below, and by grace
a citizen above. By grace,—for so far as regards himself he is sprung from the same mass, all of
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which is condemned in its origin; but God, like a potter (for this comparison is introduced by the
apostle judiciously, and not without thought), of the same lump made one vessel to honor, another
to dishonor.768 But first the vessel to dishonor was made, and after it another to honor. For in each
individual, as I have already said, there is first of all that which is reprobate, that from which we
must begin, but in which we need not necessarily remain; afterwards is that which is well-approved,
to which we may by advancing attain, and in which, when we have reached it we may abide. Not,
indeed, that every wicked man shall be good, but that no one will be good who was not first of all
wicked; but the sooner any one becomes a good man, the more speedily does he receive this title,
and abolish the old name in the new. Accordingly, it is recorded of Cain that he built a city,769 but
Abel, being a sojourner, built none. For the city of the saints is above, although here below it begets
citizens, in whom it sojourns till the time of its reign arrives, when it shall gather together all in the
day of the resurrection; and then shall the promised kingdom be given to them, in which they shall
reign with their Prince, the King of the ages, time without end.
Chapter 2.—Of the Children of the Flesh and the Children of the Promise.
There was indeed on earth, so long as it was needed, a symbol and foreshadowing image of
this city, which served the purpose of reminding men that such a city was to be rather than of making
it present; and this image was itself called the holy city, as a symbol of the future city, though not
767 1 Cor. xv. 46.
768 Rom. ix. 21.
769 Gen. iv. 17.
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itself the reality. Of this city which served as an image, and of that free city it typified, Paul writes
to the Galatians in these terms: “Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the
law? For it is written, that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bond maid, the other by a free
woman. But he who was of the bond woman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman
was by promise. Which things are an allegory:770 for these are the two covenants; the one from
the mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is mount Sinai in
Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem
which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that
bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not, for the desolate hath many more children
than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But
as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the Spirit, even so it is
now. Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bond woman and her son: for the son
of the bond woman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. And we, brethren, are not
children of the bond woman, but of the free, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free.”771
This interpretation of the passage, handed down to us with apostolic authority, shows how we ought
to understand the Scriptures of the two covenants—the old and the new. One portion of the earthly
city became an image of the heavenly city, not having a significance of its own, but signifying
another city, and therefore serving, or “being in bondage.” For it was founded not for its own sake,
but to prefigure another city; and this shadow of a city was also itself foreshadowed by another
preceding figure. For Sarah’s handmaid Agar, and her son, were an image of this image. And as
the shadows were to pass away when the full light came, Sarah, the free woman, who prefigured
the free city (which again was also prefigured in another way by that shadow of a city Jerusalem),
therefore said, “Cast out the bond woman and her son; for the son of the bond woman shall not be
heir with my son Isaac,” or, as the apostle says, “with the son of the free woman.” In the earthly
city, then, we find two things—its own obvious presence, and its symbolic presentation of the
heavenly city. Now citizens are begotten to the earthly city by nature vitiated by sin, but to the
heavenly city by grace freeing nature from sin; whence the former are called “vessels of wrath,”
the latter “vessels of mercy.”772 And this was typified in the two sons of Abraham,—Ishmael, the
son of Agar the handmaid, being born according to the flesh, while Isaac was born of the free
woman Sarah, according to the promise. Both, indeed, were of Abraham’s seed; but the one was
begotten by natural law, the other was given by gracious promise. In the one birth, human action
is revealed; in the other, a divine kindness comes to light.
770 Comp. De Trin. xv. c. 15.
771 Gal. iv. 21–31.
772 Rom. ix. 22, 23.
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Chapter 3.—That Sarah’s Barrenness was Made Productive by God’s Grace.
Sarah, in fact, was barren; and, despairing of offspring, and being resolved that she would have
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at least through her handmaid that blessing she saw she could not in her own person procure, she
gave her handmaid to her husband, to whom she herself had been unable to bear children. From
him she required this conjugal duty, exercising her own right in another’s womb. And thus Ishmael
was born according to the common law of human generation, by sexual intercourse. Therefore it
is said that he was born “according to the flesh,”—not because such births are not the gifts of God,
nor His handiwork, whose creative wisdom “reaches,” as it is written, “from one end to another
mightily, and sweetly doth she order all things,”773 but because, in a case in which the gift of God,
which was not due to men and was the gratuitous largess of grace, was to be conspicuous, it was
requisite that a son be given in a way which no effort of nature could compass. Nature denies
children to persons of the age which Abraham and Sarah had now reached; besides that, in Sarah’s
case, she was barren even in her prime. This nature, so constituted that offspring could not be
looked for, symbolized the nature of the human race vitiated by sin and by just consequence
condemned, which deserves no future felicity. Fitly, therefore, does Isaac, the child of promise,
typify the children of grace, the citizens of the free city, who dwell together in everlasting peace,
in which self-love and self-will have no place, but a ministering love that rejoices in the common
joy of all, of many hearts makes one, that is to say, secures a perfect concord.
Chapter 4.—Of the Conflict and Peace of the Earthly City.
But the earthly city, which shall not be everlasting (for it will no longer be a city when it has
been committed to the extreme penalty), has its good in this world, and rejoices in it with such joy
as such things can afford. But as this is not a good which can discharge its devotees of all distresses,
this city is often divided against itself by litigations, wars, quarrels, and such victories as are either
life-destroying or short-lived. For each part of it that arms against another part of it seeks to triumph
over the nations through itself in bondage to vice. If, when it has conquered, it is inflated with
pride, its victory is life-destroying; but if it turns its thoughts upon the common casualties of our
mortal condition, and is rather anxious concerning the disasters that may befall it than elated with
the successes already achieved, this victory, though of a higher kind, is still only short-lived; for it
cannot abidingly rule over those whom it has victoriously subjugated. But the things which this
city desires cannot justly be said to be evil, for it is itself, in its own kind, better than all other human
good. For it desires earthly peace for the sake of enjoying earthly goods, and it makes war in order
773 Wisdom viii. 1.
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to attain to this peace; since, if it has conquered, and there remains no one to resist it, it enjoys a
peace which it had not while there were opposing parties who contested for the enjoyment of those
things which were too small to satisfy both. This peace is purchased by toilsome wars; it is obtained
by what they style a glorious victory. Now, when victory remains with the party which had the
juster cause, who hesitates to congratulate the victor, and style it a desirable peace? These things,
then, are good things, and without doubt the gifts of God. But if they neglect the better things of
the heavenly city, which are secured by eternal victory and peace never-ending, and so inordinately
covet these present good things that they believe them to be the only desirable things, or love them
better than those things which are believed to be better,—if this be so, then it is necessary that
misery follow and ever increase.
Chapter 5.—Of the Fratricidal Act of the Founder of the Earthly City, and the Corresponding Crime
of the Founder of Rome.
Thus the founder of the earthly city was a fratricide. Overcome with envy, he slew his own
brother, a citizen of the eternal city, and a sojourner on earth. So that we cannot be surprised that
this first specimen, or, as the Greeks say, archetype of crime, should, long afterwards, find a
corresponding crime at the foundation of that city which was destined to reign over so many nations,
and be the head of this earthly city of which we speak. For of that city also, as one of their poets
has mentioned, “the first walls were stained with a brother’s blood,”774 or, as Roman history records,
Remus was slain by his brother Romulus. And thus there is no difference between the foundation
of this city and of the earthly city, unless it be that Romulus and Remus were both citizens of the
earthly city. Both desired to have the glory of founding the Roman republic, but both could not
have as much glory as if one only claimed it; for he who wished to have the glory of ruling would
certainly rule less if his power were shared by a living consort. In order, therefore, that the whole
glory might be enjoyed by one, his consort was removed; and by this crime the empire was made
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larger indeed, but inferior, while otherwise it would have been less, but better. Now these brothers,
Cain and Abel, were not both animated by the same earthly desires, nor did the murderer envy the
other because he feared that, by both ruling, his own dominion would be curtailed,—for Abel was
not solicitous to rule in that city which his brother built,—he was moved by that diabolical, envious
hatred with which the evil regard the good, for no other reason than because they are good while
themselves are evil. For the possession of goodness is by no means diminished by being shared
with a partner either permanent or temporarily assumed; on the contrary, the possession of goodness
is increased in proportion to the concord and charity of each of those who share it. In short, he
who is unwilling to share this possession cannot have it; and he who is most willing to admit others
774 Lucan, Phar. i. 95.
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to a share of it will have the greatest abundance to himself. The quarrel, then, between Romulus
and Remus shows how the earthly city is divided against itself; that which fell out between Cain
and Abel illustrated the hatred that subsists between the two cities, that of God and that of men.
The wicked war with the wicked; the good also war with the wicked. But with the good, good
men, or at least perfectly good men, cannot war; though, while only going on towards perfection,
they war to this extent, that every good man resists others in those points in which he resists himself.
And in each individual “the flesh lusteth against the spirit, and the spirit against the flesh.”775 This
spiritual lusting, therefore, can be at war with the carnal lust of another man; or carnal lust may be
at war with the spiritual desires of another, in some such way as good and wicked men are at war;
or, still more certainly, the carnal lusts of two men, good but not yet perfect, contend together, just
as the wicked contend with the wicked, until the health of those who are under the treatment of
grace attains final victory.
Chapter 6.—Of the Weaknesses Which Even the Citizens of the City of God Suffer During This
Earthly Pilgrimage in Punishment of Sin, and of Which They are Healed by God’s Care.
This sickliness—that is to say, that disobedience of which we spoke in the fourteenth book—is
the punishment of the first disobedience. It is therefore not nature, but vice; and therefore it is said
to the good who are growing in grace, and living in this pilgrimage by faith, “Bear ye one another’s
burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.”776 In like manner it is said elsewhere, “Warn them that
are unruly, comfort the feeble-minded, support the weak, be patient toward all men. See that none
render evil for evil unto any man.”777 And in another place, “If a man be overtaken in a fault, ye
which are spiritual restore such an one in the spirit of meekness; considering thyself, lest thou also
be tempted.”778 And elsewhere, “Let not the sun go down upon your wrath.”779 And in the Gospel,
“If thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone.”780
So too of sins which may create scandal the apostle says, “Them that sin rebuke before all, that
others also may fear.”781 For this purpose, and that we may keep that peace without which no man
can see the Lord,782 many precepts are given which carefully inculcate mutual forgiveness; among
775 Gal. v. 17.
776 Gal. vi. 2.
777 1 Thess. v. 14, 15.
778 Gal. vi. 1.
779 Eph. iv. 26.
780 Matt. xviii. 15.
781 1 Tim. v. 20.
782 Heb. xii. 14.
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which we may number that terrible word in which the servant is ordered to pay his formerly remitted
debt of ten thousand talents, because he did not remit to his fellow-servant his debt of two hundred
pence. To which parable the Lord Jesus added the words, “So likewise shall my heavenly Father
do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother.”783 It is thus the citizens
of the city of God are healed while still they sojourn in this earth and sigh for the peace of their
heavenly country. The Holy Spirit, too, works within, that the medicine externally applied may
have some good result. Otherwise, even though God Himself make use of the creatures that are
subject to Him, and in some human form address our human senses, whether we receive those
impressions in sleep or in some external appearance, still, if He does not by His own inward grace
sway and act upon the mind, no preaching of the truth is of any avail. But this God does,
distinguishing between the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy, by His own very secret but
very just providence. When He Himself aids the soul in His own hidden and wonderful ways, and
the sin which dwells in our members, and is, as the apostle teaches, rather the punishment of sin,
does not reign in our mortal body to obey the lusts of it, and when we no longer yield our members
as instruments of unrighteousness,784 then the soul is converted from its own evil and selfish desires,
and, God possessing it, it possesses itself in peace even in this life, and afterwards, with perfected
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health and endowed with im mortality, will reign without sin in peace everlasting.
Chapter 7.—Of the Cause of Cain’s Crime and His Obstinacy, Which Not Even the Word of God
Could Subdue.
But though God made use of this very mode of address which we have been endeavoring to
explain, and spoke to Cain in that form by which He was wont to accommodate Himself to our first
parents and converse with them as a companion, what good influence had it on Cain? Did he not
fulfill his wicked intention of killing his brother even after he was warned by God’s voice? For
when God had made a distinction between their sacrifices, neglecting Cain’s, regarding Abel’s,
which was doubtless intimated by some visible sign to that effect; and when God had done so
because the works of the one were evil but those of his brother good, Cain was very wroth, and his
countenance fell. For thus it is written: “And the Lord said unto Cain, Why are thou wroth, and
why is thy countenance fallen? If thou offerest rightly, but dost not rightly distinguish, hast thou
not sinned? Fret not thyself, for unto thee shall be his turning, and thou shalt rule over him.”785 In
this admonition administered by God to Cain, that clause indeed, “If thou offerest rightly, but dost
not rightly distinguish, hast thou not sinned?” is obscure, inasmuch as it is not apparent for what
783 Matt. xviii. 35.
784 Rom. vi. 12, 13.
785 Gen. iv. 6, 7.
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reason or purpose it was spoken, and many meanings have been put upon it, as each one who
discusses it attempts to interpret it according to the rule of faith. The truth is, that a sacrifice is
“rightly offered” when it is offered to the true God, to whom alone we must sacrifice. And it is
“not rightly distinguished” when we do not rightly distinguish the places or seasons or materials
of the offering, or the person offering, or the person to whom it is presented, or those to whom it
is distributed for food after the oblation. Distinguishing786 is here used for discriminating,—whether
when an offering is made in a place where it ought not or of a material which ought to be offered
not there but elsewhere; or when an offering is made at a wrong time, or of a material suitable not
then but at some other time; or when that is offered which in no place nor any time ought to be
offered; or when a man keeps to himself choicer specimens of the same kind than he offers to God;
or when he or any other who may not lawfully partake profanely eats of the oblation. In which of
these particulars Cain displeased God, it is difficult to determine. But the Apostle John, speaking
of these brothers, says, “Not as Cain, who was of that wicked one, and slew his brother. And
wherefore slew he him? Because his own works were evil, and his brother’s righteous.”787 He thus
gives us to understand that God did not respect his offering because it was not rightly “distinguished”
in this, that he gave to God something of his own but kept himself to himself. For this all do who
follow not God’s will but their own, who live not with an upright but a crooked heart, and yet offer
to God such gifts as they suppose will procure from Him that He aid them not by healing but by
gratifying their evil passions. And this is the characteristic of the earthly city, that it worships God
or gods who may aid it in reigning victoriously and peacefully on earth not through love of doing
good, but through lust of rule. The good use the world that they may enjoy God: the wicked, on
the contrary, that they may enjoy the world would fain use God,—those of them, at least, who have
attained to the belief that He is and takes an interest in human affairs. For they who have not yet
attained even to this belief are still at a much lower level. Cain, then, when he saw that God had
respect to his brother’s sacrifice, but not to his own, should have humbly chosen his good brother
as his example, and not proudly counted him his rival. But he was wroth, and his countenance fell.
This angry regret for another person’s goodness, even his brother’s, was charged upon him by God
as a great sin. And He accused him of it in the interrogation, “Why are thou wroth, and why is thy
countenance fallen?” For God saw that he envied his brother, and of this He accused him. For to
men, from whom the heart of their fellow is hid, it might be doubtful and quite uncertain whether
that sadness bewailed his own wickedness by which, as he had learned, he had displeased God, or
his brother’s goodness, which had pleased God, and won His favorable regard to his sacrifice. But
God, in giving the reason why He refused to accept Cain’s offering and why Cain should rather
have been displeased at himself than at his brother, shows him that though he was unjust in “not
rightly distinguishing,” that is, not rightly living and being unworthy to have his offering received,
he was more unjust by far in hating his just brother without a cause.
786 Literally, “division.”
787 1 John iii. 12.
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Yet He does not dismiss him without counsel, holy, just, and good. “Fret not thyself,” He says,
“for unto thee shall be his turning, and thou shall rule over him.” Over his brother, does He mean?
Most certainly not. Over what, then, but sin? For He had said, “Thou hast sinned,” and then He
added, “Fret not thyself, for to thee shall be its turning, and thou shall rule over it.”788 And the
“turning” of sin to the man can be understood of his conviction that the guilt of sin can be laid at
no other man’s door but his own. For this is the health-giving medicine of penitence, and the fit
plea for pardon; so that, when it is said, “To thee its turning,” we must not supply “shall be,” but
we must read, “To thee let its turning be,” understanding it as a command, not as a prediction. For
then shall a man rule over his sin when he does not prefer it to himself and defend it, but subjects
it by repentance; otherwise he that becomes protector of it shall surely become its prisoner. But if
we understand this sin to be that carnal concupiscence of which the apostle says, “The flesh lusteth
against the spirit,”789 among the fruits of which lust he names envy, by which assuredly Cain was
stung and excited to destroy his brother, then we may properly supply the words “shall be,” and
read, “To thee shall be its turning, and thou shalt rule over it.” For when the carnal part which the
apostle calls sin, in that place where he says, “It is not I who do it, but sin that dwelleth in me,”790
that part which the philosophers also call vicious, and which ought not to lead the mind, but which
the mind ought to rule and restrain by reason from illicit motions,—when, then, this part has been
moved to perpetrate any wickedness, if it be curbed and if it obey the word of the apostle, “Yield
not your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin,”791 it is turned towards the mind and
subdued and conquered by it, so that reason rules over it as a subject. It was this which God enjoined
on him who was kindled with the fire of envy against his brother, so that he sought to put out of
the way him whom he should have set as an example. “Fret not thyself,” or compose thyself, He
says: withhold thy hand from crime; let not sin reign in your mortal body to fulfill it in the lusts
thereof, nor yield your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. “For to thee shall be its
turning,” so long as you do not encourage it by giving it the rein, but bridle it by quenching its fire.
“And thou shalt rule over it;” for when it is not allowed any external actings, it yields itself to the
rule of the governing mind and righteous will, and ceases from even internal motions. There is
something similar said in the same divine book of the woman, when God questioned and judged
them after their sin, and pronounced sentence on them all,—the devil in the form of the serpent,
the woman and her husband in their own persons. For when He had said to her, “I will greatly
multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow shall thou bring forth children,” then He added,
“and thy turning shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.”792 What is said to Cain about
his sin, or about the vicious concupiscence of his flesh, is here said of the woman who had sinned;
788 We alter the pronoun to suit Augustin’s interpretation.
789 Gal. v. 17.
790 Rom. vii. 17.
791 Rom. vi. 13.
792 Gen. iii. 16.
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and we are to understand that the husband is to rule his wife as the soul rules the flesh. And therefore,
says the apostle, “He that loveth his wife, loveth himself; for no man ever yet hated his own flesh.”793
This flesh, then, is to be healed, because it belongs to ourselves: is not to be abandoned to destruction
as if it were alien to our nature. But Cain received that counsel of God in the spirit of one who did
not wish to amend. In fact, the vice of envy grew stronger in him; and, having entrapped his brother,
he slew him. Such was the founder of the earthly city. He was also a figure of the Jews who slew
Christ the Shepherd of the flock of men, prefigured by Abel the shepherd of sheep: but as this is
an allegorical and prophetical matter, I forbear to explain it now; besides, I remember that I have
made some remarks upon it in writing against Faustus the Manichæan.794
Chapter 8.—What Cain’s Reason Was for Building a City So Early in the History of the Human
Race.
At present it is the history which I aim at defending, that Scripture may not be reckoned
incredible when it relates that one man built a city at a time in which there seem to have been but
four men upon earth, or rather indeed but three, after one brother slew the other,—to wit, the first
man the father of all, and Cain himself, and his son Enoch, by whose name the city was itself called.
But they who are moved by this consideration forget to take into account that the writer of the
sacred history does not necessarily mention all the men who might be alive at that time, but those
only whom the scope of his work required him to name. The design of that writer (who in this
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matter was the instrument of the Holy Ghost) was to descend to Abraham through the successions
of ascertained generations propagated from one man, and then to pass from Abraham’s seed to the
people of God, in whom, separated as they were from other nations, was prefigured and predicted
all that relates to the city whose reign is eternal, and to its king and founder Christ, which things
were foreseen in the Spirit as destined to come; yet neither is this object so effected as that nothing
is said of the other society of men which we call the earthly city, but mention is made of it so far
as seemed needful to enhance the glory of the heavenly city by contrast to its opposite. Accordingly,
when the divine Scripture, in mentioning the number of years which those men lived, concludes
its account of each man of whom it speaks, with the words, “And he begat sons and daughters, and
all his days were so and so, and he died,” are we to understand that, because it does not name those
sons and daughters, therefore, during that long term of years over which one lifetime extended in
those early days, there might not have been born very many men, by whose united numbers not
one but several cities might have been built? But it suited the purpose of God, by whose inspiration
these histories were composed, to arrange and distinguish from the first these two societies in their
793 Eph. v. 28, 29.
794 C. Faustum. Man. xii. c. 9.
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several generations,—that on the one side the generations of men, that is to say, of those who live
according to man, and on the other side the generations of the sons of God, that is to say, of men
living according to God, might be traced down together and yet apart from one another as far as
the deluge, at which point their dissociation and association are exhibited: their dissociation,
inasmuch as the generations of both lines are recorded in separate tables, the one line descending
from the fratricide Cain, the other from Seth, who had been born to Adam instead of him whom
his brother slew; their association, inasmuch as the good so deteriorated that the whole race became
of such a character that it was swept away by the deluge, with the exception of one just man, whose
name was Noah, and his wife and three sons and three daughters-in-law, which eight persons were
alone deemed worthy to escape from that desolating visitation which destroyed all men.
Therefore, although it is written, “And Cain knew his wife, and she conceived and bare Enoch,
and he builded a city and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch,”795 it does
not follow that we are to believe this to have been his first-born; for we cannot suppose that this is
proved by the expression “he knew his wife,” as if then for the first time he had had intercourse
with her. For in the case of Adam, the father of all, this expression is used not only when Cain,
who seems to have been his first-born, was conceived, but also afterwards the same Scripture says,
“Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived, and bare a son, and called his name Seth.”796 Whence
it is obvious that Scripture employs this expression neither always when a birth is recorded nor
then only when the birth of a first-born is mentioned. Neither is it necessary to suppose that Enoch
was Cain’s first-born because he named his city after him. For it is quite possible that though he
had other sons, yet for some reason the father loved him more than the rest. Judah was not the
first-born, though he gives his name to Judæa and the Jews. But even though Enoch was the
first-born of the city’s founder, that is no reason for supposing that the father named the city after
him as soon as he was born; for at that time he, being but a solitary man, could not have founded
a civic community, which is nothing else than a multitude of men bound together by some associating
tie. But when his family increased to such numbers that he had quite a population, then it became
possible to him both to build a city, and give it, when founded, the name of his son. For so long
was the life of those antediluvians, that he who lived the shortest time of those whose years are
mentioned in Scripture attained to the age of 753 years.797 And though no one attained the age of
a thousand years, several exceeded the age of nine hundred. Who then can doubt that during the
lifetime of one man the human race might be so multiplied that there would be a population to build
and occupy not one but several cities? And this might very readily be conjectured from the fact
that from one man, Abraham, in not much more than four hundred years, the numbers of the Hebrew
race so increased, that in the exodus of that people from Egypt there are recorded to have been six
795 Gen. iv. 17.
796 Gen. iv. 25.
797 Lamech, according to the LXX.
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hundred thousand men capable of bearing arms,798 and this over and above the Idumæans, who,
though not numbered with Israel’s descendants, were yet sprung from his brother, also a grandson
of Abraham; and over and above the other nations which were of the same stock of Abraham,
though not through Sarah,—that is, his descendants by Hagar and Keturah, the Ishmaelites,
Midianites, etc.
291 Chapter 9.—Of the Long Life and Greater Stature of the Antediluvians.
Wherefore no one who considerately weighs facts will doubt that Cain might have built a city,
and that a large one, when it is observed how prolonged were the lives of men, unless perhaps some
sceptic take exception to this very length of years which our authors ascribe to the antediluvians
and deny that this is credible. And so, too, they do not believe that the size of men’s bodies was
larger then than now, though the most esteemed of their own poets, Virgil, asserts the same, when
he speaks of that huge stone which had been fixed as a landmark, and which a strong man of those
ancient times snatched up as he fought, and ran, and hurled, and cast it,—
“Scarce twelve strong men of later mould
That weight could on their necks uphold.”799
thus declaring his opinion that the earth then produced mightier men. And if in the more recent
times, how much more in the ages before the world-renowned deluge? But the large size of the
primitive human body is often proved to the incredulous by the exposure of sepulchres, either
through the wear of time or the violence of torrents or some accident, and in which bones of
incredible size have been found or have rolled out. I myself, along with some others, saw on the
shore at Utica a man’s molar tooth of such a size, that if it were cut down into teeth such as we
have, a hundred, I fancy, could have been made out of it. But that, I believe, belonged to some
giant. For though the bodies of ordinary men were then larger than ours, the giants surpassed all
in stature. And neither in our own age nor any other have there been altogether wanting instances
of gigantic stature, though they may be few. The younger Pliny, a most learned man, maintains
that the older the world becomes, the smaller will be the bodies of men.800 And he mentions that
Homer in his poems often lamented the same decline; and this he does not laugh at as a poetical
figment, but in his character of a recorder of natural wonders accepts it as historically true. But,
as I said, the bones which are from time to time discovered prove the size of the bodies of the
798 Ex. xii. 37.
799 Virgil, Æn., xii. 899, 900. Compare the Iliad, v. 302, and Juvenal, xv. 65 et seqq. “Terra malos homines nunc
educat atque pusillos.”
800 Plin. Hist. Nat.. vii. 16.
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ancients,801 and will do so to future ages, for they are slow to decay. But the length of an
antediluvian’s life cannot now be proved by any such monumental evidence. But we are not on
this account to withhold our faith from the sacred history, whose statements of past fact we are the
more inexcusable in discrediting, as we see the accuracy of its prediction of what was future. And
even that same Pliny802 tells us that there is still a nation in which men live 200 years. If, then, in
places unknown to us, men are believed to have a length of days which is quite beyond our own
experience, why should we not believe the same of times distant from our own? Or are we to
believe that in other places there is what is not here, while we do not believe that in other times
there has been anything but what is now?
Chapter 10.—Of the Different Computation of the Ages of the Antediluvians, Given by the Hebrew
Manuscripts and by Our Own.803
Wherefore, although there is a discrepancy for which I cannot account between our manuscripts
and the Hebrew, in the very number of years assigned to the antediluvians, yet the discrepancy is
not so great that they do not agree about their longevity. For the very first man, Adam, before he
begot his son Seth, is in our manuscripts found to have lived 230 years, but in the Hebrew mss.
130. But after he begot Seth, our copies read that he lived 700 years, while the Hebrew give 800.
And thus, when the two periods are taken together, the sum agrees. And so throughout the
succeeding generations, the period before the father begets a son is always made shorter by 100
years in the Hebrew, but the period after his son is begotten is longer by 100 years in the Hebrew
than in our copies. And thus, taking the two periods together, the result is the same in both. And
in the sixth generation there is no discrepancy at all. In the seventh, however, of which Enoch is
the representative, who is recorded to have been translated without death because he pleased God,
there is the same discrepancy as in the first five generations, 100 years more being ascribed to him
by our mss. before he begat a son. But still the result agrees; for according to both documents he
lived before he was translated 365 years. In the eighth generation the discrepancy is less than in
the others, and of a different kind. For Methuselah, whom Enoch begat, lived, before he begat his
801 See the account given by Herodotus (i. 67) of the discovery of the bones of Orestes, which, as the story goes, gave a
stature of seven cubits.
802 Pliny, Hist. Nat. vii. 49, merely reports what he had read in Hellanicus about the Epirotes of Etolia.
803 Our own Mss., of which Augustin here speaks, were the Latin versions of the Septuagint used by the Church before
Jerome’s was received; the “Hebrew Mss.” were the versions made from the Hebrew text. Compare De Doct. Christ. ii. 15 et
seqq.
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292
successor, not 100 years less, but 100 years more, according to the Hebrew reading; and in our
mss. again these years are added to the period after he begat his son; so that in this case also the
sum-total is the same. And it is only in the ninth generation, that is, in the age of Lamech,
Methuselah’s son and Noah’s father, that there is a discrepancy in the sum total; and even in this
case it is slight. For the Hebrew mss. represent him as living twenty-four years more than ours
assign to him. For before he begat his son, who was called Noah, six years fewer are given to him
by the Hebrew mss. than by ours; but after he begat this son, they give him thirty years more than
ours; so that, deducting the former six, there remains, as we said, a surplus of twenty-four.
Chapter 11.—Of Methuselah’s Age, Which Seems to Extend Fourteen Years Beyond the Deluge.
From this discrepancy between the Hebrew books and our own arises the well-known question
as to the age of Methuselah;804 for it is computed that he lived for fourteen years after the deluge,
though Scripture relates that of all who were then upon the earth only the eight souls in the ark
escaped destruction by the flood, and of these Methuselah was not one. For, according to our books,
Methuselah, before he begat the son whom he called Lamech, lived 167 years; then Lamech himself,
before his son Noah was born, lived 188 years, which together make 355 years. Add to these the
age of Noah at the date of the deluge, 600 years, and this gives a total of 955 from the birth of
Methuselah to the year of the flood. Now all the years of the life of Methuselah are computed to
be 969; for when he had lived 167 years, and had begotten his son Lamech, he then lived after this
802 years, which makes a total, as we said, of 969 years. From this, if we deduct 955 years from
the birth of Methuselah to the flood, there remains fourteen years, which he is supposed to have
lived after the flood. And therefore some suppose that, though he was not on earth (in which it is
agreed that every living thing which could not naturally live in water perished), he was for a time
with his father, who had been translated, and that he lived there till the flood had passed away.
This hypothesis they adopt, that they may not cast a slight on the trustworthiness of versions which
the Church has received into a position of high authority,805 and because they believe that the Jewish
mss. rather than our own are in error. For they do not admit that this is a mistake of the translators,
but maintain that there is a falsified statement in the original, from which, through the Greek, the
Scripture has been translated into our own tongue. They say that it is not credible that the seventy
translators, who simultaneously and unanimously produced one rendering, could have erred, or, in
a case in which no interest of theirs was involved, could have falsified their translation; but that
the Jews, envying us our translation of their Law and Prophets, have made alterations in their texts
so as to undermine the authority of ours. This opinion or suspicion let each man adopt according
804 Jerome (De Quæst. Heb. in Gen.) says it was a question famous in all the churches—Vives.
805 “Quos in auctoritatem celebriorum Ecclesia suscepit.”
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to his own judgment. Certain it is that Methuselah did not survive the flood, but died in the very
year it occurred, if the numbers given in the Hebrew mss. are true. My own opinion regarding the
seventy translators I will, with God’s help, state more carefully in its own place, when I have come
down (following the order which this work requires) to that period in which their translation was
executed.806 For the present question, it is enough that, according to our versions, the men of that
age had lives so long as to make it quite possible that, during the lifetime of the first-born of the
two sole parents then on earth, the human race multiplied sufficiently to form a community.
Chapter 12.—Of the Opinion of Those Who Do Not Believe that in These Primitive Times Men
Lived So Long as is Stated.
For they are by no means to be listened to who suppose that in those times years were differently
reckoned, and were so short that one of our years may be supposed to be equal to ten of theirs. So
that they say, when we read or hear that some man lived 900 years, we should understand ninety,
ten of those years making but one of ours, and ten of ours equalling 100 of theirs. Consequently,
as they suppose, Adam was twenty-three years of age when he begat Seth, and Seth himself was
twenty years and six months old when his son Enos was born, though the Scripture calls these
months 205 years. For, on the hypothesis of those whose opinion we are explaining, it was customary
to divide one such year as we have into ten parts, and to call each part a year. And each of these
parts was composed of six days squared; because God finished His works in six days, that He might
rest the seventh. Of this I disputed according to my ability in the eleventh book.807 Now six squared,
293
or six times six, gives thirty-six days; and this multiplied by ten amounts to 360 days, or twelve
lunar months. As for the five remaining days which are needed to complete the solar year, and for
the fourth part of a day, which requires that into every fourth or leap-year a day be added, the
ancients added such days as the Romans used to call “intercalary,” in order to complete the number
of the years. So that Enos, Seth’s son, was nineteen years old when his son Cainan was born,
though Scripture calls these years 190. And so through all the generations in which the ages of the
antediluvians are given, we find in our versions that almost no one begat a son at the age of 100 or
under, or even at the age of 120 or thereabouts; but the youngest fathers are recorded to have been
160 years old and upwards. And the reason of this, they say, is that no one can beget children when
he is ten years old, the age spoken of by those men as 100, but that sixteen is the age of puberty,
and competent now to propagate offspring; and this is the age called by them 160. And that it may
not be thought incredible that in these days the year was differently computed from our own, they
adduce what is recorded by several writers of history, that the Egyptians had a year of four months,
806 See below, book xviii. c. 42–44.
807 C. 8.
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the Acarnanians of six, and the Lavinians of thirteen months.808 The younger Pliny, after mentioning
that some writers reported that one man had lived 152 years, another ten more, others 200, others
300, that some had even reached 500 and 600, and a few 800 years of age, gave it as his opinion
that all this must be ascribed to mistaken computation. For some, he says, make summer and winter
each a year; others make each season a year, like the Arcadians, whose years, he says, were of three
months. He added, too, that the Egyptians, of whose little years of four months we have spoken
already, sometimes terminated their year at the wane of each moon; so that with them there are
produced lifetimes of 1000 years.
By these plausible arguments certain persons, with no desire to weaken the credit of this sacred
history, but rather to facilitate belief in it by removing the difficulty of such incredible longevity,
have been themselves persuaded, and think they act wisely in persuading others, that in these days
the year was so brief that ten of their years equal but one of ours, while ten of ours equal 100 of
theirs. But there is the plainest evidence to show that this is quite false. Before producing this
evidence, however, it seems right to mention a conjecture which is yet more plausible. From the
Hebrew manuscripts we could at once refute this confident statement; for in them Adam is found
to have lived not 230 but 130 years before he begat his third son. If, then, this mean thirteen years
by our ordinary computation, then he must have begotten his first son when he was only twelve or
thereabouts. Who can at this age beget children according to the ordinary and familiar course of
nature? But not to mention him, since it is possible he may have been able to beget his like as soon
as he was created,—for it is not credible that he was created so little as our infants are,—not to
mention him, his son was not 205 years old when he begot Enos, as our versions have it, but 105,
and consequently, according to this idea, was not eleven years old. But what shall I say of his son
Cainan, who, though by our version 170 years old, was by the Hebrew text seventy when he beget
Mahalaleel? If seventy years in those times meant only seven of our years, what man of seven
years old begets children?
Chapter 13.—Whether, in Computing Years, We Ought to Follow the Hebrew or the Septuagint.
But if I say this, I shall presently be answered, It is one of the Jews’ lies. This, however, we
have disposed of above, showing that it cannot be that men of so just a reputation as the seventy
translators should have falsified their version. However, if I ask them which of the two is more
credible, that the Jewish nation, scattered far and wide, could have unanimously conspired to forge
this lie, and so, through envying others the authority of their Scriptures, have deprived themselves
of their verity; or that seventy men, who were also themselves Jews, shut up in one place (for
808 On this subject see Wilkinson’s note to the second book (appendix) of Rawlinson’s Herodotus, where all available
reference are given.
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Ptolemy king of Egypt had got them together for this work), should have envied foreign nations
that same truth, and by common consent inserted these errors: who does not see which can be more
naturally and readily believed? But far be it from any prudent man to believe either that the Jews,
however malicious and wrong-headed, could have tampered with so many and so widely-dispersed
manuscripts; or that those renowned seventy individuals had any common purpose to grudge the
truth to the nations. One must therefore more plausibly maintain, that when first their labors began
to be transcribed from the copy in Ptolemy’s library, some such misstatement might find its way
into the first copy made, and from it might be disseminated far and wide; and that this might arise
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from no fraud, but from a mere copyist’s error. This is a sufficiently plausible account of the
difficulty regarding Methuselah’s life, and of that other case in which there is a difference in the
total of twenty-four years. But in those cases in which there is a methodical resemblance in the
falsification, so that uniformly the one version allots to the period before a son and successor is
born 100 years more than the other, and to the period subsequent 100 years less, and vice versâ, so
that the totals may agree,—and this holds true of the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh
generations,—in these cases error seems to have, if we may say so, a certain kind of constancy,
and savors not of accident, but of design.
Accordingly, that diversity of numbers which distinguishes the Hebrew from the Greek and
Latin copies of Scripture, and which consists of a uniform addition and deduction of 100 years in
each lifetime for several consecutive generations, is to be attributed neither to the malice of the
Jews nor to men so diligent and prudent as the seventy translators, but to the error of the copyist
who was first allowed to transcribe the manuscript from the library of the above-mentioned king.
For even now, in cases where numbers contribute nothing to the easier comprehension or more
satisfactory knowledge of anything, they are both carelessly transcribed, and still more carelessly
emended. For who will trouble himself to learn how many thousand men the several tribes of Israel
contained? He sees no resulting benefit of such knowledge. Or how many men are there who are
aware of the vast advantage that lies hid in this knowledge? But in this case, in which during so
many consecutive generations 100 years are added in one manuscript where they are not reckoned
in the other, and then, after the birth of the son and successor, the years which were wanting are
added, it is obvious that the copyist who contrived this arrangement designed to insinuate that the
antediluvians lived an excessive number of years only because each year was excessively brief,
and that he tried to draw the attention to this fact by his statement of their age of puberty at which
they became able to beget children. For, lest the incredulous might stumble at the difficulty of so
long a lifetime, he insinuated that 100 of their years equalled but ten of ours; and this insinuation
he conveyed by adding 100 years whenever he found the age below 160 years or thereabouts,
deducting these years again from the period after the son’s birth, that the total might harmonize.
By this means he intended to ascribe the generation of offspring to a fit age, without diminishing
the total sum of years ascribed to the lifetime of the individuals. And the very fact that in the sixth
generation he departed from this uniform practice, inclines us all the rather to believe that when
the circumstance we have referred to required his alterations, he made them; seeing that when this
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circumstance did not exist, he made no alteration. For in the same generation he found in the
Hebrew ms., that Jared lived before he begat Enoch 162 years, which, according to the short year
computation, is sixteen years and somewhat less than two months, an age capable of procreation;
and therefore it was not necessary to add 100 short years, and so make the age twenty-six years of
the usual length; and of course it was not necessary to deduct, after the son’s birth, years which he
had not added before it. And thus it comes to pass that in this instance there is no variation between
the two manuscripts.
This is corroborated still further by the fact that in the eighth generation, while the Hebrew
books assign 182809 years to Methuselah before Lamech’s birth, ours assign to him twenty less,
though usually 100 years are added to this period; then, after Lamech’s birth, the twenty years are
restored, so as to equalize the total in the two books. For if his design was that these 170 years be
understood as seventeen, so as to suit the age of puberty, as there was no need for him adding
anything, so there was none for his subtracting anything; for in this case he found an age fit for the
generation of children, for the sake of which he was in the habit of adding those 100 years in cases
where he did not find the age already sufficient. This difference of twenty years we might, indeed,
have supposed had happened accidentally, had he not taken care to restore them afterwards as he
had deducted them from the period before, so that there might be no deficiency in the total. Or are
we perhaps to suppose that there was the still more astute design of concealing the deliberate and
uniform addition of 100 years to the first period and their deduction from the subsequent period—did
he design to conceal this by doing something similar, that is to say, adding and deducting, not
indeed a century, but some years, even in a case in which there was no need for his doing so? But
whatever may be thought of this, whether it be believed that he did so or not, whether, in fine, it
be so or not, I would have no manner of doubt that when any diversity is found in the books, since
295
both cannot be true to fact, we do well to believe in preference that language out of which the
translation was made into another by translators. For there are three Greek mss., one Latin, and
one Syriac, which agree with one another, and in all of these Methuselah is said to have died six
years before the deluge.
Chapter 14.—That the Years in Those Ancient Times Were of the Same Length as Our Own.
Let us now see how it can be plainly made out that in the enormously protracted lives of those
men the years were not so short that ten of their years were equal to only one of ours, but were of
as great length as our own, which are measured by the course of the sun. It is proved by this, that
Scripture states that the flood occurred in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life. But why in the
809 One hundred and eighty-seven is the number given in the Hebrew, and one hundred and sixty-seven in the Septuagint;
but notwithstanding the confusion, the argument of Augustin is easily followed.
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same place is it also written, “The waters of the flood were upon the earth in the six hundredth year
of Noah’s life, in the second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month,”810 if that very brief year
(of which it took ten to make one of ours) consisted of thirty-six days? For so scant a year, if the
ancient usage dignified it with the name of year, either has not months, or this month must be three
days, so that it may have twelve of them. How then was it here said, “In the six hundredth year,
the second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month,” unless the months then were of the same
length as the months now? For how else could it be said that the flood began on the twenty-seventh
day of the second month? Then afterwards, at the end of the flood, it is thus written: “And the ark
rested in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat.
And the waters decreased continually until the eleventh month: on the first day of the month were
the tops of the mountains seen.”811 But if the months were such as we have, then so were the years.
And certainly months of three days each could not have a twenty-seventh day. Or if every measure
of time was diminished in proportion, and a thirtieth part of three days was then called a day, then
that great deluge, which is recorded to have lasted forty days and forty nights, was really over in
less than four of our days. Who can away with such foolishness and absurdity? Far be this error
from us,—an error which seeks to build up our faith in the divine Scriptures on false conjecture
only to demolish our faith at another point. It is plain that the day then was what it now is, a space
of four-and-twenty hours, determined by the lapse of day and night; the month then equal to the
month now, which is defined by the rise and completion of one moon; the year then equal to the
year now, which is completed by twelve lunar months, with the addition of five days and a fourth
to adjust it with the course of the sun. It was a year of this length which was reckoned the six
hundredth of Noah’s life, and in the second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month, the flood
began,—a flood which, as is recorded, was caused by heavy rains continuing for forty days, which
days had not only two hours and a little more, but four-and-twenty hours, completing a night and
a day. And consequently those antediluvians lived more than 900 years, which were years as long
as those which afterwards Abraham lived 175 of, and after him his son Isaac 180, and his son Jacob
nearly 150, and some time after, Moses 120, and men now seventy or eighty, or not much longer,
of which years it is said, “their strength is labor and sorrow.”812
But that discrepancy of numbers which is found to exist between our own and the Hebrew text
does not touch the longevity of the ancients; and if there is any diversity so great that both versions
cannot be true, we must take our ideas of the real facts from that text out of which our own version
has been translated. However, though any one who pleases has it in his power to correct this version,
yet it is not unimportant to observe that no one has presumed to emend the Septuagint from the
Hebrew text in the many places where they seem to disagree. For this difference has not been
reckoned a falsification; and for my own part I am persuaded it ought not to be reckoned so. But
810 Gen. vii. 10, 11, (in our version the seventeenth day).
811 Gen. viii. 4, 5.
812 Ps. xc. 10.
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where the difference is not a mere copyist’s error, and where the sense is agreeable to truth and
illustrative of truth, we must believe that the divine Spirit prompted them to give a varying version,
not in their function of translators, but in the liberty of prophesying. And therefore we find that
the apostles justly sanction the Septuagint, by quoting it as well as the Hebrew when they adduce
proofs from the Scriptures. But as I have promised to treat this subject more carefully, if God help
me, in a more fitting place, I will now go on with the matter in hand. For there can be no doubt
that, the lives of men being so long, the first-born of the first man could have built a city,—a city,
however, which was earthly, and not that which is called the city of God, to describe which we
have taken in hand this great work.
296 Chapter 15.—Whether It is Credible that the Men of the Primitive Age Abstained from Sexual
Intercourse Until that Date at Which It is Recorded that They Begat Children.
Some one, then, will say, Is it to be believed that a man who intended to beget children, and
had no intention of continence, abstained from sexual intercourse a hundred years and more, or
even, according to the Hebrew version, only a little less, say eighty, seventy, or sixty years; or, if
he did not abstain, was unable to beget offspring? This question admits of two solutions. For either
puberty was so much later as the whole life was longer, or, which seems to me more likely, it is
not the first-born sons that are here mentioned, but those whose names were required to fill up the
series until Noah was reached, from whom again we see that the succession is continued to Abraham,
and after him down to that point of time until which it was needful to mark by pedigree the course
of the most glorious city, which sojourns as a stranger in this world, and seeks the heavenly country.
That which is undeniable is that Cain was the first who was born of man and woman. For had he
not been the first who was added by birth to the two unborn persons, Adam could not have said
what he is recorded to have said, “I have gotten a man by the Lord.”813 He was followed by Abel,
whom the elder brother slew, and who was the first to show by a kind of foreshadowing of the
sojourning city of God, what iniquitous persecutions that city would suffer at the hands of wicked
and, as it were, earth-born men, who love their earthly origin, and delight in the earthly happiness
of the earthly city. But how old Adam was when he begat these sons does not appear. After this
the generations diverge, the one branch deriving from Cain, the other from him whom Adam begot
in the room of Abel slain by his brother, and whom he called Seth, saying, as it is written, “For
God hath raised me up another seed for Abel whom Cain slew.”814 These two series of generations
accordingly, the one of Cain, the other of Seth, represent the two cities in their distinctive ranks,
the one the heavenly city, which sojourns on earth, the other the earthly, which gapes after earthly
813 Gen. iv. 1.
814 Gen. iv. 25.
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joys, and grovels in them as if they were the only joys. But though eight generations, including
Adam, are registered before the flood, no man of Cain’s line has his age recorded at which the son
who succeeded him was begotten. For the Spirit of God refused to mark the times before the flood
in the generations of the earthly city, but preferred to do so in the heavenly line, as if it were more
worthy of being remembered. Further, when Seth was born, the age of his father is mentioned; but
already he had begotten other sons, and who will presume to say that Cain and Abel were the only
ones previously begotten? For it does not follow that they alone had been begotten of Adam,
because they alone were named in order to continue the series of generations which it was desirable
to mention. For though the names of all the rest are buried in silence, yet it is said that Adam begot
sons and daughters; and who that cares to be free from the charge of temerity will dare to say how
many his offspring numbered? It was possible enough that Adam was divinely prompted to say,
after Seth was born, “For God hath raised up to me another seed for Abel,” because that son was
to be capable of representing Abel’s holiness, not because he was born first after him in point of
time. Then because it is written, “And Seth lived 205 years,” or, according to the Hebrew reading,
“105 years, and begat Enos,”815 who but a rash man could affirm that this was his first-born? Will
any man do so to excite our wonder, and cause us to inquire how for so many years he remained
free from sexual intercourse, though without any purpose of continuing so, or how, if he did not
abstain, he yet had no children? Will any man do so when it is written of him, “And he begat sons
and daughters, and all the days of Seth were 912 years, and he died?”816 And similarly regarding
those whose years are afterwards mentioned, it is not disguised that they begat sons and daughters.
Consequently it does not at all appear whether he who is named as the son was himself the first
begotten. Nay, since it is incredible that those fathers were either so long in attaining puberty, or
could not get wives, or could not impregnate them, it is also incredible that those sons were their
first-born. But as the writer of the sacred history designed to descend by well-marked intervals
through a series of generations to the birth and life of Noah, in whose time the flood occurred, he
mentioned not those sons who were first begotten, but those by whom the succession was handed
down.
Let me make this clearer by here inserting an example, in regard to which no one can have any
doubt that what I am asserting is true. The evangelist Matthew, where he designs to commit to our
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memories the generation of the Lord’s flesh by a series of parents, beginning from Abraham and
intending to reach David, says, “Abraham begat Isaac;”817 why did he not say Ishmael, whom he
first begat? Then “Isaac begat Jacob;” why did he not say Esau, who was the first-born? Simply
because these sons would not have helped him to reach David. Then follows, “And Jacob begat
Judah and his brethren:” was Judah the first begotten? “Judah,” he says, “begat Pharez and Zara;”
yet neither were these twins the first-born of Judah, but before them he had begotten three other
815 Gen. v. 6.
816 Gen. v. 8.
817 Matt. i.
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sons. And so in the order of the generations he retained those by whom he might reach David, so
as to proceed onwards to the end he had in view. And from this we may understand that the
antediluvians who are mentioned were not the first-born, but those through whom the order of the
succeeding generations might be carried on to the patriarch Noah. We need not, therefore, weary
ourselves with discussing the needless and obscure question as to their lateness of reaching puberty.
Chapter 16.—Of Marriage Between Blood-Relations, in Regard to Which the Present Law Could
Not Bind the Men of the Earliest Ages.
As, therefore, the human race, subsequently to the first marriage of the man who was made of
dust, and his wife who was made out of his side, required the union of males and females in order
that it might multiply, and as there were no human beings except those who had been born of these
two, men took their sisters for wives,—an act which was as certainly dictated by necessity in these
ancient days as afterwards it was condemned by the prohibitions of religion. For it is very reasonable
and just that men, among whom concord is honorable and useful, should be bound together by
various relationships; and one man should not himself sustain many relationships, but that the
various relationships should be distributed among several, and should thus serve to bind together
the greatest number in the same social interests. “Father” and “father-in-law” are the names of two
relationships. When, therefore, a man has one person for his father, another for his father-in-law,
friendship extends itself to a larger number. But Adam in his single person was obliged to hold
both relations to his sons and daughters, for brothers and sisters were united in marriage. So too
Eve his wife was both mother and mother-in-law to her children of both sexes; while, had there
been two women, one the mother, the other the mother-in-law, the family affection would have
had a wider field. Then the sister herself by becoming a wife sustained in her single person two
relationships, which, had they been distributed among individuals, one being sister, and another
being wife, the family tie would have embraced a greater number of persons. But there was then
no material for effecting this, since there were no human beings but the brothers and sisters born
of those two first parents. Therefore, when an abundant population made it possible, men ought
to choose for wives women who were not already their sisters; for not only would there then be no
necessity for marrying sisters, but, were it done, it would be most abominable. For if the
grandchildren of the first pair, being now able to choose their cousins for wives, married their
sisters, then it would no longer be only two but three relationships that were held by one man, while
each of these relationships ought to have been held by a separate individual, so as to bind together
by family affection a larger number. For one man would in that case be both father, and
father-in-law, and uncle818 to his own children (brother and sister now man and wife); and his wife
818 His own children being the children of his sister, and therefore his nephews.
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would be mother, aunt, and mother-in-law to them; and they themselves would be not only brother
and sister, and man and wife, but cousins also, being the children of brother and sister. Now, all
these relationships, which combined three men into one, would have embraced nine persons had
each relationship been held by one individual, so that a man had one person for his sister, another
his wife, another his cousin, another his father, another his uncle, another his father-in-law, another
his mother, another his aunt, another his mother-in-law; and thus the social bond would not have
been tightened to bind a few, but loosened to embrace a larger number of relations.
And we see that, since the human race has increased and multiplied, this is so strictly observed
even among the profane worshippers of many and false gods, that though their laws perversely
allow a brother to marry his sister,819 yet custom, with a finer morality, prefers to forego this license;
and though it was quite allowable in the earliest ages of the human race to marry one’s sister, it is
now abhorred as a thing which no circumstances could justify. For custom has very great power
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either to attract or to shock human feeling. And in this matter, while it restrains concupiscence
within due bounds, the man who neglects and disobeys it is justly branded as abominable. For if
it is iniquitous to plough beyond our own boundaries through the greed of gain, is it not much more
iniquitous to transgress the recognized boundaries of morals through sexual lust? And with regard
to marriage in the next degree of consanguinity, marriage between cousins, we have observed that
in our own time the customary morality has prevented this from being frequent, though the law
allows it. It was not prohibited by divine law, nor as yet had human law prohibited it; nevertheless,
though legitimate, people shrank from it, because it lay so close to what was illegitimate, and in
marrying a cousin seemed almost to marry a sister,—for cousins are so closely related that they
are called brothers and sisters,820 and are almost really so. But the ancient fathers, fearing that near
relationship might gradually in the course of generations diverge, and become distant relationship,
or cease to be relationship at all, religiously endeavored to limit it by the bond of marriage before
it became distant, and thus, as it were, to call it back when it was escaping them. And on this
account, even when the world was full of people, though they did not choose wives from among
their sisters or half-sisters, yet they preferred them to be of the same stock as themselves. But who
doubts that the modern prohibition of the marriage even of cousins is the more seemly
regulation—not merely on account of the reason we have been urging, the multiplying of
relationships, so that one person might not absorb two, which might be distributed to two persons,
and so increase the number of people bound together as a family, but also because there is in human
nature I know not what natural and praiseworthy shamefacedness which restrains us from desiring
that connection which, though for propagation, is yet lustful and which even conjugal modesty
blushes over, with any one to whom consanguinity bids us render respect?
The sexual intercourse of man and woman, then, is in the case of mortals a kind of seed-bed of
the city; but while the earthly city needs for its population only generation, the heavenly needs also
819 This was allowed by the Egyptians and Athenians, never by the Romans.
820 Both in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, though not uniformly, nor in Latin commonly.
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regeneration to rid it of the taint of generation. Whether before the deluge there was any bodily or
visible sign of regeneration, such as was afterwards enjoined upon Abraham when he was
circumcised, or what kind of sign it was, the sacred history does not inform us. But it does inform
us that even these earliest of mankind sacrificed to God, as appeared also in the case of the two
first brothers; Noah, too, is said to have offered sacrifices to God when he had come forth from the
ark after the deluge. And concerning this subject we have already said in the foregoing books that
the devils arrogate to themselves divinity, and require sacrifice that they may be esteemed gods,
and delight in these honors on no other account than this, because they know that true sacrifice is
due to the true God.
Chapter 17.—Of the Two Fathers and Leaders Who Sprang from One Progenitor.
Since, then, Adam was the father of both lines,—the father, that is to say, both of the line which
belonged to the earthly, and of that which belonged to the heavenly city,—when Abel was slain,
and by his death exhibited a marvellous mystery, there were henceforth two lines proceeding from
two fathers, Cain and Seth, and in those sons of theirs, whom it behoved to register, the tokens of
these two cities began to appear more distinctly. For Cain begat Enoch, in whose name he built a
city, an earthly one, which was not from home in this world, but rested satisfied with its temporal
peace and happiness. Cain, too, means “possession;” wherefore at his birth either his father or
mother said,” I have gotten a man through God.” Then Enoch means “dedication;” for the earthly
city is dedicated in this world in which it is built, for in this world it finds the end towards which
it aims and aspires. Further, Seth signifies “resurrection,” and Enos his son signifies “man,” not
as Adam, which also signifies man, but is used in Hebrew indifferently for man and woman, as it
is written, “Male and female created He them, and blessed them, and called their name Adam,”821
leaving no room to doubt that though the woman was distinctively called Eve, yet the name Adam,
meaning man, was common to both. But Enos means man in so restricted a sense, that Hebrew
linguists tell us it cannot be applied to woman: it is the equivalent of the “child of the resurrection,”
when they neither marry nor are given in marriage.822 For there shall be no generation in that place
to which regeneration shall have brought us. Wherefore I think it not immaterial to observe that
in those generations which are propagated from him who is called Seth, although daughters as well
as sons are said to have been begotten, no woman is expressly registered by name; but in those
which sprang from Cain at the very termination to which the line runs, the last person named as
821 Gen. v. 2.
822 Luke xx. 35, 36.
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begotten is a woman. For we read, “Methusael begat Lamech. And Lamech took unto him two
wives: the name of the one was Adah, and the name of the other Zillah. And Adah bare Jabal: he
was the father of the shepherds that dwell in tents. And his brother’s name was Jubal: he was the
father of all such as handle the harp and organ. And Zillah, she also bare Tubal-cain, an instructor
of every artificer in brass and iron: and the sister of Tubal-cain was Naamah.”823 Here terminate
all the generations of Cain, being eight in number, including Adam,—to wit, seven from Adam to
Lamech, who married two wives, and whose children, among whom a woman also is named, form
the eighth generation. Whereby it is elegantly signified that the earthly city shall to its termination
have carnal generations proceeding from the intercourse of males and females. And therefore the
wives themselves of the man who is the last named father of Cain’s line, are registered in their own
names,—a practice nowhere followed before the deluge save in Eve’s case. Now as Cain, signifying
possession, the founder of the earthly city, and his son Enoch, meaning dedication, in whose name
it was founded, indicate that this city is earthly both in its beginning and in its end,—a city in which
nothing more is hoped for than can be seen in this world,—so Seth, meaning resurrection, and being
the father of generations registered apart from the others, we must consider what this sacred history
says of his son.
Chapter 18.—The Significance of Abel, Seth, and Enos to Christ and His Body the Church.
“And to Seth,” it is said, “there was born a son, and he called his name Enos: he hoped to call
on the name of the Lord God.”824 Here we have a loud testimony to the truth. Man, then, the son
of the resurrection, lives in hope: he lives in hope as long as the city of God, which is begotten by
faith in the resurrection, sojourns in this world. For in these two men, Abel, signifying “grief,” and
his brother Seth, signifying “resurrection,” the death of Christ and His life from the dead are
prefigured. And by faith in these is begotten in this world the city of God, that is to say, the man
who has hoped to call on the name of the Lord. “For by hope,” says the apostle, “we are saved:
but hope that is seen is not hope: for what a man seeth, why doth he yet hope for? But if we hope
for that we see not, then do we with patience wait for it.”825 Who can avoid referring this to a
profound mystery? For did not Abel hope to call upon the name of the Lord God when his sacrifice
is mentioned in Scripture as having been accepted by God? Did not Seth himself hope to call on
the name of the Lord God, of whom it was said, “For God hath appointed me another seed instead
of Abel?” Why then is this which is found to be common to all the godly specially attributed to
Enos, unless because it was fit that in him, who is mentioned as the first-born of the father of those
823 Gen. iv. 18–22.
824 Gen. iv. 26.
825 Rom. viii. 24, 25.
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generations which were separated to the better part of the heavenly city, there should be a type of
the man, or society of men, who live not according to man in contentment with earthly felicity, but
according to God in hope of everlasting felicity? And it was not said, “He hoped in the Lord God,”
nor “He called on the name of the Lord God,” but “He hoped to call on the name of the Lord God.”
And what does this “hoped to call” mean, unless it is a prophecy that a people should arise who,
according to the election of grace, would call on the name of the Lord God? It is this which has
been said by another prophet, and which the apostle interprets of the people who belong to the
grace of God: “And it shall be that whosoever shall call upon the name of the Lord shall be
saved.”826 For these two expressions, “And he called his name Enos, which means man,” and “He
hoped to call on the name of the Lord God,” are sufficient proof that man ought not to rest his hopes
in himself; as it is elsewhere written, “Cursed is the man that trusteth in man.”827 Consequently no
one ought to trust in himself that he shall become a citizen of that other city which is not dedicated
in the name of Cain’s son in this present time, that is to say, in the fleeting course of this mortal
world, but in the immortality of perpetual blessedness.
Chapter 19.—The Significance Of Enoch’s Translation.
For that line also of which Seth is the father has the name “Dedication” in the seventh generation
from Adam, counting Adam. For the seventh from him is Enoch, that is, Dedication. But this is
that man who was translated because he pleased God, and who held in the order of the generations
a remarkable place, being the seventh from Adam, a number signalized by the consecration of the
Sabbath. But, counting from the diverging point of the two lines, or from Seth, he was the sixth.
Now it was on the sixth day God made man, and consummated His works. But the translation of
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Enoch prefigured our deferred dedication; for though it is indeed already accomplished in Christ
our Head, who so rose again that He shall die no more, and who was Himself also translated, yet
there remains another dedication of the whole house, of which Christ Himself is the foundation,
and this dedication is deferred till the end, when all shall rise again to die no more. And whether
it is the house of God, or the temple of God, or the city of God, that is said to be dedicated, it is all
the same, and equally in accordance with the usage of the Latin language. For Virgil himself calls
the city of widest empire “the house of Assaracus,”828 meaning the Romans, who were descended
through the Trojans from Assaracus. He also calls them the house of Æneas, because Rome was
826 Rom. x. 13.
827 Jer. xvii. 5.
828 Æneid, i. 288.
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built by those Trojans who had come to Italy under Æneas.829 For that poet imitated the sacred
writings, in which the Hebrew nation, though so numerous, is called the house of Jacob.
Chapter 20.—How It is that Cain’s Line Terminates in the Eighth Generation, While Noah, Though
Descended from the Same Father, Adam, is Found to Be the Tenth from Him.
Some one will say, If the writer of this history intended, in enumerating the generations from
Adam through his son Seth, to descend through them to Noah, in whose time the deluge occurred,
and from him again to trace the connected generations down to Abraham, with whom Matthew
begins the pedigree of Christ the eternal King of the city of God, what did he intend by enumerating
the generations from Cain, and to what terminus did he mean to trace them? We reply, To the
deluge, by which the whole stock of the earthly city was destroyed, but repaired by the sons of
Noah. For the earthly city and community of men who live after the flesh will never fail until the
end of this world, of which our Lord says, “The children of this world generate, and are generated.”830
But the city of God, which sojourns in this world, is conducted by regeneration to the world to
come, of which the children neither generate nor are generated. In this world generation is common
to both cities; though even now the city of God has many thousand citizens who abstain from the
act of generation; yet the other city also has some citizens who imitate these, though erroneously.
For to that city belong also those who have erred from the faith, and introduced divers heresies;
for they live according to man, not according to God. And the Indian gymnosophists, who are said
to philosophize in the solitudes of India in a state of nudity, are its citizens; and they abstain from
marriage. For continence is not a good thing, except when it is practised in the faith of the highest
good, that is, God. Yet no one is found to have practised it before the deluge; for indeed even
Enoch himself, the seventh from Adam, who is said to have been translated without dying, begat
sons and daughters before he was translated, and among these was Methuselah, by whom the
succession of the recorded generations is maintained.
Why, then, is so small a number of Cain’s generations registered, if it was proper to trace them
to the deluge, and if there was no such delay of the date of puberty as to preclude the hope of
offspring for a hundred or more years? For if the author of this book had not in view some one to
whom he might rigidly trace the series of generations, as he designed in those which sprang from
Seth’s seed to descend to Noah, and thence to start again by a rigid order, what need was there of
omitting the first-born sons for the sake of descending to Lamech, in whose sons that line
terminates,—that is to say, in the eighth generation from Adam, or the seventh from Cain,—as if
from this point he had wished to pass on to another series, by which he might reach either the
829 Æneid, iii. 97.
830 Luke xx. 34.
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Israelitish people, among whom the earthly Jerusalem presented a prophetic figure of the heavenly
city, or to Jesus Christ, “according to the flesh, who is over all, God blessed for ever,”831 the Maker
and Ruler of the heavenly city? What, I say, was the need of this, seeing that the whole of Cain’s
posterity were destroyed in the deluge? From this it is manifest that they are the first-born sons
who are registered in this genealogy. Why, then, are there so few of them? Their numbers in the
period before the deluge must have been greater, if the date of puberty bore no proportion to their
longevity, and they had children before they were a hundred years old. For supposing they were
on an average thirty years old when they began to beget children, then, as there are eight generations,
including Adam and Lamech’s children, 8 times 30 gives 240 years; did they then produce no more
children in all the rest of the time before the deluge? With what intention, then, did he who wrote
this record make no mention of subsequent generations? For from Adam to the deluge there are
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reckoned, according to our copies of Scripture, 2262 years,832 and according to the He brew text,
1656 years. Supposing, then, the smaller number to be the true one, and subtracting from 1656
years 240, is it credible that during the remaining 1400 and odd years until the deluge the posterity
of Cain begat no children?
But let any one who is moved by this call to mind that when I discussed the question, how it is
credible that those primitive men could abstain for so many years from begetting children, two
modes of solution were found,—either a puberty late in proportion to their longevity, or that the
sons registered in the genealogies were not the first-born, but those through whom the author of
the book intended to reach the point aimed at, as he intended to reach Noah by the generations of
Seth. So that, if in the generations of Cain there occurs no one whom the writer could make it his
object to reach by omitting the first-born and inserting those who would serve such a purpose, then
we must have recourse to the supposition of late puberty, and say that only at some age beyond a
hundred years they became capable of begetting children, so that the order of the generations ran
through the first-born, and filled up even the whole period before the deluge, long though it was.
It is, however, possible that, for some more secret reason which escapes me, this city, which we
say is earthly, is exhibited in all its generations down to Lamech and his sons, and that then the
writer withholds from recording the rest which may have existed before the deluge. And without
supposing so late a puberty in these men, there might be another reason for tracing the generations
by sons who were not first-born, viz., that the same city which Cain built, and named after his son
Enoch, may have had a widely extended dominion and many kings, not reigning simultaneously,
but successively, the reigning king begetting always his successor. Cain himself would be the first
of these kings; his son Enoch, in whose name the city in which he reigned was built, would be the
second; the third Irad, whom Enoch begat; the fourth Mehujael, whom Irad begat; the fifth Methusael,
whom Mehujael begat; the sixth Lamech, whom Methusael begat, and who is the seventh from
831 Rom. ix. 5.
832 Eusebius, Jerome, Bede, and others, who follow the Septuagint, reckon only 2242 years, which Vives explains by supposing
Augustin to have made a copyist’s error.
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Adam through Cain. But it was not necessary that the first-born should succeed their fathers in the
kingdom, but those would succeed who were recommended by the possession of some virtue useful
to the earthly city, or who were chosen by lot, or the son who was best liked by his father would
succeed by a kind of hereditary right to the throne. And the deluge may have happened during the
lifetime and reign of Lamech, and may have destroyed him along with all other men, save those
who were in the ark. For we cannot be surprised that, during so long a period from Adam to the
deluge, and with the ages of individuals varying as they did, there should not be an equal number
of generations in both lines, but seven in Cain’s, and ten in Seth’s; for as I have already said, Lamech
is the seventh from Adam, Noah the tenth; and in Lamech’s case not one son only is registered, as
in the former instances, but more, because it was uncertain which of them would have succeeded
when he died, if there had intervened any time to reign between his death and the deluge.
But in whatever manner the generations of Cain’s line are traced downwards, whether it be by
first-born sons or by the heirs to the throne, it seems to me that I must by no means omit to notice
that, when Lamech had been set down as the seventh from Adam, there were named, in addition,
as many of his children as made up this number to eleven, which is the number signifying sin; for
three sons and one daughter are added. The wives of Lamech have another signification, different
from that which I am now pressing. For at present I am speaking of the children, and not of those
by whom the children were begotten. Since, then, the law is symbolized by the number ten,—whence
that memorable Decalogue,—there is no doubt that the number eleven, which goes beyond833 ten,
symbolizes the transgression of the law, and consequently sin. For this reason, eleven veils of
goat’s skin were ordered to be hung in the tabernacle of the testimony, which served in the
wanderings of God’s people as an ambulatory temple. And in that haircloth there was a reminder
of sins, because the goats were to be set on the left hand of the Judge; and therefore, when we
confess our sins, we prostrate ourselves in haircloth, as if we were saying what is written in the
psalm, “My sin is ever before me.”834 The progeny of Adam, then, by Cain the murderer, is
completed in the number eleven, which symbolizes sin; and this number itself is made up by a
woman, as it was by the same sex that beginning was made of sin by which we all die. And it was
committed that the pleasure of the flesh, which resists the spirit, might follow; and so Naamah, the
daughter of Lamech, means “pleasure.” But from Adam to Noah, in the line of Seth, there are ten
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generations. And to Noah three sons are added, of whom, while one fell into sin, two were blessed
by their father; so that, if you deduct the reprobate and add the gracious sons to the number, you
get twelve,—a number signalized in the case of the patriarchs and of the apostles, and made up of
the parts of the number seven multiplied into one another,—for three times four, or four times three,
give twelve. These things being so, I see that I must consider and mention how these two lines,
which by their separate genealogies depict the two cities, one of earth-born, the other of regenerated
833 Transgreditur.
834 Ps. li. 3.
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persons, became afterwards so mixed and confused, that the whole human race, with the exception
of eight persons, deserved to perish in the deluge.
Chapter 21.—Why It is That, as Soon as Cain’s Son Enoch Has Been Named, the Genealogy is
Forthwith Continued as Far as the Deluge, While After the Mention of Enos, Seth’s Son, the
Narrative Returns Again to the Creation of Man.
We must first see why, in the enumeration of Cain’s posterity, after Enoch, in whose name the
city was built, has been first of all mentioned, the rest are at once enumerated down to that terminus
of which I have spoken, and at which that race and the whole line was destroyed in the deluge;
while, after Enos the son of Seth, has been mentioned, the rest are not at once named down to the
deluge, but a clause is inserted to the following effect: “This is the book of the generations of
Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness of God made He him; male and female
created He them; and blessed them, and called their name Adam, in the day when they were
created.”835 This seems to me to be inserted for this purpose, that here again the reckoning of the
times may start from Adam himself—a purpose which the writer had not in view in speaking of
the earthly city, as if God mentioned it, but did not take account of its duration. But why does he
return to this recapitulation after mentioning the son of Seth, the man who hoped to call on the
name of the Lord God, unless because it was fit thus to present these two cities, the one beginning
with a murderer and ending in a murderer (for Lamech, too, acknowledges to his two wives that
he had committed murder), the other built up by him who hoped to call upon the name of the Lord
God? For the highest and complete terrestrial duty of the city of God, which is a stranger in this
world, is that which was exemplified in the individual who was begotten by him who typified the
resurrection of the murdered Abel. That one man is the unity of the whole heavenly city, not yet
indeed complete, but to be completed, as this prophetic figure foreshows. The son of Cain, therefore,
that is, the son of possession (and of what but an earthly possession?), may have a name in the
earthly city which was built in his name. It is of such the Psalmist says, “They call their lands after
their own names.”836 Wherefore they incur what is written in another psalm: “Thou, O Lord, in
Thy city wilt despise their image.”837 But as for the son of Seth, the son of the resurrection, let him
hope to call on the name of the Lord God. For he prefigures that society of men which says, “But
I am like a green olive-tree in the house of God: I have trusted in the mercy of God.”838 But let
him not seek the empty honors of a famous name upon earth, for “Blessed is the man that maketh
835 Gen. v. 1.
836 Ps. xlix. 11.
837 Ps. lxxiii. 20.
838 Ps. lii. 8.
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the name of the Lord his trust, and respecteth not vanities nor lying follies.”839 After having presented
the two cities, the one founded in the material good of this world, the other in hope in God, but
both starting from a common gate opened in Adam into this mortal state, and both running on and
running out to their proper and merited ends, Scripture begins to reckon the times, and in this
reckoning includes other generations, making a recapitulation from Adam, out of whose condemned
seed, as out of one mass handed over to merited damnation, God made some vessels of wrath to
dishonor and others vessels of mercy to honor; in punishment rendering to the former what is due,
in grace giving to the latter what is not due: in order that by the very comparison of itself with the
vessels of wrath, the heavenly city, which sojourns on earth, may learn not to put confidence in the
liberty of its own will, but may hope to call on the name of the Lord God. For will, being a nature
which was made good by the good God, but mutable by the immutable, because it was made out
of nothing, can both decline from good to do evil, which takes place when it freely chooses, and
can also escape the evil and do good, which takes place only by divine assistance.
Chapter 22.—Of the Fall of the Sons of God Who Were Captivated by the Daughters of Men,
Whereby All, with the Exception of Eight Persons, Deservedly Perished in the Deluge.
When the human race, in the exercise of this freedom of will, increased and advanced, there
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arose a mixture and confusion of the two cities by their participation in a common iniquity. And
this calamity, as well as the first, was occasioned by woman, though not in the same way; for these
women were not themselves betrayed, neither did they persuade the men to sin, but having belonged
to the earthly city and society of the earthly, they had been of corrupt manners from the first, and
were loved for their bodily beauty by the sons of God, or the citizens of the other city which sojourns
in this world. Beauty is indeed a good gift of God; but that the good may not think it a great good,
God dispenses it even to the wicked. And thus, when the good that is great and proper to the good
was abandoned by the sons of God, they fell to a paltry good which is not peculiar to the good, but
common to the good and the evil; and when they were captivated by the daughters of men, they
adopted the manners of the earthly to win them as their brides, and forsook the godly ways they
had followed in their own holy society. And thus beauty, which is indeed God’s handiwork, but
only a temporal, carnal, and lower kind of good, is not fitly loved in preference to God, the eternal,
spiritual, and unchangeable good. When the miser prefers his gold to justice, it is through no fault
of the gold, but of the man; and so with every created thing. For though it be good, it may be loved
with an evil as well as with a good love: it is loved rightly when it is loved ordinately; evilly, when
inordinately. It is this which some one has briefly said in these verses in praise of the Creator:840
839 Ps. xl. 4.
840 Or, according to another reading, “Which I briefly said in these verses in praise of a taper.”
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“These are Thine, they are good, because Thou art good who didst create them. There is in them
nothing of ours, unless the sin we commit when we forget the order of things, and instead of Thee
love that which Thou hast made.”
But if the Creator is truly loved, that is, if He Himself is loved and not another thing in His
stead, He cannot be evilly loved; for love itself is to be ordinately loved, because we do well to
love that which, when we love it, makes us live well and virtuously. So that it seems to me that it
is a brief but true definition of virtue to say, it is the order of love; and on this account, in the
Canticles, the bride of Christ, the city of God, sings, “Order love within me.”841 It was the order
of this love, then, this charity or attachment, which the sons of God disturbed when they forsook
God, and were enamored of the daughters of men.842 And by these two names (sons of God and
daughters of men) the two cities are sufficiently distinguished. For though the former were by
nature children of men, they had come into possession of another name by grace. For in the same
Scripture in which the sons of God are said to have loved the daughters of men, they are also called
angels of God; whence many suppose that they were not men but angels.
Chapter 23.—Whether We are to Believe that Angels, Who are of a Spiritual Substance, Fell in
Love with the Beauty of Women, and Sought Them in Marriage, and that from This Connection
Giants Were Born.
In the third book of this work (c. 5) we made a passing reference to this question, but did not
decide whether angels, inasmuch as they are spirits, could have bodily intercourse with women.
For it is written, “Who maketh His angels spirits,”843 that is, He makes those who are by nature
spirits His angels by appointing them to the duty of bearing His messages. For the Greek word
ἄγγελος, which in Latin appears as “angelus,” means a messenger. But whether the Psalmist speaks
of their bodies when he adds, “and His ministers a flaming fire,” or means that God’s ministers
ought to blaze with love as with a spiritual fire, is doubtful. However, the same trustworthy Scripture
testifies that angels have appeared to men in such bodies as could not only be seen, but also touched.
There is, too, a very general rumor, which many have verified by their own experience, or which
trustworthy persons who have heard the experience of others corroborate, that sylvans and fauns,
who are commonly called “incubi,” had often made wicked assaults upon women, and satisfied
their lust upon them; and that certain devils, called Duses by the Gauls, are constantly attempting
841 Cant. ii. 4.
842 See De Doct. Christ. i. 28.
843 Ps. civ. 4.
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and effecting this impurity is so generally affirmed, that it were impudent to deny it.844 From these
assertions, indeed, I dare not determine whether there be some spirits embodied in an aerial substance
(for this element, even when agitated by a fan, is sensibly felt by the body), and who are capable
of lust and of mingling sensibly with women; but certainly I could by no means believe that God’s
holy angels could at that time have so fallen, nor can I think that it is of them the Apostle Peter
said, “For if God spared not the angels that sinned, but cast them down to hell, and delivered them
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into chains of darkness, to be reserved unto judgment.”845 I think he rather speaks of these who
first apostatized from God, along with their chief the devil, who enviously deceived the first man
under the form of a serpent. But the same holy Scripture affords the most ample testimony that
even godly men have been called angels; for of John it is written: “Behold, I send my messenger
(angel) before Thy face, who shall prepare Thy way.”846 And the prophet Malachi, by a peculiar
grace specially communicated to him, was called an angel.847
But some are moved by the fact that we have read that the fruit of the connection between those
who are called angels of God and the women they loved were not men like our own breed, but
giants; just as if there were not born even in our own time (as I have mentioned above) men of
much greater size than the ordinary stature. Was there not at Rome a few years ago, when the
destruction of the city now accomplished by the Goths was drawing near, a woman, with her father
and mother, who by her gigantic size over-topped all others? Surprising crowds from all quarters
came to see her, and that which struck them most was the circumstance that neither of her parents
were quite up to the tallest ordinary stature. Giants therefore might well be born, even before the
sons of God, who are also called angels of God, formed a connection with the daughters of men,
or of those living according to men, that is to say, before the sons of Seth formed a connection with
the daughters of Cain. For thus speaks even the canonical Scripture itself in the book in which we
read of this; its words are: “And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the
earth, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they
were fair [good]; and they took them wives of all which they chose. And the Lord God said, My
Spirit shall not always strive with man, for that he also is flesh: yet his days shall be an hundred
and twenty years. There were giants in the earth in those days; and also after that, when the sons
of God came in unto the daughters of men, and they bare children to them, the same became the
giants, men of renown.”848 These words of the divine book sufficiently indicate that already there
were giants in the earth in those days, in which the sons of God took wives of the children of men,
844 On these kinds of devils, see the note of Vives in loc., or Lecky’s Hist. of Rationalism, i. 26, who quotes from Maury’s
Histoire de la Magie, that the Dusii were Celtic spirits, and are the origin of our “Deuce.”
845 2 Pet. ii. 4.
846 Mark i. 2.
847 Mal. ii. 7.
848 Gen. vi. 1–4. Lactantius (Inst. ii. 15), Sulpicius Severus (Hist. i. 2), and others suppose from this passage that angels had
commerce with the daughters of men. See further references in the commentary of Pererius in loc.
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when they loved them because they were good, that is, fair. For it is the custom of this Scripture
to call those who are beautiful in appearance “good.” But after this connection had been formed,
then too were giants born. For the words are: “There were giants in the earth in those days, and
also after that, when the sons of God came in unto the daughters of men.” Therefore there were
giants both before, “in those days,” and “also after that.” And the words, “they bare children to
them,” show plainly enough that before the sons of God fell in this fashion they begat children to
God, not to themselves,—that is to say, not moved by the lust of sexual intercourse, but discharging
the duty of propagation, intending to produce not a family to gratify their own pride, but citizens
to people the city of God; and to these they as God’s angels would bear the message, that they
should place their hope in God, like him who was born of Seth, the son of resurrection, and who
hoped to call on the name of the Lord God, in which hope they and their offspring would be co-heirs
of eternal blessings, and brethren in the family of which God is the Father.
But that those angels were not angels in the sense of not being men, as some suppose, Scripture
itself decides, which unambiguously declares that they were men. For when it had first been stated
that “the angels of God saw the daughters of men that they were fair, and they took them wives of
all which they chose,” it was immediately added, “And the Lord God said, My Spirit shall not
always strive with these men, for that they also are flesh.” For by the Spirit of God they had been
made angels of God, and sons of God; but declining towards lower things, they are called men, a
name of nature, not of grace; and they are called flesh, as deserters of the Spirit, and by their
desertion deserted [by Him]. The Septuagint indeed calls them both angels of God and sons of
God, though all the copies do not show this, some having only the name” sons of God.” And
Aquila, whom the Jews prefer to the other interpreters,849 has translated neither angels of God nor
sons of God, but sons of gods. But both are correct. For they were both sons of God, and thus
brothers of their own fathers, who were children of the same God; and they were sons of gods,
because begotten by gods, together with whom they themselves also were gods, according to that
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expression of the psalm: “I have said, Ye are gods, and all of you are children of the Most High.”850
For the Septuagint translators are justly believed to have received the Spirit of prophecy; so that,
if they made any alterations under His authority, and did not adhere to a strict translation, we could
not doubt that this was divinely dictated. However, the Hebrew word may be said to be ambiguous,
and to be susceptible of either translation, “sons of God,” or “sons of gods.”
Let us omit, then, the fables of those scriptures which are called apocryphal, because their
obscure origin was unknown to the fathers from whom the authority of the true Scriptures has been
transmitted to us by a most certain and well-ascertained succession. For though there is some truth
in these apocryphal writings, yet they contain so many false statements, that they have no canonical
849 Aquila lived in the time of Hadrian, to whom he is said to have been related. He was excommunicated from the Church
for the practice of astrology; and is best known by his translation of the Hebrew Scriptures into Greek, which he executed with
great care and accuracy, though he has been charged with falsifying passages to support the Jews in their opposition to Christianity.
850 Ps. lxxxii. 6.
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authority. We cannot deny that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, left some divine writings, for this
is asserted by the Apostle Jude in his canonical epistle. But it is not without reason that these
writings have no place in that canon of Scripture which was preserved in the temple of the Hebrew
people by the diligence of successive priests; for their antiquity brought them under suspicion, and
it was impossible to ascertain whether these were his genuine writings, and they were not brought
forward as genuine by the persons who were found to have carefully preserved the canonical books
by a successive transmission. So that the writings which are produced under his name, and which
contain these fables about the giants, saying that their fathers were not men, are properly judged
by prudent men to be not genuine; just as many writings are produced by heretics under the names
both of other prophets, and more recently, under the names of the apostles, all of which, after careful
examination, have been set apart from canonical authority under the title of Apocrypha. There is
therefore no doubt that, according to the Hebrew and Christian canonical Scriptures, there were
many giants before the deluge, and that these were citizens of the earthly society of men, and that
the sons of God, who were according to the flesh the sons of Seth, sunk into this community when
they forsook righteousness. Nor need we wonder that giants should be born even from these. For
all of their children were not giants; but there were more then than in the remaining periods since
the deluge. And it pleased the Creator to produce them, that it might thus be demonstrated that
neither beauty, nor yet size and strength, are of much moment to the wise man, whose blessedness
lies in spiritual and immortal blessings, in far better and more enduring gifts, in the good things
that are the peculiar property of the good, and are not shared by good and bad alike. It is this which
another prophet confirms when he says, “These were the giants, famous from the beginning, that
were of so great stature, and so expert in war. Those did not the Lord choose, neither gave He the
way of knowledge unto them; but they were destroyed because they had no wisdom, and perished
through their own foolishness.”851
Chapter 24.—How We are to Understand This Which the Lord Said to Those Who Were to Perish
in the Flood: “Their Days Shall Be 120 Years.”
But that which God said, “Their days shall be a hundred and twenty years,” is not to be
understood as a prediction that henceforth men should not live longer than 120 years,—for even
after the deluge we find that they lived more than 500 years,—but we are to understand that God
said this when Noah had nearly completed his fifth century, that is, had lived 480 years, which
Scripture, as it frequently uses the name of the whole of the largest part, calls 500 years. Now the
deluge came in the 600th year of Noah’s life, the second month; and thus 120 years were predicted
as being the remaining span of those who were doomed, which years being spent, they should be
851 Baruch iii. 26–28.
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destroyed by the deluge. And it is not unreasonably believed that the deluge came as it did, because
already there were not found upon earth any who were not worthy of sharing a death so manifestly
judicial,—not that a good man, who must die some time, would be a jot the worse of such a death
after it was past. Nevertheless there died in the deluge none of those mentioned in the sacred
Scripture as descended from Seth. But here is the divine account of the cause of the deluge: “The
Lord God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the
thoughts of his heart was only evil continually. And it repented852 the Lord that He had made man
on the earth, and it grieved Him at His heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man, whom I have
created, from the face of the earth; both man and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of
the air: for I am angry that I have made them.”853
306 Chapter 25.—Of the Anger of God, Which Does Not Inflame His Mind, Nor Disturb His
Unchangeable Tranquillity.
The anger of God is not a disturbing emotion of His mind, but a judgment by which punishment
is inflicted upon sin. His thought and reconsideration also are the unchangeable reason which
changes things; for He does not, like man, repent of anything He has done, because in all matters
His decision is as inflexible as His prescience is certain. But if Scripture were not to use such
expressions as the above, it would not familiarly insinuate itself into the minds of all classes of
men, whom it seeks access to for their good, that it may alarm the proud, arouse the careless,
exercise the inquisitive, and satisfy the intelligent; and this it could not do, did it not first stoop,
and in a manner descend, to them where they lie. But its denouncing death on all the animals of
earth and air is a declaration of the vastness of the disaster that was approaching: not that it threatens
destruction to the irrational animals as if they too had incurred it by sin.
Chapter 26.—That the Ark Which Noah Was Ordered to Make Figures In Every Respect Christ
and the Church.
Moreover, inasmuch as God commanded Noah, a just man, and, as the truthful Scripture says,
a man perfect in his generation,—not indeed with the perfection of the citizens of the city of God
in that immortal condition in which they equal the angels, but in so far as they can be perfect in
their sojourn in this world,—inasmuch as God commanded him, I say, to make an ark, in which he
852 Lit.: The Lord thought and reconsidered.
853 Gen. vi. 5–7.
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might be rescued from the destruction of the flood, along with his family, i.e., his wife, sons, and
daughters-in-law, and along with the animals who, in obedience to God’s command, came to him
into the ark: this is certainly a figure of the city of God sojourning in this world; that is to say, of
the church, which is rescued by the wood on which hung the Mediator of God and men, the man
Christ Jesus.854 For even its very dimensions, in length, breadth, and height, represent the human
body in which He came, as it had been foretold. For the length of the human body, from the crown
of the head to the sole of the foot, is six times its breadth from side to side, and ten times its depth
or thickness, measuring from back to front: that is to say, if you measure a man as he lies on his
back or on his face, he is six times as long from head to foot as he is broad from side to side, and
ten times as long as he is high from the ground. And therefore the ark was made 300 cubits in
length, 50 in breadth, and 30 in height. And its having a door made in the side of it certainly
signified the wound which was made when the side of the Crucified was pierced with the spear;
for by this those who come to Him enter; for thence flowed the sacraments by which those who
believe are initiated. And the fact that it was ordered to be made of squared timbers, signifies the
immoveable steadiness of the life of the saints; for however you turn a cube, it still stands. And
the other peculiarities of the ark’s construction are signs of features of the church.
But we have not now time to pursue this subject; and, indeed, we have already dwelt upon it
in the work we wrote against Faustus the Manichean, who denies that there is anything prophesied
of Christ in the Hebrew books. It may be that one man’s exposition excels another’s, and that ours
is not the best; but all that is said must be referred to this city of God we speak of, which sojourns
in this wicked world as in a deluge, at least if the expositor would not widely miss the meaning of
the author. For example, the interpretation I have given in the work against Faustus, of the words,
“with lower, second, and third stories shalt thou make it,” is, that because the church is gathered
out of all nations, it is said to have two stories, to represent the two kinds of men,—the circumcision,
to wit, and the uncircumcision, or, as the apostle otherwise calls them, Jews and Gentiles; and to
have three stories, because all the nations were replenished from the three sons of Noah. Now any
one may object to this interpretation, and may give another which harmonizes with the rule of faith.
For as the ark was to have rooms not only on the lower, but also on the upper stories, which were
called “third stories,” that there might be a habitable space on the third floor from the basement,
some one may interpret these to mean the three graces commended by the apostle.—faith, hope,
and charity. Or even more suitably they may be supposed to represent those three harvests in the
gospel, thirty-fold, sixty-fold, an hundred-fold,—chaste marriage dwelling in the ground floor,
chaste widowhood in the upper, and chaste virginity in the top story. Or any better interpretation
may be given, so long as the reference to this city is maintained. And the same statement I would
854 1 Tim. ii. 5.
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make of all the remaining particulars in this passage which require exposition, viz., that although
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different explanations are given, yet they must all agree with the one harmonious catholic faith.
Chapter 27.—Of the Ark and the Deluge, and that We Cannot Agree with Those Who Receive the
Bare History, But Reject the Allegorical Interpretation, Nor with Those Who Maintain the
Figurative and Not the Historical Meaning.
Yet no one ought to suppose either that these things were written for no purpose, or that we
should study only the historical truth, apart from any allegorical meanings; or, on the contrary, that
they are only allegories, and that there were no such facts at all, or that, whether it be so or no, there
is here no prophecy of the church. For what right-minded man will contend that books so religiously
preserved during thousands of years, and transmitted by so orderly a succession, were written
without an object, or that only the bare historical facts are to be considered when we read them?
For, not to mention other instances, if the number of the animals entailed the construction of an ark
of great size, where was the necessity of sending into it two unclean and seven clean animals of
each species, when both could have been preserved in equal numbers? Or could not God, who
ordered them to be preserved in order to replenish the race, restore them in the same way He had
created them?
But they who contend that these things never happened, but are only figures setting forth other
things, in the first place suppose that there could not be a flood so great that the water should rise
fifteen cubits above the highest mountains, because it is said that clouds cannot rise above the top
of Mount Olympus, because it reaches the sky where there is none of that thicker atmosphere in
which winds, clouds, and rains have their origin. They do not reflect that the densest element of
all, earth, can exist there; or perhaps they deny that the top of the mountain is earth. Why, then,
do these measurers and weighers of the elements contend that earth can be raised to those aerial
altitudes, and that water cannot, while they admit that water is lighter, and liker to ascend than
earth? What reason do they adduce why earth, the heavier and lower element, has for so many
ages scaled to the tranquil ether, while water, the lighter, and more likely to ascend, is not suffered
to do the same even for a brief space of time?
They say, too, that the area of that ark could not contain so many kinds of animals of both sexes,
two of the unclean and seven of the clean. But they seem to me to reckon only one area of 300
cubits long and 50 broad, and not to remember that there was another similar in the story above,
and yet another as large in the story above that again; and that there was consequently an area of
900 cubits by 150. And if we accept what Origen855 has with some appropriateness suggested, that
855 In his second homily on Genesis.
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Moses the man of God, being, as it is written, “learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians,”856 who
delighted in geometry, may have meant geometrical cubits, of which they say that one is equal to
six of our cubits, then who does not see what a capacity these dimensions give to the ark? For as
to their objection that an ark of such size could not be built, it is a very silly calumny; for they are
aware that huge cities have been built, and they should remember that the ark was an hundred years
in building. Or, perhaps, though stone can adhere to stone when cemented with nothing but lime,
so that a wall of several miles may be constructed, yet plank cannot be riveted to plank by mortices,
bolts, nails, and pitch-glue, so as to construct an ark which was not made with curved ribs but
straight timbers, which was not to be launched by its builders, but to be lifted by the natural pressure
of the water when it reached it, and which was to be preserved from shipwreck as it floated about
rather by divine oversight than by human skill.
As to another customary inquiry of the scrupulous about the very minute creatures, not only
such as mice and lizards, but also locusts, beetles, flies, fleas, and so forth, whether there were not
in the ark a larger number of them than was determined by God in His command, those persons
who are moved by this difficulty are to be reminded that the words “every creeping thing of the
earth” only indicate that it was not needful to preserve in the ark the animals that can live in the
water, whether the fishes that live submerged in it, or the sea-birds that swim on its surface. Then,
when it is said “male and female,” no doubt reference is made to the repairing of the races, and
consequently there was no need for those creatures being in the ark which are born without the
union of the sexes from inanimate things, or from their corruption; or if they were in the ark, they
might be there as they commonly are in houses, not in any determinate numbers; or if it was
necessary that there should be a definite number of all those animals that cannot naturally live in
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the water, that so the most sacred mystery which was being enacted might be bodied forth and
perfectly figured in actual realities, still this was not the care of Noah or his sons, but of God. For
Noah did not catch the animals and put them into the ark, but gave them entrance as they came
seeking it. For this is the force of the words, “They shall come unto thee,”857—not, that is to say,
by man’s effort, but by God’s will. But certainly we are not required to believe that those which
have no sex also came; for it is expressly and definitely said, “They shall be male and female.”
For there are some animals which are born out of corruption, but yet afterwards they themselves
copulate and produce offspring, as flies; but others, which have no sex, like bees. Then, as to those
animals which have sex, but without ability to propagate their kind, like mules and she-mules, it
is probable that they were not in the ark, but that it was counted sufficient to preserve their parents,
to wit, the horse and the ass; and this applies to all hybrids. Yet, if it was necessary for the
completeness of the mystery, they were there; for even this species has “male and female.”
Another question is commonly raised regarding the food of the carnivorous animals,—whether,
without transgressing the command which fixed the number to be preserved, there were necessarily
856 Acts vii. 22.
857 Gen. vi. 19, 20.
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others included in the ark for their sustenance; or, as is more probable, there might be some food
which was not flesh, and which yet suited all. For we know how many animals whose food is flesh
eat also vegetable products and fruits, especially figs and chestnuts. What wonder is it, therefore,
if that wise and just man was instructed by God what would suit each, so that without flesh he
prepared and stored provision fit for every species? And what is there which hunger would not
make animals eat? Or what could not be made sweet and wholesome by God, who, with a divine
facility, might have enabled them to do without food at all, had it not been requisite to the
completeness of so great a mystery that they should be fed? But none but a contentious man can
suppose that there was no prefiguring of the church in so manifold and circumstantial a detail. For
the nations have already so filled the church, and are comprehended in the framework of its unity,
the clean and unclean together, until the appointed end, that this one very manifest fulfillment leaves
no doubt how we should interpret even those others which are somewhat more obscure, and which
cannot so readily be discerned. And since this is so, if not even the most audacious will presume
to assert that these things were written without a purpose, or that though the events really happened
they mean nothing, or that they did not really happen, but are only allegory, or that at all events
they are far from having any figurative reference to the church; if it has been made out that, on the
other hand, we must rather believe that there was a wise purpose in their being committed to memory
and to writing, and that they did happen, and have a significance, and that this significance has a
prophetic reference to the church, then this book, having served this purpose, may now be closed,
that we may go on to trace in the history subsequent to the deluge the courses of the two cities,—the
earthly, that lives according to men, and the heavenly, that lives according to God.

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