Genesis 9:1

What, therefore, is this man’s meaning, in the next passage, wherein he says concerning Noah and his sons, that “they were blessed, even as Adam and Eve were; for God said unto them, ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and have dominion over the earth’”? To these words of the Almighty he added some of his own, saying: “Now that pleasure, which you would have seem diabolical, was resorted to in the case of the above-mentioned married pairs; and it continued to exist, both in the goodness of its institution and in the blessing attached to it. For there can be no doubt that the following words were addressed to Noah and his sons in reference to their bodily connection with their wives, which had become by this time unalterably fixed by use: ‘Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.’” It is unnecessary for us to employ many words in repeating our former argument. …

5. First of all, he says, God declares that“therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife: and they shall be one flesh.” And lest we should say that this is a quotation from the Old Testament, he asserts that it has been confirmed by the Lord in the Gospel, “What God hath joined together, let not man put asunder”: and he immediately adds, “Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth.” He next repeats the names of Seth, Enos, Cainan, Mahalalel, Jared, Enoch, Methuselah, Lamech, Noah, and tells us that they all had wives and in accordance with the will of God begot sons, as though there could be any table of descent or any history of mankind without wives and children. “There,” says he, “is Enoch, who walked with God and was carried up to heaven. …

The ruler should be, through humility, a companion of good livers, and, through the zeal of righteousness, rigid against the vices of evil-doers; so that in nothing he prefer himself to the good, and yet, when the fault of the bad requires it, he be at once conscious of the power of his priority; to the end that, while among his subordinates who live well he waives his rank and accounts them as his equals, he may not fear to execute the laws of rectitude towards the perverse. For, as I remember to have said in my book on morals ( Lib. xxi., Moral, cap. 10, nunc. n. 22), it is clear that nature produced all men equal; but, through variation in the order of their merits, guilt puts some below others. But the very diversity which has accrued from vice is ordered by divine judgment, so that, since all men cannot stand on an equal footing, one should be ruled by another. …