Commentary on Genesis Part 22

B. NOAH AND HIS PREACHING.

1. The time Noah began to preach 87.

2. Why the world took occasion to despise Noah's preaching 88.

* Jerome's reckoning of the 120 years 89.

3. Why Noah married after living so long single, when the world was to be destroyed 90.

4. How and why Noah was the prophet of prophets and his the greatest of prophecies 91.

5. His preaching disregarded not only by the Cainites but by the sons of G.o.d 92.

* To what end G.o.d's complaint of the first world should serve us 93.

* When was the judgment of G.o.d announced 94.

* The generation of the Cainites.

a. Whether it still existed in the days of Noah 95.

b. Why Moses does not record the generations of the Cainites and of their patriarchs 95.

c. How the holy patriarchs warned their children against the Cainites 96.

d. How the Cainites tormented the holy patriarchs 96.

6. Why G.o.d raised up Noah 97.

7. Noah's faith exceptionally strong 97-98.

8. What impelled Noah to continue his work, and not to turn to the world 99.

9. How Noah's age was the wickedest and he had to oppose its wickedness all alone 100.

* Who of the patriarchs were still living in Noah's time 100.

10. What trials Noah had to experience 101.

B. NOAH AND HIS PREACHING.

87. But this pa.s.sage shows that Noah began preaching about the impending punishment of the deluge before his marriage, having hitherto led the life of a celibate.

88. Consider, therefore, what pastime he offered to a wicked world in its fancied security. He predicts destruction to the whole world through the flood, nevertheless, he himself marries. Why? Was it not sufficient for him to perish alone, that he must join to himself a companion for the disaster? Oh, foolish old man! Surely if he believed the world was to perish by a deluge, he would rather perish alone than marry and take the trouble to beget children. But if he himself will be saved, why, so shall also we.

In this manner they commenced to despise the preaching concerning the flood with the greater a.s.surance because of the marriage of Noah, ignorant of the counsel of G.o.d, who moves in a manner altogether unintelligible to the world. How absurd to promise Abraham posterity through Isaac, and yet to command Isaac to be sacrificed!

89. The divine Jerome argues against the view that G.o.d had fixed the time for the flood at a hundred and twenty years, but saw himself compelled, later, when wickedness had waxed strong, to shorten the time.

90. But we shall not make G.o.d a liar; we rather give it as our conviction that Noah had hitherto preached, while in a state of celibacy, that the world was to be destroyed through the flood, and later, by a divine command, had taken a maid as a little branch, so to speak, from the race of women, and begotten three sons. Below it is written that he had found grace with the Lord; otherwise he who had refrained from marriage so long, might have continued to do so still longer. But G.o.d, in order to restrain his wrath, wants to leave a nursery for the human race; therefore, he commands marriage. This the wicked believe to be a sign that the world shall not perish; they live accordingly in security and despise the preacher, Noah. But the counsel of G.o.d is different--to destroy the whole world and to leave through this righteous Noah a nursery for the future world.

91. Noah was, therefore, the greatest prophet; his equal the world has not had. First he teaches the longest time; then he gives instruction concerning a universal punishment coming upon the world, and even fixes the year of its advent. Likewise Christ prophesies concerning the last judgment, when all flesh shall perish. "But of that day," he says in Mark 13, 32, "or that hour knoweth no one, ... but the father."

Jonah foretells punishment for the Ninevites within forty days; Jeremiah foretells seventy years of captivity; Daniel, seventy weeks until the coming of Christ. These are remarkable prophecies, in which time, place and person are accurately described.

But this prophecy of Noah surpa.s.ses all others, inasmuch as he foretells through the Holy Spirit that within a certain number of years the whole human race shall perish. He is worthy to be called the second Adam and the head of the human race, through whose mouth G.o.d speaks and calls the whole world to repentance.

92. It is terrible, however, that his message was despised with such a.s.surance that not only none of the Cainites, but not even any one of Adam's progeny underwent a change. Therefore Noah was compelled to witness the destruction of brothers, sisters, relatives and kindred without number, and all these made a mock of the pious old man and of his message as an old woman's tale.

93. This awful example is held up to us lest we persist in sin. For if G.o.d did not spare the primitive world, which was so magnificent--the very flower and youth of the world--and in which had lived so many pious men, but, as he says in Psalm 81, 12, "gave them up unto their own hearts' l.u.s.t," and cast them aside, as if they had no claim upon the promise made to the Church--if he did this, how much less will he spare us who do not possess such prerogatives?

94. Therefore, the decree cited in this pa.s.sage that G.o.d would grant men a hundred and twenty years for repentance, was rendered and promulgated before Noah had begotten children.

95. With reference to the generation of the Cainites, no mention is made of their patriarchs at the time of the flood, nor does Moses even deem them worthy of being named. Previously he has brought down the generation of Cain as far as Lamech, but whether his sons or nephews lived at the time of Noah is uncertain. This much is certain, that the offspring of Cain existed to that time, and were so powerful as to mislead the very sons of G.o.d, since even the posterity of the holy patriarchs perished in the flood.

96. Before this time the holy patriarchs--the rulers of the true Church, as it were--admonished their families to beware of the accursed generation. But the Cainites, incensed at being condemned, made the attempt to overturn the righteous with every kind of mischief; for the church of Satan wars perpetually against the Church of G.o.d.

97. Therefore, as the righteous begin to waver and wickedness gains ground, G.o.d raises Noah to exhort to repentance and to be for his descendants a perpetual example, whose faith and diligent, patient devotion to teaching, his offspring might admire and imitate. A great miracle is it and a case of ill.u.s.trious faith, that Noah, having heard through Methuselah and Lamech the decree that the world is to perish after a hundred and twenty years, through the flood, does not doubt its truth, and yet, when the hundred and twenty years have almost expired, marries and begets children. He might rather have thought: If the human race is to perish, why should I marry? Why should I beget sons? If I have refrained these many years, I shall do so henceforth.

But Noah does not do this; rather, after making known G.o.d's purpose respecting the world's destruction, he obeys G.o.d, who calls him to matrimony, and believes G.o.d that, though the whole world may perish, yet he with his children shall be saved. An ill.u.s.trious faith is this and worthy of our consideration.

98. There was in him first that general faith, in common with the patriarchs, concerning the seed which was to bruise the head of the serpent. He possessed also the singular virtue of holding fast to this faith in the midst of such a mult.i.tude of offenses, and not departing from Jehovah. Then, to this general faith he added the other, special faith, that he believed G.o.d as regards both the threatened destruction of the rest of the world and the salvation promised to Noah himself and his sons. Beyond a doubt, to this faith his grandfather Methuselah and his father Lamech earnestly incited him; for it was as difficult to so believe as it was for the Virgin Mary to believe that none but herself was to be the mother of the Son of G.o.d.

99. This faith taught him to despise the presumption of the world which derided him as a man in his dotage. This faith prompted him diligently to continue the building of the ark, a work those giants probably ridiculed as extreme folly. This faith made Noah strong to stand alone against the many evil examples of the world, and to despise most vehemently the united judgment of all others.

100. But almost unutterable and miraculous is this faith, burdened as it is with strange and most weighty obstacles, which the Holy Spirit shows in pa.s.sing, without going into great detail, that we may be induced to meditate the more diligently upon its circ.u.mstances.

Consider first the great corruption of the age. While the Church had before this time many and most holy patriarchs, it was now deprived of such rulers; Adam, Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch are all dead, and the number of patriarchs is reduced to three--Methuselah, Lamech and Noah. These alone are left at the time the decree concerning the destruction of the world is published. These three are compelled to witness and suffer the incredible malice of men, their idolatry, blasphemy, violent acts, foul pa.s.sions, until finally Methuselah and Lamech are also called out of this life. There Noah was the only one to oppose the world rushing to destruction, and to make an effort to preserve righteousness and to repress unrighteousness.

But far from meeting with success, he had to see even the sons of G.o.d lapse into wickedness.

101. This ruin and havoc of the Church troubled the righteous man and all but broke his heart, as Peter says of Lot in Sodom, 2 Pet 2, 8.

Now, if Lot was so distracted and vexed by the wickedness of one community, how must it have been with Noah, against whom not only the generation of Cain raged, but who was opposed also by the decadent generation of the patriarchs, and then even by his own father's house, his brothers, sisters, and the descendants of his uncles and aunts?

For all these were corrupted and estranged from the faith by the daughters of men. As the text says, they "saw the daughters of men."

III. THE SINS OF THE ANCIENT WORLD IN PARTICULAR.

A. THE FORBIDDEN MARRIAGES ENTERED INTO.

1. Why this is said of the sons and not of the daughters of the holy patriarchs 102.

2. Why were the holy fathers so emphatically forbidden to let their sons marry the unG.o.dly 103-104.

3. How this was the beginning of all evils 105.

* What evils have in all times come through woman 106.

4. The sins here sprang from despising the first table of the law 107-108.

* The sins of the second table follow when the first table is not kept 108.