in war, and vehement in robberies; and if any one were slow to murder people, yet was he bold in his profligate behaviour, in acting unjustly, and doing injuries for gain.
3. NOW ADAM, who was the first man, and
made out of the earth (for our discourse must
now be about him), after Abel was slain, and Cain
fled away on account of his murder, was solicitous
for posterity, and had a vehement desire of
children, he being two hundred and thirty years old ;
after which time he lived other seven hundred,
and then died. He had indeed many other
children,[1] but Seth in particular. As for the rest,
it would be tedious to name them;
Seth and his
descendants.I will, therefore, only endeavour
to give an account of those that
proceeded from Seth. Now this
Seth, when he was brought up, and came to
those years in which he could discern what was
good, he became a virtuous man; and as he was
himself of an excellent character, so did he leave
children behind him who imitated his virtues.[2]
All these proved to be of good dispositions. They
also inhabited the same country without dissensions,
and in a happy condition, without any
misfortunes falling upon them till they died.
They also were the inventors of that peculiar sort
of wisdom which is concerned with the heavenly
bodies, and their order. And that their inventions
might not be lost before they were sufficiently
known, upon Adam's prediction that the world
was to be destroyed at one time by the force of
fire, and at another time by the violence and
quantity of water, they made two pillars,[3] the one
of brick, the other of stone: they inscribed their
discoveries on them both, that in case the pillar
of brick should be destroyed by the flood, the
pillar of stone might remain, and exhibit those
discoveries to mankind; and also inform them
that there was another pillar of brick erected by
them. Now this remains in the land of Siriad to
this day.
CHAPTER III.
§ 1. NOW THIS posterity of Seth continued
to esteem God as the Lord of the universe, and
to have an entire regard to virtue,
for seven generations; but in process
Wickedness of
the world.of time they were perverted,
and forsook the practices of their
forefathers, and did neither pay those honours to
God which were appointed them, nor had they
any concern to do justice towards men. But for
what degree of zeal they had formerly shown for
virtue, they now showed by their actions a double
degree of wickedness; whereby they made God to
be their enemy; for many angels[4] of God
accompanied with women, and begat sons that proved
unjust, and despisers of all that was good, on
account of the confidence they had in their own
strength; for the tradition is, That these men did
what resembled the acts of those whom the
Grecians call giants. But Noah was very uneasy
at what they did; and, being displeased at their
conduct, persuaded them to change their dispositions
and their acts for the better; but seeing they
did not yield to him, but were slaves to their
wicked pleasures, he was afraid they would kill
him, together with his wife and children, and
those they had married; so he departed out of
that land.
2. NOW GOD loved this man for his
righteousness; yet he not only condemned those
other men for their wickedness,
but determined to destroy the
Noah's
righteousness.whole race of mankind, and to
make another race that should be
pure from wickedness; and cutting short their
lives, and making their years not so many as they
formerly lived, but one hundred and twenty only,[5]
- ↑ The number of Adam's children, as says the old tradition, was thirty-three sons, and twenty-three daughters.
- ↑ What is here said of Seth and his posterity, that they were very good and virtuous, and at the same time very happy, without any considerable misfortunes, for seven generations [see ch. il. sect, 1, before; and c. iii. sect, 1, hereafter), is exactly agreeable to the state of the world and the conduct of Providence in all the first ages.
- ↑ Of Josephus's mistake here, when he took Seth the son of Adam, for Seth or Sesostris, king of Egypt, the erecter of this pillar in the land of Siriad, see Essay on the Old Testament, Appendix, pp. 159, 160. Although the main of this relation might be true, and Adam might foretell a conflagration and a deluge, which all antiquity witnesses to be an ancient tradition; nay, Seth's posterity might engrave their inventions in astronomy on two such pillars, yet it is no way credible that they could survive the deluge, which has buried all such pillars and edifices far under ground, in the sediment of its waters; especially since the like pillars of the Egyptian Seth or Sesostris were extant after the flood, in the land of Syriad, and perhaps in the day, of Josephus also, as is shewn in the place here referred to.
- ↑ This notion, that the fallen angels were, in some sense, the fathers of the old giants, was the constant opinion of antiquity.
- ↑ Josephus here supposes that the life of these giants, for of them only do I understand him, was now reduced to 120 years; which is confirmed by the fragment of Enoch, sect. 10, in Authent. Rec. Part i. p. 268. For as to the rest of mankind Josephus himself confesses their lives were much longer than 120 years, for many generations after the Flood, as we shall see presently; and he says they were gradually shortened till the days of Moses, and then fixed [for some time] at 120. Chap vi. sect. 3. Nor indeed need we suppose that either Enoch or Josephus meant to interpret these 120 years for the life of men before the Flood, to be different from 120 years of God's patience [perhaps, while the ark was preparing] till the Deluge; which I take to be the meaning of God, when he threatened this wicked
