On Noah and the Ark

3. The Three Sons and What Their Names Signify

To him indeed three sons were born, Sem, Cham, Japheth. These names signify good, and evil, and the indifferent; so that he seems both to have had goodness by the grace of nature, and to have by no means lacked the temptations of evils, and to have abounded in things indifferent, that is, as it were in the furnishings of the virtues.

But the reason why he placed the evil one in the middle is evident: because the good of nature is present in all, and does not, as it were, cast men shipwrecked into the light, but has also propped them up with strengths; that they might not be overwhelmed by the temptations of malice, nor succumb as though weak: but it fortifies and clothes them, as it were with certain coverings that are indifferent things—which are health, good bodily condition, beauty, energy, riches, glory, nobility of birth—so that by that endowment the goodness of nature might be fortified, and that evil enclosed, that it might not be able to do harm, and might be strangled as it were shut in.

4. The Battle Line of the Virtues

Do we not perceive, as it were, a certain battle-line of virtues drawn up for war; so that the weaker are in the middle, while the stronger, right and left, are as it were on the wings, through whom the whole battle-line receives its strength? Whence also a certain Greek poet says: κακοὺς δ᾽ ἐς μέσσον ἔλασσεν (Homer, Iliad. Δ), that is, but he drove the bad ones into the middle. So then nature also, like a good general, at God's command, since she knows that we are begotten for the battles of this world, sets in the first rank what is good; in the second, what may hinder; in the third, what may help: so that the enemy, as it were enclosed in the middle, doubled by whichever side he betakes himself, may be overpowered by strength; lest each of these should be wearied in equal battles, and lest the enemy should have the opportunity of escaping from the natural constraints and of creeping further afield.

5. The Birth Order of the Sons and Japheth's Name

But since where they are begotten, this is the order: whereas where they beget, Japheth is written in the first place, Cham in the third; lest anyone think that we have said things contrary to what follows, the reason of that passage too must be explained. The good, which is as it were in a certain nobility of nature, comes first: but the evil follows; for the contrary thoughts of the mind are those which indeed arise afterward. As long as these are, as it were, shut up within, and do not sprout as in plants, they are nursed in a certain bosom of the good mind, lest they come forth.

For as long as the evil remains in the will, and not ἐντελεχείᾳ, that is, in deed and effect, the goodness of the mind, like a charioteer guiding the reins, restrains or curbs the malice that tries to break forth: but when it has boiled over, and burst forth into a sore, lest it should be able to creep further and to contaminate what is near; then just providence intervenes, lest that indifferent thing which is commonly called the second good should, as it were, yield its place, since it can no longer resist the now boiling evil.

And so, lest the harmful poison should spread more widely, and infect very many by begetting corruptions, that first good which is good by nature, while it changes place, changes order; so that it may bring help, as it were, to the wing which is struggling, and take up that part of the battle-line which suffers most; for the valor of the warrior is necessary in the more difficult places; just as also the presence of a good guard is more frequent where the walls are weaker. And lest any part be without a defender, while that good sustains the parts more inclined to fall, then that indifferent thing takes the higher place, as it were assigned to itself that part by the more perfect good; for nothing is more perfect than virtue. But indifferent things do not have the strength of powerful virtue, but they increase and spread its grace. Whence he was called Japheth, which signifies "breadth" in Latin.

6. The Fruitfulness of the Generation Before the Flood

Nor did holy Noe alone abound in the begetting of sons; but the whole generation of that time poured itself forth most abundantly. This does not seem to be without purpose. For since the flood was to follow, it ought not to be thought that the grace of fruitfulness was lacking to that generation which the floods swallowed up: so that what was the abundance of the human race might be reckoned to divine grace; but what followed—the flood—might be ascribed to our own iniquities, we who by our sins turn away the mercy of the Lord. So too in later times you will find that a fruitfulness of just as many years preceded the coming barrenness of Egypt. For it is the mark of virtue to begin with benefits, and to sow grace beforehand. Whence David also says: Mercy and judgment I will sing to thee, O Lord. The grace of benefit goes before, the censure of sober discipline follows.

It is therefore divine that good things are sent first; it is our own doing that they are changed.

7. The Spirit of God and the Weakness of the Flesh

God himself declares this, saying: My spirit shall not remain in men, because they are flesh. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of knowledge. He has therefore wisdom, he has also discipline, just as Scripture says of Beseleel, who was commanded by divine oracle to make the sacred tabernacle: Because he was filled with the spirit of prudence and discipline. This spirit, then, is given to men, but does not remain. The reason why it does not remain is disclosed: because they are flesh. For the nature of the flesh is opposed to discipline, because it obeys pleasure. Indeed, it is written of the Lord Jesus alone: Upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending from heaven, and remaining upon him, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit. For it remained in him whom no hindrances of carnal corruption held back from keeping the order of an incorrupt and unmixed discipline, whose flesh saw no corruption.

8. The Giants and the Peril of Fleshly Pursuits

Now there were giants on the earth in those days. The author of divine Scripture does not wish those giants to be regarded, in the manner of the poets, as sons of the earth: but he asserts that they were begotten of angels and women, calling them by this name because he wishes to express the greatness of their body. And let us consider, lest perchance there be men like the giants, devoted to the cultivation of their flesh, but taking no care for their soul: just as those who, according to the poetic fable, sprung from the earth, relying on the bulk of their body, are said to have held the gods above in contempt. Or are they to be judged different, who, though they consist of soul and body, turn away from the vigor of mind—than which the soul possesses nothing more precious—and show themselves imitators of this flesh, heirs as it were of maternal stupidity?

Thus they labor in vain, laying claim to heaven with proud desires, while brooding over earthly works, who, by their choice of the inferior and their contempt of the superior fellowship, being liable as it were to voluntary sins, are condemned with a graver severity.

9. The Sons of God and the Wrath of the Lord

For the most part Scripture calls angels the sons of God; because souls are not begotten of any man. Thus God has not disdained to call faithful men his own sons. As therefore men of approved life are called sons of God: so those whose works are carnal we call sons of the flesh, by the authority of the Scriptures. For John the Evangelist says: But as many as received the Lord Jesus, to them he gave power to become the sons of God, to those who believe in his name, who were born not of bloods, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

Therefore after this you have it that the Lord was angered, because although he considered—that is, knew—that man, placed in the region of the earth, bearing flesh, cannot be without sin (for the earth is, as it were, a certain place of temptations, and the flesh an allurement to corruption), yet though they had a mind capable of reason and a virtue of soul infused into the body, they rushed into ruin without any consideration, from which they would not recall themselves. For God does not think as men do, so that some new opinion should come upon him; nor is he angered as though subject to change: but these things are written so that the bitterness of our sins might be expressed, which deserved the divine offense; as though guilt had grown to such a degree that even God, who by nature is moved neither by anger, nor by hatred, nor by any passion, seems provoked to wrath.

10. The Threat to Destroy All Flesh and Noah's Grace

He threatened moreover that he would blot out man: From man, he says, even to beast, and from creeping things even to the birds of the air I will destroy. What had the irrational creatures done? But because those things had been made on account of man, once he for whose sake they were made was blotted out, it followed that they too should be blotted out; because there was no one to make use of them. But in a deeper sense this is shown, because man is the mind, which is capable of reason; for man is defined as a living, mortal, rational animal. Therefore, when the ruling part is extinguished, every sense also is extinguished; because nothing remains for salvation, when the foundation of salvation, virtue, has failed. But for the condemnation of the rest, and for the expression of divine mercy, it is said that Noe found grace before God.

At the same time it is shown that a just man is not overshadowed by the offense of others, since he himself is preserved as the seed-plot of the whole race, being praised not for the nobility of his birth, but for the merit of righteousness and perfection. For the race of an approved man is the lineage of virtue; because just as the race of men is men, so the race of souls is virtues. For families of men are ennobled by the splendor of their lineage: but the grace of souls is made illustrious by the splendor of virtue.

11. The Earth's Corruption and the Saving of the Remnant

Now the earth was corrupted before God, and was filled, he says, with iniquity. The cause of the earth's corruption is evident, in that the iniquity of men corrupted the earth. Whence also the Lord God says: The time of every man is come before me, because the earth is filled with its iniquities. The time indeed of all men is in the sight of God, and in his will. For it is not bound, as commonly said, by a fated decree: yet I think this is said here specifically; because in the Gospel the Lord, about to redeem the race of men by the suffering of his body, and about to cleanse them by his blood, and by the sacrament of baptism, says: Father, the hour is come, glorify thy Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee.

Therefore because in the flood the remnants of the human race were preserved through the ark of Noe, for the seed-plot of a future restoration and renewal, therefore it was said beforehand here: The time of every man is come; because the earth is filled with its iniquities. This is in a figure; but in truth it says: The remnant have been saved through the election of grace. And therefore the Apostle exclaims, saying: Sin abounded, that grace also might much more abound.

12. The Flesh as the Corruption of the Soul's Way

All flesh, he says, has corrupted its way. Here he has put "flesh" for the earthly man, in whom the allurement of the flesh corrupted his way. Had he understood what a gift he had received from God, he would surely not have suffered the flesh to stand in the way of the virtues of the soul. And so the flesh was the cause of corrupting the soul as well, being as it were the origin and the place of a certain pleasure, from which, as from a fountain, the rivers of concupiscences and evil passions burst forth and overflow far and wide. By these the rudder of the soul is, as it were, cast off and its oarage submerged, when the mind itself, overcome as by certain storms and tempests, yields its place. He says beautifully that man corrupted the way of his own nature. For his way was in paradise, in that path of blessedness, in that flower of virtues, and in that incorruptible grace, which way he defiled with earthly footsteps.

Others have: "His way," that is, God's. This he is accustomed to declare by the word of the Lord.

13. The Ark's Squared Timbers as a Pattern of the Body

But now we must speak of the ark of Noe itself, which, if anyone should wish to consider more attentively, he will find in its construction the pattern of the human body described. For what does it mean that God says: Make thee therefore an ark of squared timbers? We certainly call that "squared" which stands well together in all its parts, and agrees with itself. And so God is shown to be the author of our body and the maker of nature, and the work itself is signified to be perfect by these words. That the members of man are square is manifest by reason, if you consider the breast of man, if you consider the belly, of equal measure in length and breadth, except when by pleasures and feasting the belly is distended and the natural measure exceeded. Now who does not perceive by sight itself that the feet and hands, arms, thighs, and legs are fourfold?

And most of these, even if they are not of the same length or breadth, nevertheless preserve such proportion that in them too a fitting measure and reason concur: the length being somewhat more extended than the breadth, the breadth than the height. And just as there is a threefold measure of the timber of the ark, since it prescribed that a length of three hundred cubits, and a breadth of fifty cubits, and a height of thirty cubits should be kept; so also in our body there is a greatest, a middle, and a least measure. The greatest according to length, the middle according to breadth, the least according to height: yet the whole body, woven together from single members, appears square. For indeed in common usage we call those "square" whom we judge neither excessive in height, nor robust in bodily quality beyond measure.

14. The Ark's Nests and the Body's Organs

What also is meant by his saying: Thou shalt make nests in the ark, does not seem to be passed over in silence. For I think it was said in accordance with nature, because our whole body is woven together like nests; so that the vital spirit may penetrate all parts of the inward organs, and pour itself from our governing centre through each several limb. Our eyes are a kind of nests, into which sight inserts itself. The hollows of our ears are nests, through which hearing pours itself in, and casts itself as it were into a deep pit. The nose is a nest, which draws odor to itself. The gaping of the mouth is a fourth nest, greater than the others, in which taste is nourished until it grows mature; and from which the voice flies forth. In it lies hidden the tongue, which, like the instrument of the voice, modulates its sounds with skillful sweetness; and though it is itself without reason, it expresses a rational voice. The half-skull is a nest.

That membrane which shelters the brain and holds it within is a nest. The organs of the lung and heart are nests. Of our breath indeed, that is, of that which we draw in and by which we are nourished in this life, the lung is the nest: but of blood and spirit the heart is the nest. For it has two chambers: one by which it receives the blood as it were into a bosom, and pours it into the veins; the other by which, watered from that upper chamber, it conveys it into the arteries by a continual channel. The stronger bones also have nests. For they are hollow within, and in these cavities is the marrow. In the softer organs themselves are the nests of desire or of pain. And if one should consider other things too, he would find still more nests in this fabric of the human body.

Whence I think that he in the Psalm spoke not only mystically but also according to nature, when he said: For the sparrow hath found herself a house, and the turtle a nest, where she may lay her young. For there is now in this body a nest of chastity, where formerly there was a nest of irrational concupiscence. But where lust once nourished shapeless offspring, there now the inheritance of comely chastity grows up.

15. The Bitumen That Binds the Body Together

Thou shalt daub it, he says, with bitumen. The human body consists of many bones, sinews, and other things besides. And so, both outwardly and inwardly, joined together by a fitting structure, it clings to itself, and is held together by its own condition, which the Greeks call ἁρή; so that the spirit enclosed within, which is poured in, or the spiritual substance which works within, held fast as it were by twin bonds, may not wander abroad: but may be restrained into a fit and continuous unity, and a strong connection. Therefore the ark is bidden to be constrained by bitumen; for bitumen is of a very vehement nature for binding together. Whence in Greek it is called νάφθα, from συνάπτειν, because it joins together things disjoined, and constrains them with an indissoluble bond, so that you would believe them to agree together by a natural unity. For this reason the ark is bound with bitumen both within and without, lest that connection be easily broken.

16. The Ark of the Covenant Compared to Noah's Ark

But elsewhere, that is, in Exodus, that ark is also overlaid with gold within and without, which among the saints is the imitative image of the intelligible world. For as gold is more precious than bitumen: so that ark which is among the saints is more excellent than this one. Indeed here he set down timber simply: but there he included timber that is incorruptible, declaring the merits of the saints. He added also there that the supports were immovable, because the station of the saints is stable and firm; since, following the path of a praiseworthy life under the guidance of virtue, they decline association with corruption. But this ark, as being in the flood, was driven hither and thither by an uncertain motion; because the condition of sinners is unstable, and their life, subject to corruption amid a flood as it were of overflowing passions, wanders with inconstant error.

17. The Ark's Upper Cubit and the Human Head

Nor should this be passed over: that when he had said: And thou shalt make the ark three hundred cubits in length, and fifty cubits in breadth, and thirty cubits in height, he added: In finishing thou shalt make the ark, and in a cubit shalt thou finish it above: so that, with a becoming measure suited to the rest of the body, the head of man might be fitted in due proportion, and might be joined to it as a kind of royal chamber of the ark, from which, when all the senses are diffused to the other parts of the body, the eyes especially, set as watchmen and guardians by the providence of nature, might look down from above upon nearly the whole state of our world.

And the mind itself, situated there according to the opinion of most, and especially of Solomon who says: The eyes of the wise man are in his head: as though in an imperial hall, gathers to itself the council of the virtues, by whose crowded attendance it is itself the more fortified, and, as from some elevated place, imparts the governance for the care of the whole body, and gives forth its responses, through which we are able not only to look behind us, nor only to see what is before our feet, but also to gaze with the deep vision of wisdom upon the secrets of heaven itself. There, therefore, is the sum of our welfare, there is grace. From there guardianship, from there also beauty is acquired for the whole body, which first flowers in the countenance. For it is fitting that the splendor of the royal hall be the more excellent, in which, as the sight is greater, so also is the brightness.

18. The Use and Beauty of the Eyes

For if you look at each of the things which in the form of man seem to be composed for some use, as the eyes for seeing, the ears for hearing, the nostrils for smelling, the mouth for speaking, use serves in such a way that it also provides comeliness. How disfigured are the faces of the blind! And what wonder if the face of a man without eyes is disfigured, when the very heaven has not its own beauty without the sun? We pass sad days without the sun, nights without the moon do not please; for they themselves are a kind of eyes of the world. Take away the lights of the stars, and there is in heaven itself a certain disfigurement of blindness. The very hairs which fringe the circle of the eyes, and stretch forth as it were a kind of defence, lest the pupil be harmed by any filth or the darkness of dust, they too intercept whatever might be brought against it that could harm the eye.

How unseemly it is if they fall away through inflammation of the eyes, if the eyelid becomes too contracted, if the eyebrows are shaved which, like precious ornaments, gleam as if interwoven with gems!

19. The Form and Function of the Ears

The ears also, as their use is necessary, so is their form comely: if anyone should cut them off, he would bring disfigurement upon the whole face. In these nature has so wrought her work that the very windings of their hollows, curved by wondrous providence, bring the greatest advantage, lest sound strike suddenly upon the recesses of the head. Indeed we often see many people startled by an unforeseen clangor, and terrified and struck with fear at the sound of some voice or tumult. The very filth which is generated within these windings binds the hearing, as it were, with a kind of glue. Likewise, if the beat of some sound should be too vehement, it is broken and slowed, so that, announced beforehand, it may rather steal in gently than, unforeseen, shake the interior. Little worms too, if they try to penetrate the ear, are held fast by a certain gluey filth.

20. The Nose and the Need for Breath

Flat noses seem contrary to nature: and if they were cut off, how could life continue, the passage of breathing being taken away; just as then the face would be judged rather that of a beast than the countenance of a man?

21. The Hair of the Head and Its Proper Care

How pleasing a covering the hairs of the head give to it, clothing it, like certain attendants of a royal hall; lest the wind harm the brain, or the rain strike it, or the sun scorch it. Yet nature gave them in such a way that, according to sex, they are pleasing either longer or cut short; and according to age, or often according to the quality of the season and the year. In the aged, gray hair is pleasing; in boys, it would be monstrous: it delights to be cut closer in summer, more generously in winter: to women hair is an ornament, to men a disgrace. Indeed the Apostle expressed this more clearly, saying: For nature itself teaches you that if a man nourish his hair, it is a shame unto him: but if a woman have hair, it is a glory to her.

22. The Mouth, Teeth, and the Voice

What shall I say of that royal chamber itself, through which the courtly words come forth, certain indicators of our mind and messengers of the soul? What of the very order of the teeth, which, while by their work they minister strength to the whole body, are also the modulators of the voice itself? If any of these fall out, the voice halts.

23. The Remaining Members of the Body Described

We have spoken at greater length of the head; because it was fitting that all the senses be located at the top, whence all functions might be distributed through the remaining parts. Now next to our head, behind, is the neck, and on the right and the left are the arms, guarding, as it were, the imperial citadel with faithful watch. Indeed those parts in us are stronger which are nearer the head, and these are more excellent. The breast too, like a certain sanctuary of wisdom, and the stomach, like a certain witness, as physicians say, and privy to the secrets of the head, and a partner in its sympathy, to which it pours out all its own conditions, whether wholesome or adverse. The sides, the buttocks, the thighs, and legs signify by their very appearance the breadth of measure; and the steps of the feet, though they seem slighter, become nonetheless broader when we walk.

24. The Ark's Door and the Honor of Lesser Members

He added beautifully: Thou shalt make a door in the side, declaring that part of the body by which we are accustomed to excrete food; so that upon those parts which we think are less honorable in the body, he might bestow more abundant honor. Which Scripture expressed far more graciously than Socrates is recorded to have said in Plato's book. For since Socrates himself, or Plato, who was in Egypt, could either have read this in the writings of Moses, or have learned it from others who had read it; moved by the discovery of its fitness, he thought the door was opened to him, that he might proclaim the counsel of our maker: praising it because it was especially fitting for propriety, that certain channels or exits of our conduits should be turned away toward the back; lest our sight be offended in the purgings of the belly.

But the Apostle indeed says: Those members of the body which seem to be more feeble, are necessary, surpassing in one simple word the descriptions of Philosophy; and those members of the body which we think less honorable, upon these we bestow more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness. For there especially is recognized the token of our sobriety and temperance. For gluttons are either distended with indigestion even to the point of danger, or often are undone through the emptying of their vitals.

25. The Church's Uncomely Members Redeemed by Baptism

Which the Apostle beautifully applied also to the members of the Church. For what are our uncomely and superfluous parts, but luxury, but wantonness? If anyone, entangled by these in the time of youth, when he has come to a more mature age, should come to baptism, renounce his former ways, put off his earlier manners, lay down his sins, be buried together with the Lord Jesus Christ, and the world be crucified to him, and he to the world; is he not, being granted remission of sins, judged to have a more abundant comeliness than that catechumen whose life is more innocent? And to use the example of the Apostle himself: he was a Jew, he was a persecutor: called to the grace of Christ, he began to be an Apostle. And because more was forgiven him, he began to love the more, to labor more abundantly than the other apostles, made a vessel of election, sent as a teacher of the nations.

Did he not obtain a more abundant and more honorable glory than most of the apostles themselves, he who before was both dishonorable and inglorious, when he persecuted the Church of God? This poor and feeble one in the Church has redeemed you by his own vows.

26. The Calling of the Gentiles Above the Law

And that we may disclose greater mysteries, what is so lowly as the gentile people? Poor, inasmuch as it had none of the eloquence of God, weak and lame in both feet, since it had believed neither in the law nor in the Gospel; yet being called it believed him, and being baptized received grace. And so, because more has been forgiven it, it loves more. The people of the Jews remained, though lame in one foot; although even in the law itself it halts. And so he who was held most glorious lost everything—the wonderful counsellor, and the prudent architect, and the wise hearer. He who was ignoble attained everything by the title of faith, by the trophy of the martyrs, and glories in the fellowship of the angels. Therefore Plato applied what he could—the polish of speech; but the Apostle, who possessed the Spirit of God, revealed the mystery. Enough has been said about the door; since those who were behind have been made first.

27. The Ark's Lower Stories as Digestive Organs

Now let us inquire into that which the Lord says: "You shall make the lower parts of the ark with two and three stories". By saying "lower parts," we perceive that he wished us beautifully to understand that the receptacles of food are to be reckoned as belonging to the lower place, that is, those inward parts which digest the food received. For food is a corruptible thing; and what is corruptible is to be compared not to the higher, but to the lower parts. At the same time, because food is carried downward, of which a small portion serves for the strength and nourishment of the body, while the rest, the remainder, is carried down to be purged through the bowel; for the intestines are that through which the superfluities of food descend.

28. Why the Intestines Are Coiled Not Straight

Thus our Maker has arranged that the intestines should not be extended straight from the stomach to the lowest part, but should be coiled and bent back, so that the use of our life might be prolonged. For if the intestines of man, which receive and carry down food, were extended straight, the food would pass through at once without any delay; and it would be necessary for us to hunger continually, to feast continually, or else, the substance of nourishment failing, to fail forthwith. But now, in that coiling and bending of the intestines, twofold and threefold, the food clings and, descending gradually, supplies strength little by little, infuses juice into the body, maintains satiety, and defers the appetite for eating; there is neither a sudden discharge nor a hasty evacuation, nor an insatiable appetite, nor an unquenchable lust for feasting. First, then, comes need and hunger; then from these would follow the uninterrupted continuation of eating.

But what is more unseemly than always to be attending to the belly, which, when it is filled, must be emptied, and when emptied, must be filled again? What third thing remains, except death mingled amid the very foods and feasts? For how could life proceed any longer if men were at once eating and hungering, and drinking and thirsting, and, before being filled, emptying out all that they had taken, and immediately hungering again? But now, while the food descends little by little, the natural providence tempers hunger and indigestion. For first the food is prepared in the stomach, which many call the upper belly; then it is cooked in the liver, and is digested by that vapor. Its juice is distributed to certain portions of the inward parts, from which the whole body derives strength. This is sufficiently attested by the growth of the young and the persistence of the old.

The remainder of the food flows down into the belly, which we all call simply "the belly," though many call it the lower belly; from which the excrement, now full of corruption, having descended, is necessarily expelled through that transverse passage.

29. Intemperance as an Inner Flood of the Body

Though these things seem so skillfully arranged by natural institution according to the ordinance of God, yet if the measure of eating and of acting is not kept by us, a flood is generated, as it were, from overflowing passions, and a certain ruin of the whole body. For intemperance kindles lust, generates indigestion, creates corruption. And so either the inward parts are stretched by hardness and shaken by pains, or, from the undigested moisture of foods and the harshness of indigestion, a certain inner covering of the intestines is scraped away; for it is asserted that their covering is, as it were, twofold in the manner of paper: one exterior, which those skilled or those who have examined more curiously call continuous, running straight from top to bottom; the other interior, as it were woven on to the sides; whence they say that it is not wholly dissolved when it is scraped. For if the interior were continuous, its tearing would be incurable; there, through the delay of the joinings, the remains of foods adhere.

And if these joinings are loosened, the half-digested foods and the flowing drink pass through—that is, the flood of man.

30. The Ark as a Figure for Restraining the Passions

Hence it seems to me that through the figure of this ark God wished us to be taught how we may be safe from this particular flood. For corruption is the cause of the flood; when it has crept in, the waters are opened, all the fountains of desires boil up, so that the whole body is submerged in so great and so deep a flood of vices. For nothing so subjects a man to wretched servitude as lust, and desires of this kind, which press down the wretched conscience with a heavy yoke of sins, so that it cannot lift itself up, having lost the liberty of innocence. The greatest remedy, therefore, in this flood is that you should set the just man before you, and choose him as the executor of the heavenly command. Who is the just man in us, but the vigor of the mind which encloses within this ark every kind of living creature that is upon the earth?

Restrain, therefore, you too, all your irrational passions, and subject all your senses to the mind, and accustom yourself to the commands of the soul. Do not allow your desires to fly abroad, nor your lust to go out among the crowd; and through a rational mind you will be able to free even your irrational and unclean sins from every danger of the flood.

31. Why the Animals Perished with Sinful Man

"Whatsoever," he says, "are on the earth, shall die". What indeed had the dumb animals done wrong? For what cause were they subjected to punishment, they who have no sense of sinning? But just as in war, when the commander is slain by the enemy, his army dies with him, and all military strength is broken; so it did not seem to be inconsistent with justice, when man died, to whom the Lord God had given a certain royal power over every kind of living creature, that he might rule with imperial authority over all the birds, wild beasts, and creatures—that also the cattle, and whatever irrational animals there were, should die together with him. Indeed, if ever there is a pestilence, when the region of the sky is corrupted, first the dread plague infects irrational creatures, and especially dogs, horses, oxen; and it infects those which seem to associate with men; so the force of the disease implicates the human race as well. This, then, is the first cause, as I think, of the just assertion.

32. Man as the Head of the Animal Creation

The second is this: because no one accuses nature, when the head being removed, the rest of the members of our body die, though we see many survive after the amputation of hands and feet. But the rest of the members have not the same prerogative as the head; and therefore, when that is cut off from which our senses proceed into the rest of the body, all the members die together with it; nor is the providence of the Maker thereby abandoned, nor is the frailty of human substance thereby impugned. Likewise, therefore, let no one now object, because man is, as it were, the head and a certain principal part of the other animals, that it should seem strange, when he dies, if the other animals die together with him.

33. Animals Created for the Sake of Man

The third is this: that the animals lacking reason were created not for their own sake, but for the sake of man; for they were ordained to exist for man's sake, so that by their subjection the condition of man might be the more excellent. Indeed, the Prophet attributes this to the grace of man, saying: "You have subjected all things under his feet, sheep and all oxen, moreover also the beasts of the field, the birds of the sky and the fishes of the sea"; because all those things exist for his sake: some for utility, others for the sake of delight, others for pleasure. It followed, therefore, that when man, for whose sake they were made, was to be blotted out from the face of the earth, these also should be blotted out in a like destruction. These things, according to the simple exposition of the reading.

34. The Death of the Senses in a Sinner's Soul

But a higher and deeper interpretation adds this: that when the soul is bent down by the heavy mass of passions, and is, as it were, submerged in the surge of diverse desires, all earthly thoughts and lusts rush headlong; because every sinner, the graver the crimes he has committed, the more insolent he becomes. For by habit and practice wickedness is increased, and boldness is nourished by impunity. And so he withdraws from all regard for honor, and in him all earthly things die by the bitterness of deadly sin, which blots out the sinner with a true and perpetual death. For no one dies more grievously than he who lives in sin. In him the several passions die: sight dies, which announces sin, which fixes itself on a deceitful woman, which is captured by the beauty of another's countenance, which the eyes of a harlot have bound, which the gaze of a whore has ensnared.

Does he not seem to die who has driven the dart of lust into himself, who has of his own will rushed into the pit of death? Hearing also dies, when it reports crimes, when it announces the words of an adulterer soliciting, when it inserts into the soul the words of a harlot who seduces the young man with much flattery of speech; but with the snares of her lips she binds him fast. The voice dies through silence, if it does not confess to God. It dies through much speaking; for it is written: "By much speaking you shall not escape sin". It dies through wrath, when it exceeds the measure of vengeance. Every sense, finally, dies, if it be a minister of iniquity.

35. God's Covenant and the Inheritance of the Just

And therefore, because all earthly things die in the flood, but the just man alone remains forever, it is said to him: "I will establish my covenant with you"; because he himself is heir of divine grace, he himself the possessor of the heavenly inheritance, the partaker of the most blessed goods. And indeed men, when they die, are wont to transfer their patrimony by testament; nor does the inheritance pass, so long as the testator lives: but God, since he is everlasting, pours forth to the just the inheritance of the divine substance; and he himself, needing nothing, gives what is his own without any loss from the giving, since he is not burdened by those who share his goods, but rather enjoys more that which we use.

Indeed, the Lord Jesus was made poor, though he was rich, that we might be enriched by his poverty; who completed both Testaments by his own blood, so that he might make us co-heirs of his life, and heirs of his death, whereby we might have both the fellowship of life and the benefit of death. He grants much to the just man in saying: "I will establish my covenant with you," because a rational and faithful man is the covenant of God. For he himself is the inheritance, he himself the possession, in whom is the power of the divine covenant, in whom is the fruit of judgment, in whom is the inheritance of the promise, of whom David says: "Behold, the inheritance of the Lord, sons are the reward, the fruit of the womb". But now, the exposition of the deeper mystery being preserved, let us proceed to the rest.

36. Noah's Household Saved by His Righteousness

"Enter," he says, "you and all your house into the ark; because I have seen you just before me in this generation". Clearly the faith of the prophetic sentence is confirmed also in this place, that the fool is a fool to himself alone, but the wise man is wise for himself and for many. And so, by the merit of the just Noah, his house also is saved in the flood. So too those sailing on the sea, and an army in war, if the former do not lack the skill of a pilot, nor the latter the prudence of a commander, are kept safe from danger by another's aid. But because a good army belongs to a good commander, so also in this we understand that the praise of the just man is not passed over, who so ordered his household that it shone with the fellowship of virtue; and deservedly his kindred found salvation. Nor is it inconsistent that afterward either the son or the wife should offend.

The just man was sleeping when his son erred. The woman also, being disturbed by the weight of danger, as belonging to the more fragile sex, who believed that the whole world was perishing by a divine conflagration—why do you wonder if she could not follow her husband, when the just man himself, warned by angels, scarcely escaped? But what wonder if error creeps upon a man, or his attention relaxes? Object, then, that even the just man was made drunk. But I think these things should be reserved for their proper place (below, ch. 29).

37. Just Before God Not Merely Before Men

Now let us consider what remains. For he said beautifully: "Because I have seen you just before me in this generation." Many seem just to men, few to God: differently to men, differently to God. To men according to the outward appearance of life; to God according to the purity of the soul, the truth of virtue; men approve what is outward: God examines what is within. He added carefully: "in this generation"; that he might neither condemn those before, nor exclude those after, and might rightly affirm that the flood was made for the destruction of that generation which had no fellowship of equity. These things, according to the letter.

38. The Mind as Ark and Ruler of the Soul

But a deeper meaning invites us to think that this vigor of mind is in the soul as the soul is in the body, as the father of the family is in his own house. For what the mind is in the soul, the soul is in the body. If the mind is safe, the house is safe, the soul is safe: if the soul is unharmed, the flesh is unharmed. For a sober mind restrains all passions, governs the senses, rules speech. And so the Lord rightly says to the just man, enter thou within, that is, enter into thyself, into thy mind, into the ruling part of thy soul; there is safety, there is the helm; outside is the flood, outside is danger. But if you are within, you are also safe without; because where the mind is master of itself, thoughts are good, deeds are good. For if no vice overshadows the mind, the thoughts are sincere.

If chastity is one's pursuit, if temperance is in the heart, no flame of lust burns, no ulcers of sickness creep forth. For sobriety of mind is the medicine of the body.

39. The Mystery of the Numbers Seven and Two

Now let us consider for what reason he bids seven and seven of the clean cattle, male and female, be brought into the ark, but two and two of the unclean, that seed might be nourished over all the earth. And as I think, he declares the week to be clean; because the number seven is clean and holy. For it is mingled with none, nor is it generated by another. And so it is called a virgin, because it generates nothing of itself; and deservedly, as though exempt and immune from maternal birth and from womanly union, even though the week be called by a feminine name, it has the grace of masculine sanctification: for every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord. And in the prophet you have: She brought forth, and bore a male, that is, a holy one. But the number two is not full, because it is divided. But what is not full is held to be empty.

But the number seven is full, being a week, as ten is; and it is like that first one, because it is made in the likeness of him who always is, from whom flow and are moved the virtues that are in every kind. These things pertain to nature.

40. The Senses as Feminine and Wisdom as Masculine

But to speak of moral matters, there is no doubt that the irrational part of our soul is divided into the five senses, and the voice, and the generative faculty, which seem by nature to be feminine; because our senses creep quickly toward material and worldly things. Whence it is clear that they have the substance of a softer nature. But to the learned and diligent man all things are clean; because the strength of a wise and vigorous man transfuses into these a manly judgment. Therefore by the prudent man who governs by purpose, they are transferred from the quality of the weaker sex into a stronger substance. For the judgment of the wise man is strong and fixed; not changeable, as that of the fool and unwise man who wavers with uncertain counsel, like the wicked man who chooses not what is true and just, but what he wishes to be advantageous to himself, and severs from the true, separates from the just. For justice is a singular good, regarded by itself for its own great worth.

But iniquity, as it were, brings forth divided things, now bent by hatred, now by gain, and confuses things that ought to be distinguished. For the fool is changed like the moon, and is many-colored, or, deformed by the variety of his humors, stains his soul with the shameful contagion into the likeness of a leprous body, often mingling wholesome thoughts with harmful ones.

41. Good and Evil Mingled in Human Nature

But perhaps because you see clean and unclean animals commanded to be brought into the ark, it might rightly move someone to say that I said that things unbecoming ought not to be mixed with honorable disputations. Nor do I deny that of irrational animals, even of the clean, there are certain mutual seeds and, as it were, beginnings in our soul, and also of those which are not clean. For the nature of man is capable of contraries, so that in it there is both the force of malice and the entrance of virtue; and rightly, in the beginning of this book which is Genesis, you have read of the knowledge of good and evil under the figure of a tree in the middle of paradise. Concerning which tree of the knowledge of good and evil it was commanded that it should not be tasted; because our mind, in which is knowledge and discipline, receives the notion of good and evil.

And so the maker of nature, just as he preserved animals for the propagation or even the restoration of their kind, that the whole earth might be filled with the seed of animals: so too he did not think the earthly substance of our body should be left void of passions of this sort, as it were of unclean animals, which, when it is engulfed with delights and luxury as by a kind of flood, is tossed about by the aforesaid passions. But when each man, by sobriety and continence, shall have drained off the flood of overflowing passions, and has uncovered a certain dryness of the soul, he begins to give life to his body, and to the purity of his soul, whose governance is wisdom.

42. God's Mercy in the Days of Repentance

This too is worth inquiring, what the reason is why, after Noah entered the ark and had brought in the animals, the flood came after seven days. For it does not seem without purpose that neither more nor fewer days were interposed, but exactly as many as there were in the establishment of the world. For in six days the world was made, and on the seventh day God rested from his works. By which sign he declared that he himself is the author both of the world and of the flood. He founded the world because of his goodness; he made the flood because of the merit of our sins. Men, then, were admonished, even from the number of days in which the world was established, that they ought to reconcile their maker not by tears and prayer alone, but by amendment of morals.

Therefore the Lord gave a space for repentance, wishing rather to pardon than to punish; that, held in suspense by the terror of the impending flood, he might compel them to seek pardon; so that, while they shuddered at the danger of coming death, they might renounce impiety and injustice. Secondly, that from this too we might gather the clemency of the Lord who is merciful beyond measure; because he was willing, if they repented, to release in a few days the offense contracted through many years from the establishment of the world even to its end. For God is forgetful of sin, a rewarder of virtue, as he himself says in the prophet: I am, I am he who blots out iniquities, and I will not remember: but do thou remember, and let us be judged: declare thy iniquities, that thou mayest be justified.

For when he perceives that true virtue has been poured back into the soul, he attributes so much honor to it that he not only grants pardon of former sins, but also imparts grace and justification. He waited, then, even on the seventh day, the very day on which he rested from his working; so that if pardon were sought, amendment might follow, and he might rest from his indignation.

43. Forty Days and Forty Nights Signify Man and Woman

This too has been a care not to pass over, that he said the flood came about in forty days, and added, and forty nights. For we know that day is said of that which the sun, illuminating the earth, marks; night, that which the surrounding darkness separates from brightness; and very often day is so signified by us that we do not include night, and very often so that we do embrace it. For when we signify a month of thirty days, we also signify the nights. Whence, since it would have been enough for Moses to say that the flood lasted forty days, why he added, and forty nights, is asked.

And some who were before us have taken it thus, that the destruction by the flood of both men and women might be shown, referring day to man, who is purer, like light, night to woman, who is described as created while man slept: and at the same time because man is prior as it were the author, who sets in motion the virtue of woman, and rouses her to childbearing: he clearer in public act; she more obscure, as it were shut within the walls of the household and nearer to night, born second in order, and, her creation already formed from the rib of man, owing him gratitude, being also subject to the higher privilege of the one before her, and, by the custom of childbearing, to be compared with material things. But the number of the danger is consonant in both, because sins too are consonant; and rightly the spans of time do not differ, because the deserts of the offenses do not differ.

44. The Forty Days of the Law and the Flood

Many also inquire, not without diligence, for what reason the flood lasted forty days. And we may say that the material number is assigned to sadder things, that is, to the destruction of the creature: but the week to the establishment of the whole world, that is, to happier things. But perhaps it may be noted, what of this, that the law also was given in forty days, and Moses observed that many days on Mount Sinai, and tarried there, while he received the precepts of the Law? Rightly, then, the precepts for the avoidance of sins are assigned the same number by which the penalty for guilt was paid; that we may know that from the same span of life praise ought to be gained through amendment, in which guilt deserving punishment can be committed.

Whence now the forty days are prescribed no longer for punishment, but for life; that by this number, through more frequent fasts and prayers, we may lighten the penalties of our sins, and, intent upon the precepts of the law, may correct our error by devotion and faith. And so, through the resurrection of the Lord, the fortieth day is no longer reckoned as the last, but as the first; and from thence life is numbered, where before the number counted toward death, unto the consummation of the world and the ruin of the human race.

45. Blotting Out the Flesh Like Erased Letters

And I will blot out, says the Lord, every resurrection of flesh from the face of the earth. O heavenly beauty of words, if one examines it with the proper understanding of a pious mind! God is indignant at our sins, but does not forget his mercy. He threatens punishment, but does not allow destruction. He tempers vengeance, he recalls severity. He says he will blot out all flesh, not from the earth, but from the face of the earth. He shakes off the flower, he preserves the root: he allows the strength of human substance to remain in the depth, which labors on the surface, while within it remains unharmed, and free from injury it is kept in reserve for the restoring of those who are not liable to guilt. Beautifully has he put it, I will blot out, as the tips of letters are blotted out without harm to the books, and without diminishment of the tablets. The ink is blotted out, but the wood remains. The letters are erased, that oftentimes better ones may be written.

The ink is removed, the substance is not destroyed. I will blot out, he says, the corruption of the flesh, that I may write incorruption. I will blot out the resurrection of the flesh from the face of the earth, that I may write those rising in the heavens. I will blot out from the book of the earth, that I may write in the book of life. Let them be blotted out, my Lord, O Lord, let them quickly be blotted out, the letters of iron, that the letters of Christ may be written. Let the earthly resurrection be abolished, that heavenly grace may abound. Come, Moses, prepare thy lap, receive the law, take up the letters which divine mercy will now no longer blot out. Receive the tablets which the Lord will establish forever. Would that thou thyself do not break them. And these too my own fault had taken from me, had not the Lord restored them. Justly indeed was Moses indignant, lest those have the divine privileges who did not render obedience.

But I think that it was not for me, but for the Jews, that you broke them. You broke them for the Jews, you received them again for me. The former ones were broken, that the later ones might remain. You broke them in the breasts of the Jews. For what did it profit that they held the tablets, whose precepts they could not hold? Behold, they say they hold the second tablets, but they do not hold them. They say they read the divine letters, but they do not read them. Moses says the tablets were written by the finger of God: they do not read the finger of God, they read the iron. They see the ink, they do not see the Spirit of God. But the Church knows not the ink, she knows the Spirit. And so Paul knows how to write, not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. O sacrilegious, foolish people of the Jews!

A man writes by the Spirit of God, even a man nourished under the law, and they wish God to have written with ink, not with the Spirit.

46. The Flood as Purgation of the Soul

Therefore, to return to the matters above, God blots out the resurrection of the flesh, as the writing of the letters: whereby it is declared that he blotted out, under the appearance of letters, the superfluous birth of men on account of their impiety: but that he preserved the substance and manner of life of the human race, as it were by the perpetuity of tablets, that from it the remaining seed might sprout forth. To this view that saying also seems to agree: I will blot out, he says, every resurrection of flesh. But resurrection, by the common usage of nature, seems to be the contrary of purgation; because by purgation the luxuriant growth of resurrection is cut back and repressed. Yet everything that is purged loses its outward form, but keeps its substance, and it is bettered. The Lord, therefore, having now by the purgation of the flood repressed the bodily use, adorns anew the manner of generation which had degenerated from the beauty of nature and its received gift. These things according to the letter.

But as pertains to the deeper sense, the form of the flood is a type of the purgation of our soul. And so when our mind has washed itself of the bodily allurements of this world by which it was formerly delighted, it will also wipe away, by good thoughts, the filth of old desire, as it were absorbing with purer waters the former bitterness of the turbid streams.

47. Noah's Perfect Obedience as a Friend of God

And Noe did, it says, all things which the Lord God commanded him. The just man received commands, the servant received orders. He is reckoned in the place of a friend who has done whatsoever he undertook to carry out; but he who wavers in his obedience is condemned to the burden of servitude. Finally the Lord Jesus also says in the Gospel: You are my friends, if you do the things which I command you. Now I will not call you servants. Therefore it is commanded as to a friend, it is commanded to one who, with strong charity and sober counsel, carries out the things that have been commanded. Nor did the Lord's judgment deceive him: the just man fulfilled all things, not a part, but all the things that were commanded him; and therefore he received the testimony of the divine Scripture.

And do not think it superfluous that it named together "Lord" and "God"; for God is in the Lord, and the Lord is in God: but so that you may understand the common precept of the Father and the Son. Some, however, before us have interpreted it thus: that by saying "Lord" and "God" in this place, he expressed a twofold power, both of one who would take vengeance and of one who would forgive; and he who here takes vengeance first upon sinners, therefore is said "Lord" first; but because afterward he grants indulgence, that the seed of the just may be propagated, therefore he named "God" afterward. Finally, when about to make the world, He is called God: In the beginning God made heaven and earth. And God said, let there be light.

48. The Spring Season and Number of the Flood

There is also that consideration, not to be passed over lightly, that in the six hundredth year of Noe, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the flood came to pass. It is not doubted that the second month is of the springtime, when growing things increase, the field brings forth, and the offspring alike of the earth and of living creatures pours itself out.

Then, therefore, He made the flood, when the grief of those would be the greater who were being punished in the midst of their abundance; then the vengeance more terrible, as though God were saying: Behold, according to the grace of the bounty of divine providence, nature richly has brought forth all things, the earth more fruitful has budded forth all things for the use of man, the crops are beheld, the fields are filled with wheat and barley, the foliage of the trees is clothed with the blossoms of the fruit to come: the earth is not wanting in its services, the beasts are not wanting in their gifts, which are duly discharged in their offspring, that man may lack nothing: man alone is wanting to his own duties, knows not his Author from whom all things are ministered to him, neglects his Maker. Man despises his Rewarder, though God has not despised His own work. Let all things perish with man, on whose account all things were made.

Let man be consumed amid his own riches, since he dies with his own dowry. The earth had offended in nothing before man, it erred in none of its fruits: in man alone does it recognize that it has degenerated, bearing thorns and thistles instead of fruits. This alone, the admirable gift, the chief part of the mind, has perished. Why then are all those things preserved? For this reason the water is not poured out after the fruits have been gathered, lest the earth should feel a benefit rather than a flood. Finally, among the Egyptians the Nile overflows in the spring season, but in a different month, so that the earth may be softened for the sowing of seeds, and the seeds cast in may be received with a gentler bosom, a more indulgent lap. But that the flood comes in the six hundredth year of Noe seems to show that on the sixth day Adam was created.

The same number—that is, the one called "perfect"—is kept both in the author and in the restorer; because the source of the sixtieth and of the six hundredth is the number six. The same month, moreover, is called both first and seventh. But we ought rather to observe this first point: that after the flood, in the spring season, the care of cultivating the fields is renewed, and the offspring of the placid and fertile soil begins to come forth. By which it is signified that God would never make the destruction of men in that same number or season in which He made the beginning, unless He had been offended by monstrous crimes. At the same time the reckoning of the season and of the number promises pardon; that even in wrath He might be reminded, by causes going before, of the benefits due to His own people, so as not utterly to blot out the substance of those whom He Himself had given.

49. The Fountains of the Deep Broken Up

And all the fountains of the deep were broken up, and the floodgates of heaven were opened. Scripture fittingly expressed the force of the flood, saying that heaven and earth were equally shaken, out of which elements the whole beginning of this world consists. Therefore, with the masses of waters flowing in from every side, let the human race be purged, being shut up. This according to the letter. But as pertains to the deeper sense, by the symbol of heaven the human mind is signified, and by the appellation of earth, the body and the senses. Great, therefore, are the shipwrecks, when the whirlwind and storm of mind and body and of all the senses alike are mingled together. Let us weigh diligently the things said. Often the deceit and cunning of the mind exercise their poison, but yet the sobriety and continence of the body overshadow the wickedness of the mind.

Often the mind is slippery, uncertain in its faith and opinion, but yet the flesh abstains from delights and luxury, so that frugality excuses the error of the mind, just as many of the heretics wish to put forward continence of the body, that they may gain credit for their assertion by the testimony of a sober flesh: even if they are slippery in sense, yet, in that they are less shameful, they are held somewhat more excusable.

But when the poisons of the mind, and the contagions of bodily obscenity, confound every sense and vigor; and when the soul, slippery with uncertain motion, foul with the ink of malice, inflamed with the fury of cruelty, is even incited to bodily crimes, and the greedy affection also, impatient of moderate means, is driven headlong by the desire of luxury and the lust of squandering into the crime of coveting another's welfare; then is the great flood, with all the passions rushing in together: then folly, injustice, rashness, wickedness, perfidy seem to pour themselves out from the upper part as though they were the floodgates of the mind. Thence burst forth from the earthly fountain of the body lust, drunkenness, luxury, and finally the downfalls of divers crimes, which utterly unman both the strength of the body and the vigor of the mind.

50. The Lord Shuts the Ark from Without

And the Lord shut the ark from without. The word is plain according to the letter. The ark had to be shut, and hedged about with a safe defense, lest the wandering floods of the deluge should penetrate it. Nor is it an unfitting interpretation of a deeper sense, if we judge that the human body, which the ark here described figures, is defended from cold and heat by the skin, which the Craftsman God has clothed with natural coverings for the protection of all the members, and has clad with a certain surrounding covering, so that it may neither be frozen by cold nor dissolved by summer heat.

51. The Ark Afloat and the Restless Flesh

The water, then, overflowed, and lifted up the ark, and it was borne upon the surface of the waters. Not without reason did the water overflow, when the floodgates of heaven were opened, and from the earth the fountains of waters and rivers were broken up. Which is said with great emphasis. For where there is a bursting forth, there of necessity is an irrevocable outpouring; nor is the downfall of such huge floods easily restrained. Manifest, therefore, is what is written. But if you think it should be regarded more deeply, our flesh is agitated by divers passions and, in a manner, fluctuates like a strait, by which, this way and that, as if upon the waves of its own troubles, it is now tossed by hunger, now by thirst, now by desire, now by joy, now by grief.

52. The Fifteen Cubits and the Five Senses

This too, I think, must not be passed over, that Scripture did not omit by how many cubits in number the water was above the earth; for it said that the water was fifteen cubits above the lofty mountains. The simple meaning, then, is plain. But allegory embraces the five senses, which are in our body like lofty mountains, which overshadow this flesh of the passions, and are often overrun by beasts, and their dense and shadowy thickets are disturbed. Whence also the Lord, coming through the faith of the believing nations to His Church, comes from Lebanon, as the prophet Habakkuk says: The Lord will come from Lebanon, from the shadowy and dark mountain. The Church, too, comes from Lebanon, as the Song of Songs has it. For thus we read: Come hither from Lebanon, spouse, come hither from Lebanon.

Thou shalt pass over and go through from the beginning of faith, from the dens of lions and the mountains of leopards, whereby the gentile peoples, who used to suffer, as it were, grievous incursions of bestial passions, now walk in the height of faith and the loftiness of devotion. Through these mountains, therefore, Christ came, restraining by evangelical disputations the fierce motions of this body, and destroying by His obedience and humility that loftiness of heart, and the pride that exalts itself: and deservedly they began to bear the fruits of gentleness, whom before the floods of grievous passions were undermining. Concerning the number of the cubits, some before us have reckoned thus: that the five senses have a threefold reckoning, since sight sees the visible, and hearing hears the audible, and smell smells the odorous, and taste tastes the tastable, and touch touches that which lies subject to the substance of touching. Therefore the five senses have been reckoned threefold, or according to that saying: Write them for thyself in a threefold manner.

I, however, think it more fitting to take it thus: that I should understand the senses of the earthly, the animal, and the spiritual man, which the floods of the deluge surpassed.

53. The Death of All Flesh and the Soul's Dryness

Deservedly all flesh died that was moved. This is plain according to the letter, and it expressed, properly and naturally, the corruption of the flesh by the token of stormy commotion. For commotion is not vicious except through the corruption of the affections. For the flesh moves pleasures, and is itself moved by pleasures. Such commotion, moreover, creates corruption. The cause of corruption, therefore, is the commotion of this world, through which the soul of each one degenerates. For when vicious passions move the mind, corruption is generated; when they arouse zeal for the virtues, there is progress in discipline. Everyone, therefore, that was on the dry land died: for those whom the wave of so great a flood had submerged could not but die. This according to the letter and order of the words.

But if you seek the allegory, there is no doubt that, by the example of a somewhat dry log which fire burns as soon as it begins to lick it, so the soul, unless it be moistened with the dew of divers virtues, watered as it were with a cup of wisdom, and with the fountain of justice, and the irrigation of chastity, like a root withered of its vital sap, blazes up in the fire of desires, or falls prostrate, dashed by the flood of the flesh. Wherefore the soul ought always to feast upon thoughts of good works, that the mind, inebriated with the juice of prudence, may grow fat; whereby it may not easily yield to the injury of the bodily flood, and, unmanned by the dry drought of neglect, may not die.

And therefore the Lord warns us not to withdraw from the fountain of wisdom, to drink deep the cups of virtue; lest anyone should wither under the sun of iniquity, and be unable to withstand the storm of persecution For it is written: If they do these things in the green wood, what shall be done in the dry?

54. The Destruction of All Things, a Figure of Pride

God, it says, destroyed every thing that was upon the face of the earth. A plain exposition of what is written. But the allegory declares to us pride displayed, which exalts itself in this earthly and fragile substance, and, forgetful of things divine, despising human things, disfigures the very bearing and gait of the arrogant man: such as Isaiah describes the daughters of Judah, with wanton glances of the eyes, and tossing themselves with lofty neck. For there are such as these who raise their eyebrows, with swollen heart, lifted breast, neck thrown back: who indeed but lightly touch the ground with the tips of their feet, but poise themselves with their whole body, and hang suspended in an empty balance: advancing in their step toward what lies before, while bending back their heads toward what lies behind: they gaze upon heaven, but disdain the earth, as though fixed by a pain in the neck, so that they cannot bend it.

These, therefore, God has blotted out of the book of life, saying: Everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled: nor does He suffer them, amid the merits of the saints, to cling by their contrivances to heavenly things.

55. Noah Alone Remains in the Ark

All, then, who were outside the ark being destroyed, Noe alone was left in the ark, with those who were with him. The simpler word needs no interpretation. The understanding agrees with the letter. But a deeper and more inward signification shows that the just man, the lover of wisdom, like a fruitful tree, with those things destroyed which used to gnaw at its produce, to overshadow its foliage, to hem in the growth of its branches, remained alone with his own, as one exempt from the irrational passions. And his own are the pure deliberations of the mind, which cleave to virtue.

And rightly it added that he remained in the ark, as though it would scarcely be believable, once the bodily passions had been cut off, that he should still be found dwelling in the body: wherein, although he was now free from earthly contagions, he still kept the substance of the body, incorrupt though it was: and, as it were incorporeal within the body, he was borne above the flood, not swallowed up; bearing indeed a body, as one placed within an inward ark, but one who, unconquerable by the passions, governed the body itself as though incorporeal, in the midst of so many commotions.

56. The Lord Remembers Noah and His Household

The Lord remembered Noe, and the beasts, and the cattle. Many are moved as to why the Writer did not say that the Lord remembered also the wife and sons of Noe, when He remembered the beasts and the cattle. But since it said that the Lord remembered Noe, in the author and head of the household He included the rest of his household as well. At the same time there seems to be expressed a certain agreement of the remaining household. For when all are dear to one another mutually, there is one house: but when they are at variance, they are separated and split into several houses. Where, therefore, there is love, there under the name of the elder, on whom the rest depend, the whole house is signified: as if one should name a tree, he certainly includes also the branches: if one should name a branch, he likewise, by one and the same word, embraces also the fruits that are on it.

57. The Order of Remembrance and the Just Man's Restraint

Nor is that idle which he said first, that the Lord was mindful of Noah, then of the beasts, afterward of the cattle, that is, why he did not name after man those animals which are gentler, but the fiercer ones. In this there seems to be this reason, that those which were fiercer might grow tame through the nearness of both sides. This seems also to be declared in that poetic verse: he drove the bad ones into the middle (Homer, Iliad IV). Hence too the poet borrowed the notion, so as to arrange the disposition of an army about to fight in this way: that he might place the weaker in the middle, so that they might be helped the more from both sides by the stronger, and might take up the fight of both parties. In these writings the order is made manifest.

But in a deeper sense it is certain that the just man has the thoughts of his heart in the middle, not on one side: and as long as he grasps this life, he must needs have in his body, as it were in that ark, heavy beasts. For there is no mind, no soul, which does not also admit the wild motions of evil thoughts. And so the soul of the foolish man sharpens beastly motions, and kindles the poisons of serpents; but the vigor of the wise man tempers and restrains them.

58. The Divine Spirit That Stilled the Flood

And the Lord brought a spirit upon the earth, and the water ceased. I do not think this is said in such a way that we should take the word "spirit" to mean wind. For wind could not dry up the flood. Otherwise, since the sea is stirred by winds every day, it would surely be emptied out. For how would the sea not be emptied by the force of winds, when the flood, spread over the whole world, had yielded to it, even, as they say, up to the pillars of Hercules, and the great sea, boiling up, had covered even the summits of the lofty mountains? It is not doubtful, then, that that flood was checked by the invisible power of the divine Spirit, by a heavenly working, not by a blast. Whence it is written: All things wait upon thee, that thou mayest give them food in due season; when thou openest thy hand, all things shall be filled with goodness.

Thou wilt take away their spirit, and they shall fail, and shall be turned again into their dust. Thou shalt send forth thy Spirit, and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. There is, therefore, a Spirit to whose working all things seem to yield, in whom is the power of heaven itself, as it is written: By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power; which Spirit is the creator of all things, as Job also says: The divine Spirit who made me.

59. The Flood's Sources Closed as a Figure of Healing

Now let us consider what it means that the divine Scripture says: The fountains of the waters were closed, and the cataracts of heaven. Nor do I think it obscure. For by those same causes the flood is diminished by which it grew. The fountains of the waters had burst forth, the cataracts of heaven had been opened, so that the earth might be flooded by waters flowing in from every side. Those things had to be closed from which the origin of the flood had flowed, so that its failing might begin. This is what the letter conveys. But a more subtle interpretation expresses this, that the flood had flowed in through the vice of the soul's mind and bodily luxury, so that malice was mingled with passion, and passion with malice; and as the physician, the Word of God, entered in to visit the soul which had labored under a long-standing sickness of the wickedness of disputes and the bitterness of passions, the causes of the sickness first had to be cut away.

For the beginning of medicine is to cut off the causes of the malady, lest the things that harm continue to be supplied for a longer time to the increase of the sickness. This the law also teaches us; for when the leprosy has stood still, so that it no longer spreads, then it says the standing and, as it were, dwelling-place of the leprosy is clean. For whatever moves contrary to nature is unclean. This, then, is the health of the soul, this the soundness of the mind, that the flowing abundance of error may cease, that fault may be halted, lest it creep further. When the incitement of fault and of sin ceases, salvation is secure, and the unhindered vigor of the soul pours itself back.

60. The Ark Rests and the Months Are Reckoned

And the ark rested, it says, in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh of the month. Unless you attend carefully, even according to the letter the understanding of this passage is difficult. And first of all one must beware lest the frequent repetition of "seventh month" confuse anyone.

For it is written thus: that in the six hundredth year, according to the Hebrew truth, but in the first month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the flood began; that for a hundred fifty days there was an inflow of waters; that the ark rested on the mountain in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh of the month; afterward that the waters began to diminish by the mercy of God, that the diminishing of the waters was accomplished in a hundred fifty days; then that the tops of the mountains appeared; then, after forty days, that holy Noah opened the door of the ark; that the raven sent out did not return; that the dove sent out returned empty; that again, after seven days, sent out, it returned with an olive branch; that a third time, after seven days, sent out, it did not return; then Noah perceived that all the water had withdrawn.

And so the year is shown to be completed in the six hundred and first year of Noah, in the second year, on the twenty-seventh of the month. As to what pertains to the plain explanation, then, in the same month and on the same day the equality of the earth is restored after the flood, in which it was corrupted at the beginning of the inflow of the flood. For in the season of spring every field grows green, and the earth brings forth fruits. Then the trees begin to bud, the fruits to sprout. The Lord, therefore, restored the rich earth and gave back its former quality. In the second month, then, that is, April (for the first month is March, in which the just man has his birth, when the equality of nights and days is reckoned, that is, on the eighth, as the Romans reckon, or as others say, the fifth before the Kalends of April); in the second month, I say, that is, April, on the twenty-seventh of the month, the flood began.

Spring, then, is reckoned the beginning of the year, not according to the customary usage of time, but according to the prerogative of nature; so that, because then the hope of the year begins, and the fruit begins to show itself, then the beginning of the year is seen to be. But the seventh month, according to number, is reckoned to be that which is called September; because, although the year seems to begin from the month of September, as the present use of the Indictions shows (for then the sowing of seeds takes place), yet truly, from the point at which the fuller grace begins to show itself, from that point the origin of the year is reckoned; and therefore that which by one reckoning is thought first, is by a different estimation held as seventh. Then, therefore, the ark rested, that is, in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh of the month, upon the mountain, in a square position. From that time the flood began to diminish.

Consider at the same time that by the same numbers by which some things begin, they are also resolved; so that the flood began in the second month of the year, on the twenty-seventh of the month; for a hundred fifty days the flood flowed in, for another hundred fifty days the flood withdrew; for forty days the excessive force, from the heavenly rain and the bursting forth of the fountains, boiled up; after another forty days had passed, once the tops of the mountains had been seen, in the eleventh month, on the first day of the month, holy Noah sent out the raven: thus it is established that by the same number by which it accumulated, the flood was diminished. Whence Scripture teaches us that order is to be observed.

61. The Ark's Door and the Senses of the Body

But that the door of the ark which the just man opened, according to the bodily account, has been said above. But according to a deeper interpretation this seems to be said, that the senses of the body are held to be like doors. For through these, as through doors, there enters into our mind, as it were, a certain comprehension of sensible things. Our mind, therefore, seems to look out through these senses, and especially through sight, which is reckoned more excellent than all the senses of the body; because it is akin to light, and through it, gazing upon the heaven, the earth, the seas, the sun too, the moon, and the stars with which the pole is adorned, we understand that God is the maker and ruler of the world, and we believe that these things could not have come to be, nor could they consist, without God as their author and the founder of such great works.

62. The Raven Sent Out as a Figure of Fault

Through this window, then, the just man first sent out the raven. The cause must be sought, yet not at length, as far as pertains to the letter; because many reckon the raven as a kind of announcer of things to come, and observe its cries, and scan its flights. But the deeper meaning signifies that the mind of the just man, when it begins to cleanse itself, first drives away from itself the things that are dark and rash. For indeed all impudence and fault is dark, and feeds on the dead, like the raven; but the virtue that is neighbor to light shines with purity and simplicity of mind. And so fault is, as it were, sent forth and put to flight, and separated from innocence, so that nothing dark may remain in the mind of the just man. Finally, the raven, once gone out, does not return to the just man; because every fault flees from equity, nor does it seem to suit uprightness and justice.

Finally the unjust man believes himself to have escaped, as it were, from chains, when the just man has separated himself from his company, from a certain flood and familiar corruption, just as the raven, which, finding nowhere the dryness of the earth, did not return, but remained.

63. The Meaning of Until in the Raven's Return

It must also be considered why it did not say that the raven returned, until the water dried up from the earth, as though it had indeed returned afterward. But this manner of speaking is familiar to the divine Scripture. For indeed you also have it written in the Gospel of holy Mary, that Joseph knew her not until she had brought forth a son, although certainly he did not know her afterward either. Then what is this manner of speaking, that it should say, until the water dried up from the earth, and not the earth from the water? And indeed the usual manner of speaking is accustomed to have this too; yet some before us have judged that, because a certain immoderate force of the passions seems to be expressed by this manner of speech, since the soul is consumed by turbid and stormy passions, but when they fail and, as it were, dry up, it resumes its strength.

The appearance of fault, then, does not return into the soul of the just man, leaving it as it were dry and dead, and one to which it can no longer do harm.

64. The Dove Sent Out as a Figure of Virtue

Nor is that empty of meaning, that the dove is afterward sent out. For simplicity dissolves malice, and virtue dissolves fault. Malice, therefore, loves the flood, and flees the fellowship of the just mind, and remains, as it were, desolate and without any resting-place, having no communion with virtue. But virtue returns, loving the fellowship of the just, and more inclined to bestow useful things, that it may confer what is salutary, and warn of what is to be shunned as harmful: just as the dove, sent out, when it saw that the water had ceased, returned as though full of righteousness, to announce to him by whom it had been sent what he ought still to beware of, and that by waiting he might afterward obtain a better fruit. But that the dove, not finding her rest, returns to him, gave manifest indication, through birds of this kind, how great is the difference expressed between malice and virtue.

For the raven, sent out before, when the flood still seemed to overflow somewhat more, appeared to have found a place to settle. And certainly the raven is not of the kind of other birds which are accustomed to have their dwelling in the waters. Since, then, the raven appears to have found somewhere to remain, but the dove did not, it is a clear reason that by a deeper interpretation it is signified that malice is accustomed to mingle itself with restless passions and desires by which the soul is corrupted, and it delights, as it were, in kindred and domestic things, and there establishes its dwelling; but virtue, offended at the very first appearance of the sight, hastened to return to the mind and soul of the just man, because there its safest lodging is placed; since elsewhere, as the dove, such virtue cannot find a safest resting-place. For slowly, amid the cunning of this world and the waves of worldly desires, does simplicity find a harbor.

65. Noah Receives the Dove into the Ark

And so, just as righteousness, having gone forth for a little while, as it were, for the sake of seeing, hastens to return to the best mind, nor departs far from the just man; so too the just man and the one zealous for virtue, when he perceives virtue drawing near, opens wide the bosom of his mind. For what does it mean that the man, Noah, zealous for virtue, stretching out his hand received it, and brought it in to himself? Although according to the letter this seems plain, yet you would not easily gather it, unless the custom of a wise man is known to you, who makes use, as it were, of a scouting virtue, and seems to commit to it a certain prerogative of exploring and conducting affairs. That virtue, therefore, weighs natures, so that if any of them seems to offer it advancement, it may join it to itself.

For there is a certain common goodness of wisdom, both generous and of ample usefulness; so that it associates to itself those which it discerns to be compliant; but when it sees the nature of some to resist its purpose, it flies back and hastens, as it were, to a lodging familiar to itself, which the wise and diligent man hastens to receive as though with a certain hand of the mind, opening his whole heart, by which he held it even while absent. For the wise man can never be without his own virtue.

66. The Dove Kept Seven Days and Sent Again

What besides does it mean that he kept the dove seven more days, and again sent her forth, unless that you may perceive that the good purpose of a wise man, indeed his best resolve, always strives to join others also to himself, to amend those who err, to correct those who wander? If at the outset he should see someone recoil, still he does not despair of the progress of that man’s amendment and correction. For just as a good physician, even if the time for medicine is not yet come, nevertheless sends ahead the mirror of visitation; then he does not neglect the watches of just expectation, and yielding a little to the sufferings, awaits the opportunity for healing, which when it has been offered, he does not omit his office: so too the wise man, with words and disputations, as the physician with medicines, desires to cure the contrary sufferings.

And because in all things the remedy of divine favor is to be employed, therefore he waited seven days, in which the whole world is described as having been completed, and rest was afforded to the Worker; that from that Author of all things the discipline of human working might be derived.

67. The Olive Leaf as a Sign of Repentance

The dove then returned at evening, having an olive leaf and a branch in its mouth. Not without purpose did he set down both "at evening" and "returned," and "having an olive leaf," and "a small branch in its mouth," so that you might not think that virtue flees from future progress, if it can win any over; nor again should you suppose that she had been without light, and hidden by certain darknesses, but rather that, shining with the brightness of day, she waited until the setting of the day, and so returned to him with whom even at evening she could not be in darkness. The leaf also which she brought with her, though it may seem a small leaf that she carried, signified some hope, even if not great, of those who might repent of their error. For a leaf could not exist without a shoot.

Therefore, as a sign of budding correction, though not a great one, still she bore as an emblem the olive leaf, from which tree the olive is produced, from which oil is made, by which this material light is nourished, and the darkness of shadows is put to flight. What indeed is more akin to virtue than light? The leaf therefore and the little branch are an emblem of correction; but correction has as its root, so to speak, repentance, which repentance cannot spring up amid the turbulent, but in those who have already received the spiritual word. Nor in vain does the little branch of olive seem to have been carried in the mouth, because virtue and wisdom have their brightness in speech, and by its very appearance its light at once shines forth, especially when it speaks things of peace; since those seeking peace are accustomed to carry this branch before them.

She bore the branch, because simplicity, with purity and sincerity, pours certain seeds of usefulness into our ears: and the teaching of good virtue either provokes to zeal, and invites to the reward of a good conscience aware of its own discipline, or instills in the sinner the desire of performing penance and following a converted life [lacuna]

68. How Noah Knew the Waters Had Receded

Whence besides it seems worth considering how holy Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth, as it is written. First of all, according to the letter, because he was able to discern whether the leaf brought was dry or moist. Then, because a dove is not of such a nature as to be able to pluck out fruits hidden beneath the water. But whether that leaf had sprung up before the flood, or during the time of the flood, is to be considered by you. If before the flood, the just man rejoiced that some fruit of the old seed had been preserved, and from this he gathered a token of divine mercy, that the flood had already withdrawn from those places which could show forth fruit, places which the floods could not have harmed.

If the leaf was born during the time of the flood, the just man surely perceived that new seeds of heavenly mercy had brought forth fruit, so that the roots of the trees might live, and, as it were, with their life resumed, might bring forth again their old growths, and return to their accustomed bearing, of which the leaves sent ahead gave the token.

69. The Preserved Seed and the Warning of Isaiah

But this he gathered rather by a deeper interpretation, because the Lord our God, although offended by the bitter errors of our iniquity, nevertheless reserved for us some seed, however small, of the ancient lineage and paternal virtue, lest He should utterly cut off from mankind every trace of His work and creation. Whence Isaiah also says: Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we should have become like Sodom, and we should have been made like unto Gomorrah, expressing under the name of one city the token of blindness, under the other, of barrenness. For thus in their native tongue the Chaldeans called Sodom and Gomorrah, signifying blindness and barrenness. And rightly did the Lord, under the appearance of such cities, judge that He was rather cutting off human vices than that men were to be punished.

70. Virtue Given to Many and the Jews Who Refuse

A third time the dove is sent forth after seven days, and she does not return the same. Whence let us consider, lest what we said above be found contrary to this. If indeed in word the dove, but in deed virtue, does not return to the just man; is the just man then abandoned, and defrauded of his gift? By no means. For never is such a man disjoined from virtue, nor when he sends forth justice from his mouth, and brings in the discourse of another’s virtue, does he strip himself of virtue, and despoil himself of the equity to be imitated by others: but after the manner of the sun he illumines others, when he sends forth the rays of his own light. Fire indeed warms those who draw near, so that it itself possesses the warmth of its own nature. Does the light of day fail, when it illumines the whole world with its brightness? It has its own unimpeded course, and its unspoiled nature.

So also this virtue, under the figure of the dove, while the flood still raged, according to the bird indeed on the earth, but according to virtue in the passions of men, returns to the just man; because in the hearts of the wicked virtue could find no place to cling to. And therefore, returning to that second shelter of its own, it clings there and rests. But when the floods of the passions have subsided, and many have striven to become partakers of the word heard and the teaching acquired, then it is confirmed as no longer the patrimony of one, but a common good. The discipline of virtue begins to belong to many, and, as it were, the cup of wisdom is drunk by many who before, though thirsting, refused to drink, just as now the floods rage in the hearts of the Jews; and though the water of heavenly teaching overflows, though the draught abounds, they do not think it should be drunk.

The Gospel is read, virtue goes forth from the heavenly word, the priest expounds it in the Church. But lest perhaps, being confined within the ark alone, it should not be able to be heard, at times, having gone forth, it admonishes the Church also, where the Jew may be encountered, and brings forward the example of the heavenly Scriptures. They close their ears, lest the fountain wash them even unwilling, and the moisture of the Lord's word sprinkle them. But if any believe, they run to the fountain, they seek the teaching, they long to have the Gospel instilled into them, nor are they satisfied by continual drinking. Thus they desire eagerly to be filled with the fountain of wisdom, which before they were eager to flee. What fountain? Hear him saying: If any man thirst, let him come to me, and drink. He that believeth in me, as the Scripture saith, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

71. Noah First of the Old World and the New

In the six hundred and first year of the life of Noah, on the first day of the month, he says the water was diminished from the face of the earth; but in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, he records that the earth was dried. What does that addition concerning the diminishing of the water mean, when the reckoning above seems to have concluded a year, a year which begins from the second month, and proceeds into the second month of the next year?

Unless perhaps we should wish to take this as declaring the type of the just man; so that this first year was that in which the flood began, namely the first year after the six hundredth; and again the first year and first month after the six hundredth year, when the water was diminished from the face of the earth: because the just man was first in virtue in the generation of sinners which was destroyed on account of its sins, and in the second generation, which began after the flood, he was first both in order, because he was first of the second generation, and by merit had deservedly come forth first. For rightly is honor paid to him who was both first of the first generation and the beginning of the latter; who deserved both to escape from that former one, and to be propagated as the seed-bed of this latter one.

For when the others had perished, he alone, by the merit of his excellent life, and rich before God in the prerogative of virtue, did not experience the corruption of wickedness, through whom it came to pass that the whole body of the human race was neither seen utterly destroyed on the earth, nor left cut off from the grace of God.

72. The Spiritual Meaning of the Ark's Roof

And Noah, it says, uncovered the roof of the ark. Since we have interpreted the ark, as above, as standing for the form of the body, let us understand what it is for the body to be uncovered, according to the deeper sense, that is. As for the rest, it is clear how the ark could be opened according to the letter. What then is the roof of the human body, which was closed during the flood, unless perhaps we should take it as pleasure, which covered this body of ours, and, as it were, roofed it over through that error of Adam? And it is thought especially similar to a roof for this reason; because all sense is in the head, whence comes the pleasure which held the whole body subject to it.

But when the mind of the just man, sober and whole from the corruption of the flood, kindled with desire for divine knowledge, wished to leap forth and fly up into the higher things, it uncovered all things that were an obstacle, and the appearance of pleasure, which as by a certain covering concealed the rest of the parts of the body, it uncovered again and unveiled; so that he might not only free the body from the servitude of its ignoble mistress, but also lay hold of those things which are incorporeal; for the things which are not seen are eternal. And therefore the just man sought the Lord whom he did not see, exempt from corruption, desirous of eternity.

73. The First Month as a Sign of Grace

But as to his saying "the first month" or "the second," and that it was a day of springtime, you have this also said elsewhere: This month shall be to you the first among the days of the year. For he who was first in grace after the danger, rightly received the prerogative of the first month.

74. The Swift Restoration of the Earth's Growth

Nor let it trouble you that we said above that the leaf found upon the branch could have been produced after the flood: even though grasses are commonly wont to sprout under water; nevertheless, that every scruple may be removed, what great matter would it be if, at God's command, on the very day the water was diminished, the earth immediately put forth its growth, since the same God is the restorer and founder of fruits, and has not forgotten the use of His own work? Indeed you have it also in Genesis, that as soon as He commanded that the earth should bring forth the herb of the field, and the fruit-bearing tree with its fruit, immediately the earth brought forth the herb of the field, having seed according to its kind, and the fruit-bearing tree; and this was the one day on which God commanded or made these things.

Therefore God, not forgetful of His own kindness, though forgetful of our iniquity, restored His work in the same span of time in which He had begun it.

75. Noah Awaits the Command to Leave the Ark

And the Lord God said to Noah: Go forth from the ark, thou, and thy wife, and thy sons. And so, the water having withdrawn and the earth having dried, Noah could have gone forth from the ark. But the just man arrogates nothing to himself, but commits himself wholly to the divine command. And especially he who had entered by a heavenly oracle ought to await a heavenly response in order to go forth. For justice is modest; whereas iniquity is immodest, which usurps what is not due, and does not revere its author.

76. The Changed Order of Entering and Leaving the Ark

Now let us inquire for what reason, as long as they were entering the ark, this was the order of those entering, that he himself first entered with his sons; then his wife, and the wives of his sons: but when they went out, the order was changed. For it is written: He went out, and his wife, and his sons, and his sons’ wives. And the letter indeed signifies at the entrance abstinence from generation, at the exit the use of generation. For then the father entered first with his sons, and the sons with their parent, and afterward his wife, and the wives of his sons, that is, the sexes were not mingled at the entrance, but were mingled at the exit. Openly, therefore, as it were by the very order of the entering, the just man utters a certain voice, that that was not a time of intercourse, nor of delights, in which destruction hung over all.

Whence in the Gospel the Lord says, rebuking that in the days of Noah they ate and drank, took wives, and gave their daughters in marriage; and that on account of their intemperance the flood came upon them. That time, therefore, was a time of mourning, not of joy. And hence the just man took no delight in the company of his wife, nor did the sons of the just man seek the union of marriage. For how unseemly would it be, that at the time when the living were dying, those about to perish should then be begotten? But afterward, rightly, the practice and care of marriage returned as a seed-bed for the rest, when the flood had withdrawn. And so it is not men with men, but women with men who go forth; so that the mingling of male with male might appear forbidden in itself, but the union of male and female by the lawful lot of marriage might appear permitted.

77. Strength and Gentleness in the Soul's Reasoning

But the deeper sense has this: where there is danger, certain manly and stronger disputations should cling to the mind, and the mind should guard itself as it were with a certain offspring of sons, in that place where a manly battle-line meets the storms and heavier passions. But when the danger has passed, it is no hindrance if softer thoughts are joined to stronger ones; not that the stronger should be made effeminate by the softer, but that the softer perceptions may be strengthened as it were by certain manly powers, when all our counsels are directed toward virtue, justice, integrity, fortitude, and stronger counsels can be created and grow up by a certain practice and seed-plot of virtues. It is not useful, therefore, when there is some confusion of vices occupying the mind, to sow certain thoughts, and to cause the mind to generate and give birth.

But when desires have been checked, and the mind has come to rest, then, having received a certain seed-plot of disputation, virtues and good works can be brought forth.

78. Noah's Unprompted Altar of Thanksgiving

And Noe built, it says, an altar to God. By what reasoning, when above the Lord admonished him as to what he should do, and Noe did everything, might one perhaps ask about that which he did without being admonished? But indeed the Lord ought not, as though covetous, to demand the reward of grace; and the just man understood that to be true thanksgiving which was not commanded, but which was offered. And so he suffered no delay. For a grateful virtue of soul excludes the passion of hesitation; but he who awaits the debt of grace to be exacted from him is ungrateful. But as to the fact that it says he built to God, and did not say to the Lord, but to God: according to the interpretation of the name, this act of thanksgiving does not appear to have been forced, as it were, toward the Lord; but the virtue of the just man, compliant and grateful, is offered as it were to God.

What pertains to sovereignty he set apart; what pertains to benefit he named.

79. The Offering of Clean Beasts and Fowls

And he took of the beasts, and of the clean fowls, and offered, it says, holocausts. The letter is clear, that we ought to offer those things which are unstained, in which the affection of the offerer may shine forth. But the deeper interpretation has this, that the clean beasts appear to be the senses of the wise man; but the fowls, the understanding, which are far more subtle and light.

80. God's Resolve Not to Curse the Earth Again

Now let us consider more diligently what it is that he says: And the Lord God said: Considering, I will not add to curse the earth because of the works of men; because the heart of man abides diligently upon evils from his youth. He would not therefore any more strike all the earth, as he did, for all the days of the earth. Even though he had taken vengeance upon mankind, yet he had known that the vengeance of the law profits more to fear and to the acknowledgment of doctrine, than to a change of nature, which can be corrected in some, but cannot be changed in all. The Lord therefore took vengeance, that we might fear; he spared, that we might be preserved. And he took vengeance once, for an example of fear; he spared for the rest, lest the bitterness of sin should reign forever; and also because if anyone should wish to avenge sins too often, he is regarded as harsh rather than as a censor.

And so the Lord says: I will not add further to curse the earth, because of the works of men; that is, because he wished to declare his own piety toward mankind in general, and yet he ought not to bring a certain security and negligence to human minds—he takes vengeance on the few, he spares the many. Then when he says: I will not add, he shows that he lightens rather than aggravates the hardships of men, knowing that the sins of men cannot be utterly taken away. As in the proverb: as one who wishes to draw water with a fine net, so is he who tries to take wickedness out of the breasts of men.

81. How Sin Grows With Age

I will not add, he says, to curse the earth because of the sins of men; because the sense of man abides diligently upon evils from his youth. See how earnestly God signifies that we sin, by saying that the sense of man abides diligently upon evils: by which saying he seems to signify that the heart of man diligently inclines to sins, and that there is in our ruling part a slipperiness toward transgression, and, what is worse, that zeal for it is not lacking. For this reason he says, diligently, as though we were anxious lest freedom from guilt should be able to steal upon us. Then he did not say, upon one evil, but upon evils. And he added, from youth; for from that age malice grows, although we read elsewhere that not even an infant of one day is without sin.

But infancy is without sin because of the weakness of the body, whereas diligence and zeal for sinning begins from youth; so that the boy sins as it were weakly, the youth as one wicked, who eagerly desires to commit sins, and glories in crimes. For among most people innocence is held for cowardice, and guilt for praise. Thus young men are wont to boast of luxury and delights and the passions of adulterers. Guilt therefore grows with the ages. He declares therefore that the whole race of men is now not to be destroyed, when he says: I will not add to strike every flesh: but vengeance is kept in part.

82. The Fixed Order of the Seasons

What also is it that he says: Seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, day and night shall not rest. According to the letter it signifies that the things which endure will continue to endure according to the ordinance of the Lord, and that the animals, or all the wooded growths, will remain uncorrupted in their seasons. For when the seasons are corrupted, those things also which are begotten in their own seasons are corrupted. But if there be confusion of the seasons, how can even the things which beget continue to exist once confusion has been made? Therefore it is the seasons that either corrupt or preserve, according as they themselves have their own quality. And so the year is drawn from contraries, spring, autumn, summer, winter, just as the harmony of a song seems to consist of the mingling of low and high notes. So too this world is held together from contraries, air and earth, fire and water. Our bodies too preserve a certain order of nature by cold and heat, moisture and dryness.

For if the natural order and measure is confounded, then destruction must necessarily follow. Therefore the Lord promises that a fixed order of the seasons, confusion of the flood having been removed, will be for the continuance of the world.

83. Seedtime and Harvest as Beginning and End

But the deeper sense has this, that by seed we understand the beginning, by harvest we understand the end. In each is the cause of salvation. The one without the other is imperfect; because where there is a beginning, an end is sought, nor can there be a beginning with the end removed, and the end recurs into the beginning. Therefore he reminds the human race that it will always return to the same point while it is in this world, so that when the year begins, it ends; when it ends, it begins, so that the world is not dissolved in the middle of its time. So also the mind, when something seems to begin, should press on even to the end, and should seek the completion of its work.

When it finishes some work, it should not, as it were, rest with the work consummated: but should recur to other works, and should always exercise the increase of virtue; seeing indeed that the earth is always called back to its fruits, which are diverse, being born either in spring and summer, as in the regions of the East, or in summer and autumn, as in the regions of the West.

84. The Body's Food and the Soul's Food

At one time the seed-beds of the earth bring forth their offspring; at another time we gather the fruits of the trees. Fruits are therefore divided into necessary and pleasurable: necessary from the seeds of the earth; but pleasurable from the fruits of trees. And so our body is fed, as it were by spring, that is, by air, with natural food. Now ἀήρ in the Greek name is called ver (spring) in Latin. Therefore Scripture took its example from the regions of the East, and especially of Egypt, through which the Hebrew passed, or from the regions of Phoenicia. But the soul is nourished by pleasurable things, that is, by the fruits of wisdom: to which again, just as cold and heat are contrary to our body, so fear and anger appear adverse. But because it is in the body, it must needs have both anger and fear, nor can it be without this necessity of bodily nature.

And therefore the mind of the wise man dispenses just moderation, lest it mingle anger and fear, and there arise a certain confusion in his soul and a flood.

85. Day and Night as Virtue and Ignorance

As to what he says of day and night also: by day you understand the illuminating virtue, by night you recognize the darkened lack of wisdom. And so even in fear, as it were in cold, illuminating virtue can be present. Likewise temperance can also repress anger; so that some are not utterly dissolved in fear, but rather direct their fear toward works of virtue. For example, if a persecutor presses on, so that you fear God more, and think that perpetual punishments rather than present ones are to be avoided, which while you fear, you are kindled to glory, being angry at treachery and crime. Again, being inflamed with anger, you moderate the commotion by divine fear.

86. The Blessing of Increase and Dominion

And the Lord blessed Noe and his sons, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and have dominion over it: and the fear and dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth, and upon all the birds of heaven, and upon all that move upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea. This prerogative of power over the other animals appears to have been attributed to men also in the earlier passages. But in that place where it says that God made man, it is said: Male and female he made them, and blessed them, saying: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth, and have dominion over it, and have power over the fishes of the sea, and the fowls, and the beasts of the earth, and the creeping things. I have noted this so that you may understand a twofold generation of man expressed: one according to the image of God, the other according to the fashioning from the clay of the earth.

Indeed that creation of man from the clay of the earth appears to have been made after the world, after God rested from his works. In a certain way the fashioning of the earthly statue is begotten late. There was no rain upon the earth, nor did man work the earth. Then God formed man from the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. But that man was constituted on the sixth day, as it were the perfect number in which all the works of God were concluded, as though established by a perfect operation, according to the image of God—to whom also this man is compared who was found just in the flood. And therefore God set him above all earthly things, just as also that man made to the image of God, has both anger and fear, nor can he be without this necessity of nature in the body. Because each abstained from earthly vices.

That one, who was so begotten that he owed nothing to earthly contagion; this one, who had been approved in dangers, and tested in sufferings, and found not to have been subject to passion amid confusion.

87. The Soul's Dominion Over Its Passions

But the deeper sense has this, that the just man is increased by the greatness and multitude of virtue and of doctrine; and he fills the earth, as it were a certain heart in which is the receptacle of intelligible things. Thus he suffers nothing to be empty of wisdom, which lack of wisdom might invade. Therefore, having tamed not only all earthly passions but also the bodily senses, he subjects to himself also the beasts by a certain fear and dread, in which the species of malice and wildness seems to be present. For all malice is savage and untamed, and is puffed up with a certain airy swelling. Nor is it obscure that certain creeping things have a certain likeness of deadly passions, from which a kind of poison seems to be infused into the mind.

Over all these, then, the just man rules, with none of which he is mingled: but he restrains them, if his mind is not led by delight, not by desire, is not broken by sadness and fear; nor does he pursue the course of this life through luxury and delights as through something slippery and prone to fall, but the wise man drives away from himself passions of this kind by continence and temperance.

88. Clean and Unclean Creeping Things as Passions

But because he immediately added: All creeping things which are alive shall be to you for food; lest perhaps you be troubled because we spoke above of poisonous creeping things, know that some creeping things are poisonous, others tame. Of the tame creeping things, then, understand these—which, even if they do not all creep on belly and breast as serpents do, yet have feet so small that they seem rather to creep than to walk. Understand, then, that the poisonous creeping things are like the unclean passions in the body, but the tame ones are like the becoming ones. For every affection which is apart from the allurement of shameful delight is indeed a passion, but a good passion. Softer desire, and anger, and fear—these are harmful passions of the soul; but harmless affections are good passions. And by these a certain use and cause of living is ministered to us: by the food of these we live for the grace of life, by the feasts of these we are delighted.

89. The Permission to Eat Herbs and Flesh

What also does it mean that he said: As the green herbs, I have given you all things for food? In this matter even those who understand it simply, so as not to weigh the scrutiny of the wording, do not seem to us to be contrary to us. For there are those who think that herbs seem to have been assigned to us for food by the will of God, so that we ought to use them rather than fleshly banquets: but I would gladly acquiesce in this, so that the use of herbs might grow habitual to the human race more toward frugality and temperance, were it not that I see it could be objected to me by those who do not readily accept it, that not all herbs are found suitable for human food. Then, because not every kind of human being is led by love of wisdom and continence, so as to be able to follow continence.

And therefore what is a general precept we cannot restrict to a small portion of a few men, for this precept is given to all men.

90. Restraint in the Eating of Flesh

And therefore let us consider what he said: As the green herbs, he says, I have given you all things for food—he did not give all herbs to you for food. Let those, then, who use flesh, use it as they would herbs, not for distension, nor for the fattening of the body, which the banquets of flesh are wont to produce. But just as not all herbs are suitable for use as food, so also not every living creeping thing is fit for the use of eating. Since indeed we ought to abstain from all venomous things, although luxury has advanced even to this point, that it looks more to delight than to danger, and in many cases, after cutting away what is called the venomous part naturally present, claims the remaining part for food; which, even if not full of danger, is nevertheless near to danger, and some corruption must necessarily have infused itself into the whole juice of the flesh.

Many also pierce stags and swift animals of this kind with poisoned arrows, and afterward, having cut away a certain part of the limbs, use the remaining body for food.

91. Passions Subject to the Wise Mind

But as pertains to a higher sense, this is what is meant rather, that irrational passions ought to be subject to the mind of the wise man, as herbs are subject to the rustic; and that we should use them, as it were, like creeping thoughts, as the farmer uses herbs, which, although they cannot harm, yet do not have the grace of a stronger food. For the general and common precept given to all does not enjoin the higher kinds of virtues, which belong indeed to few. But even if someone cannot furnish for himself the stronger banquets of virtues, let him nevertheless have such passions as do not harm, but delight.

92. Philosophers' Views on the Nature of the Soul

Therefore in the beginning holy Moses informed and instructed us concerning the breathing in of the soul, so that we might not slip into the various opinions of the philosophers, who cannot even agree among themselves. For many have held various views, as Critias and his disciples, saying that the soul is blood—that soul, namely, by which we live, which is the sensible soul, not that soul which is rational and intelligible, the appraiser of the inner man. But Hippocrates, although he did not disapprove of the talent of Critias, nor refute his argument, nevertheless did not acquiesce in his opinion. Aristotle called it ἐντελέχεια (entelecheia). Others wished it to be fire. Let us, then, hold to a division of this kind: that we separate what is rational in the soul, whose substance is the divine spirit, as Scripture says: For he breathed into his face the spirit of life. But that there is in it also a certain vital nourishment by which this body is animated, and also something delightful.

The substance of these vital and delightful parts of the soul, then, is called by some “blood”; although Scripture also has said: The soul of all flesh is the blood Properly, then, it called the soul of the flesh blood. For in the flesh is delight and passion, not mind and reasoning. Yet if you attend carefully, this passage explains that one. For when in this passage it called blood the soul, it certainly signified that the soul is one thing and blood another, so that the substance of the soul is the vital spirit; but that this vital spirit does not by itself alone, and without blood, bring about the use of living, but is commingled with blood; because there are what are called arteries, as receptacles of spirit, which embrace not only pure air, but also blood—though a far smaller portion of blood. For since there are twin vessels, one is the vein, which in Greek is called φλέψ, the other the artery.

The vein has more blood than spirit, that is, φλέψ; the artery has less blood, and much more spirit. Now the proportion varies according to the diversity of nature of individual men.

93. Blood and Virtue as Kindred Fire

But a higher sense ought to delight you, which signifies that blood is called soul for this reason, that blood is warm and fiery, just as virtue is. Whoever, therefore, has been kindled by zeal for virtue, and has taken on the vapor of praise, excludes all the delights of the belly. Those thoughts, then, which are carnal and earthly, being set, he says, in the ardor of virtue, you will reject, as unfit for spiritual food. For he was not eating flesh, that is, thinking of something earthly, who said: My food is that I may do the will of my Father who is in heaven, breathing into men zeal for virtue, and instilling desire for divine thought. Therefore earthly and feeble thoughts are held as it were emasculated and without the use of blood. And that man is called emasculated who has lost the greater part of his blood, for indeed one grows cold from the shedding of blood.

Whoever, therefore, is zealous for virtues, dismisses and rejects bodily foods, except so far as he knows is sufficient for nature. But whoever, being more negligent, has followed the slippery and watery course of this life, falls as it were, having lost his footing, into the womb and belly. And so he desires those things which are earthly, being a stranger to heavenly food, and unable to say: Our citizenship is in heaven. And therefore, to call men to hidden things, the same one says: Touch not, taste not, handle not, things which all lead to corruption in the very using, according to the precepts and doctrines of men, which have indeed a reasonable appearance of wisdom, in observance of religion and humility of heart, not in indulgence of the body, not in any honor for satiety and the diligent care of the flesh.

94. The Reckoning of Blood From Man and Beast

Finally, the following passages approve this sense; for thus he says: For indeed your blood, and the blood of your souls, I will require from all beasts, and from the hand of man. He has compared it to bestial malice, indeed even piled up the iniquity of man beyond the ferocity of beasts, by saying: From the hand of man, of his brother. For beasts have nothing in common with us by nature, they are bound by no fraternal law, as it were. If they harm men, they harm them as strangers. They do not violate the laws of nature, they do not forget the affection of kinship. Therefore man sins more gravely who lies in wait for his brother; and the Lord promised that he would avenge this more severely, saying: I will require the blood of man from the hand of his brother. Is not he a brother whom a certain womb of rational nature has brought forth, and whom the begetting of the same mother has joined to us?

For the same nature is the mother of all men; and therefore we are all brothers, begotten of one and the same mother, and bound by the same law of kinship.

95. Danger and Strife Among Brothers

And therefore the Lord also called him brother, and him a brother from whom the blood of a brother is required, signifying that danger is rather to be feared from those who are joined to us by fraternal right. For from this source, indeed, come plots, from this source more frequent dangers befall men; and, to grasp the particulars, that among brothers especially hatreds frequently spring up over the division of an inheritance. Then, if more is bestowed by the parents upon one brother, the other brothers grow more indignant, and try by parricide to take away the favor bestowed by the parents. These wars are the more to be suspected, wars not only of citizens, but of individual households. Those, then, the Lord includes in the judgment of vengeance whom he knows to be more likely to lie in wait against one another.

96. The Aggravated Guilt of Fratricide

Third, in this he called him brother, not because a parricide is worthy of the name of family devotion, but so that he might be weighed down all the more by that name of devotion, and from it there might arise an increase of the crime, so that the vengeance against the criminal might be more just. Therefore the Lord our God promises vengeance: so that even in this way he who has forgotten family devotion may be broken by fear; and may know that even if the murderer escapes men, he cannot, however, escape the judgment of God, but is reserved for a greater and eternal punishment.

97. Sins of Word as Well as Deed

In a higher sense, however, we understand this: that we must be on guard not only against the plots of strangers, but also against our own, that is, domestic, thoughts. Then we must take care not only concerning the malice of the mind, but also concerning our very words. And therefore he says: In much speaking you shall not escape sin. Therefore this seems to signify that an account must be rendered to the Lord not only of our deed, but also of speech, which is more domestic. And therefore it must be considered more carefully, lest we incur offense either by word or by deed; because just as confession by mouth leads to salvation, so by mouth also comes the fall unto death.

98. The Meaning of Blood for Blood

Whoever, he says, shall shed the blood of man, for his blood shall his own be shed. The wording did not go astray, but there is an emphasis, that is, an exaggeration made in the words, in that he who has shed the blood of man shall himself, as it were, be shed as blood, which takes from him the hope of posterity; because just as blood shed on the ground is scattered here and there, so the soul of the impious is dissolved after the manner of bodily frailty; because it has also been said of the soul that its death is corruption, in that it is defrauded of the gift of heavenly grace, and, as it were, dashed upon the rocks of malice, diminishes the soundness of its body.

99. Man's Creation in God's Image and Divine Vengeance

It also troubles many that he said: He made man in the image of God, and did not say, In my image, though he himself is God. But understand that both the Father is meant, and the Son. And although all things were made through the Son, nevertheless we read that the Father made all things, and made them through the Son, as it is written: You have made all things in wisdom. Whether, then, the Father speaks, he made in the image of the Word; or whether the Son speaks, he made in the image of God the Father. And therefore he shows that the nature of man, that is, of rational man, is in a certain familiar and domestic manner God's own, according to which we have been created in the image of God; and for this reason it is not unavenged before God when he sees that among his own household an animal has been treated cruelly and impiously.

The reason for vengeance is added, so that first we may exclude the opinions of certain philosophers, who deny that God has any care over men: then, knowing that the prerogative of our vengeance remains with God, we may neither commit against others what ought to be avenged by divine judgment, nor ourselves fear death too vehemently, since we know that no contempt is shown before God for the killing of an innocent man.

There shall not be, he says, a flood, to corrupt all the earth. It seems doubtful: whether "there shall not be a flood" is to be understood as meaning that the flood will corrupt the earth (for this is what floods are wont to do); or whether there will not be such a flood as would corrupt all the earth, which the following words make clear, when it says that all the earth is not to be corrupted? For it shows that floods indeed will occur, but not such as could corrupt all the earth.

But a higher sense holds this: that henceforth there will be a providence of the Lord, lest there be so great a flood of bodily passions that the whole soul perishes. And indeed I do not dare to say that the Lord seems to be establishing that the soul of no one can perish utterly. For what do we say of the parricide? What also of the murderer? What of the adulterer? What of the transgressor? What parts of the soul do we reserve for him for pardon? Whence I rather think that the Lord God is urging this: that even if someone has other, lighter passions, he should not utterly despair of divine grace, nor in every way distrust that he will live. But even if he is given to luxury, and cannot avoid the pursuit of luxury, let him nevertheless strive to abstain from adultery; let there be delight in feasting, not in debauchery.

Even if there is some avaricious man who has plundered the goods of others, cast out orphans, driven out widows, yet let him afterward, having returned to penitence, restore what he took away. Finally, Zacchaeus deserved pardon for this reason, that he promised not only to restore, but fourfold, to those from whom he had taken anything, and also to give half of his patrimony to the poor.

Let us also consider more carefully what it means when he says: I will set my bow in the cloud, and it shall be a sign of the everlasting covenant between me and the earth: and it shall come to pass, when I bring clouds over the earth, that my bow shall appear in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant For he does not mean, as many suppose, that bow which men say exists, by which certain signs of rains are declared, in which diverse colors are figured as of the sun's rays, now glowing red, now shining with clearer light: whence future rain is also signified, in that a certain inconstancy of clearness is shown by its variegated appearance. This bow some call the iris: but far be it from us to say that this is the bow of God. For that bow which is called the iris is usually seen by day, and does not appear by night.

Even by day itself, if the air has become covered with dark clouds, it is not seen even then, unless perhaps when the heavier clouds begin to relax.

Let us therefore see whether Scripture, because the bow by which arrows are shot is now bent, now released, seems to signify a certain extension and relaxation, by which not all things are utterly broken through excessive extension; but there is a certain measure, and a certain testing of divine power. There is, then, an invisible power of God which, under the likeness of this bow being extended and relaxed, is regulated according to divine will, mercy, and power, which suffers neither all things to be confounded by excessive slackening, nor to be burst asunder by excessive strain. This he says is set in the clouds, because then especially is there need of the help of divine providence, when the masses of clouds are gathered together into storms and tempests. And therefore he says: I will set my bow in the cloud, not I will set an arrow. For the bow is the instrument for shooting the arrow. Thus it is not the bow itself that wounds, but the arrow.

And therefore the Lord sets a bow rather than an arrow in the cloud, that is, not that which wounds; but that which has an indication of terror, yet is not accustomed to have the effect of a wound.

But for what reason, when above he had numbered the three sons of Noah, Shem, Ham, Japheth, does he in this place include the generation of the one middle son? This is what he says: Now Ham was the father of Canaan: these three were the sons of Noah. And this especially since those two were just, while this middle one was unjust. Therefore the generation of the unjust is included before that of the just. For we cannot deny what is written: but to heap up his offense, his generation is added; because, though he had a son and was a father, he alone did not recognize his father, who ought rather to have recognized him. And therefore he deserved to have a wicked son, because he had been wicked toward his father. At the same time it signifies that from that Canaan came the Canaanites, who after many generations, oppressed by the just people, gave up their possession to them.

It is manifest, therefore, that Canaan was the author of the Canaanites, who was the son of this Ham who proved impious toward his father. But a deeper sense is signified by the interpretation of the names. For Ham means heat, Canaan means their disturbance. For he who is heated is at once moved and disturbed; and therefore it is most clearly declared that he was not so much the human father of men, but an evil passion, begetting a wicked passion, which was estranged from the father's character, that is, from the practice of virtue.

And Noah began to be a husbandman of the earth. At first sight the just man Noah seems to be compared to that Adam who was made of earth; because of him too it is written that, cast out of paradise, he began to work the earth: and of this man too, that having come out of the ark he became a husbandman. And in each of them a kind of pattern of the flood had, as it were, gone before, since after the flood came Noah, and Adam followed the fashioning of the body after the establishment of the world. For in order that the world might come into being, the water was gathered together into one gathering, that the earth might appear which before could not be seen because of the confusion of the waters. Therefore, just as that first-formed man appears to have worked the earth, so also Noah, having come out of the ark, became the author of sowing and cultivation.

These things are thought similar: but if you consider the words, which already express the force of a deeper sense, it is one thing to be a worker of the earth, another to be a husbandman. For the one performs the office as it were of a hireling, the other as it were of a father of a household. Indeed Cain, who slew his brother, was a worker of the earth. And that you may know that to work the earth is more servile than free, his working is included under the curse of his fratricide. Accordingly it is written: For you shall work the earth, and it shall not add its strength to give to you: groaning and trembling shall you be upon the earth. Now the earth is our flesh, which the wicked man works, but the good man cultivates.

The former seeks, as it were, wages from the earth; the latter, as it were, receives the fruit of goodness and the grace of discipline; so that he may make his field more fruitful, and may be able to answer to the Lord for his cultivation, and show the indulgence of the cultivator. But the mere worker seeks nothing else than the food of his own body, attending rather to the use of the belly, and content to accomplish only that which can profit himself for sustenance. The other, truly different, is nourished by the usefulness of the fruits. You know what fruits the just man has. Now the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, goodness. The good husbandman, therefore, has continence, chastity, so that if any trees quickly bend down toward the earth and sprout too abundantly, he may cut them back as it were with the sickle of his own temperance, so that they may cast off what is weak, and put forth what is comely.

109. Why is it that the just man first plants a vineyard, and not either wheat or barley? And whence comes a vineyard after the flood and the corruption of the earth? But we have spoken of this above (Chap. 19 and 20); because in the springtime the roots even of corrupted vines could sprout. But that other question I think must be resolved with greater care, why the just man seeks first the things that are of pleasure, rather than those that are necessary. For the fruits of wheat and barley are necessary, without which we cannot live: but wine is a thing of pleasure, and given for the sake of delight. Because he is just, therefore he claimed for himself rather that which was second, than that which was first. For he offered to God the necessary foods of living, since that was owed. But wine is superfluous for men, and not necessary. But perhaps you will say that men cannot live without drink, just as without food.

Drink is therefore necessary, as is food: I do not deny it. Necessary for thirst, established by the Lord: I do not resist it. And therefore it is fitting that fountains and rivers should be turned for necessary drink, which indeed were not made by the hand of man, but flowed by the command and working of the Lord our God. But lest, because we have spoken of the working of the Lord, you turn this back to that point where the working of Cain seems to have carried curses; consider that it is not the working that receives the name of curse, but what is written, to work the earth. For he who works the earth is a hireling. But that one is not a hireling, but the Lord, who says: My Father works until now, and I work. What does such a worker work? Hear: My food is to do the will of my Father who is in heaven. And he drank, it says, of the wine, and was made drunk.

It does not say, he drank the wine; nor did the just man drink up wine; but of the wine, that is, he tasted of his portion of it. It belongs to a drunkard to swallow down all the wine, and to the intemperate man to empty out what he has taken; but the continent man must use lawful measure. Thus drunkenness is of two kinds, one which brings unsteadiness to the body, and trips up its steps, and disturbs the senses: the other which suffuses the mind with the grace of virtue, and seems to turn away all weakness. Whence the Apostle says: Use a little wine because of your frequent infirmities. For just as by this moderation in drinking wine is not for weakness but for health, and relieves all bodily weakness: so too that glorious drunkenness excludes all weakness of the flesh, of which it is written: And how splendid is the inebriating cup! What is this drunkenness?

Be not drunk, it says, with wine, wherein is excess: but be filled with the Holy Spirit, as the Apostle said. According to the letter, then, it is a caution, and according to the deeper sense of the wise, it is a praise. It is a singing that, even if it strips bare, strips bare in its own house, where coverings are not lacking, and certain veils of drunkenness, so that it knows how to hide its faults.

Bodily coverings, then, cover the naked body, as walls and roofs: but let us see what the coverings of the soul may be. But we find these coverings only if we have discussed its nakedness. Now there is a twofold nakedness of the wise. Our mind, then, is clothed with a twofold garment, if either it has unknowingly committed a sin; for this is the exposure, as it were, of a drunken mind, so that it does not know that it is offending, slipping into fault through a kind of drunkenness of ignorance; or again, buried in the sleep of negligence and ignorance, it is not unaware of its own error.

When we have fallen into these things—indeed when we have fallen into many sins even knowingly (for there is a certain natural drunkenness even of our weakness, so that we are carried by the impulse of delight into vice, as many are, inflamed by youthful heat, or set aflame by luxury and delight, or seized by the greed of avarice)—certainly for all these a remedy must be sought, that one may cover such infirmity of his own, first with a certain shame and modesty; so that even if he is still placed on the slippery ground of transgressing, he may nevertheless give a token of amendment. For it makes a great difference whether one desires to boast of his sins. In the one case there is shameful impudence, in the other tolerable modesty shows hope of future correction.

But there is another nakedness of the soul, when it casts off and strips itself, as it were, of a certain burden of the body, fleeing as from a kind of tomb of the flesh. For the throat of such men is an open sepulcher, in which sepulcher the soul is, as it were, entombed, laden with delights and with diverse passions of desires. It strips itself, then, of the earthly accumulation, and, escaping as it were the nets cast about it, it evades and flees, whatever soul has stripped itself of every snare of the passions, and has turned away that whole deformed appearance of earthly stain, so that it may see the light of eternal beauty.

I ask now why he did not simply say: Ham saw the nakedness of his father; but: Ham, the father of Canaan, saw? Surely Canaan had not yet been born: why then did he add the name of the son, unless that the inheritance should be deformed by the vice of its author, and the author should be burdened by the wickedness of his son? Both, then, the father in the son, and the son in the father, are convicted, having a common fellowship of folly, wickedness, and impiety too. Nor could it come to pass that he should beget a good son, who was himself wicked to a good father, being both by nature and by training a degenerate son. These things according to the letter.

But as pertains to the deeper sense, all the worst characters delight in the errors of others: and not only in their errors, but even in those things which seem to themselves to be evils, even if they are not. For Noah did not feel himself naked, who was clothed with the garment of wisdom. Indeed, not even Adam, placed in paradise, thought himself naked, until after he had committed the error of transgression. And having been reclothed with the garment of wisdom and justice, but stripped naked by the transgression of the heavenly commandments, he saw himself naked, and thought he must cover himself with leaves. Ham, then, laughs, seeing his father naked. For every wicked man, since he himself is astray from discipline, takes the falls of others not only as a solace for his own error, in that he has found partners in guilt: but he even rejoices with a wicked affection, as though he himself had corrected his own offenses.

An evil mind, then, rejoices that something has happened to the wise man contrary to his purpose; whereas indeed a fall of the body ought not to be counted as a fault, even if it be thought a fall, unless the mind also is inclined toward guilt. Finally, faults of this kind ought to be judged pardonable, not to be pursued with hatred, not to be held up to mockery. But the wicked mind, as I have said, when it thinks the wise man has erred, considers that he should be mocked, whose character it thinks is contrary to its own, because its own sin is, as it were, refuted by the silent testimony of the wise man; and it thinks it should rejoice at this, that the just man's own learning did not profit him, nor did his justice come to his aid, nor did those things which pertain to the body have a prosperous course.

For these things—riches or honor—are esteemed by the wicked as the highest goods, though they bring no fruit at all to the praise of virtue. Therefore they show themselves defenders of folly, who think that a lover of virtue has been cheated of the gift of prosperous things, they who suppose that every good should be reckoned rather by temporal than by everlasting things.

What is the meaning of the fact that Shem and Japheth placed a garment upon their shoulders, and went backward, and covered their father's nakedness, and did not see his nakedness? The letter expresses an evident feeling of piety, in that good sons took care not to see their father stripped of his covering, lest paternal reverence be diminished even by that very gaze. For indeed piety is often offended even by a silent look. Whence it is said that there was also an ancient custom at Rome, that sons, and especially those who had reached puberty, should not enter the bath together with their parents.

But the deeper meaning is this: that the foolish man sees only things present, which are before his eyes; he does not look to the future, he does not consider the past. But the wise man both recalls the past and considers the future. Every wise mind, therefore, walks backward, that is, looks upon the past; nor is it hindered by any use of nature: it suffers nothing of its deeds to be empty, nothing to be bare. It covers whatever has been done otherwise than it should, with a certain garment and grace, either of a present work or a future one; so that nothing unseemly may pass by, nothing may be left unadorned. Whence also the Apostle was forgetting the things that were behind, and reaching forth unto those that were before: but he was forgetting, that he might hide the errors of his persecution, that he might cover his former offenses, and overshadow them with good works.

For blessed also are they whose sins are covered; that is, if they are covered by good deeds, and hidden by the subsequent discipline of virtues.

And Noah, it says, became sober from the wine. It is manifest that men become sober from drunkenness through the intervention of sleep: but the mind is sober when it knows both past and future things. The just man's mind, therefore, was sober even when it was thought to be drunk. For there is a glorious cup which inebriates the just. But he was truly drunk who laughed at his father. For he who considered neither the past grace of his generation, nor the present reverence due to his father, nor the future punishment for injury to his father, was truly drunk; and what he thought he saw, he did not see. There was in him a deep blindness, since he could not see his father. For if he had seen his father, he would certainly not have laughed. For a father is not to be laughed at, but to be revered. But much more was the foolish man unable to see the mind of the just man.

For how could he see, who thought there was an error of drunkenness in that place where there was the perfect vapor of wisdom and of the other virtues? As it is written: For it is the vapor of the power of God. For when is the mind more sober than when it so beholds the nature of all things, and the affairs of times present and future, that no temporal stumbling of drunkenness appears in it?

I ask also for what reason, when he had before said that he was in the middle among the sons of Ham, he now makes him the younger. For thus it is written: Noah knew all that his younger son had done to him. Did Scripture, then, err before in the order of generation? Certainly not. What then? Are contrary things now written? I do not think so. How, then, is this resolved, unless you understand "younger" not in age, not in time, but as one raw in sense and established in a certain infancy of understanding, who has not drunk in the teaching of more advanced age, nor grasped the counsel of the old? For there are certain hoary senses of men. And therefore it says: When you come into the assembly of elders, close your mouth. And elsewhere the saying goes: For you must first learn, before you speak. Have your ears ready, therefore, that you may gain something from the counsels of the wise. The tongue is to be restrained, the hearing to be prepared.

Blessing his son Shem, Noah said: Blessed be the Lord God of Shem; and let Canaan be his servant. He said both "Lord" and "God," and specifically "God" of his son whose name is Shem; because he is the God of the just, that is, the God of mountains, not of valleys, who possess the grace of lofty virtue. Then for what reason, when his son Ham had sinned, did he not condemn him to servitude but rather his son? And perhaps it is because a father is more affected by the injuries of his own son, especially those of which he himself is the guilty party and author; and he grieves more vehemently that the condemnation for his own sin was paid by his son, who would be punished not so much for his own merit as for his father's. Then also because a son, being a disciple of his father's teaching and an imitator of his very worst thoughts, both would use one body and one mind, and the same wickedness.

Indifferently, therefore, the son paid the price either for his father's or for his own wickedness; since there is a common fellowship of wickedness. Whatever, then, he paid for his father's depravity, he without doubt also paid for his own, being guilty of the same fault: or certainly the punishment is prolonged the longer, since it extends even to the son, and the affliction of the successor is drawn out into many ages. This according to the letter.

But not so much men as characters are comprehended here, in both of whom there is one nature. For Ham means heat, Canaan means agitation and unrest: but he who is hot is certainly restless and more agitated. In the two, therefore, there was one passion, and one disposition. And so, when the one is condemned, both are condemned.

When, then, holy Noah, blessing his son Japheth, said: May the Lord enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the tents of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant; we said above that Japheth signifies, as it were, an indifferent good. But indifference has a breadth, which is found in health, vigor, comeliness, strength, riches, favor, nobility, friends, powers, and the rest. But although these indifferent things are good, yet they have harmed many who did not possess them with wisdom and justice. For riches have made many drunk, nobility and power have made men proud, beauty has made them wanton, by whose aid they have corrupted the chastity of another's mind. Therefore, according to the disposition of the one who uses them, these things we have mentioned are indifferent, whose use is either governed by virtues; or certainly, without the governance of virtues, they begin to be a snare, which could otherwise be of use.

Now, since it is said that Noah lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood, we think this should by no means be passed over. For it is certain that in three hundred is signified the cross of Christ, by whose type the just man was freed from the flood. In fifty is the Jubilee number of remission, by which the Holy Spirit was sent from heaven, pouring grace into human hearts. Having, then, fulfilled the perfect number of remission and grace, the just man completed the course of this life.

Of the generation of Japheth, it says, are Rhodes and the other islands of the nations. Not without reason is he called breadth, since even into the other part of nature, that is, the maritime part, his generation proceeded. For truly, as breadth, he was not content with what nature had prescribed for the use of men, that is, the possession of land: but he even entered the sea, and proceeded even to the islands. This according to the letter.

But according to the deeper meaning, those things which are external, which are called goods—riches, powers, honors—are as it were poured out more widely; nor are the rich content with those things which are in their hands and in their sight: but they spread their desires far and wide, while either an increase of money is sought from more distant places, or honor from more people, or a wider power, or desire.

Now I ask for what reason Scripture has recorded that the son of that wicked Ham was the eldest? There are two kinds of earth, one as it were sandy and dusty, or, to speak more precisely, dust: the other kind of earth fruitful and fertile, that is, earth more solid and deep. What, then, does the wicked man beget but dust, from which no generation can arise? And therefore the Prophet compared the wicked to dust, saying: Not so the wicked, not so; but like the dust which the wind drives from the face of the earth. Because, also according to the deeper meaning, the soul of the wicked is barren, unable to beget useful fruits.

For what reason also did Chus beget Nimrod the giant, who was a hunter before God? Whence it is said: As Nimrod the giant hunter before God. What else, then, would dust and sand beget but an earthly man; since the wicked man prefers earthly things to heavenly ones. For the fables introduce giants as having wished to fight against the things above, and thought that the heavenly regions must be scaled by an earthly ascent.

But in a deeper sense this signifies that he who loves earthly pleasures, follows them, and thinks that by these he can attain to the grace of God, and that the heavenly kingdom is to be won by errors of this sort, wars against the things of heaven with a defiant disposition. Therefore also there is a proverb concerning one who has sinned: As Nimrod the giant hunter before God. But Nimrod, by interpretation, is called Ethiopian. The color of the Ethiopian signifies the darkness and squalor of the soul, which is opposed to light, devoid of brightness, wrapped in darkness, more like night than day. The practice also of a hunter is in the woods, his manner of life amid wild beasts. The irrational, therefore, mingles with irrational passions; and a hunter of this sort is accustomed to search out those things which belong to a savage and hardened wickedness, and to possess and delight in them.

Finally, the beginning of this Nimrod's kingdom was Babylon, that is, confusion; because wickedness and power consist not in simplicity and purity, not in the distinction of virtue, but in the confusion of vices.