Nicene and Post-Nicene Church Fathers Series 2 - The Still Small ...

face shall I be hid.” The heaviest punishment for men of good heart is alienation from God.
“And it shall come to pass that every one that findeth me shall slay me.” He infers this from
what has gone before. If I am cast out of the earth, and hidden from thy face, it remains for
me to be slain of every one. What says the Lord? Not so. But he put a mark upon him.
This is the seventh punishment, that the punishment should not be hid, but that by a plain
sign proclamation should be made to all, that this is the first doer of unholy deeds. To all
who reason rightly the heaviest of punishments is shame. We have learned this also in the
case of the judgments, when “some” shall rise “to everlasting life, and some to shame and
everlasting contempt.” 3153
5. Your next question is of a kindred character, concerning the words of Lamech to his
wives; “I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt: if Cain shall be
avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.” 3154 Some suppose that Cain was
slain by Lamech, and that he survived to this generation that he might suffer a longer punishment.
But this is not the case. Lamech evidently committed two murders, from what he
says himself, “I have slain a man and a young man,” the man to his wounding, and the young
man to his hurt. There is a difference between wounding and hurt. 3155 And there is a difference
between a man and a young man. “If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamech
seventy and sevenfold.” It is right that I should undergo four hundred and ninety punishments,
if God’s judgment on Cain was just, that his punishments should be seven. Cain
had not learned to murder from another, and had never seen a murderer undergoing punishment.
But I, who had before my eyes Cain groaning and trembling, and the mightiness
of the wrath of God, was not made wiser by the example before me. Wherefore I deserve
to suffer four hundred and ninety punishments. There are, however, some who have gone
so far as the following explanation, which does not jar with the doctrine of the Church; from
Cain to the flood, they say, seven generations passed by, and the punishment was brought
on the whole earth, because sin was everywhere spread abroad. But the sin of Lamech requires
for its cure not a Flood, but Him Who Himself takes away the sin of the world. 3156
Count the generations from Adam to the coming of Christ, and you will find, according to
the genealogy of Luke, that the Lord was born in the seventy-seventh.
Thus I have investigated this point to the best of my ability, though I have passed by
matters therein that might be investigated, for fear of prolonging my observations beyond
the limits of my letter. But for your intelligence little seeds are enough. “Give instruction,”
3153 Dan. xii. 2.
3154 Gen. iv. 23, 24.
3155 LXX. μώλωψ, i.e. weal.
3156 John i. 29.
To Optimus the bishop.
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