The world once tainted with concordant vices, and the sanctioned wickedness expiated by the death let loose in the Flood, I shall now retell; but not that flood which the lying fable tells of, when Deucalion scattered through the wide world the stones destined to live, whence a hard race of men, reborn, descend, fit for all labors and showing their stony origins through a hardened mind. But, possessed of the truth, I shall now pursue those waters through which an end sent in, swift, forestalled the still-suckling world, scarcely yet created. The mortal race had raised up huge spirits by cruel daring: it believed that whatever pleased each man was lawful, and one's own will prevailed as law. So utterly was there no justice, so did men reckon no difference between right and wrong, and nowhere was there a keeping of the good.
There was no judge, no witness, no ruler at last, nor arbiter of morals, nor any to urge what was honorable; but each man was his own prince by the power to do harm: potent not by merits but by mere mass, whoever was the stronger was to himself the better, and, with himself for censor, was pleased. Thus the mind, downward-bent, held the life of men after the manner of the brutes, giving them over to bestial impulses. There was a drinking of blood; the entrails of the slaughtered everywhere offered their torn flesh as food to untamed jaws. Moreover even the beast killed by its own death, or, more savage still, one that a conquering wild beast had taken, was made a meal, which no faith, no law forbade.
But how pleasure, permitted after the fashion of cattle, and lasciviousness spread openly with reins broken, and the market-place of luxury, and the fair of an obscene world seethed — a chaste song may not tell. With such and so great deeds the wicked race of men, the covenant of nature broken, had put on wild spirits, and, reason driven out at once, raged; and the image of the heavenly Lord, lying forsaken, had cast down every ornament of the mind by base action. No otherwise than when the fertile plot of a fair field, which the cut-down forest yielded once the timber was cleared, so long as it is tilled, fruitful obeys just toil, submits to the harrows, answers with crops, and the country's grace keeps itself with well-ordered countenance;
if the farmer, forgetful, chance to let his arms fall slack, and loose his hands, and rest from the weary plough, the land first grows sluggish with hardened turf; soon, with rough branches and bristling with thick shoots, it unlearns to put forth disciplined fruits, and pours out sundry brambles, and threatens to become a forest; and if the pruner clears it not even with a late sickle, now not with thickets but with dense trunk a grove is woven, and spreads its barren foliage into the air; until, the shade enclosed by the running branches, soon a convenient darkness, the sun driven off, invites the beasts now to trust their safe lairs.
So, not in right order, the life of the human race, lost now after the beginnings of the commanded law, sliding little by little into the crooked, stretched onward, prospering by a worse way, ever more constant now in equal zeal, nurtured by the practice of crime. And yet the growing boldness of the descending offspring, more learned in errors and more skilled in every fall, surpassed the very author of vice and the master of guilt.
As a river, first spread from a little urn, brings forth a clear fount with gentle current, which anyone can cross at its head with an easy leap; soon, drawn on from its watering source, it is swelled with sudden strength, and, thrusting its banks backward, drives its growing waters across the plains, seizes on space, and looms over the perishing field; then, passing by, it swallows the streams poured about in neighboring valleys, and begins to make an end of the foreign waters by its own increase, and, mingled under one name, with the lands scraped up in its spreading flood — together with beams, and stalls of oxen, and lairs of beasts — fiercer with each influx, and having gained a long fury, at last, subsiding, it bears them out into the waves of the sea. Amid such upheavals, and after the likeness of a whirlwind, the human race went on in its vices:
and yet the very length of life had dissolved their frenzied minds. When tenacious life often drew out nine hundred years, there was no terror of a death suspended by so long a span: if a late lot bore anyone off, he was thought like one who had not even been born, and never to be relieved by death: so in all there was no hope of the future, and the world, doomed to perish, had founded in blind senses all its love only for itself. Nay, in that very time the sinful earth was nourishing savage monsters, huge giants. Nor is it lawful to declare from what seed they sprang. They bore a common origin from the mother earth for all; but what their race, whence their fathers, secret things forbid to confess. If you ask their appearance, they had more of the human body's face than its proportion;
so the outline, fitting the limbs, showed a man, while the bulk was discordant. On which account Greece thereafter, with feigned inventions, heaped up an unspeakable disgrace with shapeless masses, and depicted their bodies with portentous limbs: that down to the groin they were men in form, while dragons, mingled in place of legs, filled up the lowest parts of a vast body; the limbs of half-men which black serpents with gaping jaws bore up, and, with head reversed, furnished for steps. Then too they were wont, when terror was decreed against the Thunderer, to hurl blasphemous insults at heaven, and their biting feet to hiss with the writhing of their venom. Like to these, the lying fable of the Phlegraean war feigned that the giants made shaken rocks fly through the air, and, for weapons, that a huge hand scattered mountains in a whirl, and shook heaven with the hurled fields.
These are the tales the Greek poets sang in lying song of the terror of the giants of old; and yet each rebel did wish to strive in daring combat: and he who could not clash with weapons conceived his battles with savage vows. That mountains were piled on mountains it is not right to believe; yet that these men afterward attempted this I shall suppose — who thought that baked bricks, joined with sticky bitumen, could thus by proud hands be lifted on high, and lofty masses rise to the stars: while the mortal race raged, and with fruitless toil bore its vain masonry up into the deep, past the surmounted clouds, and the structure pursued the fleeing sky, not ceasing before discord should confound the subject tongues, and speech grown various confounded all.
Hence the compact was scattered, and, the law of speech thus torn, disturbed pride broke the concord of their crimes, while each man gathers himself with his own words, those he could understand, and each nation follows its new speech. So the summits of the interrupted mass perished, and the tower, bereft of effect, ceased in the air. These things after the Flood. For how great giant strongholds the earth, hard-pressed in ancient time, brought forth, and how it hurled its contempt at the provoked stars — with God wiping them away, our silence sufficiently condemns them. Long since the Creator of men and things looked patiently on the peoples of the earth roaring their insane deeds, waiting whether a better care might warn any man to leave the fellowship of the empty world and come to his senses.
But after the conspiring world resolved to run through the begun road of perdition, and, the victor, through its every sense obtained the insignia of sin, and no one could recall his step, or bear back his going with a mind already headlong, the Author shuddered, and repented, seeing the whole world that he had made. Then, moved, he is said to have thundered such threats from on high, and in these words to have unloosed his roused wrath: 'O race of men, drawn by no goods, and curbed by no laws, submissive only to the ancient dragon, savage, more corrupt as the age wears on! It is not enough that Eve fell; the inventor of death is outdone by every lapse: nor does that suffice, that the primeval serpent conquered inexperienced Adam. Life, not content to be defiled by its own parent, aspires to earn death by its own prowess.'
'To have waited long has profited nothing; moreover their crimes have snatched away all the time granted by pardon. Now has patience too long pressed down its wrath: now the time of vengeance is at hand. This time the flaming fire shall not drive thunderbolts from heaven; nor shall the earth, hard-pressed and sinking beneath too great a tumult, give way with a vast chasm: but the world, foul with vices, shall be blotted out by flood. Let the world's form run back to ancient chaos, and let the weights of the waters return to their own seats. Let the dry land yield to the streams, and let formless moisture again cover the buried features of the earth. Let this be the doom for the living, and here the end for the flesh.' Thus the eternal Father, ordaining the death of things, was brandishing the Flood with his right hand upon all lands. Meanwhile, in the world's full measure, one just man lived, and he alone kept an honest mind.
No one but he bore vows to God with gifts and prayers — he whom the highest Creator knew to be worthy of praise, and made ready to keep, set apart, unto life. He was of holy lineage; for noble he came from an illustrious forefather, whom ancient faith and conscious virtue bore into heaven without death: so to that one who sought the heights there succeeded a great-grandson not unequal in mighty deed. Nor is it a greater thing that he left his earthly dwellings and entered the heavenly ones with the use of a saved body. Finally, that way by which ancient Enoch once ascended, Elijah, following after long ages, is written to have penetrated, climbing in a chariot of fire, when the suspended wheel-track passed through the light winds, and the hoof pressed the trodden clouds with its weight.
And bearing the encircled holy one, the fire would not burn, and the flame, preserving his motion, knew nothing of heat. It is enough, then, that these, set under the law of the flesh, could merit heaven; yet no less do I marvel that the days of holy Noah, for the merit of one man alone, could bring salvation—amid the world's exile—to sons and daughters-in-law kept safe. There is in heaven, more excellent than any number, an angelic choir without end, which with unceasing praise acclaims and celebrates God, wont to render its serving ministries and to obey the commands on high. These now receive whatever right thing mortal hearts entreat, whatever is conceived with holy breast in worthy vows, whatever the bounty of a generous hand scatters among the needy; and they bear it above the stars in holy flight.
Nay more, they protect the just while frail life wearies them, and keep them safe amid the perils of the world. Yet among all there excels one more radiant, through whom as minister, God dispensing, the greatest of matters is carried out, and who prepares mysteries for the highest ends. He, when commanded, foretold that the Lord of heaven would come, taking a body, into the untouched womb of the Virgin, and filled that sacred womb with the dowry-Word. He too, forerunning herald of the Baptist's birth, while he brought the long-despaired offspring to the father, terrified the man amid the sacred rites, and at once bound fast the doubting speech in his ungrateful mouth, until by the foretold birth he made fruitful with offspring the old woman who, barren through many slow years, worn out and disbelieving, at length as a mother brought forth her child.
This skilful and highest archangel of affairs, through the clear airy heights, girt about with light breezes, moving in his fiery body the quivering wings, went toward the earth in motions seen by none. And then Noah, groaning over the crimes of all, prostrate with bent knees, with suppliant lament was seeking pardon for worldly things, though the world was unwilling. When suddenly, the doors being shut, the winged one enters, conspicuous, a herald resplendent with bright face. The hero shudders, terrified at so great a sight, and the mortal eye can scarcely bear the supernal person, and he turns away the eyes of his frightened face. That one, first undertaking to soothe the fearful man with saving words, bore the commands of heaven.
'Peace to you, just man; sent from on high I invoke peace upon you, that with fear driven off you may receive my words. These things the highest Creator of earth and sea commands. A sentence of death, unhoped-for by all, looms; but you alone, who deserve to pass through it, can also foreknow it. For pleasure trodden underfoot has long since set you, the upright one, apart from the whole world. But since life alone will be able to drive off cruel death for you, how you may begin to escape such great disasters I will tell in a few words, in order. There shall be an end of things, with waters let loose on every side, and the world shall be laid waste by the unbarred abyss. Now come: let a most mighty structure rise from heaped timbers, which, rising, may float above all the waves.'
'Drawn out in length it shall measure three hundred cubits; in breadth it shall be enclosed by fifty, and its height shall stand at thirty. Through the middle, along a threefold length, raised upper chambers with suspended dwellings shall lift up the decks; and let the dweller, keeping company with his own kind, arrange the scattered lairs in sparing cells. Then, lest the chinky passages of the joints perchance admit the hostile rain, remember to smear the junctures of the sides, and pour in sluggish bitumen. When you have finished the structure so fashioned, enter at once, and let go the falling world; whom frequent guilt has shut out, let life begin to shut in, and let deaths rage around you while you are safe. Nay more, bid the companion of your side come beneath the roof, and the sons with their wives to enter.'
'And you shall be the second author of the destroyed stock, so that after the first parent the earth may be refilled through you. But since, the world being perfected by divine powers, after the end of the work, after the laws, and after the hallowed Sabbaths, it is not fitting that anything more be formed—lest, wholly ceasing, every created thing perish—of all breathing cattle, and swift birds, and beasts of the woods, and what are called draft-animals, or those that creep gliding with silent motions, take two by two, and store them with you in the enclosure to live; yet so that their bonds keep their proper sexes, whence the earth, to be refilled, may take up the race again. Fear not that the animals may perchance keep their savage impulses, or with sudden jaws presume upon wrath.'
'There shall be a covenant with all that nature brings forth discordant through its various modes, and with faithful peace whatever you shall enclose there will obey the commands. Only beware always the wiles of the serpent. Though with lowered head he may feign something coaxing, hiding with three-forked tongue, through sweet hisses, an immortal hatred, never be you credulous to him, whom Adam, having too well experienced, forewarns must be shunned. For whoever an enemy has once wished to harm, he will always be suspect, and must be utterly guarded against, lest the prudent man now join covenants with a liar. After this example, remember to serve the commands.' Having said these things, he cleaves the empty air with light wings, fleeing mortal sight, and, borne back to heaven, left the trembling hero with the command laid down as law.
He, however, with hands raised, in such a voice: 'Whoever you are, who—whether sent or of your own accord—have come from the high ether to promise us so great a salvation, and have hallowed a peaceful pact by covenant, be a helper, and may your promises confirm your words, and lend your aid to our undertakings, that a slight hand may be able to raise so great a mass.' These things briefly said, he lays up in his heart the hope of life, and swiftly sets about the precepts of the sacred labor. Who could grasp such thoughts? Who at last, in speech, could unfold what abundance of timbers was brought in? The hills were stripped bare, the forests despoiled of their oak; each mountain, just as it stood, served with willing provision.
When Pelion sends down huge oaks from its peak, moreover Ossa lays out its grove felled with much force, and from Pindus the tall fir is drawn down; Atlas itself felt the new axes with resounding blow, and gave its aged pines to the shipyards. Then rises an unconquered work; the structure of the lofty roof is lifted, woven together of outstretched beams. Amid these, the discordant opinion of the varied crowd. For many mocked the man preparing such obstacles against the waters, because the enclosed mass could not be moved and given to the rivers—which even the broad Euphrates and Nile could scarcely hold within their ample banks. 'O incredulous mind of the human race, why do you think a mortal hand cannot join to the sea a far-reaching structure? For the sea itself will run to meet it of its own accord, and the standing fabric shall touch the shore brought to it.'
But others—though ignorant of the disaster and the hidden cause—the novelty compelled to marvel at and to dread the lofty mass built of compacted oak. Not otherwise had zeal already then divided all, than as the world does now. There are those who, pricked in heart, devote their hearts to the faithful work, and know that the supreme crisis presses upon things, whereby every body must fall, and the ages consume the flesh long given to revelry. Then shall he escape the evil, whoever is ready to build a strong ark of very hard covering; saved from the waves by the life-giving wood of the cross, then shall he perceive with how great fruit he scorned ease.
Contemplating this man working attentively not far off, would not some man, lazy for gain and weary of labor, think him mad, because he alone burns with vain care and will not use perishing things? So the reveler mocks the frugal, so the miser the generous, so the plunderer the destitute, so the adulterer mocks the chaste, so the cheat rejoices, deluding the simple. So the rich man, heaping up gold, grieves that the other thought himself wise in scattering coins, and reckons wretched the man who, his wealth spent, counts himself blessed in his poor estate. Then, when the Judge shall decree that the sudden day approaches for the world: 'So the end straightway looms,' he says, 'as once in the time of just Noah.'
When the flood discovered the various doings of the world, and consumed the flesh with waters, and the craftsman of salvation escaped the widespread perils by the enclosure he had made—these things are proclaimed in evangelical figures. Meanwhile the provident builder completes the ark. Then, commanded, the birds run up; then each beast, leaving its accustomed haunt in the woody covert, comes with its wildness laid aside, and, meeting him, thrusts itself forward to be kept, and, its liberty abandoned, rejoices to be shut in—so great is the power of the decrees of what is to come; a hidden terror burns in the brute senses, and, awaiting, it drives their life with dread. But men, whom the lot of certain crisis presses, do not fear even at death near at hand: it is well agreed on every side that fear, as a sign of life, often goes before the danger.
The sentence already pronounced saw the guilty, secure and glad in the land of Gomorrah, already nearly beneath the flames. Against this, among the peoples of Nineveh, fear prevailed for peace with a wholesome terror. For there had come, commanded, that man much tossed on land and on the deep, who, about to proclaim to so great a people the perils of a deluge, feared it though the world stood firm—the prophet. Hither the beast, penetrating with mighty maw, had swallowed him, and had shut him, plunged in the sea, in the hold of its belly. Though power was granted to the burning monster to swallow the man and fill its capacious jaws, yet it was not permitted to bite; nothing was done with the teeth. The prey entered, mocking the greedy devourer, and the food, seized upon, lived in the fasting belly.
While the sun drove three days of daylight for the prophet under one night, and the jaws to be emptied looked upon a new shore, and the prison-house vomited forth its chastened meal—when the seer, stripped from the monster, received again the sky and touched the lands, then, roused, seeking the great city with terrible voice: 'For what crime,' he says, 'do you burn with flames? Punishments will restrain all things. And now the end comes—it is slow to say this—it comes.' He had spoken no more; the whole people conspire into every lament: weepings run forth on every side, breasts are beaten, sighs beat upon heaven.
Their soft garments cast off, they don the coverings of Cilician goat-hair; they pour ashes for their food and tears into their cups. The prince himself even—worthy at such a time to bear the standards of salvation before the ranks of the weeping, and, fearing (new to tell), to conquer the perils—casts away his scepter, leaves the lofty tribunal, unclasps his purple robes, the gold despised, scorning silks and taking rough coverings. But the merciful Ruler, contemplating such things from on high, recalls his outstretched wrath with impulses calmed, and, holding the brandished missile, quenched the thunderbolt. So, in his own time, the just builder of the ark shall rejoice that he alone feared the perils while the world was carefree, bringing an end to all and salvation to himself, seeing a differing lot by the distinction of merit.
Therefore, when he had gathered the woodland beasts of both sexes and shut them in, then he chooses to take of the cattle those which it is lawful to eat, or are called clean. Of these alone he gave seven living creatures to the enclosure, so that with three pairs kept safe and the seed preserved, the seventh might at some time be offered in sacrifice at the holy rites. And now the life-giving prison had shut in all things. Then the waiting enclosure receives the just man, and all his own, his sons and daughters-in-law, and lays them up for life. For nature had not yet allowed any to be called slaves, nor did rank yet know to distinguish masters from servants.
For the first to feel the stain of the slave's name was the middle one of his sons, who by chance with a jeering laugh sought out his father uncovered in a wretched sight, and laughed at the source of his own being—himself the more misshapen in birth—and, now the fouler, the worthless one mocked the naked innocent. When holy Noah could learn of this, he gave the son as slave to his brothers; thence was found such a yoke; for we are all born of one seed. Certainly guilt is seen to have made the cause of servitude, and the free man, sinning, becomes a slave by crime; if again a servant be bound by the bond of what is honorable, making his own noble birth for himself, then he is noble.
Meanwhile the messenger, who long before, sent from on high, had brought to the just man the heavenly gifts of the word, as soon as he saw him shut in and, with all things prepared, awaiting the day, hastening to descend again from heaven, made fast the wide doorposts on their hinge, shut in the men, drew the strong doors, and at once, rising, bore himself back on high wing. The elder had passed six hundred years in age, and the moon was adding twice its full monthly courses; the seventeenth day, which had thereafter shone upon the world—that last day now shall give all things to death. Straightway the sky is covered over, and by excessive darkness the vanquished lights of the darkened sun are driven back. Terror had scarcely begun to touch the frenzied minds of men, when soon an unwonted storm-cloud streams from the ether, and at first is sent down like a mighty rain.
The dry places of the lands alike grew wet throughout the world; there was one aspect and clouds over the whole sky. Egypt itself then trembled at the new waters; the Garamant, drenched, grew cold, and moist chills touched the Massylian Syrtes, long warm. Nor was the rain long a mere appearance, nor at last do drops trickle, but with heaven burst open rivers are poured out. Not otherwise the Tanais, when fed with white snows, rushing from the Riphaean mountain, is dashed into the flood, and hurls down at once all that it leads along its long course. The earth is shaken with such a contest of waters, and the air, pressed by the waves, becomes like a lake. Nor yet here did the heights pour down waters only; the world rises up also into earthly wraths. Every soil is broken, the fields give frequent passages, fountains leap forth, and unknown rivers flow.
The cloud is turned upward with its weight reversed; thence falling from the heavens, here rising everywhere from the lands, the wave soon meets itself, and with joined fury the elements conspire for death; every boundary of the banks is overpassed by the rivers, and, the barrier broken, the water rages, running about with reins let loose. But when the three waters, with space spread wide, all strove to enclose everything and fill the capacious world, the sentence of death perhaps could have been suspended and drawn out with greater delay, so that the final lot, granting space, might snatch away all flesh more slowly—had not Ocean, the boiling summit of things, gone forth from the one shore by which alone it girds the lands and seas, and, breaking faith, flooded over the fields. It scatters the eternal laws, and, its seat abandoned, seeking alien realms, it disturbs the covenants of nature.
When first those three rivers—the great ones which renowned Fame reports for their course—felt the dire furies of the sea, and were amazed a while at the new movements, so that you would believe flight to be wise, thus turned backward they scatter through the lands as the sea's flood was raised on high. Yet Ocean pursues, and looms over the fleeing streams, and drives back the rivers with salt masses. Then, with so great a din, greater fear comes to the ailing mortals; they climb the towers and the lofty roofs of houses, and it pleases them thus to defer present death even for a little time. The rising wave drags away many while they try to climb; some, seeking the mountains, it overtakes, and with death catches their vain flight.
But others, tossing their limbs in long swimming, exhausted breathe out their lives; or bodies overwhelmed by the weight of the storm drink in the river-waters mingled through the seas, dying on whatever mountain. With houses overthrown, others perished by the ruin, and into the waves came at once both masters and homes. The crash goes up to heaven, gathered from every sound, and the herds of four-footed beasts falling amid human death increase the confused tumults with mingled voice. Amid these seething funerals of the wretched world, the heavy ark is buffeted by mad motions; its frames tremble, the creaking joint labors. Yet the wicked force does not penetrate the sealed vessel, though it lashes and wearies the solid hull with striking wave.
Not otherwise does the true Church endure frequent storms, and thus now is she vexed by savage waves. On this side the pagan drives his swollen furies without measure; on that side Judaea roars and dashes against her with rabid mouth; thence the mad Charybdis of heresies, raging, provokes; the swollen wisdom of the Greek philosophers delights to set swelling waves against one another. Their lies puff up empty winds with slanders, but they beat the sealed vessel with empty barking, in vain. Now the growing wave had covered the middle of the Ark, and, suspending the hollow mass on every side, set it moving. And, borne safer with easy swimming, wherever the waves call, the movable weight now follows. Let us yield to the world while we are carried; everything that resists, if it knows not to bend, let it fear even to be broken by its own weight.
But if we yield, let not the inmost depth feel any flux, nor let the impenetrable mind draw in any sin. Meanwhile the Fount of life, entrusted to the moving enclosure, sails on, and the sea, raging over all things, keeps the world's deposit safe, that it may bring it forth from the faithful covering when the peace of the lands shall demand it be restored as due. Therefore the waves went on; all the earth is withdrawn from sight; the waters heaped upon the hills overcame all things hidden. Then pine-bearing Othrys lay hidden, covered by the sea; the peak of Parnassus put forth no lofty crag; the very rocks of cypress-bearing Lycaeus lay hidden; the cliffs were sunk, the Alps leveled with the waves; with all things shut out, the whole world at last was but sky and wave. For, with all things subdued by death, the monsters of the sea reigned in the wooded whirlpool.
And now the waters beat upon the neighboring heaven, and now for four times ten nights the rain streamed on, and had completed the slaughter; nor had Death anything more to carry off, and the sea pressed down the floating corpses. The rains are reined in at last; the ether shone again, and its countenance is restored to the heavens. The sun itself is brought back, but finds no lands to which it may restore its light. It shone only on the waters: a mournful gleam beholds the seas, and as it breaks its short rays upon the near waves, so, boiling and close, it presses on to consume them. And no less are the open gaps of the earth closed; and the abyss, constricted by its own barriers, sucks back the streams which before it had vomited from its deadly mouth. Yet not as it came does the wave so quickly recede;
not a few days, but long months in their course dry up what few days had poured out. Now, borne by its swimming, the ark rested upon the lofty mountains of Armenia, and had not yet settled on the fields bared to the bottom. When the elder felt it stable and free from motion, and no longer believed the timber to be floating, swimming through the windy seas, he judged that the world had emerged, the waters withdrawn. Then he unbars the topmost window in the lofty front, that by a bird sent forth he might explore the ebbing waves.
The bird, flying, cleaves the air with long clapping, and shakes the breezes with empty movements of its wings; and when for a long time it grazed the waves with wearied wings, and no place granted the longed-for rest, it seeks again its accustomed enclosure from the surveyed sea. The elder then gathers it, received in his hands, within, perceiving that no lands had appeared through the waters. Meanwhile the sea, moving itself with vast mass, forsaking worldly things, was returning into the ancient chaos. The lofty peaks at last begin first to put forth their summits, after which the slender mountains grow thick.
But truly when the shores girded the ancient sea, and sacred Ocean, gathered into its known bounds, content, swallowed the gliding rivers in its wonted channel, and set bounds to all the streams, and their own trenches shut in the torrents on every side, the dry lands shone free, the waters withdrawn. Then, an interval of time interposed, bringing forth the raven, the elder desires to know, and questions the empty world. When the bird, with outstretched wings, seeks the bright air, seeing corpses heaped upon the crowded lands, it settles upon the flesh, and, soon forgetting to return, it left its gentle ruler in the common seat. So, O Jew, you know not to keep faith with your master; so, sent away, you love the flesh; so no grace is ever repaid to the Guardian of life and to the Lord.
With wandering mind, so loosed, you go away; so you have broken the covenants of the law and violated the first pact, O faithless one. When, by the lapse of time, the elder concluded that the sluggish raven could by now have well enough returned to the enclosure, ignorant of the cause of its slow return and delay, fearing lest perchance the returning water had consumed it, faltering with entangled wings, and joined it to all the perishing, straightway he sends forth the white dove from its seat. She, mindful of the command, seeks the fields in swift flight, and, seeing the branch of the peace-bearing green olive, plucks it, and bears it back to the ark in her beak. By such a token the simple envoy confirmed the covenant, and the pious man thus learned that the world was clean.
The full circle was turning the completed year, in which the happy enclosure held all breathing things, when the father, the bars removed with saws, opens the drawn bolts, and begins to restore the long-unaccustomed sun to those shut in, that seeds might return to the worn-out world. Yet before the just man bids them wander scattered, of the single ones out of seven which he had long taken care to shut in clean, with sons and daughters-in-law alike summoned, arranging them upon an altar built of turf, he offers sacrifice, kindling holy fires first upon these altars. While very many bodies are burned in great flames and the numerous victim raises rich smoke, a sweet odor touched the glad heaven beyond the ether, and the first sacrifice of the cleansed world was received. Then, mingled with the sacred fire, this voice thunders forth.
'Thus far let the infected world have drawn its contagions; let it suffice that wickedness has reigned; cleansed by washing, let the earth shine perpetually, and let the elements keep their restored countenances; let not the worldly mass, troubled by any further evils, fall asunder. You also, whom life saved in the time of death, and, keeping you untouched, defended from every mishap, lead a secure age with the laws kept; and you, the head of the race, with fruitful seed scatter offspring, that it may fill the widely spread world, restore the destroyed number, and rule over the world. Nay, the animals too shall yield fertile increase, which yet, subdued, shall serve in the ancient order; moreover, from this time on, there shall no longer be a reigning flood upon the lands to crush all flesh. The one thing that shall be shall be shown by one sign.'
'Nor shall sins behold the like slaughter repeated; and if there be crime, another terror shall not be lacking.' So, swearing, the Father hallowed one baptism, so that, as the world was once washed by purging waters, the guilty could not hope for a second laving. Scarcely with three parts of the sky completed was the ray descending, bent toward its setting, when by chance, commanded to touch a remote cloud beneath the eastern pole, it put forth a sign struck out from the moistened air, and the bow flashed—which now the Greeks call the daughter of Thaumas, and which poets in Roman speech name Iris. When the hanging moisture has felt the slanting sun, it sends forth doubtful colors with varied splendor:
nor could you number them, so do the doubtful circles, mixed with light, mock the sight with their diverse faces—green sapphire, spotted, dark blue, white; it draws purple from the cloud, gleaming light from the sun, brightness from the sky, and takes black from the earth; and yet these things, which consist of separated elements, you would think so diverse that you may perceive concord. This form God grants the bow to be as a sign to trembling mortals, promising clear weather from the cloud, and that heaven owes no more perils to the lands. Now, whoever you are who desire to keep true salvation, you shall look up to that sign which these signs prefigure. For Christ, the giver of life, sent such things before, and by a doubled substance gave the Savior. In the flesh taken on earth from the radiant Virgin there is inherent a natural splendor from the paternal source:
and a certain mediator in the midst, in the lofty ether, varied by manifold gift yet radiant in all, shows the life-giving bow of the sacred pledge. Behold this one in your heart, whoever, washed in baptism, go forth free to heaven with your faults perishing. For 'this form of the law,' says the Apostle, 'the washing, shall save you,' when in the time of ancient Noah he described the eight souls shut in by the timbers. He compares the gift given; you, keeping it, love the gift, bearing it with vows and prayers, longing for it with weepings, lest sins return to you, lest the drowned rise again, lest the dead arise, lest the vanquished rebel, lest perils prevail after the crime is washed away—and fear the flame, since now the water is no longer at hand.