City of God 16.9–16.16

Chapter 9. Whether it is to be believed that the lower part of the earth, opposite to our habitation, has antipodes.

As for the fable that there are antipodes, that is, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets for us, who tread with their footsteps opposite to our feet, it is in no way to be believed. Nor do they claim to have learned this from any historical knowledge; they conjecture it by a kind of reasoning, on the ground that the earth is suspended within the vault of the sky, and the lowest and the middle place in the universe is the same; and from this they think that the other part of the earth, which is below, cannot be without human inhabitants. They do not notice that, even if the universe is believed, or shown by some reasoning, to be round and spherical in shape, it still does not follow that the earth is bare of the mass of waters on that side too; and then, even if it is bare, it is not immediately necessary that it should have men. For that Scripture in no way lies, which gains credit for the past events it narrates by the fact that its predictions are fulfilled; and it is too absurd to say that some men could have sailed and reached that side from this, crossing the immensity of the Ocean, so that there too the human race might be established from that one first man. Therefore, among those peoples of men of that time, who are gathered to have been divided into seventy-two nations and as many languages, let us seek, if we can find it, that city of God on pilgrimage on earth, which was carried on until the flood and the ark and is shown to have continued in the sons of Noah through their blessings, above all in the eldest, called Shem; since Japheth was so blessed that he should dwell in the houses of his brother.

Chapter 10. On the generation of Shem, in whose progeny the line of the city of God is directed toward Abraham.

We must therefore hold to the series of generations from Shem himself, so that it may show the city of God after the flood, as the series of generations from the one called Seth showed it before the flood. For this reason divine Scripture, having shown the earthly city in Babylon, that is, in confusion, returns by recapitulation to the patriarch Shem and traces from there the generations down to Abraham, recording also the number of years at which each begot the son belonging to this series and how long he lived. Here certainly we must recognize what I promised earlier, so that it may be clear why it was said of the sons of Eber: “The name of one was Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided.” For what else is to be understood by the earth being divided but the diversity of languages? So, omitting the other sons of Shem who do not relate to this matter, those are joined in the order of generations through whom one can reach Abraham; just as those were joined before the flood through whom one came to Noah, in the generations descended from Adam's son called Seth. So this chain of generations begins thus: “And these are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old when he begot Arpachshad, in the second year after the flood. And Shem lived, after he begot Arpachshad, five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters, and died.” So it goes through the rest, saying in which year of his life each begot the son belonging to this order of generations that stretches to Abraham, and how many years he lived afterwards, indicating that he begot sons and daughters; so that we may understand from where the peoples could grow, lest, occupied with the few men who are recorded, we should hesitate childishly as to how such great expanses of lands and kingdoms could be filled from the race of Shem, especially because of the kingdom of the Assyrians, in which that Ninus, the conqueror of the eastern peoples everywhere, reigned with great prosperity and handed on to his descendants a very broad and firmly founded kingdom, which lasted a long time.

But, so as not to linger longer than necessary, we set down in this list not how many years each in this series of generations lived, but only at what year of his life he begot the son to be recorded in this order, so that we may gather the number of years from the end of the flood to Abraham, and, because of the things over which necessity compels us to linger, touch on others briefly and in passing. In the second year after the flood, then, Shem begot Arpachshad; Arpachshad, when he was one hundred and thirty-five ⟨years old⟩, begot Cainan; Cainan, at one hundred and thirty, begot Shelah; Shelah too was the same age when he begot Eber; Eber was in his one hundred and thirty-fourth year when he begot Peleg, in whose days the earth was divided; Peleg himself lived one hundred and thirty years and begot Reu; Reu one hundred and thirty-two, and begot Serug; Serug one hundred and thirty, and begot Nahor; Nahor seventy-nine, and begot Terah; Terah seventy, and begot Abram, whom God afterwards named Abraham, changing his name. So there are one thousand and seventy-two years from the flood to Abraham, according to the common edition, that is, that of the Seventy translators. In the Hebrew manuscripts, however, far fewer years are said to be found, for which they give either no reason or a very difficult one.

When, then, we look for the city of God among those seventy-two nations, we cannot affirm that at the time when they had one lip, that is, one speech, the human race had already been estranged from the worship of the true God, so that true godliness remained only in these generations which descend from the seed of Shem through Arpachshad and stretch to Abraham. But from that pride of building a tower up to heaven, by which ungodly exaltation is signified, the city, that is, the society, of the ungodly appeared. Whether, then, it did not exist before or was hidden, or rather both continued, the godly in the two sons of Noah who were blessed and in their descendants, the ungodly in the one who was cursed and his progeny, in which also arose the giant hunter against the Lord, is not easy to decide. For perhaps, what is surely more credible, there were already then, before Babylon began to be founded, despisers of God among the sons of those two, and worshippers of God among the sons of Ham; but we must believe that neither kind of men was ever lacking on earth. For even when it was said, “All have turned aside, together they have become worthless; there is none who does good, no, not one”, in both the psalms in which these words occur this is also read: “Will not all who work iniquity know, who devour my people as they eat bread?” There was, then, even then a people of God. Hence the saying, “There is none who does good, no, not one”, was said of the sons of men, not of the sons of God. For it is preceded by, “God looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there is any who understands or seeks God”; and then follow the words which show that all the sons of men, that is, those belonging to the city that lives according to man, not according to God, are reprobate.

Chapter 11. That the language which was first in human use was the one afterwards called Hebrew from the name of Eber, and that it remained in his family when the diversity of languages came about.

Therefore, just as, when there was one language for all, the sons of pestilence were not lacking on that account (for before the flood too there was one language, and yet all except the one household of righteous Noah deserved to be destroyed by the flood), so, when the nations were punished and divided by the diversity of languages for the desert of their haughtier ungodliness, and the city of the ungodly received the name of confusion, that is, was called Babylon, the house of Eber was not lacking, in which the language that had before been everyone's might remain. Hence, as I mentioned above, when the sons of Shem, each of whom produced a nation, began to be enumerated, Eber was the first to be commended, though he is Shem's great-great-grandson, that is, is found to be fifth from him. Because, then, this language remained in his family while the other nations were divided by other languages, the language which is not without reason believed to have been common to the human race before was thereafter called Hebrew. For then it needed to be distinguished from other languages by a proper name, as the others too were called by proper names. But when there was only one, it was called nothing but human language or human speech, the only one in which the whole human race spoke. Someone may say: If in the days of Peleg son of Eber the earth, that is, the people then on earth, was divided by languages, the language common to all before ought rather to have been called after Peleg's name. But it is to be understood that Eber himself gave his son this name, Peleg, which means “division,” because he was born to him at the time when the earth was divided by languages, that is, at that very time; so that this is the meaning of “In his days the earth was divided.” For unless Eber were still living when the multitude of languages came about, the language which could remain with him would not take its name from his name. And so it is to be believed that this was that first common language, since that multiplication and change of languages came as a punishment, and the people of God ought certainly to have been outside this punishment. Nor is it without reason that this is the language which Abraham kept, and could not pass on to all his sons but only to those who, propagated through Jacob and uniting more notably and eminently into the people of God, could have the covenants of God and the stock of Christ. Nor did Eber himself pour out this language into all his progeny, but only into that whose generations are carried down to Abraham. Therefore, even if it is not clearly stated that there was some godly race of men when Babylon was being founded by the ungodly, this obscurity served not to cheat the seeker's attention but rather to exercise it. For when we read that there was at first one language for all, and Eber is commended before all the sons of Shem, though he arises fifth from him, and the language is called Hebrew which the authority of the patriarchs and prophets preserved not only in their speech but also in the sacred writings, then surely, when it is asked where, in the division of languages, the language which had been common before could have remained (and without any doubt, where it remained, there that punishment was not, which was inflicted by the changing of languages), what else suggests itself but that it remained in the nation of the man from whose name it took its name; and that this was no small trace of the righteousness of this nation, that when other nations were punished by the change of languages, no such punishment reached it?

But this still troubles us: how Eber and his son Peleg could each have formed a nation, if one language remained for both. And certainly the Hebrew nation, propagated from Eber down to Abraham and through him thereafter until Israel became a great people, is one. How, then, did all the sons of the three sons of Noah who are recorded each form a nation, if Eber and Peleg did not each form one? No doubt it is more probable that the giant Nimrod too formed his own nation, but was named separately and more prominently because of the excellence of his dominion and his body, so that the number of seventy-two nations and languages remains. Peleg, on the other hand, was mentioned not because he formed a nation (for his nation is the same Hebrew one, and the same language), but because of the notable time, since in his days the earth was divided. Nor should it trouble us how the giant Nimrod could have lived to the time when Babylon was founded and the confusion of languages took place and from it the division of nations. For it is not because Eber is sixth from Noah and Nimrod fourth that they could not meet in the same period while living. For this happened because they lived longer where there are fewer generations and less long where there are more; or those in the line with fewer were born later, those in the line with more earlier. It is certainly to be understood that when the earth was divided, the other sons of the sons of Noah, who are recorded as fathers of nations, were not only already born but also of such an age that they had numerous households worthy of the names of nations. Hence it is by no means to be thought that they were born in the order in which we read them recorded. Otherwise, how could the twelve sons of Joktan, who was another son of Eber, brother of Peleg, already form nations, if Joktan was born after his brother Peleg, as he is recorded after him, since the earth was divided at the time when Peleg was born? So it is to be understood that Peleg was named first but was born long after his brother Joktan, whose twelve sons already had such large households that they could be divided into their own languages. For so one could be mentioned first who was later in age, just as among the offspring of the three sons of Noah the sons of Japheth, who was the youngest, were mentioned first, then the sons of Ham, who was the middle one, and last the sons of Shem, who was the first and eldest. The names of those nations have partly remained, so that even today it is clear from what they were derived, as the Assyrians from Asshur and the Hebrews from Eber; and partly they have changed through the lapse of time, so that even the most learned men, searching the most ancient histories, have been able to find the origins, not of all these nations, but of some. For although the Egyptians are said to have sprung from the son of Ham called Mizraim, no origin of the word echoes here; nor does it for the Ethiopians, who are said to belong to the son of Ham called Cush. And if everything is considered, more names appear to have changed than to have remained.

Chapter 12. On the turning point in time at Abraham, from whom a new order of holy succession is woven.

Now let us look at the course of the city of God from that turning point of time which came about in father Abraham, from whom knowledge of it begins to be clearer, and where we read clearer divine promises, which we now see fulfilled in Christ. As we have learned from holy Scripture, then, Abraham was born in the region of the Chaldeans, a land that belonged to the Assyrian kingdom. Among the Chaldeans ungodly superstitions were already prevalent even then, as among the other nations. There was, then, only the house of Terah, of whom Abraham was born, in which the worship of the one true God, and, as far as is credible, in which alone the Hebrew language too, had now remained (although Terah himself, as Joshua son of Nun relates, is reported to have served foreign gods in Mesopotamia, just as the people of God, by then more manifest, did in Egypt), while the rest of the progeny of Eber gradually flowed away into other languages and other nations. So, just as through the flood of waters the one house of Noah had remained to restore the human race, so in the flood of many superstitions throughout the whole world the one house of Terah had remained, in which the planting of the city of God was preserved. Finally, just as there, after the generations down to Noah had been enumerated above together with the numbers of years, and the cause of the flood set out, before God began to speak to Noah about building the ark, it is said, “Now these are the generations of Noah”, so here too, after the generations from Noah's son Shem down to Abraham had been enumerated, a notable turning point is set down in the same way, so that it is said: “These are the generations of Terah. Terah begot Abram and Nahor and Haran; and Haran begot Lot. And Haran died before his father Terah in the land in which he was born, in the region of the Chaldeans. And Abram and Nahor took wives for themselves; the name of Abram's wife was Sarai, and the name of Nahor's wife Milcah, daughter of Haran.” This Haran was the father of Milcah and the father of Iscah, and this Iscah is believed to be the same as Sarah, Abraham's wife.

Chapter 13. What reason seems to explain why, in the migration of Terah, when he left the Chaldeans and crossed into Mesopotamia, no mention is made of his son Nahor.

Next it is related how Terah with his family left the region of the Chaldeans, came into Mesopotamia, and dwelt in Haran. But nothing is said of one of his sons, who was called Nahor, as though he did not take him with him. For it is related thus: “And Terah took Abram his son, and Lot the son of Haran, his son's son, and Sarai his daughter-in-law, the wife of his son Abram, and led them out of the region of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Canaan; and he came to Haran and dwelt there.” Nowhere here are Nahor and his wife Milcah named. But we find later, when Abraham sent his servant to take a wife for his son Isaac, that it is written thus: “And the servant took ten camels of his master's camels, and of all his master's goods with him, and rising up he set out for Mesopotamia, to the city of Nahor.” By this and other testimonies of this sacred history it is shown that Nahor, Abraham's brother, also left the region of the Chaldeans and settled in Mesopotamia, where Abraham had lived with his father. Why, then, did Scripture not mention him when Terah set out with his family from the Chaldean nation and dwelt in Mesopotamia, where not only his son Abraham but also his daughter-in-law Sarah and his grandson Lot are mentioned as those he took with him? Why, do we suppose, unless perhaps because Nahor had fallen away from the godliness of his father and brother and clung to the superstition of the Chaldeans, and afterwards, either repenting or suffering persecution because he was held suspect, he too emigrated? For in the book entitled Judith, when Holofernes, the enemy of the Israelites, asked what nation this was and whether war should be waged against it, Achior, the leader of the Ammonites, answered him thus: “Let our lord hear a word from the mouth of his servant, and I will tell you the truth about the people that dwells near you in this hill country, and no lie shall come out of your servant's mouth. For this people is descended from the Chaldeans, and they formerly dwelt in Mesopotamia, because they would not follow the gods of their fathers, who were glorious in the land of the Chaldeans; but they turned aside from the way of their parents and worshipped the God of heaven, whom they knew; and they cast them out from the presence of their gods, and they fled to Mesopotamia and dwelt there many days. And their God told them to go out of their dwelling and go into the land of Canaan, and they dwelt there”, and the rest that Achior the Ammonite relates. From this it is clear that the house of Terah suffered persecution from the Chaldeans for the true godliness with which they worshipped the one true God.

Chapter 14. On the years of Terah, who completed the span of his life in Haran.

When Terah had died in Mesopotamia, where he is said to have lived two hundred and five years, the promises made by God to Abraham now begin to be shown. It is written thus: “And the days of Terah in Haran were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran.” This is not to be taken as though he spent all these days there, but that he completed there all the days of his life, which were two hundred and five years; otherwise it will not be known how many years Terah lived, since we do not read in what year of his life he came to Haran; and it is absurd to think that in this series of generations, where it is carefully recorded how many years each lived, only his number of years of life was not committed to memory. For if the years of some whom the same Scripture mentions are passed over in silence, they are not in this line, in which the reckoning of times is woven by the passing of the begetters and the succession of the begotten. But this line, which runs from Adam to Noah and from there to Abraham, contains no one without the number of the years of his life.

Chapter 15. On the time of Abraham's departure, when he left Haran according to God's command.

After the death of Terah, Abraham's father, has been recorded, we then read: “And the Lord said to Abram: Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house”, and so on. It must not be thought that, because this follows in the text of the book, it also follows in the time of the events. For if it were so, there would be an insoluble question. For after these words of God addressed to Abraham, Scripture speaks thus: “And Abram went out, as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he went out of Haran.” How can this be true if he left Haran after his father's death? For Terah was seventy when, as was indicated above, he begot Abraham; add to this number the seventy-five years of Abraham's age when he went out of Haran, and the total is one hundred and forty-five years. That was Terah's age, then, when Abraham left that city of Mesopotamia; for Abraham was in his seventy-fifth year, and so his father, who had begotten him in his own seventieth year, was, as has been said, in his hundred and forty-fifth. So he did not leave there after his father's death, that is, after the two hundred and five years his father lived; but the year of his departure from that place, since it was his own seventy-fifth, is certainly gathered to have been the hundred and forty-fifth of his father, who begot him in his seventieth year. And so it is to be understood that Scripture, in its usual way, went back to a time which the narrative had already passed; just as above, when it had recorded the sons of the sons of Noah, it said that they were in their languages and nations, and yet afterwards, as though this followed in the order of time too, it says: “And the whole earth was one lip, and there was one speech for all.” How, then, were they according to their nations and according to their languages, if there was one for all, unless the narrative went back by recapitulation to what had already passed? So here too, when it had been said, “And the days of Terah in Haran were two hundred and five years, and Terah died in Haran”, Scripture then goes back to what it had passed over so that what had been begun about Terah might first be completed: “And the Lord said to Abram: Go out from your land”, and so on. After these words of God it is added: “And Abram went out, as the Lord had spoken to him, and Lot went with him. And Abram was seventy-five years old when he went out of Haran.” It happened, then, when his father was in the hundred and forty-fifth year of his age; for it was then Abraham's seventy-fifth.

This question has also been solved in another way: that Abraham's seventy-five years when he left Haran were counted from the time when he was delivered from the fire of the Chaldeans, not from his birth, as though he should rather be regarded as born then. But blessed Stephen, relating these things in the Acts of the Apostles, says: “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran, and said to him: Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house, and come into the land that I will show you.” According to these words of Stephen, God spoke to Abraham not after the death of his father, who certainly died in Haran, where his son lived with him, but before he lived in that city, yet when he was already in Mesopotamia. He had already, then, left the Chaldeans. So what Stephen adds, “Then Abraham went out of the land of the Chaldeans and lived in Haran”, does not indicate what happened after God spoke to him (for he did not leave the land of the Chaldeans after those words of God, since Stephen says God spoke to him when he was in Mesopotamia); but the word “then” refers to that whole period, that is, from the time he left the Chaldeans and lived in Haran. Again, in what follows, “And from there, after his father died, he settled him in this land in which you and your fathers now live”, he does not say, “After his father died he went out of Haran”, but “From there he settled him here after his father died.” It is to be understood, then, that God spoke to Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran; but that he came to Haran with his father, keeping God's command with him, and left there in his own seventy-fifth year and his father's hundred and forty-fifth. And Stephen says that his settling in the land of Canaan, not his departure from Haran, took place after his father's death, because his father was already dead when he bought the land, of which he then began to be the owner as of his own property. As for God's saying to him when he was already established in Mesopotamia, that is, when he had already left the land of the Chaldeans, “Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house”, it is said not so that he should remove his body from there, which he had already done, but so that he should tear away his mind. For he had not gone out from there in mind if he was held by the hope and desire of returning; and this hope and desire had to be cut off by God's command and help and by his obedience. It is not incredible to suppose that when Nahor afterwards followed his father, Abraham then fulfilled the Lord's command to leave Haran with Sarah his wife and Lot his brother's son.

Chapter 16. On the order and nature of God's promises made to Abraham.

Now we must consider the promises of God made to Abraham. For in them clearer oracles of our God, that is, the true God, began to appear about the people of the godly which the authority of prophecy foretold. The first of them reads thus: “And the Lord said to Abram: Go out from your land and from your kindred and from your father's house into the land that I will show you; and I will make you into a great nation, and I will bless you and magnify your name, and you shall be blessed; and I will bless those who bless you, and those who curse you I will curse; and in you all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed.” It is to be noted, then, that two things were promised to Abraham: one, that his seed was to possess the land of Canaan, which is signified where it is said, “Go into the land that I will show you, and I will make you into a great nation”; the other, far more excellent, concerns not the carnal but the spiritual seed, through which he is the father not of the one nation of Israel but of all the nations that follow in the footsteps of his faith; this began to be promised in these words: “And in you all the tribes of the earth shall be blessed.” Eusebius thinks this promise was made in the seventy-fifth year of Abraham's age, as though Abraham left Haran as soon as it was made; since Scripture cannot be contradicted where it reads: “Abraham was seventy-five years old when he went out of Haran.” But if this promise was made in that year, Abraham was certainly already staying in Haran with his father; for he could not go out from there unless he had first lived there. Is Stephen, then, contradicted when he says, “The God of glory appeared to our father Abraham when he was in Mesopotamia, before he lived in Haran”? But it is to be understood that all these things happened in the same year: God's promise before Abraham lived in Haran, his living in Haran, and his departure from there; not only because Eusebius in his Chronicle reckons from the year of this promise and shows that the exodus from Egypt, when the law was given, came four hundred and thirty years later, but also because the apostle Paul records this.