d, what the ignorant reader would never observe owing to the
failure of chastity being mentioned in express words, he commends the
chastity of Noah above that of all the other inhabitants of the
primeval world, setting him up as an example of all but angelic
chastity.

90. The Jews, according to their custom, play the fool, and fable that
Noah for centuries denied himself a wife because he knew that God
would destroy the world by the flood. If, therefore, Noah had married,
like all the other patriarchs, in the earlier part of his life--that
is, when he was about a hundred years old or less--he himself would
have peopled the world in the space of 400 years; and then God would
have been compelled to destroy both the father himself and the whole
of his progeny. To this fable they add the other, that Shem was called
the first-born for the reason that he was the first to receive
circumcision.

91. In a word, these Jews corrupt everything and twist it to suit
their own carnal bent and ambition. If Noah abstained from marriage
for the reason which they assign, why did not all the other
patriarchs, for the same reason, abstain from marriage and fatherhood?
These comments of the rabbins are accordingly frivolous and
nonsensical. Why do they not rather urge the real cause, that it was a
special gift that Noah, a vigorous man, abstained from marriage for
five hundred years? Throughout the course of time no instance of such
continence is found.

92. The book of Genesis highly offends the Papists because it mentions
so often that the fathers begat sons and daughters. They say of this
book that it is a book in which little more is contained than the
record that the patriarchs were men of extravagant love for their
wives; and they consider it obscene that Moses should make mention of
such things with such attention to detail. But, in the impurity of
their hearts, they can not refrain from befouling the most exalted
chastity.

93. If you would really behold the brightest examples of chastity the
whole world contains, read Moses as he relates that the patriarchs did
not marry until they were of advanced age. Among them Noah shines
forth a star of first magnitude, inasmuch as he did not marry until he
had reached the five hundredth year of his life. Where will you find
such eminent examples of chastity in the papacy? Although there are
some among the Papists who do not actually sin with their bodies, yet
how foul and filthy are the