On Noah 110–128

but wine superfluous to men and not necessary. But perhaps you will say that men cannot live without drink, just as without food. Is drink, then, as necessary as food? I do not deny it. Has it surely been established by the Lord as necessary for thirst? I do not object. And therefore, for necessary drink, it was fitting to channel springs and rivers, which were not made by the hand of man but flowed at the command and working of the Lord our God. And lest, since we have spoken of the Lord's working, you twist it toward the fact that Cain's working seems to have had curses, consider that it is not working that receives the name of the curse, but that it is written 'to work the earth.' For he who works the earth is a hired man; but he is not a hired man but the Lord who says: 'My Father is working until now, and I am working.' Hear what such a worker works: 'My food is to do the will of my Father who is in heaven.'

'And he drank of the wine,' he says, 'and was drunk.' He did not say 'he drank wine,' nor that the just man drank up the wine, but 'of the wine,' that is, he tasted a portion of it. It belongs to the drunkard to swallow all the wine, and to the intemperate to empty what he has taken; but the continent man must use a lawful measure. There are, then, two kinds of drunkenness: one that brings staggering to the body, trips its footsteps, and disturbs its senses; the other that warms the mind with the grace of virtue and seems to turn away all weakness. Hence the apostle says: 'Use a little wine because of your frequent weaknesses.' For just as by this moderation in drinking wine serves not weakness but health and relieves every weakness of the body, so too that glorious drunkenness excludes every weakness of the flesh, of which it is written: 'And how glorious is the inebriating cup!' What is this drunkenness? 'Be drunk,' he says, 'not with wine, in which is luxury, but be filled with the Spirit,' as the apostle said. According to the letter, then, there is a caution, and according to the wise man's higher sense there is praise. He is cautious who, even if he is uncovered, is uncovered in his own house, where coverings are not lacking and certain shelters for drunkenness, so that he knows how to hide his faults.

Bodily coverings, then, such as walls and roofs, cover the naked body; but let us see what the coverings of the soul are. We shall find the coverings only if we have examined its uncovering. The uncovering of the wise man is twofold. So our mind is clothed with a twofold covering, if either it has committed a sin unwittingly — for this is the uncovering of a mind as it were drunk, so that it does not know what wrong it does, slipping as though led into vice by a kind of intoxication of ignorance — or again, buried in the sleep of negligence and ignorance, it does not know its error. When we fall into these, or rather when we fall into many sins even knowingly — for there is a certain natural drunkenness of our weakness too, so that we are carried into vice by the rush of pleasure, as many are inflamed by the heat of youth, or set ablaze by luxury and pleasure, or carried off by the desire of avarice — surely in all these a medicine should be sought, so that one may cover a weakness of this kind first with a certain shame and modesty, so that even if he is still placed on the slippery ground of sinning, he may yet give a sign of amendment. For it makes a great difference whether one desires to boast of one's sins or to hide them; in the one there is base shamelessness, in the other a tolerable modesty that shows hope of future correction.

There is another uncovering of the soul, by which it casts off and strips away, as it were, the burden of the body, fleeing from a kind of tomb of the flesh. For 'an open tomb is the throat' of such men, a tomb in which the soul is as it were entombed, weighed down by pleasures and the various passions of the desires. So the soul strips itself of the earthly heap and escapes, as from nets cast around it, whenever it has stripped itself of every snare of the passions and turned away all that unsightly form of earthly stain, so that it may see the light of eternal beauty.

I now ask why he did not simply say: 'Ham saw his father's nakedness,' but: 'Ham, the father of Canaan, saw.' Surely Canaan had not been born. Why, then, did he add the son's name, unless so that the inheritance might be disfigured by the fault of its author, and the author be weighed down by the son's wickedness? So both the father in the son and the son in the father are convicted, sharing a common fellowship of folly, wickedness, and impiety too. Nor could it be that one who had himself proved a wicked son to a good father, degenerate both in nature and in upbringing, should beget a good son.

So much according to the letter. As for the higher sense, all the worst characters delight in others' errors, and not only in errors but also in things that seem evil to them, even if they are not. For Noah did not feel himself naked, since he was clothed with the garment of wisdom. Indeed Adam too, placed in paradise, did not think himself naked until after he had committed the error of transgression. And uncovered of the garment of wisdom and righteousness and stripped by the transgression of the heavenly commands, he saw <himself> naked and thought he must be covered with leaves. So Ham laughs when he sees his father uncovered. For every wicked man, since he himself has strayed from discipline, takes the falls of others not only as a comfort for his own error, because he has found partners in guilt, but also rejoices with a wicked affection, as though he had corrected his own offenses. An evil mind, then, rejoices that something has happened to the wise man contrary to his intention, though a fall of the body ought not to count as a vice, even if it is thought a fall, unless the soul too inclines to guilt. Finally, errors of this kind should be judged pardonable, not pursued with hatred nor held up to ridicule; but the wicked mind, as I have said, when it thinks the wise man has erred, thinks it must insult the one whose character it thinks contrary to its own, because its own sin is refuted, as it were, by the silent testimony of the wise man; and it thinks it should rejoice that his learning did not profit the just man, nor did his righteousness support him, nor did the things that concern the body have a prosperous course. For these things are esteemed the highest goods by the wicked, being placed in riches or honor, which yet bring no fruit to the praise of virtue. Hence they seem to be defenders of folly <who think> the lover of virtue cheated of the gift of prosperity, they who think every good is to be reckoned by temporal things rather than by eternal ones.

Why did Shem and Japheth put a garment on their shoulders, walk backward, and cover their naked father, and not see his nakedness? The letter expresses an evident affection of filial piety: the good sons took care not to see their father stripped of his clothing, lest reverence for their father be diminished even by the very sight, since piety is often offended even by a silent look. Hence it is said that at Rome too there was an old custom that sons, especially when grown, did not enter the bath with their parents.

But the higher sense holds that the foolish man sees only present things, which are before his eyes; he does not look to the future, he does not think of the past; but the wise man both remembers the past and considers the future. Every wise mind, then, walks backward, that is, looks at the past, and is not hindered by any habit of nature; it suffers nothing of its deeds to be empty, nothing naked. What was done otherwise it covers with a kind of garment and grace of present or future work, so as to pass over nothing unseemly and leave nothing unadorned. Hence the apostle too forgot what lay behind and reached for what lay ahead; but he forgot so as to hide the errors of his persecution, to cover his former offenses, and to overshadow them with good works. For blessed are they too whose sins are covered, that is, if they are covered with good deeds and hidden by the disciplines of the virtues that follow.

'And Noah became sober from the wine,' he says. It is plain that men become sober from drunkenness after sleep has intervened; but the mind is sober when it knows both past and future. The mind of the just man, then, was sober even when it was thought drunk; for glorious is the cup that inebriates the just. But the one who laughed at his father was truly drunk. For since he considered neither the past grace of his begetting, nor the present reverence due to his father, nor the future punishment for wronging his father, he was truly drunk, and what he thought he saw he did not see. There was a deep blindness in him who could not see his father. For if he had seen his father, he would surely not have laughed; for a father is not to be laughed at but revered. Much more could the fool not see the mind of the just man. For how did he see, who thought there was the error of drunkenness in him in whom was the perfect breath of wisdom and the other virtues? As it is written: 'For she is a breath of the power of God.' For when is the mind more sober than when it so beholds the nature of all things, and the affairs of times present and to come, that no staggering of temporal drunkenness appears in it?

I also ask why, when earlier he called Ham the middle one among the sons, he now makes him the younger. For it is written thus: 'Noah knew all that his younger son had done to him.' Did Scripture err before in the order of birth? Surely not. What then? Is what is now written contrary? I do not think so. How, then, is it resolved, unless you take 'younger' not by age or time, but as one unformed in understanding and set in a kind of infancy of intellect, who has not drunk in the teaching of a more advanced age nor taken in the counsel of the old? For there is such a thing as gray-haired understanding in men. And therefore it says: 'When you come to the council of the elders, shut your mouth,' as another saying has it elsewhere; for you must learn before you speak. Keep your ears ready, then, so as to gain something from the counsels of the wise. The tongue must be restrained, the hearing made ready.

Blessing his son Shem, Noah said: 'Blessed be the Lord God of Shem, and Canaan shall be his servant.' He said both 'Lord' and 'God,' and specially 'God of his son,' whose name is Shem, because he is the God of the just, that is, the God of minds, not of valleys, of those who have the grace of lofty virtue. Then why, when his son Ham sinned, did he consign not Ham himself but his son to slavery? Perhaps because a father is more affected by the wrongs of his son, especially those of which he himself is guilty and the author, and is more grievously saddened that the condemnation of his own sin is paid by his son, who is punished not so much for his own desert as for his father's; then because, since the son was a pupil of his father's teaching and an imitator of the worst thoughts, both used, as it were, one body and mind and the same malice. Without distinction, then, the son paid the price either of his father's malice or of his own, since there is a common fellowship of wickedness. What he paid for his father's wickedness, then, he doubtless paid also for his own, being guilty of his father's fault; or at least the punishment is prolonged further when it reaches even to the son, and the affliction of the successor

is drawn out over a long time. So much according to the letter. But here not so much persons as characters are meant, in both of which there is one nature. For Ham means heat, Canaan agitation and restlessness. And one who is hot is surely restless and more agitated. In the two, then, there was one passion and one affection.

And so when one is consigned, both are condemned. Why, then, did holy Noah, blessing his son Japheth, say: 'May the Lord enlarge Japheth, and may he dwell in the houses of Shem, and let Canaan be his servant'? We said above that Japheth signifies, as it were, the indifferent good. Indifferent things have breadth, which lies in health, vigor, beauty, strength, riches, favor, nobility, friends, powers, and the rest. But though these are indifferent goods, they have harmed many who possessed them without wisdom and righteousness. For riches have made many drunk, nobility and power have made them proud, beauty has made them wanton, and by its help they have corrupted the chastity of another's mind. So the things we have spoken of are indifferent according to the disposition of the one who uses them; their use is either governed by the virtues, or, without the governance of the virtues, what could be of benefit begins to do harm.

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

Of the descendants of Japheth he says: 'Rhodes and other islands of the nations.' Not without reason is he called breadth, since his offspring went forth even into the other part of nature, that is, the sea. For truly, like breadth, it was not content with what nature had prescribed for men's use, that is, the possession of land, but it also went into the sea and advanced as far as the islands. So much according to the letter.

But according to the higher sense, because the things that are outside, which are called goods — riches, powers, honors — are spread abroad more widely, as it were; and the rich are not content only with what is in their hands and before their eyes, but spread their desires far and wide, while either gain of money is sought from farther places, or honor from more people, or a more widespread power, or desire.

Now I ask why Scripture recorded that Cush, son of that wicked Ham, was the eldest. There are two kinds of earth: one sandy and dusty, or rather, to put it more precisely, dust; the other kind fruitful and fertile, that is, more solid and deep earth. What, then, does the wicked man beget but dust, from which there can be no offspring? And therefore the prophet compared the ungodly to dust, saying: 'Not so the ungodly, not so, but like the dust which the wind drives from the face of the earth,' because, according to the higher sense too, the soul of the ungodly is unfruitful and cannot produce useful fruits.

Why, too, does Cush beget Nimrod the giant, who was a hunter before God? Hence it is said: 'Like Nimrod the giant, a hunter before God.' What else, then, would dust and sand beget but an earthly man, because the ungodly man puts earthly things before heavenly ones? For the fable presents the giants as having wished to fight against the powers above, and they thought they should climb to heavenly things by an earthly ascent.

In a higher sense it signifies that whoever loves earthly pleasures and follows them, and thinks he can attain the grace of God by them and that the heavenly kingdom is to be granted to such errors, fights against heavenly things with a stubborn disposition. Therefore there is a proverb about one who has sinned: 'Like Nimrod the giant, a hunter before God.' Nimrod by interpretation means 'Ethiopian.' The Ethiopian's color signifies the darkness and squalor of the soul, which is opposed to the light, without share in brightness, wrapped in darkness, more like night than day. The hunter's way of life, too, is in the woods, among wild animals and beasts. Being irrational, then, he mingles with irrational passions, and such a hunter is accustomed to seek out the things of wild and very harsh malice and to possess them and delight in them. Indeed the beginning of this Nimrod's kingdom was Babylon, that is, confusion, because malice and power lie not in simplicity and purity, not in the distinction of virtue, but in the confusion of vices.