SECTION I.

Concerning the State of Things Before the Flood.

CHAPTER I.

Concerning the Extreme Perversity of the Human Race Before the Flood.

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The fertility of the primeval age.

Just as the original state of the World up until the Flood (Diluvium: The Great Flood of Noah), a span of 1,656 years, was most fortunate in the constitution of natural things and most abundant in the supply of all things necessary for life, so too did men participate in the most flourishing fate of a new and fresh World. They possessed robust bodies and lively, vigorous minds. Extending their lives through the courses of several hundred years, they also possessed such fertility that most of the Holy Fathers The early Christian theologians and writers of the first few centuries. believed that women did not give birth to just one child, as we see happening everywhere in later times, but brought forth many offspring in a single birth. Hence, according to the oracle of the Divine voice, Increase and multiply, the whole Earth was filled with men. As it was scarcely capable of containing such a multitude, it gave occasion for monstrous events. In this most fertile state of things, all people lived by no other rule than the Law of Nature (Lex Naturae: The inherent sense of right and wrong believed to be implanted in humans by God).

Despising the Law of Nature, all lived by their own will.

However, just as the first sin of Adam was the primary source of all miseries and calamities, so too in a short time was all flesh so corrupted and depraved that no one existed who recognized the force of the Law of Nature. Indeed, every individual lived according to his own will, wherever the impulse of nature carried him. Because the nourishment from food was most healthful due to the vigor of the fresh World, it created a most healthful temperament in men, making them robust and long-lived, and endowed with an abundance of all goods that could happen to the body. From this, it happened that gradually, while reveling in the

The abundance of things as a cause of luxury.

affluence of the aforementioned goods, they despised the Law of Nature. They fell unhappily into the ultimate pit of all vices and crimes, having loosened the reins to every pleasure and lust from which they refused to recall themselves. They did not sin out of ignorance, nor out of confusion, nor from some weakness of the mind, but out of malice, that is, from a depraved habit and custom. Knowingly and willingly, without any shame, and with no respect for GOD or men, they rushed with deliberate joy from pleasure into any crime whatsoever, in the manner of beasts.

Genesis 6.

For as the Sacred Text rightly teaches: But GOD, seeing that the malice of men was great on the Earth, and that every thought of the heart was intent on evil, He repented that He had made man on the Earth. Providing for the future and touched with grief of heart within, He said: I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the Earth, from man even to the animals, and from the creeping thing even to the birds of the air, for it repents me that I have made them. From this, it is clear that the malice was great, not enclosed within one or two regions, but spreading far and wide.

The ultimate wickedness of men.

This malice was not simple or of one kind, but varied and manifold, embracing all types of shameful acts. Or finally, it was not moderate, but extreme, led to the ultimate peak of crimes, and altogether intolerable. As the Scripture says, it was wickedness complete and finished. For the Hebrew reading rightly places these words in place of Every thought was intent on evil: original: "כל יצר מחשבת" (Kol yetzer machshavot) Every imagination of the thoughts was only toward evil. That is, they were all intent on idols of lust, and whatever...