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
We must first see why, in the enumeration of Cain's posterity, after
Enoch, in whose name the city was built, has been first of all
mentioned, the rest are at once enumerated down to that terminus of
which I have spoken, and at which that race and the whole line was
destroyed in the deluge; while, after Enos the son of Seth has been
mentioned, the rest are not at once named down to the deluge, but a
clause is inserted to the following effect: "This is the book of the
generations of Adam. In the day that God created man, in the likeness
of God made He him; male and female created He them; and blessed them,
and called their name Adam, in the day when they were created."[198]
This seems to me to be inserted for this purpose, that here again the
reckoning of the times may start from Adam himself,--a purpose which
the writer had not in view in speaking of the earthly city, as if God
mentioned it, but did not take account of its duration. But why does
he return to this recapitulation after mentioning the son of Seth,
the man who hoped to call on the name of the Lord God, unless because
it was fit thus to present these two cities, the one beginning with a
murderer and ending in a murderer (for Lamech, too, acknowledges to
his two wives that he had committed murder), the other built up by him
who hoped to call upon the name of the Lord God? For the highest and
complete terrestrial duty of the city of God, which is a stranger in
this world, is that which was exemplified in the individual who was
begotten by him who typified the resurrection of the murdered Abel.
That one man is the unity of the whole heavenly city, not yet indeed
complete, but to be completed, as this prophetic figure foreshows. The
son of Cain, therefore, that is, the son of possession (and of what
but an earthly possession?), may have a name in the earthly city which
was built in his name. It is of such the Psalmist says, "They call
their lands after their own names."[199] Wherefore they incur what is
written in another psalm: "Thou, O Lord, in Thy city wilt despise their
image."[200] But as for the son of Seth, the son of the resurrection,
let him hope to call on the name of the Lord God. For he prefigures
that society of men which says, "But I am like a green olive-tree in
the house of God: I have trusted in the mercy of God."[201] But let him
not seek the empty honours of a famous name upon earth, for "Blessed
is the man that maketh the name of the Lord his trust, and respecteth
not vanities nor lying follies."[202] After having presented the two
cities, the one founded in the material good of this world, the other
in hope in God, but both starting from a common gate opened in Adam
into this mortal state, and both running on and running out to their
proper and merited ends, Scripture begins to reckon the times, and in
this reckoning includes other generations, making a recapitulation
from Adam, out of whose condemned seed, as out of one mass handed over
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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