Works (CSEL) 11

We undertake to set forth the life, the character, the deeds of holy Noah, and to explain, if we can, the loftiness of his mind as well. For since philosophy itself has said that nothing is more difficult than to comprehend the inner depths of a man, how much more difficult is it to come to know the mind of a righteous man? Indeed, since the Lord God reserved him to renew the seed of mankind, that he might be a seedbed of righteousness, it is fitting that we too should portray him for the imitation of all, and rest in him from all the anxiety of this world, which we daily endure amid diverse agitations. It is a thing of shame, a weariness, to outlive one's children. When we hear of so many adversities befalling those dearest to us, to feed upon this light is irksome:

Who is so strong that he could patiently bear to undergo or take to heart the diverse waves and tempests of the very churches, whether present or impending? And so this rest had to be sought by us as well, that while we contemplate holy Noah with greater attention, we too might be refreshed — even as the whole race rested in him from its labors and sorrow. Whence too he is called Noah, which in Latin is rendered 'righteous' or 'rest.' And so his parents said: 'This one shall make us rest from our works and from sorrow and from the earth which the Lord God has cursed.' Yet if you should think this must be referred to the things that came to pass — since the flood occurred under him — it would seem that not rest but destruction was brought upon men, and not a remission of evils but a heaping up of miseries.

But if you consider the mind of the righteous man, you will perceive that righteousness alone, being born for others rather than for itself, seeks not what is profitable to itself but what is profitable to all. This it is that makes us rest from the works of iniquity; this recalls us from sorrow, because while we do the things that are just, we fear nothing in the security of a pure conscience, we suffer no grievous grief — for there is nothing that is of greater grief than the guilt of fault. Let us rest also from every care of earthly conversation, which harasses our body and soul with frequent pains and wears away our life. To this man, then, were born three sons: Shem, Ham, and Japheth.

These names signify 'good,' 'evil,' and 'indifferent,' so that he may appear both to have possessed goodness by the grace of nature, and by no means to have lacked the temptations of evils, and to have abounded in things indifferent — that is, as it were in a furniture of virtues.

But for what reason he placed evil in the middle, the reason is evident: because the good of nature is innate in all, and does not cast them, as it were shipwrecked, into the light, but also props them up with strength, so that they may not be overwhelmed by the temptations of malice nor sink down as though feeble; and it fortifies and clothes them, as with certain indifferent coverings — which are health, sound vigor, beauty, energy, riches, glory, distinction of birth — so that, fortified by this endowment, they may guard the goodness of nature and shut in that evil, lest it be able to harm, and, as it were imprisoned, may strangle it. Do we not discern, as it were, a certain battle-line of the virtues drawn up for combat, so that the weaker stand in the center, and on the right and left, as on the wings, the stronger, through whom the whole line receives its strength?

Whence too a certain Greek poet says: 'κακοὺς δ' εἰς μέσσον ἔλασσεν' — that is, 'but he drove the bad into the middle.' So therefore nature also, like a good general acting at God's command — nature which knows that we are born for the battles of this world — sets the goods it has in the first rank, the things that hinder in the second, the things that help in the third, so that the enemy, shut up as it were in the middle, wherever he turns himself may be overwhelmed by doubled forces, lest, fighting them one by one as though on equal terms, he should wear them out and have the means of escaping from the natural straits and of spreading himself more widely.

But since, in the order in which they are begotten this is the arrangement, whereas in the order in which they beget Japheth is written in the first place and Ham in the third, therefore — lest anyone suppose we have spoken things contrary to what comes later — the reason of that passage too must be explained. The good indeed, being as it were in a certain nobility of nature, goes before, but evil follows. For there are contrary thoughts of the mind, which doubtless arise afterward. As long as these are, as it were, shut up within and do not sprout up like blades of grass, they are cherished in a certain bosom of the good mind, lest they come forth.

For as long as evil is in the will, not in entelechy — that is, in act and effect — the goodness of the governing mind, after the manner of a charioteer, restrains and reins in the malice that is trying to break forth; but when it has boiled over and burst into an ulcer, lest it be able to creep more widely and contaminate what is adjacent, then just providence steps in, lest that 'indifferent' thing, which is commonly called a secondary good, should as it were give way from its place, when it can no longer resist the now seething evil. And so, lest evil pour forth its noxious venom more widely and infect many things by breeding corruptions, that first good, which is by nature good, while it changes place, changes its order, so that it may bring aid as it were to a struggling flank and take up in the battle-line that part which labors more;

for the warrior's valor is needed in the more difficult places, just as the presence of a good guard is more frequent there where the walls are weaker. And lest any part be without a defender, while that good supports the more inclined positions, then that indifferent thing takes up the higher place, as though the more perfect good were assigning that part to it; for nothing is more perfect than virtue. But indifferent things do not have the strength of robust virtue; they only increase and diffuse its grace. Whence he is called Japheth, which in Latin signifies 'breadth.' Nor did holy Noah abound only in the begetting of sons, but the whole human race poured itself forth most abundantly especially at that time. Which does not seem to be without purpose.

For with the flood about to follow, the grace of fruitfulness ought not to be thought to have been wanting to that generation which the floods swallowed up — so that the abundance of the human race may be ascribed to divine grace, while the flood that followed may be charged to our iniquities, we who by our sins turn away the Lord's mercy. So too in later events you will find that the coming sterility of Egypt was preceded by just as many years of fruitfulness. For it is the chief part of virtue to begin with benefits and to sow grace beforehand. Whence David also says: 'Mercy and judgment I will sing to you, O Lord.' The grace of benefit goes before; the censure of sober discipline follows. It is therefore a divine thing that good things are sent in advance; it is ours that they are changed.

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 concerning Bezalel, who was commanded by the divine oracle to make the sacred tabernacle, Scripture says that 'he was filled with the spirit of prudence and discipline.' This Spirit, then, is given to men, but does not remain. And for what reason it does not remain, the cause is disclosed: because they are flesh; for the nature of the flesh resists discipline, since it submits to pleasure. Finally, of the Lord Jesus alone it is written: 'Upon whom you shall see the Spirit descending from heaven and remaining upon him, this is he who baptizes with the Holy Spirit.'

For the Spirit remained in him whom no hindrances of carnal corruption called back, so that he should hold the order of an uncorrupted and unmixed discipline — he whose flesh saw no corruption. Through the one Lord Jesus, therefore, salvation to come to the nations is declared — he who alone could not but be righteous, when every generation went astray, except that, being born of a Virgin, he was by no means held by the privilege of a guilty descent. 'Behold,' says he, 'I was conceived in iniquities, and in sins did my mother bring me forth' — so says one who was reckoned righteous beyond the rest. Whom then should I call already righteous, save him who is free of these bonds, whom the bonds of common nature do not hold? All are under sin from Adam; over all death reigned.

Let the one righteous man come into the sight of God, of whom it is now said, not with an exception, 'He did not sin with his lips,' but, 'He did no sin.' 'Now there were giants on the earth in those days.' The author of divine Scripture does not, after the manner of the poets, wish those giants to be seen as sons of earth, but asserts that they were begotten of angels and women, whom he calls by this name, wishing to express the great size of their bodies. And let us consider whether perhaps men are like the giants who study the cultivation of their own flesh, but take no care for the soul — like those who, according to the poetic fable, sprung from the earth and relying on the mass of their bodies, are said to have held the gods above in contempt.

Or are those to be judged unlike them who, though composed of soul and body, turn away from the vigor of the mind — than which the soul has nothing more precious — and show themselves to be imitators of this flesh, as it were heirs of a maternal dullness? And so they labor in vain, usurping heaven with proud vows and brooding over earthly works; who, by the choice of the lower and the contempt of the higher fellowship, are condemned with the heavier severity, as men liable to voluntary sins. Scripture very often calls angels 'sons of God,' because their souls are begotten of no man. And so God did not disdain to call faithful men his sons.

As therefore the men of approved life are called sons of God, so those whose works are carnal we call sons of the flesh, on the authority of the Scriptures. For John the Evangelist says that, 'as many as received the Lord Jesus, to them he gave power to become 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 you afterward have it that the Lord was angry, since — although he considered, that is, knew, that a man placed in the region of earth and bearing flesh could not be without sin (for the earth is, as it were, a certain place of temptations, and the flesh is an enticement to corruption) — nevertheless, since they had a mind capable of reason and a power of the soul infused into the body, they rushed without any consideration into a fall, from which they were unwilling to recall themselves. For God does not deliberate as men do.

as though some new resolution should come upon him, nor is he angered as though changeable; rather these things are read so that the bitterness of our sins may be expressed, which has deserved to give offense to the Godhead — as if guilt had grown to such a pitch that even God, who is by nature moved neither by anger nor hatred nor any passion, should seem provoked to wrath. He threatened besides that he would blot out man. 'From man,' he says, 'to cattle, and from the reptiles even to the birds, I will blot out.' What harm had the irrational creatures done? But because those creatures had been made for man's sake, surely once he was blotted out for whose sake they had been made, it followed that they too should be blotted out, since there was no one who would make use of them.

But in a deeper sense this is made manifest: that man is mind, which is capable of reason; for man is defined as a living, mortal, rational animal. Therefore, the principal part being extinguished, all sense likewise is extinguished, in that nothing of what remains survives unto salvation, when the foundation of salvation — virtue — has failed. But to the condemnation of the rest and the expression of the divine piety, it is said that Noah found grace before God. At the same time it is shown that another's offense does not overshadow a righteous man, when he himself is reserved as the seedbed of the whole race — he who is praised not for the nobility of his descent but for the merit of his righteousness and perfection.

For the lineage of a man of proved worth is a stock of virtues, since, just as the race of men is men, so the race of souls is the virtues. For indeed the families of men are ennobled by the splendor of their birth, but of souls grace is glorified by the splendor of virtue. 'Now the earth was corrupt before God and filled,' he says, 'with iniquity.' The cause of the earth's corruption is manifest, in that the iniquity of men had corrupted the earth. Whence the Lord God also says: 'The time of every man has come before me, because the earth is filled with their iniquities.' The time, indeed, of all men is in the sight of God and in his will.

For it is not, as the common saying goes, some fatal decree that is alleged here; yet I think this is said in a special sense, because in his Gospel the Lord, about to redeem the human race by the passion of his body and to cleanse it by his blood and by the sacrament of baptism, says: 'Father, the hour is come, glorify your Son, that the Son also may glorify you.' Therefore, because in the flood, through Noah's ark, the remnants of the human race were preserved as a seedbed of future restoration and renewal, he premised here: 'The time of every man has come, because the earth is filled with their iniquities.' This in figure; but in truth he says: 'The remnants are saved through the love of grace.' And therefore the Apostle cries out, saying: 'Sin abounded, that grace might more abound.'

'All flesh,' he says, 'had corrupted its way.' Here he put 'flesh' for the earthly man, in whom the enticement of the flesh had corrupted his way. If he had understood what a gift he had received from God, he would surely not have suffered the flesh to obstruct the virtues of the soul. And so the flesh was the cause of the soul's corruption as well — the flesh, which is, as it were, a certain region and seat of pleasure, from which, as from a fountain, the rivers of concupiscences and of evil passions burst forth and flood widely abroad. By these the rowing-tackle of the soul, as it were, is sunk, the helmsman having been thrown overboard, when the mind itself, overcome as though by certain storms and squalls, gives way from its place. And he beautifully says that man corrupted the way of his own nature.

For his way was in paradise, on that path of blessednesses, in that flower of virtues, in that incorruptible grace — a way which he defiled with earthly footsteps. Others have the reading: 'his way,' that is, God's way. This he is wont to declare by the word 'of the Lord.' But now I think we must speak of the ark of Noah itself, which, if anyone should wish to consider it more attentively, he will find that in its construction there is described the figure of the human body. For what is it that God says: 'Make for yourself an ark of squared timbers'? We surely call that 'squared' which stands well together in all its parts and is consistent with itself. And so both God is established as the author of our body and the fashioner of its nature, and the work itself is signified by these words to be perfect.

But that the members of man are squared, the reasoning is evident. If you consider the chest of a man, you consider the belly, of equal measure in length and breadth — except when, the belly distended with pleasures and feasting, the natural measure is exceeded. Again, who would not perceive by the very sight that the feet and hands, the arms and thighs and legs are fourfold? Yet most of them, even if not of the same length or breadth, nevertheless preserve a certain proportion, so that in these too a fitting measure and ratio concur: the length being more extended than the breadth, the breadth more than the height. And just as the timber of the ark has a triple dimension.

Inasmuch as he prescribed that a length of three hundred cubits and a breadth of fifty cubits and a height of thirty cubits should be observed, so also in our body there is a greatest, a middle, and a least dimension: the greatest according to length, the middle according to breadth, the least according to height; yet the whole body, woven together out of its several members, appears squared. For indeed it is even the usage that we call those men 'square-built' whom we judge neither enormous in tallness nor robust in a sturdy quality of body. What, too, that he means by saying, 'You shall make nests in the ark,' seems by no means to be passed over in silence.

For I think it was said in keeping with nature, in that our whole body is woven together like a nest, so that the vital spirit may penetrate all the parts of the inward organs and pour itself from our principal part through the several limbs. Our eyes are, as it were, certain nests, into which sight inserts itself. The hollows of our ears are nests, through which hearing pours itself in and casts itself down as into a deep pit. The nostril is a nest, which draws odor to itself. The fourth nest, greater than the rest, is the opening of the mouth, in which taste is nourished until it grows full, and from which the voice flies forth; in which the tongue lies hidden, which, like an instrument of the voice, modulates its sounds with skillful sweetness and, though itself irrational, produces a rational voice.

A nest is the skull; a nest is that membrane which fosters the brain and holds it shut within itself. Nests are the organs of the lungs and the heart. The nest of our spirit — that is, of the spirit which we draw in and by which we are nourished in this life — is the lung; but the nest of the blood and of the spirit is the heart. For it has two chambers: one by which it receives the blood as it were in a certain bosom and transfuses it into the veins; the other by which, watered from that upper chamber, it conducts it into the arteries in a continuous flow. The stronger bones too have nests; for they are hollowed out within, and in those cavities is the marrow. In the softer inward organs themselves are the nests of desire or of grief. And if anyone should consider other things, he will find still more nests in this fabric of the human body.

Whence I think that he in the Psalm said, not only mystically but also naturally: 'For the sparrow has found herself a house, and the turtledove a nest for herself, where she may lay her young.' For there is now in this body a nest of chastity, where there was a nest of irrational concupiscence. But where formerly lust nurtured misshapen offspring, there now the inheritance of comely chastity grows up. 'You shall smear it,' he says, 'with bitumen.' The human body consists of many bones and sinews and the rest besides.

And so, both outside and inside, joined together by a fitting framework, it cleaves to itself and is held by its own constitution — which the Greeks call 'habitude' — so that the spirit shut up within, which is infused, or the spiritual substance which works within, being as it were bound by twin fetters, may not wander abroad, but be confined to a fitting and harmonious unity and a strong interconnection. Therefore the ark is bidden to be bound fast with bitumen; for bitumen is of a nature powerful for binding. Whence in Greek it is called 'asphalt,' from 'safety' — that is, from security — because it joins together what is disjoined and binds it with an indissoluble knot, so that you would think the things came together by a natural unity. For this reason the ark is bound fast with bitumen within and without, lest that interconnection be easily broken.

But elsewhere — that is, in Exodus — that ark also is overlaid with gold within and without, the ark which is in the holy place, an imitative image of the intelligible world. For just as gold is more precious than bitumen, so that ark which is in the holy place is more excellent than this one. Here, then, he simply set down 'timbers,' but there indeed he specified timbers, yet incorruptible ones, declaring the merits of the saints. There too he added that the carrying-poles were to be immovable, because the station of the saints is stable and firm, since they followed the path of a praiseworthy life under the guidance of virtue, shunning the fellowships of corruption.

But this ark, inasmuch as it was driven hither and thither by an uncertain motion in the flood, because the condition of sinners is unstable, and their life, liable to corruption by a certain flood of overflowing passions, wanders about with an inconstant straying. Nor is this to be passed over: that when he had said, 'And you shall make an ark of three hundred cubits in length and fifty cubits in breadth and thirty cubits in height,' he added:

Gathering it together, you shall make the ark and shall finish it to a cubit at the top, so that to the rest of the body it might join, as a fitting adornment, the head of man squared with proportion suited to itself—like a royal citadel; and from this head, while all the senses were poured forth to the other parts of the body, the eyes above all, set as it were like watchmen and guardians appointed by nature with foresight, might survey from on high almost the whole condition of our city. And the mind itself, lodged there according to the opinion of very many, and chiefly of Solomon, who says:

'The eyes of the wise man are in his head'—as though in an imperial hall it gathers to itself a council of virtues, so that, surrounded by such a retinue, it may itself be more securely fortified, and as from some inner sanctuary may impart governance to the whole body, watching over it, and may know how to deliver responses, by which we are able not only to look back upon ourselves, nor only to see what lies before our feet, but even to gaze with the deep contemplation of wisdom upon the very secrets of heaven. There, then, is the whole sum of our salvation; there is grace; thence comes protection; thence too beauty is acquired for the whole body, which first blossoms in the countenance. For it is fitting that the splendor of the royal hall be more excellent, since in it, as the use is greater, so is the brilliance.

For if you consider one by one the things that in man's form appear arranged for some use—as the eyes for seeing, the ears for hearing, the nostrils for smelling, the mouth for speaking—they so serve their function that they furnish beauty as well. How disfigured are the faces of the blind! And what wonder if a man's countenance without eyes is unsightly, when the very heaven without the sun has not its own beauty? We pass our days dismally without the sun; nights without the moon do not please us; for these are, as it were, certain eyes of the world. Take away the light of the stars, and there is in heaven itself a certain disfigurement of blindness.

The very lashes, which fringe the orb of the eyes and are stretched out like a kind of vanguard, lest the pupil be harmed by any filth or cloud of dust, themselves also intercept anything that might be brought against it which could injure the eye; if they fail through inflammation, how unsightly that is; if the eyelid is drawn too tight; if the eyebrows are shaved away—those brows which gleam like the appearance of precious necklaces, as though inwoven with gems. Of the ears too the use is as necessary as the appearance is comely; and if anyone should mutilate them, he will bring disfigurement upon the whole face. In these nature so wrought her work that the very windings of the cavities, curved with wondrous foresight, brought much utility, lest sound suddenly strike the secret chambers of the head.

In short, we often see many people thrown into confusion by a sudden clamor, and, struck with alarm, terrified by the sound of some voice or uproar. The very wax that is generated within those same windings binds the hearing as with a kind of glue. Likewise, if any sound's impact be too violent, it is broken and slowed, so that, being announced beforehand, it rather soothes than, coming unawares, shakes the inner parts. Little worms too, if they attempt to penetrate the ear, are held fast by a kind of birdlime of wax. Flat noses seem contrary to nature; but if they were cut away, how could life subsist when the passage of breathing was removed? In what manner the face of a beast is reckoned rather than the countenance of a man!

With how welcome a covering do the hairs of the head clothe the head, like certain attendants of a royal court, lest the air harm the brain, or rain strike it, or the sun scorch it. Yet nature so renders them that, according to sex, they please either longer or cut short; and according to age, and for the most part according to the quality of the season and the year. In old men gray hair is welcome, in boys it is monstrous; in summer it delights to be cropped closer, in winter more indulgently; to women the hair is an ornament, to men a disgrace. In short, the Apostle expressed this more plainly, saying: 'Does not nature itself teach you that, if a man have long hair, it is a shame to him; but if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her?'

What shall I say of that very royal gate itself—the mouth—through which the courtly words come forth, certain indices of our mind and intermediaries of the soul? What of the very row of the teeth, which by their own work indeed furnish strength to the whole body, and are besides the modulators of the voice itself? Of these, if any one fall out, the voice limps. These things we have said about the head at greater length, because it was fitting that all the senses be placed at the summit, whence all the offices might be distributed through the remaining parts. But next to our head, behind, is the neck; on the right and left are the arms, which guard the imperial citadel like a faithful watch; and lastly, in us those parts are the stronger which are nearer the head—these are the more excellent.

The breast too is, as it were, a certain sanctuary of wisdom; and the stomach is, as the physicians say, a kind of witness and confidant of the head's secrets, a partner of its sympathy, to which the head transfuses all its own affairs, whether wholesome or adverse. The sides, the buttocks, the thighs, and the legs signify by their very appearance the breadth of measure, as does the tread of the feet, which, although they seem rather slender, yet become broader when we walk. Beautifully, moreover, He added: 'You shall make a door on the side,' declaring that part of the body through which we are wont to discharge the superfluities of food, so that He might surround with more abundant honor those parts of the body which we deem more ignoble. This Scripture expressed far more gracefully than Socrates is read to have said in the book of Plato.

For since either Socrates himself, or Plato—who was in Egypt—could have read this in the writings of Moses, or have learned it from those who had read them, moved by the comely device, he thought that a door had been opened to him, so that he might proclaim the design of our Maker, praising Him in this, that it best suited propriety to turn away from sight, toward the rear, certain ducts and outlets of our channels, lest in the cleansings of the belly our gaze be offended. But the Apostle says: 'Those members of the body which seem to be the weaker are necessary,' with one simple word surpassing the descriptions of philosophy; and 'those members of the body which we think to be more ignoble,'

'we bestow on these more abundant honor; and our uncomely parts have more abundant comeliness.' For it is chiefly there that the proof of our sobriety and temperance is recognized; for gluttons are either distended by surfeits even to peril, or for the most part collapse when their bowels are emptied out. This too the Apostle beautifully applied to the members of the Church. For what are our uncomely and superfluous things, if not extravagance, if not wantonness?

And if anyone, ensnared by these in the time of youth, should, when he has advanced to a more mature age, come to baptism, renounce his former ways, put off his prior manners, lay aside his sins, be buried together with the Lord Jesus, and have the world crucified to him and himself to the world—is he not, being granted the remission of sins, possessed of a more abundant comeliness than that catechumen whose life was reckoned 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 more, to labor more abundantly than all the apostles, made a vessel of election, sent as the teacher of the Gentiles.

Did he not also obtain a richer and more honorable glory than very many 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 himself redeemed you by his prayers. And, to open up greater mysteries: what is so ignoble as the Gentile people? Poor, inasmuch as it had no oracles of God; feeble and lame in both feet, since it had believed neither in the Law nor in the Gospel; yet, being called, it believed, and being baptized, received grace. Therefore, because more was forgiven it, it loves more. The people of the Jews remained, lame indeed in one foot, although it limps even in the Law itself.

And so he who was held most glorious lost everything—the wonderful Counselor, the prudent Architect, and the wise Hearer; while he who was ignoble, having gained everything by the title of faith, glories in the trophy of the martyrs and the fellowship of the angels. Therefore Plato applied what brilliance of speech he could; but the Apostle, who had the Spirit of God, revealed the mystery. Enough has been said about the door, since those who were behind have become first. Now let us inquire into this: what is the meaning of what the Lord said: 'You shall make the lower parts of the ark with two chambers and with three chambers'? By saying 'the lower parts,' indeed, we perceive that He beautifully willed us to understand that the receptacles of food are to be reckoned in a lower place—that is, those bowels which work up the food received.

For food is corruptible, and what is corruptible is not to be compared with the higher things, but with the lower. Likewise, because the food is carried downward—of which a small portion profits the strength of the body and its nourishment, while the remaining part is led off to be purged from the belly, since there are intestines through which the superfluities of food descend—our Maker so arranged it that they should be not extended straight from the stomach to the bottom, but folded in and bent back, whereby the use of our life might be prolonged. For if the intestines of man, which receive and lead off the food, were extended straight, it would at once pass through without any delay, and it would be necessary for us to be perpetually hungry, perpetually feasting, or, when the substance of nourishment failed, to faint on the spot.

But now, in that folding and winding of the intestines, twofold and threefold, the food lingers, and as it descends little by little it furnishes strength, infuses juice into the body, sustains satiety, defers the appetite for eating; and there is neither a sudden outpouring and abrupt evacuation, nor an insatiable appetite, nor an unappeasable craving for feasting. For first there would be want and hunger; then from these would follow continual eating without intermission. But what is more unsightly than always to be devoted to the belly, which, when it is filled, must be emptied, and when it is emptied, must be filled? What third thing remains except death intermingled amid the very foods and feasts?

For how could they prolong their life any longer, eating and hungering at once, drinking and thirsting, and, before they were filled, emptying out all that they had taken in, and straightway hungering? But now, while the food descends little by little, natural providence tempers hunger and indigestion. For first, in the stomach—which most people call the upper belly—the food is worked up; then it is cooked in the liver and digested by its heat. Its juice is distributed to certain portions of the bowels, from which the whole body grows strong. To this the growth of the young bears sufficient witness, and the perseverance of the old.

The remainder of the food flows down into the belly—which we all call the belly without addition, and which most people call the lower belly—from which there must necessarily be excrement, which, having descended already full of corruption, is discharged through that door on the side. Although these things appear so skillfully arranged by natural ordinance according to God's precept, yet, unless a measure of eating and acting be kept by us, a deluge 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 they are strained by internal hardness and shaken with pains, or, through the undigested moisture of foods and the harshness of indigestion, a certain inner lining of the intestines is scraped away, since their lining is asserted to be twofold, like the appearance of paper: one outer, which the experts—or those who have examined more curiously—call continuous, directed from top to bottom; the other inner, attached as it were to the sides, whence they say it is not wholly dissolved when it is scraped; for if the inner were continuous, its tearing would be incurable. There, through the slowness of the junctions, the remnants of foods adhere; and if these junctions be dissolved, the half-eaten foods pass through and the drinks flow down. This is the deluge of man.

Whence it seems to me that, through the figure of this ark, God willed to instruct us how we may be safe from this special deluge. For corruption is the cause of the deluge. When it has crept in, the waters are opened, all the fountains of desires bubble up, so that the whole body is submerged in so great and so deep a flood of vices. For there is nothing that so subjects man to wretched servitude as lust and cravings of this sort, which press down the wretched conscience under a certain heavy yoke of crimes, so that it cannot lift itself up, inasmuch as it has lost the liberty of innocence. The greatest remedy, therefore, against this deluge is that you set the just man before you and choose him as the executor of the heavenly commandment.

Who is the just man in us, if not 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 them to the commands of the spirit. Do not allow your cravings to fly forth abroad, nor your lust to go out among the crowd; and through the rational mind you will be able to free even your irrational and unclean sins from all peril of the deluge. 'All things,' He says, 'that are on the earth shall die.' What, indeed, had the dumb living creatures done amiss? For what cause are they subjected to punishment, which 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 its military strength is shattered, so it seemed not to depart from justice that, when man perished—to whom the Lord God had given a certain royal authority over every kind of living creature, that he might preside with imperial authority over all the birds, wild beasts, and animals—therefore even the cattle and whatever irrational animals there were should die together with him. In short, whenever there is a pestilence through the corruption of a tract of the heavens, the dread plague first contaminates those creatures that are irrational, and chiefly infects dogs, horses, oxen, and those that seem to associate with men; thus the force of disease implicates the human race as well.

This, then, is the first cause of the just claim, as I judge. The second is this: that no one accuses nature for asking why the remaining members of our body die when the head alone is removed, since we see many survive when their hands and feet are amputated. But the prerogative of the other members is not the same as that of the head; and therefore, when the head is cut off—whence our senses go forth into the rest of the body—all the members die together as well; nor in this is the providence of the Maker found wanting, nor the frailty of human substance refuted. Similarly, then, let no one now find fault, because man is the head and a certain principal of the other animals, at whose death it ought not to seem strange if the other living creatures die together with him.

The third is this: that the creatures lacking reason were generated not for their own sake, but for man's sake; for they were commanded to be for man's cause, that the human condition might excel by their subjection. In short, the prophet attributed this to the grace of man, saying: 'You have subjected all things under his feet, all sheep and oxen, and moreover the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea'—since all those things are for his sake: some for utility, some for the sake of delight, some for pleasure. It was consequent, therefore, that when man was blotted out from the face of the earth, for whose sake they were made, those things too should be blotted out in a like destruction. These things according to the simple exposition of the reading.

But a loftier and deeper interpretation adds this: that when the soul is bent down by the heavy mass of passions and is, as it were, submerged by the surge of diverse cravings, all earthly thoughts and concupiscences rush headlong, because every sinner becomes the more insolent the graver the crimes he has committed. For by habit and practice wickedness is increased, and audacity is nourished by impunity. He therefore withdraws from all regard for honor, and in him all earthly things die through the bitterness of deadly sin, which destroys the sinner with a true and perpetual death; for no one dies more grievously than he who lives in sin.

In him each of the passions dies; sight dies, which announces sin, which gazes at a deceitful woman, which is captivated by another's beauty of countenance, which the eyes of a harlot have bound, which the look of a fornicating woman has ensnared. Does he not seem to die who has pressed upon himself the dart of lust, who has rushed of his own accord into the pit of death? Hearing too dies, when it reports crimes, when it announces the speech of a soliciting adulterer, when it instills into souls the words of a harlot, who seduces the young man with much flattery of speech and binds him with the snares of her lips. The voice dies in silence, if it does not confess to God; it dies in much speaking, because it is written for you: 'In much speaking you shall not escape sin.'

It dies through wrath, when it transgresses the measure of vengeance; finally, every sense dies, if it be a minister of iniquity. And therefore, because all earthly things die in the deluge, but the just man alone abides forever, it is said to him: 'I will establish my covenant with you,' because he is the heir of divine grace, he the possessor of the heavenly inheritance, the partaker of the most blessed goods. And men indeed, when they die, are wont to transcribe their patrimony by testament, nor does the inheritance pass while the testator lives; but God, since He is everlasting, transfuses to the just the inheritance of the divine substance, and, Himself lacking nothing, bestows His own without any loss of the gift, since the partners of His own goods are no burden to Him.

And He enjoys the more that which we use. In short, the Lord Jesus, though He was rich, became poor, that by His poverty we might be enriched—He who consummated both testaments by His own blood, that He might make us coheirs of His life and heirs of His death, whereby we might have both the fellowship of His life and the benefit of His death. Moreover, He bestowed much on the just man by saying, 'I will establish my covenant with you,' inasmuch as the rational and faithful man is himself the testament of God. For he is the inheritance of God, he the possession, in whom is the virtue of the divine testament, in whom the fruit of judgment, in whom the inheritance of the promise, of whom David said: 'Behold, the inheritance of the Lord are sons, the reward, the fruit of the womb.'

But now, the exposition of the deeper mystery being preserved, let us proceed to the rest. 'Enter,' He says, 'you and all your house into the ark, for I have seen you just in this generation.' Manifestly the faith of the prophetic sentence is established also in this place, because the fool is foolish to himself alone, but he who plunders gains for himself and for very many. And so by the merit of just Noah his house too is preserved in the deluge. Thus those who sail on the sea, and the army in war, if to the former the skill of the helmsman be not lacking, and to the latter the prudence of the commander, are safe from peril by another's help.

But because a good army belongs to a good commander, therefore in this too we understand that the praise of the just man is not passed over, who so established his house that it shone with the fellowship of virtue, and his kindred deservedly found salvation. Nor is it a contradiction that afterward either the son or the wife gave offense. The just man was sleeping when the son erred. The woman too, as being of the more fragile sex, troubled by the mass of peril, who would believe that the whole world was perishing by the divine conflagration—what wonder if she could not follow her husband, when the just man himself, warned by the angels, barely escaped? And what wonder if error creeps upon a man, or his attention relaxes? Accuse him, then, because even the just man was made drunk. But these things I judge are to be reserved for their own place. Now let us consider what remains. For He beautifully said:

'Because I have seen you just in this generation.' Many seem just to men, few to God: it is one thing to men, another to God—to men according to the outward appearance of life, to God according to the purity of soul and the truth of virtue; men approve what is outside, God examines what is within. But thoughtfully He added, 'in this generation,' so that He might neither condemn the earlier nor exclude the later, and might rightly establish that the deluge was made by the destruction of that generation which had no fellowship of equity. These things according to the letter. But the loftier sense calls us to suppose that this vigor of the mind is in the soul, and the soul in the body, as the father of the family is in his house. For what the mind is in the soul, this 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 the sober mind restrains all the passions, governs the senses, rules the speech. And therefore the Lord well says to the just man: 'Enter you,' that is: enter into your very self, into your mind, into the principal part of your soul. There is salvation, there is the helm; outside is the deluge, outside is the peril. But if you are within, you are also safe outside, because where the mind is mistress of itself, the thoughts are good, the actions are good. For if no vice overshadows the mind, the thoughts are sincere. If chastity be your zeal, if temperance be in your heart, no flame of lust burns hot, no ulcers of sickness creep forth; for the sobriety of the mind is the medicine of the body.

Now let us consider on what principle He commands to be brought into the ark, of the clean beasts seven and seven, male and female, but of the unclean two and two, that seed may be nourished upon all the earth. And, as I judge, He asserts that the clean number is the hebdomad (seven), because the seventh number is clean and sacred; for it is mingled with none nor generated by another. And therefore it is called a virgin, because it generates nothing of itself, and deservedly, as being free and exempt from maternal and womanish coupling and birth; and although the hebdomad be named by a feminine word, it has the grace of a virile sanctification; for 'every male that opens the womb shall be called holy to the Lord,' that is, holy. And in the prophet you have: 'She fled and bore a male,' that is, a holy one.

But the second number is not full, because it is divided; and what is not full is held to be empty. The seventh number, however, is full, because the hebdomad is like the decad, and similar to that first one, because the alpha is in the likeness of Him who is forever, from whom flow forth and are moved the virtues that are in every kind. These are the natural meanings. But to speak of the moral ones: there is no doubt that the irrational part of our soul is divided into the five senses and speech and the generative faculty, which by nature seem to be feminine, because our senses creep quickly into material and worldly things. Whence it is clear that they have a substance of a softer nature.

But to the educated and diligent man all things are clean, because the wisdom and virtue of the disciplined man transfuses a virile firmness into these. Therefore, by the judgment of the prudent and the purpose of him who governs, they are transferred from the quality of the inferior sex into a stronger substance. For valid and fixed is the resolve of the wise man, not changeable like that of the senseless and the fool, who wavers with uncertain counsel, like the wicked man, who chooses not what is true and just, but what is convenient or useful to himself, cutting it off from the true, separating it from the just. For justice is a singular good, contemplated by itself, by its own worth alone; but iniquity, being as it were divided, brings forth now bent by hatred, now by gain, and confounds the things that ought to be kept distinct.

For the fool, like the moon, is changed, and, disfigured by the variegated and shifting variety of his humors, stains his own soul into the appearance of a leprous body by a foul contagion, often mingling wholesome thoughts with harmful ones. But perhaps, because you perceive that both clean and unclean living creatures are commanded to be brought into the ark, it may rightly move you, since I said that unseemly disputes ought not to be mingled with honorable ones. Nor do I deny that there are indeed certain seeds and, as it were, beginnings of irrational—yet clean—motions in our soul, and of those that are not clean.

For the nature of man is capable of contraries, so that into it there is an entrance both for malice and for virtue; and deservedly, at the beginning of this book, which is Genesis, you have read of the knowledge of good and evil through the appearance of the tree in the midst of paradise. Of this tree of the knowledge of good and evil it was commanded that it was not to be tasted, because our mind, in which is cognition and discipline, receives the notion of good and evil.

And so the Maker of nature, just as He reserved living creatures for the propagating or even repairing of the species, that the whole earth might be filled with the seed of living creatures, so also He did not think that the earthly substance of our body should be left empty of passions of this sort, as of unclean animals, which, when it is glutted with delights and luxury as with a kind of deluge, fluctuates with the aforesaid passions. But when each one, by sobriety and continence, has emptied out the deluge of overflowing passions and has laid bare a certain dryness of the soul, he begins to give life to his own body and to the purity of the soul, whose governance is wisdom.

It is also worth inquiring with diligence what the cause is why, after Noah entered the ark and brought in the living creatures, the deluge came to pass after seven days. For it does not seem idle that neither more nor fewer days were interposed, but just as many as there were in the constitution 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 was the author both of the world and of the deluge. The world He founded because of His goodness; the deluge He made by the merit of our sins. Men, then, were admonished even by the number of days in which the world was founded, that they ought to have reconciled their Founder not by tears and prayer alone, but by the correction of their morals.

Therefore the Lord gave space for repentance, willing rather to pardon than to punish, that He might compel those held in suspense by the terror of the impending deluge to ask for pardon, whereby, while they dread the peril of future death, they might renounce impiety and injustice. The second point is that from this too we may gather the clemency of the Lord, who is merciful beyond measure, because the offense of many years, contracted from the constitution of the world even to the end, He willed to remit in a few days, if they had repented. 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 will not remember them. But you, be mindful, and let us be judged; declare your iniquities, that you may be justified.'

For when He has perceived that the true virtue of the soul has been poured back, He attributes such honor to it that He not only grants pardon of former sins, but also imparts grace and justifications. He waited, therefore, even until the seventh day—the very day on which He rested from His operation—so that, if anything more were demanded, correction might follow, and He might rest from His indignation. This too was a matter of care not to pass over: that He said the deluge was made in forty days, and added forty nights. For we know that day is called that which the sun, illuminating the earth, marks out; night, that which the surrounding darkness divides off from the brightness of day; and for the most part day is so signified by us that we do not comprehend the night, but for the most part so that we include it.

For in signifying a month of thirty days we signify also the nights. Hence, since it would have been enough for Moses to have said that the flood lasted forty days, the question is asked why he added 'and forty nights' as well. And some have understood it thus.

Those who lived before us did so in order to show that by the flood there came the destruction of both men and women: they referred the day to the man, who is purer and like the light, and the night to the woman, who is described as created while the man slept; likewise because the man came first, as if the author, who stirs up the strength of the woman and rouses her to childbearing, more conspicuous in his public activity, while she is more obscure, as though shut within domestic walls and close to the night, brought forth in the second place, and formed in her creation from the rib of the man, owing her favour to the one above her, subject also to the privilege of the greater number, and to be likened to material things by her function of bearing children.

Now the number is consonant in both as regards the peril, because the sins too are consonant, and rightly the spans of time do not differ, because the deserts of the transgressions do not differ. Many also inquire not slightly by what reason the flood lasted forty days. And we can say that the material number was assigned to the more sorrowful things, that is, to the creation that was to be destroyed, but the week to the constitution of the whole world, that is, to the more joyful things. But perhaps it is relevant that the Law too was given in forty days. So many days Moses observed on Mount Sinai and tarried there, when he received the precepts of the Law.

Rightly, therefore, the precepts for the avoidance of sins are given in the same number by which the guilt was paid off in punishment, that we may recognize that in the same span of life in which a punishable fault can be committed, praise ought to be won by correction. Whence now no longer are forty days prescribed for punishment, but for life, that by this number, through fastings and more frequent prayers, we may lighten the penalties of our sins, and, intent upon the precepts of the Law with devotion and faith, may correct our error. And so through the Lord's resurrection the fortieth day is now held to be no longer the last, but the first, and from there life is reckoned, where before the count was reckoned unto death, unto the consummation of the world and the destruction of the human race.

'And I will blot out,' He says, 'every uprising of flesh from the face of the earth.' O beauty of heavenly words, if anyone should examine them with the becoming understanding of a devout mind! God is indignant at our sins, yet He does not forget His mercy: He threatens punishment, but He has not permitted destruction: He tempers vengeance, He calls back severity. He says He will blot out the flesh, not from the earth, but from the face of the earth. He shakes off the flower, He preserves the roots: He allows the strength of human substance to remain in the depths, though it labour on the surface; within it endures impassible, and is preserved free from harm for the replacement of those who are not liable to guilt.

Beautifully, moreover, He set down 'I will blot out,' as it were the small marks of letters, which are blotted out without harm to the books and without diminution of the tablets. The ink is blotted out, but the wood remains. The elements are blotted out, that better ones may generally 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 flesh from the face of the earth, that I may write those who rise again among the heavenly. I will blot out from the book of earth, that I may write in the book of life.' Let them be blotted out, my Lord, Lord, let the elements of iron be quickly blotted out, that the elements of Christ may be written. Let the earthly resurrection be abolished, that the heavenly grace may overflow. Come, Moses, prepare your lap, receive the Law, take up the characters, which now the wretched...

Let it not blot out the divine skins. Take up the tablets which the Lord may set up forever. Would that you yourself may not break them! Yet my own fault had taken these away from me, had not the Lord restored them. Rightly indeed, Moses, were you indignant, lest those should possess the divine privileges who did not render obedience; but I think that you broke them not against me, but against the Jews. You broke them for the Jews, you received them back for me. The first were broken, that the latter might remain. You broke them in the breasts of the Jews; for what did it profit that they should hold 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 characters, but they do not read them. Moses says that 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, it knows the Spirit. And therefore Paul knew how to write not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. O sacrilegious and foolish people of the Jews! A man writes by the Spirit of God, even a man nurtured under the Law, and they would have it that God wrote with ink, not with the Spirit. Therefore, to return to what is above, God blots out the resurrection of flesh as it were the writing of letters. By which it is declared that He blotted out the superfluous birth of men because of its impiety under the figure of letters, but preserved the substance and the conversation of the human race as it were by the permanence of the tablets, that from it the remaining seed might sprout forth.

To this meaning it seems also to accord that He says: 'I will blot out every uprising of flesh.' Now to resurrection, by the common usage of nature, purgation seems to be contrary, because by purgation the rankness of growth is cut back and repressed. Yet everything that is purged loses its appearance, preserves its substance, and is made better. The Lord therefore by the purgation of the flood repressed the bodily use and the conversation of that generation, which had degenerated from the comeliness of nature and from the beauty of the gift received. This is according to the letter. But as for what pertains to the higher sense, the figure of the flood is a type of the purgation of our soul. And so, when our mind [from bodily...]

...] has washed itself from the allurements of this world, in which it formerly delighted, by good thoughts it wipes away the old filth of desire, as it were absorbing with purer waters the bitterness of the previously turbid streams. 'And Noah did,' it says, 'all that the Lord God commanded him.' The just man receives commands, the slave commands as orders. He is reckoned in the place of a friend who does whatever he has undertaken to carry out; he who wavers in obedience is consigned to the burden of servitude. In short, the Lord Jesus too says in the Gospel: 'You are my friends, if you do what I command you. Now I will not call you slaves.' It is commanded, therefore, as to a friend; it is commanded to him who carries out what is commanded with strong charity and sober counsel. Nor did his judgment deceive the Lord.

The just man fulfilled all things, not a part, but all that were commanded him, and therefore he receives the testimony of divine Scripture. Nor should you think it superfluous that Scripture set together 'Lord' and 'God' — for both God is in the Lord and the Lord is in God —, but that you may understand the precept of the Father and of the Son to be common. 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 avenge and of one who would pardon; and because here He first avenges upon sinners, therefore He said 'Lord' first, but because afterward, that the seed-plot of the just might be propagated, He shows indulgence, therefore He named 'God' afterward. In short, 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.'

There is also this consideration, not perfunctory, that in the six-hundredth year of Noah, in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh of the month, the flood came. That the seventh month was of the spring season is not doubted, when growing things increase, the field labours in birth, and the offspring of lands and of living creatures alike pours itself forth. Then therefore He made the flood, when the grief of those who were being punished in their abundance would be greater, then the vengeance more terrible, as though God were saying: 'Behold, by the grace of divine providence's generosity rich nature has brought forth all things, the earth has germinated all things for the use of men, the bountiful earth: crops of wheat are beheld, the fields are filled with barley, the tresses of the trees, the fruits to come, are clothed with blossoms:'

The earth is not lacking in its services, nor the beasts in their gifts, which are loosed in their accustomed births, so that nothing should be lacking to man: man alone is lacking to his own parts, he knows not his Author, from whom all things are ministered to him, he neglects his Creator. Man despises his Rewarder, while God has not despised His work. Let all things perish with man, for whose sake all things were born. Let man be consumed in his own riches, let him die with his own dowry.' The earth had in no way transgressed before man, it had erred in no fruits: in man alone it recognizes that it has degenerated, bearing thorns and thistles instead of fruits. That which alone is the wondrous gift, the principal part of the mind, has perished. Why then are all those things preserved?

Therefore the water is not poured out after the fruits have been gathered, lest the earth should feel a benefit rather than a flood. In short, among the Egyptians the Nile overflows in the spring season, though in a different month, so that the earth may soften for the casting of seeds and receive the seeds sent forth in a more gentle bosom, a more kindly lap. But that the flood comes in the six-hundredth year of Noah seems to show this, that on the sixth day Adam was created. The same number, that is, the one called 'even,' is preserved both in the author and in the restorer, because the source of the sixtieth and of the six-hundredth is the number six. And the same month is called both the first and the seventh.

But we ought rather to observe first that after the flood, in the spring season, the care of the fields to be tilled is renewed, and the offspring of the calm and fertile soil begins to come forth. By which it is signified that God would never have brought about the destruction of men in that number or that season — in which He made the beginning of things — unless He had been offended by monstrous transgressions. At the same time the reckoning of the season and of the number promises pardon, in that even when angered He is admonished by such preceding causes of His own benefits, so as not utterly to blot out the substance of those whom He Himself bestowed. 'And all the fountains of the abyss were broken up, and the cataracts of heaven were opened.'

Scripture fittingly expressed the force of the flood by saying that heaven and earth alike were stirred up, of which elements every beginning of this world consists. From every side, therefore, with the masses of waters flowing in, the enclosed race of men is pressed hard. This is according to the letter. But as for what pertains to the higher sense, by the symbol of heaven the human mind is signified, 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 are mingled alike. Let us weigh the words carefully. Often the fraud of the mind and its deceit exercise their poison, yet the sobriety of the body and continence overshadow the wickedness of the mind.

Frequently the mind is slippery through the uncertainty of its faith and opinion, yet the flesh is free from delights and luxury, so that frugality excuses the error of the mind, as there are many among the heretics who are unwilling to put forward bodily continence in order that they may gain credence for their assertion by the testimony of sober flesh. Even though slippery in their understanding, yet inasmuch as they are somewhat less base, they are held to be somewhat more excusable.

But when the poisons of the mind and the contagions of bodily obscenity confound every sense and vigour, and the soul, slippery with uncertain motion, foul with the ink of malice, kindled with the fury of cruelty, is incited even to bodily outrages; when greedy desire too, impatient of modest means, is hurled into crime by the lust of luxury and the wantonness of squandering, in the craving to seize another's welfare — then there is a great flood, with all the passions rushing in alike; then folly, injustice, rashness, wickedness, and treachery seem to pour themselves out from the upper part, as it were the cataracts of the mind.

Thence there burst forth from the fountain of the earthly body lust, drunkenness, luxury, and finally the downfalls of various crimes, which utterly emasculate both the strength of the body and the vigour of the mind. 'And God shut the ark from without.' The discourse is manifest according to the letter. The ark had to be shut and securely fenced with a protection, lest the wandering streams of the flood should penetrate it. Nor is an interpretation of the higher sense incongruous, if we judge that the human body, which is figured by this ark that is described, fenced with skin, is defended from cold and heat, which the artificer God clothed for the protection of all the members with natural coverings and clad as it were with an enveloping garment, so that it should neither congeal with cold nor be dissolved by summer heat.