The City of God, Volume IIAugustine, of Hippo, Saint
ReligionChristian
The City of God, Volume II
Augustine, of Hippo, Saint
Apologetics -- Early works to 1800; Kingdom of God -- Early works to 1800
population, then it became possible to him both to build a city,
and give it, when founded, the name of his son. For so long was the
life of those antediluvians, that he who lived the shortest time of
those whose years are mentioned in Scripture attained to the age of
753 years.[160] And though no one attained the age of a thousand
years, several exceeded the age of nine hundred. Who then can doubt
that during the lifetime of one man the human race might be so
multiplied that there would be a population to build and occupy not
one but several cities? And this might very readily be conjectured
from the fact that from one man, Abraham, in not much more than four
hundred years, the numbers of the Hebrew race so increased, that
in the exodus of that people from Egypt there are recorded to have
been six hundred thousand men capable of bearing arms,[161] and this
over and above the Idumæans, who, though not numbered with Israel's
descendants, were yet sprung from his brother, also a grandson of
Abraham; and over and above the other nations which were of the same
stock of Abraham, though not through Sarah,--that is, his descendants
by Hagar and Keturah, the Ishmaelites, Midianites, etc.
9. _Of the long life and greater stature of the antediluvians._
Wherefore no one who considerately weighs facts will doubt that Cain
might have built a city, and that a large one, when it is observed
how prolonged were the lives of men, unless perhaps some sceptic take
exception to this very length of years which our authors ascribe to
the antediluvians and deny that this is credible. And so, too, they
do not believe that the size of men's bodies was larger then than
now, though the most esteemed of their own poets, Virgil, asserts the
same, when he speaks of that huge stone which had been fixed as a
landmark, and which a strong man of those ancient times snatched up
as he fought, and ran, and hurled, and cast it,--
"Scarce twelve strong men of later mould
That weight could on their necks uphold;"[162]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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