Questions on the Octateuch 1.36–1.55

Why did he make the devil, knowing that he would be such? God created the whole nature of the incorporeal beings, making it rational and immortal; and free will is proper to what is rational. Of these, some kept their goodwill toward their maker, while others turned aside to wickedness. One can find this among human beings too: some are lovers of virtue, others workers of vice. If, then, anyone finds fault with the creation of the wicked, he deprives the athletes of virtue of the prizes of victory. For if they had possessed the love of virtue not in the choice of their will, but as an unchangeableness implanted by nature, the contenders for piety who are worthy of victory would have gone unnoticed. But since the will has the choice between good things and their opposites, these justly obtain the crowns of victory, and those pay the penalty for the sins they committed by their own will.

You call God good: how then do you attach such severity to him? It is cruel and harsh to inflict so great a punishment for a little food, not only on those who sinned but also on those who sprang from them. First, those who choose to be pious must be convinced that whatever is done or commanded by the God of the universe is holy, just, good, and loving toward humankind. If we confess that he has all these qualities, we must think that what he arranges and commands is of the same kind. Next, one must know that every law, even if it gives directions about small matters, has equal force with one that commands the greatest things to be done, or forbids them; and this is especially true of every divine law. The law commanding circumcision, for example, does no harm to one's neighbor when it is transgressed. Yet the lawgiver says, “Every uncircumcised male who is not circumcised on the eighth day shall be destroyed”; and the punishment he fixed for murderers and adulterers he assigned to this too. But since the heretics of ill-omened name, who openly make war on the Old Scripture, are likely to accuse this law too, I shall make my proofs from the legislation of the Gospel. For in those laws we find that the one who looks lustfully at a woman is judged guilty of adultery; the one who is angry without cause is liable to judgment; the one who calls his brother “Raca” is answerable to the court; the one who calls him “fool” deserves Gehenna; and the one who swears, even if he swears truly, belongs to the devil's company. Why then do they call this lawgiver good, but the lawgiver of the Old Testament harsh? By their own standard these laws are harsher than those. But daring such things belongs to their blasphemy. We know that both these laws and those come from one God; the difference was produced by the character of those who received the law. Like a wise teacher, he offered imperfect things to the imperfect and perfect things to the perfect. Besides this, one must consider that punishments are inflicted without pardon on the first transgressors of laws, so that others, seeing the punishment, may not dare the transgression. This happened with the law of the Sabbath: the man who dared to gather wood on the Sabbath, the first to transgress the law about it, was stoned by the whole people at God's command, so that, having carried out the punishment with their own hands, they might shudder at lawlessness as something that brings punishment. Later, when many transgressed the law of the Sabbath, the lawgiver bore the transgression patiently. So too he subjected Cain, the first murderer, to incurable punishments, to frighten those of his time and those after him from daring anything similar; but later, when there had been many murderers, he did not bring the punishments at once. So Adam too, who first received a law, and a very light law (for he had given him an abundance of fruits of every kind, and forbidden him to eat of one only), had to pay the penalty of his offence for the benefit of the race. But if, being irascible, as Marcion of ill-omened name said, he inflicted the punishment of death for a little food, how is it that, when all human beings had run aground in impiety and lawlessness, he did not bring final and total destruction upon them, but gave his Son and procured salvation through the cross and passion? I say this to those who think that the God of the universe did these things out of some anger, and who do not know the mystery of the dispensation. It is plain, I think, to those taught in divine things that the God of the universe never does anything out of regret; this passion is proper to those who have a changeable nature, who are pleased now with one thing and now with another, and are wholly ignorant of what will be. But the God of the universe has an unchangeable nature, and knows what has not yet happened as already done. So, foreseeing what concerned Adam, and foreknowing that he would become mortal by transgressing the commandment, he prepared his nature beforehand to suit; for he shaped the formation of the body into male and female. Such a constitution of bodies belongs to mortals, who need childbearing for the continuance of the race. Immortal nature does not need the female; that is why the maker brought forth the whole number of the incorporeal beings at once. But of the mortal animals he created male and female, two by two in each kind, and gave them the blessing of increase: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth and have dominion over it.” Foreseeing this, then, the God of the universe not only formed them in this way, but also gave them the law about food: “See,” he says, “I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the earth, and every tree that has in itself fruit of seed for sowing; it shall be food for you, and for all the beasts of the earth, and all the birds of heaven, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, which has in it the breath of life; and I have given you every green plant for food.” The God of the universe said this to Adam before the commandment. But food belongs to mortals; immortal nature needs no nourishment. And the Lord, teaching this, said that after the resurrection “they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.” The punishment, then, was not the work of anger, but a dispensation of the greatest wisdom. So that the human race might hate sin as the cause of death, the all-wise one brings the sentence of death after the transgression of the commandment. By this he contrives hatred of sin, while preparing beforehand for the race the remedy of salvation, which, through the becoming man of the Only-begotten, procured the resurrection from the dead and immortality. And what is harsh in the sentence, “You are earth, and to earth you will return”? “I formed you from earth,” he says, “and changed you into a far better nature; but since you would not keep my commandment, return to your former nature.” And why should the sin seem small? He had given him authority over all the plants, and forbidden him to eat from one alone. But he, leaving all the others, plucked this fruit first and only. This is what God the Master reproached him with: “Who told you,” he says, “that you were naked, unless you have eaten from the tree of which I commanded you not to eat from this alone?” The devil too made this plain by what he said to Eve: “Why is it that God said, You shall not eat from every tree in the paradise?” If he had seen them eating, he would not have thought that they had received the commandment about all the trees. The transgression, then, was not small: they partook first of the one tree from which alone they had been commanded not to partake.

Why, when God had said, “On whatever day you eat from the tree, you shall surely die,” did he not die at once when he transgressed the commandment? This accusation is the opposite of the last. A little before, you called God harsh; now you accuse his love for humankind. You ought rather to praise the goodness of God, not accuse it. For he usually threatens greater things but brings punishments smaller than the threats; and one can find this in many places in the divine Scripture. Here, however, he called the sentence of mortality death; for so Symmachus too translated: “On whatever day you eat from the tree, you will be mortal.” After the divine sentence he expected death every day, so to speak. So too those who have believed in Christ the Master live even while being slaughtered, awaiting the resurrection and the kingdom of heaven. “For in hope we were saved.”

How should the garments of skin be understood? The allegorists say that the skins are mortal flesh; others have said that they were made from the bark of trees. I accept neither of these; the one is overly curious, the other very fabulous. Since the divine Scripture says that the body was formed even before the soul, how is it not fabulous to say that after transgressing the commandment they received mortal flesh? And to busy oneself about where God got skins, and on that account to invent a new kind of clothing, seems to me superfluous. One must be content with what is written, and know that nothing is impossible for the creator of the universe, and marvel at his boundless goodness: he cares for them even after their transgression, and when they needed clothing he did not overlook them in their nakedness.

What does “See, Adam has become like one of us” mean? Since the devil had said, “You will be like gods, knowing good and evil,” and Adam had received the sentence of death for transgressing the commandment, the God of the universe said this ironically, showing the falsehood of the devil's promise. He prevented him from partaking of the fruit of the tree of life, not because he grudged him immortal life, but to check the course of sin. Death, then, is a cure, not a punishment; for it checks the impulse of sin. “For the one who has died,” it says, “has been justified from sin.” He commanded him to live opposite paradise, so that, remembering the life free of pain, he might hate sin as the cause of a life of toil.

If Cain was grieved because his offerings were not accepted, it is plain that he repented; for grief belongs to those who repent. What vexed him was not his own fault, but his brother's success. Aquila too hinted at this; he put it so: “And Cain was very angry, and his face fell. And the Lord said to Cain, Why are you angry?”

What sign did God put on Cain? God's decree itself was a sign, preventing him from being killed; and the trembling of his limbs made him marked and conspicuous.

Whom did Cain have as wife? His sister, clearly; but this was not then a charge against him, since no law forbade it. Besides, the race could not have increased otherwise. God wished to establish all the nations of human beings from one man and one woman: first, so that they might recognize the sameness of their nature, as sprung from one couple; then, so that they might be joined in concord, as having flowered from one root. For if, even with these things so governed by the God of the universe, countless slaughters are dared, what would they not have dared if they had thought that they had sprung from different fathers? For this reason he formed one man from the earth, made one woman from him, and from them filled the whole world with the race. For this reason, then, he permitted at the beginning the union of brothers and sisters; but when the race had increased, he forbids this marriage as unlawful. That is why, with Noah and his sons, he also saved their wives in the ark, so that their children might be joined to their cousins.

Whom did Lamech kill? Not two, as some have supposed, nor Cain, as others have told in their myths, but one, and a young man at that. “For I have killed a man,” he says, “to my wounding, and a youth to my bruising”; that is, a man young in age. He escaped punishment, however, because he confessed his sin: by pronouncing sentence against himself he prevented the divine sentence.

Where did the God of the universe translate Enoch? One must not seek what has been passed over in silence, but be content with what is written. I think, though, that the God of the universe did this to encourage the athletes of virtue. Abel, the first fruit of righteousness, had been cut down before his time and by the roots, and the hope of the resurrection did not yet encourage human beings; so the God of the universe translated Enoch, who had pleased him, and removed him from the life of mortals, so that each of those who choose piety, being honored with reason, might reckon that he who honored Enoch would not leave Abel without honor, since he is just and governs all things justly. For this reason he allowed the one to be killed and translated the other, to signify by his taking-up the resurrection to come. For the one who did not obtain the rewards of virtue in this life will clearly enjoy them in another life.

Why, when it was Adam who had sinned, did Abel the righteous die first? God wished the foundation of death to be rotten. If Adam had died first, death would have had a strong base, receiving the sinner as its first dead. But since it received first one who was unjustly killed, it has an insecure foundation.

Whom has Moses called sons of God? Some thunderstruck and very foolish people took them to be angels, thinking perhaps that they would have an excuse for their own licentiousness if they accused the angels of such things. They ought to have heard the God of the universe saying, “My Spirit shall not remain among these men for ever, because they are flesh; but their days shall be a hundred and twenty years,” and seen from this that the nature of incorporeal beings has no flesh, and that their life is not bounded by a fixed time; for they were created immortal. What follows has the same sense: “The Lord God, seeing that the wickednesses of men were multiplied on the earth, and that everyone was diligently planning evil in his heart all his days, God considered that he had made man on the earth. And God said, I will wipe out man whom I made from the face of the earth, from man to cattle, and from creeping things to the birds of heaven; for I have considered that I made them.” And again he said to Noah, “The time of every man has come before me, for the earth has been filled with injustice by them; and see, I am destroying them and the earth.” All this shows that they were human beings, who had loved the lawless life. If angels had mingled with the daughters of men, then men were wronged by the angels (for they plainly corrupted their daughters by force), and they were wronged also by God who made them, since they themselves were punished for the lust of the angels. But I think that not even the father of lies himself would dare to say this. The divine Scripture has taught in many ways both that human beings sinned and that the divine sentence was pronounced against human beings. What makes many ignorant is reading the divine Scripture carelessly. For having said that Seth was born from Adam and Enosh from Seth, the writer added: “He hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God.” Aquila translated it in this way: “Then it was begun to be called by the name of the Lord.” The text hints that because of his piety he was the first to obtain the divine name, and was named “God” by his kinsmen; hence those who sprang from him were called sons of God, just as we are called Christians from the name of Christ the Master. If anyone does not accept this interpretation because it rests on Aquila's translation, let him hear God saying through the prophet David: “I said, You are gods, and all of you sons of the Most High”; and, “God stood in the assembly of gods; in their midst he judges gods.” He gives this name to the rulers, as what follows shows: “How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to sinners? Judge for the orphan and the poor; do justice to the lowly and the needy,” and so on. And again: “The God of gods, the Lord, has spoken and called the earth”; that is, plainly, the God of these very men who by grace have been counted worthy of this title. So too the lawgiver says, “You shall not revile gods, and you shall not speak evil of the rulers of your people.” Those men, then, as pious, were named sons of God. For the race of Seth had been kept apart and did not mingle with the descendants of Cain, because of the curse brought on him by the God of the universe. But after a long time had passed (for God brought the flood after more than two thousand years), seeing that the daughters of Cain's kindred were beautiful, and charmed, as is likely, by the musical instruments they had invented (for Jubal, who sprang from them, introduced the harp and the lyre), they mingled with them and corrupted their own nobility. They suffered the same as the Israelites who mingled with the daughters of the Midianites, shared their impiety, and received punishment from God. Of these the divine David too said, “And they mingled with the nations and learned their works, and served their carved images.” So those who traced their descent from Seth were formerly called sons of God as men devoted to virtue; but, enticed by the beauty of the unholy women, they confounded the races that had been kept distinct, and received total destruction as the fruit of their inheritance. One must note, however, that the divine word does not accuse them simply of sin, but of lawlessness pursued with diligence and zeal. This is what “everyone was diligently planning evil in his heart all his days” shows. Those who resent the assault of sin but are overcome by wickedness through the slackness of their mind, and afterwards grieve and groan, have some moderate excuse in a way; but those who incline wholly to licentiousness and wickedness, and make their reason the slave of the passions, so as even to invent further forms of vice, and this not once or twice but all their life long, what pardon do they deserve? And what punishment is not small for those who have so given themselves up to destruction?

Whom does the divine Scripture call giants? Some say those who lived many years; others, men hateful to God and opposed to God. Those who understand it in this way say that these men did not have larger bodies than other men. But when I hear the divine Scripture saying of Anak that he was a descendant of the giants; and of Og, that his bed was of iron, nine cubits long and four cubits wide, and that he was left from the Rephaim; and the spies relating, “We were before them like locusts”; and God confirming their words and saying, “I have delivered to you the Amorite, whose height was like a cedar's, and he was strong as an oak”; and of Goliath, that he was four cubits and a span in height: I think that some men of enormous size did exist. God governed this too wisely, so that people might know that it was not from weakness that the creator assigned human beings their measure (for it would have been easy for him to create them larger); but to cut off pride and hinder arrogance, he did not give human beings very large bodies. If in small bodies they boast, not against one another, but against the maker himself, what would they not have done if they had received very large bodies?

Why did the ancients live a long time? So that the race might increase in the longer time; for this reason too they were joined to many wives. Indeed, even after the flood, down to the patriarchs, they were long-lived; but when they had filled the world, the number of years was reduced.

Why did he destroy the multitudes of men by the flood? He wished to wipe out the race of Cain; but the tribe of the pious had mingled with it, and so it shared in the punishment too. Wishing to make a beginning of a new life, he preserved Noah and his sons with their wives, since Noah was pious and righteous, had sprung from the kindred of the pious, and had hated that lawless mingling. Yet he did not do this, as some say, out of some anger and regret; these are human passions, and the divine nature is free of passions. Besides, regret suits those who learn the nature of things by experience: not knowing what will be, they deliberate beforehand, and then, learning by experience that they did not deliberate rightly, they regret it. But God sees what will be after many generations as already done. Foreseeing and foreknowing, then, he governs all things accordingly. Why, then, should he regret, when he arranges all things according to his own foreknowledge? In God, then, regret is a change of dispensation. “I regret,” he says, “that I anointed Saul king”; that is, “I have resolved to depose him and appoint another.” So here too, “I have considered that I made man” means “I have resolved to destroy the human race”; but being loving toward humankind, he preserved Noah as a seed for nature. And since the kinds of irrational animals were created for human use, they too were destroyed together with the human beings, except those preserved with Noah in the ark. For God the Master ordered two of each kind of those considered unclean to be preserved, but seven of the clean. Since he was going to permit human beings to eat meat, and the nurslings of piety were going to offer him sacrifices, he commanded more of the clean to be kept: the three pairs for the increase of the kind, and the one left over for sacrifice. For as soon as the punishment ceased, Noah offered God a sacrifice of thanksgiving: “from all the clean cattle,” it says, “and from all the clean birds.” So it is plain that the reason he commanded seven of each clean kind to be brought into the ark was this: so that Noah, offering one animal of each kind, would not destroy the pairs.

What did the wild beasts eat in the ark? Clearly fodder and seeds. For God said to Noah, “You shall take for yourself of all the foods that you eat, and gather them to yourself, and it shall be food for you and for them.” He prescribed the same food for human beings too: “See,” he says, “I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon all the earth, and every tree that has in itself fruit of seed for sowing; it shall be food for you, and for all the beasts of the earth, and all the birds of heaven, and every creeping thing that creeps on the earth, which has in itself the breath of life; and every green plant for food.” So it is plain that both human beings and animals abstained from eating meat and had as their food the fruits that grow from the earth. For “yielding seed” Aquila translated “seeding seed.”

How should “The Lord remembered Noah” be understood? The divine Scripture speaks to human beings in a way suited to them, and reshapes its words so that they can take them in. Just as in God regret is a change of dispensation (“I regret that I anointed Saul king,” meaning, “I have resolved to set up another in his place”), so here too “I have considered that I made man” must be understood as “I have resolved to bring total destruction on them.” And so this “God remembered Noah” does not hint at a previous forgetting; it shows his ineffable love for humankind: because of his affection for Noah he commanded that boundless and immeasurable water to be swallowed up as quickly as possible. Making his indescribable goodness plain, it added, “and all the cattle, and all the birds, and all the creeping things that were with him in the ark.” For our sake he counted these too worthy of his providence. This is what the great David cries: “who makes grass spring up for the cattle, and green plants for the service of men”; and again, “Men and cattle you will save, O Lord.” For on our account he cares for what is ours as well.

What does “The Lord smelled a fragrant odor” mean? He accepted Noah's gratitude; not that he was delighted by the savor of the fat (nothing smells worse than burning bones), but he praised the intention of the one who offered it. For he does not have bodily parts, that we should attribute nostrils to him; smelling is done through nostrils. So he repays him with a blessing; and since Noah was the seed of the race, the root of nature, and a second Adam, he gives him the blessing that Adam had enjoyed as soon as he was formed: “Increase and multiply, and fill the earth and have dominion over it; and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be on all the beasts of the earth, and on all the birds of heaven, and on all that moves on the earth, and on all the fish of the sea; I have given them under your hand.” And the word became deed: all things fear even the shadow of man, creatures of the water, of the land, and of the air. Then he gave him the law about eating meat, bidding him enjoy meat as he would vegetables.

Why does he forbid partaking of blood? He taught this more clearly in the Law: “What the soul is to a man,” he says, “the blood is to the irrational animals.” If, then, you partake of meat without the blood, you partake of it as you would of vegetables, for a vegetable has no soul. But if you partake of it with the blood, you eat a soul. That is why here too he said: “Only flesh with the blood of its life you shall not eat. For your blood, the blood of your lives, I will require; from the hand of all the wild beasts I will require it; from the hand of a man's brother I will require his life.” Here he hints at the resurrection: not that he will bring the wild beasts to judgment and exact a penalty for eating men, but that he will gather together and raise up the bodies consumed by them. For “in his hand are the ends of the earth,” and it is easy for him to gather our body from everywhere. Here he has shown this in a riddle; through Ezekiel he proclaimed the resurrection more clearly.

Why did he legislate the eating of meat at all? As soon as he created man, he gave him the fruits of the earth, bidding him live on seeds and trees; but after the flood he honors him with greater luxury, bidding him sacrifice and eat birds and fish and land animals. He was driving out one passion with another, and healing the greater with the lesser. For God, foreseeing that those who had fallen into extreme irrationality would deify all these creatures, permits eating them in order to put an end to the impiety; it is the height of stupidity to worship what one eats. For this reason he calls some animals unclean and others clean, so that they would not deify the former, loathing them as unclean, and would not worship the latter, since they eat them.