XXXVII. (199) Again, who is there who would deny that those men who were born of him who was made out of the earth were noble themselves, and the founders of noble families? persons who have received a birth more excellent than that of any succeeding generation, in being sprung from the first wedded pair, from the first man and woman, who then for the first time came together for the propagation of offspring resembling themselves. But, nevertheless, when there were two persons so born, the elder of them endured to slay the younger; [Ge 4:1.] and, having committed the great and most accursed crime of fratricide, he first defiled the ground with human blood. (200) Now, what good did the nobility of his birth do to a man who had displayed this want of nobleness in his soul? which God, who surveys all human things and actions, detested when he saw it; and, casting it forth, affixed a punishment to it, not slaying him at once, so that he should arrive at an immediate insensibility to misfortunes, but suspending over him ten thousand deaths in his external senses, by means of incessant griefs and fears, so as to inflict upon him the sense of the most grievous calamities. (201) Now there was, in the subsequent generations, a man very greatly approved of, a most holy man, whose piety the sacred historian, who has written the books called the law, has thought worthy of being recorded in the sacred volumes. Accordingly, in the great deluge when all the cities of the world were utterly destroyed (for even the highest mountains were overwhelmed by the increase and continual rising of the rapid flood), he alone was saved, with all his kindred, having received such a reward for his virtue that it is not possible to imagine a greater One.[Ge 7:1.] (202) This man, again, had three sons; and, though they had had their share in the blessing thus bestowed upon their father, one of them dared to turn his father, the cause of his safety, into ridicule, laughing at him, and mocking and reviling him, because of an error which he committed unintentionally, and displaying to those who did not see it what he ought to have, concealed, so as to bring disgrace on him who had begotten Him.[Ge 9:22.] Therefore, having now fallen from his brilliant nobility of birth and having become accursed, and having also become the beginning of misery to all his posterity, he suffered all those evils which it was fitting for a man to suffer who had disregarded all the honour due to his parents. (203) But why should I speak of these men, and pass over the first man who was created out of the earth? who, in respect of the nobleness of his birth can be compared to no mortal whatever, inasmuch as he was fashioned by the hand of God, and invested with a form in the likeness of a human body by the very perfection of all plastic art. And he was also thought worthy of a soul, which was derived from no being who had as yet come into existence by being created, but God breathed into him as much of his own power as mortal nature was capable of receiving. Was it not, then a perfect excess of all nobleness, which could not possibly come into comparison with any other which is ever spoken of as favours? (204) for all persons who lay claim to that kind of eminence rest their claims on the nobility of their ancestors. But even those men who have been their ancestors were only animals, subject to disease and to corruption, and their prosperity was, for the most part, very unstable. But the father of his man was not mortal at all, and the sole author of his being was God. And he, being in a manner his image and likeness according to the dominant mind in the soul, (205) though it was his duty to preserve that image free from all spot of blemish, following and imitating as far as was in his power the virtues of him who had created him, since the two opposite qualities of good and evil (what is honourable and what is disgraceful, what is true and what is false) were set before him for his choice and avoidance, deliberately chose what was false, and disgraceful, and evil, and despised what was good, and honourable, and true; for which conduct he was very fairly condemned to change an immortal for a mortal existence, being deprived of blessedness and happiness, and therefore he naturally was changed so as to descend into a laborious and miserable Life.[Ge 3:19.]