CHAPTER XIII Our first parents fell into open disobedience because already they were secretly corrupted, for the evil act had never been done had not an evil will preceded it. And what is the origin of our evil will but pride? For pride is the beginning of sin. And what is pride but the craving for undue exaltation? And this is undue exaltation when the soul abandons him to whom it ought to cleave as its end and becomes a kind of end to itself. This happens when it becomes its own satisfaction. And it does so when it falls away from that unchangeable good which ought to satisfy it more than itself. This falling away is spontaneous. For if the will had remained steadfast in the love of that higher and changeless good by which it was illumined to intelligence and kindled into love, it would not have turned away to find satisfaction in itself, and so become frigid and benighted. The woman would not have believed the serpent spoke the truth, nor would the man have preferred the request of his wife to the command of God, nor have supposed that it was a venial transgression to cleave to the partner of his life even in a partnership of sin. The wicked deed, then, that is to say the transgression of eating the forbidden fruit, was committed by persons who were already wicked.  But that the tree was evil was not the result of nature, for certainly it could become so only by the vice of the will, and vice is contrary to nature. Now nature could not have been depraved by vice had it not been made out of nothing.  But man did not so fall away as to become absolutely nothing, but being turned towards himself his being became more contracted than it was when he cleaved to him who supremely is. Accordingly to exist in himself that is to be his own satisfaction after abandoning God is not quite to become a non-entity, but to approximate to that. And therefore the holy scriptures designates the proud by another name, self-pleasers. For it is good to have the heart lifted up yet not to oneself for this is proud, not to the Lord for this is obedient and can be the act only of the humble. There is therefore something in humility which strangely enough exalts the heart and something in pride which debases it. This seems indeed to be contradictory that loftiness should debase and lowliness exalt. But pious humility enables us to submit to what is above us and nothing is more exalted above us than God. And therefore humility, by making us subject to God, exalts us. But pride, being a defective nature, by the very act of refusing subjection and revolting from him who is supreme falls to a low condition, and then comes to pass what is written, thou castedst them down when they lifted up themselves. For he does not say when they had been lifted up as if they first were exalted and then afterwards cast down, but when they lifted up themselves even then they were cast down, that is to say the very lifting up was already a fall. And therefore it is that humility is specially recommended to the city of God as its sojourns in this world and especially exhibited in the city of God and in the person of Christ its King, while the contrary vice of pride according to the testimony of the sacred writings specially rules his adversary the devil. And certainly this is the great difference which distinguishes the two cities of which we speak, the one being the society of the godly men, the other of the ungodly, each associated with the angels that adhere to their party, and the one guided and fashioned by love of self, the other by love of God. The devil then would not have ensnared man in the open and manifest sin of doing what God had forbidden had man not already begun to live for himself. It was this that made him listen with pleasure to the words, He shall be as gods which they would much more readily have accomplished by obediently adhering to their supreme and true end than by proudly living to themselves. For created gods are gods not by virtue of what is in themselves, but by a participation of the true God. By craving to be more man becomes less, and by aspiring to be self-sufficing he fell away from him who truly suffices him. Certainly this wicked desire which prompts man to please himself as if he were himself light, and which thus turns him away from that light by which, had he followed it, he would himself have become light. This wicked desire, I say, already secretly existed in him, and the open sin was but its consequence. For that is true which has written, Pride goeth before destruction, and before honour is humility. It is to say secret ruin precedes open ruin, while the former is not counted ruin. For who counts exaltation ruin, though no sooner is the highest forsaken than a fall is begun? But who does not recognize it as ruin when there occurs an evident and indubitable transgression of the commandment? And consequently God's prohibition had referenced to such an act as when committed could not be defended on any pretense of doing what was righteous. And I make bold to say that it is useful for the proud to fall into an open and indisputable transgression, and so displease themselves as already by pleasing themselves they had fallen. For Peter was in a healthier condition when he wept and was dissatisfied with himself than when he boldly presumed and satisfied himself. And this is averred by the sacred psalmist when he says, Fill their faces with shame that they may seek thy name, O Lord. It is that they who have pleased themselves in seeking their own glory may be pleased and satisfied with thee in seeking thy glory. But it is a worse and more damnable pride which casts about for the shelter of an excuse even in manifest sins, as these our first parents did, of whom the woman said, The serpent beguiled me, and I did eat, and the man said, The woman whom thou gave us to be with me, she gave me of the tree, and I did eat. Here there is no word of begging pardon, no word of entreaty for healing. For though they do not, like Cain, deny that they have perpetrated the deed, yet their pride seeks to refer its wickedness to another. The woman's pride to the serpent demands to the woman. But where there is a plain transgression of a divine commandment, this is rather to accuse and to excuse oneself. For the fact that the woman's sin on the serpent's persuasion and the man that the woman's offer did not make the transgression less, as if there were any one whom we ought rather to believe or yield to than God. CHAPTER XV Therefore, because the sin was a despising of the authority of God, who had created man, who had made him in his own image, who had set him above the other animals, who had placed him in paradise, who had enriched him with abundance of every kind of safety, who had laid upon him neither many nor great nor difficult commandments, but in order to make a wholesome obedience easy to him had given him a single very brief and very light precept by which he reminded that creature whose service was to be free that he was Lord.  Whoever thinks such punishment, either excessive or unjust, shows his inability to measure the great iniquity of sinning where sin might so easily have been avoided. For as Abraham's obedience is with justice pronounced to be great, because the thing commanded to kill his son was very difficult, so in paradise the disobedience was the greater, because the difficulty of that which was commanded was imperceptible, and as the obedience of the second man was the more laudable, because he became obedient even unto death, so the disobedience of the first man was the more detestable, because he became disobedient even unto death. For where the penalty annexed to disobedience is great, and the thing commanded by the Creator is easy, who can sufficiently estimate how great a wickedness it is, in a matter so easy not to obey the authority of so great a power, even when that power deters with so terrible a penalty. In short, to say all in a word, what but disobedience was the punishment of disobedience in that sin? For what else is man's misery but his own disobedience to himself, so that in consequence of his not being willing to do what he could do, he now wills to do what he cannot? For though he could not do all things in paradise before he sinned, yet he wished to do only what he could do, and therefore he could do all things he wished. But now, as we recognize in his offspring, and as Divine Scripture testifies, man is like to vanity. For who can count how many things he wishes which he cannot do so long as he is disobedient to himself, that is, so long as his mind and his flesh do not obey his will? For in spite of himself his mind is both frequently disturbed, and his flesh suffers, and grows old, and dies. And in spite of ourselves we suffer whatever else we suffer, and which we would not suffer if our nature absolutely and in all its parts obeyed our will. But is it not the infirmities of the flesh which happer it in its service? Yet what does it matter how its service has happered so long as the fact remains that by the just retribution of the sovereign God whom we refuse to be subject to and serve, our flesh, which was subjected to us, now torments us by insubordination, though our disobedience brought trouble on ourselves not upon God. For he is not in need of our service as we of our bodies, and therefore what we did was no punishment to him, but what we receive is so to us, and the pains which are called bodily are pains of the soul in and from the body. For what pain or desire can the flesh feel by itself and without the soul? But when the flesh is said to desire or to suffer, it is meant as we have explained that the man does so, or some part of the soul which is affected by the sensation of the flesh, whether a harsh sensation causing pain or gentle causing pleasure. But pain in the flesh is only a discomfort of the soul arising from the flesh and a kind of shrinking from its suffering as the pain of the soul which is called sadness is a shrinking from those things which have happened to us in spite of ourselves. But sadness is frequently preceded by fear which is itself and the soul not in the flesh, while bodily pain is not preceded by any kind of fear of the flesh which can be felt in the flesh before the pain. But pleasure is preceded by a certain appetite which is felt in the flesh like a craving as hunger and thirst and that generative appetite which is most commonly identified with the name lust, though this is the generic word for all desires. For anger itself was defined by the ancients as nothing else than the lust of revenge, although sometimes a man is angry even at inanimate objects which cannot feel his vengeance as when one breaks a pen or crushes a quill that writes badly. Yet even this, though less reasonable, is in its way a lust of revenge and is, so to speak, a mysterious kind of shadow of the great law of retribution that they who do evil should suffer evil. There is therefore a lust for revenge which is called anger. There is a lust of money which goes by the name of avarice. There is a lust of conquering, no matter by what means, which is called opinionativeness. There is a lust of applause which is named boasting. There are many invarious lusts of which some have names of their own while others have not. For who could readily give a name to the lust of ruling which yet has a powerful influence in the soul of tyrants as civil wars bear witness? CHAPTER XVI Although therefore lust may have many objects, yet when no object is specified the word lust usually suggests to the mind the lustful excitement of the organs of generation. And this lust not only takes possession of the whole body and outward members, but also makes itself felt within and moves the whole man with a passion in which mental emotion is mingled with bodily appetite, so that the pleasure which results is the greatest of all bodily pleasures. So possessing indeed is this pleasure that at the moment of time in which it is consummated all mental activity is suspended. Friend of wisdom at holy joys who, being married but knowing as the apostle says, how to possess his vessel in sanctification and honor, not in the disease of desire as the Gentiles who know not God, would not prefer, if this were possible, to beget children without this lust, so that in this function of begetting offspring the members created for this purpose should not be stimulated by the heat of lust, but should be actuated by his volition in the same way as his other members serve him for their respective ends. But even those who delight in this pleasure are not moved to it at their own will, whether they confine themselves to lawful or transgress to unlawful pleasures, but sometimes this lust importions them in spite of themselves and sometimes fails them when they desire to feel it, so that though lust rages in the mind it stirs not in the body. Thus, strangely enough, this emotion not only fails to obey the legitimate desire to beget offspring, but also refuses to serve lascivious lust, and though it often opposes its whole combined energy to the soul that resists it, sometimes also it is divided against itself, and while it moves the soul, leaves the body unmoved. CHAPTER XVII. Justly is shame very specially connected with this lust. Justly too these members themselves, being moved and restrained not at our will, but by a certain independent autocracy, so to speak, are called shameful. Their condition was different before sin, for as it is written they were naked and were not ashamed. Not that their nakedness was unknown to them, but because nakedness was not yet shameful, because not yet did lust move those members without the will's consent. Not yet did the flesh by its disobedience testify against the disobedience of man. For they were not created blind as the unenlightened vulgar fancy, for Adam saw the animals to whom he gave names, and of Eve we read, the woman saw that the tree was good for food, and that it was pleasant to the eyes. Their eyes, therefore, were open, but were not open to this, that is to say, were not observant as to recognize what was conferred upon them by the garment of grace, for they had no consciousness of their members warring against their will. But when they were stripped of this grace, that their disobedience might be punished by fit retribution, there began in the movement of their bodily members a shameless novelty which made nakedness indecent. It had once made them observant, and made them ashamed. And therefore, after they violated God's command by open transgression, it is written, and the eyes of them both were opened, and they knew that they were naked, and they sewed fig leaves together, and made themselves aprons. The eyes of them both were opened, not to see, for already they saw, but to discern between the good they had lost and the evil into which they had fallen. And therefore also the tree itself, which they were forbidden to touch, was called the tree of the knowledge of good and evil from this circumstance, that if they ate of it it would impart to them this knowledge, for the discomfort of sickness reveals the pleasure of health. They knew, therefore, that they were naked, naked of that grace which prevented them from being ashamed of bodily nakedness, while the law of sin offered no resistance to their mind, and thus they obtained a knowledge which they would have lived in blissful ignorance of had they, in trustful obedience to God, declined to commit that offense which involved them in the experience of the hurtful effects of unfaithfulness and disobedience. And therefore, being ashamed of the disobedience of their own flesh which witnessed their disobedience while it punished it, they sewed fig leaves together and made themselves aprons, that is, sinctures for their privy parts. For some interpreters have rendered the word by suchintoria. Compestria is indeed a Latin word, but it is used of the drawers or aprons used for a similar purpose by the young men who stripped for exercise in the campus. Hence those who were so girth were commonly called campestrati. Shame modestly covered that which lust disobediently moved in opposition to the will which was thus punished for its own disobedience. Consequently all nations being propagated from that one stock have so strong an instinct to cover the shameful parts that some barbarians do not uncover them even in the bath but wash with their drawers on. In the dark solitudes of India also, though some philosophers go naked and are therefore called gymnosephists, yet they make an exception in the case of these members and cover them. CHAPTER XVIII. Lust requires for its consummation, darkness, and secrecy, in this not only when unlawful intercourse is desired, but even such fornication as the earthly city has legalized. Where there is no fear of punishment, these permitted pleasures still shrink from the public eye. Even where provision is made for this lust, secrecy also is provided, and while lust found it easy to remove the prohibitions of law, shamelessness found it impossible to lay aside the veil of retirement. For even shameless men call this shameful, and though they love the pleasure, dare not display it. What, does not even conjugal intercourse, sanctioned as it is by law for the propagation of children, legitimate and honorable, though it be, does it not seek retirement from every eye? Before the bridegroom fondles his bride, does he not exclude the attendants and even the paronyms, and such friends as the closest ties have admitted to the bridal chamber? The greatest master of Roman eloquence says that all right actions wish to be set in the light, that is, desire to be known. This right action, however, has such a desire to be known that yet it blushes to be seen. Who does not know what passes between husband and wife that children may be born? Is it not for this purpose that wives are married with such ceremony? And yet when this well-understood act is gone about for the procreation of children, not even the children themselves who may already have been born to them are suffered to be witnesses. This right action seeks the light insofar as it seeks to be known, but yet dreads being seen. And why so if not because that which is by nature fitting and decent is so done as to be accompanied with the shame be getting penalty of sin? CHAPTER XIX Hence it is that even the philosophers who have approximated to the truth have avowed that anger and lust are vicious mental emotions because even when exercised towards objects which wisdom does not prohibit, they are moved in an ungoverned and inordinate manner and consequently need the regulation of mind and reason, and they assert that this third part of the mind is posted, as it were, in a kind of citadel, to give rule to these other parts so that while it rules and they serve, man's righteousness is preserved without a breach. These parts, then, which they acknowledge to be vicious even in a wise and temperate man, so that the mind, by its composing and restraining influence, must bridle and recall them from those objects towards which they are unlawfully moved and give them access to those which the law of wisdom sanctions, that anger, for example, may be allowed for the enforcement of a just authority and lust for the duty of propagating offspring. These parts, I say, were not vicious in paradise before sin, for they were never moved in opposition to a holy will towards any object from which it was necessary that they should be withheld by the restraining bridle of reason. For though now they are moved in this way, and are regulated by a bridling and restraining power, which those who live temperately, justly, and godly exercise, sometimes with ease, and sometimes with greater difficulty, this is not the sound health of nature, but the weakness which results from sin. And how is it that shame does not hide the acts and words dictated by anger or other emotions as it covers the motions of lust, unless because the members of the body which we employ for accomplishing them are moved not by the emotions themselves, but by the authority of the consenting will? For he who in his anger rails at or even strikes someone could not do so were not his tongue in hand moved by the authority of the will as also they are moved when there is no anger. But the organs of generation are so subjected to the rule of lust that they have no motion but what it communicates. It is this we are ashamed of. It is this which blushingly hides from the eyes of onlookers, and rather will a man endure a crowd of witnesses when he is unjustly venting his anger on someone than the eye of one man when he innocently copulates with his wife. CHAPTER XX. It is this which those canine or cynic philosophers have overlooked when they have, in violation of the modest instincts of men, boastfully proclaimed their unclean and shameless opinion worthy indeed of dogs that as the metrimonial act is legitimate no one should be ashamed to perform it openly in the street or in any public place. Instinct of shame is overborn this wild fancy. For though it is related that Diogenes once dared to put his opinion in practice under the impression that his sect would be all the more famous if his egregious shamelessness were deeply graven in the memory of mankind, yet this example was not afterwards followed. Shame had more influence with them to make them blush before men than error to make them effect or resemblance to dogs. And possibly even in the case of Diogenes and those who did imitate him there was but an appearance and pretence of copulation and not the reality. Even at this day there are still cynic philosophers to be seen, for these are cynics who are not content with being clad in the pallium but also carry a club, yet no one of them dares to do this that we speak of. If they did they would be spat upon, not to say stoned, by the mob. Human nature, then, is without doubt ashamed of this lust, and justly so for the insubordination of these members and their defiance of the will are the clear testimony of the punishment of man's first sin. And it was fitting that this should appear specially in those parts by which is generated that nature which has been altered for the worse by that first and great sin, that sin from whose evil connection no one can escape unless God's grace expiate in him individually that which was perpetrated to the destruction of all in common when all were in one man and which was avenged by God's justice. CHAPTER XXI Far be it then from us to suppose that our first parents in paradise felt that lust which caused them afterwards to blush and hide their nakedness, or that by its means they should have fulfilled the benediction of God, increase and multiply and replenish the earth, for it was after sin that lust began. It was after sin that our nature, having lost the power it had over the whole body, but not having lost all shame, perceived, noticed, blushed at, and covered it. But that blessing upon marriage which encouraged them to increase and multiply and replenish the earth, though it continued even after they had sinned, was yet given before they sinned, in order that the procreation of children might be recognized as part of the glory of marriage and not of the punishment of sin. But now, men, being ignorant of the blessedness of paradise, suppose that children could not have been begotten there in any other way than they know them to be begotten now, that is, by lust, at which even honorable marriage blushes. Some not simply rejecting, but skeptically deriding the divine scriptures in which we read that our first parents, after they sinned, were ashamed of their nakedness and covered it. While others, though they accept and honor scripture, yet conceive that this expression, increase and multiply, refers not to carnal fecundity, because a similar expression is used of the soul in the words, that will multiply me with strength in my soul, and so, too, in the words which follow in Genesis, and replenish the earth and subdue it, they understand by the earth the body which the soul fills with its presence, and which it rules over when it is multiplied in strength. And they hold that children could no more then than now be begotten without lust, which after sin was kindled, observed, blushed for, and covered, and even that children would not have been born in paradise, but only outside of it, as in fact it turned out, for it was after they were expelled from it that they came together to beget children and begot them. CHAPTER XII. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. CHAPTER XXII. But we, for our part, have no manner of doubt that to increase and multiply and replenish the earth in virtue of the blessing of God is a gift of marriage as God instituted it from the beginning before man sinned when he created the male and female. In other words, two sexes manifestly distinct. And it was this work of God on which his blessing was pronounced. For no sooner had Scripture said, Male and Female created He them, than it immediately continues, and God blessed them, and God said unto them, Increase, and Multiply, and Replenish the earth, and Subduit, etc. And though all these things may not unsuitably be interpreted in a spiritual sense, yet Male and Female cannot be understood of two things in one man as if there were in him one thing which rules, another which is ruled, but it is quite clear that they were created male and female with bodies of different sexes for the very purpose of begetting offspring, and so increasing, multiplying, and replenishing the earth, and it is great folly to oppose so plain a fact. It was not of the spirit which commands, and the body which obeys, nor of the rational soul which rules, and the irrational desire which is ruled, nor of the contemplative virtue which is supreme, and the active which is subject, nor of the understanding of the mind and the sense of the body, but plainly of the matrimonial union by which the sexes are mutually bound together, that our Lord when asked whether it were lawful for any cause to put away one's wife, for on account of the hardness of the hearts of the Israelites Moses permitted a bill of divorcement to be given, answered and said, Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, and said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife, and they twain shall be one flesh, wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh, what therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder? It is certain, then, that from the first men were created, as we see and know them to be now, of two sexes, male and female, and that they are called one, either on account of the matrimonial union, or on account of the origin of the woman who was created from the side of the man, and it is by this original example which God himself instituted that the apostle admonishes all husbands to love their own wives in particular. CHAPTER XXIII But he who says that there should have been neither copulation nor generation but for sin, virtually says that man's sin was necessary to complete the number of the saints. For if these two by not sinning should have continued to live alone, because, as is supposed, they could not have be gotten children had they not sinned, then certainly sin was necessary in order that there might be not only two, but many righteous men. And if this cannot be maintained without absurdity, we must rather believe that the number of the saints fit to complete this most blessed city would have been as great to though no one had sinned as it is now that the grace of God gathers its citizens out of the multitude of sinners so long as the children of this world generate and are generated. And therefore that marriage, worthy of the happiness of paradise, should have had desirable fruit without the shame of lust, had there been no sin. But how that could be there is now no example to teach us. Nevertheless it ought not to seem incredible that one member might serve the will without lust, then, since so many serve it now. Do we now move our feet and hands, when we will, to do the things we would by means of these members? Do we meet with no resistance in them, but perceive that they are already servants of the will, both in our own case and in that of others, and especially of artisans employed in mechanical operations by which the weakness and clumsiness of nature become, through industrious exercise, wonderfully dexterous? And shall we not believe that like as all those members obediently serve the will, so also should the members have discharged the function of generation, though lust, the award of disobedience, had been a wanting? Did not Cicero, in discussing the difference of governments in his De Repubblica, adopt a simile from human nature and say that we command our bodily members as children, they are so obedient, but that the vicious parts of the soul must be treated as slaves and be coerced with a more stringent authority. And no doubt in the order of nature the soul is more excellent than the body, and yet the soul commands the body more easily than itself. Nevertheless this lust of which we at present speak is the more shameful on this account, because the soul is therein neither master of itself, so as not to lust at all, nor of the body, so as to keep the members under the control of the will. For if they were thus ruled there should be no shame. But now the soul is ashamed that the body, which by nature is inferior and subject to it, should resist its authority. For in the resistance experienced by the soul in the other emotions there is less shame, because the resistance is from itself, and thus when it is conquered by itself itself is the conqueror, although the conquest is inordinate and vicious, because accomplished by those parts of the soul which ought to be subject to reason, yet being accomplished by its own parts and energies the conquest is, as I say, its own. For when the soul conquers itself to adduce subordination so that its unreasonable motions are controlled by reason, while it again is subject to God, this is a conquest virtuous and praiseworthy. Yet there is less shame when the soul is resisted by its own vicious parts than when its will and order are resisted by the body, which is distinct from and inferior to it and dependent on it for life itself. But so long as the will retains under its authority the other members, without which the members excited by lust to resist the will cannot accomplish what they seek, chastity is preserved and the delight of sin foregone. And certainly had not culpable disobedience been visited with penal disobedience the marriage of paradise should have been ignorant of this struggle and rebellion, this quarrel between will and lust that the will may be satisfied and lust restrained, but those members, like all the rest, should have obeyed the will. The field of generation should have been sown by the organ created for this purpose, as the earth is sown by the hand. And whereas now, as we say to investigate this subject more exactly, modesty hinders us and compels us to ask pardon of chaste ears, there would have been no cause to do so, but we could have freely discoursed and without fear of seeming obscene upon all those points which occur to one who meditates on the subject. There would not have been even words which could be called obscene, but all that might be said of these members would have been as pure as what is said of the other parts of the body. Whoever then comes to the perusal of these pages with unchaste mind, let him blame his disposition, not his nature, let him brand the actings of his own impurity, not the words which necessity forces us to use, and for which every pure and pious reader or hearer will very readily pardon me, while I expose the folly of that skepticism which argues solely on the ground of its own experience, and has no faith in anything beyond. He who is not scandalized at the apostle's censure of the horrible wickedness of the women who changed the natural use into that which is against nature, will read all this without being shocked, especially as we are not, like Paul, citing and censuring a damnable uncleanness, but are explaining, so far as we can, human generation, while with Paul we avoid all obscenity of language. Chapter 24 The man then would have sown the seed and the woman received it as need required, the generative organs being moved by the will, not excited by lust. For we move at will not only those members which are furnished with joints of solid bone as the hands, feet, and fingers, but we move also at will those which are composed of slack and soft nerves. We can put them in motion, or stretch them out, or bend and twist them, or contract and stiffen them, as we do with the muscles of the mouth and face. The lungs, which are the very tenderest of the viscera, except the brain, and are therefore carefully sheltered in the cavity of the chest, yet for all purposes of inhaling and exhaling the breath, and of uttering and modulating the voice, are obedient to the will when we breathe, exhale, speak, shout, or sing, just as the bellows obey the smith or the organist. I will not press the fact that some animals have a natural power to move a single spot of the skin with which their whole body is covered if they have felt on it anything they wish to drive off. A power so great that by the shivering tremor of the skin they can not only shake off flies that have settled on them, but even spears that have fixed in their flesh. Man, it is true, has not this power, but is this any reason for supposing that God could not give it to such creatures as he wished to possess it? And therefore man himself also might very well have enjoyed absolute power over his members, had he not forfeited it by his disobedience, for it was not difficult for God to form him so that what is now moved in his body, only by lust, should have been moved only at will. We know, too, that some men are differently constituted from others, and have some rare and remarkable faculty of doing with their body what other men can by no effort do, and indeed scarcely believe when they hear of others doing. There are persons who can move their ears either one at a time or both together. There are some who, without moving the head, can bring the hair down upon the forehead and move the whole scalp backwards and forwards at pleasure. Some, by lightly pressing their stomach, bring up an incredible quantity and variety of things they have swallowed, and produce whatever they please quite whole as if out of a bag. Some so accurately mimic the voices of birds and beasts and other men that unless they are seen the difference cannot be told. Some have such command of their bowels that they can break wind continuously at pleasure so as to produce the effect of singing. I myself have known a man who is accustomed to sweat whenever he wished. It is well known that some weep when they please and shed a flood of tears. But far more incredible is that which some of our brethren saw quite recently. There was a presbyter called Restitutus in the parish of the Calamencian Church, who, as often as he pleased, and he was asked to do this by those who desired to witness so remarkable a phenomenon, on someone imitating the wailings of mourners, became so insensible and lay in a state so like death that not only had he no feeling when they pinched and pricked him, but even when fire was applied to him, and he was burned by it, he had no sense of pain except afterwards from the wound, and that his body remained motionless not by reason of his self-command but because he was insensible was proved by the fact that he breathed no more than a dead man, and yet he said that when anyone spoke with more than ordinary distinctness he heard the voice but as if it were a long way off. Seeing then that even in this mortal and miserable life the body served some men by many remarkable movements and moods beyond the ordinary course of nature, what reason is there for doubting that before man was involved by his sin in this weak and corruptible condition his members might have served his will for the propagation of offspring without lust? Man has been given over to himself because he abandoned God while he sought to be self-satisfying, and disobeying God he could not obey even himself. Hence it is that he is involved in the obvious misery of being unable to live as he wishes, for if he lived as he wished he would think himself blessed, but he could not be so if he lived wickedly. CHAPTER XXV However, if we look at this a little more closely we see that no one lives as he wishes but the blessed, and that no one is blessed but the righteous. But even the righteous himself does not live as he wishes until he has arrived where he cannot die, be deceived, or injured, even until he is assured that this shall be his eternal condition. For this nature demands, and nature is not fully and perfectly blessed till it retains what it seeks. But what man is at present able to live as he wishes when it is not in his power so much as to live? He wishes to live, he is compelled to die. How then does he live as he wishes who does not live as long as he wishes? Or if he wishes to die how can he live as he wishes since he does not wish even to live? Or if he wishes to die not because he dislikes life but that after death he may live better, still he is not yet living as he wishes but only has the prospect of so living when through death he reaches that which he wishes. But admit that he lives as he wishes because he has done violence to himself and forced himself not to wish what he cannot obtain and to wish only what he can as Terence has it since you cannot do what you will, will what you can, is he therefore blessed because he is patiently wretched? For a blessed life is possessed only by the man who loves it. If it is loved and possessed it must necessarily be more ardently loved than all besides, for whatever else is loved must be loved for the sake of the blessed life. And if it is loved as it deserves to be, and the man is not blessed who does not love the blessed life as it deserves, when he who so loves it cannot but wish it to be eternal, therefore it shall then only be blessed when it is eternal. Chapter 26 In Paradise then man lived as he desired so long as he desired what God had commanded. He lived in the enjoyment of God and was good by God's goodness. He lived without any want and had it in his power so to live eternally. He had food that he might not hunger, drink that he might not thirst, the tree of life that old age might not waste him. There was in his body no corruption, nor seed of corruption, which could produce in him any unpleasant sensation. He feared no inward disease, no outward accident, soundest health blessed his body, absolute tranquility, his soul. As in Paradise there was no excessive heat or cold, so its inhabitants were exempt from the vicissitudes of fear and desire. No sadness of any kind was there nor any foolish joy, true gladness ceaselessly flowed from the presence of God who was loved out of a pure heart and a good conscience and faith unfaigned. The honest love of husband and wife made a sure harmony between them. Body and spirit worked harmoniously together and the commandment was kept without labor. No languor made their leisure wearisome, no sleepiness interrupted their desire to labor.  Neque enim cuia esperiencia probarei non potest, idio credendum non est, quando ilas corparis partis non ajaret turbidus calor, sed spontanea potestas sicut opus estet adhyberet. Ita tung potuise uturo cognugis salva integritate feminei genitalis virile semen imiti, sicut nunc potest e adem integritate salva ex uturo virgenis fluxus menstrui corrupsore imiti, e adem quipe via poset ilud in ici cuahoc potest e ici, ut enim ad pariendum non doloris gemitus sed maturitatis impulsus feminea visera relaxaret, sic adfetandum et concepiendum non libidinis apetitus sed voluntarius usus naturum utramque cognugiret. We speak of things which are now shameful, and although we try, as well as we are able, to conceive them as they were before they became shameful, yet necessity compels us rather to limit our discussion to the bounds set by modesty than to extend it as our moderate faculty of discourse might suggest. For since that which I have been speaking of was not experienced, even by those who might have experienced it, I mean our first parents, for sin and its merited banishment from paradise anticipated this passionless generation on their part. When sexual intercourse is spoken of now, it suggests to men's thoughts not such a placid obedience to the will as is conceivable in our first parents, but such violent acting of lust as they themselves have experienced. And therefore modesty shuts my mouth, although my mind conceives the matter clearly. But Almighty God, the supreme and supremely good creator of all natures, who aids and rewards good wills, while he abandons and condemns the bad, and rules both, was not destitute of a plan by which he might people his city with the fixed number of citizens which his wisdom had foreordained even out of the condemned human race, discriminating them not now by merits, since the whole mass was condemned as if in evitiated root, but by grace, and showing not only in the case of the redeemed, but also in those who were not delivered, how much grace he has bestowed upon them. For everyone acknowledges that he has been rescued from evil, not by deserved, but by gratuitous goodness, when he is singled out from the company of those with whom he might justly have borne a common punishment, and is allowed to go scathe-less. Why then should God not have created those whom he foresaw with sin, since he was able to show in and buy them both what their guilt merited, and what his grace bestowed, and since under his creating and disposing hand even the perverse disorder of the wicked could not pervert the right order of things. Chapter 27 The sins of men and angels do nothing to impede the great works of the Lord which accomplish his will, for he who by his providence and omnipotence distributes to every one his own portion, is able to make good use not only of the good, but also of the wicked, and thus making a good use of the wicked angel, who in punishment of his first wicked volition was doomed to an obduracy that prevents him now from willing any good, why should not God have permitted him to tempt the first man who had been created upright, that is to say, with a good will? For he had been so constituted that if he looked to God for help, man's goodness should defeat the angel's wickedness. But if, by proud self-pleasing, he abandoned God, his creator, and sustainer, he should be conquered. If his will remained upright, through leaning on God's help, he should be rewarded. If it became wicked by forsaking God, he should be punished. But even this trusting in God's help could not itself be accomplished without God's help, although man had it in his own power to relinquish the benefits of divine grace by pleasing himself. For as it is not in our power to live in this world without sustaining ourselves by food, while it is in our power to refuse this nourishment and cease to live, as those do who kill themselves, so it was not in man's power, even in paradise, to live as he ought without God's help. But it was in his power to live wickedly, though thus he should cut short his happiness and incur very just punishment.  It was not indeed that he was unaware that he should be conquered, but because he foresaw that by the man's seed aided by divine grace this same devil himself should be conquered to the greater glory of the saints. All was brought about in such a manner that neither did any future event escape God's foreknowledge nor did his foreknowledge compel anyone to sin, and so as to demonstrate in the experience of the intelligent creation, human and angelic, how great a difference there is between the private presumption of the creature and the Creator's protection. For who will dare to believe or say that it was not in God's power to prevent both angels and men from sinning? But God preferred to leave this in their power, and thus to show both what evil could be wrought by their pride, and what good by his grace. CHAPTER XXVIII Accordingly two cities have been formed by two loves, the earthly by the love of self, even to the contempt of God, and the heavenly by the love of God, even to the contempt of self. The former in a word glories in itself, the latter in the Lord. For the one seeks glory from men, but the greatest glory of the other is God, the witness of conscience. The one lifts up its head in its own glory, the other says to its God, Thou art my glory in the lifter-up of mine head. In the one the princes and the nations it subdues are ruled by the love of ruling. In the other the princes and the subjects serve one another in love, the latter obeying while the former take thought for all. The one delights in its own strength, represented in the persons of its rulers, the other says to its God, I will love thee, O Lord, my strength. And therefore the wise men of the one city, living according to man, have sought for profit to their own bodies or souls or both, and those who have known God glorified him not as God, neither were thankful, but became vain in their imaginations and their foolish heart was darkened, professing themselves to be wise, that is, glorying in their own wisdom and being possessed by pride, they became fools and changed the glory of the incorruptible God into an image made like to corruptible man and to birds and four-footed beasts and creeping things. For they were either leaders or followers of the people and adoring images, and worshiped and served the creature more than the Creator, who is blessed forever. But in the other city there is no human wisdom, but only Godliness, which offers due worship to the true God, and looks for its reward in the society of the saints, of holy angels as well as holy men, that God may be all in all. CHAPTER XIV CHAPTERS I THROUGH SEVEN OF THE CITY OF GOD. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Darren L. Slider, www.logoslibrary.org. THE CITY OF GOD by St. Augustine of Hippo, Book 15, Chapter 1 OF THE BLISS OF PARADISE, OF PARADISE ITSELF, AND OF THE LIFE OF OUR FIRST PARENTS THERE, AND OF THEIR SIN AND PUNISHMENT, MANY HAVE THOUGHT MUCH, SPOKEN MUCH, RITTON MUCH. WE ourselves, too, have spoken of these things in the foregoing books, and have written either what we read in the holy scriptures, or what we could reasonably deduce from them. And were we to enter into a more detailed investigation of these matters, an endless number of endless questions would arise which would involve us in a larger work than the present occasion admits. We cannot be expected to find room for replying to every question that may be started by unoccupied and captious men who are ever more ready to ask questions than capable of understanding the answer. Yet I trust we have already done justice to these great and difficult questions regarding the beginning of the world, or of the soul, or of the human race itself. This race we have distributed into two parts, the one consisting of those who live according to man, the other of those who live according to God. And these we also mystically call the two cities, or the two communities of men, of which the one is predestined to reign eternally with God, and the other to suffer eternal punishment with the devil. This, however, is their end, and of it we are to speak afterwards. At present, as we have said enough about their origin, whether among the angels whose numbers we know not, or in the two first human beings, it seems suitable to attempt an account of their career from the time when our two first parents began to propagate the race until all human generation shall cease. For this whole time or world age in which the dying give place, and those who are born succeed, is the career of these two cities concerning which we treat. Of these two first parents of the human race, then, Cain was the first born, and he belonged to the city of men. After him was born Abel, who belonged to the city of God. For as in the individual the truth of the apostle's statement is discerned, that is not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural, and afterward that which is spiritual. Once it comes to pass that each man, being derived from a condemned stock, is first of all born of Adam, evil, and carnal, and becomes good and spiritual only afterwards when he is grafted into Christ by regeneration. So was it in the human race as a whole. When these two cities began to run their course by a series of deaths and births, the citizen of this world was the first born, and after him the stranger in this world, the citizen of the city of God, predestinated by grace, elected by grace, by grace a stranger below, and by grace a citizen above. By grace, for so far as regards himself, he is sprung from the same mass, all of which is condemned in its origin. But God, like a potter, for this comparison is introduced by the apostle judiciously, and not without thought, of the same lump made one vessel to honor, another to dishonor. But first the vessel to dishonor was made, and after it another to honor. For in each individual, as I have already said, there is first of all that which is reprobate, that from which we must begin, but in which we need not necessarily remain. Afterwards is that which is well approved, to which we may by advancing attain, and in which, when we have reached it, we may abide. Not indeed that every wicked man shall be good, but that no one will be good who was not, first of all, wicked. But the sooner anyone becomes a good man, the more speedily does he receive this title, and abolish the old name in the new. Accordingly it is recorded of Cain that he built a city, but Abel, being a sojourner, built none. For the city of the saints is above, although here below it begets citizens, in whom it sojourns till the time of its reign arrives, when it shall gather together all in the day of the resurrection, and then shall the promised kingdom be given to them, in which they shall reign with their prince, the king of the ages, time without end. CHAPTER II There was indeed on earth so long as it was needed a simple and foreshadowing image of this city which served the purpose of reminding men that such a city was to be rather than of making it present, and this image was itself called the holy city as a symbol of the future city, though not itself the reality. Of this city which served as an image, and of that free city it typified, Paul writes to the Galatians in these terms. Tell me, ye that desire to be under the law, do ye not hear the law? For it is written that Abraham had two sons, the one by a bondmaid, the other by a free woman. But he who was of the bondwoman was born after the flesh, but he of the free woman was by promise. Which things are an allegory? For these are the two covenants, the one from the Mount Sinai, which gendereth to bondage, which is Agar. For this Agar is Mount Sinai in Arabia, and Ansareth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all. For it is written, Rejoice, thou barren that barest not, break forth and cry, thou that travailest not, for the desolate hath many more children than she which hath an husband. Now we, brethren, as Isaac was, are the children of promise. But as then he that was born after the flesh persecuted him that was born after the spirit, even so it is now. Nevertheless, what saith the Scripture? Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with the son of the free woman. And we, brethren, are not children of the bondwoman, but of the free, in the liberty wherewith Christ hath made us free. This interpretation of the passage handed down to us with apostolic authority shows how we ought to understand the Scriptures of the two covenants, the old and the new. One portion of the earthly city became an image of the heavenly city not having a significance of its own but signifying another city and therefore serving, or being in bondage, for it was founded not for its own sake but to prefigure another city, and this shadow of a city was also itself foreshadowed by another preceding figure. For Sarah's handmaid Agar and her son were an image of this image, and as the shadows were to pass away when the full light came, Sarah, the free woman, who prefigured the free city, which again was also prefigured in another way by that shadow of a city Jerusalem, therefore said, Cast out the bondwoman and her son, for the son of the bondwoman shall not be heir with my son Isaac, or, as the apostle says, with the son of the free woman. In the earthly city, then, we find two things, its own obvious presence and its symbolic presentation of the heavenly city. Now citizens are begotten to the earthly city by nature vitiated by sin, but to the heavenly city by grace, freeing nature from sin, once the former are called vessels of wrath, the latter vessels of mercy. And this was typified in the two sons of Abraham. Ishmael, the son of Agar, the handmaid, being born according to the flesh, while Isaac was born of the free woman Sarah according to the promise. Both indeed were of Abraham's seed, but the one was begotten by natural law, the other was given by gracious promise. In the one birth human action is revealed, in the other a divine kindness comes to light. CHAPTER 3 Sarah in fact was barren, and despairing of offspring and being resolved that she would have at least for her handmaid that blessing she saw she could not in her own person procure, she gave her handmaid to her husband to whom she herself had been unable to bear children. From him she required this conjugal duty, exercising her own right in another's womb. And thus Ishmael was born according to the common law of human generation by sexual intercourse. Therefore it is said that he was born according to the flesh, not because such births are not the gifts of God nor his handiwork, whose creative wisdom reaches, as it is written, from one end to another mightily, and sweetly doth she order all things, but because in a case in which the gift of God, which was not due to men, and was the gratuitous largesse of grace, was to be conspicuous, it was requisite that a son be given in a way which no effort of nature could compass. Nature denies children to persons of the age which Abraham and Sarah had now reached. Besides that, in Sarah's case, she was barren even in her prime. This nature so constituted that offspring could not be looked for symbolized the nature of the human race vitiated by sin, and by just consequence condemned, which deserves no future felicity. Fitly, therefore, does Isaac, the child of promise, typify the children of grace, the citizens of the free city, who dwell together an everlasting peace, in which self-love and self-will have no place, but a ministering love that rejoices in the common joy of all, of many hearts makes one, that is to say, secures a perfect concord. CHAPTER IV But the earthly city which shall not be everlasting, for it will no longer be a city when it has been committed to the extreme penalty, has its good in this world, and rejoices in it with such joy as such things can afford. But as this is not a good which can discharge its devotees of all distresses, this city is often divided against itself by litigations, wars, quarrels, and such victories as are either life-destroying or short-lived. For each part of it that arms against another part of it seeks to triumph over the nations, though itself in bondage to vice. If when it is conquered it is inflated with pride, its victory is life-destroying. But if it turns its thoughts upon the common casualties of our mortal condition, and is rather anxious concerning the disasters that may befall it, then elated with the successes already achieved, this victory, though of a higher kind, is still only short-lived, for it cannot abiding the rule over those whom it has victoriously subjugated. But the things which this city desires cannot justly be said to be evil, for it is itself and its own kind better than all other human good. For it desires earthly peace for the sake of enjoying earthly goods, and it makes war in order to attain to this peace, since if it is conquered and there remains no one to resist it, it enjoys a peace which it had not while the other were opposing parties who contested for the enjoyment of those things which were too small to satisfy both. This peace is purchased by toilsome wars, it is obtained by what they style a glorious victory. Now when victory remains with the party which had the juster cause, who hesitates to congratulate the victor and style it a desirable peace? These things then are good things, and without doubt the gifts of God. But if they neglect the better things of the heavenly city, which are secured by eternal victory and peace never ending, and so inordinately covet these present good things that they believe them to be the only desirable things, or love them better than those things which are believed to be better, if this be so, then it is necessary that misery follow and ever increase. CHAPTER V Thus the founder of the earthly city was a fratricide. Overcome with envy he slew his own brother, a citizen of the eternal city, and a sojourner on earth. So that we cannot be surprised that this first specimen, or as the Greeks say, archetype of crime, should, long afterwards, find a corresponding crime at the foundation of that city which was destined to reign over so many nations, and be the head of this earthly city of which we speak. For of that city also, as one of their poets has mentioned, the first walls were stained with a brother's blood, or as Roman history records, Remus was slain by his brother Romulus. And thus there is no difference between the foundation of this city and of the earthly city, unless it be that Romulus and Remus were both citizens of the earthly city. Both desired to have the glory of founding the Roman Republic, but both could not have as much glory if one only claimed it. For he who wished to have the glory of ruling would certainly rule less if his power were shared by a living consort. In order, therefore, that the whole glory might be enjoyed by one, his consort was removed, and by this crime the empire was made larger indeed, but inferior, while otherwise it would have been less, but better. Now these brothers, Cain and Abel, were not both animated by the same earthly desires, nor did the murderer envy the other because he feared that by both ruling his own dominion would be curtailed, for Abel was not solicitous to rule in that city which his brother built. He was moved by that diabolical, envious hatred with which the evil regard the good for no other reason than because they are good while themselves are evil. For the possession of goodness is by no means diminished by being shared with a partner either permanent or temporarily assumed. On the contrary, the possession of goodness is increased in proportion to the concord and charity of each of those who share it. In short, he who is unwilling to share this possession cannot have it, and he who is most willing to admit others to a share of it will have the greatest abundance to himself. The quarrel then between Romulus and Remus shows how the earthly city is divided against itself. That which fell out between Cain and Abel illustrated the hatred that subsists between the two cities, that of God and that of men. The wicked war with the wicked. The good also war with the wicked. But with the good, good men, or at least perfectly good men, cannot war. Though, while only going on towards perfection, they war to this extent that every good man resists others in those points in which he resists himself. And in each individual the flesh lusteth against the spirit and the spirit against the flesh. This spiritual lusting therefore can be at war with the carnal lust of another man, or carnal lust may be at war with the spiritual desires of another, in some such way as good and wicked men are at war, or still more certainly the carnal lusts of two men, good but not yet perfect, contend together, just as the wicked contend with the wicked, until the health of those who are under the treatment of grace attains final victory. Chapter 6 This sickliness, that is to say, that disobedience of which we spoke in the fourteenth book, is the punishment of the first disobedience. It is therefore not nature, but vice, and therefore it is said to the good who are growing in grace, and living in this pilgrimage by faith, bear ye one another's burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.  And in another place, if a man be overtaken in a fault, ye which are spiritual restore such and 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 trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone. So too of sins which may create scandal the apostle says, them that sin rebuked before all that others also may fear. For this purpose, and that we may keep that peace without which no man can see the Lord, many precepts are given which carefully inculcate mutual forgiveness, among which we may number that terrible word in which the servant is ordered to pay his formerly remitted debt of ten thousand talents because he did not remit to his fellow servant his debt of two hundred pence. To which parable the Lord Jesus added the words, so likewise shall my heavenly Father do also unto you, if ye from your hearts forgive not everyone his brother. It is thus the citizens of the city of God are healed, while still they sojourn in this earth and sigh for the peace of their heavenly country. The Holy Spirit too works within that the medicine externally applied may have some good result. Otherwise, even though God himself make use of the creatures that are subject to him, and in some human form address our human senses, whether we receive those impressions in sleep or in some external appearance, still if he does not by his own inward grace sway and act upon the mind, no preaching of the truth is of any avail. But this God does, distinguishing between the vessels of wrath and the vessels of mercy, by his own very secret but very just providence. When he himself aides the soul in his own hidden and wonderful ways, and the sin which dwells in our members, and is, as the apostle teaches, rather the punishment of sin, does not reign in our mortal body to obey the lusts of it, and when we no longer yield our members as instruments of unrighteousness, then the soul is converted from its own evil and selfish desires, and God possessing it, it possesses itself in peace even in this life, and afterwards with perfected health and endowed with immortality will reign without sin in peace ever 7 But though God made use of this very mode of address which we have been endeavoring to explain, and spoke to Cain in that form by which he was want to accommodate himself to our first parents and converse with them as a companion, what good influence had it on Cain? Did he not fulfill his wicked intention of killing his brother even after he was warned by God's voice? For when God had made a distinction between their sacrifices, neglecting Cain's regarding Abel's, which was doubtless intimated by some visible sign to that effect, and when God had done so because the works of the one were evil but those of his brother good, Cain was very wroth, and his countenance fell. For thus it is written, and the Lord said unto Cain, Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? If thou offerest rightly, but dost not rightly distinguish, hast thou not sinned? Fret not thyself, for unto thee shall be his turning, and thou shalt rule over him. In this admonition administered by God to Cain, that clause indeed, if thou offerest rightly, but dost not rightly distinguish, hast thou not sinned, is obscure in as much as it is not apparent for what reason or purpose it was spoken, and many meanings have been put upon it as each one who discusses it attempts to interpret it according to the rule of faith. The truth is that a sacrifice is rightly offered when it is offered to the true God to whom alone we must sacrifice, and it is not rightly distinguished when we do not rightly distinguish the places or seasons or materials of the offering, or the person offering, or the person to whom it is presented, or those to whom it is distributed for food after the oblation. Distinguishing is here used for discriminating, whether when an offering is made in a place where it ought not, or of a material which ought to be offered not there but elsewhere, or when an offering is made at a wrong time, or of a material suitable not then but at some other time, or when that is offered which in no place nor any time ought to be offered, or when a man keeps to himself choice or specimens of the same kind that he offers to God, or when he or any other who may not lawfully partake profanely eats of the oblation. In which of these particulars Cain displeased God is difficult to determine, but the Apostle John, speaking of these brothers, says, not as Cain who was of that wicked one and slew his brother, and wherefore slew he him because his own works for evil and his brother's righteous. He thus gives us to understand that God did not respect his offering because it was not rightly distinguished in this that he gave to God something of his own but kept himself to himself. For this all do who follow not God's will but their own, who live not with an upright but a crooked heart, and yet offer to God such gifts as they suppose will procure from him that he aid them not by healing but by gratifying their evil passions. And this is the characteristic of the earthly city that it worships God or gods who may aid it in reigning victoriously and peacefully on earth, not through love of doing good, but through lust of rule. The good use the world that they may enjoy God, the wicked, on the contrary, that they may enjoy the world would feign use God, those of them at least to have attained to the belief that he is and takes an interest in human affairs. For they who have not yet attained even to this belief are still at a much lower level. Cain then, when he saw that God had respect to his brother's sacrifice but not to his own, should have humbly chosen his good brother as his example and not proudly counted him his rival. But he was wroth and his countenance fell. This angry regret for another person's goodness, even his brothers, was charged upon him by God as a great sin, and he accused him of it in the interrogation, Why art thou wroth, and why is thy countenance fallen? For God saw that he envied his brother, and of this he accused him. For to men from whom the heart of their fellow is hid, it might be doubtful and quite uncertain whether that sadness bewailed his own wickedness by which, as he had learned, he had displeased God, or his brother's goodness, which had pleased God, and won his favorable regard to his sacrifice. But God, in giving the reason why he refused to accept Cain's offering, and why Cain should rather have been displeased at himself than at his brother, shows him that though he was unjust and not rightly distinguishing, that is, not rightly living, and being unworthy to have his offering received, he was more unjust by far in hating his just brother without a cause. Yet he does not dismiss him without counsel, holy, just, and good. Fret not thyself, he says, for unto thee shall be his turning, and thou shalt rule over him. Over his brother, does he mean? Most certainly not. Over what, then, but sin? For he had said, Thou hast sinned, and then he added, Fret not thyself, for to thee shall be its turning, and thou shalt rule over it. And the turning of sin to the man can be understood of his conviction that the guilt of sin can be laid at no other man's door but his own. For this is the health-giving medicine of penitence and the fit plea for pardon, so that when it is said, To thee its turning, we must not supply, shall be, but we must read, To thee let its turning be, understanding it as a command, not as a prediction. For then shall a man rule over his sin, when he does not prefer it to himself, and defend it, but subjects it by repentance. Otherwise he that becomes protector of it shall surely become its prisoner. But if we understand this sin to be that carnal concubiscence of which the apostle says, The flesh lusteth against the spirit, among the fruits of which lust he names envy, by which assuredly Cain was stung and excited to destroy his brother, then we may properly supply the words shall be, and read, To thee shall be its turning, and thou shalt rule over it. For when the carnal part which the apostle calls sin, in that place where he says, It is not I who do it, but sin that dwelleth in me, that part which the philosophers also call vicious, and which ought not to lead the mind, but which the mind ought to rule and restrain by reason from illicit motions, when then this part has been moved to perpetrate any wickedness, if it be curbed, and if it obey the word of the apostle, yield not your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin, it is turned towards the mind, and subdued and conquered by it, so that reason rules over it as a subject. It was this which God enjoined on him who was kindled with the fire of envy against his brother, so that he sought to put out of the way him whom he should have set as an example. Fret not thyself, or compose thyself, he says, Withhold thy hand from crime, let not sin reign in your mortal body to fulfill it in the lusts thereof, nor yield your members instruments of unrighteousness unto sin. For to thee shall be its turning, so long as you do not encourage it by giving it the rain, but bridle it by quenching its fire. And thou shalt rule over it, for when it is not allowed any external actings it yields itself to the rule of the governing mind and righteous will, and ceases from even internal motions. There is something similar said in the same divine book of the woman when God questioned and judged them after their sin and pronounced sentence on them all, the devil in the form of the serpent, the woman and her husband in their own persons. For when he had said to her, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception, in sorrow shalt thou bring forth children, then he added, and thy turning shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee. What is said to Cain about his sin or about the vicious concupiscence of his flesh is hearset of the woman who had sinned, and we are to understand that the husband is to rule his wife as the soul rules the flesh. And therefore, says the apostle, he that loveth his wife loveth himself, for no man ever yet hated his own flesh. This flesh, then, is to be healed because it belongs to ourselves, is not to be abandoned to destruction as if it were alien to our nature. But Cain received that counsel of God in the spirit of one who did not wish to amend. In fact, the vice of envy grew stronger in him, and having entrapped his brother, he slew him. Such was the founder of the earthly city. He was also a figure of the Jews who slew Christ the shepherd of the flock of men, prefigured by Abel the shepherd of sheep. But as this is an allegorical and prophetical matter, I forbear to explain it now. Besides, I remember that I have made some remarks upon it in writing against Faustus the Manichean. CHAPTER 8 At present it is the history which I aim at defending that scripture may not be reckoned incredible when it relates that one man built a city at a time in which there seemed to have been but four men upon earth, or rather indeed but three after one brother slew the other. To wit the first man, the father of all, and Cain himself, and his son Enoch by whose name the city was itself cold. But they who were moved by this consideration forget to take into account that the writer of the sacred history does not necessarily mention all the men who might be alive at that time, but those only whom the scope of his work required him to name. The design of that writer, who in this matter was the instrument of the Holy Ghost, was to descend to Abraham through the successions of ascertained generations propagated from one man, and then to pass from Abraham's seed to the people of God, in whom, separated as they were from other nations, was prefigured and predicted all that relates to the city whose reign is eternal and to its King and Founder, Christ, which things were foreseen in the spirit as destined to come. Yet neither is this object so effected as that nothing is said of the other society of men which we call the earthly city, but mention is made of it so far as seemed needful to enhance the glory of the heavenly city by contrast to its opposite. Accordingly when the Divine Scripture in mentioning the number of years which those men lived concludes its account of each man of whom it speaks, with the words, and he begat sons and daughters, and all his days were so and so, and he died, are we to understand that because it does not name those sons and daughters, therefore during that long term of years over which one lifetime extended in those early days, there might not have been born very many men by whose united numbers not one but several cities might have been built. But it suited the purpose of God by whose inspiration these histories were composed to arrange and distinguish from the first these two societies and their several generations, that on the one side the generations of men, that is to say, of those who live according to man, and on the other side the generations of the sons of God, that is to say, of men living according to God, might be traced down together and yet apart from one another as far as the Deluge, at which point their dissociation and association are exhibited. Their dissociation in as much as the generations of both lines are recorded in separate tables, the one line descending from the fratricide cane, the other from Seth, who had been born to Adam instead of him whom his brother slew. Their association in as much as the good so deteriorated that the whole race became of such a character that it was swept away by the Deluge, with the exception of one just man whose name was Noah, and his wife and three sons and three daughters-in-law, which eight persons were alone deemed worthy to escape from that desolating visitation which destroyed whole men. Therefore, although it is written, and Cain knew his wife, and she conceived, and bear Enoch, and he builded a city, and called the name of the city after the name of his son Enoch, it does not follow that we are to believe this to have been his first born, for we cannot suppose that this is proved by the expression he knew his wife, as if then for the first time he had had intercourse with her. For in the case of Adam, the father of all, this expression is used not only when Cain, who seems to have been his first born, was conceived, but also afterwards the same scripture says, Adam knew Eve his wife, and she conceived, and bear a son, and called his name Seth. Once it is obvious that scripture employs this expression neither always when a birth is recorded, nor then only when the birth of a first born is mentioned. Neither is it necessary to suppose that Enoch was Cain's first born because he named his city after him, for it is quite possible that though he had other sons, yet for some reason the father loved him more than the rest. Judah was not the first born, though he gives his name to Judea and the Jews. But even though Enoch was the first born of the city's founder, that is no reason for supposing that the father named the city after him as soon as he was born, for at that time he, being but a solitary man, could not have founded a civic community, which is nothing else than a multitude of men bound together by some associating tie. But when his family increased to such numbers that he had quite a population, then it became possible to him both to build a city and give it when founded the name of his son. For so long was the life of those antediluvians that he who lived the shortest time of those whose years are mentioned in Scripture attained to the age of 753 years. And though no one attained the age of a thousand years, several exceeded the age of nine hundred. Who then can doubt that during the lifetime of one man the human race might be so multiplied that there would be a population to build and occupy not one but several cities. And this might very readily be conjectured from the fact that from one man, Abraham, in not much more than four hundred years, the numbers of the Hebrew race so increased that in the exodus of that people from Egypt, there are recorded to have been six hundred thousand men capable of bearing arms, and this over and above the Idomians, who though not numbered with Israel's descendants, were yet sprung from his brother, also a grandson of Abraham, and over and above the other nations which were of the same stock of Abraham, though not through Sarah. That is, his descendants by Hagar and Ketura, the Ishmaelites, Midianites, etc. CHAPTER IX Wherefore no one who considerably weighs facts will doubt that Cain might have built a city and that a large one, when it is observed how prolonged were the lives of men, unless perhaps some skeptic take exception to this very length of years which are authors ascribed to the anti-Diluvians and deny that this is credible. And so too they do not believe that the size of men's bodies was larger then than now, though the most esteemed of their own poets, Virgil, asserts the same when he speaks of that huge stone which had been fixed as a landmark, and which a strong man of those ancient times snatched up as he fought, and ran, and hurled, and cast it. Scarce twelve strong men of later mold that weight could on their necks uphold, thus declaring his opinion that the earth then produced mightier men. And if in the more recent times how much more in the ages before the world renowned deluge. But the large size of the primitive human body is often proved to the incredulous by the exposure of sepulchres, other through the wear of time or the violence of torrents or some accident, and in which bones of incredible size have been found or have rolled out. I myself, along with some others, saw on the shore at Utica a man's molar tooth of such a size that if it were cut down into teeth such as we have, a hundred, I fancy, could have been made out of it. But that, I believe, belonged to some giant. For though the bodies of ordinary men were then larger than ours, the giants surpassed all in stature. And neither in our own age nor any other had there been altogether wanting instances of gigantic stature, though they may be few. The younger Pliny, a most learned man, maintains that the older the world becomes, the smaller will be the bodies of men. And he mentions that Homer, in his poems, often lamented the same decline. In this he does not laugh at as a poetical figment, but in his character of a recorder of natural wonders accepts it as historically true. But, as I said, the bones which are from time to time discovered prove the size of the bodies of the ancients, and will do so to future ages, for they are slow to decay. But the length of an antediluvian's life cannot now be proved by any such monumental evidence. But we are not on this account to withhold our faith from the sacred history whose statements have passed fact where the more inexcusable and discrediting as we see the accuracy of its prediction of what was future. And even that same Pliny tells us that there is still a nation in which men live two hundred years. If then, in places unknown to us, men are believed to have a length of days which is quite beyond our own evidence, why should we not believe the same of times distant from our own? Or are we to believe that in other places there is what is not here, while we do not believe that in other times there has been anything but what is now? CHAPTER X Wherefore, although there is a discrepancy for which I cannot account between our manuscripts and the Hebrew, in the very number of years assigned to the antediluvians, yet the discrepancy is not so great that they do not agree about their longevity. For the very first man, Adam, before he begot his son Seth, is in our manuscripts found to have lived two hundred and thirty years, but in the Hebrew manuscripts one hundred and thirty. But after he begot Seth, our copies read that he lived seven hundred years, while the Hebrew give eight hundred. And thus when the two periods are taken together the sum agrees. And so throughout the succeeding generations the period before the father begets a son is always made shorter by one hundred years in the Hebrew, but the period after his son is begotten is longer by one hundred years in the Hebrew than in our copies. And thus taking the two periods together the result is the same in both. And in the sixth generation there is no discrepancy at all. In the seventh, however, of which Enoch is the representative who is recorded to have been translated without death because he pleased God, there is the same discrepancy as in the first five generations, one hundred years more being ascribed to him by our manuscripts before he begot a son. But still the result agrees, for according to both documents he lived before he was translated three hundred and sixty-five years. In the eighth generation the discrepancy is less than in the others and of a different kind, for Methuselah, whom Enoch begot, lived before he begot his successor not one hundred years less, but one hundred years more according to the Hebrew reading. And in our manuscripts again these years are added to the period after he begot his son, so that in this case also the sum total is the same. And it is only in the ninth generation, that is, in the age of Lamech, Methuselah's son and Noah's father, that there is a discrepancy in the sum total, and even in this case it is slight. For the Hebrew manuscripts represent him as living twenty-four years more than ours assigned to him. For before he begot his son, who was called Noah, six years fewer are given to him by the Hebrew manuscripts than by ours, but after he begot this son they give him thirty years more than ours, so that deducting the former six there remains, as we said, a surplus of twenty-four. CHAPTER XI From this discrepancy between the Hebrew books and our own arises the well-known question as to the age of Methuselah. For it is computed that he lived for fourteen years after the deluge though scripture relates that of all who were then upon the earth only the eight souls in the ark escaped destruction by the flood, and of these Methuselah was not one. For according to our books Methuselah before he begot the son whom he called Lamech lived one hundred and sixty-seven years, then Lamech himself before his son Noah was born lived one hundred and eighty-eight years which together make three hundred and fifty-five years. Add to these the age of Noah at the date of the deluge, six hundred years, and this gives a total of nine hundred and fifty-five from the birth of Methuselah to the year of the flood. Now all the years of the life of Methuselah are computed to be nine hundred and sixty-nine. For when he had lived one hundred and sixty-seven years and had begotten his son Lamech he then lived after this eight hundred and two years which makes a total, as we said, of nine hundred and sixty-nine years. From this if we deduct nine hundred and fifty-five years from the birth of Methuselah to the flood there remains fourteen years which he is supposed to have lived after the flood, and therefore some suppose that though he was not on earth in which it is agreed that every living thing which could not naturally live in water perished, he was for a time with his father who had been translated and that he lived there till the flood had passed away. This hypothesis they adopt that they may not cast a slight on the trustworthiness of versions which the church has received into a position of high authority, and because they believe that the Jewish manuscripts, rather than our own, are an error. For they do not admit that this is a mistake of the translators, but maintain that there is a falsified statement in the original from which, through the Greek, the scripture has been translated into our own tongue. They say that it is not credible that the seventy translators who simultaneously and unanimously produced one rendering could have aired, or in a case in which no interest of theirs was involved, could have falsified their translation, but that the Jews, envying us our translation of their law and prophets, have made alterations in their texts so as to undermine the authority of ours. This opinion or suspicion let each man adopt according to his own judgment. Certain it is that Methuselah did not survive the flood but died in the very year it occurred if the numbers given in the Hebrew manuscripts are true. My own opinion regarding the seventy translators I will, with God's help, state more carefully in its own place when I have come down, following the order which this work requires, to that period in which their translation was executed. For the present question it is enough that according to our versions the men of that age had lives so long as to make it quite possible that during the lifetime of the firstborn of the two sole parents then on earth the human race multiplied sufficiently to form a community. CHAPTER XII For they are by no means to be listened to who suppose that in those times years were differently reckoned and were so short that one of our years may be supposed to be equal to ten of theirs, so that they say, when we read or hear that some man lived nine hundred years, we should understand ninety ten of those years making but one of ours and ten of ours equaling one hundred of theirs. Consequently, as they suppose, Adam was twenty-three years of age when he begat Seth, and Seth himself was twenty years and six months old when his son Enos was born, though the scripture calls these months two hundred and five years. For on the hypothesis of those whose opinion we are explaining, it was customary to divide one such year as we have into ten parts, and to call each part a year. And each of these parts was composed of six days squared, God finished his works in six days that he might rest the seventh. Of this I disputed according to my ability in the eleventh book. Now six squared or six times six gives thirty-six days, and this multiplied by ten amounts to three hundred and sixty days, or twelve lunar months. As for the remaining five days, which are needed to complete the solar year, and for the fourth part of a day which requires that into every fourth or leap year a day be added, the ancients added such days as the Romans used to call intercalary in order to complete the number of the years. So that Enos, Seth's son, was nineteen years old when his son Canaan was born, though scripture calls these years one hundred and ninety. And so, through all the generations in which the ages of the anti-Diluvians are given, we find in our versions that almost no one begat a son at the age of one hundred or under, or even at the age of one hundred and twenty, or thereabouts, but the youngest fathers are recorded to have been one hundred and sixty years old and upwards. And the reason of this, they say, is that no one can begat children when he is ten years old, the age spoken of by those men is one hundred, but that sixteen is the age of puberty and competent now to propagate offspring, and this is the age called by them one hundred and sixty. And that it may not be thought incredible that in these days the year was differently computed from our own, they adduce what is recorded by several writers of history that the Egyptians had a year of four months, and the Eccarnanians of six, and the Lavinians of thirteen months. The younger Pliny, after mentioning that some writers reported that one man had lived one hundred and fifty-two years, another ten more, others two hundred, others three hundred, that some had even reached five hundred and six hundred, and a few eight hundred years of age, gave it as his opinion that all this must be ascribed to mistaken computation. For some, he says, make summer and winter each a year, others make each season a year, like the Arcadians, whose years, he says, were of three months. He added, too, that the Egyptians of whose little years of four months we have spoken already sometimes terminated their year at the wane of each moon, so that with them there are produced lifetimes of one thousand years. By these plausible arguments certain persons with no desire to weaken the credit of this sacred history, but rather to facilitate belief in it by removing the difficulty of such incredible longevity, have been themselves persuaded and think they act wisely in persuading others, that in these days the year was so brief that ten of their years equal but one of ours, while ten of ours equal one hundred of theirs. But there is the plainest evidence to show that this is quite false. Before producing this evidence, however, it seems right to mention a conjecture which is yet more plausible. From the Hebrew manuscripts we could at once refute this confident statement, for in them Adam is found to have lived not two hundred and thirty, but one hundred and thirty years before he begat his third son. If then this mean thirteen years, by our ordinary computation, then he must have begotten his first son when he was only twelve thereabouts. Who can at this age beget children according to the ordinary and familiar course of nature? But not to mention him, since it is possible he may have been able to begot his like as soon as he was created, for it is not credible that he was created so little as our infants are. Not to mention him, his son was not two hundred and five years old when he begot Enos as our versions have it, but one hundred and five, and consequently, according to this idea, was not eleven years old. But what shall I say of his son Canaan, who, though by our version one hundred and seventy years old, was by the Hebrew text seventy when he begot Mahalleliel? Of seventy years and those times meant only seven of our years, what man of seven years old begets children? CHAPTER XIII But if I say this, I shall presently be answered, it is one of the Jews lies. This, however, we have disposed of above, showing that it cannot be that men of so just a reputation as the seventy translators should have falsified their version. However, if I ask them which of the two is more credible, that the Jewish nations scattered far and wide could have unanimously conspired to forge this lie, and so through envying others the authority of their scriptures have deprived themselves of their verity, or that seventy men, who were also themselves Jews, shut up in one place, Vertolomy king of Egypt had got them together for this work, should have envied foreign nations that same truth, and by common consent inserted these errors, who does not see which can be more naturally and readily believed. But far be it from any prudent man to believe either that the Jews, however malicious and wrong-headed, could have tampered with so many and so widely dispersed manuscripts, or that those renowned seventy individuals had any common purpose to grudge the truth to the nations. One must therefore more plausibly maintain that when first their labors began to be transcribed from the copy in Ptolemy's library, some such misstatement might find its way into the first copy made, and from it might be disseminated far and wide, and that this might arise from no fraud, but from a mere copyist's error. This is a sufficiently plausible account of the difficulty regarding Methuselah's life, and of that other case in which there is a difference in the total of twenty-four years. But in those cases in which there is a methodical resemblance in the falsification, so that uniformly the one version allots to the period before a son and successor is born one hundred years more than the other, and to the period subsequent one hundred years less, and vice versa, so that the totals may agree, and this holds true of the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh generations. In these cases error seems to have, if we may say so, a certain kind of constancy, and savers not of accident, but of design. Accordingly, that diversity of numbers which distinguishes the Hebrew from the Greek and Latin copies of Scripture, in which consists of a uniform addition and deduction of one hundred years in each lifetime for several consecutive generations, is to be attributed neither to the malice of the Jews nor to men so diligent and prudent as the seventy translators, but to the error of the copyist who was first allowed to transcribe the manuscript from the library of the above-mentioned king. For even now, in cases where numbers contribute nothing to the easier comprehension or more satisfactory knowledge of anything, they are both carelessly transcribed and still more carelessly amended. For who will trouble himself to learn how many thousand men the several tribes of Israel contained? He sees no resulting benefit of such knowledge. Or how many men are there who are aware of the vast advantage that lies hid in this knowledge? But in this case, in which during so many consecutive generations one hundred years are added in one manuscript where they are not reckoned in the other, and then after the birth of the Son and successor the years which were wanting are added, it is obvious that the copyist who contrived this arrangement designed to insinuate that the anti-Diluvians lived an excessive number of years only because each year was excessively brief, and that he tried to draw the attention to this fact by his statement of their age of puberty in which they became able to beget children. For lest the incredulous might stumble at the difficulty of so long a lifetime, he insinuated that one hundred of their years equaled but ten of ours, and this insinuation he conveyed by adding one hundred years whenever he found the age below one hundred and sixty years or thereabouts, deducting these years again from the period after the Son's birth that the total might harmonize. By this means he intended to ascribe the generation of offspring to a fit age without diminishing the total sum of years ascribed to the lifetime of the individuals. And the very fact that in the sixth generation he departed from this uniform practice inclines us all the rather to believe that when the circumstance we have referred to required his alterations he made them, seeing that when this circumstance did not exist he made no alteration. For in the same generation he found in the Hebrew manuscript that Jared lived before he begat Enoch one hundred and sixty two years, which according to the short year computation is sixteen years and somewhat less than two months, an age capable of procreation, and therefore it was not necessary to add one hundred short years and so make the age twenty-six years of the usual length, and of course it was not necessary to deduct after the Son's birth years which he had not added before it, and thus it comes to pass that in this instance there is no variation between the two manuscripts. This is corroborated still further by the fact that in the eighth generation while the Hebrew books assign one hundred and eighty-two years to Methuselah before Lamech's birth, ours assigned to him twenty less, though usually one hundred years are added to this period. Then after Lamech's birth the twenty years are restored so as to equalize the total in the two books. For if his design was that these one hundred and seventy years be understood as seventeen, so as to suit the age of puberty, as there was no need for him adding anything, so there was none for his subtracting anything. For in this case he found an age fit for the generation of children, for the sake of which he was in the habit of adding those one hundred years in cases where he did not find the age already sufficient. This difference of twenty years we might indeed have supposed had happened accidentally had he not taken care to restore them afterwards as he had deducted them from the period before so that there might be no deficiency in the total. Or are we perhaps to suppose that there was still more astute design of concealing the deliberate and uniform addition of one hundred years to the first period and their deduction from the subsequent period? Did he design to conceal this by doing something similar, that is to say adding and deducting not indeed a century, but some years, even in a case in which there was no need for his doing so? But whatever may be thought of this, whether it be believed that he did so or not, whether in fine it be so or not, I would have no manner of doubt that when any diversity is found in the books, since both cannot be true to fact, we do well to believe in preference that language out of which the translation was made into another by translators. For there are three Greek manuscripts, one Latin, and one Syriac, which agree with one another, and in all of these Methuselah is said to have died six years before the deluge. CHAPTER XIV Let us now see how it can be plainly made out that in the enormously protracted lives of those men the years were not so short that ten of their years were equal to only one of ours, but were of as great length as our own, which are measured by the course of the sun. It is proved by this that scripture states that the flood occurred in the six-hundredth year of Noah's life. But why in the same place is it also written the waters of the flood were upon the earth in the six-hundredth year of Noah's life in the second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month, if that very brief year, of which it took ten to make one of ours, consisted of thirty-six days? For so scant a year if the ancient usage dignified it with a name of year, either has not months, or this month must be three days so that it may have twelve of them. How then was it here said, in the six-hundredth year, the second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month, unless the months then were of the same length as the months now? For how else could it be said that the flood began on the twenty-seventh day of the second month? Then afterwards at the end of the flood it is thus written, when the ark rested in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat, and the waters decreased continually until the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, were the tops of the mountains seen. But if the months were such as we have, then so were the years, and certainly months of three days each could not have a twenty-seventh day. Or if every measure of time was diminished in proportion and the thirtieth part of three days was then cold a day, then that great deluge which was recorded to have lasted forty days and forty nights was really over in less than four of our days. Who can away with such foolishness and absurdity? Far be this error from us, an error which seeks to build up our faith in the Divine Scriptures on false conjecture, only to demolish our faith at another point. It is plain that the day then was what it is now, a space of four and twenty hours determined by the lapse of day and night. The month then equal to the month now, which is defined by the rise and completion of one moon. The year then equal to the year now, which is completed by twelve lunar months, with the addition of five days and a fourth to adjust it with the course of the sun. It was a year of this length which was reckoned the six-hundredth of Noah's life, and in the second month, the twenty-seventh day of the month, the flood began. A flood which, as is recorded, was caused by heavy rains continuing for forty days, which days had not only two hours and a little more, but four and twenty hours completing a night and a day. And consequently those antediluvians lived more than nine hundred years, which were years as long as those which afterwards Abraham lived one hundred and seventy five of, and after him his son Isaac one hundred and eighty, and his son Jacob nearly one hundred and fifty, and some time after Moses one hundred and twenty, and men now seventy or eighty, or not much longer, of which years it is said, their strength is labor and sorrow. But that discrepancy of numbers which is found to exist between our own and the Hebrew text does not touch the longevity of the ancients, and if there is any diversity so great that both versions cannot be true, we must take our ideas of the real facts from that text out of which our own version has been translated. However, though any one who pleases has it in his power to correct this version, yet it is not unimportant to observe that no one has presumed to amend the Septuagint from the Hebrew text in the many places where they seem to disagree. For this difference has not been reckoned a falsification, and for my own part I am persuaded it ought not to be reckoned so. But where the difference is not a mere copyist's error, and where the sense is agreeable to truth and illustrative of truth, we must believe that the Divine Spirit prompted them to give a varying version, not in their function of translators, but in the liberty of prophesying. And therefore we find that the apostles justly sanctioned the Septuagint by quoting it as well as the Hebrew when they adduced proofs from the Scriptures. But as I have promised to treat this subject more carefully, if God helped me, in a more fitting place, I will now go on with the matter in hand. For there can be no doubt that the lives of men being so long the firstborn of the first men could have built a city. A city, however, which was earthly, and not that which is called the City of God, to describe which we have taken in hand this great work.