Teaching Christianity (continued)
paradise and the tree of knowing good and evil. Finally the river by which paradise was to be watered is spread out by being divided into four heads (Gn 2:9–10) of four streams; and all this belongs to the setting up of paradise. When he had come to an end of all this, he repeated what he had already said, and indeed what he now said really did follow: And the Lord God took the man whom he had molded, and placed him in paradise, and so on (Gn 2:15). The man was placed there after all this was done, as the order of the narrative now shows; it is not that all this was done after the man was placed there, as he might at first have been thought to have said, unless the recapitulation is intelligently observed, by which he went back to matters that had been left out earlier.
53. Again, it said in the same book, when the generations of the sons of Noah were being listed, These are the sons of Ham in their tribes, according to their languages, in their regions and in their nations (Gn 10:20). Then after also listing the sons of Shem, it says, These are the sons of Shem in their tribes, according to their languages in their regions and in their nations. And it adds about them all, These are the tribes of the sons of Noah according to their generations, according to their nations. And from these the islands[77] of the nations were scattered over the earth after the flood. And the whole earth was one lip and one voice for all (Gn 10:32 —11:1). And so this bit added at the end, And the whole earth was one lip and one voice for all, that is, they all had one language, seems to be said as though still at the time in which they were scattered over the earth according to the islands of the nations they all had one common language, which undoubtedly conflicts with what was said a few words earlier on, in their tribes, according to their languages. After all, the various tribes would not have been said to have had each their own language, which made them into each their own nation, when they all had one common language.