BOOK ONE. QUESTIONS ON GENESIS. As we were running through the holy Scriptures which are called canonical by reading them, and by comparing them with other manuscripts according to the Septuagint translations, it seemed good to set down in writing those questions which came to mind — whether they were merely proposed by noting them briefly, or even by treating them at length, or were solved in whatever fashion by men in haste — lest they should slip from memory: not that we might explain them fully, but that, when there were need, we might be able to look them over, whether that we might be reminded of what still had to be inquired into, or that, from what already seemed to have been discovered, we might, as far as we could, be both equipped for thinking and ready for answering.
If, therefore, anyone should not disdain to read these things on account of the unpolished style of our haste, and should find certain proposed questions unsolved, let him not on that account think that nothing has been conferred upon him; for it is no small part of discovery to know what you are seeking. But of those questions whose solution shall have pleased him, let him not there despise the language as cheap, but rather let him give thanks for some sharing in doctrine; for it is not truth that is sought through disputation, but truth through disputation.
Setting aside, therefore, those matters which, from the beginning, where God is related to have made heaven and earth, down to the dismissal of the first two human beings from paradise, can be treated in many ways — concerning which we have discoursed elsewhere, as far as we were able — these are the things which, coming to us as we read, we wished to commit to writing. QUESTION 1. How could Cain have founded a city, since a city is surely established for some multitude of men, whereas those two are reported to have been the parents and their two sons, of which sons the one was slain by the other, and in the place of the slain one another is narrated to have been born?
Or is it a question for this reason, that those who read suppose that the only men then existing were those whom divine Scripture mentions, and do not observe that those two who were first created, or even those whom they begot, lived so long that they begot many? For not even Adam himself begot only those whose names are read, since Scripture, speaking of him, so concludes that he begot sons and daughters. Accordingly, since those men lived many more years than the Israelites were in Egypt, who does not see how many men could be born, whence that city might be filled — if the Hebrews were able to multiply so greatly in a much shorter time?
It is commonly asked how Methuselah could, according to the reckoning of the years, have lived after the flood, since all except those who entered the ark are said to have perished. But this question was born of the faultiness of many manuscripts. For not only in the Hebrew is it found otherwise, but even in the Septuagint translation Methuselah is found, in fewer but more accurate manuscripts, to have died six years before the flood. Likewise it is asked how the angels could have lain with the daughters of men, from whom giants are reported to have been born; although some Latin and Greek manuscripts have not 'angels' but 'sons of God.'
Some, in order to solve this question, have believed these to have been just men, who could be called even by the name of angels. For concerning the man John it is written: 'Behold, I send my angel before thy face, who shall prepare thy way.' But this is what troubles: how giants were born from the intercourse of men, or how they could have coupled with women, if they were not men but angels. But concerning giants, that is, men exceedingly great and strong, I think it need cause no wonder that they could be born from men, since even after the flood certain men are found to have been such, and certain bodies of men, incredibly huge, have existed even in our times — not only of men but also of women.
Whence it is more credible that just men, called either angels or sons of God, fell through concupiscence and sinned with women, than that angels, having no flesh, could have descended to that sin — although concerning certain demons, who are wicked toward women, so many things are said by so many, that it is not easy to reach a settled judgement on this matter. Concerning Noah's ark it is commonly asked whether, with such a capacity as is described, it could have carried all the animals which are said to have entered it, and their food. This question Origen solves by the geometric cubit, asserting that Scripture did not say without reason that Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, who cherished geometry.
He says, moreover, that the geometric cubit is worth as much as six of our cubits. If, therefore, we understand cubits so great, there is no question that the ark was of such capacity that it could contain all those things. Likewise it is asked whether an ark so great could have been built in a hundred years by four men, that is, Noah and his three sons. But if it could not, it was no great matter to bring in other workmen, who, though they received the wages of their work, cared not whether Noah was building it wisely or indeed vainly, and therefore did not enter into it, because they did not believe what he had believed. What does he mean, when speaking of the building of the ark: 'Thou shalt make its lower parts with two decks and three decks'?
For the lower parts were not going to be with two decks and three decks. But by this distinction he wished the whole structure of it to be understood: that it should have lower parts, and should have also the upper parts of the lower, which he called 'with two decks,' and should have also the upper parts of the upper, which he called 'with three decks.' For in the first dwelling, that is, in the lowest parts, the ark was decked once; but in the second dwelling, above the lower, it was now with two decks; and thereby in the third, above the second, it was without doubt with three decks.
Since God said that the animals in the ark should not only live but also be fed, and commanded that Noah should take for himself and for those which were to enter unto him from all foods, it is asked how there the lions or the eagles, which are wont to live on flesh, could be fed: whether animals beyond that number were brought in for the food of the others, or whether — which is rather to be believed — certain things besides flesh were provided, by the wise man or by God's showing, which might be suited also to the food of such living creatures. As to what is written:
'both of the clean birds and of the unclean birds, and of the clean cattle and of the unclean cattle, and of all the creeping things upon the earth' — where 'clean and unclean' is then not added but understood — and it is joined: 'two by two they entered in unto Noah into the ark, male and female,' it is asked how above he distinguished 'two by two' of the unclean, but now says that two by two entered, whether of the clean or of the unclean. But this is referred not to the number of clean or unclean animals, but to the male and female, because in all, whether clean or unclean, there are two, male and female. It is to be noted, what is written:
'in which is the spirit of life' — said not only of men but also of cattle — on account of that view which some wish to understand of the Holy Spirit, where it is written: 'and God breathed into his face the spirit of life,' which certain manuscripts better have as: 'the breath of life.' Concerning the height of the mountains, all of which Scripture writes that the water surmounted by fifteen cubits, on account of the story of Mount Olympus: for if the earth could invade the space of that tranquil air, where it is said that neither clouds are seen nor winds felt, why not the water too by rising? As to what is written:
'and the water was exalted above the earth a hundred and fifty days,' it is asked whether it grew up to this day, or whether for so many days it remained at the height to which it had grown — since other translators seem to say this more plainly. For Aquila said 'it prevailed,' Symmachus 'they prevailed,' that is, the waters.
As to what is written, that after a hundred and fifty days a wind was brought over the earth and the water ceased, and the fountains of the deep and the cataracts of heaven were closed, and the rain from heaven was held back, it is asked whether these things were done after a hundred and fifty days, or whether by recapitulation all those things were recorded which had begun to be done after the forty days of rain — so that this alone pertains to the hundred and fifty days, namely that the water was exalted up to them, either because the fountains of the deep had ceased when the rain had now stopped, or because it remained at its height while it was dried by no wind; but the rest of the things that were said were not all done after a hundred and fifty days, but all were recorded which had begun to be done from the end of the forty days.
As to what is written, that a raven was sent forth and did not return, and after it a dove was sent forth, and it returned because it had not found rest for its feet, a question is wont to arise, whether the raven died or could in some way have lived. For surely, if there was earth where it might rest, the dove too could have found rest for its feet. Whence it is conjectured by many that the raven could settle upon a carcass, which the dove naturally shuns. Likewise there is a question how the dove could not find where to settle, if, as the order of the narrative is woven, the tops of the mountains had already been laid bare.
This question seems capable of being resolved either by recapitulation, so that those things are understood to be narrated later which were done earlier, or rather because the mountains had not yet been dried. What does the Lord mean by saying: 'I will not again add to curse the earth on account of the works of men, because the mind of man is set toward evil things from his youth. I will not therefore again add to strike all living flesh, as I have done,' and then joins those things which, according to the largesse of his goodness, he grants to unworthy men? Whether here the indulgence of the New Testament is figured, and the past vengeance pertains to the Old Testament — that is, the former to the severity of the Law, this to the goodness of grace. What is:
'and from the hand of a man, a brother, will I require the soul of a man'? Or did he wish every man to be understood as the brother of every man, according to the kinship drawn from one? It is asked why Ham, sinning in the offence against his father, is cursed not in himself but in his son Canaan. Unless it be because it was in some way prophesied that the sons of Israel, who were to come from the seed of Shem, would receive the land of Canaan, when the Canaanites had been cast out thence and vanquished. It is asked how it was said of Nimrod: 'This man began to be a giant upon the earth,' since Scripture mentions that giants had been born even before. Or is it perhaps because after the flood the newness of the human race being restored anew is again mentioned, in which newness 'this man began to be a giant upon the earth'? It is asked what is:
'and to Heber were born two sons; the name of one was Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided' — unless perhaps in his days there arose that diversity of tongues, through which it came about that the nations were divided. 'And the whole earth was of one lip.' How can this be understood, when it was said above that the sons of Noah, or of his sons, had been distributed throughout the earth according to their tribes and according to their nations and according to their tongues, unless it be that by recapitulation he afterward mentions what was earlier? But it makes for obscurity, that he weaves these things together in such a manner of speech, as though a narrative of the things that were done afterward followed. 'Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower, whose top shall be even unto heaven.'
If they believed they could do this, exceedingly foolish audacity and impiety is detected. And because on this account God's vengeance followed, so that their tongues were divided, they are not absurdly believed to have thought this. 'Come, let us go down and there confound their tongue, that each may not hear the voice of his neighbour.' Is the Lord understood to have said this to the angels? Or is it to be taken according to that which is read in the opening of the book: 'Let us make man to our image and likeness'? For also, as regards what is afterward said in the singular number, 'because there the Lord confounded the lips of the earth,' so there too, when it had been said, 'Let us make man to our image,' in what follows it was nevertheless not said 'they made,' but 'God made.' As to what is written:
'and Arphaxad was a hundred and thirty-five years old when he begot Cainan; and Arphaxad lived after he begot Cainan four hundred years,' or, as we find in the Greek, 'three hundred years,' it is asked how God said to Noah: 'and the years of their life shall be a hundred and twenty'; for Arphaxad was not yet born when God said this, nor was he in the ark with his parents. How then are the years of human life foretold as a hundred and twenty thereafter, when a man is found to have lived more than four hundred years?
Unless it be understood that God said this to Noah twenty years before the ark began to be made — which is found to have been made in a hundred years — when he was now foretelling that he would make a flood; and that he did not foretell the span of human life thereafter to be in those who would be born after the flood, but the life of those men whom he was about to destroy by the flood. It is asked why it is written: 'Shem was the father of all the sons of Heber,' since Heber is found to be the fifth from Shem the son of Noah. Is it because from him the Hebrews are said to be named? For through him the generation passes to Abraham. Which then is more probable — that the Hebrews were named from Heber, as it were 'Heberaeans,' or from Abraham, as it were 'Abrahaeans' — is rightly asked.
How is it to be taken, that when Terah, the father of Abram, was seventy years old, he begot Abram, and afterward remained with all his household in Haran and lived two hundred and five years in Haran and died; and the Lord said to Abram that he should go out from Haran, and he went out thence when the same Abram was seventy-five years old? Unless it be that by recapitulation it is shown that the Lord spoke while Terah was living, and that Abram, while his father was living, went out of Haran according to the Lord's command, when he was seventy-five years old — in the hundred and forty-fifth year of his father's life, if the days of his father's life were two hundred and five years, so that it is therefore written: 'the years of Terah's life were two hundred and five in Haran.'
For there he completed all the years of his whole life. The question is therefore solved by recapitulation, which would otherwise remain insoluble. If we took it that the Lord spoke to Abram after Terah's death, that he should go out from Haran, then he could not yet be seventy-five years old, since his father, who had begotten him in the seventieth year of his own age, was already dead — so that Abram would be a hundred and thirty-five years old after his father's death, if all his father's years were two hundred and five. This recapitulation, therefore, if it be attended to in the Scriptures, solves many questions which can seem insoluble, according also to the exposition of the earlier questions made through this same recapitulation.
This question, however, is also resolved otherwise by certain people: that the years of Abraham's age are reckoned from the time when he was delivered out of the fire of the Chaldeans, into which he had been cast to be burned because he refused to worship that same fire in the superstition of the Chaldeans. That he was delivered from it, although it is not read in the Scriptures, is nevertheless handed down in Jewish tradition. It can also be resolved thus: since the Scripture which said, 'When Terah was seventy years old, he begot Abram and Nahor and Haran,' did not at all intend this to be understood, namely that in that same seventieth year of his life he begot all three, but rather the Scripture recorded the year from which he began to beget offspring.
But it may also be that Abram was born later, yet on account of the excellence for which he is greatly commended in the Scriptures, he was named first — just as the prophet named the younger first, 'Jacob I loved, but Esau I hated,' and in Chronicles, although Judah is fourth in the order of birth, he is mentioned first, he from whom the Jewish nation takes its name, on account of the royal tribe. And it is more convenient that several ways out be found by which difficult questions may be resolved. Certainly Stephen's account of this matter must be considered, so that whichever of these expositions does not conflict with it may be preferred. And indeed that account compels us not to hold, as it seems to be narrated in Genesis, that God spoke to Abraham after the death of Terah, telling him to go out from his kindred and from his father's house;
but rather, when he was in Mesopotamia, before he dwelt in Haran, having already indeed departed from the land of the Chaldeans, so that God is understood to have spoken to him on that journey. But what Stephen afterwards narrates thus: 'Then Abram, having gone out from the land of the Chaldeans, dwelt in Haran, and from there, after his father died, He settled him in this land' — this brings no small difficulty to this exposition, which is made by way of recapitulation. For he seems to have received the command of the Lord, which had been spoken to him on the journey through Mesopotamia after he had gone out from the land of the Chaldeans and was going to Haran, and to have obediently fulfilled this command after the death of his father, when it is said, 'And he dwelt in Haran.'
'And from there, after his father died, He settled him in this land.' And on account of this the question remains: if he was seventy-five years old — as the Scripture of Genesis plainly states — when he went out from Haran, how can this be true? Unless perhaps what Stephen says, 'Then Abram went out from the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran,' is not to be taken thus: 'then he went out, after the Lord had spoken to him' — for he was already in Mesopotamia, as was said above, when he heard that from the Lord — but rather Stephen, by that very rule of recapitulation, wished to weave the account together and to say at once from where he went out and where he dwelt, when he says, 'Then Abram went out from the land of the Chaldeans and dwelt in Haran.'
But in between, that is, between his going out from the land of the Chaldeans and his dwelling in Haran, God spoke to him. And afterwards, as to what Stephen adds, 'and from there, after his father died, He settled him in this land,' it must be observed that he did not say, 'and after his father died, he went out from Haran,' but 'from there God settled him in this land,' so that after his dwelling in Haran he was settled in the land of Canaan — not that he went out after his father's death, but that after his father's death he was settled in the land of Canaan; so that the order of the words is: 'he dwelt in Haran;
and from there He settled him in this land, after his father died' — so that we may understand Abram to have been settled or established in the land of Canaan at the time when he received there a grandson, whose entire seed was destined to reign there according to the inheritance granted by the promise of God. For from Abram himself was born Ishmael by Hagar, and others were born by Keturah, to whom the inheritance of that land did not belong. And from Isaac was born Esau, who likewise was excluded from that inheritance. But from Jacob the son of Isaac, however many sons were born — that is, his entire seed — belonged to that inheritance.
So then, Abram having been settled and established in that land — since he lived until the birth of Jacob — if this is rightly understood, the question is resolved according to recapitulation, although the other solutions too are not to be despised. 'It shall be, therefore, that when the Egyptians see you, they will say, This is his wife. And it came to pass, as soon as Abram entered into Egypt, the Egyptians, seeing the woman, that she was very beautiful.' How is it to be taken that Abram, coming into Egypt, wished to conceal that Sarah was his wife, according to all that is written on this matter? Whether this befitted so holy a man, or whether some faltering of his faith is to be understood, as several have thought?
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Indeed I have already disputed on this matter against Faustus, and it has been more diligently expounded by the presbyter Jerome, why it does not follow that, when Sarah spent several days with the king of Egypt, she should be believed to have been defiled by his intercourse; since it was the royal custom to admit his women to himself by turns, and no woman went in to the king unless her body had first been long and carefully groomed with cosmetic washes and unguents.
While these things were being done, Pharaoh was smitten by the hand of God, so that he might return untouched to her husband the woman whom the husband had entrusted to God Himself, keeping silent that she was his wife, yet not lying that she was his sister — so as to guard against what he could, as far as a man could, and to commend to God what he could not guard against; lest, if he had committed even that which he could guard against to God alone, he should be found not to be believing in God but rather to be tempting God. The land of Sodom and Gomorrah, before it was destroyed, is compared to the paradise of God, because it was well-watered, and to the land of Egypt, which the Nile irrigates. By this it is sufficiently shown, as I think, how that paradise which God planted, where He set Adam, ought to be understood. For what other paradise of God is to be understood, I do not see.
And surely, if the fruit-bearing trees in paradise were to be understood as the virtues of the soul, as some suppose — with no bodily paradise having been established on earth with true kinds of trees — it would not be said of that land, 'like the paradise of God.' 'Lift up your eyes and look from the place where you now are, to the north and the south and the east and the sea, for all the land which you see I will give to you and to your seed forever.' Here it is asked how it is to be understood that as much land was promised to Abraham and his seed as he could survey with his eyes through the four quarters of the world. For how much is it that the keenness of bodily sight can reach in beholding land?
But there is no question, if we notice that this alone was not promised; for it was not said, 'I will give you as much land as you see,' but 'I will give you the land which you see.' For since even more was being given on every side, assuredly this in particular, which was seen, was being given. Then attention must be paid to what follows; for lest Abram himself should think that only that portion of land was being promised which he could look upon or survey, 'Arise,' He says, 'and walk through the land in its length and breadth, for I will give it to you,' so that by walking he might come to that land which, standing in one place, he could not see with his eyes.
But that land is signified which the first people, Israel, the seed of Abraham according to the flesh, received — not that wider seed according to faith, which, lest it be passed over in silence, was foretold to him would be 'like the sand of the sea,' by hyperbole indeed, yet nevertheless so great that no one could number it. 'It was announced to Abram the man beyond the river.' That Abram was called 'the man beyond the river' the Greek copies also sufficiently indicate; but why he was so called, this seems to be the reason: that coming from Mesopotamia, having crossed the river Euphrates, he established his dwelling in the land of Canaan, and was called 'beyond the river' from that region whence he had come. Whence Joshua the son of Nun says to the Israelites, 'What? Do you wish to serve the gods of your fathers who are beyond the river?' Concerning that which is written:
'And about the setting of the sun a dread fell upon Abram, and behold, a great fear came upon him.' This question must be treated for the sake of those who contend that these disturbances do not befall the mind of the wise man: whether it is something such as Aulus Gellius recounts in his books of the Attic Nights, of a certain philosopher who, being on a ship in a great storm at sea, was disturbed, and was observed by a certain dissolute young man. When, after the danger had passed, the young man taunted him because the philosopher had been quickly disturbed — whereas he himself had neither feared nor turned pale — the philosopher replied that the young man was not disturbed for this reason, that he had nothing to fear for his utterly worthless soul, which was not worth anything for which anything should be feared.
But to the other studious men who had been in the ship and were waiting, he produced a certain book of Epictetus the Stoic, in which it was read that it had not so pleased the Stoics that no such disturbance befalls the mind of the wise man — as though nothing of the sort appeared in their affections — but that a disturbance is defined by them as when reason yields to such motions; whereas when it does not yield, it is not to be called a disturbance. But it must be considered how Aulus Gellius says this, and it must be carefully inserted. 'And I will give to you and to your seed after you the land in which you dwell, all the cultivated land, for an everlasting possession.' The question is how He said 'everlasting,' since it was given to the Israelites temporally:
whether it was called 'everlasting' according to this age, so that from that which in Greek is 'aion,' which also signifies 'age,' was said 'aionion,' as if in Latin it could be said 'saeculare' (pertaining to the age); or whether from this we are compelled to understand something here according to the spiritual promise, so that it was called 'eternal' because from this something eternal is signified; or whether rather it is an idiom of the Scriptures, that they call 'eternal' that of which no end is appointed, or which does not so come to pass that it is thereafter not to be done, as far as pertains to the care or power of the one doing it. As Horace says: 'He will serve forever who knows not how to use a little.' For he cannot serve forever, whose very life, by which he serves, cannot be eternal.
This testimony I would not adduce, unless it were a matter of idiom; for those poets are our authorities for words, not for things or for opinions. But if the Scriptures are defended according to their proper modes of speech, which are called idioms, how much more according to those which they hold in common with other tongues! It is asked how it was said to Abraham concerning his son, 'and kings of nations shall be from him' — whether, because it did not come about according to earthly kingdoms, it ought to be taken according to the Church, or whether on account of Esau it happened even according to the letter. 'And seeing, he ran to meet them from the door of his tent and bowed himself to the ground and said, Lord, if I have found grace before you, do not pass by your servant.'