Likewise they report there to be a nation where they have single legs in their feet, and do not bend the knee, and are of marvellous swiftness; whom they call Sciopodes, because in the heat, lying on the ground on their backs, they shade themselves with the shadow of their feet; and certain ones without neck, having eyes in their shoulders; and the other kinds of men, or as it were of men, which are painted in mosaic on the seaside esplanade of Carthage, drawn from books, as of a rather curious history. What shall I say of the Cynocephali, whose dog-like heads and very barking confess them beasts rather than men? But it is not necessary to believe all the kinds of men which are said to exist.
But whoever is anywhere born a man — that is, a rational, mortal animal — however unusual to our senses he may bear a form of body, or colour, or motion, or sound, or by whatever force, whatever part, whatever quality of nature: that he draws his origin from that one first-formed man, no one of the faithful will doubt. Yet it is apparent what nature has obtained in the greater number, and what is wonderful by its very rarity. But such a reason as is rendered concerning the monstrous births of men among us can be rendered concerning certain monstrous nations. For God is the creator of all, who knows where and when it behoves or has behoved anything to be created, knowing with what likeness or diversity of parts He weaves the beauty of the universe.
But he who cannot inspect the whole is offended, as it were, by the deformity of a part, because he is ignorant to what it may be suited and to what it is to be referred. We know that men are born with more than five fingers on hands and feet; and this is a slighter deviation than any other; yet far be it that anyone should be so foolish as to think that the Creator erred in the number of human fingers, though not knowing why He did this. So too, even if a greater diversity should arise, He knows what He has done, whose works no one justly reprehends. At Hippo Diarrhytus there is a man having soles as it were half-moon-shaped, and on them only two toes each, and his hands likewise. If any nation were such, it would be added to that curious and marvellous history.
Shall we then, on this account, deny that this man was propagated from that one who was first created? Androgynes, whom they also call Hermaphrodites, although they be rather rare, yet it is difficult for them to be lacking in any age, in whom each sex so appears that it is uncertain from which they ought rather to receive their name; yet the custom of speaking has prevailed that they be named from the better, that is, the masculine. For no one ever called them Androgynaecae or Hermaphroditae. Some years ago, certainly within our memory, in the East a man was born double in the upper members, single in the lower. For there were two heads, two chests, four hands, but one belly and two feet, as of a single man;
and he lived so long that fame drew many to see him. But who could enumerate all human offspring far unlike those from whom it is most certain they were born? As, therefore, these cannot be denied to draw their origin from that one man, so whatever nations, in diversities of body, are reported as it were to have deviated from the accustomed course of nature which the more part and almost all hold, if they are included in that definition — that they are rational and mortal animals — it must be confessed that they draw their stock from that same one first father of all, provided that the things handed down concerning the variety of those peoples and their so great diversity among themselves and from us are true.
For if we did not know that apes and monkeys and sphinxes are not men but beasts, those historians, glorying in their curiosity, could lie to us with unpunished vanity, as though they were some nations of men. But if they are men, concerning whom those marvels have been written: what, if for this reason God willed even to create some nations thus, lest in these monsters which among us must needs be born of men, we should think that His wisdom, by which He fashions human nature, had erred, as it were, like the art of some less perfect craftsman? It ought not, therefore, to seem absurd to us that, just as in single nations there are certain monstrous men, so in the whole human race there are certain monstrous nations.
Wherefore, to conclude this question step by step and cautiously: either those things which are written of such sort concerning certain nations are altogether nothing; or if they exist, they are not men; or if they are men, they are from Adam. [IX] But as to their fabling that there are also Antipodes — that is, men on the opposite part of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets for us, treading with their feet opposite to our footsteps — this is by no reasoning to be believed. Nor do they affirm that they have learned this by any historical knowledge, but conjecture it as though by reasoning, on the ground that the earth is suspended within the concavity of heaven, and that the world has one and the same place both lowest and midmost; and from this they suppose that the other part of the earth, which is beneath, cannot be devoid of the habitation of men.
Nor do they consider that, even if the world be believed or by some reasoning be shown to be of a globed and rounded figure, it does not therefore follow that on that part also the earth is bare of the mass of waters; and then, even if it be bare, neither is it forthwith necessary that it should have men. Since in no way does that Scripture lie, which makes faith by narrating past events in that its predictions are fulfilled; and it is exceedingly absurd that it should be said that some men, the immensity of the Ocean being traversed, could have sailed from this to that part and arrived, so that even there the human race might be established from that one first man.
Wherefore, among those peoples of men who at that time are gathered to have been divided through seventy-two nations and as many tongues, let us seek, if we can find it, that City of God sojourning on the earth, which was led down even to the flood and the ark, and is shown to have persevered in the sons of Noah through their blessings, chiefly in the eldest, who was called Shem — since indeed Japheth was so blessed that he should dwell in the houses of his brother. [X] The series of generations, therefore, is to be held from Shem himself, that it may show the City of God after the flood, as the series of generations from him who was called Seth showed it before the flood.
For this reason, therefore, when divine Scripture had shown the earthly city in Babylon — that is, in confusion — it returns by recapitulation to the patriarch Shem, and thence begins the generations down to Abraham, the number of years also being recorded, at what age each begot the son pertaining to this line and how long he lived. Where certainly is to be acknowledged what I had before promised, that it may appear why it was said of the sons of Eber: 'The name of the one was Peleg, because in his days the earth was divided.' For what else is to be understood by the earth being divided, but by the diversity of tongues? The other sons of Shem, therefore, not pertaining to this matter, being passed over, those are linked in the order of generations through whom one may arrive at Abraham;
Just as those before the flood were linked together—the generations through whom one arrives at Noah, which were propagated from that son of Adam who was called Seth—so this chain of generations likewise begins thus: And these are the generations of Shem. Shem was a hundred years old when he begot Arphaxad, in the second year after the flood. And after he had begotten Arphaxad, Shem lived five hundred years, and begot sons and daughters, and died. In this manner Scripture proceeds through the rest, stating in what year of his life each one begot the son belonging to this order of generations that extends to Abraham, and how many years he lived thereafter, noting that he begot sons and daughters.
This is so that we may understand whence the peoples could increase, lest, childishly preoccupied with the few men who are named, we should be at a loss as to how such vast expanses of lands and kingdoms could have been filled from the stock of Shem—especially on account of the kingdom of the Assyrians, where that Ninus, the subduer of the Eastern peoples everywhere, reigned with immense prosperity, and handed down to his posterity a most extensive and most firmly established kingdom, one destined to endure for a long span of time.
But we, so as not to linger longer than needful, shall record in this order only this much—not how many years each one lived in this series of generations, but in what year of his life he begot his son—both that we may reckon up the number of years from the flood that is past down to Abraham, and that, apart from those matters upon which necessity compels us to dwell, we may touch briefly and in passing upon the rest. In the second year, then, after the flood, Shem begot Arphaxad; and Arphaxad, when he was a hundred and thirty-five years old, begot Cainan; and he, when he was a hundred and thirty, begot Sala; then Sala too was of the same number of years when he begot Heber; and Heber was a hundred and thirty-four years old when he begot Phalech, in whose days the earth was divided.
Phalech himself lived a hundred and thirty years, and begot Ragau; and Ragau, a hundred and thirty-two, and begot Seruch; and Seruch, a hundred and thirty, and begot Nachor; and Nachor, seventy-nine, and begot Thara; and Thara, seventy, and begot Abram, whom God afterward, changing his name, called Abraham. Thus the years from the flood down to Abraham amount to one thousand and seventy-two, according to the received edition—that is, of the Seventy translators. In the Hebrew manuscripts, however, they report that far fewer years are found, for which they give either no account at all or one exceedingly difficult.
When, therefore, we seek 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 was even then already estranged from the worship of the true God, so that true piety remained only in those generations which descend from the seed of Shem through Arphaxad and reach toward Abraham. But from the time of that proud building of a tower up to heaven, whereby impious arrogance is signified, there appeared the city—that is, the society—of the impious. Whether, then, it did not exist before, or lay hidden, or rather whether both remained—the pious, that is, in the two sons of Noah who were blessed, and in their descendants;
but the impious in him who was cursed and in his offspring, where also arose that giant who was a hunter against the Lord—this is no easy matter to determine. For perhaps—and this indeed is the more credible—even in the sons of those two there were, already then, before Babylonia had begun to be founded, despisers of God, and among the sons of Ham there were worshippers of God; yet we must believe that neither kind of men was ever wholly absent from the earth. Indeed, even when it was said, They have all gone astray, they are together become unprofitable; there is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one—in both Psalms where these words occur, this too is read: Shall not all they know, who work iniquity, who devour my people as they eat bread?
There was therefore, even then, a people of God. Hence that saying, There is none that doeth good, no, not so much as one, was spoken of the sons of men, not of the sons of God. For it is prefaced thus: God looked down from heaven upon the sons of men, to see if there were any that did understand, or seek after God; and then those words are subjoined which show that all the sons of men—that is, those belonging to the city which lives according to man, not according to God—are reprobate. Wherefore, just as, when there was one tongue for all, the sons of pestilence were not on that account lacking (for before the flood also there was one tongue, and yet all save the one household of the just man Noah deserved to be blotted out by the flood):
so likewise, when for the desert of a more arrogant impiety the nations were punished and divided by diversity of tongues, and the city of the impious received the name of confusion—that is, was called Babylon—there was not lacking the house of Heber, in which that which was before the tongue of all remained. Hence, as I have noted above, when the sons of Shem began to be enumerated, each of whom begot several nations, Heber was commended first, although he is his great-great-grandson—that is, he is found to have sprung from him in the fifth degree. Because, therefore, in his family this tongue remained, when the rest of the nations were divided among other tongues (which tongue is not without reason believed to have earlier been common to the human race), it was thereafter for that cause named Hebrew.
For then it was needful that it be distinguished from other tongues by its own proper name, just as the others too were called by their proper names. But when it was the one and only tongue, it was called nothing else than the human tongue or human speech, in which alone the whole human race spoke. Someone may say: If in the days of Phalech, son of Heber, the earth was divided by tongues—that is, the men who were then upon the earth—then that tongue which was before common to all ought rather to have been named after his name. But it is to be understood that Heber for this very reason gave his son such a name, that he should be called Phalech, which is interpreted 'division,' because he was born to him at the time when the earth was divided by tongues—that is, at that very moment—so that this is the meaning of what is said:
In his days the earth was divided. For unless Heber were still living when the multiplication of tongues came to pass, the tongue which was able to remain with him would not have taken its name from his name. And therefore it is to be believed that this very tongue was that first common one, since that multiplication and change of tongues came from a penalty, and the people of God ought assuredly to have been exempt from this penalty. Nor is it without cause that this is the tongue which Abraham held, and could not transmit to all his sons, but only to those who, propagated through Jacob and coalescing more markedly and more eminently into the people of God, were able to possess the covenants of God and the lineage of Christ.
Nor did Heber himself pour back this same tongue upon his whole progeny, but only upon that line whose generations are led down to Abraham. Wherefore, even though it is not plainly expressed that there was some pious race of men at the time when Babylonia was being founded by the impious, this obscurity did not avail so far as to defraud the seeker, but rather to exercise his attention. For when we read that there was at first one tongue for all, and Heber is commended before all the sons of Shem (although he sprang from him in the fifth degree), and the tongue is called Hebrew, which the authority of the patriarchs and prophets preserved not only in their discourse but also in the sacred letters:
assuredly, when it is asked, in the division of tongues, where that tongue could have remained which was before common (which, without any doubt, wherever it remained, there was not that penalty which came about by the change of tongues), what else occurs to us but that it remained in the nation of him from whose name it took its name? And that this was no small trace of the righteousness of this nation is apparent: that, when other nations were being punished by the change of tongues, no such penalty reached this one. But there is still this that troubles us: how could Heber and his son Phalech have each made a nation, if one tongue remained to them both?
And certainly the Hebrew nation is one, propagated from Heber down to Abraham, and through him thenceforward, until the great people of Israel came to be. In what manner, then, did all the sons who are recorded of the three sons of Noah each make a nation, if Heber and Phalech did not each make one? Doubtless this is more probable: that that giant Nebroth himself also made his own nation, but on account of the eminence of his dominion and of his bodily stature was named apart and more conspicuously, so that the number of seventy-two nations and tongues might stand. Phalech, however, was recorded for this reason: not because he made a nation (for his nation is the very same Hebrew one, and the same tongue), but on account of the notable time, in that in his days the earth was divided.
Nor ought it to trouble us how the giant Nebroth could reach that age at which Babylon was founded and the confusion of tongues took place, and from this the division of nations. For it is not the case that, because Heber is sixth from Noah, while he is fourth, they could not therefore have met at the same time by living. For this came about when men lived longer where the generations are fewer, and less where they are more; or were born later where the generations are fewer, earlier where they are more. Certainly it is to be understood that, when the earth was divided, not only were the other sons of the sons of Noah, who are recorded as fathers of nations, already born, but they were also of such an age as to have numerous families, which were worthy of the names of nations.
Hence it is by no means to be thought that they were begotten in the order in which they are read as recorded. Otherwise, the twelve sons of Jectan, who was another son of Heber and a brother of Phalech, how could they already have made nations, if Jectan was born after his brother Phalech, just as he was recorded after him—seeing that at the very time when Phalech was born, the earth was divided? Accordingly it is to be understood that the former, indeed, was named, but was born long after his brother Jectan, whose twelve sons had by then such large families that they could be divided into their own tongues.
For thus the one who was later in age could be recorded first, just as, of the three sons of Noah, the sons of Japheth—who was the youngest of them—were recorded first; then the sons of Ham, who was the middle one; and last the sons of Shem, who was the first and greatest. Now the names of those nations partly remained, so that even today it is evident whence they were derived, as the Assyrians from Assur and the Hebrews from Heber; and partly were changed by the antiquity of time, so that scarcely can the most learned men, poring over the most ancient histories, discover the origins—not of all, but of some—of these nations. For as to the fact that the Egyptians are said to have sprung from Ham's son who was called Mesraim, here no origin of the name resounds;
just as neither is there of the Ethiopians, who are said to pertain to that son of Ham who was called Chus. And if all things be considered, more names appear changed than remaining. Now let us at last behold the advance of the City of God from that juncture of time also which was reached in the father Abraham, whence the knowledge of it begins to be more evident, and where more manifest divine promises are read, which we now see fulfilled in Christ. As, then, we have learned from the indication of Holy Scripture, Abraham was born in the region of the Chaldeans, which land belonged to the kingdom of the Assyrians. Among the Chaldeans, however, even then already, impious superstitions prevailed, as throughout the other nations.
There was, then, one house of Thara, 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 tongue too had by then remained (although he himself also, just as the now more manifest people of God in Egypt, so in Mesopotamia is reported by the narrative of Joshua the son of Nun to have served strange gods), while the rest of the offspring of that Heber were flowing away, little by little, into other tongues and into other nations. Accordingly, just as through the flood of waters the one house of Noah had remained for the restoring of the human race, so in the flood of the many superstitions throughout the whole world the one house of Thara had remained, in which was preserved the planting of the City of God.
Finally, just as there, after the generations had been enumerated above down to Noah, together with the number of years, and the cause of the flood had been set forth, before God began to speak to Noah about building the ark, it is said: These, moreover, are the generations of Noah—so here too, after the generations had been enumerated from him who was called Shem, the son of Noah, down to Abraham, then a notable juncture is likewise placed, so that it is said: These are the generations of Thara. Thara begot Abram and Nachor and Arran, and Arran begot Loth. And Arran died in the sight of Thara his father, in the land in which he was born, in the region of the Chaldeans. And Abram and Nachor took wives for themselves; the name of Abram's wife was Sara, and the name of Nachor's wife was Melcha, the daughter of Arran.
This Arran was the father of Melcha and the father of Iesca, which Iesca is believed to be Sara herself, the wife of Abraham. Then it is narrated how Thara with his own people left the region of the Chaldeans and came into Mesopotamia and dwelt in Charra. But of one of his sons, who was called Nachor, nothing is said, as though he did not take him along with him. For it is narrated thus: And Thara took Abram his son, and Loth the son of Arran, the son of his son, and Sara his daughter-in-law, the wife of Abram his son, and led them out of the region of the Chaldeans to go into the land of Chanaan; and he came into Charran and dwelt there. Nowhere here is Nachor named, nor his wife Melcha.
But we find afterward, when Abraham was sending his servant to receive a wife for his son Isaac, that it is written thus: And the servant took ten camels of the camels of his master, and of all his master's goods with him, and arising he set out into Mesopotamia, into the city of Nachor. By this and by other testimonies of this sacred history it is shown that Nachor also, the brother of Abraham, had gone out of the region of the Chaldeans and had established his seat in Mesopotamia, where Abraham had dwelt with his father. Why, then, did Scripture not mention him, when Thara set out with his own people from the Chaldean nation and dwelt in Mesopotamia—where not only Abraham his son, but also Sara his daughter-in-law and Loth his grandson are mentioned, in that he took them with him?
Why, do we suppose, unless perhaps because he had defected from his paternal and fraternal piety and had cleaved to the superstition of the Chaldeans, and afterward emigrated thence—whether by repenting, or having suffered persecution because he was held suspect? For in the book which is entitled Judith, when Holofernes, the enemy of the Israelites, was inquiring what nation that was, whether war ought to 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 report to thee the truth concerning the people that dwells beside thee upon this mountain, and no lie shall come forth from the mouth of thy servant.
For this progeny is of the people of the Chaldeans, and formerly they dwelt in Mesopotamia, because they were unwilling to follow the gods of their fathers, who were in the land of the Chaldeans glorious; but they turned aside from the way of their parents and adored the God of heaven, whom they had come to know, and their fathers cast them out from the face of their gods, and they fled into Mesopotamia and dwelt there many days. And their God told them to go out from their dwelling and go into the land of Chanaan, and there they dwelt—and the rest that Achior the Ammonite narrates. Whence it is manifest that the house of Thara suffered persecution from the Chaldeans for the sake of true piety, whereby the one and true God was worshipped by them.
But when Thara had died in Mesopotamia, where he is reported to have lived two hundred and five years, the promises of God made to Abraham now begin to be set forth, in that it is thus written: And the days of Thara in Charra were two hundred and five years, and Thara died in Charra. This, however, is not to be taken as though he had spent all these days there, but because he had completed there all the days of his life, which were two hundred and five years; otherwise it would not be known how many years Thara lived, since it is not read in what year of his life he came into Charran; and it is absurd to suppose that in this series of generations, where it is carefully recorded how many years each one lived, of this one man alone the number of the years of his life should not have been committed to memory.
For as to those certain persons whom this same Scripture mentions, whose years are passed over in silence, they are not in this order in which the reckoning of times is woven together by the departure of those who beget and the succession of those begotten. But this order, which is drawn from Adam down to Noah and thence down to Abraham, contains no one without the number of the years of his life. Now as to the fact that, after the death of Thara, Abraham's father, has been recorded, it is then read: And the Lord said to Abram, Depart from thy land and from thy kindred and from thy father's house, and so forth—it is not to be supposed that, because this follows in the discourse of the book, it therefore also follows in the temporal order of the events that were done. For, if it be so, there will be an insoluble question.
For after these words of God, which were made to Abraham, Scripture speaks thus: And Abram went out, as the Lord spoke to him, and Loth went with him. Now Abram was seventy-five years old when he went out from Charra. How can this be true, if he went out from Charra after the death of his father? For when Thara was seventy years old, as was intimated above, he begot Abraham; and if to this number one adds the seventy-five years which Abraham was passing when he went out from Charra, they make one hundred and forty-five years. Of so many years, therefore, was Thara when Abraham went out from that city of Mesopotamia;
for he was passing the seventy-fifth year of his age, and by this reckoning his father, who had begotten him in his own seventieth year, was passing, as has been said, his one hundred and forty-fifth. He did not, therefore, go out thence after his father's death—that is, after the two hundred and five years which his father lived—but the year of his setting out from that place, since it was his own seventy-fifth, is without doubt gathered to have been his father's one hundred and forty-fifth, who had begotten him in his own seventieth year. And by this it is to be understood that, after its custom, Scripture has returned to a time which that narrative had already passed by;