NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

To Optimus the bishop.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 fromwhat has gone before. If I am cast out of the earth, and hidden from thy face, it remains forme 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 plainsign proclamation should be made to all, that this is the first doer of unholy deeds. To allwho reason rightly the heaviest of punishments is shame. We have learned this also in thecase of the judgments, when “some” shall rise “to everlasting life, and some to shame andeverlasting contempt.” 31535. Your next question is of a kindred character, concerning the words of Lamech to hiswives; “I have slain a man to my wounding, and a young man to my hurt: if Cain shall beavenged sevenfold, truly Lamech seventy and sevenfold.” 3154 Some suppose that Cain wasslain 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 hesays himself, “I have slain a man and a young man,” the man to his wounding, and the youngman to his hurt. There is a difference between wounding and hurt. 3155 And there is a differencebetween a man and a young man. “If Cain shall be avenged sevenfold, truly Lamechseventy 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. Cainhad 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 mightinessof the wrath of God, was not made wiser by the example before me. Wherefore I deserveto suffer four hundred and ninety punishments. There are, however, some who have goneso far as the following explanation, which does not jar with the doctrine of the Church; fromCain to the flood, they say, seven generations passed by, and the punishment was broughton the whole earth, because sin was everywhere spread abroad. But the sin of Lamech requiresfor its cure not a Flood, but Him Who Himself takes away the sin of the world. 3156Count the generations from Adam to the coming of Christ, and you will find, according tothe 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 bymatters therein that might be investigated, for fear of prolonging my observations beyondthe 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. 29.816