But in whatever manner the generations of Cain's line are traced downwards, whether it be by first-born sons or by the heirs to the throne, it seems to me that I must by no means omit to notice that, when Lamech had been set down as the seventh from Adam, there were named, in addition, as many of his children as made up this number to eleven, which is the number signifying sin; for three sons and one daughter are added.The wives of Lamech have another signification, different from that which I am now pressing.For at present I am speaking of the children, and not of those by whom the children were begotten.Since, then, the law is symbolized by the number ten,--whence that memorable Decalogue,--there is no doubt that the number eleven, which goes beyond(1) ten, symbolizes the transgression of the law, and consequently sin.For this reason, eleven veils of goat's skin were ordered to be hung in the tabernacle of the testimony, which served in the wanderings of God's people as an ambulatory temple.And in that haircloth there was a reminder of sins, because the goats were to be set on the left hand of the Judge; and therefore, when we confess our sins, we prostrate ourselves in haircloth, as if we were saying what is written in the psalm, "My sin is ever before me."(2) The progeny of Adam, then, by Cain the murderer, is completed in the number eleven, which symbolizes sin; and this number itself is made up by a woman, as it was by the same *** that beginning was made of sin by which we all die.And it was committed that the pleasure of the flesh, which resists the spirit, might follow; and so Naamah, the daughter of Lamech, means "pleasure." But from Adam to Noah, in the line of Seth, there are ten generations.And to Noah three sons are added, of whom while one fell into sin, two were blessed by their father; so that, if you deduct the reprobate and add the gracious sons to the number, you get twelve,--a number signalized in the case of the patriarchs and of the apostles, and made up of the parts of the number seven multiplied into one another,--for three times four, or four times three, give twelve.
These things being so, I see that I must consider and mention how these two lines, which by their separate genealogies depict the two cities one of earth-born, the other of regenerated persons, became afterwards so mixed and confused, that the whole human race, with the exception of eight persons, deserved to perish in the deluge.
CHAP.21.--WHY IT IS THAT, AS SOON AS CAIN'S SON ENOCH HAS BEEN NAMED, THE GENEALOGYIS FORTHWITH CONTINUED AS FAR AS THE DELUGE, WHILE AFTER THE MENTIONOF ENOS, SETH'S SON, THE NARRATIVE RETURNS AGAIN TO THE CREATION OF MAN.
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."(1) 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."(2)Wherefore they incur what is written in another psalm: