Chapter 1: Noah, the Covenant, and Noahic Precepts

2 Pet. 3:5-7, The new heaven and new earth — What the old world was — The new world, (Isaiah 51:15, 16; 65:17; 66:22) — The age to come — The future world — Noah a just man — The antediluvian had faith — Theology restored and enlarged in his family after the flood — The first express mention of the divine covenant — Promise and restipulation pertain to the nature of the covenant — In what respect the promise is called a covenant — The Hebrew word for covenant: its origin — It often signifies a bare promise, (2 Samuel 23:5; Jeremiah 31:31, 32) — Diatheke, syntheke — Covenant: its origin — How covenants were formerly ratified, (Jeremiah 34:18) — On the sign of the covenant — The rainbow in the cloud — Why the sign of the covenant is called a covenant — The nature of the Noachic covenant — Precepts of theology added — (Genesis 9:5, 6) exposition of the first postdiluvian precept, on not shedding blood — The manner of judicial punishment by the magistrate established therein — The opinion of Onkelos — The origin of the lex talionis — Exposition of the second precept, on not eating flesh with blood, (Genesis 9:2, 3) — The seven Noachide precepts given — What the Hebrews understand by them — The fictitious speech of Noah to his sons in Inghirami — The restoration of the Noachic church — Its duration — The sin of Ham — The trifles of the Jews — The origin of the fable of Saturn's castration — Why Canaan was cursed — New promises given to the reformed church — Its fresh apostasy — The occasion of the apostasy — A general account of the apostasy of the Noachic church.

In our previous dissertation we set forth the origin and progress of that mute theology, which consisted partly in the dictate of natural law or right reason, or in the remnants of innate theology, and partly in the revelation made to Adam after the entrance of sin. We also briefly showed there the various stages of its apostasy, which finally brought about the almost total defection of the whole world from God, and the dreadful punishment and utter destruction of apostate theologians. We now turn, in the next place, to setting forth the restoration, growth, progress, and events of this theology from the flood up to the calling of Abraham. Now blessed Peter presents this entire divine dispensation as follows: "For they willfully overlook this fact, that the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and through water by the word of God, by which the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But the heavens and earth that now exist are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men," (2 Peter 3:5-7).

Here the apostle makes mention of two "worlds": that ancient one which had perished by water, and the one then present which was to be consumed by fire; after the destruction of which he foretells in verse 13 the coming of a third: "But according to His promise we are waiting for new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness dwells." In neither passage does the apostle treat of the visible heaven and earth with respect to their substance. For when the ancient world was destroyed by water, the fabric of the heavens and earth nevertheless remained. That "world," therefore, consisted of the men living in the world. After these were destroyed by the flood, another world had to be raised up for the proper performance of the worship of God. God laid the foundations of this world in the family of Noah, and the erection and adornment of the Jewish church completed the whole structure. And this was the world which blessed Peter foretold would immediately be dissolved by fire, speaking, that is, in the prophetic style. So we read in Isaiah, ch. 51, vv. 15, 16: "I am the Lord your God, who stirs up the sea so that its waves roar — the Lord of hosts is His name: and I have put My words in your mouth and covered you in the shadow of My hand, planting the heavens and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying to Zion, 'You are My people.'"

At that time, therefore, when God divided the sea and led His people out of Egypt, He entrusted to them the word, or the law, together with the solemn prescription of His worship, forming them into a church for Himself, and thus established and completed this new world — that heaven and that earth. At the time when Peter wrote, this world, that is, the Jewish church, had already apost-

tasized and hastened toward destruction by fire, just as that ancient world had plunged headlong into the flood. By the burning of the temple and city, the fabric of that world was dissolved. But since the consummation of the age had not yet come, the apostle commands believers to await another world — new heavens and a new earth — according to the promise of God. That promise is found in Isaiah ch. 65, verse 17, and in the same words in ch. 66, verse 22. "For behold," he says, "I will create new heavens and a new earth, and the former things shall not be remembered or come to mind." The prophet in these passages depicts the state of the church after the coming of Christ — namely, the time when God would take from the Gentiles those to serve as priests and Levites, as the words of the last chapter's verse 21 have it; that is, when He would establish the evangelical ministry. Hence that state of the church, before the conflagration of this second world, was designated "the age to come" and "the future world," as Paul teaches us in the Epistle to the Hebrews, ch. 2, ver. 5, and also ch. 6, ver. 5. Thus the first or ancient world perished by the flood of water; the apostle foretells that the second, then present, will perish by fire, and confirms that the future one will endure until the consummation of the age. But let us return from this digression to the main road.

IV. It is established, from the manifold testimony of the Holy Spirit, that Noah himself, of whom we are speaking, was a just man, pleasing and acceptable to God. Genesis 6:8, 9: "Noah was a just man, blameless in his generations, and he walked continually according to God"; and also ver. 1 of ch. 7: "I have seen that you are righteous before Me in this age." Moreover, honorable mention of him is made — in a manner consistent with this testimony — both in the Old and in the New Testament (which is rare and nearly singular), Ezekiel 14:14; 1 Peter 3:20; 2 Peter 2:5. That he obtained righteousness through faith the apostle proves in the eleventh chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews. All saving faith looks to the promised Seed. This faith the antediluvian indeed had; for it was then that he was adorned with the testimony of righteousness by God. He was therefore just and pleasing to God, walking blamelessly before Him, by virtue of that Adamic antediluvian theology which we set forth in the previous dissertation. But for the sake of Noah himself, and for the restoration of the church in his family, that theology was immediately enlarged after the flood by various degrees of light, which I will briefly survey.

V. We have previously divided the theology of the antediluvian sinners into three parts: the promise of grace, the law of nature, and the prescription of instituted worship. By the new revelation made to Noah, the first was further enlarged, the second was more fully expounded, and the third was established. For now for the first time God makes express mention of a covenant, Genesis 9:9: "And I, behold, I establish My covenant with you." We have previously proved that God ratified with Adam a gracious compact, exhibiting spiritual benefits in the Mediator, in that most celebrated promise of the Seed. For the full solemnity of the divine covenant there is indeed required a promise of life and of all the means necessary for obtaining it by grace, together with the express exaction of obedience and restipulation. But it is not necessary that all these things be expressed together in every place where a covenant alone is treated. VI. A promise always includes the requirement of obedience. For obedience is nothing other than the due observance of the means appointed for obtaining the promised life. But where the obedience required in a covenant is merely moral, and therefore has its general foundation elsewhere than in the covenant itself — namely in the law of nature — and is rendered acceptable and pleasing to God through the covenant alone, when the promise is purely one of revelation, the name of covenant is specially ascribed to the promise. And this is what happens in this passage; the promise is called a covenant. But there are also other reasons why promise and covenant sound the same; this is not the place to set them out. A few things may be added concerning the word itself: some prefer to derive the Hebrew word for covenant from the root meaning "to cut" or "to cut off." So Grotius, in his Annotationes to the beginning of the Gospel according to Matthew, because in covenants victims were slain. Others derive it from a root meaning —

"to choose" and also "to arrange"; and this derivation of the name is favored by that learned and pious man Cocceius, De Foedere Dei, ch. i. Another root is held to mean "to choose" and "to purify," by Mercerus at the root entry. Whatever its origin, the word often signifies a bare "promise," 2 Samuel 23:5; Jeremiah 31:31, 32; also a gratuitous and irrevocable "gift," Numbers 18:9; and a "statute" or decree of God, Jeremiah 32:21. And it is very frequently used where there is no place at all for a solemn agreement or compact between parties. In the New Testament it is rendered by diatheke, which word is as broad in scope as the Hebrew. Grotius attests that it is used of laws, pledges, and testaments. The word syntheke, which properly signifies "covenant," is not used in the New Testament for the explanation of the Hebrew word. The elder translators, the Seventy, always render that word by diatheke; Aquila and Symmachus do otherwise, using syntheke as well. Our Ballius, in his treatise De Foedere Divino, ch. i., asserts that the Seventy render the Hebrew word by syntheke at Isaiah 28:15. But the learned man is mistaken; for the word they translate there by syntheke is a different Hebrew word, which properly signifies "vision"; and at the beginning of the verse, according to their usual custom, they put diatheke in place of the other Hebrew word for covenant. The same Grotius gives the best account of the matter: "Synthekai," he says, "receive the force of a binding obligation from the concurring testimony of two wills; but what Moses and others call by the Hebrew word is generally of such a nature that it requires no consent of the other party, since the power to bind inheres in it by God's command and authority alone." So it is: God's covenant is not suspended upon our will, nor upon any conditions to be performed by us; it has all its virtue and effect from the authority, grace, and faithfulness of God Himself. For the promise of grace is absolute, and there is no condition of the covenant that is not already contained in the promise itself. They therefore act absurdly and perversely who attempt to expound the nature of the divine covenant from the nature of a covenant customarily ratified among men. Nor does "covenant" among the Latin authors always denote a solemn

compact between parties, but sometimes denotes a law or ordinance: so in Virgil, Aen. i. 66: "And he gave a king, who, by a fixed law, when bidden, should know both how to curb and how to give free rein."

We acknowledge, however, that this promise had the true nature of a covenant; and therefore Chrysostom interprets the diatheke of the Seventy in this passage by syntheke, in Homily 28 on Genesis. VII. Furthermore, "covenant" (foedus) is derived from "striking" (feriendo); the origin of the name comes from a foul superstition. Polybius, among others, recounts the custom of entering into covenants from which the origin of the name derives, in book 3, ch. 25.: "The fetial," he says, "taking a stone in his hands, after agreement on the covenant between the parties had been reached, spoke these words: 'If I make this covenant and this oath rightly and without deceit, may the gods grant me every blessing; but if I act or think otherwise, while all else remains safe — in their own laws, their own households, their own temples, their own tombs — may I alone perish, as this stone falls from my hands.'" Others record that covenants were entered into differently, and that the fetial used these words: 'So may great Jupiter strike me foully,

As I foully slay this pig, if I do not keep the compact of the covenant.' And with that, striking the pig with a blow of a stone, he killed it. Nearly the same account is given by Livy, book i. ch. xxiv.: "'Hear, Jupiter; hear, father pater patratus: as those things were publicly recited from those tablets or wax, from first to last, without deceit, and as they are here this day most rightly understood, the Roman people shall not be the first to depart from those laws. If the Roman people shall first depart, by public counsel, with evil intent, then, O Jupiter Diespiter, strike the Roman people as I today strike this pig; and strike them the more, the more you are able and powerful.' When he had said this, he struck the pig with a flint stone." In the same sense the poet writes: "Armed, they stood before the altars of Jupiter, holding the bowls, and ratified the covenant with a slain pig." — Aen. lib. viii. 640.

"And the priest in pure vestment brought the offspring of the bristled swine...." — Lib. xii. 169.

VIII. It is probable that this custom of ratifying covenants arose — not without the intervention of corrupt superstition — from that ancient practice of entering into established and solemn agreements by means of sacrifices, and by the division of the slaughtered victim into two parts, between which those who were making a covenant had to pass. Homer traces this custom at length in the Iliad, III.252, in the covenant that

preceded the single combat between Paris and Menelaus: "that they cut the lambs." On which words Eustathius comments: "The cutting is the ancient custom among Homer and Herodotus — the sacrificial victims for oaths" — for the Ionic form is used in place of the standard term. In this manner the covenant was established between the princes of Judah and the king of Babylon, which God calls His own covenant on account of the invocation of His name (Jeremiah 34:18): "I will deliver the men who have transgressed My covenant, who have not fulfilled the words of the covenant which they made before Me, when they passed between the parts of the calf which they cut in two." And again, ver. 19: "Who passed between the parts of the calf." Those who passed between the parts of the victim loaded themselves with a curse, devoting themselves to such a cutting apart if they did not stand by the appointed terms. Thus Agamemnon prays to the gods, Iliad III.279:—

"Whoever shall swear falsely —"

"Be you witnesses, and guard the faithful covenants: — Whoever shall have sworn falsely, be you witnesses, and guard the faithful covenants."

After these things he adds, at line 292:—

"He spoke, and with harsh iron cut the throats of the lambs —"

"He spoke, and with harsh iron cut the throats of the lambs" — devoting perjurers to a like death. Nehemiah 10:29: "We made a covenant and an oath to walk in the law of God." Hence perhaps is that threat against the unfaithful servant: the Lord (Matthew 24:51) will cut him in pieces on account of neglect of the covenant. And from this cutting of the victim, "to cut" among the Hebrews means "to strike a covenant:" 2 Chronicles 7:18, "And I will establish the throne of your kingdom, as I covenanted with David your father" — the LXX renders it "As I promised"; the Vulgate interpreter, "Pollicitus sum"; our vernacular translation, "As I have covenanted." Literally, "I cut," "I divided" — the same verb is used in the same way in ch. ii. of the prophet Haggai, and at ver. 5. But these things do not pertain to the simple sense.

IX. And this progress was the first step of post-lapsarian theology. For by this revelation made to Noah, that communion which exists between God and sinners in the Mediator is for the first time expressly called a covenant. That name, most full of consolation, clearly declaring the divine love and faithfulness, is laid as a foundation for the new church to be built up in the family of Noah.

X. Furthermore: God now for the first time established a visible sign of the covenant, namely "the bow in the cloud" (Genesis 9:11-13). Not, indeed, that He now for the first time placed a bow in the cloud; but now for the first time He established a bow in the cloud as a sign of the covenant. In this manner the sacraments of the New Testament can apparently be called "signs of the covenant." By reason of this sign also, a promise is called a covenant. For a promise accompanied by a visible sign has the proper nature of a covenant. Hence the sign itself is sometimes called a covenant: "This cup is the new testament," Luc. xxii. 20. It is true that only the temporal benefit is expressly mentioned here, and the sign of the covenant itself directly regards a temporal benefit. Nevertheless, the spiritual grace — that is, the gratuitous love of God toward the faithful — is chiefly intended. For such was the dispensation of religious institutions before Christ was exhibited in the flesh. But all these things were "a shadow of things to come" (Hebrews 10:1), of which Christ, ch. ix. 11, was the high priest. And this "eternal covenant" existed nowhere except in Christ. A temporal benefit indeed flowed from it to all; but the spiritual grace of the covenant ratified in Christ pertains to the elect alone.

XI. And in this manner the pre-diluvian Adamic theology was enriched by a new revelation, by the name of covenant, and by a visible sign. From this the faith and hope of the theologians were confirmed. Now the designation of the bow in the cloud as a sign of the covenant pertains to instituted worship. To the promise, therefore, was added the name of covenant; to the instituted worship, a new sacrament — by which the two prior parts of that theology were enlarged.

XII. Furthermore, in order to enlarge this theology, precepts were also added to it, so that after the illustrious fall it might rise more clearly in every respect. The first was concerning homicide — that is, concerning the shedding of human blood. For the preservation of life is indeed the first and last concern; all other things are subordinate to it. The precept stands (Genesis 9:5, 6): "And surely your blood, the blood of your lives, I will require; at the hand of every beast I will require it, and at the hand of man; at the hand of every man's brother I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed." A solemn vindication of the shedding of human blood is here established. The shedding itself was prohibited by the law of nature. This is taught by both the crime and the punishment of Cain. Indeed, all violence against others so greatly rises against the dictate of right reason that that unbridled rage by which the antediluvian sinners, as though in a rush of violence, assaulted one another, was the gravest cause of the flood itself. But the solemn mode of punishing violence through a magistrate — extending beyond the bounds of private households and established by the mutual consent of many — had not yet been constituted. God therefore, granting the habitable world to the sons of Noah, burdened all with this condition: namely, that for the sake of maintaining political society and public peace among all, they should establish a magistracy among themselves. Hence the magistracy is a human ordinance; yet it is erected upon no foundation other than the firm one — namely, the command of God.

XIV. The paraphrast Onkelos therefore rightly expounds these words: "Whoever sheds the blood of a man, by witnesses, by the sentence of a judge, shall his blood be shed." By the phrase "in man" he understands competent witnesses among men. Nor does Jonathan differ: "Whoever sheds the blood of a man, by witnesses, the judges shall condemn him to death; but whoever sheds blood without witnesses, the Lord of the world will take vengeance on him in the day of the great judgment." Grotius thinks that the natural right of retaliation is implied here, "because public courts had not yet been established." But the natural right of retaliation did not originate only now. And although public courts had not yet been established, provision was nevertheless made here that, as the human race increased — so that the grievous antediluvian age filled with unbridled violence might not return — they should be established. The magistrate is therefore instituted by God and the sword is placed in his hands, so that he might rightly succeed in his office.

XV. To this precept was also added that one concerning not eating flesh with the blood, which is the life of the flesh. The investigation of this matter

requires more labor than it yields in usefulness; so, having offered a brief explanation of it, let us set it aside.

XVI. Most affirm that it was not permitted to men before the flood to eat flesh. For whatever privilege exists in the eating of flesh appears to have been granted only at Genesis 9:3 — the Hebrew words there are appended to those by which dominion over all animals is granted to man, ver. 2. This passage, compared with that other one by which God granted sustenance to the antediluvians, plainly shows that they did not use flesh for food. From this the reputation of abstinence from animals reached the nations. See Ovid, Metamorphoses, Book 1, fable 3, v. 103:

"Content with foods created without any compulsion, they gathered the fruits of the arbutus tree, and mountain strawberries, and cornel berries, and blackberries clinging to the hard brambles, and acorns that had fallen from the wide-spreading tree of Jove." And again, Book 15, fable 2, v. 96:

"But that ancient age, which we have called Golden, was blessed with the fruits of trees and with herbs that the earth brings forth, and it did not defile the mouth with blood. Then too the birds moved their wings safely through the air, and the hare wandered unafraid in the midst of the fields; nor had its own trustfulness hung the fish upon the hook." Virgil also, Georgics, II, v. 536:

"Even before the scepter of the Dictaean king, and before the impious race feasted on slaughtered bullocks, Saturn led this golden life on earth." And from our own writers, Tertullian, On the Food of the Jews — if he is indeed the author of that book — chapter 2: "The first food of men," he says, "was solely the fruits and produce of trees." Hence the philosophers dispute at length as to how it came about that men were ever induced to eat flesh. After skillfully examining how this came to pass, Plutarch attributes it to necessity, in his oration on flesh-eating. Porphyry argues at greater length that this custom flowed from the practice of participating in sacrifices, in Book 2 of his work on abstinence from animal food. Casaubon shows from this that the ancient Greeks called all animals that are slaughtered by a sacred term, in his Animadversions on Athenaeus, Book 1, chapter 11, because they ate no flesh except from those animals that had been slaughtered for use in sacrifices. Thus only whole burnt offerings were in use before the flood. After the eating of flesh was permitted, feasts from the sacred offerings accompanied the sacrifices — this is probable even before the law, although Selden argues the contrary in his work On the Natural Law among the Hebrews, Book 3, chapter 8. For the origins of eating flesh, consult Bereshit Rabbah, Parasha 34, and Joseph Albo, Sefer ha-Ikkarim, part 3, chapter 14.

XVII. Once flesh was permitted, the eating of it with the blood is forbidden, ver. 4 — the Hebrew reads: "But flesh in its life, in its blood, you shall not eat." It is not the eating of blood itself that is forbidden, but the eating of flesh together with the blood. It has been shown that the long-lived men of the ancient age were prone to cruelty. Hence the earth before the flood was filled with violence. Experience among the American Indians teaches that men are made savage by eating raw flesh and blood still nearly quivering in its movement. This prohibition of eating flesh with blood was given to counter that vice, into the vicinity of which, above all else, the human race, destitute of the word of God, seems to be placed. Some understand the reference to a limb torn from a living animal, which they say the barbarous Americans still relish as food. So Aben Ezra on this passage: "Because I have granted you the eating of the flesh of animals, you ought not to be cruel to the beasts themselves, so as to eat a limb from a living animal." Grotius holds that the more recent Jews have been led to this interpretation out of hatred for Christians — that is, for the Greeks among them — who, as Tertullian says, still abstain from sausages stuffed with blood. It scarcely seems to me that the eating of blood that has already grown cold is forbidden here. Nor can this be proven from the text by any adequate argument. Indeed, blood itself is not primarily, directly, or altogether prohibited; much less is the eating of it when separated from the flesh. The object of the prohibition is flesh affected in a particular manner — in its life, that is, while it is still animated by living blood. And it seems to me that Stephanus Curcellaeus has labored in vain in his Posthumous Disputation on the Eating of Blood, in which he contends that this question is of some moment in Christian practice. See Ludovicus De Dieu on this passage. But whether it is a limb from a living animal — that is, while the blood is still flowing — or the blood of a still-living animal, that is, blood still pulsating in the flesh, that is forbidden, remains uncertain.

XVIII. To this chapter also belong those seven widely celebrated precepts which tradition holds God gave to the Noachides. They are commonly enumerated as follows:

1. [Hebrew], Concerning the worship of a foreign god. 2. [Hebrew], Concerning the cursing of the Name or the Divine Power. 3. [Hebrew], Concerning the shedding of blood. 4. [Hebrew], Concerning the uncovering of shameful things. 5. [Hebrew], Concerning robbery. 6. [Hebrew], Concerning legal judgments.

7. [Hebrew], Concerning a limb of a living animal.

XIX. By the first of these, every kind of idolatry is forbidden. Concerning the sense and interpretation of the second, the learned do not agree; the dispute arises from the ambiguous use of the Hebrew word, which signifies both to bless and to curse. There are those who render the words affirmatively, wishing them to intend the blessing of the divine name, or true worship, as opposed to that foreign worship. More interpret it negatively, as a prohibition against cursing the name of God. The third concerns homicide. The fourth concerns adultery and every kind of illicit cohabitation. The fifth expresses the eighth commandment of the Decalogue. Political governance is established by the sixth; and the last teaches mortals to turn away from all cruelty.

XX. Genebrardus asserts that these precepts were given to Noah and his sons in the first year after the flood; see his Chronicle, anno mundi 1656: "Seven precepts are given," he says, "which the Hebrews call in part the precepts of the sons of Noah, and in part the precepts of nature, and they hold that these oblige the nations as well." This persuasion, of course, flowed from the traditions of the Jews. Mention of them is very frequent in both Talmuds and in the writings of many rabbis. But it is false that the Jews affirm these precepts were given to Noah and his sons — that is, to those four men — immediately after the flood. By Noachides or sons of Noah, they understand all nations distinct from themselves; but they call themselves Abrahamides and sons of Israel, in opposition to the sons of Noah — absurdly, as if Abraham and Israel were not themselves sons of Noah. But they are fond of speaking this way. By Noachides they understand all those who, descended from Noah, enjoyed no spiritual privilege. When they affirm that these precepts were given to such persons, they mean nothing other than that these are the general dictates of right reason, or the chief principles of natural law having binding force over all those who are destitute of supernatural revelation — while they themselves are bound additionally by the written law. Hence the Seder Olam, chapter 5, and Sefer ha-Melakhim, chapter 9, affirm that the first six precepts were handed down to Adam — showing, namely, that they are the common dictates of nature, or the universal first principles of natural law. The last is asserted to have been added for Noah; and by it they interpret that commandment concerning not eating flesh with blood. See Manasseh, Conciliator, question 2 on Deuteronomy. Moreover, it is well known that John Selden has illuminated these precepts with most learned commentaries, to which we refer the reader who is eager to study these matters.

XXI. I do not wish to insert here the speech of Noah to his descendants, whom he brought with him into Italy, which Curtius Inghiramius brought to light among the fragments of Etruscan antiquities, as though it might occupy some place in this exposition of antediluvian theology. For that entire drama concerning the discovered little globes, which were supposed to contain enclosed little histories of the antiquities of Etruria, from the arrival of Noah in Italy all the way to the Catilinarian war, seems to me — and not to me alone — the most labored fiction of a man certainly learned, but one who abused his leisure and his talents to excess, indeed impiously. However, since the author of this drama observed a certain propriety in the speech attributed to Noah, I judged it fitting to submit it here to the reader's judgment. The title of the little globe in which the speech was deposited is this: "Noa Vanprimon." Then: "These are the words of the great Vandimon, which I, Ancus Cecinna, have transcribed." The speech itself runs: "Hear, my sons and grandsons, my words, and receive with your ears what your father speaks to you. Blessed be God, in whose sight I found grace, who, having rescued me from the waters, preserved me for the repairing of the human race, which had been destroyed by the floods and rains of an angry God, lest what God had made should utterly perish. Therefore, be not ungrateful to the most great Alsar; fear Him alone; serve Him with your hearts, because He is worthy, and because He has done many good things for you, and because He is God. If the most great Alsar shall always be God to you, nothing shall be wanting to you. Let His altar not be polluted; let no one seek the life of his brother, as Cain did. Let there be among you a bond of peace, and let it never be broken. You have this city, which I built on this mountain; when this is not sufficient for you (for you ought to multiply), you will be able to build others on the same mountain; and if the mountain is not sufficient for you, choose healthy places in which you may build others. And if there are no dissensions among you, all things will prosper for you. Whoever does not fear God, and whoever dissents from his brothers, let him be expelled from you, because a brother's discord corrupts everything. Do not, my sons, again provoke God through fornication, iniquity, and wickedness, but remember God who made you, who delivered you from the waters, and who created all things for your sake and subjected all things to you. God destroys the impious from among the good; love Him alone, and do all things in fear of Him; for doing these things, you will be filled with an abundance of grain, wine, and oil, and the sons of your brothers will serve you. Your kingdom will endure forever. Keep always the sacred rites and ceremonies and all things handed down to you; and teach these to your sons. May God bless you and fill you with every blessing; and may He soon send a king to deliver you from foreign power." So much for him; I marvel that such nonsense ever pleased any learned men, since not a single page of the whole book fails to indicate its fraud and imposture sufficiently. XXII. And such was postdiluvian theology: namely, that natural theology of Adam, destined to a new end through the promise of the Messiah and committed to new uses, conformed to that condition into which Satan had by sin craftily drawn all men — enlarged and renewed by new revelation, by the solemn renewal of the covenant, by a visible sign, and by various precepts — which the church of eight souls held as the rule of faith, obedience, and all divine worship. We have no reason to doubt that many who were equipped with it passed their lives with the highest reverence toward God, with piety, faith, love, and obedience; and toward their own kind with gentleness, charity, mercy, justice, and faithfulness. For holiness of heart, purity and integrity of life, beneficence toward others, simplicity and uprightness of all conduct, and the remaining virtues by which men are renewed to the image of God — these flourished even at the lowest external degree of revelation, provided the Holy Spirit was present, illuminating the minds of men with His saving light. XXIII. By virtue of this theology, the reformed church, as regards external profession and administration, continued on earth pure and acceptable to God for about forty years. For nothing that in any way defiled it was recorded except after the birth, and perhaps the advancement to some years of age, of Canaan, the fourth and youngest son of Ham. At last Ham's long-concealed impiety broke forth. What its nature was, the Holy Spirit shows in (Genesis 9:22). The sin was against the dictates of right reason, which, as Aristotle testifies, all peoples teach as being natural. So also Plutarch, in his work on brotherly love, writes as follows — the Greek text of which, though heavily damaged in transmission, Owen himself renders in Latin: "All men say and sing that nature and the law of nature have appointed the first and greatest honor, next after the gods, to parents; nor do men please the gods more than when they cheerfully discharge to their parents and those who reared them the old debts of gratitude, compounded with new ones. Nor, on the other hand, is there a greater proof of impiety and lack of moral training than contempt of parents and injury done to them. And so it is forbidden to us to harm others; but for a man not to give himself to his mother and father in such a way that he always says and does those things which give them joy, even if he causes no additional distress, is held to be impious and unjust." This he says excellently. Hierocles has similar sentiments, and nearly the entire chorus of the wise. It is therefore remarkable that some, on account of the words of (Genesis 9:24) — "And he knew what his younger son had done to him" — contend that Canaan, and not Ham, must be understood. "For what," they say, "did Ham do to his father? He was merely a messenger to his brothers of his father's shame." These are the words of the great Scaliger in his Elenchus of the oration of David Paraeus. He did this, I say: he openly and publicly transgressed the law of nature, which is clearly established from the act of his brothers, set in contrast to his impiety. He exposed the nakedness of his father to his brothers, as Josephus correctly states in Antiquities, Book 1, ch. 1. He therefore sinned against the highest principles of that theology which was the foundation and standard of the church, of worship, and of obedience. XXIV. The sin of Ham, therefore, as we have shown, Holy Scripture expounds quite clearly. What some add to that narrative are conjectures — indeed, the ravings of dreamers. The Rabbis, Rashi on Genesis ch. 9, babble that he not only saw or gazed with pleasure and a certain mockery at his father's nakedness, but that he cut off his genitals, or bewitched him by magical arts so that he could no longer beget sons. Boissardus in his work on Apollonius of Tyana clings to these fables, and Athanasius Kircher in his work on the Origin of Letters and Obelisks, ch. 1, seems to give them credence. From this, nearly everyone suspects that the myth of Saturn cutting off the genitals of his father Heaven, as Lactantius relates in Book 1, ch. 12, or of Jupiter cutting Saturn with a sickle, had its origin. And this indeed is very probable, although, to confess the truth, Porphyry in his book on the Cave of the Nymphs at Ithaca so skillfully accommodates the entire myth to cryptic natural theology that I could almost believe the first mythmakers had something of this sort in mind. As for the curse, it is expressly pronounced against Canaan: either because he was at that time most particularly his father's delight, being indeed his youngest son; or because he stood by his father in the sin and that wicked spectacle; or because that family among the descendants of Ham was to be the first to depart from the true church and the worship of God; or for the consolation of the Israelites, who, about to enter the promised land, might understand that the people with whom they were about to engage in war was accursed, and had long been appointed to servitude and destruction. Whatever the case, it is most certain that Ham himself was cursed in the person of his son — that is, expelled from the family of God. Remarkable, or rather laughable, are the things which some of the ancients prattle about the passion of Christ being prefigured in Noah's drunkenness — the cross, the sacraments, the Gentiles, the Jews, the ministers of the word — all of which they imagined they could see in the wine, in Ham, in Japheth, in the garment. XXV. On account of this sin, therefore, by which his long-concealed hypocrisy broke out to the gravest scandal of the church and displayed itself openly, Ham was cursed by his father, who still presided over the whole church under God with paternal authority. In his expulsion from the fellowship of the godly, moreover, we have another illustrious example of ecclesiastical reformation. For the reformation of the church is to be attempted first through the removal of the sinning from the assembly and communion of those who rightly worship God through faith. We gave an earlier example of this in the post-lapsarian church of Adam. But when the band of the rebellious grows strong, the separation of the faithful from their assemblies takes its place. XXVI. In this manner, therefore, the reformation of the new church was instituted. For such is the weakness of all and the wickedness of many, that no church has ever from the beginning of the world been able to endure long without some notable reformation. To this newly reformed church new promises were given: partly for the consolation of their most wretched condition, and partly to serve as spurs to more exact obedience, and to living a life of the utmost care and diligence before God. (Genesis 9:26, 27): "Blessed be the LORD God of Shem; and may God allure Japheth, that he may dwell in the tents of Shem." XXVII. That Ham, driven away from the solemn worship of God by the paternal curse, also fled all the assemblies of the godly, there is no doubt. But the time had not yet come when the human race was to be dispersed into the various parts of the earth. Therefore Ham and his household continued to dwell under the same quarter of the sky with his brothers and their descendants. Hence arose a new corruption of evil; hence again sprouted the seat of defection in the church, so recently emerged from the flood and newly reformed. No one doubts that Noah, Shem, Japheth, and their pious sons and grandsons endeavored to preserve intact in the church the purity of the worship of God according to the canons of that theology in which they had been instructed. Both their own piety and their duty toward others required this. But from their descendants very many, swept away by the impious seductions and examples of the Hamites, and having themselves also a nature headlong toward every wickedness, shamefully and almost universally defected from the governance and worship of God within a few years, as we shall understand from what followed. For in the one hundred and first year after the flood, a senseless, arrogant, and obstinate crowd of apostates, steeped in crimes, openly setting aside the authority, discipline, and warnings of Noah, rushed headlong into every wickedness. And since the humble, peaceable, and godly manner of life of Noah was most displeasing to them, they went off into everything contrary to it. Having therefore cast aside all reverence for God, and puffed up with some inexplicable pride, they set themselves to building a tower by which they might acquire a name and glory for themselves.

But as they were contriving great things, hateful to God, the dreadful judgment of the confusion of languages seized them and scattered them over the surface of the whole earth. From that day until the coming of the promised Messiah, God permitted the greater part of the human race to walk in their own ways.

Noah — The myth of Saturn and Rhea arising from this — Janus — A herald of justice — The fictitious Sibylline Oracles — Authors of the Sibylline poems — The origin of the name "Sibyl" — Traditions mixed into their oracles — A specimen — The builders of the tower of Babylon; the reason and cause of its building — What was the primeval language — The opinion of Grotius examined — Why the Hebrew language is called the holy tongue (Genesis 10:21; Joshua 24:2, 3) — The monstrous fables of Uzziell the Targumist — Abraham called "the Hebrew" from Eber — The time of the division of languages.