After the making and adorning of this world, when man, whom God had made upright and unstained, and in consequence the human race, corrupted by lusts, had grown foul with sins, just punishment at once followed unjust licence.
1 Cum post fabricam ornatumque mundi huius homo, quem rectum atque inmaculatum fecerat Deus, ac perinde humanum genus libidinibus deprauatum peccatis obsorduisset, continuo iniustam licentiam iusta punitio consecuta est.
The sentence of God, the creator and judge, pronounced upon man for his sin and upon the earth on man’s account, and destined to last as long as men inhabit the earth, we all, however unwillingly, either prove by denying it or endure by confessing it; and on obstinate minds, which Scripture has not persuaded to faith, their own weakness, a witness against themselves, brands it.
2 sententiam creatoris Dei et iudicis peccanti homini ac terrae propter hominem destinatam semperque dum homines terram habitauerint duraturam omnes inuiti licet aut probamus negando aut confitendo toleramus, obstinatisque mentibus testis sibi infirmitas sua inurit, quibus fideliter scriptura non suaserit.
Then, when the sea was poured back over all the earth and the flood let loose, so that with the whole world covered there was but one expanse of sky and sea, the whole human race was destroyed, a few being kept in the ark for the merit of their faith to renew its stock: so the most truthful writers most clearly teach.
3 deinde refuso in omnem terram mari inmissoque diluuio, cum toto orbe contecto unum spatium caeli esset ac pelagi, deletum fuisse uniuersum humanum genus, paucis in arca fidei suae merito ad substituendam originem reseruatis, euidentissime ueracissimi scriptores docent.
Yet even those have testified that it happened who, though ignorant of past times and of the very Author of time, have nevertheless learnt it by conjecture from the evidence of the stones which we often see on remote mountains, rough with shells and oysters, and often hollowed out by water.
4 fuisse tamen etiam illi contestati sunt, qui praeterita quidem tempora ipsumque auctorem temporum nescientes, tamen ex indicio et coniectura lapidum, quos in remotis montibus conchis et ostreis scabros, saepe etiam cauatos aquis uisere solemus, coniciendo didicerunt.
And though more of this kind, both worth relating and of sure credit, could still be brought forward by us, let these two principal matters suffice: the transgression of the first man and the condemnation of his offspring and his life, and then the destruction of the whole human race;
5 et quamuis huiusmodi adhuc et relatu digna et fide certa proferri a nobis queant, tamen haec ueluti principalia duo de praeuaricatione primi hominis et condemnatione generationis uitaeque eius ac deinde de perditione totius generis humani dicta sufficiant,
only so that, if the pagan historians have touched in any order on matters of ours, these may be set out more fully, along with the rest, in the very order in which they occur.
6 tantum ut, si qua gentiles historici de nostris aliquo ordine contigerunt, haec plenius cum ceteris ipso quo incurrerint ordine proferantur.