On Noah 53–77

'All flesh that moved died.' This is clear according to the letter, and he expressed the corruption of the flesh properly and naturally by the sign of stormy agitation. For agitation is not vicious except through the corruption of the affections; the flesh stirs up pleasures and is itself stirred by pleasures, and such agitation produces corruption. The cause of corruption, then, is the agitation of this world, through which each one's soul degenerates. For when vicious passions move the mind, corruption is produced; when the pursuits of the virtues are stirred, there is progress in discipline. 'Every one that was on dry land died'; for those whom the wave of so great a flood had overwhelmed could not but die. So much according to what is written and the sequence of the words. But if you seek the allegory, there is no doubt that, after the example of drier wood, which the fire burns up as soon as it begins to lick it, so the soul, unless it is moistened with the dew of the various virtues, watered by a kind of draught of wisdom and by the spring of righteousness and the stream of chastity, is burned up in the fire of the desires as though its vital root were withered, or falls dashed down by the outpouring of the flesh. Hence the soul ought always to feast on thoughts of good works, so that the mind, made drunk with the juice of prudence, may grow rich, and may not easily yield to the injury of the bodily flood and die unmanned in the dry neglect of carelessness. And therefore the Lord admonishes us not to withdraw from the fountain of wisdom, to drink the cups of virtue, lest anyone wither in the sun of iniquity and be unable to endure the storm of persecution. For it is written: 'If they do this in the green wood, what will happen in the dry?'

'God blotted out,' he says, 'everything that was upon the face of the earth.' The explanation of the text is evident; but the allegory declares to us that pride is exposed, which exalts itself in this earthly and fragile substance and, forgetful of divine things and despising human ones, disfigures the very bearing and gait of the arrogant man. Such are the daughters of Judea whom Isaiah describes, flashing with nods of their eyes and tossing themselves with lofty necks. For such people raise their eyebrows, with puffed-up heart, swelling chest, and neck thrown back; they barely graze the ground with their footsteps but poise themselves with their whole body and hang in empty balance; they go forward with their step while bending their head backward; they look at heaven but disdain the earth, as though fixed by a pain in the neck so that they cannot bend it. These, then, God blotted out from the book of life, saying: 'Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled'; nor does he let them cleave, with their contrivances, to the heavenly things among the merits of the saints.

When all who were outside the ark had been killed, Noah alone was left in the ark with those who were with him. The simpler statement needs no interpretation — the understanding coincides with the letter — but the higher and inner meaning shows that the just man and lover of wisdom, like a fruitful tree when the things that used to gnaw its food, overshadow its foliage, and cramp the growth of its branches have been destroyed, remained alone with his own, as one with no share in irrational passions. His own are the pure reasonings of the mind, which cleave to virtue. And he added well that he remained in the ark, as though it would seem hardly credible, once the bodily passions had been cut off, that he was still living in the body; for though he was now free of earthly contagions, he still kept the substance of the body, though incorrupt, and, as one incorporeal in the body, he was borne above the flood and not swallowed up, bearing a body, as though placed within the ark, yet as one incorporeal steering that very body amid such great motions with passions unconquered.

'The Lord remembered Noah and the wild beasts and the cattle,' as divine Scripture says. Many are troubled why the writer did not say that God also remembered Noah's wife and sons, when he remembered the beasts and cattle. But in saying that he remembered Noah, he included the rest of his household in its author and head. At the same time a certain harmony among the rest of his household seems to be expressed. For when all are dear to one another, there is one house; but when they disagree, they are separated and split into many houses. Where there is love, then, the whole house is signified by the name of the elder on whom the rest depend, just as if one says 'tree,' he certainly includes the branches, and if one names a branch, he embraces in one and the same word the fruit that is on it.

Nor is it idle that he said first that God remembered Noah, then the wild beasts, afterward the cattle — that is, why after man he named not the gentler animals but the fiercer. The reason seems to be that the fiercer creatures might be tamed by being close to both sides. This seems to be declared also in that line of poetry: 'and he drove the bad into the middle.' For from here too the poet took it, that he arranged the disposition of an army about to fight so as to place the weaker in the middle, so that they might be helped from both sides by the stronger and share in the fighting of both sides. In this the sequence of the text is made plain. In a higher sense, it is certain that the just man holds the thoughts of his heart in the middle, not on one side, and that as long as he enjoys this life he must have heavy beasts in his body, as in that ark. For there is no mind, no soul, that does not admit even the wild movements of evil thoughts. And so the soul of the foolish man sharpens bestial movements and stokes the venom of serpents, but the vigor of the wise man tames and restrains them.

'And the Lord brought a spirit upon the earth, and the water ceased.' I do not think this was said so that we should take 'spirit' to mean wind. For a wind could not dry up the flood; otherwise, since the sea is stirred by winds every day, it would surely be emptied. For how would the sea not be drained by the force of the winds, if the flood, spread over the whole world as far as the Pillars of Hercules, as they say, and the great sea surging over the covered peaks of high mountains, had yielded to them? There is no doubt, then, that that flood was checked by the invisible power of the divine Spirit, by a heavenly working, not by a breath. Hence it is written: 'All things look to you to give them food in due season. When you open your hand, all will be filled with goodness; but when you turn away your face, they will be troubled. You will take away their spirit, and they will fail and return to their dust. You will send forth your Spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.' There is, then, a Spirit to whose working all things are seen to yield, in whom is the power of heaven itself, as it is written: 'By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and by the Spirit of his mouth all their power.' This Spirit is the creator of all things, as Job too says: 'The divine Spirit, who made me.'

Now let us consider what Scripture means by saying: 'The fountains of the waters and the floodgates of heaven were shut.' I do not think it obscure. The flood diminishes by the same causes by which it grew. The fountains of the waters had burst forth, the floodgates of heaven had been opened, so that the earth was flooded by waters pouring in from every side. Those things from which the origin of the flood had flowed had to be shut, so that it might begin to fail. This is what the letter says; but a subtler interpretation expresses that the flood of the soul had flowed in through the vice of the mind and the luxury of the body, so that wickedness was mixed with passion and passion with wickedness. When the physician, the Word of God, came in to visit the soul, which was laboring under a long sickness through the depravity of its reasonings and the bitterness of its passions, the causes of the sickness first had to be cut off. For the beginning of medicine is to cut away the causes of the illness, so that the things that harm may no longer feed the growth of the sickness. The law too teaches us this. For when leprosy has come to a stop so that it no longer spreads, then it says that the halt and standstill of the leprosy is clean; for whatever moves contrary to nature is unclean. This, then, is the health of the soul, this the soundness of the mind: that the flow of error should cease, that guilt be halted so that it does not creep on. When the incitement to guilt and sin ceases, health is secure, and the unimpaired vigor of the soul is restored.

'And the ark rested,' he says, 'in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh of the month.' Unless you pay close attention, this passage is hard to grasp even according to the letter. First of all, care must be taken that the frequent repetition of 'the seventh month' does not confuse anyone. For it is written thus: that the flood began in the six hundredth year, in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh of the month; that the pouring in of the waters lasted one hundred and fifty days; that the ark rested on the mountain in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh of the month; that afterward the waters began to decrease by the mercy of God, and the decrease of the waters took one hundred and fifty days; that afterward the tops of the mountains appeared; then after forty days holy Noah opened the door of the ark; the raven, sent out, did not return; the dove, sent out, returned empty; sent out again after seven days, it returned with an olive branch; sent out a third time after seven days, it did not return; then Noah observed that all the water had receded. And so the year is shown to be completed in the seventh month on the twenty-seventh of the month. As far as the plain explanation goes, then, the condition of the earth after the flood is restored in the same month and on the same day on which it was spoiled at the beginning of the pouring in of the flood. For in springtime every field is green and the earth brings forth fruit; then the trees begin to bud and the fruits to sprout. So the Lord re-formed and restored the earth's rich quality. In the second month, then, that is, April — for the first month is March, in which the Just One has his birthday, when the equality of night and day is reckoned, that is, on the eighth, as the Romans think, or, as others, on the fifth day before the Kalends of April — in the second month, I say, that is, April, on the twenty-seventh of the month, the flood began. Spring is reckoned the beginning of the year not according to the custom of the calendar but according to the prerogative of nature, so that, since the hope of the year begins then and the fruit begins to show itself, that seems to be the beginning of the year. But the seventh month by number is reckoned as the one called September, because although the year seems to begin from the month of September, as the practice of the present indictions shows — for that is when seed is sown — yet the origin of the year is reckoned from spring, from which a fuller grace begins to show itself; and so the month that by one reckoning is thought the first is by another estimate held to be the seventh. Then, therefore, the ark rested, that is, in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh of the month, upon Mount Ararat. From then the flood began to diminish. Consider also that things are undone by the same numbers by which they begin: the flood began in the second month of the year, on the twenty-seventh of the month; for one hundred and fifty days the flood poured in; for one hundred and fifty other days the flood gave way; for forty days its excessive force surged with rain from heaven and the bursting of the fountains; when forty other days had passed 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. So it is clear that the flood was diminished by the same number by which it was heaped up. Hence Scripture teaches us that order must be kept.

What the door of the ark is, which the just man opened, has been said above with regard to the body. According to a higher interpretation it seems that this should be said: the senses of the body are regarded as like doors. For through them, as through doors, a kind of grasp of sensible things enters our mind. So our mind is seen to look out through these senses, and especially through sight, which is reckoned more excellent than all the senses of the body, because it is akin to light; and by it, looking at the heaven, the earth, the seas, and also the sun, moon, and stars with which the sky is adorned, we understand that God is the maker and ruler of the world, and we believe that these things could not have come to be, nor could they continue, without God as their author and the founder of such great works.

Through this window, then, the just man first sent out the raven. The reason must be sought, though it is not hidden as far as the letter goes: many regard the raven as a messenger of things to come, watch its calls, and examine its flights. But the higher sense signifies that the mind of the just man, when it begins to cleanse itself, first drives away from itself what is dark, unclean, and rash; for all shamelessness and guilt is dark and feeds on the dead like the raven, while virtue is close to the light and shines with the purity and simplicity of the mind. And therefore guilt is, as it were, sent out and driven off and separated from innocence, so that nothing dark remains in the just man's mind. Indeed the raven, once gone out, does not return to the just man, because all guilt flees fairness and is not seen to agree with uprightness and righteousness. Indeed the unjust man believes that he has escaped as though from chains when the just man has separated himself from his company, being at home with a kind of flood and corruption, like the raven, which, finding no dry land anywhere, did not return but stayed away.

We must also consider why he said that the raven did not return until the water dried from the earth, as though it did return afterward. But this is a familiar idiom of divine Scripture, since in the gospel too you have it written of holy Mary that Joseph did not know her until she bore a son, when certainly he did not know her afterward either. Then what manner of speech is this, that he should say 'until the water dried from the earth,' and not 'the earth from the water'? Ordinary usage, indeed, is accustomed to have this too. Yet some before us have thought that by this way of speaking a certain immoderate force of the passions seems to be expressed, because the soul is consumed by turbid and stormy passions, but when they fail and, as it were, dry up, it recovers its strength. The form of guilt, then, does not return into the soul of the just man, leaving it as it were dry and dead, a soul it can no longer harm.

Nor is it meaningless that the dove was sent out afterward; for simplicity undoes malice, and virtue undoes guilt. Malice, then, loves the flood and flees the company of the just mind, and remains, as it were, abandoned and without any resting place, having no fellowship with virtue; but virtue returns, loving the company of the just and more at home with bestowing benefit, so that it may bring what is salutary and warn of what is harmful and to be avoided, just as the dove, sent out, when it saw that the water had not ceased, returned as one full of righteousness, to tell him by whom it had been sent what he still had to beware of, and so that, by waiting, he might later obtain a better fruit. That the dove, finding no rest, returns to him gives a clear indication that through birds of this kind is expressed how great is the difference between malice and virtue, since the raven, sent out earlier, when the flood seemed to be overflowing somewhat more widely, seemed to have found a place to settle. And surely the raven is not of the kind of other birds that are accustomed to live on the waters. Since, then, the raven seems to have found a place to stay, but the dove did not, the evident reason is that in a higher interpretation it signifies that malice is accustomed to mingle itself with the restless passions and desires by which the soul is corrupted, delights in them as in its kin and household, and settles its dwelling there; but virtue, offended at the very first sight, hastened to return to the mind and soul of the just man, because there its safest lodging has been placed, since nowhere else can virtue of this kind, like a dove, find a safe resting place. For simplicity is slow to find a harbor amid the cunning of this world and the waves of worldly desires.

And so, just as virtue, having gone out a little way as though to visit, hastens to return to the best mind and does not go far from the just man, so too the just man, devoted to virtue, when he knows that virtue is approaching, opens wide the bosom of his mind. For what does it mean that Noah, a man devoted to virtue, stretching out his hand took it and brought it in to himself? Though this seems plain according to the letter, you would not easily grasp it unless you knew the habit of the wise man, who uses virtue as a scout and seems to entrust to it a certain prerogative of exploring and conducting affairs. This virtue, then, weighs natures, so that if any of them seems suited to it, it may add progress to it. For the goodness of wisdom is common, liberal, and generous with benefit, so that it associates with itself those it sees compliant. But when it sees that the nature of some kicks against its purpose, it flies back and runs again as to a familiar lodging, and the wise and diligent man hastens to receive it as with a hand of the mind, opening his whole heart, with which he held it even when it was absent; for the wise man can never be without his own virtue.

What further does it mean that he kept the dove for another seven days and sent it out again, unless to make you notice that the good and excellent purpose of the wise man always seeks to join others to itself as well, to amend those who go astray, to correct those who wander? If he sees someone recoil at first, he still does not despair of the progress of changing and correcting him. For just as a good physician, even if it is not yet time for medicine, first sends ahead a lookout in his visit, then does not neglect the watch of a reasonable expectation, and, yielding for a while to the illness, waits for the opportunity of healing, and when it is offered does not neglect his duty: so the wise man too desires to cure contrary passions with words and discussions, as a physician with medicines. And since in all things the remedy of divine favor must be used, he therefore waited seven days, in which the whole world is described as completed and rest was granted to its maker, so that the discipline of human working might be taken from him, the author of all things.

So the dove returned toward evening, having an olive leaf and a branch in its mouth. Not idly did he put both 'evening' and 'returned' and 'having an olive leaf and a twig in its mouth,' so that you would not think virtue shuns future progress, if it can gain any, nor again suppose that it was without light and hidden in a kind of darkness, but know that, shining with the brightness of day, it waited until the setting of the day and so returned to him, with whom it could have no darkness even in the evening. The leaf too that it brought back, though it seems to have brought only a small leaf, signified some hope, even if not a great one, for those who would repent of their error; for a leaf could not exist without a shoot. So it carried a token of a sprouting amendment, if not a great one, still some token; and an olive leaf, the tree on which the olive grows, from which oil is made, by which this material light is fed and the obscurity of darkness put to flight. And what is more akin to virtue than light? The leaf and the twig, then, are a token of amendment, and amendment has repentance as its root, as it were; and this repentance cannot sprout in the turbulent, but in those who have already received the spiritual word. Nor does the olive twig seem to have been carried in its mouth for nothing, because virtue and wisdom have their brightness in speech, and its light shines out at once in its very appearance, especially when it speaks of peace, since those who seek peace are accustomed to carry this twig before them. It brought a twig because simplicity, by its purity and sincerity, pours certain seeds of benefit into our ears, and the teaching of good virtue either calls to perseverance and invites to the reward the one conscious of good discipline, or instills in the sinner a desire to do penance and follow a new way of life.

It also seems worth considering how holy Noah knew that the water had gone down from the earth, as it is written. First of all, according to the letter, because he could tell whether the leaf brought was dry or wet; next, because the dove is not the kind of bird that can dig out fruits hidden under water. But you must consider whether that leaf had sprung up before the flood or during the flood. If before the flood, the just man rejoiced that some fruit had been preserved from the old seed, and from this gathered a token of divine mercy, since the flood had now departed, a mercy that showed fruit which the floods had been unable to harm. If the leaf was born in the time of the flood, the just man surely observed that new seeds of heavenly mercy had sprouted, so that the roots of the trees were alive and, as though their life had been restored, put forth their old offspring and returned to their accustomed bearing, of which the leaves sent ahead gave the sign.

But he gathered this rather by a deep interpretation: that the Lord our God, though offended by the bitter errors of our iniquity, still kept for us some seed, however small, of our ancient lineage and ancestral virtue, so that every mark of his work and creation in the human race might not be wholly cut off. Hence Isaiah also says: 'Unless the Lord of hosts had left us seed, we should have become like Sodom and been like Gomorrah,' expressing by the name of one city a sign of blindness, by the name of the other barrenness. For in their native tongue the Chaldeans named Sodom and Gomorrah with the meaning blindness and barrenness. And rightly the Lord, in cities of this kind, cut off human vices rather than judging men to be punished.

A third time the dove is sent out after seven days, and it does not return. Let us consider this, lest what we said above be found contrary to it. If the dove in word, but virtue in fact, does not return to the just man, is the just man then abandoned and cheated of his gift? By no means. For a man of this kind is never separated from virtue; nor, when he sends forth righteousness from his mouth and brings in a discussion of some virtue, does he strip himself of virtue and despoil himself of the fairness others are to imitate; rather, like the sun, he enlightens others when he sends forth the rays of his light. Fire indeed warms those who come near, while it keeps the heat of its own nature. Does the light of day fail when it enlightens the whole world with its brightness? It keeps its course unhindered and its nature undiminished. So too this virtue in the form of the dove, while the flood was still raging — as a bird on the earth, as virtue among the passions of men — returned to the just man, because it had been unable to find a place to cling to in the hearts of the wicked; and therefore, returning, it clings and rests in that second lodging of its own. But when the floods of the passions have subsided and very many have desired to share in the word they have heard and the teaching they have learned, the discipline of virtue begins to be no longer the estate of one man but a common good, and it is drunk like a cup of wisdom by very many who before, though thirsty, would not drink; just as now the floods rage in the hearts of the Jews, and though the water of heavenly teaching overflows and drink abounds, they do not think it should be drunk. The gospel is read, virtue goes forth from the heavenly word, the priest preaches in the church; and lest, placed alone within the ark, he not be heard, sometimes he goes out from the church too, and where a Jew meets him, he admonishes him and brings forward an example from the heavenly Scriptures: they shut their ears, lest the fountain wash them even against their will and the moisture of the Lord's word sprinkle them. But if any have believed, they run to the fountain, seek teaching, long to have the gospel instilled in them, and are not sated by constant drinking. So they eagerly desire to be filled from the fountain of wisdom which before they were eager to flee. What fountain? Hear him who says: 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as the Scripture said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.'

He says that in the six hundred and first year of Noah's life, on the first day of the <first> month, the water was diminished from the face of the earth, and he records that in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the earth was dried. What does that addition about the diminishing of the water mean, when the reckoning made above seems to have completed the year, a year which begins from the second month and runs on to the second month of the following year? Unless perhaps we wish to take it that the figure of the just man is declared here: so that the first year was the one in which the flood began, that is, the first year after the six hundredth; and again the first year and the first month after the six hundredth year, when the water was diminished from the face of the earth, because the just man was first in virtue both in the generation of sinners, which was destroyed for its offenses, and first in order in the second generation, which began after the flood, since he was the first of the second generation. And deservedly he had come out first. For honor is rightly paid to him who was both the first of the first generation and the beginning of the later one, who deserved both to escape from the one and to be propagated as the seedbed of the other. For when the others had perished, he alone, rich before God by the merit of an excellent life and the prerogative of virtue, did not experience the corruption of malice; through him it came about that the whole body of the human race did not seem to be abolished on earth or left cut off from God's grace.

'And Noah uncovered,' he says, 'the roof of the ark.' Since we have taken the ark, as we interpreted above, as the figure of the body, let us understand what it means to uncover the body, that is, according to the higher sense. Otherwise it is plain how the ark could be opened according to the letter. What, then, is the roof of the human body, which was closed in the flood, unless perhaps we take it to be pleasure, which covered and as it were roofed this body of ours through that error of Adam? And it is thought most like a roof because all sense is in the head, and from there pleasure held the whole body subject. But when the mind of the just man, sober and untouched by the corruption of the flood, inflamed with desire for the knowledge of God, wished to leap out and fly up to higher things, it laid bare everything that was a hindrance, and uncovered and unroofed the appearance of pleasure, which covered the other parts of the body as with a covering, so that it might not only free the body from the service of an ignoble mistress but also grasp the things that were incorporeal; for the things that are not seen are eternal. And therefore the just man, free from corruption and eager for eternity, sought the Lord whom he did not see.

As for his saying the first month, or the second, and that it is a day of springtime, you have it said elsewhere too: 'This month shall be for you the first among the days of the year.' For he who was first in grace after the danger rightly received the prerogative of the first month.

Let it not trouble you that we said above that the leaf found on the branch could have grown after the flood, though plants often sprout under water. Yet to remove every scruple: what great thing is it if, at God's command, on the one day on which the water was diminished, the earth also sprouted at once, since he is the restorer and founder of fruits and had not forgotten the working of his own creation? Indeed you have at the very beginning that he commanded the earth to sprout grass for fodder and fruit-bearing trees with their fruit — and at once the earth put forth grass for fodder having seed according to its kind, and the fruit-bearing tree — and that was one day, on which God commanded or made these things. So God, not forgetful of his kindness but forgetful of our iniquity, restored his work in the same measure of time in which he began it.

'And the Lord God said to Noah: Go out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons.' So when the water receded and the earth was dried, Noah could have gone out of the ark. But the just man claims nothing for himself; he commits himself wholly to the divine command. And above all, one who had gone in at a heavenly oracle had to wait for a heavenly answer before going out; for righteousness is modest, while iniquity is immodest, claiming what is not due and showing no reverence for its author.

Now let us ask why, when they went into the ark, the order of those entering was this: first he himself went in, and his sons, then his wife and his sons' wives; but when they went out, it was changed. For it is written: 'He went out, and his wife and his sons and his sons' wives.' The letter signifies abstinence from procreation in the going in, and the use of procreation in the going out. For then the father went in first with his sons, and the sons with their parent, and afterward his wife and his sons' wives; that is, the sexes are not mixed in the entrance, they are mixed in the exit. Plainly, then, by the very order of entering the just man utters a kind of voice: that was no time for intercourse or delights, when destruction hung over all. Hence in the gospel the Lord says, rebuking it, that in the days of Noah they ate and drank, married wives and gave their daughters in marriage, and that therefore the flood came upon them because of their intemperance. That was a time of mourning, then, not of gladness; and so the just man did not take pleasure in the company of his wife, nor did his just sons seek conjugal union — for how unseemly, that at the time when the living were dying, those who were to perish should be begotten! — but afterward the use and care of marriage rightly followed, for the propagation of the rest, when the flood had receded. And so it is not men with men but women with men who go out, so that the intermingling of man with man might be seen to be forbidden, but the union of man and woman by the lawful lot of marriage permitted.

The higher sense contains this: <that> where there is danger, certain manly and stronger reasonings should cleave to the mind, and the mind should defend itself with these as with an offspring of sons, so that a kind of manly battle line may meet the storms and the graver passions. But when the danger is over, there is no harm if softer thoughts are joined to stronger ones, not so that the stronger may be made soft by the softer, but so that the softer senses may be strengthened by the manly ones, as it were, since all our counsels are directed toward virtue, righteousness, integrity, and fortitude, and by a kind of use and seeding stronger counsels can create and grow virtue. It is not useful, then, when some confusion of vices occupies the mind, for the mind to sow thoughts and beget them and be in labor. But when the desires have been restrained and the mind has come to rest, then, having received a kind of seed of reasoning, virtues and good works can sprout.