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QUESTION IV. Why no one before the flood reached the thousandth year.1
QUAESTIO IIII. Cur nemo ante diluvium attigerit millesimum annum.
QUOD autem nemo illorum hominum attigerit annum millesimum, non vacat mysterio & documento. Primum enim significatur, quantocumque tempore Patres illi vixerint, eorum tamen vel longissimam vitam ne unius quidem instar diei obtinere comparatione divinae aeternitatis, dicente David in Psal. 89. Mille anni ante oculos tuos, tanquam dies hesterna, quae praeteriit. Irenaeus sub fine lib. 5. adversus haereticos, memorat quosdam dixisse, propterea dictum fuisse Adamo, In quocumque die comederis, morte morieris; quia sic revera accidit: post esum enim pomi vetiti, Adam vivendo unum diem integrum non explevit, quia ad millesimum annum non pervenit. Est igitur vita hominis, quantacumque sit, velut dies unus: cuius mane est tempus ab ortu usque ad iuventutem: meridies, iuvenilis & virilis aetas: vesper, senectus usque ad mortem. Cui congruit illud Davidis: Mane sicut herba transeat, mane floreat & transeat, vespere decidat, induret & arescat. Cicero 1. quaestione Tusculana longissimam vitam hominis, ceu unum diem aestimans, sic ait: Apud Hypanim fluvium, qui ab Europa parte in Pontum influit, Aristoteles inquit, bestiolas quasdam nasci, quae unum diem vivant. Ex iis igitur, hora octava, quae mortua est provecta aetate mortua est, quae vero occidente sole, iam decrepita: eo magis, si etiam Solstitialis dies fuerit. Confer nostram longissimam aetatem
But that none of those men reached the thousandth year is not empty of mystery and instruction. For first it is signified that, however long a time those Fathers lived, yet their very longest life does not obtain even the likeness of one day in comparison with the divine eternity — David saying in Psalm 89, 'A thousand years before your eyes are as yesterday, which has passed.' Irenaeus, near the end of book 5 against the heretics, mentions that some said that for this reason it was said to Adam, 'In whatever day you eat, you shall die by death' — because so it really happened: for, after eating the forbidden apple, Adam did not complete one whole day by living, because he did not reach the thousandth year. The life of man, therefore, however long it be, is like one day: whose morning is the time from birth to youth; midday, the youthful and manly age; evening, old age until death. To which fits that saying of David: 'In the morning let it pass like grass, in the morning let it flourish and pass, in the evening let it fall, harden, and wither.' Cicero, in the first Tusculan Question, estimating the longest life of man as one day, says thus: 'At the river Hypanis, which from the European side flows into the Pontus, Aristotle says that certain little creatures are born which live one day. Of these, therefore, one that has died at the eighth hour has died at an advanced age; but one [that dies] at sunset [is] already decrepit — the more so, if it was also the solstitial day.' Compare our longest age...2
tem cum aeternitate, in eadem propemodum aetate, qua illa bestiola reperiemur. Haec Cicero.
...with eternity, and we shall be found in almost the same age as that little creature. Thus Cicero.3
Translator’s notes
- Quaestio IV: the significance of no antediluvian reaching 1,000 years. ↩
- Quaestio IV: no one reaching 1,000 years is meaningful. (1) Even the longest life is less than a single day compared to God's eternity (Ps 90:4, 'a thousand years as yesterday'); Irenaeus (Adv. Haer. 5) reports that some explained God's 'in the day you eat you shall die' (Gen 2:17) thus — Adam, not reaching 1,000 years (= one 'day'), did not live one whole 'day.' (2) Man's life is like one day: morning (birth to youth), midday (prime), evening (old age to death) — cf. Ps 90:5-6 ('like grass... in the evening it withers'); and Cicero (Tusc. 1) on the one-day mayflies of the Hypanis, where one dying at the eighth hour is 'aged' and at sunset 'decrepit.' Marginal glosses: 'Cur nullus hominum millesimum attigerunt'; 'Psal. 89.'; 'Bestiolae unum tantum diem victitantes.' Catchword 'tem' (aetatem; continues on the next page). ↩
- End of the Cicero quote: compared with eternity, our longest life is scarcely more than the mayfly's single day. Odd-side running head 'IN GENESIM, LIB. VII.' number '771'; true printed page 781. ↩