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De civitate Dei (CCSL)

Caput IX: De longa uita hominum, quae fuit ante diluuium et de ampliore humanorum corporum forma.

Quamobrem nullus prudens rerum existimator dubitauerit Cain non solum aliquam, uerum etiam magnam potuisse condere ciuitatem, quando in tam longum tempus protendebatur uita mortalium; nisi forte infidelium quispiam ex ipsa numerositate annorum nobis ingerat quaestionem, qua uixisse tunc homines scriptum est in auctoritatibus nostris, et hoc neget esse credendum. ita quippe non credunt etiam magnitudines corporum longe ampliores tunc fuisse quam nunc sunt. unde et nobilissimus eorum poeta Vergilius de ingenti lapide, quem in agrorum limite infixum uir fortis illorum temporum pugnans et rapuit et cucurrit et intorsit et misit: uix illum - inquit - lecti bis sex ceruice subirent, qualia nunc hominum producit corpora tellus, significans maiora tunc corpora producere solere tellurem. quanto magis igitur temporibus recentioribus mundi ante illud nobile diffamatumque diluuium. sed de corporum magnitudine plerumque incredulos nudata per uetustatem siue per uim fluminum uariosque casus sepulcra conuincunt, ubi apparuerunt uel unde ceciderunt incredibilis magnitudinis ossa mortuorum. uidi ipse non solus, sed aliquot me cum in Vticensi litore molarem hominis dentem tam ingentem, ut, si in nostrorum dentium modulos minutatim concideretur, centum nobis uideretur facere potuisse. sed illum gigantis alicuius fuisse crediderim. nam praeter quod erant omnium multo quam nostra maiora tunc corpora, gigantes longe ceteris anteibant; sicut aliis deinde nostrisque temporibus rara quidem, sed numquam ferme defuerunt, quae modum aliorum plurimum excederent. Plinius Secundus, doctissimus homo, quanto magis magisque praeterit saeculi excursus, minora corpora naturam ferre testatur; quod etiam Homerum commemorat saepe carmine fuisse conquestum, non haec uelut poetica figmenta deridens, sed in historicam fidem tamquam miraculorum naturalium scriptor adsumens. uerum, ut dixi, antiquorum magnitudines corporum inuenta plerumque ossa, quoniam diuturna sunt, etiam multo posterioribus saeculis produnt. annorum autem numerositas cuiusque hominis, quae temporibus illis fuit, nullis nunc talibus documentis uenire in experimentum potest. nec tamen ideo fides sacrae huic historiae deroganda est, cuius tanto inpudentius narrata non credimus, quanto inpleri certius praenuntiata conspicimus. dicit tamen etiam idem Plinius esse adhuc gentem, ubi ducentos annos uiuitur. si ergo humanarum uitarum diuturnitates, quas experti non sumus, hodie habere creduntur incognita nobis loca, cur non habuisse credantur et tempora? an uero credibile est alicubi esse quod hic non est, et incredibile est aliquando fuisse quod nunc non est?

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The City of God

Chapter 9.--Of the Long Life and Greater Stature of the Antediluvians.

Wherefore no one who considerately weighs facts will doubt that Cain might have built a city, and that a large one, when it is observed how prolonged were the lives of men, unless perhaps some sceptic take exception to this very length of years which our authors ascribe to the antediluvians and deny that this is credible. And so, too, they do not believe that the size of men's bodies was larger then than now, though the most esteemed of their own poets, Virgil, asserts the same, when he speaks of that huge stone which had been fixed as a landmark, and which a strong man of those ancient times snatched up as he fought, and ran, and hurled, and cast it,--

"Scarce twelve strong men of later mould

That weight could on their necks uphold." ¹

thus declaring his opinion that the earth then produced mightier men. And if in the more recent times, how much more in the ages before the world-renowned deluge? But the large size of the primitive human body is often proved to the incredulous by the exposure of sepulchres, either through the wear of time or the violence of torrents or some accident, and in which bones of incredible size have been found or have rolled out. I myself, along with some others, saw on the shore at Utica a man's molar tooth of such a size, that if it were cut down into teeth such as we have, a hundred, I fancy, could have been made out of it. But that, I believe, belonged to some giant. For though the bodies of ordinary men were then larger than ours, the giants surpassed all in stature. And neither in our own age nor any other have there been altogether wanting instances of gigantic stature, though they may be few. The younger Pliny, a most learned man, maintains that the older the world becomes, the smaller will be the bodies of men. ² And he mentions that Homer in his poems often lamented the same decline; and this he does not laugh at as a poetical figment, but in his character of a recorder of natural wonders accepts it as historically true. But, as I said, the bones which are from time to time discovered prove the size of the bodies of the ancients, ³ and will do so to future ages, for they are slow to decay. But the length of an antediluvian's life cannot now be proved by any such monumental evidence. But we are not on this account to withhold our faith from the sacred history, whose statements of past fact we are the more inexcusable in discrediting, as we see the accuracy of its prediction of what was future. And even that same Pliny ⁴ tells us that there is still a nation in which men live 200 years. If, then, in places unknown to us, men are believed to have a length of days which is quite beyond our own experience, why should we not believe the same of times distant from our own? Or are we to believe that in other places there is what is not here, while we do not believe that in other times there has been anything but what is now?