{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>thus declaring his opinion that the earth then produced\r\nmightier men. And if in the more recent times, how much\r\nmore in the ages before the world-renowned deluge? But\r\nthe large size of the primitive human body is often proved to\r\nthe incredulous by the exposure of sepulchres, either through\r\nthe wear of time or the violence of torrents or some accident,\r\nand in which bones of incredible size have been found or have\r\nrolled out. I myself, along with some others, saw on the\r\nshore at Utica a man's molar tooth of such a size, that if it\r\nwere cut down into teeth such as we have, a hundred, I\r\nfancy, could have been made out of it. But that, I believe,\r\nbelonged to some giant. For though the bodies of ordinary\r\nmen were then larger than ours, the giants surpassed all in\r\nstature. And neither in our own age nor any other have\r\nthere been altogether wanting instances of gigantic stature,\r\nthough they may be few. The younger Pliny, a most learned\r\nman, maintains that the older the world becomes, the smaller\r\nwill be the bodies of men.<a id=\"FNanchor_163_163\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_163_163\">[163]</a> And he mentions that Homer\r\nin his poems often lamented the same decline; and this he\r\ndoes not laugh at as a poetical figment, but in his character\r\nof a recorder of natural wonders accepts it as historically true.\r\nBut, as I said, the bones which are from time to time discovered<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_65\">[Pg 65]</a></span>\r\nprove the size of the bodies of the ancients,<a id=\"FNanchor_164_164\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_164_164\">[164]</a> and will\r\ndo so to future ages, for they are slow to decay. But the\r\nlength of an antediluvian's life cannot now be proved by any\r\nsuch monumental evidence. But we are not on this account\r\nto withhold our faith from the sacred history, whose statements\r\nof past fact we are the more inexcusable in discrediting,\r\nas we see the accuracy of its prediction of what was future.\r\nAnd even that same Pliny<a id=\"FNanchor_165_165\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_165_165\">[165]</a> tells us that there is still a nation\r\nin which men live 200 years. If, then, in places unknown\r\nto us, men are believed to have a length of days which is\r\nquite beyond our own experience, why should we not believe\r\nthe same of times distant from our own? Or are we to\r\nbelieve that in other places there is what is not here, while\r\nwe do not believe that in other times there has been anything\r\nbut what is now?</p>","headings":["THE CITY OF GOD.","BOOK FIFTEENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45305-paragraph-116"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"45f1c290f374fc647fe9fe53cf7373b9494255a57153737cfb9e114a9a79860f","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume II","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Books XVII-XVIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[],"headings":[],"id":"pg45305-Footnote_163_163","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_163_163","source_ebook":45305,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_163_163\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_163_163\"><span class=\"label\">[163]</span></a> Plin. <i>Hist. Nat.</i> vii. 16.</p></div>","source_sha256":"7e0ced9e70512f3cf050b53c9d548e36b70d468d875153869f95d8aff5bbb530","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45305/pg45305-images.html#Footnote_163_163","text_sha256":"6f90488bad4bdc5f780479d21d20870f0cad3fe089078574bf4384a2d2c83c8f","verified":false,"work_id":null}