The question here is, to what this span of a hundred and twenty years ought to be referred: whether to the future life of men hereafter, as though it would not pass beyond a hundred and twenty years; or rather to the span of time granted to men before the Flood — namely, for doing penance and averting the vengeance of God hanging over the whole human race. Philo, in the book On the Giants; Josephus, in the first book of the Antiquities; Lactantius, in the second book, chapter fifteen; Rupert, in book 4 of the Commentaries on Genesis; and Tostatus, on this sixth chapter of Genesis, question 11, refer this to the future life of men hereafter, so that it…²

…has been circumscribed by God to only a hundred and twenty years; so that the sense is: “Hitherto man’s life extended beyond the nine-hundredth year; but because man abused so great a length of life to perpetrate graver and more numerous crimes daily, it will not be so hereafter, but, a very notable diminution being made, the life of man will be contracted to a hundred and twenty years.” Hear Rupert thus expounding these words in the aforesaid place: “‘And his days shall be a hundred and twenty years.’ Some, indeed, lived a little more, some a little fewer years after the Flood — as Jacob, who lived a hundred and forty-seven, as Joseph, who lived a hundred and ten years; but the days of him who wrote these things, namely Moses, were a hundred and twenty years. For so it is written of him: ‘Moses was a hundred and twenty years old when he died.’ And in a wonderful way, the man most meek above all who dwelt on the earth thrusts himself, in season and out of season, into that throng of the dying and of those living a shorter time on account of the corruption of their life; in a manner bewailing that there, according to the foreknowledge of God, he himself was struck, and that, being about to die, he could not even fulfill the times of Methuselah, so as to enter the land of promise, but that his days were few — that is, a hundred and twenty years.” Thus Rupert.³

Tostatus, however, judges that it was fitting that God should announce to men the measure of their future life. For since he was about to bring on the Flood, from this it necessarily followed that human life would be diminished; for the surface of the earth, in which there was great power of germinating the best plants, was uncovered and scoured away by the waters of the Flood, while the lower part of the earth, which was not equally effective for germinating, was uncovered and exposed to the labor and cultivation of men. And — what was of greater moment — the salt waters of the Ocean, permeating through the whole earth, corrupted its power; for salt makes the earth sterile, wherefore it was once the custom to sprinkle with salt lands that were cursed to be sterile, as is plain from the tenth chapter of the book of Judges; and in Psalm 106 it is written: “He turned a fruitful land into barrenness, for the wickedness of them that dwell therein.” The earth, therefore, covered and overwhelmed by salt waters, lost in great part that excellent power of germinating, whereby it came about that the fruits of the earth were fewer and less wholesome. And since we live on the nourishments born of the earth, when these are corrupted, human life too must necessarily be diminished and weakened. Since, therefore, God, by bringing on the Flood, wished to diminish the life of men, so that the brevity of life might lessen the license and lust of sinning — lest those who were to be after the Flood, seeing that man’s life had been made shorter than it had been before, should think this had happened by chance and only from natural causes, rather than recognize that it had been done by God’s counsel, will, and command — it was fitting that the future brevity of human life be announced and foretold by God long before, and its span determined by him. So, then, do these men expound this passage.⁴

But in very truth this opinion and interpretation of God’s words is manifestly refuted by the examples of very many who, for many ages after the Flood, far exceeded the foretold limit of years of human life. For Shem lived after the Flood five hun-…⁵

…five hundred years; Arphaxad, Sale, and Heber, more than four hundred; the rest, down to Abraham, more than two hundred; and thereafter the Patriarchs down to Moses, for about eight hundred years after the Flood, lived more than a hundred and thirty years — except Joseph alone, who prolonged his life no further than a hundred and ten years. What more? Jehoiada the priest, born nearly one thousand five hundred years after the Flood, lived to his hundred and thirtieth year, as is recorded in the second book of Paralipomenon (Chronicles), ch. 24.⁶

There is, then, a second interpretation and opinion of those words, nearer to the truth and more probable: that that span of a hundred and twenty years ought to be referred not to the future age of men, but to the time granted to men before the Flood for coming to their senses and doing penance. And the blessed Jerome confirms this very thing in the Hebrew Traditions on Genesis: “Moreover,” he says, “lest he should seem cruel in this, that he had given the sinners no place for penance, he added that phrase, ‘But their days shall be a hundred and twenty years’; that is, they shall have a hundred and twenty years for doing penance. Human life, therefore, was not — as many err — contracted to a hundred and twenty years, but to that generation a hundred and twenty years were given for penance. For we find that after the Flood Abraham lived a hundred and seventy-five years, and the rest more than two and three hundred years.” Thus Jerome. Chrysostom’s commentary on this passage also has plainly the same opinion. “Not content,” says Chrysostom, “with the long-suffering of five hundred years, which throughout the whole life of Noah was taught by the hearing of his name, now again, prolonging and deferring his indignation, he prescribes for them another time, and says: ‘I have threatened and made manifest my indignation, which it is just to bring upon you for the multitude of the sins you have committed; but because I wish even those who have sinned incurably to be saved, and none to perish, I therefore grant you a hundred and twenty years, that if you will, and will wash away your sins, and by coming to your senses and turning to better things will give yourselves to virtue, you may escape both the punishments and the dangers.’” To the opinion of these men Augustine also subscribed, in chapter 24 of book 15 of The City of God, whose words must be recalled more opportunely a little below. I here pass over very many of the more recent writers to whom the same opinion is approved. But I doubt whether Rupert rightly, in the aforesaid place, called this latter opinion older than the one I expounded a little above, since we named above as its authors Philo and Josephus, the most ancient of all writers.⁷

But this brings a difficulty: that from the time when God spoke these words up to the Flood, only a hundred years are found. For God spoke these words when Noah, being five hundred years old, had already begotten three sons, as is plain from the closing words of the fifth chapter; but the Flood came in the six-hundredth year of Noah, as is written in the seventh chapter of this book. Where, then, are the other twenty years? Jerome thinks that, because those men were unwilling to do pen-…⁸

…ance, God shortened the appointed time by cutting off twenty years, and hastened the Flood. “Because,” says Jerome, “they scorned to do penance, God was unwilling to wait for the time he had decreed, but, twenty years’ space being cut off, brought on the Flood in the hundredth year appointed for doing penance.” Things like Jerome’s, Chrysostom said in homily 25 on Genesis. Following Jerome, Hugh: “As,” he says, “God threatened Hezekiah with imminent death, but, because he repented, deferred the imminent death for fifteen years; so, conversely, he had granted to those men a space of a hundred and twenty years for repenting, but because they became worse through God’s patience, the space granted was shortened. Nor in any of these things was God’s counsel changed, but only his sentence.”⁹

But this interpretation is somewhat harsh. Wherefore, when Augustine had read it, being by no means content with it, he sought another more convenient. Augustine answers, then, in the place cited just before, that when God spoke these words Noah was in fact not five hundred years old, but only four hundred and eighty; which time, however, Scripture calls “five hundred years,” since it is wont, by the name of any whole sum of years, to denote the greatest part of it. Since, therefore, Noah had completed the greatest part of his five-hundredth year — namely, four of its parts being finished, if that hundred be divided into five parts — for that reason he is said to have been of five hundred years. But it is better to hear Augustine himself narrating these things in his own words: “When God said, ‘Their days shall be a hundred and twenty years,’ it is not to be taken as though it were foretold that henceforth men would not exceed a hundred and twenty years, since we find that even after the Flood some exceeded even five hundred years; but it is to be understood that God said this when Noah was about the end of his five hundredth year — that is, was living the four-hundred-and-eightieth year of his life, which Scripture in its custom calls ‘five hundred,’ generally signifying by the name of the whole the greatest part (for in the six-hundredth year of Noah’s life, in the second month, the Flood took place). And thus the foretold hundred and twenty years were the future [span] of the life of the men who were to perish, when these had passed, he would be destroyed by the Flood. Nor is it idly believed that the Flood was so made, when there were no longer found on earth any who were not worthy to be carried off by such a death as was inflicted on the impious; for none of those whom holy Scripture records as propagated from the seed of Seth died in the Flood.” Thus far Augustine.¹⁰

But although Augustine met this objection rightly, he does not seem to have closed up another crack that lies open to cavil. For God spoke these words when Noah had already begotten Shem, Ham, and Japheth — for Moses had told their generation beforehand in the closing words of the fifth chapter. If, therefore, God spoke those words when Noah was living his four-hundred-and-eightieth year (and then Shem was already born), then when the Flood came Shem would have been at least a hundred and twenty years old; but it is read in the eleventh chapter of the book of Genesis that he was, when the Flood was over, a hundred years old. But it must be supposed that God spoke these words about the hundred and twenty years of man’s life twenty years before…¹¹

…before Noah begot Shem. Why, then, you will ask, did Moses narrate the generation of Shem before the recording of these words of God? Moses did this by an anticipation frequent in the sacred writings; for he wished to describe all the generations from Adam down to the Flood, woven together in a continuous series. And as, in each of the prior nine generations, he had said in what year of his life the father had begotten his son, so in the tenth, which was Noah, Moses had to say in what year of his life Noah had begotten his sons — although, in order of time, other things were prior and ought to have been told before the generation of Noah’s sons.¹²

It is not necessary, therefore, for us to say with the blessed Augustine that, when Noah is said to be of five hundred years, this is to be understood not of the five-hundredth year completed, but of the five-hundredth running — namely, with eighty years of that five-hundredth year elapsed; for it can be understood more plainly and easily of the five-hundredth year itself, either precisely completed, or a little less or more than completed. This I say on account of Shem, whom Noah seems to have begotten when he was five hundred and two years old, since Shem is said to have been a hundred years old two years after the Flood.¹³

But Augustine’s saying that none of the descendants of Seth perished in the Flood must be understood of the upright and pious men among Seth’s descendants, or those whom Scripture records by name. For Methuselah, the grandfather of Noah, departed in the very year of the Flood, and a few years before, his father Lamech. But that very many of the descendants of Seth — whom Moses called “sons of God” — perished in the Flood, because, degenerating from their fathers’ probity and piety, they had been plunged into the gravest crimes, one may recognize from this very narrative of Moses.¹⁴