City of God 16.2–16.8

Chapter 2. What was prophetically prefigured in the sons of Noah.

But now that the events have followed in the descendants, what was covered has been sufficiently uncovered. For who, attending to these things carefully and intelligently, does not recognize them fulfilled in Christ? For Shem, of whose seed Christ was born in the flesh, means “named.” And what is more renowned by name than Christ, whose name is now fragrant everywhere, so that in the Song of Songs, by a prophecy going before, it is even compared to ointment poured out; and in whose houses, that is, churches, the breadth of the nations dwells? For Japheth means “breadth.” Ham, again, which means “hot,” Noah's middle son, as if separating himself from both and remaining between both, neither among the firstfruits of the Israelites nor in the fullness of the nations, what does he signify but the hot race of heretics, hot not with the spirit of wisdom but of impatience, with which the hearts of heretics are accustomed to seethe and disturb the peace of the saints? But these things turn to the advantage of those who are advancing, according to the apostle's saying: “There must also be heresies, so that those who are approved may be made manifest among you.” Hence it is also written: “A well-taught son will be wise, and he will use the foolish man as a servant.” For many things belonging to the catholic faith, while they are stirred up by the hot restlessness of heretics, are, so that they may be defended against them, considered more carefully, understood more clearly, and preached more earnestly; and a question raised by an adversary becomes an occasion for learning. Yet not only those who are most openly separated, but all who glory in the name of Christian and live abandoned lives, can without absurdity be seen as figured by Noah's middle son; for they both proclaim Christ's passion, which was signified by that man's nakedness, by professing it, and dishonor it by acting wickedly. Of such it was said: “By their fruits you will know them.” That is why Ham was cursed in his son, as in his fruit, that is, in his work. Hence, fittingly, his son Canaan himself means “their movement”; and what is that but their work?

But Shem and Japheth, like the circumcision and the uncircumcision, or, as the apostle calls them in another way, Jews and Greeks, but called and justified, having somehow learned of their father's nakedness, by which the Savior's passion was signified, took a garment and laid it on their backs, went in backwards, and covered their father's nakedness, and did not see what they covered out of reverence. For in a certain way, in the passion of Christ, we both honor what was done for us and turn away from the crime of the Jews. The garment signifies the sacrament; the backs, the memory of things past; because the Church celebrates the passion of Christ as already accomplished, at the very time when Japheth dwells in the houses of Shem and the evil brother in their midst, and no longer looks forward to it as future. But the evil brother, in his son, that is, in his work, is the boy, that is, the servant, of the good brothers, when the good knowingly use the wicked for the exercise of patience or for the advance of wisdom. For, as the apostle testifies, there are those who proclaim Christ not purely; “but whether in pretense,” he says, “or in truth, let Christ be proclaimed.” For it was Christ himself who planted the vineyard of which the prophet says, “The vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel”; and he drank of its wine (whether that cup is understood here of which he says, “Are you able to drink the cup that I am about to drink?” and “Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass”, by which he certainly signifies his passion; or rather, since wine is the fruit of the vineyard, what is signified by it is that from that vineyard, that is, from the race of the Israelites, he took flesh and blood for us so that he could suffer); and he was drunk, that is, he suffered; and he was stripped naked; for there his weakness was laid bare, that is, appeared, of which the apostle says, “Though he was crucified out of weakness.” Hence the same apostle says: “The weakness of God is stronger than men, and the foolishness of God is wiser than men.” And when Scripture, after saying “and he was uncovered”, added, “in his house”, it elegantly showed that he was to suffer the cross and death from the people of his own flesh and the members of his own blood, namely the Jews. This passion of Christ the reprobate proclaim outwardly, only in the sound of the voice; for they do not understand what they proclaim. But the upright hold so great a mystery in the inner man and honor inwardly in the heart the weakness and foolishness of God, because it is stronger and wiser than men. The figure of this is that Ham went out and reported it outside, whereas Shem and Japheth went in to veil it, that is, to honor it; that is, they did it inwardly.

These secrets of divine Scripture we search out as best we can, one more fittingly than another, yet holding faithfully as certain that these things were not done and recorded without some prefiguring of things to come, and are to be referred only to Christ and his Church, which is the city of God; the proclamation of which has not been lacking since the beginning of the human race, and we see it fulfilled in all respects. After the blessing of Noah's two sons, then, and the curse of one between them, there is silence, down to Abraham, for more than a thousand years, about any righteous people who worshipped God with godliness. I would not believe that they were lacking; but if all were recorded, it would become too long, and this would be the diligence of history rather than the foresight of prophecy. So the writer of these sacred books, or rather the Spirit of God through him, pursues those things by which not only are past things narrated but future things foretold, those, however, that belong to the city of God; since whatever is said here even about men who are not its citizens is said so that the city may either advance or stand out by contrast. Not everything that is narrated as having happened, of course, is to be thought to signify something as well; but for the sake of the things that signify something, even those that signify nothing are woven in. For the earth is broken only by the ploughshare; but for this to be possible the other parts of the plough are also needed. And only the strings in lyres and such musical instruments are fitted for song; but so that they can be fitted, there are also the other parts in the framework of the instruments, which are not struck by the players, but to which those that sound when struck are attached. So in prophetic history some things are also said which signify nothing, but to which the things that do signify are attached and in a sense bound.

Chapter 3. On the generations of the three sons of Noah.

Next, then, the generations of the sons of Noah must be examined, and what seems worth saying about them must be woven into this work, in which the course through time of both cities, the earthly and the heavenly, is shown. For their recording begins with the youngest son, who was called Japheth, whose eight sons are named, and seven grandsons from two of his sons, three from one and four from the other; so there are fifteen in all. The sons of Ham, Noah's middle son, are four, and there are five grandsons from one of his sons, and two great-grandsons from one grandson; their total is eleven. When these have been listed, the narrative returns as it were to the head and says: “Cush begot Nimrod; he began to be a giant on the earth. He was a giant hunter against the Lord God. Therefore they say: Like Nimrod, a giant hunter against the Lord. And the beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, Erech, Accad, and Calneh, in the land of Shinar. From that land went out Asshur, and built Nineveh, and the city Rehoboth, and Calah, and Resen between Nineveh and Calah; this is a great city.” This Cush, the father of the giant Nimrod, was named first among the sons of Ham, and his five sons and two grandsons had already been counted. But he either begot this giant after his grandsons were born, or, what is more credible, Scripture spoke of him separately because of his eminence; since his kingdom too is mentioned, whose beginning was that most famous city Babylon, and the cities or regions mentioned beside it. As for the statement that from that land, that is, the land of Shinar, which belonged to Nimrod's kingdom, Asshur went out and built Nineveh and the other cities listed with it, this happened long afterwards; the writer touched on it on this occasion because of the fame of the kingdom of the Assyrians, which Ninus son of Belus, the founder of the great city of Nineveh, extended wonderfully; the name of the city was derived from his name, so that from Ninus it was called Nineveh. But Asshur, from whom the Assyrians come, was not among the sons of Ham, Noah's middle son, but is found among the sons of Shem, Noah's eldest son. Hence it appears that it was men sprung from the progeny of Shem who afterwards obtained the kingdom of that giant, and went out from there and founded other cities, the first of which was called Nineveh after Ninus. From here the narrative returns to another son of Ham, called Mizraim, and those he begot are recorded, not as single men but as seven nations. And from the sixth, as from a sixth son, a nation is recorded to have gone out, which is called the Philistines; so there are eight. Then it returns again to Canaan, in whom as his son Ham was cursed, and the eleven he begot are named. Then it is said how far they reached, some cities being mentioned. And so, counting sons and grandsons, thirty-one are reported to have been begotten of the progeny of Ham.

It remains to record the sons of Shem, Noah's eldest son; for the narrative of these generations, beginning from the youngest, reaches him by degrees. But the point at which the sons of Shem begin to be recorded has some obscurity, which must be cleared up by explanation, since it is very relevant to the matter we are investigating. For so we read: “And to Shem too was born, to the father of all the sons of Heber, the elder brother of Japheth.” The order of the words is: “And to Shem was born Heber, even to him”, that is, to Shem himself was born Heber, Shem being the father of all the sons. Scripture wished Shem, then, to be understood as the patriarch of all who sprang from his stock, whom it is going to record, whether sons or grandsons and great-grandsons and those descended from the same source thereafter. Shem did not, of course, beget this Heber, but he is found to be fifth from him in the series of ancestors. For Shem, among other sons, begot Arpachshad; Arpachshad begot Cainan; Cainan begot Shelah; Shelah begot Eber. Not without reason, then, is he named first in the progeny coming from Shem, and preferred even to the sons, though he is a descendant in the fifth generation, unless because what is handed down is true, that the Hebrews were named after him, as Heberaeans; though there could also be another opinion, that they seem to be called Abrahaeans after Abraham. But certainly this is true, that from Heber they were called Heberaeans, and then, with one letter worn away, Hebraeans; and this language the people of Israel alone could keep, in which the city of God was both on pilgrimage in the saints and foreshadowed by a sacrament in all.

So first six sons of Shem are named; then from one of them were born four grandsons of his; again another of Shem's sons begot a grandson of his, and from him in turn a great-grandson was born, and from him a great-great-grandson, who is Heber. Heber begot two sons, one of whom he called Peleg, which means “dividing.” Then Scripture adds, giving the reason for this name: “Because in his days the earth was divided.” What this means will appear later. The other son born of Heber begot twelve sons; and so all the descendants of Shem come to twenty-seven. In sum, then, all the descendants of the three sons of Noah, that is, fifteen of Japheth, thirty-one of Ham, twenty-seven of Shem, make seventy-three. Then Scripture goes on to say: “These are the sons of Shem, in their tribes, according to their languages, in their lands and in their nations”; and likewise of all: “These,” it says, “are the tribes of the sons of Noah, according to their generations, according to their nations. From these the islands of the nations were scattered over the earth after the flood.” From this it is gathered that there were then seventy-three, or rather (as will be shown later) seventy-two nations, not individual men. For earlier too, when the sons of Japheth had been recorded, the conclusion was: “From these were separated the islands of the nations in their land, each according to his language, in their tribes and in their nations.” Among the sons of Ham, indeed, nations are mentioned more openly in one place, as I showed above: “Mizraim begot those who are called Ludim”, and likewise the others, up to seven nations. And after listing all, it concludes: “These are the sons of Ham, in their tribes, according to their languages, in their lands and in their nations.” The sons of many, then, are not recorded because by birth they joined other nations, but could not themselves form nations. For for what other reason, when eight sons of Japheth are listed, are sons recorded as born only from two of them; and when four sons of Ham are named, those born only from three are added; and when six sons of Shem are named, the posterity of only two is woven in? Did the rest remain without sons? Far be it from us to believe that; but they did not form nations for which they would have deserved to be recorded, because, as they were born, they were added to other nations.

Chapter 4. On the diversity of languages and the beginning of Babylon.

Though these nations are reported to have existed each in its own language, the narrator nevertheless goes back to the time when all had one language, and from there explains what happened to give rise to the diversity of languages. “And the whole earth,” it says, “was one lip, and there was one speech for all. And it came to pass, when they moved from the east, they found a plain in the land of Shinar, and dwelt there. And man said to his neighbor: Come, let us make bricks and bake them with fire. And they had bricks for stone, and bitumen was their mortar. And they said: Come, let us build ourselves a city and a tower whose top will reach to heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves before we are scattered over the face of the whole earth. And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built. And the Lord God said: Behold, one race and one lip for all; and they have begun to do this, and now nothing will fail them of all that they have attempted to do. Come, and going down let us confound their language there, so that they may not understand each one his neighbor's voice. And the Lord scattered them from there over the face of the whole earth, and they ceased building the city and the tower. For this reason its name was called Confusion, because there the Lord confounded the lips of the whole earth; and from there the Lord God scattered them over the face of the whole earth.” This city which was called Confusion is Babylon itself, whose marvelous construction even the history of the nations commends. For Babylon means “confusion.” From this it is gathered that the giant Nimrod was its founder, as had been briefly suggested above, where Scripture, speaking of him, said that the beginning of his kingdom was Babylon, that is, the city that held the leadership over the other cities, where the seat of the kingdom was, as in a metropolis; though it was not completed to the size that proud ungodliness had in mind. For a very great height was planned, which was said to reach to heaven, whether of one tower of it, which they were building as chief among others, or of all the towers, which are signified by the singular number, as one says “the soldier” and thousands of soldiers are understood; as “the frog,” “the locust”; for so the multitude of frogs and locusts is called in the plagues with which the Egyptians were struck through Moses.

But what would human and empty presumption have accomplished, however far and however high it raised the height of its structure into heaven against God? even if it overtopped all the mountains, even if it rose above the region of this cloudy air? What harm, in short, would any exaltation, spiritual or bodily, however great, do to God? It is humility that builds a safe and true way to heaven, lifting up the heart to the Lord, not against the Lord, as this giant is called a hunter against the Lord. Not understanding this, some have been misled by an ambiguous Greek word, so as to translate not “against the Lord” but “before the Lord”; for ἐναντίον means both “against” and “before.” For this is the word in the psalm, “And let us weep before the Lord who made us”; and it is also the word in the book of Job, where it is written, “You have burst out in fury against the Lord.” So this giant is to be understood as a hunter against the Lord. And what is signified here by the name “hunter” but a deceiver, oppressor, and destroyer of earth-born creatures? He was raising, then, with his peoples, a tower against God, by which ungodly pride is signified. And rightly is an evil intention punished, even when it does not succeed in its effect. But what kind of punishment was it? Since the dominion of one who commands lies in the tongue, it was there that pride was condemned, so that the man who would not understand God's command in order to obey him would not be understood when he gave commands to men. So that conspiracy was dissolved, as each withdrew from the one he did not understand and joined himself only to one with whom he could speak; and the nations were divided by languages and scattered over the earth, as it pleased God, who did this in ways hidden and incomprehensible to us.

Chapter 5. On the Lord's coming down to confound the language of those building the tower.

As for what is written, “And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower which the sons of men had built”, that is, not the sons of God but that society living according to man which we call the earthly city: God does not move from place to place, since he is always wholly everywhere; but he is said to come down when he does something on earth which, being done wonderfully beyond the usual course of nature, shows in a certain way his presence. Nor does he learn by seeing at a particular time, since he can never be ignorant of anything; but he is said to see and know at a particular time what he causes to be seen and known. That city, then, was not seen in the way in which God caused it to be seen, when he showed how much it displeased him. It could also be understood that God came down to that city because his angels, in whom he dwells, came down; so that what is added, “And the Lord God said: Behold, one race and one lip for all”, and so on, and then, “Come, and going down let us confound their language there”, is a recapitulation, showing how what had been said was done: “The Lord came down.” For if he had already come down, what is the meaning of “Come, and going down let us confound” (which is understood as said to the angels), unless that he was coming down through the angels, since he was in the angels who came down? And he rightly does not say, “Come, and going down, confound”, but “Let us confound their language there”, showing that he works through his ministers in such a way that they too are fellow workers with God, as the apostle says: “For we are God's fellow workers.”

Chapter 6. What kind of speech is to be understood by which God speaks to the angels.

The words spoken when man was made, “Let us make man”, could also have been understood of the angels, since he did not say, “I will make.” But since there follows “in our image”, and it is not right to believe that man was made in the image of the angels, or that the image of angels and of God is the same, the plurality of the Trinity is rightly understood there. Yet because that Trinity is one God, even after he had said “Let us make”, Scripture says, “And God made man in the image of God”; it did not say “the gods made”, or “in the image of the gods.” Here too the same Trinity could be understood, as though the Father had said to the Son and the Holy Spirit, “Come, and going down let us confound their language there”, if there were anything that prevented the angels from being understood; to whom it rather belongs to come to God by holy movements, that is, by godly thoughts, by which they consult the unchangeable Truth as the eternal law in that heavenly council of theirs. For they are not the truth to themselves, but, sharing in the creating Truth, they are moved toward it as toward the fountain of life, so that what they do not have from themselves they may receive from it. And this movement by which they come is stable, for they do not go away. Nor does God speak to the angels in the way in which we speak to one another, or to God, or to angels, or angels themselves to us, or God to us through them, but in his own ineffable way; to us, however, this is conveyed in our way. For God's higher speech, before his act, is the unchangeable reason of his act itself, which has no noisy and passing sound but a power that abides eternally and works in time. By this he speaks to the holy angels, but to us, who are placed far off, otherwise. When we too, however, catch something of such speech with our inner ears, we draw near to the angels. So in this work I do not have to give an account again and again of God's speakings. For either the unchangeable Truth speaks through itself ineffably to the minds of the rational creature, or it speaks through a changeable creature, whether by spiritual images to our spirit or by bodily voices to the bodily sense.

As for the words, “And now nothing will fail them of all that they have attempted to do”, they were not spoken as an assertion but as a question, as is usually said by those who threaten, as someone says: “Will they not bring out their arms, and follow from the whole city?” So it is to be taken as if he had said: “Will not everything they have attempted to do fail them?” But if it is said so, it does not express the threat. But for the sake of the somewhat slow we added the particle ne, so as to say nonne, “will not,” since we cannot write the tone of the speaker's voice. From those three men, then, the sons of Noah, seventy-three, or rather, as the reckoning will make clear, seventy-two nations and as many languages began to exist throughout the earth, and by growing they filled even the islands. The number of nations, however, increased much more than that of languages. For in Africa too we know of very many barbarian nations speaking one language; and who would doubt that, as the human race multiplied, men could have crossed over by ship to inhabit the islands?

Chapter 7. Whether even islands very far from the mainland received every kind of beast from the number preserved in the ark from the flood.

But there is a question about all the kinds of beasts which are not under the care of human beings, and are not born from the earth like frogs, but are propagated only by the union of male and female, like wolves and others of this kind: how, after the flood, in which everything not in the ark was destroyed, they could be even on islands, if they were restored only from those whose kinds the ark preserved in both sexes. They can indeed be believed to have crossed to islands by swimming, but only to those nearest. But some are so far from the mainland that it seems no beast could have swum to them. If men caught them and brought them with them, and in that way established their kinds where they lived, for the love of hunting, it is not incredible that this could have happened; though it must not be denied that they could also have been carried over by the work of angels, at God's command or with his permission. But if they sprang from the earth according to their first origin, when God said, “Let the earth bring forth the living soul”, it appears much more clearly that all kinds were in the ark not so much for the sake of restoring the animals as for figuring the various nations, for the sake of the sacrament of the Church, if the earth produced many animals on islands to which they could not cross.

Chapter 8. Whether certain monstrous races of men have sprung from the offspring of Adam or of the sons of Noah.

It is also asked whether we must believe that certain monstrous races of men, which the history of the nations relates, have been propagated from the sons of Noah, or rather from that one man from whom they themselves came: as some are reported to have one eye in the middle of the forehead; others to have the soles of their feet turned backward behind their legs; others to have the nature of both sexes, the right breast male and the left female, and by uniting with one another in turn both to beget and to bear; others to have no mouths and to live only by breathing through the nostrils; others to be a cubit tall, whom the Greeks call Pygmies from their word for cubit; elsewhere women to conceive at five years old and not to live beyond their eighth year. They also say there is a nation where people have a single leg on their feet and do not bend the knee, and are of wonderful speed; they call them Sciopodes, because in hot weather they lie on their backs on the ground and shade themselves with their feet; some without necks, with their eyes in their shoulders; and the other races of men, or as it were men, which are depicted in mosaic on the seafront promenade at Carthage, taken from books of what might be called more curious history. What shall I say of the Cynocephali, whose dogs' heads and very barking proclaim them beasts rather than men?

But it is not necessary to believe in all the races of men that are said to exist. But whoever is born anywhere as a man, that is, a rational mortal animal, however unusual to our senses the shape of body he bears, or the color, or the motion, or the sound, or however strange in any power, any part, any quality of his nature, no believer will doubt that he derives his origin from that one first-formed man. It is plain, however, what nature has maintained in most cases and what is wonderful by its very rarity. The kind of explanation given for monstrous human births among us can also be given for certain monstrous races. For God is the creator of all, and he himself knows where and when anything ought to be, or ought to have been, created, knowing from the likeness or the diversity of which parts he weaves the beauty of the whole. But one who cannot survey the whole is offended as by the deformity of a part, because he does not know with what it fits and to what it relates. We know of human beings born with more than five fingers or toes on their hands and feet; and this is a lesser divergence than any other; but far be it from anyone to be so foolish as to think that the Creator erred in the number of human fingers, even though he does not know why he did this. So even if a greater diversity arises, he knows what he has done, whose works no one rightly finds fault with. At Hippo Diarrhytus there is a man who has soles shaped like a crescent, with only two toes on each, and his hands are similar. If there were a whole nation like this, it would be added to that curious and wonderful history. Shall we then deny for this reason that this man was propagated from that one who was first created? Androgynes, whom they also call hermaphrodites, though they are very rare, are yet hardly ever lacking in any period; in them both sexes appear in such a way that it is uncertain from which they ought rather to take their name; yet the usage of speech has prevailed of naming them from the better, that is, the masculine. For no one has ever called them androgynaecae or hermaphroditae. Some years ago, certainly within our memory, a man was born in the East double in his upper parts and single in his lower. For there were two heads, two chests, four hands, but one belly and two feet, as for one man; and he lived so long that his fame drew many to see him. Who could list all the human births very unlike those from whom they were most certainly born? Just as these, then, cannot be denied to derive their origin from that one man, so whatever nations are reported to have departed, as it were, in the variety of their bodies from the usual course of nature which most, and almost all, keep to, if they are included in that definition, so as to be rational and mortal animals, it must be confessed that they draw their stock from that same one first father of all; if, indeed, what is reported of the variety of those nations and their great difference from one another and from us is true. For if we did not know that apes, long-tailed monkeys, and sphinx apes are not men but beasts, those historians who boast of their curiosity could lie to us with impunity and pass them off as nations of men. But if those of whom those marvels are written are men, what if God wished to create even some nations in this way, so that we should not think that in these monsters, which must be born of human beings among us, his wisdom, by which he fashions human nature, had erred like the art of some less accomplished craftsman? It ought not, then, to seem absurd to us that, just as in each single nation there are certain human monsters, so in the whole human race there are certain monstrous nations. Therefore, to conclude this question cautiously and step by step: either what is written about such nations is altogether nothing; or, if they exist, they are not men; or, if they are men, they are from Adam.