De Posteritate Caini

But as circumstances and persons give varieties to speech, so also do the causes of things and the manner in which they are done; and, moreover, those points especially with which everything is concerned, namely, time and place. Very beautifully, therefore, is he who inclines voices, namely Jubal, called "the father of the psaltery and of the harp," from a portion of the whole science of music, as has been shown already.

The descendants, therefore, of Adah, and what she herself is, have now been explained. Let us consider next the other wife of Lamech, Zillah, and what she brings forth. Zillah, then, being interpreted, means "shadow," a symbol of the qualities of the body and of the external good things, which, in their real essence, are in no way better than a shadow. Is not beauty a shadow, which, after it has flourished for a brief time, withers away? And are not strength and activity of body shadows, which any chance disease can destroy? And the organs of the external senses, and the accuracy of their use, which any sudden cold may obstruct, or old age, that inevitable and common disease of all men, may impair, are not they shadows? And, again, are not riches and glory, and authority and honours, and all the external circumstances which are accounted goods, are not they, I say, all shadows?

But one ought to lead the mind, as if by the steps of a flight of stairs, up to the origin of everything. Men in the rank of those who are considered illustrious have gone to Delphi, who have consecrated their happy lives to the

From all these shadows, then, and all these unsubstantial dreams a son is born, whom his parents called Tubal (this name being interpreted means "all"). For they with great wisdom laying it down (instead of those things which are accounted good things by the multitude) that competency combined with good health is happiness, consider that in that is united everything great or small, in short everything.

But if there were any such thing as an absolutely independent authority added, then becoming full of arrogant domination, and elated with vanity and false opinions, forgetting themselves and the contemptible material of which they are composed, they look upon themselves as composed of a more valuable material than the composition of man admits of; and becoming swollen with pride, they think themselves worthy of even divine honours. At all events, before now some persons have ventured to say, that they "do not know the true God," [*](Exodus v. 2. ) forgetting their own human nature, by reason of the immoderate excess of corporeal and external things [...] and each imagining [...] [*](Another hiatus occurs here. )