De Posteritate Caini

Philo Judaeus

The works of Philo Judaeus, the contemporary of Josephus, volume 1. Yonge, C. D., translator. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854.

And again, the name Lamech, which means humiliation, is a name of ambiguous meaning; for we are humiliated either when the vigour of our soul is relaxed, according to the diseases and infirmities which arise from the irrational passions, or in respect of our love for virtue, when we seek to restrain ourselves from swelling self-opinions.

Now the former kind of humiliation arises out of weakness, being a species of that multiform disease of many changes, leprosy. "For when his appearance seems more humble," [*](Leviticus xiii 3. ) being broken as to its level and fresh face, than the lawgiver says that that humble disease leprosy exists.

But the second kind of humiliation arises from the strength of perseverance, which is followed by propitiation, according to the perfect number of the decade; for the people are enjoined to humble their souls on the tenth day of the month, and this means to put away all high boasting, the putting away of which works the rejection of all offences, both voluntary and involuntary. Accordingly, the Lamech who is humbled in this sense, is the descendant of Seth, and the father of the just Noah; but he who is humbled in the former manner is the descendant of Cain.

And it may become us next to consider on what [*](Leviticus xiii 3. )

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account this same man is represented as founding and building a city, for it is only a multitude of men who have need of a city to dwell in; but the three who were the only human beings in existence at that time might have thought the foot of a mountain, or a small cave, a most sufficient abode. And I said, indeed, the three; but in all probability I might have spoken of him by himself; for the parents of Abel, who had been so treacherously slain, would never have endured to inhabit the same city with his murderer—a man who had committed fratricide, which is a greater pollution than even homicide.

For it is plain that it is not only extraordinary, but utterly contrary to all reason, that one man should build a city. In what manner could he do it? He could not build even the most trifling portion of a house, unless he employed other men as his assistants. Would the same man be able at the same time to cut stones, to cut wood, to work in iron and in brass, and to throw the vast circumference of walls round the city? to build up propylaea, and inter-walls, and temples, and sacred precincts, and porticoes, and docks, and houses, and all the other public and private buildings which one is accustomed to find in a city? And moreover, besides all these things, would he be able to carry burdens, to move away masses of earth, to widen narrow passages, to make fountains and water-courses, and all the other things with which a city ought to be provided?