Commentary on Genesis 1 part 9/15

And Lamech took to himself two wives.

The name of the one was Adad, and the name of the second was Sella.

And Adad bore Jobel.

This man was the father of those who dwell in tents and keep cattle.

And the name of his brother was Jubal.

This man was the one who invented the harp and the lyre.

And Sella too bore Thobel, and he was a hammer-wielding smith of bronze and iron.

In ancient times it did not seem unlawful, even to the earnest and virtuous, to have two wives; for it was a season for the succession and multiplication of mankind.

For it was the time for the succession and the multitude of human beings.

Lamech, then, having two wives, produced sons from both, who also became founders of crafts: the one became the founder of cattle-keepers, who had as brother Jubal, the inventor of the harp and the lyre; and from the other wife came Thobel, who first became a hammer-wielding smith of bronze and iron, whose sister too is named.

Through what has been set forth, then, the divine instruction demonstrates that human beings are creatures endowed with free choice, sharing in the sciences and arts.

For they do not, like the irrational animals, live merely by sense perception, but the excellence of the rational faculty is already displayed through the fact that they have become inventors of the arts.

So much, then, for what pertains to the literal sense.

Now let the matters of the anagogical (spiritual) interpretation be as follows.

The cattle-keeper is different from the shepherd.

For the one pastures with knowledge, but the cattle-keeper does not.

Abel the righteous was a shepherd, leading his own irrational faculties—the appetitive, the desiderative, and the spirited—according to right reason.

But the cattle-keeper, being devoid of knowledge and a man given to pleasure, belongs to the senses alone, not mastering them but being mastered by them.

And by way of an example, what is being said might be made clear in the following manner.

This man, then, is in a certain sense a cattle-keeper, whereas the physician is a shepherd; for he employs sense perception according to reason.

For he uses sense perception with reason.

So too concerning smell and the other senses: he who uses them according to reason is the best.

For reason rules over sense perception; but when reason is overpowered, the human being thereafter receives his appellations according to his passions—so that on account of anger he is called a lion, on account of cunning a fox, on account of what is earthly a serpent, and likewise some are called a horse on account of their pleasure-loving.

For it says, 'You have become like lustful horses,' and other men are called mules because, being wholly given over to the senses, they beget nothing divine.

For it says, 'Do not be like the horse or the mule, which have no understanding.' The cattle-keeper, then, is such a one, being a base fellow, dwelling not in a house but in tents—an unstable thing—not imitating those who dwell in tents for the sake of progress, that from this they may afterward enter into the house, who also say, as in the psalm:

'How lovely are your dwelling places, O Lord of hosts!

My soul longs and even faints for the courts of the Lord.'

For from the tents he who progresses desires the courts, singing:

'I will pass through the place of the wondrous tent, even to the house of God.' The other brother is the one who invented the harp and the lyre, rightly being his brother.

For the enjoyment which is worked upon the hearing through musical seduction has a close kinship with the enjoyment of pleasures.

For 'Woe to those who rise early in the morning and pursue strong drink, and who linger until late evening;

for the wine will inflame them;

for with lyre and harp they drink their wine, but the works of the Lord they do not regard.' And the one from the other wife fashions weapons of war out of bronze and iron—the bronze signifying the (mere) sound, as Paul too writes;

and this same man is also a worker of iron, being a kind of sophist who deceives by means of seemingly powerful plausibilities.

And Lamech said to his own wives, Ada and Sella:

'Hear my voice, you wives of Lamech; give ear to my words;

for I have slain a man for wounding me, and a young man for bruising me;

for if Cain is to be avenged sevenfold, then Lamech seventy-sevenfold.'

The expression 'to give ear' (to lend one's ear) I consider to be found only in the divine Scripture; and it differs from 'to hear' when it is joined together with it, in that 'to give ear' signifies hearing from close at hand, whereas 'to hear' signifies hearing in any manner whatever, even if the speaker is not near.

And in Isaiah too, the words 'Hear, O heaven, and give ear, O earth, for the Lord has spoken' are not said as though in parallel—for this is the same as 'Give ear, O heaven, and I will speak' (since other translators say 'Give ear' instead of 'Attend')—'and let the earth hear the words from my mouth.'

And they say that the observation is of this sort:

When the law was being given by God, since they were near to the heavenly works, on this account the heaven is commanded to give ear; but when they departed from the virtuous way of life, so as to have become near to the earth, then thereafter it is said:

'Hear, O heaven'—for he was far from them—'and give ear, O earth'—for she was near through their pursuits.

[...] Lamech, then, did <not> say 'Hear' and 'Give ear' as parallels; but at any rate we have not inopportunely observed the difference between them as it lies set forth in the Scripture.

But let us learn what it is that he says.

'Hear my voice, you wives of Lamech;

give ear to my words.' Now one might say that 'the voice' and 'the words' are used in parallel;

but he who seeks precision even in these matters might say that with respect to 'the voice' he set 'Hear,' whereas with respect to 'the words' he set the more precise term, which is 'to give ear.'

Looking to this distinction, someone might say that John was 'a voice of one crying,' understanding the plain, ready wording of the Scriptures as the 'voice,' but the mystical sense as the 'word.'

It is said in the Book of the Covenant, by Lamech, that Cain was slain unintentionally;

for while building a certain wall he toppled it upon him, Cain being behind (it), who was thus slain unintentionally.

So then, with respect to the fact that (Cain) was slain, he says, 'it happened as a wound to me,' but with respect to the fact that it was not willingly (done), 'as a bruise to me.'

And Adam knew Eve his wife, and having conceived she bore a son and called his name Seth, saying:

'For God has raised up for me another seed in place of Abel, whom Cain slew.'

Earlier, when distinguishing the meanings of 'knew,' we said that Adam's 'knowing' Eve his wife did not mean 'to be acquainted with' but 'to have come together (with her),' which is precisely what it signifies here too.

She, having conceived, bore a son, whom she also named Seth, saying:

'For God has raised up for me a seed in place of Abel, whom Cain slew.'

Those of the heresy of Valentinus, introducing different natures—so that the one of them is incapable of receiving virtue, which they also call 'earthy'; and another incapable of receiving vice, which indeed they name 'spiritual'; and saying there is a third, the 'psychic,' which is regarded by them as a kind of mixed nature—

And they take Cain as the sign of the virtue that cannot be received, and Abel as the sign of spiritual virtue, referring the remaining kind to Seth.

But this is not the fitting moment to refute this impious heresy, lest the discourse be drawn out too long.

But we also understand the word of Eve to be, as it were, a testimony to the character of Seth.

For in place of the earnest Abel, this one, when interpreted, means 'watering'.

And this is a symbol of the life-giving supply.

For it was necessary that the one who offers up—for this is what Abel is interpreted to mean—should have a brother who is 'watering', so that the one who is first and more perfect might, after the manner of a priest, offer up to God the spiritual sacrifices, while Seth, holding the second rank, might present to God through watering and teaching those who are being instructed—Seth who stands in the place of Cain, who was a self-willed man and cast back upon himself.

For Cain is interpreted as 'possession'.

And to Seth also there was born a son, and he called his name Enos.

This man hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God.

Those who are holy, born of the holy, often derive from those forebears both their birth according to the flesh and their birth according to the soul—in the manner in which Abraham became the father of Isaac, and Isaac of Jacob, and Jacob of Joseph.

For these were at once descended from them by the human succession and also established as imitators of their virtue.

But Esau came of Isaac according to the flesh alone, being estranged from him in his disposition of mind.

Seth, therefore, being born in place of the righteous one, being righteous begets Enos, a righteous man, who instead of the Lord's name is called 'man'; such a designation makes plain the virtue of his soul, which preserves that which is according to the image and the condition of the man who truly is.

For among the Hebrews Enos means 'man'.

Indeed, then, Scripture attaches to him also that which is proper to man.

Of this man it says, 'he hoped to call upon the name of the Lord.'

And this is an action befitting a virtuous man.

And this is hope in the true sense: to be made like to God so far as is possible.

But to hope to call upon the name of the Lord God is at the same time to subject oneself both to His authority and to the divine teaching.

This is the book of the generation of men.

In the day that God made Adam, He made him according to the image of God.

Male and female He made them, and He blessed them, and He called their name Adam, in the day that He made them.

Here he called 'book' the narrative concerning Adam and his succession down to the present.

Now before the sixth day, on which man was constituted, it was called 'the book of heaven and earth'.

For that whole narrative he assigned to the things that had come into being before man, laying down another beginning for the generation of men.

And he speaks of 'generation' as the account that describes his making, just as it was also said concerning Jesus.

'...the generation of Jesus Christ,' speaking of that which is according to the flesh.

For His eternal generation is unknown to men.

'Who shall declare His generation?' And just as we said that the six days were not a multitude of days, so neither was the one day.

For God does not create in time.

For men have their actions measured out by time, but God is not so.

For He Himself spoke, and they were brought into being; and we cannot distinguish His willing from the coming-to-be of what He wills to bring into existence; yet for the sake of order, as has been said, the first among the perfect ones is taken up.

But also concerning man's having come to be according to the image, the same thing was then said.

And the phrase 'and He blessed them' is emphatic of their being good.

For blessing reaches unto the good.

'For this man shall receive blessing from the Lord.'

It should be noted that He calls them both Adam; and having already spoken in the earlier passages about 'male and female He made them', we shall not repeat ourselves.

And if both Enos and Adam signify 'man', this need not be found strange.

For among the Hebrews 'man' has many names, just as also among those who speak Greek—anthropos, merops, brotos, phos.

And these, being subject to etymologies, exist by nature and not by convention, as has also been said before.

And Adam lived two hundred and thirty years, and he begot a son according to his likeness and according to his image, and he called his name Seth.

And the days of Adam after he begot Seth were seven hundred years, and he begot sons and daughters.

And all the days of Adam which he lived were nine hundred and thirty years, and he died.

Now the life of men has at present been cut short to a small number.

For it will be told later from the histories how the matter thus diminished little by little, so that it was even foretold beforehand by God, who says:

'My spirit shall not remain among these men, because they are flesh; but their days shall be a hundred and twenty years.' And it was also said by the psalmist:

'The days of our years are seventy years, but if in strength, eighty years; and the greater part of them is toil and trouble.'

For the years after the eightieth year of life are trouble and toil.

But in those days men did not even grow old quickly.

At any rate, at a hundred and sixty years of age they seemed to be in their prime.

And with good reason men in the beginning happened to be long-lived, lest, if they were short-lived, the human race, being derived from a single origin, should give out.

For in this way they also begot more children, since the span of life was longer; yet the memory of only one is preserved, on account of the principle of succession, the firstborn being the ones named.

And indeed, since Seth is the third, not the firstborn, it must be said that it was fitting neither to reckon from Cain, who was wicked, nor from Abel, who departed childless; and therefore with good reason from Seth, who was in a certain sense the firstborn.

And the phrase 'according to the likeness and according to the image', if taken more simply, would seem to mean the same thing; but one who inquires more artfully might say that 'according to the likeness' refers to the one, and 'according to the image' to the other.

These things, then, have thus now been expounded.

But if anyone should occupy himself both with the multitude of the years and with the interpretation of the names of those begotten, Philo would render a mystical account, and that without frigid over-subtlety.

Attend, then, to this, for it is profitable.

And Seth lived two hundred and five years, and he begot Enos.

And Seth lived after he begot Enos seven hundred and seven years, and he begot sons and daughters.

And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died.

And this Enos is namesake of the one before him, who was a son of Cain.

And this Enos lived nine hundred years and died.

And his son was Cainan, who himself also lived nine hundred and ten years and died.

In ninety-five years he was brought to his completion.

And of this man too the son was Jared, who lived nine hundred and sixty-two years and died, who begot Enoch.

And Enoch lived a hundred and sixty-five years and begot Methuselah; and Enoch was well-pleasing to God after he begot Methuselah two hundred years, and he begot sons and daughters.

And all the days of Enoch were three hundred and sixty-five years.

And Enoch was well-pleasing to God, and he was not found, because God translated him.

Taking up the phrase concerning Enoch, the Apostle says in the Epistle to the Hebrews:

'By faith Enoch was translated that he should not see death.'

His life is delimited to a number of days amounting to a year, and thereafter he was translated; and one might sensibly reckon that, having attained perfection and fullness in accordance with the virtue that ought to exist among human beings, he was translated to the better things.

His translation did not come about after the manner of other human beings;

for the bodies of the others, having remained here and been dissolved, were separated from their souls; but concerning this man it is said that he was translated, whom we understand either to have been taken up as Elijah was, or in some other manner to have been caught up into a divine region.

At this point it is fitting to consider how the saying spoken by Paul, 'And inasmuch as it is appointed unto men once to die,' is verified.

For if these men — I mean Elijah and Enoch — were taken up together with their coarsest bodies, destined to continue even now and throughout the whole age, then the saying spoken by the wise and holy Paul, that all men must die, is false.

The passage before us therefore admits of a fitting spiritual interpretation: even though they have not now shared in the death that is customary for the rest of mankind, yet by the fact that their material life was laid aside according to the reckoning of God, which is unutterable to us, we must understand their mortality.

For if the Savior is the firstborn from the dead, then he would be their firstborn as well.

For it would be unseemly for them to be outside such a principle; and besides, if they did not lay aside their material life, as we have said, neither have they shared in the divine resurrection, according to which we shall all receive back the body: from dishonor honored, from ignoble glorious, from weak powerful, from natural spiritual.

But if it is dear to anyone also to read the book of the Testament, he will learn that he is said to have been caught up into paradise;

for to know this too, even if it is not from an incontrovertible book, is not out of place.

But there are those who say that the translation is one from a manner of life to another manner of life, according to which the Savior said to his disciples:

'You are no longer of this world, but I have chosen you' — the choosing effecting a translation out of worldly things; and they accept another text as well that is corroborative of this:

'We know that we have passed from death unto life;'

for those who have passed from the death that follows upon wickedness to the life that comes from virtue have migrated.

This rendering fits not only Enoch, but all the saints as well;

wherefore consider carefully whether it is fitting to give the preference to the former interpretation.

And Noah was five hundred years old, and Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

It is to be observed that in his case Scripture did not say at what age he began to beget, but that being five hundred years old he had three sons, not begotten at the same time.

And it is well that Scripture records not that he begot daughters but sons, showing by way of symbol that the righteous man is not a begetter of females, just as it is recorded also concerning Moses and Abraham;

for neither did these men have daughters.

At all events, one who is a father according to the soul, having vigorous offspring, is called blessed, hearing:

'Blessed art thou, and it shall be well with thee.'

'Thy sons are like young olive plants round about thy table;'

'thus shall the man be blessed that fears the Lord.'

But daughters are symbols of things perceptible to the senses.

one who acquires for himself the female things.

For the vigorous offspring of the soul, those who are turned toward things below are eager to destroy, rejoicing over wealth and human affairs.

At any rate, the text that follows teaches this very thing:

for when they became a multitude, daughters were born to them.

And it came to pass, when men began to become numerous upon the earth, that daughters also were born to them.

The word 'numerous' can be taken both of multitude — in which sense it is used most properly — and of the common, base sort.

For in Exodus too it is said:

'And the sons of Israel were multiplied and became a base multitude.'

But also the words 'Many say to my soul' stand for 'the base sort';

for they do not bring forth earnest words.

'For we are not, as the many, adulterating the word of the Lord' — this indicates the neglectful ones.

And it is well too that Scripture says these were multiplied 'upon the earth';

for minding earthly things they were of little worth and more akin to the many;

for these are not in heaven but upon earth.

And reasonably too were daughters born to them;

for the base man is a neglectful begetter of females.

And when the angels of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, they took to themselves wives of all whom they chose.

From the Lord is a wife joined to a husband;

wherefore he who makes use of the marriage-union apart from hope in God receives her from himself and not from God, since indeed to Adam also God brought the woman.

The text is therefore profitable toward doing nothing apart from God.

For he who is zealous for honorable marriage looks not to wealth, not to nobility, not to beauty of form, if she be undisciplined.

So also the holy Abraham sends forth his servant to seek a betrothal, being charged to receive for Isaac one adorned with the right dispositions.

Indeed, the Spirit that composed the narrative says concerning her: 'She was a virgin;'

'a man had not known her' — by the words 'she was a virgin' showing also the purity of her soul, and by the words 'a man had not known her' showing this very thing, the incorruption of her body.

And that not every marriage is from God, Paul writes:

'Be not unequally yoked together with unbelievers' — which fittingly he enjoined at the beginning of the preaching, even though Paul appears to say, 'If any brother has a wife that believes not.'

For it is plain that those he did not wish to be separated after their faith, lest the word be hindered, were those who had been joined together before their faith.

And in the way of allegory too, God joins to the man resolve and piety and wisdom, that he may beget virtues;

Wisdom at any rate bears prudence to the man, and Solomon says concerning Wisdom:

'I became a lover of her beauty, and I brought her to dwell with me.'

This is the wife whom God joins;

for the Lord gives wisdom.

These men, then, concerning whom the passage before us speaks, took wives to themselves, not looking to God for this to come to pass.

For this convicts their irrational desire, that they looked to beauty of form;

for the word 'fair' signifies this.

It is inquired by many whether angels mingled with the women by their nature, or whether the saying has some other meaning.

Now some say that pleasure-loving demons, enamored of bodies, lay with women; but the conception that came about from them prevents us from understanding it thus;

for it is not possible for a succession of human beings to come about in that way.

Others say that angels, having desired bodies, were entwined with them in perception, God so ordering it, that having been sated with the longing they might return to that which they had forsaken; but interpreting the women allegorically as perception and the bodies, they say this — that from these they begot giants, that is, their reasonings and deeds.

And there are those who assert that demons, through pleasure-seeking, use base men as instruments, through whom in some fashion they consort with women, themselves taking delight in the sin that proceeds from those men.

to men forever, because they are flesh.

The Spirit of God abides in those who have advanced above material things; on account of these things those who cleave to them are called flesh, since 'fleshly things' are understood to be the material and passion-ridden conditions.

For he does not mean the flesh in its ordinary sense;

for so it would come about that no human being partakes of the Spirit of God.

And that there is another flesh besides this visible one with which we are clothed, Paul writes:

The mind of the flesh is enmity toward God;

for it is not subject to the law of God, nor indeed can it be.

And those who are in the flesh cannot please God.

For if one were to take 'flesh' to mean the visible flesh, then many together with it have pleased God, namely all the saints.

And again, when he says, 'But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit,' he signifies the flesh that is blameworthy;

for they were still in the flesh, having this by reason of their being alive.

Next, 'flesh' is said of that with which we are clothed, and also of the irrational animal and of man.

'For I will pour out from my Spirit upon all flesh'—that is, upon men—'and all flesh shall see the salvation of God.'

The very wording of Scripture is also called 'flesh';

'for the flesh,' it says, 'profits nothing; it is the Spirit that gives life.'

For Scripture taken merely and in a sensible manner does not give life—just as if we were to say that even one who makes geometric figures according to geometry is useful, while one who does this alone without understanding would be inferior to a painter.

Since, then, the many who had come into being as men were full of wickedness, 'my Spirit,' he says, 'shall not dwell in them.'

'For the Holy Spirit of instruction will flee deceit';

and deceit is the worst of passions.

And 'unto the age' would signify their whole lifetime, for as long as they are such.

Equivalent in force to this is the saying, 'I will not eat flesh unto the age.'

Whether, then, they are men driven by demons who took wives, or, as has been previously explained, angels who lusted after sensible things—in none of these does the Spirit abide.

For as many as came to this through passion and sins, it is clear that they have no share in the divine Spirit;

for neither are those who came for the sake of help deprived of the divine Spirit.

But if anyone is puzzled that souls are called 'angels,' he need not marvel;

for the intellectual nature of both is the same, even though an angel has a subtle body and a man a coarse one;

for common to both is the pleasing of God, since the rational nature is also common to them.

But if someone should raise an objection—how did preexisting souls desire bodies which they had not known?—to him it must be said that 'to desire' is often spoken of not as though one absolutely desires the very thing to which one's actions lead.

For example, when we rebuke those who conduct themselves badly, saying 'you desire to perish,' we do not mean that you long for that very thing, but that you do such things as lead you to destruction.

If, then, someone should say that the souls desired bodies, it must be understood thus: that they came into such a condition as had need of a sojourn in a body, since they were unworthy, after such deeds, to be in a place that was not of that kind.

'And their days shall be a hundred and twenty years.'

Everything that God does and says, he both does and says with some true judgment.

Since, then, he speaks as of something necessary, saying 'their days shall be a hundred and twenty,' yet this does not appear to be so, it is necessary to hunt out in another way the meaning of the text before us.

The numbers taken up in the Scriptures were not taken up at random, but for the sake of some meaning;

often they are not even introduced in a manner proper to the historical narrative, being taken up for the sake of some meaning.

For the saying, 'I have left for myself seven thousand men who have not bowed the knee to Baal,' does not hold as history—for those men were not so many that they should escape the holy prophet's notice—but was recorded for the sake of the meaning, which shows that everyone who has transcended sensible things and the world that came into being in six days, and has come to be in the anagogical hebdomad, is left by God as a mark and a benefit to the others.

It is taken up in relation to the genesis of the world as something complete, as has also been said in what has gone before.

And the saying, 'Six times shall he deliver you out of necessities,' is not spoken because of the number, or because he rescues so many times from necessities, but because, so long as one is among the affairs of that which came into being in six, he is under necessities—so it is said;

for they do not have the purification which is signified by the seventh (day of) rest, as was said by the Savior to the disciples:

'You are not of this world,' having transcended the necessities in it.

These things have been prepared beforehand in order to show that the number one hundred and twenty is not taken up here in vain;

and this too must be observed, that Scripture, in taking up the numbers, joins to them things proper (to their meaning), as in the case of the world that came into being in six days.

Let us take an example.

For God did not, to put it so, make the world in six angels, or in six monads, or in six men;

fittingly, therefore, it is said 'in six days,' because time follows upon the coming-into-being, and he uses the 'day' appropriately, so as not to say years or months or hours;

for the one would be unworthy of God, while the other is the name of something incomplete;

for not knowing what a day is, we were ignorant of an hour.

And here too, since it was about life, he made mention of years.

The multitude will say that God, in cutting short their life, restricted it to a hundred and twenty, whereas the former (generations) lived on for many years;

but this was not fitting;

for they are found to have lived more years.

Let us therefore look at the peculiar property of the number.

It is said, then, that this number is doubled by the sum of its own parts;

for if one adds together the half, which is sixty, a third (40), a fourth (30), a fifth (24), a sixth (20), an eighth (15), a tenth (12), a twelfth (10), a fifteenth (8), a twentieth (6), a twenty-fourth (5), a thirtieth (4), a fortieth (3), a sixtieth (2), a hundred-and-twentieth (1), it produces two hundred and forty, which is double a hundred and twenty; and the parts of this (fifteen) turn out to be fifteen, which same fifteen, by increment through augmentation, makes up the hundred and twenty.

And that fifteen was taken up as being of the most perfect degree is clear;