Theologoumena Pantodapa (Book II: De Theologia Adamica Sublapsaria Antediluviana)

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Book II. On Sublapsarian Antediluvian Adamic Theology

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ON THE RESTORATION OF THEOLOGY AFTER THE FALL AND THE ENTRANCE OF SIN, AND ITS RENEWED CORRUPTION;

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Chapter 1.

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Theology corrupted by degrees, restored by degrees — Theology in the abstract, divine doctrine — The degrees of revelations — The origin of supernatural theology — The first degree in the promise of the seed of the woman — In that promise a new covenant given, entered into, and established — The force of the word [Hebrew term] — The nature of the covenant between God and men, Gen. 3:15, explained — Christ promised as Mediator — The Lamb slain — The chief heads of the new theology — What the Targumists and Paul, Epistle to the Heb. 2:14, adduce concerning Gen. 3:15 — Who are the last days — Christ the seed of the woman — The malice of the more recent Jews — The excuse-making of the Socinians

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— The well-known blunder of the Vulgate translator — The blasphemy of certain commentators — The madness of Fabricius Boderianus — Adam's repentance and act of thanksgiving — The precepts of the new theology, what and of what kind — The institution of sacrifices — Concerning their origin, the triflings of the Pontificians, the Socinians, and Episcopius — The opinion of Smalcius refuted — That of Porphyry examined — A summary of Adamic theology after the fall.

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I. What pertains to the general notions of theology, we set forth in the preceding book. We also showed the origin, use, and unfolding of original theology, or the theology of the innocent state. Concerning the institution of another, succeeding theology in its historical progression, we must now proceed further. But since neither that corrupted natural theology was corrupted all at once, nor this new theology which we are undertaking was restored all at once and in a single act, but both underwent corruption and attained perfection gradually and in many stages, I have judged it necessary to set forth in brief the more notable degrees of each. II. We showed previously that theology may be taken either in the abstract (as they say) for divine doctrine, or in the concrete for the habit of mind in theologians, that is, for the faculty of discerning between good and evil, Heb. 5:14. So Aristotle on astronomy: "Astronomy is called both the discipline itself concerning heavenly things, and the sailors' practical knowledge of those matters." For the term astronomer was in ancient times the same as astronomer in the scientific sense. One who predicts the effects of the stars — I know not what effects — is now so called. But all post-lapsarian theology of any true name is of the same kind. Having been renewed only objectively at various degrees of revelation. The habit of mind, therefore, by which that doctrine is comprehended and perceived, is absolutely the same in all theologians of all ages. But since we will have much to say about it in the consideration of properly so-called Christian theology, we have judged it right to refer all its doctrine there. Concerning the various degrees and progress of supernatural revelation, or the new theology, we will speak briefly in the first place. The apostle alludes to all this doctrine in Heb. 1:1. And since the primitive theology obtained degrees of corruption nearly equal to those, they too must be mentioned.

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III. After the entrance of sin, and the consequent ruin and destruction of natural theology, from the infinite grace, wisdom, and philanthropy of the divine abyss, the Adamic antediluvian theology came forth — that is, the promissory gospel compact. Here supernatural theology established its first footprint; here was its origin and its first degree. This revelation, therefore, of the mind and grace of God, must be set forth first; and then how the corruption of theologians overtook its progress, followed by universal apostasy and dreadful destruction of all true religion. We showed previously that all true theology rests upon some divine covenant. Now, although the Hebrew word sometimes signifies a bare promise, and is used in that sense first in the Scriptures, Gen. 6:18, Exod. 34:10, Isa. 59:21, yet, since a promise of this kind exhibits some good thing that requires a reciprocal stipulation of duties — that is, a pledge of good conscience toward God — Jer. 31:33, we may declare that every divine covenant has its own precepts and promises. When, therefore, we say that God entered into a new covenant with fallen Adam, we understand a new prescription of obedience, secured by gracious promises. Nothing more than this is required for the establishment and confirmation of a covenant between God and men. Now we say that covenant was a covenant of grace, because it was founded in another — that is, in a freely-given Mediator. For whatever covenant could have been entered into directly with men, even if it required obedience with equity and without strictness, it would still have been a covenant of works. This new covenant, therefore, was a covenant of grace, because it was founded in another who was obligated to fulfill all its conditions. And this new theology consisted in the promises and precepts of that covenant.

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IV. The foundation and nature of this covenant may be contemplated in that most celebrated promise of the victorious seed. Gen. 3:15, [Hebrew text] — "And I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; He shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise His heel." Here Christ was first promised; whence He was afterward called the Word — that is, He concerning whom that saving word of God, or the word of promise, was made. For the word is very often used absolutely for a promise; as we say in English, "I will give you my word for it; and I will make good my word; that is my promise" — as observed by the most learned Cartwright in his Harmony of the Gospels. In this promise also, that Lamb was slain — to be slain, indeed, with respect to the actual event, yet already slain with respect to its saving effect, namely, from the very foundation of the world. This, I say, is the sum of the new theology. Here indeed the river of paradise (if I may so speak) divides into four heads: namely, that righteousness, and, by virtue of it, gracious acceptance, is here first revealed — no longer to be sought at home and in obedience to be rendered by native powers, but to be received freely from another who would ward off the danger of eternal death. Concerning death, the desert of sin, and the justification of sinners before God, God was already dealing with the first-formed man. He calls Adam to give account in verse nine; in verse eleven He charges him with sin and carries the indictment through; He pronounces death upon the guilty in verse nineteen; for He shows by that most solemn expostulation, "Have you eaten of the tree of which I commanded you not to eat?", that Adam had utterly made void the covenant of works, and had thereby cut himself off from all communion with God. The renewal of that communion through another is therefore the subject here. For it had been made most clear that a sinful man had no hope residing in himself. Then He declares that this Savior, that other one through whom all salvation was henceforth to be expected, must be brought into the world by becoming incarnate — made, namely, of a woman, Gal. 4:4. Hence He is here called the seed of the woman; which introduction the apostle calls the bringing of the Firstborn into the inhabited world, Heb. 1:6, and He is said to come into the world, ch. 10:5. Just as, therefore, through the persuasion and instigation of the serpent, sin entered the world through the woman, so God promises that the remedy will also come through her. Third, in order that He might exist as the perfect Liberator, He must both suffer and conquer the serpent; for the bite of the heel by the serpent inflicts a mortal wound. God therefore foretells that the Liberator from the seed of the woman will taste death for sin and for sinners, Heb. 2:9. And since Satan was intent on pursuing and exercising the victory he had recently won over the human race to bring about the eternal destruction of all, God promises that that seed will not only wrest victory from his hands and divide the spoils with that strong one, Isa. 53:12, but will also defeat Satan himself and overthrow his works. In the last place, that this best Savior and supreme Victor, along with that eternal righteousness — everlasting righteousness, Dan. 9:24 — which He was to bring back, must be apprehended by faith. Both the nature of the matter and the mode of revelation require this. For when all salvation is announced to lost and accursed sinners as to be sought and expected from another, absolutely nothing more is required than that they trust in Him and, denying themselves, place all their hope in Him, so that they may become partakers of that salvation. The mode of revelation consisted in a promise, which also demands faith; for it cannot be understood how anyone would prepare himself to obtain what is promised, except by giving faith to the promise itself. Now it would be easy to prove that under these heads is contained — however obscurely — all the doctrine concerning the person and office of the Mediator, concerning free justification, concerning repentance, concerning eternal death, life, and reward, and concerning the resurrection of the flesh.

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V. Now that this promise referred to the Messiah, the more ancient Jews acknowledged, while the more recent deny it. Targum Jonathan Ben Uzziel: "They shall apply a remedy to the heel [Aramaic text], in the days of the King Messiah." Targum of Jerusalem: "May they provide safety to the heel [Aramaic text], at the end of the extremity, in the days of the King Messiah"; and it says, "It shall be remembered against you" — or the expression is the voice of one threatening; as we say in English, "Remember this," by which we threaten retaliation. Moreover, both paraphrasers teach that the wound of the serpent will be incurable. Paul, dealing with the Jews in the same sense and expounding this promise from their common faith of that time, writes Heb. 2:14, "Since therefore the children share in flesh and blood, He Himself likewise partook of the same things, that through death He might destroy the one who has the power of death" — ver. 15, "and deliver all those who through fear of death were subject to lifelong slavery." What else do these words say but that a medicine, or remedy, was prepared by the Messiah for the bite of the serpent? That this was accomplished in these last days — that is, in the days of the Messiah — the apostle also asserts elsewhere, namely ch. 1:2. Moreover, that the remedy was not prepared for the serpent — which both Targums plainly affirm — the same apostle teaches, ch. 2:16, "For surely it is not angels that He helps, but He helps the offspring of Abraham." So also in the Midrash Tehillim, on Ps. 1: "All things shall be healed in the age to come except the serpent." That the apostle argues in the Epistle to the Hebrews from principles once conceded among the Jews, we will demonstrate in our commentaries on that epistle (God willing). The more recent Jews, out of hatred for Christ, hold a different opinion. Fagius rightly says: "Hence we may see that there was greater sincerity among the ancient Hebrews in the interpretation of the Scriptures than there is today among the more recent Jewish writers, who frequently, with deliberate intent, corrupt the clearest and most important passages of Scripture and maliciously twist them to their own meaning." Josephus long ago clung to the surface of the words, lib. i. cap. 3. I do not know what allegories Philo invents. The Socinians deny that any promise concerning Christ is found here. "If we deny that there is a promise there, but rather a curse — and that a temporal one, like all other curses, which signifies the enmity between humans and serpents, since there was none before — what would Carolus adduce, by which to confirm that the Word is promised there?" Johann Commer against Petrus Carolus, lib. ii. cap. iii. fol. 73. Hence, in their exposition of the degrees of the revelation of the divine will, Volkel, De Vera Religione, lib. i. cap. viii. p. 13, 14, and Simon Episcopius, who follows in his footsteps, lib. i. Instit. Theol. cap. xi, pass over this passage in perpetual silence. Expressly so Valentinus Smalcius, Refutation of the Theses of Frantz, disputation iv. p. 94: "That the gospel took its beginning immediately in paradise," he says, "are the words of Frantz, confirmed by no authority of sacred letters, by no reason. If he says that those words, 'The seed of the woman shall bruise the head of the serpent,' can be understood of Christ and of the victory He won over Satan — which is the only thing urged by everyone and which can be drawn out of these words — I answer that this does nothing to prove the point. For many statements exist in sacred Scripture spoken concerning other matters, which afterward under the new covenant can be referred to Christ and to those things that pertain to the new covenant. But to hold them as prophecies and promises belongs to those who have no means to prove their opinions openly. And certainly if the beginnings of the gospel had started in paradise, it seems scarcely credible that not a single writer of the sacred books of the new covenant would have cited that prophecy even once — yet that this has never happened is clearer than light itself." We have seen what this man's opinion is concerning this prophecy and evangelical promise. He denies that it pertains directly to Christ — and that boldly — or that any mention of it is made in the New Testament. But not all are of the same opinion. Jeremias Felgenhauer calls Christ "that seed of the woman, promised by God in paradise to fallen man, who would crush the head of the infernal serpent," Demonstrat. Evangel. p. 17. Moreover, Smalcius denies far too shamelessly that any mention of this promise is made in the New Testament. The serpent is the devil, 2 Cor. 11:3, Rev. 12:9, 14, 20:2; the wicked are a brood of vipers, Matt. 3:7; they are of their father the devil, Joh. 8:44; who was a murderer from the beginning, ch. 8:44; and has sinned from the beginning, 1 Joh. 3:8; through the seduction of the common parents of humanity, by which he kills all.

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Then, the seed of the woman is Christ, Heb. 2:14; Gal. 3:16, 4:4. That He Himself crushed the head of that serpent, the Socinians will not deny, I think. See Joh. 12:31, 14:30; Luc. 10:18; 1 Cor. 15:54; Heb. 2:14; 1 Joh. 3:8; but of these things elsewhere. The Vulgate translator has ipsa conteret — "she shall bruise" — and from this the commentators babble I know not what blasphemy concerning the blessed virgin, with thoroughly asinine stupidity. The grammatical gender of the word is masculine; the pronoun ipse corresponds to it. Therefore, although the ancient translators render the Hebrew word by the Greek word for "seed" rather than for "offspring," yet in place of the Hebrew word they have the Greek autos — "he" — attending to the matter itself and not to the words, after the manner of the ancients. So the Comedian: "Where is the villain who destroyed me?" The same figure of speech is by no means unusual in the New Testament: "Make disciples of all nations, baptizing them," Matt. 28:19; and the opposite form, "O (namely

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Homer) — "He has a way beside the road, and the birds of heaven devoured it," Luc. 8:5; and, "I am writing to you no new commandment, which is true in Him and in you," 1 Joh. 1:8; and Rev. 17:16, "And the ten horns which you saw and the

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beast — these shall hate the harlot" — why? because those horns were in truth kings, masculine gender. Jerome rejects that reading as contrary to the Hebrew truth, Traditions Hebraicae on Genesis. Detestable, therefore, is the audacity of Guido Fabricius Boderianus, a man indeed learned but prone to superstitions, who in the Plantin interlinear edition attempted to substitute one Hebrew reading for another. That there is no trace of a variant reading here is apparent in the most careful investigator of such variations, Ludovicus Cappellus, Critica Sacra, lib. v. cap. xi. sect. 4; yet in place of the correct reading, either through the care of someone wishing to make the falsehood known, or through the carelessness of printers, another form crept in which is not a Hebrew word. Now that Adam, upon receiving this promise, repented and was freed from sin, the author of the book entitled the Wisdom of Solomon, ch. 10:1, demonstrates: Wisdom — that is, Wisdom — "protected the first-formed father of the world, who was created alone, and rescued him from his own transgression." And the Targum on the Song of Songs, ch. 1:1, affirms from Jewish tradition that Adam, after the forgiveness of his sin, on the Sabbath day offered a thanksgiving song to God. Through this new revelation of grace, redemption, and the forgiveness of sins, to be obtained by the death of the Mediator, the entire special nature of the theology of sinful men was utterly changed. The ultimate end, indeed, remained common to all theology — namely, the eternal enjoyment of God. But that an innovation was made not only in doctrines, but also in principles and means, a fuller account of evangelical theology will demonstrate.

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VI. The precepts pertaining to this new theology were of two kinds. For first, all the moral precepts by which the natural theology largely consisted were transferred to the use of this new theology. That native light, which directs moral operations, which God implanted in the mind of the first man at creation itself — we have shown above more fully that this light, by virtue of God's gracious economy, remained in all his posterity even after the Fall, though corrupted and weakened, in part.

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embraced by faith, God did not cease to foster day by day through His Spirit. Hence, although those precepts were not yet at that time confirmed by the prophetic word, they nevertheless became a perfect rule of obedience — faith supplying them with a new use, and the theologians with a new light.

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VII. No other precepts were given to Adam as a rule of life, beyond the remnants of natural light, which distinguishes the honorable from the base. Those remnants, aroused and directed by faith, sufficed for that end. And many examples of obedience rendered according to this law before the Flood are extant, Gen. iv. 4, 6, 7; vi. 1, 2. The matter of the seven precepts, which some affirm were delivered to Adam, and others to Noah, must be treated later. This much is most certain: every human duty rests upon the precepts of God.

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VIII. And indeed that natural light, or the innate theology, extends to all the precepts of the Decalogue. But as it pleased God to explain and confirm the second commandment — by which His will concerning the manner of common worship is established forever — in the very state of integrity through an arbitrary command concerning not eating the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, accommodated to that state; so likewise, after the entrance of sin and the promise of the restoration of sinners through the seed of the woman, it pleased Him to confirm that same commandment with a new command, accommodated to this state, through obedience to which and through faith exhibited to the promise they could express the new use of the natural law. This was the institution of sacrifices, which completes the whole of the post-lapsarian Adamic theology.

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IX. The Pontificians assign the origin of sacrifices to natural light, and contend that this rite of worshipping God would have had its place and use even in the state of innocence. See Greg. de Valent., De Sacrif. Miss. lib. i. cap. iv.; Bellar. lib. i. de Miss. cap. xxiv.; Lessius, De Justit. et Jur. lib. i.; Suarez in iii. p. Th. distin. xxi. sect. 8. This fiction, along with the mass itself, stands in need of it; the mass itself being the most monstrous fiction of all. The Socinians suspect that this rite derived its origin from right reason, by which man concludes that he ought to worship God with the best things that are in his possession; and so does the Arminian Episcopius: "Abel," he says, "led by faith alone, by no divine precept — that is, by the instinct of right reason alone — judged that God ought to be worshipped with the best things he had in his possession; that is, with sacrifices of the firstlings of his flocks and of their fat," Instit. Theol. lib. i. cap. viii. sect. 3. Absurd! As if anyone could do anything from faith with no divine precept to move him? Or as if acting from faith and acting from right reason without any precept were the same thing? Or as if there could be any faith that did not have respect both to a precept and to a promise? Or as if God had indulged creatures the freedom to devise new modes of worshipping Him? Or as if the whole ground of Abel's sacrifice were that he determined to worship God with the best things he had in his possession? All of these conclusions are plainly absurd. Episcopius, investigating the origin of this rite elsewhere also, boldly restates this opinion: "Without danger," he says, "it can be believed that this rite of sacrificing was introduced

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from the very beginning of the world, out of a certain great zeal and devotion for propitiating and honoring God by that singular act and service, whereby the best, most beloved, and most precious things were devoted to the honor of God — and thus it was publicly demonstrated that all these things were owed by greater right to God than to men, whose daily use, consumption, and pleasure they served. But God, even if this rite did not perhaps appear the best (for it is not credible that God delights in the blood and slaughter of innocent animals — which reason also perhaps suffices for us to believe that this rite was not commanded by God Himself), yet, because it proceeded from so religious a spirit, wished to accept it as pleasing, and by His benevolence permitted it to continue in perpetual use; and thereafter at last even enjoined it and prescribed it to His dearest people — nothing forbids this." Nothing forbids it, you say, Episcopius? On the contrary, everything that can be known of God by nature, everything that He Himself has revealed of Himself and His will in the Scriptures, forbids us from giving credence to this most absurd fable. For what? Is it equitable to make the wisdom and will of God so subservient to the wisdom and will of miserable sinners, that what they invented in His worship — though it was neither the best that could have been invented nor pleasing to Him — He would not only graciously permit and accept, but also most strictly enjoin upon His whole church for two thousand years under penalty of death and destruction? Will the knowledge of God, which declares that nothing but what is supremely perfect is to be ascribed to God, allow us to believe this? Will Scripture allow this, where God Himself so often rejects and condemns all human inventions in His worship? Was there nothing in the ancient sacrifices besides the devotion of offering the best and most beloved things to God? Did they have no reference to Christ and His sacrifice? Was there no specimen of divine wisdom and goodness in them, except that He permitted mortals to persist in their own ways — which He does only as a great curse? Was no divine instruction, no support for faith in the coming Messiah, established in them? But it is shameful to linger over trifles of this kind.

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X. We know what the human race is, and what manner of persons compose it; nor is it difficult to conjecture what would have become of divine worship if even the smallest part of it had been left to human discretion. Nor is it right to judge that this solemn rite — by which it pleased God to set forth the whole mystery of the death and merit of His only-begotten Son — derived its origin from any other source than the counsel of His own will. When the new covenant was established, the forgiveness of sins was made. But the apostle teaches that without the shedding of blood this cannot come to pass, Heb. ix. 22. Therefore, by sacrificial blood (perhaps of cattle, from whose skins God fashioned tunics for the first parents) that covenant was ratified by God's institution.

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XI. Among the philosophers, Porphyry alone undertook by deliberate effort to investigate the origins of sacrifices. I am therefore pleased to set forth his opinion in passing, especially since it contains certain things whose knowledge may shed some light on certain passages of sacred Scripture. In the second book of his work On Abstinence from Killing Animals, he addresses this subject. He first assigns the origin of all sacrifices to the grateful disposition of men and their intention to worship the gods with the best things in their possession. He says: "Benefactions must be repaid and thanks rendered, each in a different way according to the worthiness of the benefit, and the greatest thanks to those who have most deserved of us — and especially if they themselves are the authors of those best things to us. Now the best and most precious things with which the gods benefit us are the fruits of the earth; from these therefore it is fitting to make the gods full." What he affirms is true and sufficiently congruent with sacred Scripture. See Prov. 3.9. He proceeds to confirm at length that the rite of sacrificing had this origin. For, he says, "just as toward good men, so also toward them (that is, toward the gods) we consider it right to render the firstfruits of our possessions." He teaches that the Egyptians practiced this custom from time immemorial, and elsewhere that all other peoples from the beginning did the same, sect. 5. He affirms moreover that this religious worship demanded right reason and, from it, due observance toward the best benefactor; and he shows that certain Christians hold the same opinion. Furthermore, being drawn to Cain's side in the dispute about not eating flesh, he contends that only the fruits of the earth should be offered in sacrifice. He relates that from the beginning of the world and of the nations, sacrifice was made from herbs, grain, and flowers — not mixed with myrrh or cassia or frankincense, but pure, just as the earth brought them forth — and that offerings from any other sources were not made until many centuries later, as error grew by degrees. The most ancient people, he says, the Egyptians, first began to offer to the heavenly gods the firstfruits not of incense or frankincense or things mixed with spiced wine, nor of these things beforehand, but simply of whatever living nature they could touch with their hands, sect. 5. This opinion he narrates and confirms through the greater part of that book. He further contends that the use of animals or blood in sacrifices was introduced only very late, when wickedness, impiety, and superstition had greatly prevailed — and this he confirms from many oracles that disapproved of that worship and permitted it only after much deliberation. Let the following oracle, he says, be considered, in which he who inquires of the gods whether he should cease from sacrificing animals is bidden to approach the deity with much caution, for the oracle speaks thus:

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"To the inspector of sacred rites who was from the family of prophets, when he wished to offer firstfruits from his sheep, the oracle is said to have granted permission, but with great caution; for these are its words: 'It is not lawful for you to slaughter animals, sprung

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from prophets; but if any animal consents of its own accord to death, you may slay it in the sacred rites, with hands washed.' And that caution was plainly contrary to divine ordinances, by which everything that died of its own accord was entirely unclean. Moreover, persisting in his principle, he teaches that there is some supreme deity which, since it is good and holy, does nothing and can do nothing except what is good, and what is pleasing and useful to men. He judged this to be natural to it, from which it is impossible to depart. 'It is impossible for these immortal beings,' he says (sect. 38), 'to supply both benefits and at the same time to be authors of harm' — meaning the good gods. To these he reckons good geniuses or angels, as intermediaries between gods and men, bearing our prayers to the gods as to judges. He argues, furthermore, that the worship of the best and greatest deity, or of the good gods, must be performed not by sacrifices, but by the laying aside of passions, by the abstraction of the mind from bodily things, by the contemplation of heavenly things, and by the love and pursuit of those things which reason, not imagination, dictates. He also maintains that there are evil and harmful spirits or daemons who, dwelling in the air nearest to the earth, are the authors and causes of all evils — namely, of diseases, famine, plagues, earthquakes, and wars. These he holds to be liars and proud, eagerly seeking to occupy the place and role of the best and greatest God among the human race. 'Lying is their own characteristic,' he says, 'for they all desire to be taken for gods, and that power which stands over all the rest would wish to be deemed the greatest God.' These things he himself drew from the sacred books, which no one among the ancient philosophers unrolled more diligently, or with a mind more occupied by malice. Indeed, that very statement — that lying is characteristic of them — most plainly reflects the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, Joh. viii. 44, where the devil, speaking of his own, is both a liar and the father of lying. The rest derived from the same source are diverted into the Platonic swamps. He teaches that it is necessary to offer sacrifices to these daemons, who are given over to bodily and earthly things of which they themselves are masters, and devoted to corrupt passions: 'For,' he says, 'as the theologians say, for those who are bound to external things and cannot restrain their own passions, it is necessary to turn away the power or envy of these geniuses; otherwise they will never be free from troubles.' And he argues at length that animal sacrifices have been offered to these and to no others, being fattened by their smoke and

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vapor — that is, what is ethereal in them and closest to corporeal substance — as he contends at length. 'The one who is devoted to piety,' he says, 'sacrifices nothing animate to the gods, but to daemons and other divine powers, whether good or evil' — that is: 'The studious of piety sacrifices nothing animate to the gods, but to daemons and to other divine beings, both good and evil.' Here we have the defendant confessing: that the nations offered sacrifices not to God but to daemons — which wickedness the Apostle Paul had earlier rebuked them for in nearly the same words, 1 Cor. x, 20: 'What they sacrifice,' he says, 'they sacrifice to daemons and not to God.' Accordingly, this testimony is used against the nations by Eusebius, Prepar. Evang. lib. iii; Augustine, de Civit. Dei, lib. x; Theodoret, Therapeut. serm. iii. So much so that Holstenius, in his Life of Porphyry, rightly pronounced: 'That no one among those outside the church has furnished readers of the church with more or stronger weapons with which to cut down the manifold error of the pagans than this Porphyry.' Such is the power of truth, consistent with itself in every direction, and inserting its own particles through all the windings of error, so that it often escapes from those unwilling to hold it.

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XII. And this was the sum of post-lapsarian Adamic theology. All the theology of sinners consists in these three parts which we have set forth. What followed was only a variation in degrees. The foundation of the whole is placed in the promise, which, having been drawn out through various increments of light for the use of the church, the gospel at last exhibited and fully expounded. The norm of obeying God, that is, the natural law, was expressed in the Decalogue, established in due time; whose nature and use the prophets expounded. The pattern of external or ceremonial worship, and of the divine good pleasure, was established in the institution of sacrifices; and in all external worship it was solemnly consecrated: that no worship is acceptable to God unless instituted by Him.

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Chapter 2.

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The institution of the church according to the rule of post-lapsarian theology — Adam's diligence and duty in building it up — How long it remained pure — The defection in Cain the apostate — The nature, degrees, and manner of that defection — Jehovah's regard for Abel and his offering — The errors of certain ancients — The obscurity of the Septuagint translation — Why the Cainite sacrifice was rejected by God — Concerning the words of Moses: "And Cain said to his brother Abel," Gen. 4:8 — The fable of the Targums — Cain, moved from the church, flees it, distrusting the promise of mercy — The reformation of the church through the expulsion and cursing of Cain.

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I. According to the rule of theology which we have expounded, the first church of sinners was instituted in the family of Adam. That was its immediate end: that an assembly of those worshipping God in the Mediator might be constituted. The care of this work lay upon Adam. For since he was the father and head of the whole human race, and had received the promise of the victorious Seed to be proclaimed to all his posterity, he was bound by the obligation of that duty, by the force both of nature and of positive precept. There are very many considerations which persuade us that he did not fail in this duty. For, without doubt, the very great benefit recently received from God, love and compassion for his own kind, and the most tender sense of the wretched condition into which he had brought his posterity through sin — these things brought it about that he performed his appointed office diligently. And so his whole family, under his care and governance — that is, the entire human race without exception — was the church of God, in which faith, observance, and religious worship flourished. In that state of affairs the church was absolutely catholic. How long a span of time it lasted in blameless profession of the new theology is not entirely certain; it admitted the first stain of defection in the apostasy of Cain. Since that apostasy was the first instance of defection on the part of the church of sinners professing the worship of God in the Mediator, it must be briefly narrated.

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II. We have previously shown that this theology had three parts. The apostate sinned against all of them. The foundation of the whole was the promise of the Mediator. That Cain's defection began from unbelief, the apostle shows when he celebrates the faith of Abel, Heb. 11:4. Nor, when admonished by God, did he acknowledge his sin — which impenitence sprang from the same root. Next, he performed the instituted worship otherwise than he ought, and here the irreverence long lurking within him first manifested itself; finally, anger and envy drove him, already falling away from faith, into fratricide, by which he transgressed the dictate of right reason, or the law of nature. Thus he showed himself a sinner and rebel against the whole divine covenant and each of its parts. Hence he became the first of hypocrites and the leader and prototype of all the rest until the end of the age, 1 Joh. 3:12.

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III. Some ancients were of the opinion that God testified His acceptance of Abel's sacrifice by sending fire from heaven to devour it. In this sense Theodotion translated those words of Gen. 4:4, "And the Lord inflamed upon Abel" — which rendering Jerome commends in his Hebrew Traditions on Genesis. Remarkable is the strange rendering of the Septuagint at Gen. 4:6–7, which in explaining Cain's sin led many of the ancients astray. The words are: "And the Lord God said to Cain, 'Why have you become sorrowful, and why has your countenance fallen? If you offer rightly but do not divide rightly, have you not sinned? Be still; his return is to you, and you will rule over him.'" What those words mean — "If you offer rightly, but do not divide rightly" — is entirely uncertain. They do not belong to the sacred text. Notable are the blunders and errors of Augustine, in The City of God, bk. 15, ch. 7; of Chrysostom, in his Homily 18 on Gen. ch. 4; of Cyril against Julian; and of others — occasioned by this passage. Jerome in his Hebrew Traditions on Gen. 4 sharply criticizes this rendering of the Septuagint, yet not without his own slip in the matter of the word for sin: "Sin," he says, "is of masculine gender among the Hebrews, but in the Greek speech it is feminine." For it is certain that the Hebrew word is of feminine gender. Jerome was misled because in this passage it is joined with a masculine participle. But among the Hebrews this is not unusual; and those who remove the difficulty from this passage treat the two Hebrew words as equivalent to one another, both signifying the same thing in the masculine gender. The most learned Mercerus reveals the source of these errors. I will say briefly what the matter is. The sacrifice of Cain was rejected — not on account of its material, nor because some portion of his possessions was improperly consecrated, nor because of any defect in external rite — but because of the sin and unbelief of the one offering the sacrifice. IV. Rebuked by God, Cain for a time concealed his envy and anger toward his brother. This seems to be signified by the words: "And Cain said to his brother Abel" — which our translators render: "And Cain talked with his brother Abel." The Samaritan Codex and the Septuagint add: "Let us go out into the field." The Vulgate says, "Let us go forth outside," doubtless from the Jerusalem Targum. In the Masoretic Bible there is a lacuna of one short line after the word. Lindanus, Morinus, and others proclaim that the Hebrew text is corrupted. Jerome rejects the supplement: "Cain said to his brother," he says, "and what follows is to be understood — namely, what the Lord had said; it is therefore superfluous that which is found in the Samaritan and in our volume," Hebrew Traditions on Genesis. You may see also how highly he esteemed that Samaritan codex, which some prefer to the Hebrew. Aben Ezra in his commentary on the passage follows Jerome in his sense: "It seems to me," he says, "that he said or related to him with what reproaches he had been received by God." Onkelos adheres to the bare words of the text. Jonathan, as also the Targum called the Jerusalem Targum, narrates at length a disputation between the brothers. "And Cain said," it goes, "to his brother Abel, 'Come, let us both go out into the field.' And when they had both gone out into the field, Cain replied and said to Abel, 'I perceive that the world was created through mercies' (the Jerusalem Targum puts it differently: 'that the world was not created through mercy'), 'but it is not governed according to the fruit of good works, and there is respect of persons in judgment; on which account your offering was accepted, but my offering was not accepted with good pleasure.' Abel answered and said to Cain, 'The world was created through mercies, and it is governed according to the fruit of good works, and there is no respect of persons in judgment, and therefore because the fruit of my works is better than yours, my offering was received with good pleasure.' Cain answered and said to his brother, 'There is no judgment, and there is no judge, and there is no other age, and no good reward will be given to the righteous, and no vengeance will be taken of the wicked.' Abel answered and said to Cain, 'There is judgment, and there is a judge, and there is another age, and good reward will be given to the righteous, and vengeance will be taken of the wicked.' And on account of these matters they were contending upon the face of the field." This is Ben Uzziel's — that is, foolish.

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"For now there was no place for these things."

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V. Philo Judaeus says that Cain was a sophist and "had provoked his brother to a disputation" — perhaps because he had dealt craftily with God Himself, Gen. 4:8. But the matter is plain; and our translators admirably intimate the sense of the words by their rendering: "And Cain talked with his brother." That is, after he had resolved in his mind to remove his brother from among the living, nursing the deadly hatred which he harbored from envy in the very marrow of his bones, pressing it down in the depths of his heart and feigning love in his countenance, he spoke with him in a friendly and brotherly manner. That is the meaning of the words. That is the way of those who thirst for the blood of others. So afterward Joab treacherously removed Abner, and Absalom removed Amnon, under the pretense of a simulated reconciliation of affection. Lured by that pretense, the first martyr fell into the ambush.

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VI. The devil was, in a special manner, the instigator of this murder for Cain. Therefore Cain is said not only to have been of the evil one on account of this very murder, 1 Joh. 3:12, but also the devil is called a murderer from the beginning, Joh. 8:44. For he is called a murderer there not only because he enticed the first human beings into sin, from which death was to follow, but also because he in fact procured and brought about this murder — just as, at his instigation, the Pharisees at that time sought to kill the Lord Jesus. An ancient poet, whose verses are extant in Epiphanius, expressed this elegantly thus:

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Verses from the tragedy:

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O Serpent, first source of calamities and last boundary of them, and you, father of the treasury of evils, blind error, forerunner of ignorance — whose fodder is the tears and sighs of mankind — you who, stirring up with inexpiable hatred the fratricide's arms turned against himself, drove Cain to be the first to stain wrath with blood — you drove them, so that from their eternal state

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man first fell down to the lowest earthly depths — you were the cause of it all."

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VII. But after the unbelief and hypocrisy of Cain had revealed themselves openly in this manner, so that he could no longer be tolerated in the church, God, who still exercised immediate care over the tender flock lest it be infected by the fellowship of the impious apostate and of those who had adhered to him in his crimes (whose number appears to have been not small, since with their help he had girded himself for building a city), drove him out from the borders of the church, laden with a curse. Such is the meaning of those words, Gen. iv. 12, "A wanderer and a fugitive you shall be on the earth" — that is, "Go out into the face of the lands of your world, newly

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accursed, inasmuch as you are heaped with a fresh defection from my dominion; wander there wherever you will at last, savoring earthly things, having henceforth nothing in common with my worship, my church."

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VIII. This part of his punishment he himself repeats, ver. 14, "A wanderer and a fugitive I shall be on the earth" (not "groaning and trembling," as the LXX renders it); and "From Your face I shall be hidden." He had previously despised the gracious face of God in the promised Seed. He rejects in other words any hope of entering again into grace with God: "My iniquity," he says, "is greater than can be pardoned," or "than I am able to bear." Jonas Schlichtingius, in his work on the Trinity, at the passage cited, p. 119, denies that these words "are to be censured, as though they contained anything evil," as if they had proceeded from right reason. But it is certain that they did not proceed from faith, and therefore were full of despair. Furthermore, he had no hope, nor fear, that he could lie hidden from the providence of God. He therefore acknowledges himself excluded from the fellowship of the saints and from the presence of God in solemn worship. And being driven out from the church, he fled from it, Gen. iv. 16.

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IX. Now this defection of Cain occurred in the one hundred and twenty-ninth year after the church had been founded in the promise of the Liberator. For it is probable that in the year immediately following the death of Abel, Eve bore Seth. That was the one hundred and thirtieth year of Adam's life, Gen. v. 8. During that space of time, the human race had without doubt grown in number and multitude; and so the church itself, which was still absolutely catholic, embracing the whole of that race, endured. That first blameless church of those professing faith in the Mediator regarding their sins lasted, therefore, for one hundred and thirty years, or thereabouts, walking holy and blameless before God according to the rule of restored theology.

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X. Cain therefore rushed into apostasy when he was one hundred and twenty years old. For that which Gregory Abulpharajius, the Arab chronologer, reports on the authority of a certain Theodosius — whose history the distinguished Pococke recently edited — is absurd; namely, "that Adam did not beget Cain until thirty years had elapsed from his expulsion from paradise, and that Abel lived a hundred years before Adam, returning to his wife, begot Seth." But these ravings are plainly refuted by the sacred text, Gen. v. 8; and yet I know not from what source this most foolish rumor arose — it has traversed the whole East and has defiled the writings of very many.

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XI. Hypocrisy, therefore, advancing from unbelief against God to the persecution of the saints, brought about the occasion and even the necessity of the reformation of the church; of which reformation we have the first divinely ordained specimen and example in the ejection and cursing of Cain.

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Chapter 3.

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The second reformation of the antediluvian church, Gen. 4, last verse — the etymological notes of certain persons — Enoshian idolatry, the opinion of Maimonides, Selden, Cyril — the total apostasy of the reformed church — the beginning, occasion, and manner of this apostasy, Gen. 6:1–5 — the sons of God and the daughters of men — the triflings of the Jews — and of certain ancient Christians — no antediluvian idolatry — the causes of the Flood, and the tradition of these things among the nations — the end of the antediluvian church — a type in it of things to come.

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I. After Cain had been driven out from the borders of the church — he being the ringleader of those who had corrupted the Adamic theology before the Flood — its power and energy, and the pure worship of God resting upon it, flourished up to the age of Enosh. A new corruption, which spread widely, had by that time invaded the church; and a new reformation, following upon it, destroyed that corruption: "For then it was begun to call upon the name of the Lord," Gen. 4:26. Concerning this passage, a few things must be added.

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II. The words are: then he began to call upon the name of the Lord. There are those who judge that these words denote a reformation of the church; and there are those who judge that they denote its fall into idolatry. The Septuagint renders it thus: "This one hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God" — deriving the word, evidently, not from one root but from another. Hence arose at that time the innocent error of certain persons. They suspected that those words express an etymological notation of the name of Enosh. Chrysostom's interpretation in the passage rests upon that mistake alone; for taking "Enosh" to mean "he hoped," he comments at length on the pious hope of his parents.

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III. And indeed in rendering the meaning of Hebrew names, the Greeks err without exception. So George Cedrenus, p. 172: "Cain named his firstborn son, which means 'grief,' and Cain also killed his brother Abel, which is interpreted as 'vanity'; for from him who was first slain the parents derived the name" — ineptly, and contrary to the etymological principle assigned in the very text, Gen. 4:1. Yet the coloring is not wholly absent; for the Hebrew word means "envy," and

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and lamentation — so also Zonaras: "Abel, the second son, that is, grief or vanity." I judge that the word "then," or "at that time," is to be referred to the whole span of Enosh's life. These things were done in the days of Enosh, whom Seth begat. I would readily grant that the condition of the church was already wretched at the time when Enosh was born, and that hence arose for his pious parents an occasion of lamentation. The word Enosh denotes a miserable man; from the root it signifies one who is mortally sick, one who is calamitous, Ps. 9:21. But no logic compels us to confine the things here recorded to the time of his birth. For these things occurred perhaps some three hundred years or thereabouts after the first reformation of the church through the expulsion of Cain, since the birth of Enosh falls in the one hundred and sixth year after that expulsion. For although the beginnings of that work — whatever it finally was — to which the Holy Spirit here makes mention were perhaps laid at the very birth of Enosh, I do not believe it was brought to completion until Enosh himself, who is specifically noted, had for some time been the head of a household; and in this opinion are almost all the Jews. IV. The Targum ascribed to Jonathan asserts that the entrance of idolatry into the world is denoted by these words, saying: "That generation, in whose days men began to err, and made idols for themselves, and called their idols by the name of the word of the Lord" — that is, they called their idols gods. So also the Arabic interpreter from the edition of Erpenius: "Then men began to depart from obedience to God" — differently from the text in the London Polyglot Bible edition. There are two copies of the Targum of Onkelos; one was set forth by Arias Montanus in the Royal Bible edition, another by Buxtorf in his Basel edition; the latter affirms that "men ceased from calling upon" the Lord, the former that they "began to call upon the name of the Lord." Maimonides traces the beginning of all idolatry from this point, at the beginning of his book on the Worship of the Stars, saying: "In the days of Enosh the children of men fell into great error, and the wise men of that generation were stupefied; even Enosh himself was among those who erred, and this was their error: they said, since God Himself created the stars and the spheres to govern the world, and placed them on high, and gave glory to them, and employs them as His ministers, it is surely fitting that we should celebrate them, and exalt them, and give them glory." That learned man had in view those words of Moses, Gen. 1:16, concerning the great lights appointed to rule the day and the night and over the whole world. He perceives that the degenerate sons of the patriarchs took from these words an occasion to worship the sun, the moon, and the whole adornment of the heavens, to which dominion over days and nights, and thus over the whole terrestrial globe, had been committed. R. D. Kimchi is of the same opinion: "In the days," he says, "of Enosh, they went astray after idolatry, and the invocation of the name of God was then profaned; but there are those who expound the word as meaning 'to begin' in this sense: 'Then men began to call the names of images and idols by the name of God.'" Selden follows Maimonides, Preface ii to the Syntagma on the Syrian Gods. V. But Josephus, earlier than all these, asserts that the worship of the one true God lasted until the seventh generation, in the Antiquities, Book 1. R. Eliezer agrees with him in Maase-Beresith, ch. 22, and proves that no mention of idolatry is made here, because no mention was made of those other things they worshipped — that is, the sun and the stars. Most of the ancient Christians agree with these. "Those who lived from Adam," says Cyril against Julian, "even to the time of Noah, had one true and genuine knowledge of the Creator of all things; but after the Flood and the building of the tower they became confused about God" — some supposing heaven to be God, others the sun, others the moon. And this opinion is most true, in which Epiphanius also stands, Book 1, ch. 1, sect. 4. Bede in his Chronicle. The Hebrew root signifies principally "to begin," and in the Piel "to profane," very rarely in the Hiphil or Hophal; hence the noun means "beginning," and the verb means "to enter upon something publicly." Jerome embraces this interpretation. Men did not first begin to profane the name of the Lord in the days of Enosh, since this had been done by the impious Cainites long before Enosh was born. There is therefore no reason why it should be specifically said that then men began to profane the name of God; but there is the greatest reason to say they began to invoke it in a peculiar manner.

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VI. These words therefore indicate not a corruption of religious worship, but a reformation of the church. The prefixed particle marks that something new and unusual is signified. Now when the church was confined within the bounds of a single family, its reformation was not difficult, namely by the expulsion of the contumacious. But when the human race had increased immeasurably and the boundaries of the church had been extended, another course had to be taken. For a multitude of sinners produces impunity and license to sin; and so these two things are denoted by those words. First, that the pious had formed separate assemblies for the solemn performance of the worship of God. Second, that they had taken up a distinctive name — that of worshippers or sons of God — which they used until the next apostasy. Thus they called solemnly upon the name of God in separation; and they were called by the name of God, that is, worshippers or sons of God. Both senses are confirmed by our native interpreters; for as they read in the text, "Then began men to call upon the name of the Lord," so they add in the margin, "To call themselves by the name of the Lord." And this was the only remaining way of reforming the church. That this course must be taken, when the greater part corrupt the true worship of God and persist stubbornly in wicked practices (which was the state of the church in those times), both the nature of the matter itself and right reason demands. For what could those do who desired to present their consciences undefiled and pure to God in religious worship? Were they to allow themselves to be mingled with and corrupted by the crowd of apostates? That does not appear to be their duty. Were they to drive the apostates out and banish them from the borders of the church? That cannot be done by the fewer against the more numerous. The separation of the pious, therefore, and their gathering into distinct assemblies remained as the only option. These words record that this was then done. For the name of the Lord was not profaned for the first time then — that had been done by the impious Cainites long before — nor, speaking absolutely, did men first begin to call upon the name of the Lord then, since all the pious had been devoted to His worship from the foundations of the world; but then, for the first time, certain persons, having made a visible separation from the rest of the world, performed religious worship solemnly among themselves.

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VII. And this was the second reformation of the antediluvian church. The first apostasy had been singular, in the person of Cain. The first reformation consisted in his expulsion. In the time of Enosh, hypocrisy had crept more widely and infected more persons. In order to present themselves free from the common defilement and to preserve the worship of God in the promised Mediator in its purity, the pious Sethites, withdrawing from the crowd of apostates and forming separate assemblies, were called "sons of God." And here the church, visibly and voluntarily separated from the world, existed for the first time.

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VIII. By the power of this reformation, pure theology flourished, and the church visibly separated from the world, for about a thousand years. In the course of that time, God set forth a notable example of obedience, a specimen of true theology, and a pledge of eternal life, in the translation of Enoch, Gen. 5:24. But as things progressed, the impious Cainites, and those Sethites from whom the pious had withdrawn at the time of the Enoshian reformation, pretending, it seems, that a common peace should be cultivated through intermarriages and other bonds of civil life, were admitted into the fellowship of the pious, and nearly overthrew everything divine and human universally. Such is usually the fatal outcome, after a reformation, of corruption once more admitted into the church. IX. Moreover, when the very great multitude of impious apostates had been admitted into the fellowship of the pious, and the pious could no longer free themselves either by the expulsion of those others — as they say, using their authority — or by voluntary secession, an immediate and universal apostasy ensued, and the entire church became corrupted. God therefore put an end to that dispensation and to the Adamic sublapsarian theology, in the universal destruction of the apostate theologians, by the Flood.

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X. Now the origin, progress, and end of this final apostasy of the antediluvian church were committed to record by its most just Avenger Himself, Gen. 6:1–5. Verses 1 and 2 describe the origin: "And it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the sons of God, seeing that the daughters of men were fair, took wives for themselves from whomsoever they chose."

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XI. Who these "sons of God" are, and who the "daughters of men" are, is disputed. The Jews babble something or other about good and evil angels. So too, before the rabbis were born, did Philo and Josephus. Also the author of the books of Enoch, certain fragments of which survive — in Joseph Scaliger's annotations on Eusebius and in Kircher's Oedipus Aegyptiacus, vol. ii, pt. ii — favors this delusion, as do a great many of the ancient fathers: Justin, Apol. i; Clement, Strom. lib. iii; Tertullian, De Habitu Mulierum; Lactantius, Institut. lib. ii, cap. xv; Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica lib. v; Ambrose, De Virginibus; Zosimus Panopolites in Photius, Cod. cxci. But neither the nature and condition of the angels (Matt. xxii. 30), nor the sequence of the Mosaic narrative, admits this suspicion. The term "sons of God" Onkelos renders by "sons of the mighty," and "daughters of men" by "daughters of the poor." The LXX renders them as "sons of God." Aquila: "sons of the gods." Symmachus: "sons of the rulers" — as Jerome attests. And all of these understand the phrase to signify an utter confusion of all ranks in the political order and in the common manner of life, as though men had consorted with one another after the manner of beasts, with no regard for degrees of rank or honor of dignities. Rambam holds this view in the More

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Nevuchim, pt. i, cap. xiv: "Adam," he says, "signifies also 'the common people' and 'the multitude of men'; so also 'sons of Adam' and 'sons of man,' Ps. xxiii. 13; and in this sense it is said, 'And the sons of God saw the daughters of Adam.'"

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XII. But the matter is sufficiently plain in itself. The "sons of God" were those who, from the days of Enosh, established separate assemblies for the celebration of the true worship of God, professing godliness. On this account they were objects of hatred and mockery to the ungodly world. Nor indeed has the world ever been, nor will it be, otherwise in this respect. For some hundreds of years, perhaps, they separated themselves from fellowship with the wicked — which has always been the chief cause of ecclesiastical apostasy. In the course of time, however, they too were increased by a degenerate offspring, in whom alone there was only a corrupt semblance of godliness. Inflamed by unbridled lust, this offspring joined itself in marriage to the daughters of apostates. And these were the "daughters of men." It is an old tradition among the Jews that the pious Sethites had maintained all their laws — both divine and human — separately from the Cainites, and had inhabited places far distant from them, without any intercourse of life or of the age. This tradition, because it has the appearance of truth, I would not rashly reject. Abulfaraj (as edited by Pococke) reports it interwoven with fables: "Seth," he says, "son of Adam: he is said to have been the first inventor of writing, and to have instilled into his descendants a longing for the blessed life that their parents had enjoyed in paradise; so that they withdrew to Mount Hermon, devoted to the worship of God, piety, and continence, approaching women not at all — whence they were called Bani-Elohim. But in the fortieth year of Jared, descending from Mount Hermon, when they had despaired of returning to paradise" (that is, when the holiness of life and separation from the world had begun to be a burden to them), "they lusted after women; and when those who were their kinsmen refused to give them wives, despising them, the Cainites invited them to marriage, freely offering them their daughters, with whom they consorted and begat giants, distinguished in wars and hostile raids."

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XIII. These things Abulfaraj drew from the apocryphal book of Enoch, Concerning the Watchers — except that what he attributes to the Sethites, that other Jewish trifler assigns to the angels descending upon Mount Hermon. The surviving fragments of those books Concerning the Watchers and Concerning the Revelation of Moses will abundantly furnish such fables to anyone who thirsts for them. The angels were called by the ancients egregori (Watchers). They seized their occasion from Dan. iv. 10, where an "ir," that is, a "watcher," is said to have looked down from heaven. The common manuscripts of the Greek text retain the Hebrew word; but a certain manuscript reads the equivalent in Greek.

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XIV. From this source sprang an indiscriminate mingling of all with all. At length the two assemblies coalesced into one to such a degree that, the family of Noah alone excepted, scarcely any distinction remained between the world and the church. This the Holy Spirit makes plain when He affirms that "all flesh had corrupted its way," Gen. vi. 12. This, I say, was the origin of the second apostasy of the catholic Enoshian, or Adamic, antediluvian church,

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— reformed a second time, in which we have a distinguished example of the origin of every catholic apostasy. For it was always the fellowship of the wicked that brought the church to ruin.

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XV. Let us consider further the progress of this apostasy. In ver. 11, 12, the Holy Spirit sets it forth: "The earth was corrupt before God Himself, and was filled with violence; and God looked upon the earth, and behold, it was corrupt, because all flesh had corrupted its way." It had advanced so far, that is, as to extend to all flesh, with only Noah excepted (ver. 8, vi. 1). He, moreover, "was a preacher of righteousness," 2 Pet. i. 5. In whose ministry the Spirit of Christ "strove with the rebellious," 1 Pet. i. 19, for a hundred and twenty years, Gen. vi. 3. Thus the Targum of Jonathan ben Uzziel expounds that passage — though he babbles in his usual manner about something or other concerning Shamhazai and Uzziel, who at that time fell from heaven and begat giants.

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XVI. Maimonides contends that the nature of this apostasy consisted chiefly in idolatry. Selden adopted his view. The names of the gods they worshiped Muhammad furnishes us in the Quran, Sura lxxi: Wadd, Suwa, Yaghuth, Yauq, and Nasr. To these, it seems, Shamhazai and Uzziel devoted their service. But let us dismiss these trifles. What is said about antediluvian idolatry is utterly devoid of all probability. For the Holy Spirit makes no mention of it — He who would by no means have passed it over, inasmuch as it is the gravest of sins and the most powerful argument for the execution of divine justice in the destruction of the world. God willed, without doubt, to display in the destruction of the ancient world by the flood a great prejudgment of future judgment — as Tertullian expresses it — surpassed only by the cross of Christ alone. Can He then be thought to have passed over in silence the greatest of all sins when setting forth the causes of so great a calamity and punishment — a punishment only less than eternal — especially when He carefully enumerates the other crimes and wickednesses that deserved it? For the malice of men's hearts, the universal corruption of life, violence and rapine, and also illicit marriages are expressly mentioned in cap. vi. 2, 5, 11–13. The other vices and wickednesses of that age Berosus not unfittingly recounts in Annius of Viterbo; as also Ovid in Metamorphoses i: "These giants," he says, "trusting in the vastness of their bodies and their strength, fell upon all men with arms and overpowered them, and, serving their lust, they invented tents and musical instruments and every kind of luxury; they devoured men, and there was nothing they did not commit — despisers of religion and of the gods." That the true Berosus also consecrated the flood to memory in his history is attested by Josephus, Antiquities lib. i, cap. iv.

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XVII. The end or issue of this catholic apostasy was the flood-destruction of the apostates — namely, "the world that then existed perished, being flooded with water," 2 Pet. iii. 6. That the nations received by tradition this cause of the flood is attested, among very many others, by Lucian, De Syria Dea, sect. 12: "The men of the present age," he says, "are not the first race, but that former race, all of them,

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over the overwhelming flood." — Ode 2, Book 1.

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Josephus reports similar things from Hieronymus the Egyptian, Berosus, Mnaseas, and Nicolaus of Damascus, in Antiquities, Book 1, Chapter 4; from Abydenus and Alexander Polyhistor, Eusebius in his Chronicle.

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XIX. And such was the end that came upon the apostate antediluvian church. By binding itself in the crime of fresh defection after reformation, it became irreformable. This was the solemn period assigned to the primary revelation of supernatural theology. Moreover, as we shall see, the type and pattern of all churches to be established in future times and to be reformed after their falls was set forth in it. But may God, in His infinite mercy, avert this omen from the reformed Christian churches.