City of God 15.10–15.15

Chapter 10. On the difference by which the numbers of years seem to disagree between the Hebrew manuscripts and ours.

Therefore, although there appears to be some discrepancy about the number of years between the Hebrew manuscripts and ours, how it came about I do not know, it is not so great that they disagree about those men having been so long-lived. For the first man himself, Adam, is found in our manuscripts to have lived two hundred and thirty years before he begot the son who was called Seth, but in the Hebrew one hundred and thirty; but after he begot him, he is read to have lived seven hundred years in ours, but eight hundred in theirs; and so in both the grand total agrees. Then, through the following generations, before the son whose begetting is recorded was begotten, his father is found in the Hebrew to have lived a hundred years less; but after that son was begotten, a hundred years fewer are found in ours than in the Hebrew; and so on either side the total number agrees. In the sixth generation the two sets of manuscripts nowhere disagree. In the seventh, where Enoch, who was born, is said not to have died but to have been translated because he pleased God, there is the same discrepancy of a hundred years, as in the five preceding ones, before he begot the son there named, and the same agreement in the total. For according to both sets of manuscripts he lived three hundred and sixty-five years before he was translated. The eighth generation has some difference indeed, but smaller than and unlike the others. For Methuselah, whom Enoch begot, lived before he begot the one who follows in the line, according to the Hebrew, not a hundred years less but twenty more; and these are found added again in ours after he begot him, and in both the sum of the whole number comes out the same. Only in the ninth generation, that is, in the years of Lamech, son of Methuselah and father of Noah, does the grand total differ, but not by much. For he is found to have lived twenty-four years more in the Hebrew than in our manuscripts. For before he begot the son who was called Noah, he has six fewer years in the Hebrew than in ours; but after he begot him, thirty more in the same than in ours. So when those six are subtracted, twenty-four remain, as has been said.

Chapter 11. On the years of Methuselah, whose age seems to extend fourteen years beyond the flood.

From this discrepancy between the Hebrew manuscripts and ours arises that most famous question, in which Methuselah is reckoned to have lived fourteen years after the flood, although Scripture records that of all who were then on earth only eight people escaped the destruction of the flood in the ark, and Methuselah was not among them. For according to our manuscripts Methuselah lived one hundred and sixty-seven years before he begot the one he called Lamech; then Lamech himself lived one hundred and eighty-eight years before Noah was born of him, which together make three hundred and fifty-five; to these are added the six hundred of Noah, in the six hundredth year of whose life the flood came; which makes nine hundred and fifty-five from the birth of Methuselah to the year of the flood. But all the years of Methuselah's life are reckoned as nine hundred and sixty-nine, because, having lived one hundred and sixty-seven years and begotten the son called Lamech, he lived after begetting him eight hundred and two years; and all of them, as we have said, make nine hundred and sixty-nine. Hence, when the nine hundred and fifty-five from Methuselah's birth to the flood are subtracted, fourteen remain, which he is believed to have lived after the flood. For this reason some think that he was for a time with his father, who had been translated, though not on the earth, where it is agreed that all flesh which nature does not allow to live in water was destroyed, and that he lived there until the flood was past. They do not wish to withdraw faith from the manuscripts which the Church has received into the more widely recognized authority, and they believe that it is rather those of the Jews that do not have the truth than these. For they do not admit that the error here could more likely be the translators' than a falsehood in the language from which Scripture itself was translated, through the Greek, into ours; but they say it is not credible that the seventy translators, who translated at one time and with one sense, could have erred, or would have wished to lie where it did not matter to them; whereas the Jews, envying us because the law and the prophets have passed over to us by translation, changed some things in their manuscripts to lessen the authority of ours. Let each take this opinion or suspicion as he thinks fit; it is certain, however, that Methuselah did not live after the flood but died in the same year, if what is found in the Hebrew manuscripts about the number of years is true. What I think of those seventy translators must be set out more carefully in its proper place, when, with the Lord's help, we come to those times themselves, as far as the needs of this work require. For the present question it is enough that according to both sets of manuscripts the men of that age had lives so long that within the lifetime of one man, the first born of the only two parents the earth then had, the human race could have multiplied enough even to establish a city.

Chapter 12. On the opinion of those who do not believe that the men of the earliest times were as long-lived as is written.

For those are by no means to be listened to who think that years were reckoned differently in those times, that is, were so short that one year of ours is believed to have contained ten of theirs. Therefore, they say, when anyone hears or reads that someone lived nine hundred years, he ought to understand ninety; for ten of those years are one of ours, and ten of ours were a hundred of theirs. And so, as they think, Adam was twenty-three years old when he begot Seth, and Seth himself was twenty years and six months old when Enosh was born of him, which Scripture calls two hundred and five years. For, as those whose opinion we are setting out suppose, the men of that time divided one year such as we have now into ten parts and called these parts years. Each of these parts contains the square of six, because God completed his works in six days in order to rest on the seventh (on which I have argued, as best I could, in the eleventh book); and six times six, which makes the square of six, is thirty-six days, which multiplied by ten reach three hundred and sixty, that is, twelve lunar months. For because of the five remaining days by which the solar year is completed, and the quarter of a day, because of which, taken four times, one day is added in the year they call bissextile, the ancients afterwards added days to make the number of the years come out, which days the Romans called intercalary. So also Enosh, whom Seth begot, was nineteen years old when his son Kenan was born of him, which years Scripture calls one hundred and ninety. And so through all the generations in which the years of men are recorded before the flood, hardly anyone is found in our manuscripts who begot a son when he was a hundred years old or less, or even one hundred and twenty or not much more; but those who begot at the youngest age are reported to have been one hundred and sixty and somewhat over. For no man ten years old, they say, can beget sons, and that number was called a hundred years by those men; but at sixteen puberty is mature and already fit to beget offspring, and those times called that one hundred and sixty years.

And to make it not incredible that the year was then reckoned differently, they add what is found in many writers of history: that the Egyptians had a year of four months, the Acarnanians of six months, the Lavinians of thirteen months. Pliny the Elder, having mentioned that it was recorded in writing that a certain man lived one hundred and fifty-two ⟨years⟩, another ten more, that others had a life of two hundred years, others of three hundred, some reached five hundred, others six hundred, and some even eight hundred, judged that all this happened through ignorance of the reckoning of time. “For some,” he says, “marked off ⟨one⟩ year by summer and another by winter; others by the four seasons, like the Arcadians,” he says, “whose years were of three months.” He added that the Egyptians, whose short years we said above were of four months, at one time bounded the year by the end of the moon. “So among them,” he says, “people are reported to have lived even a thousand years each.” By these seemingly probable arguments certain people, not overturning the credibility of this sacred history but trying to support it, so that it may not be incredible that the ancients are reported to have lived so many years, have persuaded themselves, and do not think the persuasion shameless, that so small a span of time was then called a year that ten of them are one of ours, and ten of ours a hundred of theirs.

But that this is utterly false is shown by the clearest evidence. Before I do that, however, it seems to me I should not keep silent about a suspicion that could be more credible. We could certainly refute and disprove this assertion from the Hebrew manuscripts, where Adam is found to have been not two hundred and thirty but one hundred and thirty years old when he begot his third son. If these years are thirteen of ours, then without doubt, when he begot his first son, he was eleven years old or not much more. Who can beget at this age by that ordinary law of nature so well known to us? But let us leave him aside, since perhaps he could do so even when he was created; for it is not credible that he was made as small as our infants are. His son Seth was not two hundred and five years old, as we read, but one hundred and five, when he begot Enosh; and so, according to these people, he was not yet eleven years old. What shall I say of his son Kenan, who, while in our manuscripts he is found to have been one hundred and seventy years old when he begot Mahalalel, is read in the Hebrew to have been seventy? What man begets at seven, if the years then called seventy were seven?

Chapter 13. Whether, in counting years, the authority of the Hebrews rather than that of the seventy translators should be followed.

But when I have said this, it will at once be answered that this is that lie of the Jews which has been sufficiently dealt with above; for the seventy translators, men justly praised and renowned, could not have lied. If I ask here which is more credible, that the nation of the Jews, spread so far and wide, could have conspired with one purpose in writing down this lie, and, while grudging others authority, deprived themselves of the truth; or that seventy men, who were themselves Jews, gathered in one place (since Ptolemy, king of Egypt, had summoned them for this work), grudged the truth itself to foreign nations and did so by common counsel: who does not see which is more readily and easily believed? But far be it from any sensible person to believe either that the Jews, however perverse and malicious, could have done so much in so many manuscripts scattered so far and wide, or that those seventy memorable men agreed on one plan to grudge the nations the truth. One would more credibly say, then, that when these books first began to be copied from Ptolemy's library, something of the kind could have happened in one manuscript, but the one first copied from there, from which it spread more widely; where even a copyist's error could have occurred. This it is not absurd to suspect in the question about Methuselah's life, and in that other case where the total does not agree by an excess of twenty-four years. But in those cases where the same pattern of error continues, so that before the begetting of the son who is placed in the line a hundred years are in excess in one text and lacking in the other, while after his begetting they are in excess where they were lacking and lacking where they were in excess, so that the total agrees, and this is found in the first, second, third, fourth, fifth, and seventh generations, the error itself seems to have, if one may say so, a certain consistency, and smacks not of chance but of design.

Therefore let that difference of numbers, which stand one way in the Greek and Latin manuscripts and another way in the Hebrew, where this uniformity of a hundred years first added and afterwards subtracted is not continued through so many generations, be attributed neither to the malice of the Jews nor to the diligence or prudence of the seventy translators, but to the error of the copyist who first received the manuscript to be copied from the library of the king mentioned above. For even now, where numbers do not draw attention to something that can easily be understood or that clearly seems useful to learn, they are both carelessly copied and still more carelessly corrected. For who thinks he must learn how many thousands of men each of the tribes of Israel could have had? since it is not thought to be of any use; and how few people there are to whom the depth of its usefulness is apparent! But here, where through so many successive generations a hundred years are present in one place and absent in another, and after the birth of the son who was to be recorded they are absent where they had been present and present where they had been absent, so that the total agrees: clearly, the one who did this wanted to persuade people that the ancients lived very many years because they called very short periods years, and he tried to show this from the maturity of puberty at which they would be fit to beget sons; and so he thought that ten of our years should be suggested to the unbelieving in those hundred years, lest they refuse to believe that men lived so long; he added a hundred where he did not find an age fit for begetting sons, and after the sons were begotten he took away the same years so that the total would agree. In this way he wished to make credible the suitability of the ages fit for begetting offspring, without cheating the whole ages of the individual lives of their number.

That he did not do this in the sixth generation is the very thing that makes it more persuasive that he did it when the circumstance we describe required it, because he did not do it where it did not require it. For he found in that generation in the Hebrew that Jared lived one hundred and sixty-two ⟨years⟩ before he begot Enoch, which on that reckoning of short years become sixteen years and a little less than two months; and that age is already fit for begetting. So it was not necessary to add a hundred short years to make twenty-six of ours, nor to take away after Enoch's birth what he had not added before it. So it came about that here there was no difference between the two sets of manuscripts. But again it is puzzling why in the eighth generation, before Lamech was born of Methuselah, when one hundred and eighty-two years are read in the Hebrew, twenty fewer are found in our manuscripts, where a hundred are usually added instead, and after Lamech's birth they are restored to complete the total, which does not differ in the two sets of manuscripts. For if he wanted one hundred and seventy years to be understood as seventeen because of the maturity of puberty, just as he needed to add nothing, so he ought now to take away nothing, since he had found an age fit for begetting sons, for the sake of which he added those hundred years in the other cases where he did not find it. We might rightly think that these twenty years could have happened by an accidental error, if he had not taken care to restore them afterwards, as he had taken them away before, so that the total would be kept intact. Or should we perhaps think it was done more cunningly, to conceal the device by which a hundred years are usually first added and afterwards subtracted, by doing something of the same sort even where it was not necessary, not indeed with a hundred years, but with some small number first subtracted and afterwards given back? But however this is taken, whether it is believed to have been done so or not, and finally whether it is so or not, I would by no means doubt that it is right, when something different is found in the two sets of manuscripts, since both cannot be true as to the facts of history, to believe rather the language from which the translation into another was made by translators. For in some manuscripts, three Greek, one Latin, and even one Syriac, agreeing with one another, Methuselah was found to have died six years before the flood.

Chapter 14. On the equality of years, which ran in earlier ages by the same spans as now.

Now let us see how it can be clearly shown that the years reckoned in the very long life of those men were not so short that ten of them made one of ours, but of the same length as those we have now, which are determined by the circuit of the sun. It is written, namely, that the flood took place in the six hundredth year of Noah's life. Why, then, do we read there: “And the water of the flood came upon the earth in the six hundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month”, if that tiny year, ten of which make one of ours, had thirty-six days? For so small a year, if it received this name by ancient custom, either has no months or its month is three days long, so that it may have twelve months. How, then, is it said here, “in the six hundredth year, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month”, unless the months then were such as they are now? For how else could the flood be said to have begun on the twenty-seventh day of the second month? Then afterwards, at the end of the flood, we read: “And the ark rested in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. And the water was decreasing until the eleventh month; and in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, the tops of the mountains appeared.” If, then, the months were like ours, the years too were certainly such as we have now. For those three-day months could not have had twenty-seven days. Or if a thirtieth part of three days was then called a day, so that everything is reduced in proportion, then that very great flood, which is recorded to have lasted forty days and nights, did not last even four whole days of ours. Who would put up with such absurdity and emptiness? So let this error be removed, which by a false conjecture tries to build up the credibility of our Scriptures in one place in such a way as to destroy it in another. Plainly, the day was then as long as it is now, determined by twenty-four hours in the course of day and night; the month as long as it is now, bounded by the beginning and end of the moon; the year as long as it is now, completed by twelve lunar months with five days and a quarter added for the course of the sun. Of a year of this length was the second month of Noah's six hundredth year, and its twenty-seventh day, when the flood began; in which enormous rains are recorded to have continued for forty days, days which had not two hours apiece and a little more, but twenty-four, passing through day and night. And so those ancients lived years as long, even to more than nine hundred, as the years in which Abraham later lived a hundred and seventy, and after him his son Isaac a hundred and eighty, and his son Jacob nearly a hundred and fifty; and, after some interval of time, Moses a hundred and twenty; and in which men live even now seventy or eighty or not much more, of whom it is said: “And beyond that is their toil and sorrow.”

But that variety of numbers found between the Hebrew manuscripts and ours neither disagrees about this longevity of the ancients, nor, if it contains some difference such that both cannot be true, should the truth of the facts be sought anywhere but from the language from which our text was translated. Although this means is available to anyone who wishes, among all nations, yet it is not without significance that no one has dared to correct the seventy translators from the Hebrew manuscripts in the many places where they seem to say something different. For that difference has not been thought to be an error, nor do I think it should be thought one in any way. Rather, where there is no copyist's error, it is to be believed that they wished, by the divine Spirit, to say something differently where the sense would agree with the truth and proclaim the truth, not by the task of translators but by the freedom of prophets. That is why the authority of the apostles is found rightly using not only the Hebrew but also their version when it adduces testimonies from the Scriptures. But I have promised to speak of this more carefully, if God helps me, in a more suitable place; now I will deal with what is pressing. For it is not to be doubted that a city could have been founded by the man who was born first of the first man, since they lived so long: an earthly city, of course, not the one called the city of God, which is what we have taken in hand the labor of this great work in order to write about.

Chapter 15. Whether it is credible that the men of the first age abstained from intercourse until the age at which they are reported to have begotten sons.

Someone will say, then: Are we really to believe that a man who was to beget sons, and who had no intention of continence, refrained from the act of intercourse for a hundred years and more, or, according to the Hebrew, for not much less, that is, eighty, seventy, sixty years; or, if he did not refrain, that he could beget no offspring? This question is solved in two ways. Either puberty came later in proportion as the length of the whole life was greater; or, what I see to be more credible, it is not the firstborn sons who are recorded here, but those whom the order of succession required in order to reach Noah, from whom again we see the line reaching Abraham, and then on to a certain point of time, as far as was needed to mark, even by recording generations, the course of the most glorious city on pilgrimage in this world and seeking the country above.

For what cannot be denied is that Cain was born first of all from the union of male and female. For at his birth Adam would not have said what we read he said, “I have gained a man through God”, unless he had been the first man added to those two by birth. Abel followed him, whom his elder brother killed; he first showed a kind of prefiguring of the pilgrim city of God, in that it was to suffer unjust persecutions from the ungodly and, so to speak, earth-born, that is, those who love their earthly origin and rejoice in the earthly happiness of the earthly city. But how old Adam was when he begot them is not stated. From there the generations are set out, some from Cain, others from the one whom Adam begot to succeed the one his brother killed, and whom he named Seth, saying, as it is written: “For God has raised up for me another seed in place of Abel, whom Cain killed.” Since, then, these two series of generations, one from Seth, the other from Cain, indicate in distinct lines these two cities we are dealing with, the one heavenly, on pilgrimage on earth, the other earthly, gaping after or clinging to earthly joys as though they were the only ones, no one of Cain's progeny, though it is counted to the eighth generation including Adam, has his age stated at the time he begot the one recorded after him. For the Spirit of God did not wish to mark the times before the flood in the generations of the earthly city, but preferred to do so in those of the heavenly, as though they were more worthy of remembrance.

Moreover, when Seth was born, his father's years are indeed not passed over; but he had already begotten others, and who would dare to affirm that it was only Cain and Abel? For just because only they were named, for the sake of the lines of generations that had to be recorded, it should not seem to follow that only they had been born of Adam by then. For since, with the names of all the rest covered in silence, we read that he begot sons and daughters, who would presume to assert how large that offspring of his was, if he avoids the fault of rashness? Adam could have said, divinely prompted, after Seth was born, “For God has raised up for me another seed in place of Abel”, because he was to be such a one as would fulfil Abel's holiness, not because he was the next born after him in order of time. Then, where it is written, “And Seth lived two hundred and five years” (or according to the Hebrew one hundred and five years) “and begot Enosh”, who but a thoughtless person could assert that this was his firstborn? so that we would rightly wonder and ask how for so many years he stayed free of marriage without any intention of continence, or, being married, did not beget; since of him too we read: “And he begot sons and daughters, and all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died.” And so on, of those whose years are recorded, it is not passed over that they begot sons and daughters. And therefore it is not at all clear whether the one named as begotten was himself the firstborn; indeed, since it is not credible that those fathers, in so long a life, were either not of age or lacked wives or offspring, neither is it credible that those sons of theirs were the first born to them. But since the writer of the sacred history intended to reach, through the successions of generations with their times noted, the birth and life of Noah, in whose time the flood took place, he certainly recorded those generations, not which were the first for their parents, but which came into the line of descent.

By way of example, to make this clearer, I will insert something from which no one can doubt that what I say could have happened. The evangelist Matthew, wishing to commit to memory the descent of the Lord's flesh through a series of ancestors, beginning with father Abraham and intending first to reach David, says: “Abraham begot Isaac.” Why did he not say Ishmael, whom he begot first? “And Isaac,” he says, “begot Jacob.” Why did he not say Esau, who was his firstborn? Because, of course, he could not reach David through them. Then follows: “And Jacob begot Judah and his brothers.” Was Judah the firstborn? “Judah,” he says, “begot Perez and Zerah”; and neither of these twins was Judah's firstborn; he had already begotten three before them. So he kept in the line of generations those through whom he would reach David, and from there the goal he was aiming at. From this it can be understood that of the men of old before the flood too, not the firstborn were recorded, but those through whom the order of the succeeding generations was led to the patriarch Noah, so that the obscure and unnecessary question of their late puberty may not weary us.