adolescence. And it can be suitably compared with the third day, in which the
Book 1 63 was a solid structure between the waters on which it was floating and the waters from above which were raining on it. This age is not blotted out by a flood, because our childhood is not wiped clean off the plates of memory by oblivion. We remember having been children, after all, but not having been babies. The evening of this age is marked by the confusion of tongues inflicted on the people who were building the tower,33 and then morning comes with Abraham. But neither did this second age procreate the people of God, because childhood is not adapted to procreation any more than infancy.
The third age
37. So then morning is made from Abraham, and the third age follows, like adolescence. And it can be suitably compared with the third day, in which the earth was separated from the waters. All the nations, you see, are aptly signified by the name of sea, unstable in their errors and tossed about by the doctrinal futil ities of idolatry as if by all the winds of heaven. So then from these futilities of the nations and the stormy waves of this world the people of God was separated through Abraham, like the earth when it appeared as dry land, thirsting, that is, for the heavenly showers of God's commandments. This people by worshiping one God, like earth watered to make it capable of producing beneficial crops, received the holy scriptures and prophecies. This age, you see, could already procreate a people for God, because the third age of life too, that is adolescence, is already capable of having children.
And that is why Abraham was told: / have set you up as thefather ofmany nations; and 1 will increase you exceedingly much, and l will set you up into nations, and kings shall come out from you. And l will set up my covenant between me andyou, and between your seedafteryou in their generationsforan eternal covenant, so that l may be Godforyou andforyour seed after you; and l will give to you and to your seed afteryou the land in which you are dwelling, all the land of Canaan for an eternal possession, and l will be their God (Gn
17:5-8). This age goes from Abraham to David in fourteen generations.34 The evening of this age is in the sins of the people by which they transgressed the divine commandments, up until the malice of that worst of kings, Saul.
The fourth age
38. And from there morning is made with the reign of David. This age resem bles youth; and in very truth, among all the ages of man youth reigns as king, and is the solid adornment of them all. And that is why it is suitably compared with the fourth day, on which the heavenly bodies were made in the solid structure of
33. SeeGn 11:1-9. 34. See Mt 1:17.