Commentary on Genesis Part 19

12. As G.o.d, who is by nature most kind, cannot refrain from gracing and showering us with various gifts: health, property, wisdom, skill, knowledge of Scripture, etc., so we cannot refrain from priding ourselves upon these gifts and flaunting them. Wretched is our life when we lack the gifts of G.o.d, but twice wretched is it when we have them; for they tend to make us doubly wicked. Such is the corruption of original sin, though all but believers are either unaware of its existence or regard it a trivial thing.

13. Such corruption is perceptible not only in ourselves but in others. How property inflates pride though it occupies relatively the lowest place among blessings! The rich, be they n.o.blemen, city-dwellers or peasants, deem other people as flies. To even a greater extent are the higher gifts abused--wisdom and righteousness.

Possession of these gifts, then, makes inevitable this condition--G.o.d cannot suffer such pride and we cannot refrain from it.

14. This was the sin of that primeval world. Among Cain's descendants were good and wise men, who, nevertheless, before G.o.d were most wicked, for they prided themselves upon their gifts and despised G.o.d, the author. Such offense the world does not perceive and condemn; G.o.d alone is its judge.

15. Where these spiritual vices exist and flourish, the lapse into carnal ones is imminent. According to Sirach 10, 14, sin begins with falling from G.o.d. The devil's first fall is from heaven into h.e.l.l; that is, from the first table of the Law into the second. When people begin to be G.o.dless--when they do not fear and trust G.o.d, but despise him, his Word and his servants--the result is that from the true doctrine they pa.s.s into heretical delusions and teach, defend and cultivate them. These sins in the eyes of the world are accounted the greatest holiness, and their authors alone are reputed religious, G.o.d-fearing and just, and held to const.i.tute the Church, the family of G.o.d. People are unable to judge concerning the sins of the first table. Those who despise G.o.d sooner or later fall into abominable adultery, theft, murder and other gross sins against the second table.

16. The purpose of my statements is to make plain that the old world was guilty, not only of sin against the second table, but most of all of sin against the first table by making a fine, but deceptive and false show of wisdom, G.o.dliness, devotion and religion. As a result of the unG.o.dliness which flourished in opposition to the first table, there followed that moral corruption of which Moses speaks in this chapter, that the people polluted themselves with all sorts of l.u.s.t and afterward filled the world with oppression, bloodshed and wrong.

17. Because the unG.o.dly world had trampled both tables under foot, G.o.d came to judge it, who is a consuming fire and a jealous G.o.d. He so punishes unG.o.dliness that he turns everything into sheer desolation, and neither government nor the governed remain. We may, therefore, infer that the world was the better the nearer it was to Adam, but that it degenerated from day to day until our time, when the offscouring and lowest filth of humanity, as it were, are living.

18. Now, if G.o.d did not spare a world endowed with so many and great gifts, what have we to hope for, who, offal that we are, are subject to far greater misfortune and wretchedness? But if it please G.o.d, spare the Roman pontiff and his holy bishops, who do not believe such things! I now come to my text.

Vs. 1-2. _And it came to pa.s.s, when men began to multiply on the face of the ground, and daughters were born unto them, that the sons of G.o.d saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose._

19. This is a very brief but comprehensive account. The text must not be understood to mean that the world did not increase until the five hundredth year of Noah. The more ancient patriarchs are embraced in this statement. This is demonstrated by the fact that Noah had no daughters. The reference in the text to "daughters" certainly must be understood as referring to the by-gone age of Lamech, Methuselah, Enoch and others. The world, accordingly, was corrupt and evil before Noah was born, particularly when licentiousness began to prevail after the death of Adam, whose authority, as the first father, they feared.

20. I have said that Noah was a virgin above all others; I may add he was the greatest of all martyrs. Our so-called martyrs, compared with him, have infinite advantage in strength received from the Holy Spirit, by which death is overcome and all trials and perils are escaped. Noah lived among the unrighteous for six hundred years, and like Lot at Sodom, not without numerous and dire perils and trials.

21. This was, perhaps, one reason why Father Lamech gave his son the name Noah at his birth. When the holy patriarch saw evil abounding in the world, he entertained the hope concerning his son that he should comfort the righteous by opposing sin and its author, Satan, and restoring lost righteousness.

22. However, the wickedness that began then, not only failed to cease under Noah, but rather grew greater. Hence Noah is the martyr of martyrs. For is it not much easier to be delivered from all danger and suffering in a single hour than to live for centuries amid colossal wickedness?

23. The opinion before expressed I maintain, that Noah abstained from matrimony so long that he might not be compelled to witness and suffer in his own offspring what he saw in the descendants of the other saints. This sight of man's wickedness was his greatest cross, as Peter says of Lot in Sodom (2 Pet 2, 8): "That righteous man dwelling among them, in seeing and hearing, vexed his righteous soul from day to day with their lawless deeds."

24. Accordingly, the increase of humanity of which Moses speaks has not reference alone to the time of Noah, but also to the age of the other patriarchs. It was there that the violation of the first table commenced--in the contempt manifested for Jehovah and his Word. This was followed later by such gross offenses as oppression, tyranny and lewdness, which Moses explicitly mentions and names first as the cause of evil. Consult all history, study the Greek tragedies and the affairs of barbarians and Romans of all times, and you find l.u.s.t the mother of every kind of trouble. It can not be otherwise. Where G.o.d's Word remains unknown or unheeded, men will plunge into l.u.s.t.

25. l.u.s.t draws in its train endless other evils, as pride, oppression, perjury and the like. These sins can be attacked only as men, through the first table, learn to fear and to trust in G.o.d. Then it is that they follow the Word as a lamp going before in the dark, and they will not indulge in such scandalous deeds, but will rather beware of them.

With violation of the first table, however, the spread of pa.s.sions and sins of every description is inevitable.

26. But it seems strange that Moses should enumerate in the catalog of sins the begetting of daughters. He had found it commendable in the case of the patriarchs. It is even enjoyed by the unG.o.dly as a blessing of G.o.d. Why, therefore, does Moses call it a sin?

I reply, he does not condemn the fact of procreation as such, but the abuse of it, resulting from original sin. To be endowed with royal majesty, wisdom, wealth and bodily strength is a goodly blessing. It is G.o.d who bestows these gifts. But when men, in possession of these blessings, fail to reverence the first table, and by means of these very gifts do violence to it, such wickedness merits punishment.

Therein is the reason for Moses' peculiar words: "The sons of G.o.d saw the daughters of men that they were fair; and they took them wives of all that they chose," without consideration of G.o.d or of law, natural or statutory.

27. The first table having been despised, the second shares the same fate. Desire occupies the princ.i.p.al place and in contempt for procreation it becomes purely b.e.s.t.i.a.l; whereas G.o.d has inst.i.tuted matrimony as an aid to feeble nature and chiefly for the purpose of procreation. But when l.u.s.t in this manner has gained the upper hand, all commandments, those that go before and that follow, are ruthlessly broken and dishonored. Parental honor becomes insecure; men do not shrink from doing murder; from alienating property, speaking false testimony, etc.

28. The word _jiru_, "saw," does not merely signify "to view," but "to view with pleasure and enjoyment." This meaning often occurs in the psalms, for instance: "Mine eye also hath seen my desire on mine enemies," Ps 92, 11; that is, shall with pleasure see vengeance executed upon my enemies. The meaning here is that, after turning their eyes from G.o.d and his Word, they turned them, filled with l.u.s.t, upon the daughters of men. The sequence is unerring that, from the violation of the first table, men rush to the violation of the second.

After despising G.o.d they despised also the laws of nature and, as they pleased, they married whom they chose.

29. These are rather harsh words, and yet it is my opinion that l.u.s.t continued hitherto within certain limits, inasmuch as they neither committed incest with their mothers, as later the inhabitants of Canaan, nor polluted themselves with the vice of the Sodomites. Moses confines his charge to their casting aside the legal trammels set by the patriarchs and recognizing in their matrimonial alliances no law but that of l.u.s.t, selecting only as pa.s.sion directed and against the will of the parents.

30. It seems the patriarchs had strictly forbidden to contract alliances with the offspring of Cain, just as, later, the Jews could not lawfully mingle with the Canaanites. Though there are not wanting those who write that incestuous marriages existed before the flood, blood-relations.h.i.+p being held to be no barrier, I yet infer from the fact that Peter has extolled the old world, that such incestuous atrocities did not exist at that time, but that the sin of the ancient world consisted rather in men marrying whom they pleased, and as many wives from the Cainites as they chose, ignoring parental authority and controlled alone by pa.s.sion. It is, therefore, a harsh word--"All which they chose."

31. I have shown, on various occasions, that the two generations, or churches, of Adam and Cain were separate. For, as Moses clearly states, Adam expelled the murderer from his a.s.sociation. Without doubt, therefore, Adam also exhorted his offspring to avoid the church of the evil-doers and not to mingle with the accursed generation of Cain. And for a while his counsel or command was obeyed.

32. But when Adam died and the authority of the other patriarchs became an object of scorn, the sons of G.o.d who had the promise of the blessed seed and themselves belonged to the blessed seed, craved from the tribe of the unG.o.dly, intercourse and espousal. He tersely calls the sons of the patriarchs the "sons of G.o.d," since to them was given the promise of the blessed seed and they const.i.tuted the true Church.

Yielding to the corruptions of the Cainite church they indulged the flesh themselves and took from the tribe of Cain, as wives and mistresses, whom and as many as they chose. This Lamech and Noah saw with pain, and for that reason, perhaps, deferred entering upon marriage.

33. In reference to this point the Jews fancy foolish things. They interpret the sons of G.o.d to signify demon-lechers by whom that impious generation was begotten, and that they were called the sons of G.o.d by reason of their spiritual nature. The more moderate ones, however, refute such folly and represent the sons of the mighty. This has been aptly disproved by Lyra; for the punishment of the deluge befell, not alone the mighty, but all flesh, as shall the doom at the last day.

34. But as regards the demon-lechers and strumpets (incubi and succubi), I do not deny--nay, I believe--that a demon may be either a lecher or a strumpet, for I have heard men cite their own experience.

Augustine says that he heard this from trustworthy people whom he was constrained to believe. Satan is pleased when he can deceive us in this manner, by a.s.suming the form either of a young man or a young woman. But that anything may be begotten by a devil and a human being is simply false. We hear of monstrous births of demon-like features, and I have even seen some. I am of opinion, however, that they have been deformed by the devil, but not begotten: or that they are real devils with a human body either simulated or purloined. For if the devil, by divine permission, may take possession of the whole man and change his mind, is it strange that he may disfigure also his body, causing men to be born sightless or cripples?

35. Hence, the devil may so deceive frivolous people and such as live without the fear of G.o.d that when the devil is in bed, a young man may think that he has a girl with him, and a girl that she has a youth with her; but that anything may be born from such concubinage I do not believe. Many sorceresses have at one time or another been subjected to death at the stake on account of their intercourse with demons. If the devil can deceive eyes and ears so that they fancy they see and hear things which do not exist, how much easier is it for him to deceive the sense of touch, which is in this nature exceedingly gross!

But enough! These explanations have no bearing upon the present text, and we have been led to them merely by Jewish babbling.

36. The true meaning is that Moses calls those men the sons of G.o.d, who had the promise of the blessed seed. This is a New Testament phrase and signifies the believers who call G.o.d, Father, and whom, G.o.d in turn, calls sons. The flood came not because the generation of Cain was corrupt, but because the generation of the righteous who had believed G.o.d, had obeyed his Word, and had possessed the true wors.h.i.+p, now had lapsed into idolatry, disobedience to parents, sensuality, oppression. Even so the last day shall be hastened, not by the profligacy of Gentile, Turk and Jew, but by the filling of the Church with errors through the pope and fanatical spirits, so that those very ones who occupy the highest place in the Church exercise themselves in sensuality, l.u.s.t and oppression.

37. It is a cause of fear for us all, that even those who were descended from the best patriarchs, began to grow haughty and depart from the Word. They gloried in their wisdom and righteousness, as later the Jews did in circ.u.mcision and Father Abraham. So did the popes glory in the t.i.tle of the Church only to replace gradually their spiritual glory by carnal indulgence after forfeiting the knowledge of G.o.d, his Word and his wors.h.i.+p. The Roman Church was truly holy and adorned by the grandest martyrs. We, at this day, however, are witnesses how she has fallen.

38. Let no one, therefore, glory in his gifts, however splendid! The greatest gift is to be a member of the true Church. But take care not to become proud on that account, for you may fall, just as Lucifer fell from heaven and, as we are here informed, as the sons of G.o.d fell into carnal pleasures. They are, therefore, no longer sons of G.o.d, but sons of Satan, having fallen alike from the first and the second table of the Law. So in the past, popes and bishops have been good and holy, but today they are of all men the worst and, so to speak, the dregs of all cla.s.ses.

39. Among this rabble of decadent men who had departed from the piety and virtues of their ancestors, G.o.dly Noah lived in the greatest contempt and hatred of everybody. How could he approve the corruption of such degenerate progeny? And they themselves were most impatient of reproof. While, therefore, his example shone and gleamed, and his holiness filled the whole earth, the world became worse from day to day, and the greater the sanct.i.ty and chast.i.ty of Noah, the more the world reveled in l.u.s.t. This is the beginning; it invariably introduces ruin.

40. When G.o.d arouses holy men, full of the Holy Spirit, to instruct and reprove the world, the world, impatient of sound doctrine, falls with much greater zeal into sin and plies it with much greater persistency. This was the situation at the beginning of the world, and now, at the end of the world, we realize it is still the case.

II. G.o.d'S JUDGMENT AND GRIEF OVER THE FIRST WORLD; NOAH AND HIS PREACHING.

A. G.o.d'S JUDGMENT AND LAMENTATION OVER THE OLD WORLD.

1. The words of the lamentation.

a. Interpreters have shamefully perverted these words 41.

b. The Jewish interpretation, which Jerome follows 42.

c. The Jews' interpretation refuted 42-43.

d. The interpretation of Rabbi Solomon 44.

e. The interpretation of others, especially of Origen 45.

* Why Augustine was especially pleased with the doctrine of the Manicheans 45.

f. Rabbi David's explanation 46.

* The false idea of the Jews and some Christian interpreters that the true sense of Scripture is learned from grammar.

(1) Thus ideas most foreign to the sense of Scripture are defended 46-47.

(2) This method is false and led the Jews into many fantasies 47.

g. The source of Rabbi David's awkward interpretation of these words 48.

* Why Luther has so much to say about the false interpretation of Scripture 49.