who do not possess such prerogatives?

94. Therefore, the decree cited in this passage that God would grant
men a hundred and twenty years for repentance, was rendered and
promulgated before Noah had begotten children.

95. With reference to the generation of the Cainites, no mention is
made of their patriarchs at the time of the flood, nor does Moses even
deem them worthy of being named. Previously he has brought down the
generation of Cain as far as Lamech, but whether his sons or nephews
lived at the time of Noah is uncertain. This much is certain, that the
offspring of Cain existed to that time, and were so powerful as to
mislead the very sons of God, since even the posterity of the holy
patriarchs perished in the flood.

96. Before this time the holy patriarchs--the rulers of the true
Church, as it were--admonished their families to beware of the
accursed generation. But the Cainites, incensed at being condemned,
made the attempt to overturn the righteous with every kind of
mischief; for the church of Satan wars perpetually against the Church
of God.

97. Therefore, as the righteous begin to waver and wickedness gains
ground, God raises Noah to exhort to repentance and to be for his
descendants a perpetual example, whose faith and diligent, patient
devotion to teaching, his offspring might admire and imitate. A great
miracle is it and a case of illustrious faith, that Noah, having heard
through Methuselah and Lamech the decree that the world is to perish
after a hundred and twenty years, through the flood, does not doubt
its truth, and yet, when the hundred and twenty years have almost
expired, marries and begets children. He might rather have thought: If
the human race is to perish, why should I marry? Why should I beget
sons? If I have refrained these many years, I shall do so henceforth.
But Noah does not do this; rather, after making known God's purpose
respecting the world's destruction, he obeys God, who calls him to
matrimony, and believes God that, though the whole world may perish,
yet he with his children shall be saved. An illustrious faith is this
and worthy of our consideration.

98. There was in him first that general faith, in common with the
patriarchs, concerning the seed which was to bruise the head of the
serpent. He possessed also the singular virtue of holding fast to this
faith in the midst of such a multitude of offenses, and not departing
from Jehovah. Then, to this general faith he ad