e
Lord, as we have said, but the words of Lamech himself. Just so the
pope fortifies himself by violence, tyranny, threats and anathemas, to
make himself secure against avengers, for he has the conscience of a
Cain and a Lamech. Let him, says the pope, who shall do anything
contrary to these my decrees know that he shall incur the indignation
of St. Peter and St. Paul.

283. Lamech, therefore, is an example of this world, and Moses points
to him to show what kind of a heart, will and wisdom the world has.
Just as if he had said in reference to Lamech: Such are the actions of
the seed of the serpent and such are the children of this world. They
gather riches, follow their pleasures, increase their power, and then
abuse all these things by their tyranny, making use of them against
the true Church, the members of which they persecute and slay. And yet
in the midst of all these mighty sins, they fear not, but are proud
and secure, boasting and saying, "What can the righteous do?" (Ps 11,
3): "Our lips are our own: who is lord over us?" (Ps 12, 4): "He (the
wicked) saith in his heart: God hath forgotten, he hideth his face, he
will never see it," (Ps 10, 11): and other like sentiments.

284. That such is the meaning of the passage in question the facts
recorded prove, though the words of the text do not so clearly express
that meaning. The true Church has ever Satan as its great enemy, and
he drives the Cainites into fury, disguised as devotion, against their
brethren, the Abels; as Christ also says, affirming that the devil was
a murderer from the beginning, Jn 8, 44. It is declared throughout the
Scriptures concerning the true Church, that the wicked are ever
shedding its blood. The various passages in the Psalms speak the same
things, "Precious shall their blood be in his sight," Ps 72, 14.
Again, "Precious in the sight of Jehovah is the death of his saints"
Ps 116, 15. And again, "For thy sake are we killed all the day long"
Ps 44, 22.

285. As, therefore, the Church of God has at all times, and in all
ages, given her blood to be shed by the wicked and by false brethren,
so also, in that first age of the world she had to suffer from her
enemies, whom the Scriptures call "giants," and affirm that those
"giants" filled the earth with "violence." Among these giants was also
this Lamech now before us, who was one perhaps like Pope Julius II or
Clement VII who although they exercised cruelty in the highest degree,
yet wis