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Having spoken in the four nearest books about the origin of two cities, heavenly and earthly, blessed. Augustine adds the same number of books on the further development of these cities, and begins this with the aim of considering the most important chapters of Sacred History relevant to the subject, that is, first of all, in this XV book he examines what is said in the book of Genesis, starting from Cain and Abel to the flood. Chapter I. Two rows of the human tribe, diverging from the very beginning in opposite directions Various considerations were given about heavenly bliss, about paradise itself and about the life of the first people in it, about their sin and punishment, much was said and much was written. In previous books we also dwelled on this question, telling what we read in the sacred Scriptures and what we were able to deduce from them according to their meaning. But when these subjects are considered in more detail, they give rise to such a multitude of varied judgments that the latter would require for their presentation many more books than what real work and time allow. We do not have so much time that we can dwell on everything that can cause bewilderment among idle and petty people who are more skillful in questioning than in the ability to understand I think, however, that we have already done a lot to resolve great and very difficult questions about the beginning of the world, the soul and the human race itself! We divided the latter into two categories: those people who live according to man, and those who live according to God. These categories we symbolically called two cities, that is, two communities of people, of which one is destined to reign eternally with God, and the other to undergo eternal punishment with the devil. But this is the end of them, which we should talk about later. Now, since enough has already been said about their origin both among the angels, the number of which is unknown to us, and in the person of the first two people, It seems to me that we should move on to the story of how they multiply and multiply and fill the earth from the time the first two people began to give birth to offspring until people stop giving birth. This entire period, during which those who die leave and those who are born take their place, represents the time of coexistence of these two cities about which we are discussing. So, from these two ancestors of humanity, Cain was first born, belonging to the human city, and then Abel, belonging to the city of God. Just as with regard to one individual person we are convinced by experience of the truth of what the Apostle said: “The spiritual is not first, but the natural, then the spiritual” (I Cor. XV, 46) - and therefore everyone, since he is born from a condemned shoot, is at first, of necessity, evil and carnal according to Adam, and then, when, having been reborn, grows in Christ, he becomes good and spiritual - so in the whole human race, as soon as the existence of these two cities began expressed by the succession of generations being born and dying, the first born was a citizen of this century, and then a stranger to this century, belonging to the city of God, destined by grace, chosen by grace, by grace a stranger on earth, by grace a citizen of heaven. For, as for himself, he comes from the same mass that was originally all condemned; but God, like a potter (this comparison is not reckless, but wisely used by the apostle), from the same clay creates one vessel for honorable use, and another for low (Rom. IX, 21). First, however, the vessel was created for reproach, and then for honor; for in one and the same person, as I have already said, there is preceded by the unsuitable, with which we necessarily begin, but with which we do not need to remain; then the suitable one follows, to which we move on as we succeed and with which, having achieved it, we remain. Therefore, although not every evil person will be good, no one, however, will be good who was not evil; but the faster someone changes for the better, the sooner he forces himself to be called according to what he assimilates, and the later name, as it were, covers the original name. So, it is written about Cain that “he built a city” (Gen. IV, 17); Abel, being a wanderer, did not build a city. For the city of saints is the city on high, although here it gives birth to its citizens, in whose persons it wanders until the time of its kingdom comes, when it will gather all those resurrected with their bodies and when the last will be given the promised Kingdom, in which they will reign with their Head and King forever. Chapter II. About the sons of the flesh and the sons of promise There was a certain shadow of this city and a prophetic image of it, which served rather to designate than to actually represent it on earth at the time when it should have been pointed out; It is also called the city of saints, but rather out of respect for what is designated than in the sense of representing reality, which was a matter of the future. The apostle says this about this ministerial image and the free city that it signified in his letter to the Galatians: “Tell me, you who want to be under the law: do you not listen to the law? For it is written: “Abraham had two sons, one by a bondwoman, and the other by a freewoman.” But he who is of a slave is born according to the flesh; and the one who is free, the one according to the promise. There is an allegory in this. These are two covenants: one from Mount Sinai, begetting into slavery, which is Hagar, for Hagar means Mount Sinai in Arabia and corresponds to the present Jerusalem, because he and his children are in slavery; and Jerusalem above is free: she is the mother of us all. For it is written: “Rejoice, O barren, unbearable, shout and shout, O who did not suffer in childbirth; because the one who is abandoned has many more children than the one who has a husband.” We, brothers, are the children of the promise according to Isaac. But just as then he who was born according to the flesh persecuted him who was born according to the Spirit, so it is now. What does Scripture say? “Cast out the slave and her son, for the son of the slave will not be heir with the son of the free woman.” So, brethren, we are not the children of slaves, but of a free woman” (Gal. IV, 21–31). This way of understanding, sanctified by apostolic authority, gives us instructions in how we should interpret the writings of both Testaments, Old and New. For some part of the earthly city became an image of the heavenly city, because it represented not itself, but another city; and, therefore, was official. It was not established for its own sake, but to designate another city; and since she was also preceded by another image, then, by pre-representing, she herself was pre-represented. For Hagar, Sarah's servant, and her son, served as a kind of image of this very image. And just as shadows disappear with the onset of light, so free Sarah, who represented the free city and for whom that slave, in turn, served as a shadow representing her in a different way, said: “Cast out this slave and her son; for the son of this slave woman will not inherit with my son Isaac” (Gen. XXI, 10), and from the apostle: “with the son of a free woman.” So, we find two parts in the earthly city: one represents the very reality of this city, and the other serves through this reality to pre-depict the heavenly city. Citizens of the earthly city are born from nature corrupted by sin, and citizens of the heavenly city are born from grace, freeing nature from sin; therefore the former are called vessels of the wrath of God, and the latter vessels of mercy (Rom. IX, 22-23). This was also foreshadowed by the two sons of Abraham in that one, Ishmael, was born in the flesh from a servant called Hagar; the other, Isaac, was born according to the promise from the free Sarah. Both are from the seed of Abraham; but this one was born from a connection that served as an expression of nature, and this one was given birth by a promise that served as an image of grace. There it refers to human copulation, here - to divine mercy. Chapter III. About the barrenness of Sarah, whom the grace of God made capable of childbearing Since Sarah was barren and despaired of having offspring, she, wanting to have from her slave what she herself could not have, gave her to her husband as a concubine. Taking advantage of her right regarding someone else's womb, she in this way obtained from her husband what he had to give. Ishmael was born as people are born from the mixing of two sexes according to the usual law of nature. Why is it said: “according to the flesh”; not in the sense that this was not a good deed of God or that in this the action of God was not manifested, whose creative Wisdom “quickly spreads from one end to the other and arranges everything for good” (Wisdom VIII, 1.) but in the sense that where the gift of God was to be manifested, which the grace of God gives to people as something undeserved, there a son should have been born in such a way that it did not seem to depend on natural causes. For nature no longer produces offspring from such copulation between a man and a woman as Abraham and Sarah could have had at their age, moreover, with the infertility of the wife, who could not conceive even at a time when her years corresponded to childbearing, but her ability to bear children did not correspond to her years. The same circumstance that such a weakened nature should not have offspring means that human nature, damaged by sin and justly condemned for this, no longer had any right to true happiness. So, Isaac, born according to the promise, rightly designates the sons of grace, citizens of a free city, allies of eternal peace, where there will be no desire for personal and in some way private arbitrariness, but there will be love, rejoicing in the common and therefore unchangeable good, making one out of many hearts, i.e. there will be completely unanimous obedience based on love. Chapter IV. About hostile clashes and peace in the earthly city The earthly city, which will not be eternal (because it will no longer be a city when it is condemned to eternal punishment), has its own blessings on earth, with which it rejoices, as far as joy about such things is possible. And since there is no good that does not create difficulties for those who are attached to it, then this city very often divides itself, entering into disputes, wars and battles and achieving victories that bring death, or at least mortals. For, no matter which part of himself rebels against another part in war, he wants to be the conqueror of the tribes, although he himself is in captivity of vices. And if, having won, he becomes prouder, his victory brings death before it; and if, having taken into account the conditions and the general fate of human affairs, he is more alarmed by possible unfortunate accidents in the future than he is exalted by past success, then all the more his victory is mortal. For he cannot, staying constantly, forever rule over those whom he was able to subjugate by victory. Nevertheless, it is unfair to say that the goods to which this city strives are not the essence of goods. He strives for earthly peace for the sake of his earthly affairs: he wants to achieve this peace through war. For when he wins and there is no one who would resist, then peace will come, which the hostile parties did not previously have, arguing under the yoke of poverty about those things that they could not own together. Hard wars strive towards this peace, and what is called a glorious victory achieves it. When those who fought for a just cause win, who will doubt that we should rejoice in victory and that the desired peace has arrived? This is a blessing, and undoubtedly a gift from God. Only if, neglecting those best goods that relate to the upper city, where there will be victory, ensuring the upper world forever, one becomes more attached to these goods, either considering them to be the only ones, or loving them more than those goods that are recognized as the best, then new misfortunes inevitably arise, and the existing ones increase. Chapter V. About the first founder of the earthly city - a fratricide, to whom the founder of Rome corresponded in the wickedness of fratricide So, the first founder of the earthly city was a fratricide, who out of envy killed his brother, a citizen of the eternal city, a stranger on this earth (Gen. IV). It is not surprising that after so much time, at the founding of that city which was to become the head of this earthly city of which we are speaking, and to reign over so many nations, an imitation of this first example, or, as the Greeks say, archetype, appeared in its own way. For here, as one of their poets mentions the villainy itself: The first walls, alas, were stained with brotherly blood 155. This is how Rome was founded, judging by the evidence of Roman history about the murder of his brother Remus by Romulus. The only difference is that both of them were citizens of the earthly city. Both of them sought the glory of creating the Roman Republic; but both together could not have such glory as each of them could have had if he had been alone. For whoever wants to become famous for his dominance, dominates the less, the more he shares his power with a large number of accomplices. So, in order for one to have all the power in his hands, a comrade was killed, and through this crime, what, without being tainted by crime, would have been lesser but better, was increased in a worse form. But those brothers, Cain and Abel, did not have the same desire for earthly things, and the one who killed his brother was not jealous of him because his dominion could have become less if both of them had dominated (for Abel did not seek dominion in the city that his brother founded); he envied with that devilish envy with which evil people envy good people only because they are good, while they are evil. For the possession of kindness is in no way diminished by the fact that there are more partners in this kindness; on the contrary, kindness is a property that the undivided love of allies possesses the more, the more they agree with each other. He will not possess this property who does not want it to be common; and he will possess it as much as he will be able to love those who participate in it with him. And what happened between Romulus and Remus shows how the earthly city is divided within itself; and what happened between Cain and Abel indicates enmity between the two cities, God's and man's. The evil and the evil are fighting among themselves; in the same way, the evil and the good fight among themselves. But the good and the good, if they are perfect, cannot fight with each other. Those who are approaching perfection, but are not yet perfect, can fight among themselves in such a way that the good rebels against that in the other, which he fights against in himself. Because in one person “the flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit, and the spirit what is contrary to the flesh” (Gal. V, 17). So, the spiritual aspirations of one can fight with the carnal aspirations of another, just as the carnal aspirations of one with the spiritual aspirations of another, as the good and the evil fight among themselves; or even the carnal aspirations of two good, but not yet perfect people can fight among themselves, as the evil and the evil fight among themselves, until complete recovery leads them to the final victory. Chapter VI. About the diseases to which, as punishment for sin, the citizens of the City of God are susceptible during their wanderings in this life, but from which they are cured with the help of God This disease is the essence of the disobedience that we talked about in the fourteenth book, which is a punishment for the first disobedience; therefore it is not nature, but vice. That is why it is said to those who are good, striving for perfection and living in a real pilgrimage by faith: “Bear one another’s burdens, and in this way fulfill the law of Christ” (Gal. VI, 2). The same thing is said in another place: “Admonish the disorderly, comfort the faint-hearted, support the weak, be patient with everyone. See to it that no one repays evil for evil” (Col. V, 14–15). And again: “If a person falls into any sin, you who are Spiritual correct him in the spirit of meekness, watching each one of you so as not to be tempted” (Gal. VI, 1). And one more thing: “Let not the sun go down on your anger” (Eph. IV, 26). And in the Gospel: “If your brother sins against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone” (Matthew XVIII: 15). Likewise, about sins that can threaten to be a temptation for many, the apostle says: “Rebuke those who sin before everyone, so that others also may have fear” (1 Tim. V, 20). Therefore, it is often prescribed to forgive each other and take care of preserving peace, without which no one can see God: in the latter case, there is a danger that one day the slave will be ordered to repay the debt of ten thousand talents that was forgiven him, because he did not forgive his fellow debt of one hundred denarii. Having given such an example, the Lord Jesus added: “So will My Heavenly Father also do to you, if each of you does not forgive his brother his sins from his heart” (Matthew XVIII: 35). These are the medical remedies for the citizens of the city of God, wandering on this earth and sighing for the peace of the heavenly fatherland. The Holy Spirit heals internally in order to give some power to external healing. Otherwise, if God himself, using the creation subordinate to himself, spoke in some human form, addressing only human feelings, whether bodily or similar to them, such as we have in dreams, but did not exert influence and did not act on the mind with inner grace, no preaching of the truth would bring benefit to man. God does this, separating the vessels of wrath from the vessels of His mercy, for reasons known to Him, very mysterious, but at the same time fair. For with His help, provided in amazing and hidden ways, a conversion is made to the mind, which, under the direction of God, does not intend evil, when the sin that dwells in our members - which is the very punishment for sin - does not reign, as the Apostle said (Rom. VI, 12-13), in our dead body so that we obey its lusts and present our members to it as instruments of unrighteousness; and man finds in this mind at present a more tranquil ruler, and subsequently, having achieved complete recovery and immortality, will reign without any sin in the eternal world. Chapter VII. About the reason and persistence of the villainy of Cain, who was not deterred from his intended crime even by the words of God But all that we said above, what benefit did it bring to Cain when God addressed him with a speech - addressed him as he usually spoke to the first people, as a kind of interlocutor through the creature subordinate to Him? Didn’t he commit the planned crime, the murder of his brother, and after divine admonition? When God showed the difference between the sacrifices of one and the other, accepting the sacrifices of the one and rejecting the sacrifices of the other - which, of course, could be noticed by some visible sign; and he did this because the latter’s deeds were evil, and his brother’s were good—then Cain became greatly saddened, and his face sank. This is exactly how it is written about it: “And the Lord said to Cain: Why are you upset? and why did your face droop? If you do good, don’t you lift your face? and if you do not do good, then sin lies at the door; he attracts you to himself, but you rule over him” (Gen. IV, 6–7). In this admonition with which God addressed Cain, the expression: “If you do good, do you not lift up your face? and if you do not do good, then sin lies at the door,” due to some ambiguity, what it refers to (and the previous acceptance of the sacrifice of one and rejection of the other), was understood differently when interpreters of the divine Scriptures tried to explain them in accordance with the rules of faith. For a sacrifice is rightly offered when it is offered to the true God, to whom alone should sacrifices be offered. But it is incorrectly divided when it does not distinguish, as it should, the place, the time, the things themselves brought, or the one who brings from the one to whom it is brought, or those between whom what is brought for use is divided. In which of the above relationships Cain did not please God is not easy to understand. But if the Apostle John says about these two brothers: “Not like Cain, who was of the evil one and killed his brother. Why did he kill him? Because his deeds were evil, and his brother’s deeds were righteous” (1 John III, 12), then this makes it clear that God rejected his gifts because he divided them badly in the sense that although he gave God something that belonged to Him, he kept himself for himself. This is what everyone does who follows not God’s will, but their own will, that is, they live not with a right, but with a corrupted heart, but bring God a gift with which they think to bribe Him, so that He will help not to heal their evil desires, but to fulfill them. And this is the property of an earthly city - to honor God or gods in order to dominate the earthly world with their help; not in order to care about the benefit of others, but out of a passion for domination. Good people use the world in order to enjoy God, while evil people, on the contrary, use God in order to enjoy the world. However, only those who believe that God exists and cares about human affairs do this; and there are much worse ones who don’t believe this either. So, Cain, having learned that God had regard not for his sacrifice, but for the sacrifice of his brother, should have changed, imitate his good brother, and not envy him out of pride. Meanwhile, he became sad and his face drooped. This sin, envy of the kindness of another, and, moreover, of one’s brother, God especially condemned. Reproaching him, He asked him: “Why were you upset and why did your face droop?” God saw that he was jealous of his brother and condemned it. For people for whom another’s heart is a mystery could doubt whether it was sorrow for his own bad qualities, which made him, as he was convinced, displeasing to God, or whether it was sorrow for his brother’s good qualities, which were pleasing to God, since He looked upon Abel’s sacrifice. But God, who did not want to accept his sacrifices in order to turn his dissatisfaction rather on himself than on his brother - since he was unjust in living unrighteously, and therefore was not worthy to have his offering approved - showed how much more unjust he was, unreasonably hating his just brother. Not letting him go, however, without a holy, just and good commandment, the Lord said: “Sin lies at the door; he attracts you to himself, but you dominate him.” Perhaps these words can be understood in the sense that the sinner should attribute his sin not to anyone else, but only to himself. This is already the beginning of saving repentance, for then anyone will dominate sin when he does not elevate it above himself, defending it, but subjugates it to himself, repenting of it; otherwise, being the intercessor of sin, he will serve it as a master. But if by sin we mean carnal lust itself, about which the apostle speaks: “The flesh desires what is contrary to the spirit” (Gal. V, 17), mentioning among the fruits of this flesh envy, which incited Cain and prompted him to destroy his brother, then (what was said to Cain by the Lord) should be understood in such a way that when that carnal side is aroused, which the apostle calls sin, when he says “It is not I who do this, but he who lives in I have sin" (Rom. VII, 17), - that part of the soul, which philosophers also call vicious, which should not carry the mind along with it, but which, on the contrary, the mind must keep in its power and restrain from impermissible deeds - so, when this part of the soul is excited to an evil act, but calms down and submits to the words of the Apostle: “Do not give over your members to sin as an instrument of unrighteousness" (Rom. VI, 13), then it, tamed and defeated, she will turn to the mind so that reason dominates over her, as a subordinate. This is what God commanded to the one who was inflamed with envy of his brother and wanted to kill the one whom he should imitate. He thus seemed to say: “Keep your hands from doing evil; Let not sin reign in your dead body so that you obey its desires, and do not give up your members as instruments of unrighteousness to sin.” Something similar is said in the same divine book about the wife, when after the Fall those asked by God were condemned: the devil in the person of the serpent, and she and her husband in her own person. God said to her then: “I will multiply your sorrow in your pregnancy; you will give birth to children in illness”; and then added: “And your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you” (Gen. III, 16). What is said to Cain about sin, or about the vicious lust of the flesh, the same thing (in meaning) is said in this place to the sinful wife, from which it should be concluded that the husband must rule his wife like the soul ruling the flesh. Why does the apostle say: “So ought husbands to love their wives as their own bodies: he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh” (Eph. V, 28–29). All this needs to be treated as if it were our own, and not condemned as if it were someone else’s. But Cain accepted God's commandment as a traitor. Due to increased envy, he treacherously killed his brother. Such was the founder of the earthly city. And how he foreshadowed the Jews who killed Christ, the shepherd of the dumb sheep, foreshadowed by Abel, the shepherd of the dumb sheep (for the allegory contains a prophecy), I will not talk about this at the present time, but I remember that I said something regarding this in the book against Faustus the Manichaean. 156 Chapter VIII. What was the opinion that Cain founded the city at the very beginning of the human race Now I find it necessary to defend history, so that what is said in Scripture does not seem incredible, that a city was created by one man at a time when only four people seem to have lived on earth, and after fratricide - even three, i.e. first man, the father of all, then Cain himself and his son. Enoch, after whom the city was named. But those who raise this question pay little attention to the fact that the writer of this sacred history did not need to name all the people who could live at that time, but only those whom the purpose of the work undertaken required. For the intention of this writer, who in this case was the instrument of the Holy Spirit, was to reach, through the succession of certain generations descended from one man, to Abraham, and then from his seed to the people of God: in this people, separated from other generations, everything that was foreseen in the Spirit was foreshadowed as being accomplished, regarding the city, the kingdom of which will be eternal, and its King and Founder - Christ; but it was not silent about another human society, which we call the earthly city, but was mentioned so much that the city of God was presented more clearly through comparison with its opposite city. So, when the Holy Scripture, speaking about this or that person, and mentioning the number of years that this person lived, concludes its speech about him like this: “and so-and-so begat sons and daughters, all the days of his life were so many, and he died”; then, simply by virtue of the fact that it does not name these sons and daughters, should we not imagine that for such a large number of years as people lived in the first times of the world, very many people could be born who, having united, could found not only cities, but also very many states? God, by whose inspiration this was written, was pleased from the very first times to isolate and distinguish these two societies according to their different ancestors, so that the generations of people living according to man were especially grouped, and especially the sons of God, that is, people living according to God, and so on until the flood. At the same time, a division and confusion of both societies appears: a division because their generations are mentioned separately - one descended from the fratricide Cain, the other from Seth, born of Adam instead of the murdered Abel; confusion because when good people turned away from good, everyone became such that they were wiped out from the face of the earth by a flood, with the exception of one righteous one, whose name was Noah, his wife, three sons and as many daughters-in-law: these eight people were honored to escape the common death of mortals thanks to the ark. Likewise, from what is written: “And Cain knew his wife; and she conceived and gave birth to Enoch. And he built a city; and he named the city after the name of his son: Enoch” (Gen. IV, 17), one should not conclude that it was he who gave birth to the first son. The basis for such a conclusion cannot be the expression that he knew his wife, which seems to indicate that he then first united with her. For this is not only said about the father of all, Adam, when Cain, who was his firstborn, was conceived; and after this the Scripture says: “And Adam again knew his wife, and she gave birth to a son, and called his name Seth” (Gen. IV, 25). From the above example it is clear that Scripture is in the habit of expressing itself in a similar way, although not always when it speaks of completed conceptions of people, but not only when the union of both sexes occurs for the first time. One cannot necessarily consider Enoch the firstborn on the grounds that the city was named after him. It is possible that for some reason his father, although he had other children, loved him more than the others. After all, Judas, from whom both Judea and the Jews took their name, was not the firstborn. But even if he were the firstborn of the founder of this city, it still does not follow from this that his father gave his name to the city he founded at the very time when he was born; because at that time one person could not form a whole city out of himself, which is nothing more than a multitude of people united by a certain community union. Only when this man’s family multiplied to such an extent that it already had the number of people, then he was able to found a city and give it the name of his firstborn. The life of those people was so long that of those mentioned in Scripture, about whose years it was not silent, the one who lived the least of all the people before the flood lived to be seven hundred and fifty-three years old. Most of them survived nine hundred years, although no one lived to be a thousand. So, who can doubt that during the life of one person the human race could multiply so much that there was someone to form not one, but many cities? Such an assumption is all the more possible since from Abraham alone, in not much more than four hundred years, the number of the Jewish people increased so much that when this people left Egypt there were six hundred thousand people capable of bearing arms (Exodus XII, 37); and that is, if you do not count the people of the Edomites, who do not actually belong to the people of Israel, who descended from his brother Esau, the grandson of Abraham, and other tribes that descended from the seed of the same Abraham, but were not born from his wife Sarah. Chapter IX. About the longevity of people and about the larger dimensions of the human body before the flood Therefore, no one who knows how to judge things prudently will doubt that Cain could have founded any city, and especially a large city at a time when the life of mortals was so long; unless one of the non-believers expresses doubt about the very number of years that, as our authors write, people lived then, and begins to deny the likelihood of such longevity. They also don’t believe that people’s bodies were much larger then than they are now. But their most famous poet, Virgil, telling how a strong man of former times, fighting, grabbed a huge stone erected on the border of the fields, ran and threw it, notes that It is unlikely that even twelve selected men would have raised him With such bodies as the earth now produces 157. He shows by this that the earth at that time usually produced much larger bodies. How much larger were they in the first times of the world, before the famous and inglorious flood? However, regarding the size of the bodies, unbelievers are exposed by tombs that open due to disrepair, or under the influence of moisture, or for some other reason, in which bones of incredible size are found or from which bones of the dead fall out. I saw myself, and not alone, but accompanied by several persons, on the Utica coast, a human molar of such a size that if it were divided into parts corresponding to our teeth, then a hundred teeth could be made from it. I think, however, that it was the tooth of some giant. For, besides the fact that everyone then had bodies much larger than ours, the giants were far superior to everyone else. Both in our times and in previous times, although rarely, there were almost always people who far exceeded everyone else in size. Pliny Secundus, a very learned man, testifies that the further this age continues, the smaller and smaller bodies nature produces. He mentions that Homer often complained about this in his poems, and he says this not at all as a mockery of supposedly poetic inventions, but believing this, as a researcher of natural wonders, to be historical truth 158. But, as I said, proof of the size of ancient bodies, even for later centuries, is the often found bones, which are distinguished by their durability. The longevity of any person who lived in those days cannot be confirmed by any such visual evidence. Nevertheless, because of this, the reliability of Holy Scripture should not be denied, the narrations of which are all the more shameless not to believe, the more obviously the fulfillment of what they foretold is fulfilled. However, the same Pliny says that there still exists a nation in which people live for two hundred years 159. If, therefore, the longevity of human life, which we have not seen in experience, is recognized as existing at the present time in places unknown to us, then why not believe that it existed in times unknown to us? Or is it possible to believe that in some place there is something that is not here, and it is impossible to believe that there once was something that is not now? Chapter X. On the difference in the numbers of years that appears between the Jewish and our codes There is some difference between the Jewish and our codes in the very counting of years; I don’t know why this is so. This difference, however, is not such that there is a contradiction between the codes regarding the longevity of those people. For example, the first man himself, Adam, before the birth of his son, named Seth, according to our codes is shown to have lived two hundred and thirty years, but according to Jewish ones - one hundred and thirty. But after this birth, our codes represent him as living another seven hundred years, and the Jewish ones - eight hundred. The same is true in other cases: the total number of years is the same. And in subsequent generations, at the birth of those whose birth is mentioned, the father, according to Jewish codes, appears to have lived a hundred years less; But according to ours, he turns out to have lived a hundred years less than according to the Jews, after birth. Thus, the overall result is the same here and there. In the sixth generation, both codes are completely in agreement. But in the seventh, when that Enoch was born, about whom it is narrated that he did not die, but was exalted by the will of God, there appears to be the same difference as in the previous five generations, a hundred years before the birth of the son who is mentioned, and the same agreement in the overall result. According to both codes, Enoch lived three hundred and sixty-five years before God took him. Regarding the eighth generation, there is also some difference, but less than in previous generations and different from the previous one. Methuselah, the son of Enoch, before the birth of the one who follows him in order, according to the Jewish codes, lived not a hundred years less, but twenty more: these twenty years are then added in our codes to the years that he lived after his birth, and thus, in both, the total number of years converges. In the ninth generation alone, that is, in the years of Lamech, the son of Methuselah and the father of Noah, the total amount diverges, but only slightly. According to the Jewish codes, he appears to have lived twenty-four years more than according to ours, and after his birth, thirty more years than according to ours. Subtracting six from the last figure, we get the mentioned difference of twenty-four years. Chapter XI. About the years of Methuselah, who seems to have survived the flood for fourteen years Because of this discrepancy between the Jewish and our books, the famous dispute arose about Methuselah, who, judging by the count of years, lived another fourteen years after the flood 160, while the Holy Scripture says that of all those who were then on earth, only eight people escaped with the help of the ark of destruction from the flood (1 Pet. III, 20), and Methuselah was not among them. For, according to our codes, Methuselah lived one hundred and sixty-seven years before the birth of his son, named Lamech; then Lamech himself lived one hundred and eighty-eight years before Noah was born from him; which together will be three hundred and fifty-five years. If we add to these years the six hundred years of Noah's life that passed before the flood, we get nine hundred and fifty-five years from the birth of Methuselah to the flood. The total years of Methuselah's life are considered to be nine hundred and sixty-nine; because, having lived one hundred and sixty-seven years before the birth of his son, named Lamech, after his birth he lived another eight hundred and two years, which together amounts, as we said, to nine hundred and sixty-nine years. If we subtract from this the nine hundred and fifty-five years from the birth of Methuselah to the flood, we are left with fourteen years that he supposedly lived after the flood. Some therefore believe that he lived for some time not on earth, where, as is known, all creations were destroyed, which nature does not allow to live in water, but with his father, who was taken by the Lord, and stayed there until the flood ended. They think this way because they do not want to deny confidence to the codes to which the Church gives primary respect, and they believe that there is an inaccuracy in the Jewish ones rather than in these. They do not admit that the translators could have made an error in this place rather than a lie in the language from which the Holy Scripture was translated into our language through the Greek language. It is incredible, they say, that the Seventy interpreters, who translated everything at the same time and in the same sense, could make a mistake or want to lie about something that was completely useless for them. The Jews, jealous that thanks to the translation, the Law of God and the Prophets came to us, changed something in their codes in order to reduce our authority. Let everyone accept the last opinion or assumption as he wishes: one thing is certain, that Methuselah did not live after the flood, but died the day before, if the counting of years in the Jewish codes is incorrect. I will present my own opinion about these Seventy interpreters in more detail in my place, Chapter. XLII-XLIV. to the extent that it will take real labor to talk about their time itself. In the present case, it is quite enough that, according to the testimony of those and other codes, people then lived for such a long time that during the life of one person, the first born of those two parents who alone lived on earth at that time, the human race was able to multiply so much that it was possible to found a city. Chapter XII. About the opinion of those who believe that people of the first times could not have been as durable as is written about them For in no way can we agree with those who believe that years in those days were counted differently, that is, they were so short that our one year contained ten of those. According to them, having heard or read that someone lived nine hundred years, everyone should understand ninety: because ten of those years make up one of ours, and ten of ours make up those one hundred. Therefore, Adam, in their opinion, lived twenty-three years when he gave birth to Seth, and Seth himself lived twenty years and six months when Enos was born of him; Holy Scripture calls the last number two hundred and five years. According to the assumption of these persons, whose opinion we present, one such year as we have now was then divided into ten parts, and these parts were called years. Each of these parts is the square number of six, because God completed His works in six days in order to rest on the seventh day (which I spoke about as best I could in the eleventh book). Six multiplied by six (which is the square of six) gives thirty-six days, which, multiplied by ten, gives three hundred and sixty days, i.e. twelve lunar months. And since there were still five days left with which the solar year is replenished, and a quarter of a day, which, taken four times, adds one more day in that year, which is called a leap year, then to correspond to the years, the ancients then added days; The Romans call these days intercalares. Thus Enosh the son of Seth was nineteen years old when his son Cainan was born to him; Scripture shows this number as one hundred and ninety years. And then in all further generations before the flood, when the years of people are mentioned, there is almost no one found in our codes who would give birth to a son, having a hundred years or less, or even a hundred and twenty or more; The youngest age for birth is one hundred and sixty years old. This is because, they say, no person can give birth to children at the age of ten, which was considered a hundred by the people of that time; but at the age of sixteen, which in those days was considered one hundred and sixty, manhood already appears, capable of producing offspring. And lest it seem incredible that the year was then counted differently, they add that many historical writers can be found that the Egyptians had a year of four months, 161 the Acornans had a year of six, and the Lavinians had a year of thirteen. Pliny Secundus, having mentioned the facts that are found in the manuscripts that someone lived one hundred and fifty-two years, another ten years more, and some two hundred years, others three hundred, others up to five hundred, up to six hundred, and some lived up to eight hundred years, believes that this happened due to ignorance of the calculation of time. For among some, he says, one year was limited to summer, and the other to winter; for others, one of the four seasons, as, for example, among the Arcadians, whose year consisted of three of our months. To this he adds that the Egyptians, whose short years, as we said above, were equal to four months, once limited the year to the exodus of the moon. This is why they, he says, talk about whole thousands of years they have lived. 162 With such supposedly reliable evidence, some people, who do not at all expect to undermine the reliability of this sacred history, but, on the contrary, are trying to increase it so that the fact that ancient people lived for such a large number of years does not seem incredible, “with such evidence, I say, they convinced themselves (and they believe that they convinced themselves, not without reason) that a year was then called such a small period of time that out of ten of those years one of ours is made up, and ten of our years are equal to a hundred of those. But that this is completely false, there is the most obvious evidence. But before I bring it up, I do not find it possible to remain silent about how probable their assumption may seem. In fact, we can show the inconsistency of their opinion and refute it on the basis of Jewish codes. The latter say that Adam was not two hundred and thirty years old, but one hundred and thirty years old when he gave birth to his third son. If this is thirteen years by our count, then no doubt he gave birth to his first son when he was eleven or a little more years old. Who can give birth at such an age under the ordinary and well-known law of nature? But we will leave aside Adam, who, perhaps, was able to give birth immediately after creation. For it is very likely that he was not created so small as our children. But his son, when he begat Enosh, was not two hundred and five years old, as we read, but one hundred and five years old - therefore, in their opinion, he was not even eleven years old then. What then can we say about Cainan his son, who, according to our codes, was one hundred and seventy years old, and according to the Jewish ones, seventy years old, when he begat Maleleel? What kind of seven-year-old man can give birth, if only then seven years were called seven years? Chapter XIII. Should the Jewish codes be preferred to the seventy interpreters regarding the number of years? But when I say this, it seems to me that this is a lie of the Jews, about which enough has already been said above: because the Seventy Interpreters, enjoying well-deserved fame, could not lie. But if we pose the question of what is more likely: either that the Jewish people, scattered for so long and over such a large space, could unanimously agree to write down this lie and, out of envy of the reliability of other people's codes, deprive them of their truths, or that seventy people, who were themselves Jews, gathered in one place (since they were invited for this matter by the king of Egypt, Ptolemy), envied the fact that the truth would be in their possession. foreign peoples, and they did this according to a common agreement: whoever does not see, what can be believed more quickly and easily. Let us, however, eliminate the very idea that any prudent person would come to the conclusion that the Jews, whatever their malice and cunning, could have such power in relation to numerous and scattered codes from ancient times and over large spaces; or as if those memorable seventy men agreed on this one thing only, being envious of the pagans in the truth. It would be more likely if someone said that at first, as soon as they began to rewrite this from Ptolemy’s library, something similar could have been done in one, that is, in the first rewritten code, and from it it had already spread further; This could also have been due to a copyist's error. The latter can be assumed in the question of the life of Methuselah and in another place where there is a difference in the total amount of twenty-four years. But in those cases where similar errors continue in a row, where before the birth of the son who follows in order, in one case an extra hundred years are shown, and in another they are missing; after the birth, a hundred extra ones are shown where they were missing, and where they were redundant are decreased so that there is a similarity in the total amount; and this is repeated in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth and seventh generations: in these cases the error itself seems to have some, so to speak, constancy, and smells not of accident, but of intentionality. So, that difference in numbers, one way shown in the Greek and Latin codices, and another in the Hebrew, which is repeated successively in so many generations, first through the addition and then through the subtraction of a hundred years, should be attributed not to the malice of the Jews and not to the prudence or cunning of the Seventy interpreters, but to the error of the scribe who first took the codex for copying from the library of the above-mentioned king. For even now, in those cases where the numbers do not attract special attention by something that can easily be understood or that seems useful to study, they are carelessly rewritten and even more carelessly corrected. Who, for example, would consider it necessary to ascertain with precision how many thousands of people each of the tribes of Israel could have had? After all, there seems to be no benefit from this; Are there really many people who could delve deeper into this benefit? But where, after so many successive generations, a hundred years are added in some codes, in others not; and after the birth of the son mentioned, these hundred years are omitted where they were before, and added where they were not, in order to equalize the total - there he who did this, without any doubt, wanted to convince that the ancient people lived so many years because they called the shortest periods of time years. He tried to show this regarding the age of maturity at which people become capable of bearing children. He thought that it was necessary to impress upon the unbelievers that one hundred of those years were equal to ten of ours, so that they would not deny the authenticity of such a long human life. Therefore, he added one hundred years where he had not yet found an age capable of bearing children, and subtracted the same hundred years after the birth of his son so that the amounts were the same. He wanted in this way to bring into greater harmony the ages capable of giving birth to children, without, however, changing the total number of years lived by each. As for the fact that he did not do this in the sixth generation, this is what best shows that he did it only when the purpose we are talking about required it: because he did not do it where the said purpose did not require it. He found that, according to the Jewish codes, in this generation Jared lived one hundred and sixty-two years before the birth of Enoch, which, in accordance with the idea of ​​​​shorter years, is sixteen years and almost two months; this age is already capable of birth, therefore there was no need to add one hundred short years to make twenty-six of ours, just as after the birth of Enoch to subtract them, since they were not added before birth. It so happened that in this place there is no difference between these and other codes. But then again, bewilderment arises: why in the eighth generation, before Lamech was born from Methuselah, the Jewish codes read one hundred and eighty-two years, but in ours we find twenty years less, while a hundred years were usually added; and after the birth of Lamech, these years were added to replenish the total amount, which is the same in both codes. After all, if he wanted to take the age of one hundred and seventy years old for maturity as seventeen years old, then he should not have added or subtracted anything; because he had reached the age capable of bearing children, to replenish which in other cases, when he did not find it so, he added a hundred years. One might think that these twenty years were subtracted by mistake, if, having subtracted them at first, he did not try to add them later, in order to maintain agreement between the total amounts. Surely one should not think that this was done with cunning, in order to hide the intention with which a hundred years were first added and then subtracted; since in this place, where there was no longer a need for this, the same thing happened, although not with a hundred years, but with a small number, which was first reduced and then added? But how should one react to this explanation, whether to believe that it happened like this or not to believe it, and in general, whether it happened in a similar way or in some other way; I have no doubt at all that in those cases where there is a difference between one and the other codes, and when, moreover, the testimony of both together cannot have historical reliability, one should more trust the language from which the interpreters made the translation into another language. For even according to some three Greek, one Latin and one Syriac codes, which agree with each other, it turns out that Methuselah died six years before the flood. Chapter XIV. On the equality of years, which in previous centuries passed in the same periods of time as now Now let us see how it can be clearly proven that the years counted in the long lives of those people were not so short that ten of them made up one of ours, but were just as long as ours, formed by the circular revolution of the sun. In the six hundredth year of Noah's life, according to Scripture, the flood occurred. If those years were so short that ten of them make up our one, that is, each of them consisted of thirty-six days, then why is it written: “After seven days the waters of the flood came to the earth. In the six hundredth year in the life of Noah, the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month” (Gen. VII, 10–11)? After all, such a small year, if according to ancient custom it bore the name of the year, either did not have months at all, or, in order for it to have twelve months, each month had to consist of three days. On what basis was it said: “on the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month,” if not on the fact that the months then were the same as now? Otherwise, how could Scripture say that the flood began on the twenty-seventh day of the second month? Then, regarding the end of the flood, we read the following: “And the ark sat in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. The water continually decreased until the tenth month; on the first day of the tenth month the tops of the mountains appeared” (Gen. VIII, 4–5). So, if the months were the same as now, then, of course, the years were the same. Three-day months could not have twenty-seven days. And if - in order to proportionally reduce everything - then the thirtieth part of three days was called a day; then it turns out that such a great flood, which seems to have happened in forty days and nights, happened in less than four days. Who would allow such stupidity and inconsistency? Therefore, let this error be eliminated, which, wishing by a false assumption to increase the reliability of our Scripture in one case, undermines it in another. Undoubtedly, then there was the same day as now, defined by twenty-four hours of day and night; the same month as now, beginning with the birth and ending with the departure of the moon; the same year as now, consisting of twelve lunar months with the addition of five days and a quarter to complete the solar circle; it was the second month of the six hundredth year of Noah's life, and the twenty-seventh day of the month when the flood began; During its forty days there was continuous rain, and these days had not two or more hours, but twenty-four hours of day and night time. Therefore, those ancient people sometimes lived for more than nine hundred, the same great years that Abraham later lived one hundred and seventy-five, and after him his son, Isaac, one hundred and eighty, and the last son, Jacob, about one hundred and fifty, and which Moses, several centuries later, lived one hundred and twenty, and at the present time people live seventy or eighty, or a little more, but about which it has already been said: “and their multiplication is labor and sickness” ( Ps. 89:10). As for the difference in numbers that is noticed between the Jewish and our codes and does not contradict this longevity of the ancients, then if there turns out to be such a difference that it is impossible to recognize both as true, historical authenticity must be sought in the language from which our translation was made. The opportunity for this is provided to anyone who wishes. But this does not mean that anyone is allowed to correct the Seventy Interpreters according to the Jewish codes in many respects in which they do not agree with those codes. This difference is not a so-called error, and I think that it should in no way be considered as such. But in those cases where there is no copyist error and where there is a meaning that is consistent with the truth and foreshadows it, in those cases it must be assumed that they spoke differently than in the Jewish codes, not as translators, but with the freedom that is characteristic of the prophets. Therefore, when the apostles present evidence from the Scriptures, they use not only Jewish codes, but also their translations. But I promised to talk about this in more detail, if God helps, in a more convenient place; Now I’ll move on to what’s next in line. So, there should be no doubt that one man, who was born first from the first man, living for so long, could found a city - an earthly one, of course, and not the one called the city of God, for the sake of describing which we have undertaken this work. Chapter XV. Is it likely that people of the first times abstained from marital cohabitation until the age at which they were said to have given birth to sons? Someone will say: “Is it really necessary to understand that a person who by nature had to give birth to children and at the same time did not take a vow of abstinence, did not enter into marital cohabitation until he was a hundred years old or more, or, according to Jewish codes, a little less; or, if he did, he was not able to bear children? This question is resolved in two ways. Or manhood appeared as much later as the duration of the entire life was longer; or, what seems to me more probable, in this case it is not the first-born sons that are mentioned, but only those whom the order of succession required in order to reach Noah, as the transition was then made from him to Abraham, and then until a certain point in time, as far as it was necessary to indicate with the help of the mentioned generations the continuation of the most glorious city, wandering in this world and striving for the Fatherland above. One thing cannot be denied: Cain was born first from the union of husband and wife. Upon his birth, Adam would not have said ************: “Man has been acquired by God” (Gen. IV, 1), if this person had not been joined first to the two. Abel, who followed him, was killed by his brother and served as a certain prototype of the wandering city of God, the first to show that this city would suffer unjust persecution from the wicked and, so to speak, earth-born, that is, those attached to what comes from the earth and rejoicing in the earthly happiness of the earthly city. But how old Adam was when he gave birth to them is unknown. Then they are arranged in order, on the one hand, the generations of Cain, on the other - the generations of the one born by Adam instead of the one killed by his brother, whom Adam named Seth, saying *************, in the words of Scripture: “For God has raised up another seed, instead of Abel, whom Cain killed” (Gen. IV, 25). When then these two rows of generations, one of Seth’s, the other of Cain’s, are each included in a special order in the composition of these two cities, about which we are discussing: one heavenly, wandering on earth, another earthly, striving and attached to the joys of the earth - then when calculating the descendants of Cain from Adam to the eighth generation, no mention is made of how old he was when he gave birth to that son, about whom he is spoken of after him. The Spirit of God did not want to designate the times in the generations of the earthly city before the flood, but preferred to do this in the generations of the heavenly city, since. they were more worthy of memory. When Seth was born later, the years of his father were shown, although he had already given birth to other children. Who, however, would dare to say that he gave birth only to Cain and Abel? From the fact that they alone are named in the order of generations that needed to be mentioned, it does not at all follow that they alone were born at that time from Adam. If the names of the remaining children are kept silent and it is only said that “he begat sons and daughters” (Gen. V, 4), then who, wishing to avoid accusations of recklessness, would dare to assert whose descendant Seth was? For Adam, by divine inspiration, could say when Seth was born: “God put another seed for me, instead of Abel, whom Cain killed,” because he was destined to be such that he had to replace Abel in his holiness, and not because he was born first in order after Abel. Further, who, if not only the most reckless, on the basis of the words of Scripture: “Seth lived two hundred and five years (or, according to the Jewish codes, one hundred and five), and gave birth to Enos” (Gen. V, 6), would claim that Enos was the firstborn of Seth? In this case, not without fair surprise, we must ask ourselves how he remained outside of marital cohabitation for so many years, having no intention of abstaining from marriage, or, while married, did not give birth; when it is said about him in turn: “And he begat sons and daughters. And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years; and he died” (Gen. V, 7–8). When and then the years of a person are mentioned, it is also said that he gave birth to sons and daughters. But it does not at all follow from this that the firstborn was the son whose name is mentioned; on the contrary, just as it is incredible that their fathers were immature for such a long time and did not have wives and children, it is equally incredible that the mentioned sons were born to them first. Since the writer of sacred history had as his task, denoting times through a successive series of generations, to reach the origin and life of Noah, during whom the flood occurred, he did not mention those who were the first of their parents, but those who were included in this successive series of generations. To make this clearer, I will give as an example something from which everyone will see the full possibility of what I am talking about. Evangelist Matthew, wanting to report on the origin of the Lord according to the flesh in the genealogical line, and setting himself the goal first of all, starting with the forefather Abraham, to reach David, says: “Abraham begat Isaac” (Matthew 1ff.). Why did he not mention Ishmael, whom Abraham begot first (Isaac)? “Isaac begat Jacob,” he continues. Why didn't he name Esau, who was Isaac's firstborn? Yes, because, of course, he could not reach David through them. It follows: “Jacob begat Judah and his brothers.” Was Judas his firstborn? "Judah begat Perez and Zehra". And of these twins, not one was the firstborn of Judah, for he had already given birth to three before them. So, he introduced the genealogical line of those through whom he could reach David, and from him to the One Whom he wanted to reach. From this we can understand that among the first people before the flood, it is not the firstborn who are mentioned, but those through whom a successive series of generations led up to the patriarch Noah; so we should not be bothered by the dark and idle question about the late maturity of these people. Chapter XVI. About marriage law, which was different in the first marriages than in subsequent ones So, the human race, after the first union of a man created from dust, and a wife created from the rib of a husband, had the need to unite the male with the female in order to multiply through birth; and since there were no other people besides those born from the first two, husbands had to take their sisters as wives. As much as this was a distinctive feature of ancient times due to necessity, it became reprehensible later, as a result of the prohibition by religion. For respect was rightly accepted for that property of love, according to which people, for whom mutual agreement is useful and decent, began to be mutually bound by ties of various kinships; so that one person cannot have in the person of another many relatives at once, but that each degree of relationship is contained in a separate person; and so that, in this way, the greatest possible number of types of kinship may more closely unite the greatest possible number of persons for social life. Father and father-in-law, for example, are the names of two relatives. Therefore, when one has father and father-in-law in separate persons, kindred love embraces a greater number of persons. But Adam was forced to be both at the same time for his sons and daughters; because then brothers and sisters were united in marriage. In the same way, Eve, his wife, was both mother-in-law and mother to her daughters and sons; and if there were two women, one a mother-in-law and the other a mother, family love would expand from this. And the sister herself, who was at the same time a wife, combined in herself two degrees of relationship; and if these two kinships were distributed among individuals so that one was a sister and the other a wife, the ties of kinship would embrace a larger number of people. But this was not possible when there were no other people from the first two people except brothers and sisters. This, however, should have been the case when it became possible, i.e. when there already existed a sufficient number of persons to take from among them wives who would no longer be sisters; when not only was there no need for this to be done, but even if it were done, it would be contrary to natural law. After all, if the grandchildren of the first people, who could already marry their cousins, were united in marriage with their own sisters, then in this case, not two, but three kinships would be united in one person, which would have to be distributed among various individuals in order to unite a larger number of people with a common kindred love. For one and the same person would be for his children, that is, those united by the marriage of brother and sister, and father, and father-in-law, and uncle; also his wife would be for these children both a mother, and an aunt, and a mother-in-law; Their children would be for each other not only brothers and spouses, but also cousins, because they were the children of their own brother and sister. Meanwhile, all these types of kinship, which connected three people with one person, if distributed among individuals, would connect nine people with him, so that the same person would have one sister, and another wife, and another cousin; one is the father, another is the uncle, another is the father-in-law; one as a mother, another as an aunt, and another as a mother-in-law. The communal union would thus not be limited to a small number of persons, but would embrace a much larger number of people through strong ties of kinship. With the growth and multiplication of the human race, we notice even among the wicked worshipers of many and false gods this phenomenon: although their perverse laws allow marriages between brothers and sisters, yet a custom that is better than laws prefers to turn away from this permission; and although in the first times of the human race it was allowed to marry sisters, nevertheless the disgust is as great as if this permission had never existed. For in order to attract or repel human feeling towards something, custom has the greatest power. As soon as he curbs immoderate passions in this case, it is rightly recognized as wickedness to violate it and change it. After all, if it is unfair to cross the boundaries of the field out of greed for acquisition, then how much more unfair is it to destroy the boundaries established by morals for the sake of sexual passion? From the experience of our time regarding marriages between cousins ​​(brothers and sisters), we see how rarely, due to kinship closest to fraternal, custom allows what the laws allow. Neither divine law nor human law prohibits such marriages. Nevertheless, they also turn away from what is permitted due to its close contact with what is unlawful; it seems that what is done to a cousin is almost done to one’s own family, because cousins, due to such close blood relationships between them, are also called brothers and sisters and seem almost like relatives. The ancient fathers, however, also had another pious concern: so that kinship itself, diverging little by little in different generations, would not become so distant that it would cease to even be kinship; and so, before it became too distant, they reunited it by marriage and, as it were, returned what was moving away. Therefore, even at a time when the earth was already full of people, they still preferred to marry, if not sisters from their father or mother, or from both parents, then at least from their own family. But who would hesitate to admit with more decorum that marriages even between cousins ​​are now prohibited? And this is not only for the reasons that we have outlined, i.e. to expand the property, so that one person would not be a doubly relative, when there could be two relatives and the number of relatives would increase; but also because human modesty is characterized by some inexplicable, but nevertheless natural and commendable property, by which a person, in relation to a person to whom he, by reason of kinship, is obliged to treat with respectful respect, restrains his, albeit productive, but still lust, which is a subject of shame for marital chastity itself. So, the copulation of husband and wife, as far as the mortal race is concerned, is a kind of breeding ground for hail; but the earthly city needs only birth, while the heavenly city also needs rebirth in order to be saved from the corruption of birth. But whether there was, and if there was, what was the physical and visible sign of this rebirth before the flood, like circumcision, subsequently commanded to Abraham, sacred history is silent about this. She does not keep silent about the fact that the most ancient people made sacrifices to God. This is evident from the example of the first two brothers; and about Noah after the flood it is said that, coming out of the ark, he offered a sacrifice to God (Gen. IV: 3–4, VIII: 20). Regarding this, in previous books we have already said that demons who assimilate divine dignity to themselves and want to be considered gods precisely because they demand sacrifices for themselves and rejoice in honors of this kind, because they know: the true sacrifice must be offered to the true God. Chapter XVII. About two fathers and ancestors descended from one parent So, Adam was the father of both kinds of generations, those whose series belonged to the earthly city, and those whose series belonged to the heavenly city. But after Abel was killed, and a wondrous mystery was predicted in his death, two fathers of separate generations appeared: in the person of Cain and in the person of Seth. Their sons, who needed to be mentioned, began to show more clearly the distinctive features of these two cities in the mortal race. Cain, for example, gave birth to Enoch and founded a city named in his honor - an earthly city, of course, not wandering in this world, but considering this temporary world and its happiness as its ultimate goal. Cain's name means "possession"; therefore, when he was born, it was said by his father or mother: “Man is acquired by God.” The name Enoch means “dedication”: for the earthly city is dedicated where it is created; because here is the final goal to which he strives and desires. Further, the name Seth translated means “resurrection,” and the name of his son Enos means “man”; but not in the sense in which the name Adam. For the name Adam in translation means “man,” but in the original language, that is, in the Hebrew language, it is used as a common name for both men and women. For it was said about him this way: “Make them husband and wife: and bless them, and call their name Adam” (Gen. V, 2). From this it is clearly seen that the wife was called Eve as a proper name; the name Adam, meaning “man,” was the common name of both of them. The name Enos designates a person in such a way that, according to experts in the Hebrew language, it cannot be a woman: he is the son of the “resurrection,” where “They neither marry nor are given in marriage” (Luke XX, 35). For there will be no birth where regeneration will lead. Therefore, I consider it useful to pay attention to the fact that in those generations that descended from the one named Seth, when it is said that sons and daughters were born, the woman born nowhere is called by name; in the same generations that descend from Cain, at the very end to which they reach, the last woman born is called by name. The passage reads like this: “Methuselah begat Lamech. And Lamech took for himself two wives; the name of one is Ada, and the name of the second is Zillah. Adah gave birth to Jabal: he was the father of those who lived in tents with their flocks. His brother's name was Jubal: he was the father of all those who played the harp and pipe. Zillah also gave birth to Tubalcain, who was a forger of all tools of copper and iron. And Tubalcain’s sister Noema” (Gen. IV, 18–22). This ends the generations of Cain, of which there were only eight from Adam, including Adam, that is, seven generations before Lamech, who had two wives, and the eighth generation were his children, among whom a woman is mentioned. This excellently indicates that the earthly city, until its very end, will have carnal births arising from the union of husbands and wives. That is why the wives of this man, who is mentioned in this place as the last father, are also called by their proper names; which, with the exception of Eve, is found nowhere before the flood. So, Cain, whose name means “possession,” the founder of the earthly city, and his son, in whose name the city was founded, Enoch, that is, “dedication,” indicate that this city has both an earthly beginning and an earthly end; and that it does not strive for anything beyond what the present age can represent. Contrasting him with Sepha, whose name means “resurrection,” and who is represented as the father of the generations listed separately, we must now consider what sacred history says about his son. Chapter XVIII. About what is expressed in Abel, Seth and Enos, obviously relating to Christ and His body, that is, the Church “And Seth was a son, and his name was Enos; This is the hope of calling on the name of the Lord God” (Gen. IV, 26). The evidence of truth could not be clearer. Man, the son of the “resurrection,” lives by hope: the city of God, born from faith in the resurrection of Christ, lives by hope while it wanders in this world. For in these two people: Abel, whose name means “weeping,” and his brother Seth, whose name means “resurrection,” an image is given of the death of Christ and His life rising from the dead. From this faith the city of God is born in this world, that is, a person who trusts to call on the name of the Lord God. “For we are saved by hope,” says the apostle. “Hope, when it sees, is not hope; for if anyone sees, what can he hope for? But when we hope for what we do not see, then we wait with patience” (Rom. VIII, 24–25). Who, in fact, would not see a deep mystery here? Did not Abel trust to call on the name of the Lord God when his sacrifice, according to the testimony of Scripture, was so pleasing to God? Or did Seth himself not hope to call on the name of the Lord God? Why, then, is it attributed to Enos alone that which, as is naturally assumed, constitutes the common property of all the pious? Why, if not so that in his person, who is mentioned first, descended from the father of generations confined to the best part, i.e., to a part of the heavenly city, it is necessary to show the prototype of man, that is, of human society, living not according to man in the enjoyment of earthly happiness, but according to God, in the hope of eternal bliss? And it is not said: “This one trusted in the Lord God,” or: “He called on the name of the Lord God,” but: “This one trusted in calling on the name of the Lord God.” What is “hoped to call” if not a prophecy that a people will appear who, according to the election of grace, will call on the name of the Lord God? It is this, expressed by another prophet, that the apostle refers to the people standing under the grace of God: “Whoever calls on the name of the Lord will be saved” (Joel 2:32; Rom. X, 13). The expression: “He called his name Enos,” and then the addition: “He trusted to call on the name of the Lord God,” show quite clearly that a person should not place his hope in himself. “Cursed is the man,” as it is said elsewhere, “who trusts in man” (Jer. XVII, 5). Consequently, he should not rely on himself if he wants to be a citizen of another city - not the one that is dedicated for the benefit of the son of Cain at the present time, that is, in the dying course of this mortal age, but the one whose dedication will be completed in the future immortality of eternal bliss. Chapter XIX. About the meaning of the translation of Enoch For even that offspring, whose father was Seth, has the name of dedication in the seventh generation from Adam, including Adam himself. The seventh born from him was Enoch, whose name means “dedication.” This Enoch was taken by God because he pleased Him, and in the order of generations he occupied the significant number under which the Sabbath was sanctified, that is, the seventh from Adam. Counting from the ancestor of those generations that differ from the descendants of Cain, that is, counting from Seth, he was the sixth: on such a day man was created, and God completed all his works. By the ascension of this Enoch into heaven the postponement of our initiation was foreshadowed. This consecration has already been accomplished in the person of Christ, our Head, who rose again so that he died no more, and was himself taken into heaven: nevertheless, another consecration of the whole house, the foundation of which is Christ, is awaited; the latter is postponed until the end, when everyone will be resurrected and die no more. Whether it is said: the house of God, or the church of God, or the city of God, it makes no difference, and in any case does not contradict the property of the Latin language. For Virgil also calls the power-hungry city the house of Assarak, meaning by this name the Romans, who trace their origins from Assarak through the Trojans; and he calls them the house of Aeneas, because the Trojans who came to Italy under his leadership founded Rome 163. This time the poet imitated the Holy Scripture, in which the numerous Jewish people are called the house of Jacob. Chapter XX. That the descendants of Cain end in the eighth generation from Adam; among the descendants from the same father, Adam, Noah turns out to be the tenth Someone will say: “If the one who wrote this story, mentioning the generations descended from Adam through his son Seth, meant to reach through them to Noah, during whom the flood occurred; and from Noah, representing a new series of generations, to reach Abraham, from whom the Evangelist Matthew begins the enumeration of generations leading up to Christ, the eternal King of the city of God, then what were his intentions in relation to the generations of Cain, to whom or what did he want to bring them?” We answer: before the flood, which destroyed this entire race of the earthly city, but was then restored by the sons of Noah. After all, this earthly city and this society of people living according to man until the end of this age, about which the Lord says: “The children of this age marry and are given in marriage” (Luke XX, 34), are born and give birth, could not fail to exist. Abstinence leads the city of God, wandering in this age, to another age, the sons of which are not born and do not give birth. For in this age it is common for both cities to give birth and be born. Although the city of God here also has many thousands of citizens who abstain from childbearing, but by some imitation, that city also has the same ones, although they are in error. For to the last (earthly) city also belong those who, having deviated from this faith, created various heresies; They live according to man, and not according to God. And the Indian gymnosophists, who in the deserts of India indulge in philosophical exercises naked, are citizens of this city, but they abstain from having children. Abstinence is not good if it does not occur through faith in the highest Good, which is God. Before the flood, however, we do not find anyone who did this. Enoch himself, the Seventh from Adam, about whom it is said that he did not die, but was taken before God took him, gave birth to daughters and sons, among whom was Methuselah, who was included in the number of generations mentioned. But why is it that in the generations descended from Cain so few successions are mentioned, since they had to be brought up to the flood, especially since the age preceding maturity was not so long that people could not give birth to children for a hundred years or more? After all, if the author of this book did not have in mind a famous person to whom he needed to bring the series of these generations, as when enumerating the generations descended from Seth, he meant to reach Noah, from whom, in turn, followed the series of generations necessary for his purposes, then what was the need to skip the firstborn sons in order to reach Lamech, on whose sons, i.e. on the eighth generation from Adam and the seventh from Cain, this series of generations ends? Was there anything from which one could begin to reach either the people of Israel, in which earthly Jerusalem served as a prophetic prototype of the heavenly city, or to Christ according to the flesh, who “is God over all, blessed forever” (Rom. IX, 5), is the Creator and Ruler of heavenly Jerusalem; when all the descendants of Cain were destroyed by the flood? We can therefore conclude that in this series of generations the firstborn were mentioned. Why, then, are there so few of them? After all, there could not have been so many of them before the flood, if fathers did not shirk the responsibility of bearing children until they were a hundred years old, and if manhood did not appear late, in proportion to the longevity of their then life. Let them be fully thirty years old when they begin to bear children; thirty, taken eight times (for there were eight generations, counting Adam and those born of Lamech), will amount to two hundred and forty years: did they really give birth in the time that remained before the flood? What, then, would be the reason why the one who wrote this did not want to mention subsequent generations? After all, from Adam to the flood, according to our codes, there are two thousand two hundred and sixty-two years, and according to the Jewish ones, one thousand six hundred and fifty-six. If we take this smaller number as more probable and subtract two hundred and forty from one thousand six hundred fifty-six, is it possible that during the more than one thousand four hundred years remaining before the flood, the offspring of Cain could evade birth? Anyone who seriously thinks about this, let him remember that when I posed the question of how one should think about the fact that ancient people could not give birth to children for so many years, this question was resolved in two ways: either by the fact that, in accordance with such a long life, late manhood appeared; or by the fact that the children mentioned in the series of generations were not the firstborn, but those through whom the author of this book could reach the one he intended to reach, just as he reached Noah in the generations of Seth. Since in the generations of Cain there was no such person that the author should have had in mind in order to, omitting the firstborn, reach him through those mentioned, it remains to assume late maturity, i.e., that only after living for more than a hundred years did people become adults and capable of bearing children. On the latter assumption, the order of generations through the firstborn is consistent with the mentioned number of years before the flood. But it is possible that for some special reason, which is hidden from me, this city, which we call earthly, is characterized by a series of generations reaching only to Lamech and his sons; and then the writer of the book stops mentioning the remaining generations that could have existed before the flood. There may also be a reason why a number of generations were not led through the firstborn (and there will no longer be a need to assume such late maturity in these people): the city founded by Cain in the name of his son, Enoch, could widely spread and retain its power for a long time, without having very few kings, but one at a time, whom those who reigned gave birth to as their successors. The first of these kings may have been Cain himself; the second was his son Enoch, in whose honor the city in which he reigned was founded; third Irad, son of Enoch; fourth, Mechiael son of Irad; fifth, Methuselah, son of Mechiael; the sixth was Lamech, the son of Methuselah, but the seventh from Adam through Cain. At the same time, there is no need to assume that the firstborn took the place of their fathers in government; those who turned out to be more deserving of the reign could inherit due to valor useful for the earthly city, or to whom a certain lot pointed; or, according to some law of inheritance, the one whom the father loved more than other sons took the place of his father. The flood could have happened during the life and reign of Lamech himself and caught him in order to destroy him and all the other people except those who were in the ark. If we assume that these people were separated by a different number of years, it would not be surprising that after such a large amount of Adam’s time before the flood, there was not the same number of generations in both offspring, but in the offspring of Cain - seven, and Seth - ten; for Lamech, as I said, was the seventh from Adam, and Noah the tenth. For this reason, not just one son of Lamech is mentioned, as in previous generations, but many; it was unknown who would have succeeded him after his death, if there had been some time left for reign between him and the flood. But be that as it may, whether the series of generations of Cain is carried on through the firstborn or through the kings, I in no case find it possible to remain silent about the fact that after Lamech, who turned out to be the seventh from Adam, as many of his children are listed as were necessary to complete the number eleven, denoting sin. For three sons and one daughter are added. Wives can mean something else, and not what we now consider necessary to pay attention to. In this case we are talking about generations; and from whom they originated, Scripture is silent. So, since the law is proclaimed by a decimal number, which is where the famous Decalogue came from, then the number eleven, since it exceeds the number ten, signifies a transgression of the law, and therefore a sin. Therefore, in the tabernacle, which was, as it were, a mobile church during the journey of God's people, it was ordered to make eleven curtains of goat's hair (Ex. XXVI, 7). For the hair shirt serves as a reminder of sins, pointing to the goats that are about to become hairy. Expressing this with a hair shirt, we, in self-abasement, seem to say in the words of the psalm: “My sin is always before me” (Ps. 50:5) So, the criminal offspring from Adam through Cain ends with the number eleven, denoting sin; and this very number consists of a woman, whose sex marked the beginning of sin, because of which we all die. Sin was committed in order to entail the lust of the flesh, which is warring against the spirit, for the daughter of Lamech herself, Noema, in translation means “lust.” In the descendants of Adam through Seth to Noah, a decimal number expressing the law is indicated. To this number are added the three sons of Noah; when then one of them fell, two received a blessing from their father; so that by excluding one wicked one and adding to the total number of pious sons, the number twelve was formed, which became significant according to the number of patriarchs and apostles, as representing parts of the number seven, multiplied by one another. For three times four or four times three gives this number. Having finished with this question, I consider it necessary to consider and recall how these two tribes, which in their different generations expressed themselves as two cities, one earth-born, and the other reborn, how they subsequently mixed and merged in such a way that the entire human race, with the exception of eight people, deserved to be destroyed by the flood. Chapter XXI. For what reason, after the mention of Enoch, who was the son of Cain, the story of his entire family before the flood was continued, but after the mention of Enos, the son of Seth, a retreat was made back to the beginning of human existence But first of all, let's pay attention to the following. When the generations descended from Cain are listed, then after the one in whose name the city was founded, that is, Enoch, was mentioned before his other descendants, the rest are added until the end about which I spoke, that is, until the time when this entire family and all the descendants were destroyed by the flood. When only Enos was mentioned from the descendants of Seth, then before listing the remaining descendants, a slight retreat is made and it is said: “This is the genealogy of Adam: when God created man, in the likeness of God he created him, male and female, he created them and blessed them, and called their name man on the day of their creation” (Gen. V, 1-2). It seems to me that this digression was made in order to begin from here again from Adam the chronology that the one who wrote this did not want to carry out for the earthly city: God mentioned it in such a way that he did not seem to take it into account. But why is this return to what was said before made after the son of Seth, a man who hoped to call on the name of the Lord God, was mentioned, if not because these two cities had to be characterized through their representatives: one from the murderer and before the murderer (for Lamech also confesses to his two wives that he committed murder (Gen. IV, 23)); the other through a man who trusted to call on the name of the Lord God. For for the city of God wandering in this world, everything (and the most significant thing under the condition of real mortality) consists precisely in what is presented as a good trait of one person, whom the resurrection of the murdered gave birth to. This one represents the unity of the entire highest city - a unity that, although not yet fulfilled, must be fulfilled according to this pre-sent prophetic prototype. So, the son of Cain, that is, the son of a possession (what if not an earthly one?), will have his name in the earthly city, which is founded in his honor. He is one of those about whom it is sung in the psalm: “They call their lands by their proper names” (Ps. 48:12). Therefore, what awaits them is what is said in another psalm: “You, Lord, having awakened them, will destroy their dreams” (Ps. 72:20). The son of Seth, that is, the son of the resurrection, will trust to call on the name of the Lord God. This society of people is depicted in the following words: “I am like a green olive tree in the house of God, and I trust in the mercy of God forever and ever” (Ps. 51:10). It does not seek the empty glory of a name famous on earth: “Blessed is the man who puts his hope in the Lord, and does not turn to the proud and to those who turn aside to lies” (Ps. XXXIX, 5). So, having characterized two cities: one as living in the reality of this age, the other in the hope of God, but both emerging from the same common door of mortality, which opened in Adam, in order to strive towards a different end, characteristic and proper for each of them, the writer begins the calculation of times. At the same time, he moves on to other generations, but first repeats what he said before about Adam, from whose condemned offspring, as if from one mass, given over to deserved punishment, God created some vessels of wrath not in honor, but others in honor; thereby rewarding what is due in punishment, thereby bestowing what is not due by grace, so that by the very comparison with the vessels of the wrath of God, the highest city wandering on earth could learn that it should not rely on the freedom of its own will, but trust in calling on the name of the Lord God. For free will, although by nature created good by a good God, was created changeable by the Unchangeable; because it was created out of nothing. Therefore, it can deviate from good in order to create evil, which depends on free will; equally, deviate from evil in order to do good, which cannot be accomplished without divine help. Chapter XXII. About the fall of the sons of God, carried away by love for foreign wives; for which all but eight people deservedly suffered death in the flood Due to this free will, with the gradual movement forward and multiplication of the human race, a merger occurred, and as a result of complicity in wickedness, a certain mixing of both cities took place. And this time the evil had its cause in the female sex: but not as in the beginning. At this time, wives persuaded their husbands to sin not because they themselves were seduced by someone else's deception; but from the very beginning, morally corrupt in the earthly city, that is, in the society of the sons of the earth, they aroused love for themselves in the sons of God, that is, in the citizens of another city wandering in this century, with their bodily beauty. Although this beauty is a gift from God, it is also given to the evil, so that the good do not consider it a great good. And so, the highest good, characteristic only of good people, was abandoned: a fall took place to a lesser good, not exclusively characteristic of good people alone, but common to both good and evil. As a result, the sons of God were carried away by love for the daughters of men; and in order to have them as spouses, they bowed to the morals of earthly society, abandoning the piety that they observed in holy society (Gen. VI, 2-3). For love for bodily beauty, which, although it is a good created by God, is a temporary, carnal and inferior good, is evil love, since it places God, the eternal, internal and everlasting Good, below it; just as precisely as the love of gold of misers who have forgotten justice not due to any fault of gold, but due to human fault. This happens in relation to every creature. Being kind, she can be loved both well and badly: it is good when order is maintained; it is bad if it is violated. I briefly expressed this in verse in praise of the Light: This is Yours, this is good, created by You, good; What is ours in him, besides sin, since he forgets You And, disturbing the order, do we cleave to Your creations? Love for the Creator, if it is true, that is, if they love Him Himself, and not something else instead of Him, cannot be evil love. For love itself must be loved, observing a certain order, in order to love well what should be loved; so that it may be a virtue in us, making life good. Therefore, it seems to me that this definition of virtue is brief and correct: it is order in love. Why in the holy Song of Songs does the bride of Christ, the city of God, sing: “His banner over me is love” (Song. II, 4). So, when the sons of God violated the order of this love united with respect, they neglected God and preferred the daughters of men. These two names sufficiently distinguish both cities. And they were sons of men by nature, but received another name by grace. For in the same Scripture where it is said that the sons of God loved the daughters of men, they are also called angels of God. Therefore, many people think that these were not people, but angels. Chapter XXIII. Should we believe that angels, spiritual beings, were carried away by love for beautiful wives and entered into marriages with them, from which giants emerged? We left unresolved the question mentioned in passing in the third book of this work: could angels, as spirits, enter into bodily intercourse with women? 164 The Scripture says: “You make your angels spirits” (Ps. 103:4), that is, those who are spirits by nature, He creates your angels, assigning to them the duties of messengers. For the Greek word ἄγγελος, pronounced with the Latin ending angelus, translated into Latin means messenger. But are their bodies subsequently mentioned when it is said: “Thy servants are a blazing fire,” or is it meant that His servants should glow with love, as if with spiritual fire - one can think about it one way or another. And that angels appeared to people in such bodies that they could not only be seen, but also touched, Scripture testifies to this with complete certainty. There is a very widespread rumor, and many claim that they have experienced themselves or heard from those who have experienced and the veracity of which cannot be doubted, that sylvans and fauns, who are colloquially called incubi **************, often appear to voluptuous people and strive to enter into and enter into communication with them; very many, and such that there is no doubt about what they said, also claim that certain demons, whom the Gauls call dusii, are very prone to this uncleanness and constantly indulge in it. Nevertheless, on the basis of this, I do not dare to give any definite conclusion as to whether any spirits having bodies from the air element (for this element, when set in motion by a fan, is subject to feeling and bodily touch), experience such a kind of lust as to enter in one way or another into a connection with women that is perceptible to the latter. But as for the holy angels of God, I will never believe that they could fall like that at that time. The Apostle Peter did not say about them: “God did not spare the angels who sinned, but, having bound them in the chains of hellish darkness, he delivered them up to judgment for punishment” (2 Pet. II, 4), but rather about those who from the very beginning, having departed from God, fell along with their leader, the devil, who, out of envy, overthrew the first man by the cunning of a serpent. The people of God were also called angels, as the same Holy Scripture testifies with complete clarity. For it is also written about John: “Behold, I send My angel before You, who will prepare Your way before You” (Mark I, 2). And the prophet Malachi due to some exceptional, i.e. he personally received grace and was called an angel (Mal. II, 7). But some are puzzled by the fact that from these so-called angels of God and from the wives they loved, people were born, as it were, not of our kind, but giants. As if human bodies, whose size far exceeds our measure, are not born, as I said above, in our times. Wasn’t it true that several years ago, shortly before the devastation of Rome by the Goths, there lived in Rome with her father and mother a woman who, in her kind of gigantic body, far surpassed others? Many people flocked from everywhere to look at her. And what especially aroused surprise was that her parents were not even as tall as we are accustomed to consider the tallest. Therefore, giants could have been born before the sons of God, who are also called angels of God, mixed with the daughters of men, that is, with the daughters of those living after man; i.e., the sons of Seth with the daughters of Cain. For this is what the canonical Scripture in which we read this says. Here are his words: “When people began to multiply on earth, and daughters were born to them, then the sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, and they took them as wives whom they chose. And the Lord said: My Spirit will not forever be despised by men; because they are flesh; let their days be a hundred and twenty years. At that time there were giants on the earth, especially since the time when the sons of God began to come in to the daughters of men, and they began to give birth to them. These are strong, glorious people from ancient times” (Gen. VI, 1–4). These words of the divine book show quite clearly that giants were already on earth at the time when the sons of God began to take the daughters of men as wives, because they loved them for their beauty. Giants continued to be born, however, even after this happened. For this is what it says: “At that time there were giants on the earth, especially since the time when the sons of God began to come in to the daughters of men.” Consequently, they existed both before this time and after. The expression: “And they began to give birth to them” unambiguously indicates that the sons of God, before they fell in this way, gave birth to God, and not to themselves; that is, not due to the dominance of sexual passion over them, but by fulfilling the duties of procreation; they gave birth not to a family - a subject of their own pride, but to citizens of the city of God, to whom they then, like the angels of God, proclaimed to place their hope in God, like the one who was born of Seth, the son of the resurrection, who hoped to call on the name of the Lord God. By virtue of this hope, they were joint heirs of eternal blessings with their descendants and brothers of their sons under the authority of one Father - God. That they were not angels so as not to be men, as some think, but that they were undoubtedly men, Scripture itself clearly speaks of this. For after the preliminary words: “The sons of God saw the daughters of men that they were beautiful, and took them as wives as they chose,” it was immediately added: “And the Lord said: My Spirit will not forever be despised by men; because they are flesh." By the Spirit of God they were angels of God and sons of God; but when they deviated to the worse, they began to be called people, by the name of nature, and not by grace. They are also called flesh because they left the spirit, and after leaving were, in turn, abandoned by the Spirit. The seventy interpreters also call them angels of God and sons of God; which, however, is not found in all codes, and in some they are called only the sons of God. Aquila, whom the Jews place above the rest as a translator, calls them in his translation not angels of God and not sons of God, but sons of gods. Both, however, are true. They truly were also the sons of God, under whose paternal authority they were the brothers of their fathers; and sons of gods, because they were born gods, with whom they themselves were gods, according to the well-known saying of the psalm: “I said: you are gods, and all of you are sons of the Most High” (Ps. 82:6). But it is not without reason that they believe that the Seventy Interpreters received the prophetic spirit, so that if they changed anything by authority and said differently than it was in the books that they translated, then this was undoubtedly said by them by divine inspiration; at least in the Hebrew language it was expressed and ambiguous, so that both sons of God and sons of gods could be translated. We will omit the fables of those writings that are called apocrypha, because their dark origin was not known to the fathers, from whom, through a completely faithful and undoubted succession, the original text of the true writings has reached our time. Although there is some truth in these apocrypha, due to the many lies, no canonical authority is recognized behind them. It cannot be denied, however, that Enoch, the seventh from Adam, wrote something divine; Apostle Jude speaks about this in his conciliar letter. But what he wrote is not found in that canon of Scriptures, which was preserved in the temple of the Jewish people by the care of successive priests: it is obvious that due to the antiquity of this (writing) the reliability of this (writing) was considered suspicious and it was impossible to understand whether it was exactly what he wrote, for in this case the succession of those who properly preserved them was interrupted (by the flood). Therefore, what is spread under the name of Enoch and containing fables about giants of this kind, as if their fathers were not people, in the fair opinion of reasonable people should not be attributed to him; for in a similar way, under the name of other prophets, and in later times under the names of the apostles, many things were spread by heretics that, after careful research, were excluded from the number of canonical books under the name of apocrypha. So, according to the canonical scriptures, both Jewish and Christian, it seems certain that before the flood there were many giants, and that they were citizens of the earthly society of people; The sons of God, who came from Seth in the flesh, wandered into this society, leaving the truth. It would not be surprising, however, if giants could be born from them. Not everyone, of course, was a giant at that time; but in any case there were much more of them then than in subsequent times after the flood. The Creator was pleased to create them in order to show that not only beauty, but also the size and strength of the body should not be highly valued by the wise, whose bliss lies in spiritual and immortal goods, far better, more permanent and characteristic only of the good, and not in the goods common to the good and the evil. Putting this into perspective, another prophet says: “There were glorious giants there from the beginning, very great, skilled in war. But God did not choose them, and did not open the paths of wisdom to them; and they perished because they did not have wisdom, they perished because of their foolishness.” (Bar.3:26–28). Chapter XXIV. How should we understand what God said about those who were about to perish by the flood: “And their days shall be a hundred and twenty years?” And what God said: “Let their days be a hundred and twenty years” (Gen. VI, 3), this should not be understood in the sense that it was foretold that human life after that would not last more than one hundred and twenty years. There are also people who lived up to five hundred years after the flood. It must be understood that God said this at the end of the fifth hundred years of Noah’s life, that is, when he lived four hundred and eighty years, which Scripture, according to its custom, calls five hundred, denoting by the name of the whole most of it, for in the six hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the flood occurred. The predicted one hundred and twenty years of life for people who were about to perish was the period after which they were to be destroyed by the flood. It is not without reason that it is not believed that the flood occurred in such a way that there were no longer people on earth who were not worthy to avoid death, which was appointed as a punishment for the wicked, for the good, who were supposed to die someday, and no kind of death could do anything that could harm after death. However, none of those whom the Holy Scriptures say were descended from the seed of Seth died by the flood. The reason for the flood from the face of God is explained as follows: “And the Lord saw that the wickedness of men was great on earth, and that every thought of the thoughts of their hearts was evil continually. And the Lord repented that he had created man on earth, and was grieved in His heart. And the Lord said: I will destroy from the face of the earth man whom I have created, from man to beast, and I will destroy the creeping thing and the bird of the air; for I repented that I created them” (Gen. VI, 5–7). Chapter XXV. About the wrath of God, which does not disturb His unchangeable calm by any excitement The wrath of God is not a disturbance of the Spirit of God, but a judgment that inflicts punishment for sin. The thought and contemplation of God is the unchangeable cause of things subject to change. God does not repent of any action, like man: His judgment about all things in general is as firm as His foresight is true. But if Scripture did not use such expressions, it would not speak so close to the hearts of all kinds of people, for whom it is intended to be a co-educator, to frighten the proud, excite the careless, exercise those who search, and give food to those who understand; it could not have done this if it had not first bowed down and in some way condescended to the weak. And that the death of even all earthly animals and birds is announced, this indicates the magnitude of the impending disaster, and does not at all express the threat of death to animals devoid of reason, as if they too had sinned. Chapter XXVI. That the ark, which Noah was commanded to make, serves in all respects as an image of Christ and the Church Further, what Noah, a righteous man and, as Scripture expresses about him in his truthful language, “blameless in his generation” (Gen. VI, 9) (not, of course, blameless as the citizens of the city of God will be blameless in that immortality in which they will be equal to the angels of God, but in the same way as they can be blameless in this journey), God commanded to do the ark in which he and all his people, that is, with his wife, sons and daughters-in-law, as well as with the animals who entered into the ark according to the commandment of God, could be saved from the flood - then, without any doubt, serves as an image of the city of God wandering in this age, that is, the Church, which received salvation through the tree on which was crucified “the mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. II, 5). For the dimensions of the ark, its length, height and width, are an image of the human body, clothed in the true nature of which the Promised One was to come to people, and did come. The length of the human body from the crown to the soles is six times its width from one side to the other, and ten times its height, which is measured from the back to the stomach; or, if you measure a person in a lying position, facing upward or downward, then his length from head to feet is six times greater than the width of his chest from right to left or left to right, and ten times greater than his height from the ground. Accordingly, the ark was made three hundred cubits long, fifty wide, and thirty high. The door that he had on the side is, of course, nothing more than the wound that occurred from the piercing of the side of Him Crucified on the Cross with a spear (John XIX, 34): for through this door those who come to Him enter, since from it flow the sacraments by which believers are sanctified. And the fact that the ark was ordered to be built from quadrangular trees shows in all respects the unshakable life of the saints: no matter which side the square is turned, it will stand. In the same way, everything else that is said about the structure of this ark refers to the Church. But it would be too long to dwell on this in detail in this case. I have already done this in the essay that I wrote against Faustus the Manichaean 165, who claims that there are no prophecies about Christ in the Jewish books. It may, however, happen that someone will explain this to us, and another to another: if only everything that is said in Scripture is related to the city of God that we are talking about, wandering in this evil age, as if in a flood; if the explainer does not want to deviate too far from the thoughts of the one who described it. For example, someone may understand the words of Scripture: “Thou shalt make two-blooded and three-blooded dwellings in it” (Gen. VI, 16), may not understand them as I explained them in the aforementioned work 166, i.e., since the Church gathers from all nations, it is called two-blooded for the sake of two kinds of people, i.e., circumcision and uncircumcision, whom the Apostle otherwise calls Jews and Greeks (Rom. III, 9); three-blooded because all the tribes were restored after the flood from the three sons of Noah; but he can say something else that will not be alien to the rules of faith. For example: since God wanted the ark to have rooms not only below, but also above, and therefore called the latter two-blooded, and above the upper ones even higher, and called these three-blooded; then, as if from below, those three rose up: faith, hope and love, about which the Apostle speaks (I Cor. XIII, 13). Perhaps, even with much greater consistency, in this case one should see the threefold fertility of the Gospel: the thirtieth, the sixtieth and the hundredth (Matthew XIII, 8); so at the very bottom there is a place for marital chastity, higher for widow's chastity, and even higher for virginal chastity. There may be something else here, something better, presented and said according to the faith of this city. I will say the same about the rest that will be stated here: even if it is not explained in the same way, it must, however, be consistent with the Catholic faith. Chapter XXVII. About the ark and the flood, and about the fact that one cannot agree with those who see in this one story, without allegorical meaning, nor with those who consider all this to be mere images, rejecting historical reality But no one should think that all this was written for the purpose of deception; or that in the story one must look only for historical truth, without any allegorical meanings; or, on the contrary, that all this did not really happen, but that these were just verbal images; or that all this, whatever it may be, does not contain any prophecy about the Church. Only a person with a completely perverse mind would argue that books could have been a matter of idle exercise, which for thousands of years were preserved with such reverence and under such supervision in a certain order of succession of successive persons; or that in this case we need to see only history in them. For example, to omit the rest: if such a size of the ark was required due to the large number of animals, then what forced the introduction of unclean animals in two pairs, and clean animals in seven pairs, when both of them could have been preserved with the same number? Moreover, could not God, who commanded to preserve them for the restoration of the race, restore them in the same way as he created? Those who assert that these are not events at all, but only images to denote other things, first of all, consider it impossible for such a great flood that the water, gradually rising, would cover the highest mountains by fifteen cubits, and point to the top of Mount Olympus, over which, they say, clouds cannot form, because it is so high as the sky, and therefore the air on it is not so thick that winds, clouds and rains could arise. But they lose sight of the fact that there may be earth there, the heaviest of all the elements. Will they deny that the top of the mountain is made of earth? On what basis do they claim that the earth could rise into these heavenly spaces, but water could not, when these same measurers and weighers of the elements say that water is both higher and lighter than earth? What reasonable reason can they give why earth, heavier and lower, could occupy the quiet spaces of the sky for so many years, but water, lighter and higher, could not do this even for a short time? They also say that an ark of such size could not accommodate so many kinds of animals of both sexes, and moreover, unclean ones in two pairs, and clean ones in seven pairs (Gen. VII, 2). In my opinion, those who say this take into account only its three hundred cubits in length and fifty in width; but they do not take into account that there were the same number of cubits in the upper row and the same number in the even higher one, and that therefore these cubits, taken three times, will amount to nine hundred and one hundred and fifty. And if we imagine, as Origen very aptly noted, 167 that Moses, that is, the man of God, who, according to Scripture, “was taught in all the wisdom” of the Egyptians (Acts VII, 22), who loved geometry, could show dimensions in geometric cubits, which, as they say, were six times larger than ours, then who does not see what a multitude of things could fit in such a vast space? Those who claim that an ark of such enormous size could not have been built are slandering in the most absurd way, for they are well aware that huge cities were built, and do not pay attention to the hundred years during which this ark was built. If stone can stick to stone, being connected with one piece of lime, so that a city wall is formed from many thousands of them, then why could not tree be connected to tree with the help of paws, thorns, nails and resinous glue, so that an ark could be built not of a curved, but of a rectilinear shape, of large dimensions in length and width - an ark that did not need to be lowered into the sea by any human effort, but which, according to the natural law of gravity, should was raised by an approaching wave and which during the voyage had to be controlled so as not to be wrecked, rather by the providence of God than by human skill. As for the petty questions that are usually asked regarding the most insignificant animals, not only such as mice and lizards, but also such as locusts, beetles, flies and, finally, fleas: they say, were they not in the ark in greater numbers than what was appointed by the command of God; then those who are interested in such questions must first of all be reminded that the expression “creeping things on the earth” (Gen. VI, 20) should be understood in the sense that there was no need to preserve in the ark those animals that can live not only in the water, immersed in it, like fish, but also on the water, swimming on top of it, like many winged ones. Then, when it is said: “Let them be male and female” (Gen. VI, 19), this obviously indicates the renewal of the race as the goal. Therefore, there was no need for such small animals to be in the ark, which can be born without sexual intercourse from some things or as a result of damage to things; and if they were there, as they usually are in houses, then they could be without any specific number. If the most sacred mystery performed in this and the image of such high importance given could not be realized in reality otherwise than on the condition that everything that cannot naturally live in water would be in the ark in the specified number mentioned, then this was not the concern of this person or these people, but the divine one. Noah did not catch in order to enter, but let in those who came and entered. This is precisely the meaning of what is said: “They will come to you” (Gen. VI, 20), that is, they will enter not by human action, but by the beck of God; moreover, in such a way that among them one should not imagine those who do not have gender. It is prescribed and expressed definitely: “Let them be male and female.” For there are such animals that are born from any things without sexual intercourse; then they copulate and give birth, like flies, for example. There are also those among which there are no males and females, such as bees. Those, further, that have sex, but in such a way that they do not give birth to children, such as mules, could hardly be there, for it was quite enough for their parents to be there, that is, the horse and donkey breed; the same must be said about other animals that produce some new genus due to the mixing of different breeds. But if this also belonged to the secret, then they were there too. For this breed also has male and female sexes. Some are even interested in the question of what kind of food animals could have there, which are thought to eat only meat: were animals taken there without violating the command beyond the specified number, which necessity required to be taken as food for others; or, which is more likely to be believed, there could be other food suitable for everyone without meat. For we know that many animals that eat meat eat vegetables and fruits, and especially figs and chestnuts. In this case, what is surprising if this wise and righteous man, and, moreover, by divine inspiration, and without meat, prepared food suitable and suitable for each breed? Is there anything that hunger won't make you eat? Or what cannot be made pleasant and useful by God, Who could with divine ease make them live even without food, if their very nutrition were not required to replenish the prototype of the great sacrament? And that such numerous historical signs were not intended to serve as prototypes of the Church, this can only be asserted by a person mired in his love of empty bickering. For even now, peoples, both pure and unclean, have so filled the Church and are so connected with each other by its unity that, due to this one clear fact, one cannot doubt the rest, which is said somewhat darker and therefore more difficult to understand. If this is so, even if the dull-witted one does not dare to assert that it was written out of idleness; nor that these events, having actually happened, meant anything; nor the fact that these were only verbal allegories, and not events at all, it is impossible to say with confidence that all this did not serve to designate the Church; rather, one should think that all this was wisely remembered and written down, and actually happened, and means something, and this something serves as a prototype of the Church. Having brought the book to this point, you need to finish it, so that later in the events that took place after the flood, you can trace the further fate of both cities: the earthly one, living according to man, and the heavenly one, living according to God. Contra Faust. Manich., lib 12, ch. 9 et seq. Hist. natur. lib. VII, cap. 16. Hist. natur. lib. VII. cap. 49 Hyeronym, be Quaest hebraic. Plin. Hist. nat. VII. 49. According to the Synodal translation, Eve said this. According to the Synodal translation, Eve named and said this. Virg. A_En. I.v. 284.; III. v. 97. Koschemares, or blood pressure during sleep, which the common people attributed to the sylvans and fauns, and the Russian common people to the brownies Contra Faust. Manich., lib. 12, cap. 14. You might be interested in: