Works (City of God, On the Trinity, etc.) 16

[I] Concerning the felicity of paradise, or concerning paradise itself, and concerning the life of the first men there, and their sin and punishment, many have thought many things, said many things, committed many things to writing. We too, according to the holy Scriptures, have spoken of these matters in the preceding books, either what we read in them or what we could understand from them in accordance with their authority. But if these things be inquired into more minutely, they give rise to manifold and multiform disputations, which would have to be woven into more volumes than this work and time demand—time which we do not have so amply that it should behove us to linger over all the questions that the idle and scrupulous can raise, being readier to ask than more capable of understanding.

Yet I judge that we have already done enough regarding the great and most difficult questions about the beginning of the world, or of the soul, or of the human race itself, which we distribute into two kinds: one of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God; which also we mystically call two cities, that is, two societies of men, of which one is that which is predestined to reign eternally with God, the other to undergo eternal punishment with the devil. But this is their end, of which we must speak hereafter.

But now, since enough has been said concerning their origin, whether in the angels, whose number is unknown to us, or in the two first men, it now seems to me that I must undertake the course of their development, from the time when those two began to beget, until men shall cease to beget. For this whole time or age, in which the dying give place and the being born succeed, is the course of these two cities of which we treat. There was born, then, first Cain, of those two parents of the human race, belonging to the city of men; afterwards Abel, belonging to the city of God.

For as in one man, as the Apostle says, we experience that not first that which is spiritual, but that which is animal, and afterwards the spiritual (whence each one, since he arises from a condemned stock, must first be, from Adam, evil and carnal; but if, by being reborn in Christ, he shall have advanced, he will afterwards be good and spiritual): so in the whole human race, when those two cities first began by being born and dying to run their course, first was born a citizen of this world, but afterwards a stranger in the world belonging to the city of God, predestined by grace, elected by grace, by grace a stranger below, by grace a citizen above.

For as far as pertains to himself, he arises from the same mass which originally is wholly condemned; but God, as a potter (for the Apostle introduces this comparison not impudently but prudently), from the same mass made one vessel unto honour, another unto dishonour. But first was made the vessel unto dishonour, and afterwards the other unto honour; because even in that same one man, as I have already said, first is the reprobate, whence we must begin and where we need not remain, but afterwards the approved, to which advancing we come and where arriving we remain. Accordingly, not indeed every man who is evil will become good, yet no one will be good who was not evil;

but the more quickly anyone is changed for the better, the more speedily does he cause to be named in himself that which he lays hold of, and covers the former name with the later. It is written, then, of Cain that he founded a city; but Abel, as a stranger, founded none. For the city of the saints is above, though it here brings forth citizens, in whom it sojourns until the time of its kingdom shall come, when it will gather together all who rise again in their bodies, when to them shall be given the promised kingdom, where with their Prince, the King of ages, they shall reign without any end of time.

[II] A certain shadow, indeed, of this city, and a prophetic image serving rather to signify than to present it, appeared on earth at the time when it was fitting that it should be foreshown; and it too was called the holy city by reason of the signifying image, not of the expressed truth as it is to be. Concerning this serving image, and concerning that free city which it signifies, the Apostle thus speaks to the Galatians: 'Tell me, you who wish to be under the law, have you not heard the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, one of the bondwoman and one of the free. But he who was of the bondwoman was born according to the flesh; but he who was of the free, by promise; which things are an allegory.'

'For these are the two testaments; the one indeed from Mount Sinai, bringing forth unto bondage, which is Hagar. For Sinai is a mountain in Arabia, which is joined to that which is now Jerusalem, and is in bondage with her children. But that Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written: Rejoice, thou barren that bearest not; break forth and cry, thou that travailest not; for many are the children of the desolate, more than of her that hath a husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born according to the flesh persecuted him that was born according to the spirit, even so it is now. But what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son;'

'for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free. Now we, brethren, are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free, by which liberty Christ has set us free.' This form of understanding, descending from apostolic authority, opens to us the way in which we ought to receive the Scriptures of the two testaments, the old and the new. For a certain part of the earthly city was made an image of the heavenly city, not signifying itself but another, and therefore serving. For it was instituted not for its own sake, but to signify another; and, being prefigured by a preceding signification, it was itself also prefiguring. For Hagar, the handmaid of Sarah, and her son were a certain image of this image;

and because the shadows were to pass away when the light came, therefore the free Sarah—who signified the free city, to whose signifying in yet another way even that shadow was serving—said: 'Cast out the bondwoman and her son; for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with my son Isaac,' which the Apostle renders: 'with the son of the free.' We find, therefore, in the earthly city two forms: one demonstrating its own presence, the other by its presence serving to signify the heavenly city. Now the citizens of the earthly city are brought forth by nature vitiated by sin, but the citizens of the heavenly city by grace freeing nature from sin; whence the former are called vessels of wrath, the latter vessels of mercy.

This was signified also in the two sons of Abraham: that the one, Ishmael, was born according to the flesh of the bondwoman who was called Hagar; but the other, Isaac, was born of Sarah the free according to promise. Both indeed were of the seed of Abraham; but the one was begotten by a custom demonstrating nature, while the other was given by a promise signifying grace: there human usage is shown, here a divine benefit is commended. [III] For Sarah was barren, and in despair of offspring, desiring to have at least from her handmaid what she perceived she could not from herself, gave her to her husband to be impregnated, by whom she had wished to bear and could not. And so, even thus, she exacted the debt from her husband, using her own right in another's womb.

Ishmael was born, then, as men are born, by the mingling of both sexes, according to the accustomed law of nature. Therefore it was said: 'According to the flesh'; not that these are not benefits of God, or that God does not work them, whose creative Wisdom, as it is written, reaches mightily from end to end, and disposes all things sweetly; but where it was to be signified that a gift of God, undue to men, would be bestowed freely by grace, it was fitting that a son be given in such a way as was not owed to the courses of nature.

For nature now denies children to such a coupling of male and female as could be between Abraham and Sarah at that age, especially with the woman's barrenness besides, who could not bear even then, when it was not age that was lacking to fecundity, but fecundity that was lacking to her age. Since, then, the fruit of posterity was not owed to a nature so affected, it signifies that the nature of the human race, vitiated by sin and thereby justly condemned, deserved nothing of true felicity in the time to come.

Rightly, therefore, does Isaac, born by promise, signify the children of grace, the citizens of the free city, the partakers of eternal peace, where there is no love of one's own and in some sense private will, but a love rejoicing in the common and unchangeable good, and making of many one heart—that is, the perfectly concordant obedience of charity. [IV] The earthly city, moreover, which will not be everlasting (for it will no longer be a city when it has been condemned to the utmost punishment), has here its good, in whose fellowship it rejoices, such as joy can be from such things.

And because it is not such a good as to cause no straits to its lovers, therefore this city is for the most part divided against itself by litigating, warring, and fighting, and by seeking victories that are either death-dealing or at least mortal. For from whatever part of itself it has risen up in war against another part of itself, it seeks to be victor over the nations, though it is captive to vices; and if indeed, when it has conquered, it is more proudly exalted, that victory too is death-dealing; but if, considering its condition and the common lots of men, it is more anxious over the adversities that can befall than puffed up over the prosperities that have come, then that victory is merely mortal. For it will not always be able to dominate by remaining over those whom it could subjugate by conquering.

Yet it is not rightly said that the things this city desires are not goods, since even it, in its own human kind, is the better for them. For it desires a certain earthly peace for the sake of the lowest things; and to this it longs to attain by warring, since, if it shall have conquered and there be none to resist, there will be peace, which the parties opposing one another did not have, and which, striving in unhappy want for those things they could not have together, they lacked. This peace toilsome wars seek; this a victory reckoned glorious obtains. And when they conquer who were fighting in a juster cause, who doubts that the victory is to be rejoiced over and that a desirable peace has ensued? These are goods, and without doubt they are gifts of God.

But if, neglecting the better things which pertain to the supernal city, where there will be victory in eternal and supreme peace secure, these goods are so desired that they are believed to be either the only goods, or are loved more than those which are believed to be better: then misery must needs follow, and that which was already present be increased. [V] The first founder, then, of the earthly city was a fratricide; for, overcome by envy, he slew his own brother, a citizen of the eternal city sojourning on this earth.

Whence it is not to be wondered at that, so long afterwards, in the founding of that city which was to be the head of this earthly city of which we speak, and to reign over so many nations, there answered to this first example, and, as the Greeks call it, archetype, a certain image of its own kind. For there too, as a certain poet recorded that very crime of theirs: 'The first walls were wet with a brother's blood.' For thus was Rome founded, when Roman history testifies that Remus was slain by his brother Romulus; save that both these were citizens of the earthly city. Both sought glory from the founding of the Roman commonwealth; but both could not have as much of it as if there were but one.

For he who wished to glory in domination would surely have dominated less, if his power had been diminished by a living partner. In order, then, that one man might have the whole domination, his fellow was removed, and by that crime he grew worse — the very thing that would have been less and better through innocence. But these brothers, Cain and Abel, did not both have between themselves a like desire for earthly things; nor did the one envy the other on the ground that his own dominion would become narrower — the one who slew the other — if both were to rule (for Abel indeed sought no domination in that city which was being founded by his brother). Rather it was that diabolical envy with which the wicked envy the good, for no other cause than that the one are good and the other wicked.

For in no way is the possession of goodness made less by the coming or the abiding of a partner; nay rather, the possession of goodness is a good which is possessed the more widely, the more harmoniously an undivided charity of the associates possesses it. In short, he shall not have this possession who is unwilling to have it in common, and he shall find it the more ample the more he is able there to love his partner. That, therefore, which arose between Remus and Romulus showed in what manner the earthly city is divided against itself; but that which was between Cain and Abel demonstrated the enmities between the two cities themselves, of God and of men. The wicked, then, fight among themselves; likewise the wicked and the good fight among themselves; but the good and the good, if they are perfect, cannot fight among themselves.

But those who are progressing and not yet perfect can so fight, that any good man fights against another in that same part in which he fights also against his very self; for in one man the flesh lusts against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. The spiritual desire, therefore, of one man can fight against the carnal desire of another, or the carnal desire of one against the spiritual of another, just as the good and the wicked fight among themselves; or indeed the carnal desires themselves of two good men, not yet, to be sure, perfect, fight among themselves, just as the wicked and the wicked fight among themselves, until the health of those who are being cured is brought through to final victory.

For this languor — that is, that disobedience of which we treated in the fourteenth book — is the punishment of the first disobedience, and therefore is not nature but a fault; on account of which it is said to the good who are progressing and living by faith in this pilgrimage: 'Bear ye one another's burdens, and so shall ye fulfil the law of Christ'; and again elsewhere it is said: 'Rebuke the unquiet, comfort the fainthearted, support the weak, be patient toward all men; see that none render to any evil for evil'; and again in another place: 'If a man be overtaken in any fault, ye who are spiritual instruct such a one in the spirit of meekness, considering thyself, lest thou also be tempted'; and elsewhere:

'Let not the sun go down upon your wrath'; and in the Gospel: 'If thy brother shall sin against thee, rebuke him between thee and him alone.' Likewise concerning the sins by which the offence of many is guarded against, the Apostle says: 'Them that sin before all, reprove, that the rest also may have fear.' For this reason too many things are enjoined concerning the granting of pardon to one another, and great care is enjoined for the keeping of peace, without which no one shall be able to see God; whence that terror, when the servant of ten thousand talents is commanded to repay the debts that had been remitted to him, because he had not remitted the debt of a hundred pence to his fellow-servant. And when this similitude had been set forth, the Lord Jesus added and said:

'So also shall my heavenly Father do unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not every one his brother.' In this manner are the citizens of the city of God, sojourning as pilgrims on this earth and sighing after the peace of the heavenly fatherland, made whole. But the Holy Spirit works within, that the medicine which is applied from without may avail. Otherwise, even if God Himself, using a creature subject to Him, should address the human senses in some human form — whether these bodily senses, or those most like to them which we have in dreams — yet unless He rule and move the mind by inward grace, all the preaching of the truth profits a man nothing.

But God does this, distinguishing the vessels of mercy from the vessels of wrath, by a dispensation which He Himself knows — a dispensation deeply hidden, yet nonetheless just. For when, by His help, in wondrous and secret ways, the sin which dwells in our members — which is now rather the penalty of sin — does not (as the Apostle enjoins) reign in our mortal body to obey its desires, nor do we present our members as, so to speak, weapons of iniquity unto it, then it is turned toward the mind, which, under God's rule, does not consent to it for evil and which rules over it; and the mind shall now hold it more tranquilly, and afterward, when health has been made perfect and immortality received, man shall reign in eternal peace without any sin.

But this very thing which, as we were able, we have expounded — when God had spoken to Cain in that manner in which, through a subject creature, He was wont to speak to the first men in a fitting form as if their companion — what did it profit him? Did he not, even after the word of the divine admonition, carry out the crime conceived in the slaying of his brother? For when God had distinguished the sacrifices of the two, regarding the one and disregarding the other — which it must not be doubted could be recognized by some visible attesting sign — and had done this because the works of the one were evil, but those of his brother good, Cain was exceedingly saddened and his countenance fell. For thus is it written: 'And the Lord said to Cain: Why art thou become sad, and why has thy countenance fallen?'

'If thou offerest rightly, but dividest not rightly, hast thou not sinned? Be still; for unto thee shall be its turning, and thou shalt rule over it.' In this admonition or warning which God uttered to Cain, that indeed which was said — 'If thou offerest rightly, but dividest not rightly, hast thou not sinned?' — because it is not clear why or whence it was said, its obscurity has brought forth many meanings, since each expositor of the divine Scriptures attempts to expound it according to the rule of faith. Rightly indeed is a sacrifice offered, when it is offered to the true God, to whom alone sacrifice is to be made.

But it is not rightly divided when there is not a right discernment either of the places or the times or the very things which are offered, or of him who offers and to whom it is offered, or of those to whom what has been offered is distributed for eating — so that here we may understand 'division' as 'discernment': whether when it is offered where it ought not, or what ought not to be offered there but elsewhere; or when it is offered when it ought not, or what ought not to be offered then but at another time; or when that is offered which ought never and nowhere at all to have been offered; or when a man keeps for himself the choicer things of the same kind than are those which he offers to God; or when a profane person, or anyone whom it is not lawful, is made a partaker of that thing which has been offered. But in which of these things Cain displeased God cannot easily be found out.

But since the apostle John, when he was speaking of these brothers, says: 'Not as Cain, who was of the wicked one and slew his brother; and for what cause did he slay him? Because his own works were wicked, but his brother's righteous' — it is given us to understand that God did not therefore regard his gift because in this very thing he divided wickedly, giving to God something of his own, but to himself giving his very self. This is what all do who, following not God's will but their own — that is, living not with an upright but a perverse heart — nevertheless offer a gift to God, by which they think Him to be bought off, so that He may aid them not in healing their depraved desires, but in glutting them.

And this is proper to the earthly city: to worship God or gods, by whose help it may reign in victories and earthly peace — not from a charity of taking counsel for others, but from a desire of dominating. For the good use the world in order that they may enjoy God; but the wicked, on the contrary, wish to use God in order that they may enjoy the world — those, that is, who at least already believe that He exists or cares for human affairs. For there are far worse who do not even believe this. Cain, therefore, having learned that God had regarded his brother's sacrifice and not his own, ought, being changed, to have imitated his good brother, not, being lifted up, to have emulated him in envy. But he was saddened and his countenance fell. This sin God chiefly reproves — sadness at another's goodness, and that of a brother.

For, reproving this, He questioned him, saying: 'Why art thou saddened, and why has thy countenance fallen?' For because he envied his brother, God saw it and reproved this. For to men, from whom another's heart is hidden, it might be doubtful and altogether uncertain whether that sadness grieved over his own malice — in which he had learned that he had displeased God — or over his brother's goodness, which had pleased God when He looked upon his sacrifice.

But God, rendering the reason why He was unwilling to accept his offering — that Cain might rather deservedly displease himself than that his brother should undeservedly displease him, since he was unjust by not dividing rightly, that is, by not living rightly, and unworthy that his offering should be approved — showed how much more unjust he was in that he hated his righteous brother without cause. Yet not dismissing him without a holy, just, and good command, He said: 'Be still; for unto thee shall be its turning, and thou shalt rule over it.' Over his brother, forsooth? God forbid. Over what, then, but over sin? For He had said, 'Thou hast sinned,' and then next added, 'Be still; for unto thee shall be its turning, and thou shalt rule over it.'

It can indeed be so understood, that the turning of sin ought to be toward the man himself, so that he may know that he ought to attribute to none other than himself what he sins. For this is the wholesome medicine of penitence and the not incongruous petition for pardon; so that where He says, 'For unto thee shall be its turning,' one should supply not 'it shall be' but 'let it be' — of one commanding, that is, not merely of one predicting. For then shall each one rule over sin, if he does not set it up before himself by defending it, but subjects it by repenting; otherwise he shall also serve it as it dominates, if he lends patronage to it when it befalls him. But that sin may be understood as the very carnal concupiscence, of which the Apostle says:

'The flesh lusts against the spirit' — among the fruits of which flesh he mentions envy also, by which indeed Cain was goaded and inflamed to his brother's destruction — then 'it shall be' is well supplied; that is: 'For unto thee shall be its turning, and thou shalt rule over it.' For when that carnal part itself is stirred, which the Apostle calls sin, where he says: 'It is not I that work it, but sin that dwells in me' (which part of the soul even the philosophers say is faulty — not that it ought to draw the mind, but that the mind ought to command it and, by reason, to restrain it from unlawful works) — when, therefore, it has been stirred to commit something wrongly, if one be still and obey the Apostle who says:

'Neither present ye your members as weapons of iniquity unto sin,' it is turned, tamed and conquered, toward the mind, so that reason, with it made subject, may rule. This God commanded to him who was inflamed with the torches of envy against his brother and desired that the one whom he ought to have imitated should be taken away. 'Be still,' He says — restrain thy hand from the crime; let not sin reign in thy mortal body to obey its desires, neither present thy members as weapons of iniquity unto sin. 'For unto thee shall be its turning,' while it is not aided by being relaxed, but is bridled by being kept still; 'and thou shalt rule over it,' so that, when it is not permitted to work outwardly, it may grow accustomed, under the power of the ruling and benevolent mind, not to be moved even inwardly.

Something of the like sort was said in the same divine book concerning the woman also, when after their sin, God questioning and judging, they received the sentences of condemnation — the devil in the serpent, and she and her husband in themselves. For when He had said to her also: 'Multiplying I will multiply thy sorrows and thy groaning, and in sorrows thou shalt bring forth children,' He then added: 'And thy turning shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.' What was said to Cain concerning sin, or concerning the faulty concupiscence of the flesh, this in that place is said concerning the sinful woman; where it is to be understood that the husband, in ruling his wife, ought to be like a mind ruling the flesh. On account of which the Apostle says: 'He who loves his wife loves himself;'

'for no one ever hated his own flesh.' For these things are to be healed as our own, not to be condemned as another's. But that command of God, Cain received as a transgressor. For, the fault of envy prevailing, he lay in wait for his brother and slew him. Such was the founder of the earthly city. And in what manner he also signified the Jews, by whom Christ was slain — the Shepherd of the flock of men, whom the shepherd of the flock of sheep, Abel, prefigured — since the matter is in a prophetic allegory, I now forbear to say; and I recall that I said certain things on this point against Faustus the Manichaean.

But now the history seems to me to need defending, lest the Scripture be thought incredible which says that a city was built by one man at that time when there appear to have been not more than four, or rather three, men after brother had slain brother: on the earth, that is, the first man, the father of all, and Cain himself, and his son Enoch, from whose name the city itself was called. But those whom this troubles too little consider that the writer of this sacred history was not obliged to name all the men who could then have existed, but only those whom the plan of the work undertaken required.

For the purpose of that writer, through whom the Holy Spirit was doing this, was to arrive, through the successions of certain generations propagated from one man, at Abraham, and thereafter from his seed at the people of God, in whom, distinguished from the other nations, there might be prefigured and foretold all things which were foreseen in the Spirit as about to come concerning the city whose kingdom shall be eternal, and concerning its King and also its Founder, Christ; and this in such a way that neither should the other society of men be passed over in silence — which we call the earthly city — so far as was sufficient for its mention, that the city of God might grow the more illustrious also by comparison with its adversary.

When, therefore, the divine Scripture, where it also records the number of years which those men lived, thus concludes, saying of him of whom it was speaking: 'And he begot sons and daughters, and all the days of this or that man which he lived were so many years, and he died' — surely, because it does not name those same sons and daughters, ought we not therefore to understand that, through so many years as they then lived in the first age of this world, very many men could be born, by whose gatherings even very many cities could be founded?

But it pertained to God, by whose inspiration these things were written, first to arrange and distinguish these two societies by their diverse generations: so that separately the generations of men — that is, of those living according to man — and separately those of the sons of God — that is, of men living according to God — might be woven together down to the flood, where the separation and the commingling of both societies is narrated. The separation, indeed, in that the generations of both are recorded separately, of the one, the fratricide Cain, of the other, him who was called Seth (for he too had been born of Adam in place of him whom his brother slew); but the commingling, because, the good declining to the worse, all had become such as to be destroyed by the flood;

except one righteous man, whose name was Noah, and his wife and three sons and as many daughters-in-law, which eight persons deserved to escape by the ark from that devastation of all mortals. As, therefore, it is written: 'And Cain knew his wife, and conceiving she bore Enoch; and he was building a city in the name of his son Enoch' — it does not indeed follow that he should be believed to have begotten this as his first son. For this is not to be supposed from the fact that he is said to have known his wife, as though he then first mingled with her by lying together. For even of Adam himself, the father of all, this was not said only then, when Cain was conceived, whom he seems to have had as firstborn; but afterward the same Scripture says:

'Adam,' it says, 'knew Eve his wife, and she conceived and bore a son, and he called his name Seth.' Whence it is understood that Scripture is wont so to speak — although it is not always the case, when in it we read that conceptions of men occurred, that it was only when either sex first mingled with the other. Nor is that a necessary argument, that we should think Enoch was the firstborn to his father, because the city was named after him. For it is not out of place that, for some reason, the father should love him more than the rest, even though he had others also. For neither was Judah the firstborn, from whom Judaea got its name, and the Jews.

But even if that son was born first to the founder of that city, it is not therefore to be supposed that the name was then imposed by the father on the city he founded, when the son was born, because a city could not then be constituted by one man — a city being nothing else than a multitude of men bound together by some bond of society; but when that man's family increased to so great a number that it now had the quantity of a people, then it could of course come to pass that he should both constitute a city and impose on the city thus constituted the name of his firstborn. For so long was the life of those men, that of those there recorded, whose years are also not left unmentioned, he who lived least before the flood reached seven hundred and fifty-three.

For very many even passed nine hundred years, although no one reached a thousand. Who, then, would doubt that through the lifetime of one man the human race could be so multiplied that there might be whence not one, but very many cities could be constituted? This can most easily be conjectured from the fact that from the one Abraham, in not much more than four hundred years, so great a numerousness of the Hebrew nation was procreated that, in the exodus of that same people from Egypt, six hundred thousand men of military youth are reported to have existed; to say nothing of the nation of the Idumaeans, not belonging to the people of Israel, which his brother Esau, Abraham's grandson, begot, and the other peoples born from the seed of Abraham himself, procreated not through his wife Sarah.

Wherefore no prudent estimator of things would doubt that Cain could found not merely some city, but even a great one, when the life of mortals was prolonged to so long a time — unless perchance some one of the unbelievers should thrust upon us a question from the very great number of years during which men are then written to have lived in our authorities, and should deny that this is to be believed. For thus they do not believe either that the magnitudes of bodies were then far ampler than they now are. Whence even their most noble poet Virgil, concerning a huge stone which, fixed as a boundary-mark in the border of the fields, a strong man of those times, fighting, both snatched up and ran and whirled and hurled:

'Scarcely,' he says, 'could twice six chosen men lift it upon their necks — such bodies of men as the earth now brings forth' — signifying that the earth was then wont to bring forth greater bodies. How much more, therefore, in the more recent times of the world, before that renowned and notorious flood! But concerning the magnitude of bodies, sepulchres, laid bare through age or through the force of rivers and various accidents, for the most part convict the incredulous, where there have appeared, or from whence there have fallen, bones of the dead of incredible magnitude. I myself saw — not I alone, but several with me — on the shore of Utica a molar tooth of a man so huge that, if it were cut up into small pieces after the measure of our teeth, it seemed it could have made a hundred of them. But that, I would believe, was of some giant.

For besides that the bodies of all were then much greater than ours, the giants far surpassed the rest; just as afterward, in other times and in our own, there have been — rare indeed, but scarcely ever wholly lacking — such as would very greatly exceed the measure of others. Pliny the Second, a most learned man, testifies that the more and more the course of the age passes on, nature bears smaller bodies; and he records that Homer too often complained of this in his song, not deriding these as poetic fictions, but taking them into historic credence as a writer of natural marvels. But, as I have said, the bones which are for the most part found, since they are lasting, betray to ages even much later the magnitudes of the ancients' bodies.

But the great number of years of each man's life, which existed in those times, can now come into experimental proof by no such documents. Nor yet is faith on that account to be withdrawn from this sacred history, whose things narrated we the more impudently disbelieve, the more certainly we behold its foretold things fulfilled. Yet the same Pliny says there is even now a nation where men live two hundred years. If, therefore, the long durations of human lives, which we have not experienced, are believed to be had today in places unknown to us, why should it not be believed that times also had them? Or is it credible that there is somewhere what is not here, and incredible that there once was what now is not?

Wherefore, although between the Hebrew codices and ours there seems to be some disparity concerning the very number of years — by what reason it came about I know not — yet it is not so great that they should disagree that those men were so long-lived. For the very first man, Adam, before he begot the son who was called Seth, is found in our codices to have lived two hundred and thirty years, but in the Hebrew is said to be one hundred and thirty; but after he begot him, he is read to have lived seven hundred years in ours, but eight hundred in theirs; and thus in both the sum of the total agrees. And thereafter, through the consequent generations, before he is begotten who is recorded to be begotten, the father is found to have lived a hundred years less among the Hebrews;

but after that same one is begotten, a hundred years more are found in ours than in the Hebrew; and thus both here and there the sum-total of numbers accords. In the sixth generation the two codices nowhere disagree. But in the seventh, where he who was born, Enoch, is narrated not to have died, but to have been translated because he pleased God, there is the same discrepancy which there was in the preceding five concerning the hundred years before he begot the son who is there recorded, and in the sum a like accord. For he lived, before he was translated, according to both codices, three hundred and sixty-five years. The eighth generation has indeed some diversity, but a lesser one and unlike the rest.

For Methuselah, whom Enoch begot, before he begot him who follows next in that order, lived, according to the Hebrews, not a hundred less, but twenty more years; which again in ours are found added after he begot him, and in both the sum of the whole number meets together for itself. In the ninth generation alone — that is, in the years of Lamech, son of Methuselah, and father of Noah — the sum of the total differs, but not by very much. For he is found to have lived twenty-four years more in the Hebrews than in our codices. For before he begot the son who was called Noah, he has six fewer in the Hebrews than in ours; but after he begot him, thirty more in the same than in ours.

Whence, those six being subtracted, twenty-four remain, as was said. Now through this discrepancy of the Hebrew codices and ours arises that most famous question, where Methuselah is computed to have lived fourteen years after the flood, whereas the Scripture records that, out of all who were then on the earth, only eight men escaped the destruction of the flood in the ark, among whom Methuselah was not. For according to our codices, Methuselah, before he begot him whom he called Lamech, lived a hundred sixty-seven years; then Lamech himself, before Noah was born of him, lived a hundred eighty-eight years, which together make three hundred fifty-five;

to these are added the six hundred years of Noah, in whose six-hundredth year the flood happened: which make nine hundred fifty-five, from when Methuselah was born up to the year of the flood. But all the years of Methuselah's life are computed as nine hundred sixty-nine, because, when he had lived a hundred sixty-seven years and had begotten the son who was called Lamech, after begetting him he lived eight hundred and two years; which all, as we have said, make nine hundred sixty-nine. Whence, nine hundred fifty-five being subtracted, from the birth of Methuselah up to the flood, there remain fourteen years, in which he is believed to have lived after the flood.

On account of which some suppose that he, though not on the earth — where it is agreed that all flesh which nature does not allow to live in the waters was destroyed — was for some while with his father who had been translated, and there lived until the flood should pass by; being unwilling to derogate faith from the codices which the Church has received into a more celebrated authority, and believing that the Jews rather than these do not have what is true.

For they do not admit that there could rather have been here an error of the translators, than a falsehood in that language from which the Scripture itself was translated through the Greek into our own; but they say it is not credible that the seventy translators, who interpreted at one and the same time and with one and the same sense, could have erred, or, where nothing of theirs was at stake, could have wished to lie; whereas the Jews, while they envy us that the Law and the Prophets have passed over to us by interpretation, have changed certain things in their codices, that the authority of ours might be diminished. Let each one receive this opinion or suspicion as he shall think fit;

yet it is certain that Methuselah did not live after the flood, but died in that same year, if what is found concerning the number of years in the Hebrew codices is true. But concerning those seventy translators, what seems to me, is to be inserted more diligently in its own place, when, the Lord aiding, we shall have come to those very times, as far as the necessity of this work requires them to be recorded. For the present question it suffices that, according to both codices, the men of that age had lives so long that, in the lifetime of one man — who was first born of the two parents whom alone the earth then had — the human race could be multiplied even for the constituting of a city.

For by no means are those to be listened to who think that years were reckoned otherwise in those times — that is, of such brevity, that one of our years is believed to have contained ten of theirs. Wherefore, they say, when anyone hears or reads that each man lived nine hundred years, he ought to understand ninety; for those ten years are one of ours, and ten of ours were a hundred of theirs. And by this, as they suppose, Adam was of twenty-three years when he begot Seth; and Seth himself was going on twenty years and six months when Enos was born of him, which the Scripture calls two hundred and five years.

For, as these men suppose, whose opinion we are here setting forth, they divided one year, such as we now have, into ten parts and called these same parts 'years'; and one of these parts contains the square of six, in that God perfected His works in six days, so that on the seventh He rested (concerning which matter I have argued, as best I could, in the eleventh book). Now six times six, which number makes the square of six, comes to thirty-six days; and these multiplied by ten reach three hundred and sixty, that is, twelve lunar months.

For on account of the remaining five days by which the solar year is completed, and the quarter of a day on account of which, in every fourth year (which they call bissextile), one day is added, the ancients afterward added days so that the number of the years might come out right; these the Romans called intercalary days. Accordingly Enos too, whom Seth begot, was nineteen years old when his son Cainan was born of him, which years Scripture calls one hundred and ninety. And thereafter, throughout all the generations in which the years of men before the flood are recorded, scarcely any is found in our codices who, being a hundred years old or under, or even a hundred and twenty or not much more, begot a son;

but those who begot at the youngest age are reported to have been a hundred and sixty and something more. For no one, they say, at ten years of age can beget children, and that number was called a hundred years by those men; but at sixteen years puberty is mature and already fit for procreating offspring, and those times named these years a hundred and sixty. And that it is not incredible the year was then reckoned otherwise, they add what is found in very many writers of history: that the Egyptians had a year of four months, the Acarnanians of six months, the Lavinians of thirteen months.

Pliny the Second, having recorded that it was set down in writing that a certain man lived a hundred and fifty-two years, another ten more, others had a life of two hundred years, others of three hundred, some of five hundred, others of six hundred, and not a few reached even eight hundred, judged that all this happened through ignorance of the reckoning of times. 'For some,' he says, 'determined a year by the summer and another by the winter, others by four seasons, as the Arcadians, whose years were of three months.' He added further that the Egyptians also, whose short years we said above were of four months, sometimes limited the year by the ending of the moon.

'And so among them,' he says, 'some are even reported to have lived a thousand years each.' By such seemingly probable arguments certain persons, not destroying but striving to buttress the credibility of this sacred history, so that it might not be incredible that the ancients are reported to have lived so many years, have persuaded themselves — and do not think themselves shameless in so persuading — that so small a span of time was then called a year that ten of theirs make one of ours, and ten of ours a hundred of theirs. But that this is utterly false is shown by a most evident proof. Before I present it, I do not think I should pass over in silence what more credible surmise there may be.

We could certainly refute and confute this assertion from the Hebrew codices, where Adam is found to have been not two hundred and thirty but a hundred and thirty years old when he begot his third son; and if these years are thirteen of ours, then beyond doubt, when he first begot, he was eleven or not much more years old. Who can generate at this age by that customary and to us most well-known law of nature? But let us pass over him, who perhaps could do so even at the time he was created; for it is not credible that he was made as small as our infants are. Seth his son was not two hundred and five, as we read, but a hundred and five when he begot Enos;

and by this reckoning, according to these men, he was not yet eleven years of age. What shall I say of Cainan his son, who, though found among us to be a hundred and seventy, is read among the Hebrews to have been seventy when he begot Mahalaleel? What man of seven years begets, if seventy years were then so named which were seven? But when I have said this, it will at once be alleged that this is a Jewish falsehood, concerning which enough has been treated above; for the Seventy translators, celebrated as praiseworthy men, could not have lied.

Here, if I should ask which is more credible — that the Jewish people, so widely spread far and wide, could have conspired by a single design to write this falsehood, and, while grudging authority to others, robbed themselves of the truth; or that seventy men, who were themselves also Jews, placed in one location (since King Ptolemy of Egypt had summoned them for this work), grudged the very truth to foreign nations and did this by a shared design — who would not see which is more readily and easily to be believed?

But far be it that any prudent person should believe either that the Jews, of whatever perversity and malice, could have done so much in codices so many and dispersed so far and wide, or that those seventy memorable men shared one single design about grudging the truth to the nations. More credibly, then, one would say that, when these things first began to be copied out from Ptolemy's library, something of the sort could then have occurred in one codex — but in the one first copied out from there, whence it might already spread more widely; where indeed even a scribe's error could have happened. But this may not absurdly be surmised in that question about the life of Methuselah, and in that other one where, with twenty-four years in excess, the sum does not agree.

But in those cases where a consistent pattern of the same defect is continued — so that before the son who is inserted into the line is begotten, a hundred years are in one place in excess, in another lacking; and after he is begotten, where they were lacking they are in excess, where they were in excess they are lacking, so that the sum agrees; and this is found in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh generation — the error itself seems to have, if it may be so said, a certain constancy, and does not smack of chance but of deliberate design.

And so that diversity of numbers, which stand differently in the Greek and Latin codices and otherwise in the Hebrew — where there is not this continued parity of a hundred years first added and afterward subtracted through so many generations — should be attributed neither to the malice of the Jews nor to the diligence or prudence of the Seventy translators, but to the error of the scribe who first received the codex to be copied from the library of the aforesaid king. For even now, where numbers do not bear upon anything that can be easily understood or that appears useful to learn, they are both carelessly copied and still more carelessly corrected. For who would think it necessary for himself to learn how many thousands of men each tribe of Israel could severally have?

since it is not thought to profit anything; and how few of men there are to whom the depth of the usefulness of this appears?

But here, where through so many linked generations a hundred years are in one place present, in another absent, and after the son who had to be recorded is born, they are absent where they had been present and present where they had been absent, so that the sum agrees — surely, since he who did this wished to persuade that the ancients therefore lived a most numerous count of years because they called those years very short, and was trying to show this from the maturity of puberty at which sons were fit to be begotten, and therefore thought that in those hundred years ten of ours should be insinuated to unbelievers, lest they should refuse to receive into their faith that men lived so long — he added a hundred where he did not find an age fit for begetting sons, and the same, after the sons were begotten, he subtracted, so that the sum might come out right.

For thus he wished to make credible the correspondences of ages suitable for generating offspring, yet in such a way that he would not defraud the total lifespans of the individuals living of their number. But that he did not do this in the sixth generation is the very thing that all the more warns us he did it when the matter we speak of demanded it, since he did not do it where it did not demand it. For he found in the same generation among the Hebrews that Jared lived, before he had begotten Enoch, a hundred and sixty-two years, which according to that reckoning of short years amount to sixteen years and a little less than two months;

which age is already fit for begetting, and therefore it was not necessary to add a hundred short years, so that they might become twenty-six of ours, nor after Enoch was born to subtract those which he had not added before the birth. So it came about that here there was no variance between the two sets of codices. But again it perplexes us why, in the eighth generation, before Lamech was born of Methuselah — since among the Hebrews a hundred and eighty-two years are read — twenty fewer are found in our codices, where rather a hundred are wont to be added, and after Lamech was begotten they are restored to fill out the total, which in both sets of codices does not differ.

For if he wished a hundred and seventy years to be understood, on account of the maturity of puberty, as seventeen, then just as he ought to add nothing, so ought he already to subtract nothing, because he had found an age fit for the generation of sons — for the sake of which, in other cases, he added those hundred years where he did not find it. But this matter of the twenty years we might reasonably think could have happened by chance through a defect, were it not that he took care afterward to restore them, just as he had earlier subtracted them, so that the integrity of the total might agree.

Or is it perhaps to be thought that it was done more cunningly, so that the deliberate practice, by which a hundred years are wont first to be added and afterward subtracted, might be concealed — since even there, where it had not been necessary, though not indeed of a hundred years, yet of however small a number first subtracted and afterward restored, something of the sort was done? But however this be taken — whether it be believed to have been so done or not, and whether finally it be so or not so — I should in no way doubt that it is rightly done that, when something diverse is found in the two sets of codices, since indeed both cannot be true as to the faith of the deeds recorded, credence should rather be given to that language from which the translation into the other was made through interpreters.

For in certain codices too — three Greek and one Latin and even one Syriac agreeing among themselves — it was found that Methuselah died six years before the flood. Now let us see in what way it can evidently be shown that not such short years, that ten of theirs should be one of ours, but years of such length as we now have (which the circuit of the sun assuredly makes up), were reckoned in the very long life of those men. For in the six hundredth year of the life of Noah it is written that the flood came to pass. Why then is it there read:

'And the water of the flood came upon the earth in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month' — if that smallest year, ten of which make one of ours, had thirty-six days? Such a tiny year, if it received this name by ancient usage, either has no months, or its month is a period of three days, so that it may have twelve months. In what manner, then, is it here said: 'In the six hundredth year, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month,' unless because such months as now exist existed also then? For how otherwise would it be said that the flood began on the twenty-seventh day of the second month? Then afterward, at the end of the flood, it is thus read:

'And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, upon the mountains of Ararat. But the water kept diminishing until the eleventh month; and in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.' If, therefore, such were the months, such assuredly were the years too as we now have. For those three-day months could not have twenty-seven days. Or if the thirtieth part of three days was then called a day, so that all things are diminished in proportion, then that so great a flood, which is recorded to have happened in forty days and nights, was not accomplished even in a whole four days of ours. Who could bear this absurdity and vanity?

Accordingly, let this error be removed, which by a false conjecture would so buttress the credibility of our Scriptures as to destroy it elsewhere. Assuredly the day was even then as great as it is now, which twenty-four hours determine by the course of day and night; the month as great as it is now, which the moon, beginning and ending, encloses;

the year as great as it is now, which twelve lunar months, with five days and a quarter added on account of the solar course, complete — of which sort the second month, and the twenty-seventh day of that month, of the six hundredth year of Noah's life was, when the flood began, in which are recorded forty continuous days of enormous rains, days which did not have two hours and a little more, but twenty-four passed by day and night.

And by this reckoning those ancients lived years so great, even upward of nine hundred, as many as Abraham afterward lived — a hundred and seventy — and after him his son Isaac a hundred and eighty, and his son Jacob a hundred and fifty, and, with some interval of time interposed, Moses a hundred and twenty, and as many as even now men live — seventy or eighty or not much more — of whom it is said: 'And more of them is labor and sorrow.' But that variety of numbers which is found between the Hebrew codices and ours neither disagrees about this longevity of the ancients; and if it has anything so diverse that both cannot be true, the faith of the deeds recorded is to be sought again from that language from which was translated what we have.

And although this resource is at hand everywhere for those who wish it among all nations, nevertheless it is not without significance that no one has dared to emend from the Hebrew codices the Seventy translators in the very many places where they seem to say something different. For that diversity was not accounted a defect; nor do I in any way think it should be accounted so: but where there is no scribal error, it is to be believed that they, by the divine Spirit, where the sense was consonant with the truth and proclaiming the truth, wished to say something otherwise — not by the function of translators, but by the liberty of prophets. Whence the apostolic authority is found to use, not only the Hebrew texts, but also these very ones, when it adduces testimonies from the Scriptures.

But I have promised to speak of this more diligently in a more opportune place, if God shall help me; now let me deal with what is pressing. For it is not to be doubted that by a man who was the first born of the first man, when they were living so long, a city could be founded — an earthly one, to be sure, not that which is called the City of God, about which, that we might write, we have taken into our hands the labor of so great a work. Someone, then, will say: 'Is it so to be believed that a man begetting sons, and having no purpose of continence, remained for a hundred and more years — or according to the Hebrews not much less, that is, eighty, seventy, sixty years — abstaining from the work of intercourse; or, if he did not abstain, could beget no offspring?' This question is solved in two ways.

For either puberty was later in proportion, in the same measure as the length of the whole life was greater; or — what I rather see to be credible — the first-born sons were not here recorded, but those whom the order of succession required, so that one might arrive at Noah, from whom again we see it was arrived at Abraham, and thereafter down to a certain fixed point of time, as far as it was fitting to signify, even by the generations recorded, the course of that most glorious City sojourning in this world and seeking the heavenly fatherland. For what cannot be denied is that Cain, prior to all, was born of the union of male and female. For Adam would not, at his birth, have said what he is recorded to have said — 'I have gotten a man through God' — unless he himself had been the man for those two.

being added first by birth. Following him was Abel, whom his elder brother slew, and who first showed a certain prefiguration of the sojourning City of God, in that it was to suffer unjust persecutions from the impious and in a certain manner earth-born — that is, from those who love their earthly origin and rejoice in the earthly felicity of the earthly city. But how many years old Adam was when he begot them does not appear. Thereafter are set forth other generations from Cain, and others from him whom Adam begot into the succession of the one whom his brother slew, and he called his name Seth, saying, as it is written: 'For God has raised up for me another seed in place of Abel, whom Cain slew.'

Since, therefore, these two series of generations — one from Seth, the other from Cain — intimate by distinct orders these two cities of which we treat, one heavenly sojourning on earth, the other earthly gaping after or clinging to earthly things as though they were the sole joys: not one of the progeny of Cain, when it is enumerated with Adam counted in, up to the eighth generation, has it expressed how many years old he was when he begot the one who is recorded after him. For the Spirit of God was unwilling to note the times in the generations of the earthly city before the flood, but preferred to do so in those of the heavenly, as being more worthy of remembrance. Moreover, when Seth was born, the years of his father are indeed not passed over in silence, but he had already begotten others;