Chapter 19.—The Significance Of
Enoch’s Translation.
For that line also of which Seth is
the father has the name “Dedication” in the seventh generation
from Adam, counting Adam. For the seventh from him is Enoch, that
is, Dedication. But this is that man who was translated because
he pleased God, and who held in the order of the generations a
remarkable place, being the seventh from Adam, a number signalized
by the consecration of the Sabbath. But, counting from the
diverging point of the two lines, or from Seth, he was the sixth. Now it was on the sixth day God made man, and consummated His works. But the translation of Enoch prefigured our
deferred
dedication; for though it is indeed already accomplished in Christ
our Head, who so rose again that He shall die no more, and who was
Himself also translated, yet there remains another dedication of
the whole house, of which Christ Himself is the foundation, and
this dedication is deferred till the end, when all shall rise again
to die no more. And whether it is the house of God, or the temple
of God, or the city of God, that is said to be dedicated, it is all
the same, and equally in accordance with the usage of the Latin
language. For Virgil himself calls the city of widest empire
“the house of Assaracus,” meaning the Romans, who were
descended through the Trojans from Assaracus. He also calls them
the house of Æneas, because Rome was built by those Trojans who
had come to Italy under Æneas. For that poet imitated the sacred
writings, in which the Hebrew nation, though so numerous, is called
the house of Jacob.