Genesis 5:21
And Henoch lived sixty-five years, and begot Mathusala.
Open Genesis 5:21 in the Motif Searcher, word by word across all five texts →Show on the spiral →The verse in its languages
- Vulgate (Clementine)
- Porro Henoch vixit sexaginta quinque annis, et genuit Mathusalam.
- Septuagint (Swete)
- Καὶ ἔζησεν Ἑνὼχ ἑκατὸν καὶ ἑξήκοντα πέντε ἔτη, καὶ ἐγέννησεν τὸν Μαθουσάλα.
- Hebrew (WLC)
- וַֽיְחִ֣י חֲנ֔וֹךְ חָמֵ֥שׁ וְשִׁשִּׁ֖ים שָׁנָ֑ה וַיּ֖וֹלֶד אֶת מְתוּשָֽׁלַח
The Fathers on this verse
Tertullian On the Apparel of Women, Chapter III
I am aware that the Scripture of Enoch, which has assigned this order (of action) to angels, is not received by some, because it is not admitted into the Jewish canon either. I suppose they did not think that, having been published before the deluge, it could have safely survived that world-wide calamity, the abolisher of all things. If that is the reason (for rejecting it), let them recall to their memory that Noah, the survivor of the deluge, was the great-grandson of Enoch himself; and he, of course, had heard and remembered, from domestic renown and hereditary tradition, concerning his own great-grandfather’s “grace in the sight of God,” and concerning all his preachings; since Enoch had given no other charge to Methuselah than that he should hand on the knowledge of them to his posterity. …
St Gregory Nazianzen Funeral Oration on the Great S. Basil, Bishop of Cæsarea in Cappadocia
70. Come then, there have been many men of old days illustrious for piety, as lawgivers, generals, prophets, teachers, and men brave to the shedding of blood. Let us compare our prelate with them, and thus recognize his merit. Adam was honoured by the hand of God, and the delights of Paradise, and the first legislation: but, unless I slander the reputation of our first parent, he kept not the command. Now Basil both received and observed it, and received no injury from the tree of knowledge, and escaped the flaming sword, and, as I am well assured, has attained to Paradise. Enos first ventured to call upon the Lord. Basil both called upon Him himself, and, what is far more excellent, preached Him to others. …
St John Cassian The Conferences of John Cassian. Part I. Containing Conferences I-X, Chapter XXI. The answer to the question raised
Serenus : You have propounded two not unimportant questions, to which I will reply, to the best of my ability, in the order in which you have raised them. We cannot possibly believe that spiritual existences can have carnal intercourse with women. But if this could ever have literally happened how is it that it does not now also sometimes take place, and that we do not see some in the same way born of women by the agency of demons without intercourse with men? especially when it is clear that they delight in the pollution of lust, which they would certainly prefer to bring about through their own agency rather than through that of men, if they could possibly manage it, as Ecclesiastes declares: “What is it that hath been? The same that is. And what is it that hath been done? The same that is done. …
The Fathers are given as they wrote. Where a passage lays the Passion on the Jewish people, the Church teaches that it cannot be charged against all the Jews then living, nor against the Jews of today, and that all sinners were its authors (CCC 597, 598).