Works (CSEL) 11 part 3/6

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.

The water therefore overflowed and lifted the ark, and it was borne upon the top of the waters. Not without cause did the water overflow, when the cataracts of heaven were opened and the fountains of waters and the rivers were broken up from the earth. This was said with great emphasis. For where there is a bursting forth, there an irrevocable outpouring must of necessity be, nor is the downfall of huge streams easily restrained. Manifest, therefore, is what is written. But if you think it should be regarded more deeply, our flesh is agitated by diverse passions and fluctuates like a sea, by which it is tossed hither and thither as it were upon the waves of its own troubles, now by hunger, now by thirst, now by desire, now by joy, now by grief.

I think this too should not be passed over, that Scripture did not pass over how many cubits in number the water was above the earth; for it said that the water was fifteen cubits above the high mountains. The simple understanding is plain, but the allegory embraces the five senses, which are in our body like high mountains, which overshadow this flesh of passions and are often assailed by beasts and harried by their thickets and shades. Whence the Lord too, coming to His Church through the faith of the believing nations, came from Lebanon, as the prophet Habakkuk says: 'The Lord shall come from Lebanon, from a shady and dark mountain.' The Church too comes from Lebanon, as the Song of Songs has it. For thus we read:

'Come hither from Lebanon, my bride, come hither from Lebanon. You shall pass over and pass through, from the beginning of faith, from the dens of lions and the mountains of leopards' — which are the Gentile peoples. They who, as it were, suffered the grievous assaults of bestial passions, now stand eminent by the loftiness of faith and the sublimity of devotion. Through these mountains, therefore, Christ came, restraining by His 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 rightly they began to bear the fruits of meekness whom before the floods of grievous passions overwhelmed.

Concerning the number of cubits, some before us have judged thus, that the five senses have a threefold gathering, because sight sees the visible, and hearing hears the audible, and smell smells the smellable, and taste tastes the tasteable, and touch touches that which lies beneath the substance of touching. Therefore the five senses are reckoned threefold, or according to that saying: 'Write for yourself threefold.' I, however, think this more suitable, that I take the senses of the earthly, the animal, and the spiritual man, which those streams of the flood transcended. 'Then died all flesh that moved.' This is clear both according to the letter and properly and naturally expressed the corruption of the flesh by the token of the stormy commotion.

For commotion is not vicious except through the corruption of the affections; for the flesh moves the pleasures, and is itself moved by the pleasures, and such commotion creates corruption. The cause therefore of corruption 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 the pursuits of the virtues are aroused, there is progress of discipline. 'Everything 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 is according to the writing and the sequence of words.

But if you seek the allegory, there is no doubt that, by the example of a drier piece of wood, which as soon as the fire begins to lick it is burned up, so the soul, unless it grows moist with the dew of the various virtues, watered as by a certain cup of wisdom and by the fountain of justice and the irrigation of chastity, blazes up with the fire of desires as though its vital root were dried out, or, struck by the flux of the flesh, falls down. Whence the soul ought always to feast on the thoughts of good works, that the mind, made drunk with the juice of prudence, may grow fat, whereby it may not easily yield to the injury of the bodily flood, and may not, enervated by the dry squalor of negligence, die.

And therefore the Lord admonishes us not to withdraw from the fountain of wisdom, to draw the cups of virtue, lest anyone be dried up by the sun of iniquity and be unable to endure the storm of persecution. For it is written: 'If they do these things in the green wood, what shall be done in the dry?' 'God blotted out,' it says, 'everything that was upon the face of the earth.' This is the evident explanation of the writing; but the allegory sets forth to us pride displayed, which exalts itself in this earthly and frail substance, and, unmindful of divine things, despising human things, deforms the very bearing and gait of the arrogant man. Such as Isaiah describes the daughters of Judah, flashing with the nods of their eyes and tossing themselves with high neck.

For there are such men, raising their eyebrows, with inflated heart, lifted chest, neck thrown back, who indeed graze the ground only with the traces of their feet, but balance their whole body, suspended on an empty poise; they advance forward in their step while reclining their crown backward; they gaze at heaven, but disdain the earth, as though pierced through with a pain of the neck, so that they cannot bend it. These, therefore, God blotted out of the book of life, saying: 'Everyone who exalts himself shall be humbled,' and does not let them cling among the merits of the saints by their fabrications to heavenly things. All those, therefore, who were outside the ark having been destroyed, Noah alone was left in the ark with those who were with him.

The simpler discourse does not need interpretation — the understanding runs together with the letter —; but the higher and inner signification shows the just man and lover of wisdom to have remained alone with his own, like a fruitful tree, when those things had been cut off which were wont to gnaw at its food, to overshadow its foliage, to choke the growth of its branches, as one exempt from irrational passions. But 'his own' are the pure deliberations of the spirit, which cling to virtue.

And well did he add that he remained in the ark, since it would seem scarcely credible that, with the bodily passions cut off, he was still dwelling in the body; in which, though he was now free from earthly contaminations, he yet still preserved, incorrupt though it was, the substance of the body, and as it were incorporeal he was borne up above the flood in the body, and was not absorbed, bearing indeed the body as one placed in the interior of the ark, but governing the body itself, unconquerable by passions, as it were incorporeal in the midst of so great commotions. 'The Lord remembered Noah and the beasts and the cattle,' as divine Scripture says. Many are moved as to why the writer did not say that God remembered also the wife and sons of Noah, when He remembered the beasts and the cattle.

But when he said that He remembered Noah, in the author and head of the house he comprehended the rest of his kindred. At the same time a certain agreement of the remaining kindred seems to be expressed. For indeed, when all are mutually dear to one another, the house is one; but when they disagree, they are separated and split into several houses. Where therefore there is charity, there by the name of the elder, on whom the rest depend, the whole house is signified; just as, if anyone says 'tree,' he certainly comprehends also the branches; if anyone names a 'branch,' he likewise embraces in one and the same word also the fruits that are on it.

Nor is it idle that he first said that God remembered Noah, then the beasts, afterward the cattle — that is, why he did not name after man those living creatures that are gentler, but the fiercer ones. In which the reason seems to be this, that those which were fiercer might be tamed by the nearness of either party. Which seems to be declared also in that poetic verse: 'and he drove the coward into the middle.' For hence the poet too borrowed the practice, so to arrange the disposition of an army about to fight that he would place the weaker in the middle, that they might be the more aided on either side by the stronger and take up the contest of both parties. In these things the sequence of the writing is made manifest.

But in the higher sense it is certain that the just man holds the thoughts of his heart in the middle, not in a part, and, as long as he plucks at this life, must of necessity hold in the body, as it were in that ark, the grievous beasts. For there is no mind, no soul, which does not also receive the wild motions of evil thoughts. And so the soul of the foolish man whets the bestial motions and fosters the poisons of serpents, but the vigour of the wise man mitigates and restrains them. 'And the Lord brought a wind upon the earth, and the water ceased.' I do not think this was said so that by the name of 'wind' we should understand a breeze. For a wind could not dry up the flood: otherwise, since the sea is daily agitated by winds, it would surely be emptied out.

For how would the sea not be emptied by the force of the winds, to which the flood would have yielded — spread over the whole globe even to the pillars of Hercules, as they say, and the great sea seething with the peaks of the high mountains covered? It is therefore not doubtful that that flood was repressed by the invisible power of the divine Spirit, by a heavenly operation, 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; but when thou turnest away thy face, they shall be troubled. Thou shalt take away their spirit, and they shall fail and be turned 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 operation all things seem to yield, in whom is the very power of heaven, 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 too says: 'The divine Spirit who made me.' Now let us consider what it is that Scripture says: 'The fountains of waters were shut and the cataracts of heaven.' Nor do I think it obscure. For by these causes the flood is diminished, by which it grew. The fountains of waters had been broken up, the cataracts of heaven had been opened, that with the waters flowing in from every side the earth might be inundated. Those things had to be shut from which the origin of the flood flowed, that its abatement might begin.

This the letter sounds; but the subtler interpretation expresses this, that the flood had flowed in by the soul's vice of the mind and of bodily luxury, so that malice was mingled with passion, and passion with malice. When the physician, the Word of God, enters for the visitation of the soul, which was labouring with a long-standing sickness through the wickedness of disputations and the bitterness of passions, the causes of the sickness had first to be cut off. For the beginning of medicine is to cut into the causes of languor, lest those things which harm should longer be ministered to the increase of the sickness. This the Law too teaches us. For when the leprosy has stood still, so that it no longer spreads, then it says that the standing-place and abode of the leprosy is clean; for whatever is moved contrary to nature is unclean.

This therefore is the health of the soul, this the soundness of the mind, that the overflow of error should cease, that guilt should be stopped, lest it creep onward. When the incitement to guilt and transgression has ceased, salvation is secure, and the unimpaired vigour of the soul pours itself back. '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 comprehension of this passage is difficult. And first of all it must be guarded against, lest the frequent repetition of the seventh month perturb anyone. For thus it is written: in the six-hundredth year, in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh of the month the flood began; for a hundred and fifty days there was a pouring-in of the waters; the ark rested on the mountain in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh of the month:

afterward by the mercy of God the waters began to diminish; in a hundred and fifty days the diminution of the waters was effected; afterward the tops of the mountains appeared; then after forty days holy Noah opened the door of the ark; the raven that was sent out did not return; the dove that was sent out returned empty; again after seven days the dove that was sent out returned with an olive branch; the third time, after seven days, the dove that was sent out did not return; then Noah perceived that all the water had receded. And thus the year is shown to be concluded in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh of the month [and thus the year is shown to be concluded in the six-hundred-and-first year of Noah, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh of the month].

As for what pertains to the open explanation, in the same month and on the same day the level state of the earth is restored after the flood, by which it was corrupted when the inundation of the flood began. For in the spring season every field is green and the earth labours forth its fruits. Then the trees begin to bud, the fruits to germinate. Therefore the Lord reformed and restored the rich quality. In the second month, therefore, that is, in 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 suppose, or, as others, on the fifth before the Kalends of April — in the second month, I say, that is, in April, on the twenty-seventh of the month, the flood began. Spring therefore is reckoned the beginning of the year, not the second.

...not according to the usage of the season, 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 it should seem to be the beginning of the year. But the seventh month, according to the count, is that which is called September; for although the year may seem to begin from the month of September, as the usage of the present indictions shows — for then is the casting of seeds —, yet from spring, from which fuller grace begins to show itself, from that the origin of the year is derived; and therefore that which by another reckoning is thought to be the first, by a different estimation is held to be the seventh. Then therefore the ark rested, that is, in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh of the month, upon the mountain of Ararat. From that the flood began to diminish.

At the same time consider that by the same numbers by which some things begin they are dissolved: as the flood began in the second month of the year, on the twenty-seventh of the month; for a hundred and fifty days the flood flowed in; for another hundred and fifty days the flood subsided; for forty days the excessive force seethed with heavenly rain and the bursting of the fountains; and when another forty days had elapsed, after the tops of the mountains were 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 the flood was heaped up it was diminished. Whence Scripture teaches us that order is to be preserved. But what the door of the ark is, which the just man opened, has been said above according to the reasoning of the body.

According to the deeper interpretation, however, this must be said: that the senses of the body are reckoned as being like doors. For through these, as through doors, there enters into our mind, as it were, a certain apprehension of sensible things. Our mind, therefore, seems to look out through these senses, and especially through sight, which is judged to be more excellent than all the senses of the body, because it is akin to light; and gazing through it upon the heaven, the earth, the seas, the sun also, the moon and the stars with which the firmament is adorned, we understand that God is the Maker and Governor of the world, and we believe that without God as author and as founder of works so great these things could neither have come to be nor be able to subsist. Through this window, then, the just man first sent forth the raven.

The reason must be sought, and yet, as far as the letter is concerned, it is not hidden; for very many people regard the raven as a kind of herald of things to come, and they observe its cries and scrutinize its flights. But the deeper sense signifies that the mind of the just man, when it begins to purify itself, first drives away from itself the things that are dark and unclean and reckless—since all shamelessness and fault is dark, and feeds upon dead things like the raven—whereas virtue is near to the light, which shines forth by the purity and simplicity of the mind. And therefore fault is, as it were, sent out 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 forth does not return to the just man, because all fault is a fugitive from equity, nor does it seem to befit uprightness and justice. Indeed the unjust man believes he has escaped as if from bonds, when the just man has separated himself from his fellowship—from a kind of flood and from a familiar corruption—like the raven, which, when it nowhere found the dryness of the earth, did not return but remained. It must also be considered why Scripture did not say that the raven returned until the water dried from the earth, as though it returned afterward. But this is a manner of speech familiar to divine Scripture; for in the Gospel too you have it written of holy Mary that Joseph did not know her until she had borne her son—though assuredly he did not know her afterward either.

Next, what manner of expression is this, that Scripture should say 'until the water dried from the earth,' and not 'the earth from the water'? And indeed the usage of speech has been wont to have this also. Yet certain authors before us judged that, because a kind of immoderate force of the passions seems to be expressed by this turn of words, the soul is consumed by turbid and stormy passions, but, when they fail and as it were dry up, it resumes its virtue. The appearance of fault, therefore, 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. Nor is that without meaning, that afterward the dove is sent out; for simplicity dissolves malice, and virtue dissolves fault.

Malice, therefore, loves the flood, but shuns the fellowship of the just mind, and remains as it were desolate and without any resting place, having no communion with virtue; whereas virtue returns, loving the company of the just, and being the more intimate with usefulness that is to be freely bestowed—virtue which brings what is salutary and warns against the things that will be harmful—just as the dove, when sent out, on seeing that the water had ceased, returned full of justice, to report to him by whom it had been sent what he ought still to beware of, and so afterward, by watching, might enjoy a better fruit.

But the fact that the dove, finding no rest for itself, returns to him, gave a clear sign through birds of this kind, how great a difference there is to be expressed between malice and virtue; since the raven, sent out earlier, when the flood seemed still to be somewhat overflowing, was seen to have found a place to settle. And surely the raven is not of such a kind as the other birds, which are accustomed to have their dwelling upon the waters.

Since, then, the raven seemed to have found where it might remain, but the dove did not find it, the clear reasoning is that by the deeper interpretation it is signified that malice is wont to mingle itself with the restless passions and desires by which the soul is corrupted, and to take delight as though in things kindred and familiar, and there to establish its lodging; whereas virtue, offended at the very first appearance of what it sees, hastened to return to the mind and soul of the just man, because there a most safe lodging had been set up for it, since elsewhere such virtue, like the dove, cannot find a most safe resting place. For amid the cunning of this world and the surging of worldly desires, simplicity is slow to find a harbor.

And so, just as virtue, having gone forth as it were for the sake of a visit, hastens after a little while to return to the best mind, and does not depart far from the just man, so also the just man and the zealot for virtue, when he has recognized that virtue is drawing near, opens wide the bosom of his mind. For what does it mean that Noah, a zealot for virtue, stretching out his hand, took the dove and brought it in to himself? Even though according to the letter this seems plain, yet you would not easily gather its meaning unless you knew the custom of the wise man, who employs virtue as it were as a scout, and seems to commit to it a certain prerogative of exploring the matters to be examined and managed. That virtue, therefore, weighs natures, so that if any of them seems suited to it, it can join its advancement to it.

For there is a certain common goodness of wisdom, both generous and lavish in usefulness, so that those natures which it perceives to be compliant to itself it associates with itself. But where it sees the nature of some persons to kick back against its purpose, it flies back and runs back as it were to a familiar lodging, 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 when it was absent; for the wise man can never be deprived of his own proper virtue. Furthermore, what does it mean that he kept the dove seven other days and again sent it out, except that you should perceive that the good and best purpose of the wise man always strives to join others also to itself, to amend those who err, to correct those who wander?