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| Chapter XXIV. Of the fact that they were justly punished, who sinned before the flood.
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Chapter XXIV.
Of the fact that they were justly punished, who sinned
before the flood.
And so then we see that
from the beginning God created everything perfect, nor would there have
been need for anything to have been added to His original
arrangement—as if it were shortsighted and imperfect—if
everything had continued in that state and condition in which it had
been created by Him. And therefore in the case of those who sinned
before the law and even before the flood we see that God visited them
with a righteous judgment, because they deserved to be punished without
any excuse, for having transgressed the law of nature; nor should we
fall into the blasphemous slanders of those who are ignorant of this
reason, and so depreciate the God of the Old Testament, and run down
our faith, and say with a sneer: Why then did it please your God to
will to promulgate the law after so many thousand years, while He
suffered such long ages to pass without any law? But if He afterwards
discovered something better, then it appears that at the beginning of
the world His wisdom was inferior and poorer, and that afterwards as if
taught by experience He began to provide for something better, and to
amend and improve His original arrangements. A thing which certainly
cannot happen to the infinite foreknowledge of God, nor can these
assertions be made about Him by the mad folly of heretics without
grievous blasphemy, as Ecclesiastes says: “I have learnt that all
the words which God hath made from the beginning shall continue
forever: nothing can be added to them, and nothing can be taken away
from them,”1568
and therefore
“the law is not made for the righteous, but for the unrighteous,
and insubordinate, for the ungodly and sinners, for the wicked and
profane.”1569
For as they had
the sound and complete system of natural laws implanted in them they
had no need of this external law in addition, and one committed to
writing, and what was given as an aid to that natural law. From which
we infer by the clearest of reasonings that that law committed to
writing need not have been given at the beginning (for it was
unnecessary for this to be
done while the natural law still remained, and was not utterly
violated) nor could evangelical perfection have been granted before the
law had been kept. For they could not have listened to this saying:
“If a man strikes thee on the right cheek, turn to him the other
also,”1570
who were not
content to avenge wrongs done to them with the even justice of
the lex talionis, but repaid a very slight touch
with deadly kicks and wounds with weapons, and for a single truth
sought to take the life of those who had struck them. Nor could it be
said to them, “love your enemies,”1571
among whom it was considered a great thing and most important if they
loved their friends, but avoided their enemies and dissented from them
only in hatred without being eager to oppress and kill
them.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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