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17. We learn from the first chapters of the Book of Genesis that a Divine revelation was granted to our first parents. They were instructed by God Himself about the creation, their destiny to immortality, their dominion over all the earth with its plants and animals, the indissolubility of matrimony, their dependence on Almighty God, the prohibition to eat of the forbidden fruit, the consequences of their disobedience, the promise of a Redeemer, who was to spring from their race, the acceptability to God of the sacrifice of material objects, etc. All this is called the Primitive revelation. The knowledge of it was transmitted through subsequent generations; and it was easy to preserve the traditions in their integrity, owing to the long lives of men in those early ages, when Adam lived for over sixty years with Lamech, the father of Noe.

18. Noe was a new messenger from God to men, sent to warn sinners of impending punishment, and to restore the observance of the moral law. After the Deluge, he predicted the future lot of his sons and of their descendants, and declared in particular that the Messias should be born of the race of Sem. He transmitted the Primitive Revelation in its purity to his descendants; and, although idolatry seems to have begun with some of these during his lifetime, still many of the great truths regarding God