ious of the
murder he had committed, he immediately speared the youth himself, who
also died under the wound he received. It was thus, say the Jews, that
the "man" and the "young man" were slain by Lamech. But such
absurdities as these are utterly unworthy of refutation. Indeed, Moses
himself completely refutes them; he records the fact that Cain, far
from fleeing into solitude and concealment, "built a city," which
implies that he governed a State and thereby established for himself a
kind of kingdom. Moreover, the ages of Cain and Lamech would not
accord with this explanation, for it is not at all probable Cain lived
to the time Lamech became old and blind.

275. There is still another Jewish invention. After Lamech had killed
Cain, his wives would no longer live with him, through fear of the
punishment they foreboded would come upon him, and therefore Lamech,
to comfort himself and to induce his wives to live with him,
prophesied that whosoever should kill him would assuredly be punished
"seventy and sevenfold." The Jews invent like absurdities also
concerning the sons of Lamech, whom they say he taught to fabricate
arms for the destruction of men. Other commentators, again, will have
it that the sense of this text is to be taken negatively, thus: If I
had killed a man, as Cain killed his brother, I should have been
worthy of your reprobation.

276. My interpretation, accordingly, is that the words, "If Cain shall
be avenged sevenfold," etc., are not to be taken for the Word of God.
For that generation did not have the Word; how, then, could Lamech be
believed to have been a prophet? Thus, even such a man as Jerome
produces the vagary that, inasmuch as, according to Luke,
seventy-seven generations can be counted between Adam and Christ, it
was after this space of time that Lamech's sin was taken away by
Christ. If such vaporings are legitimate, anything can be proved from
the Scriptures. Jerome even forgets that Lamech represented the
seventh generation from Adam! The word under consideration then, is
not to be placed upon the same level with the former, spoken to Cain;
for that was the Word of God. It is, on the contrary, the word of a
wicked murderer; not true, but an audacious fiction, based upon that
spoken by Adam to Cain. But why does he deliver his discourse not
before his church but at home, and only before his wives?

277. It is probable that the good and pious women were greatly alarmed
on account of th