De Noe

We are attempting to explain the life, character, and deeds of the holy Noah, and also the height of his mind, if we can. For since philosophy itself has said that nothing is more difficult than to comprehend the inner man, how much more difficult is it to know the mind of a just man? Indeed, because the Lord God preserved him to renew the human race, so that he might be the seedbed of righteousness, it is fitting that we also describe him for the imitation of all and rest in him from all the anxiety of this world, which we endure daily amid various disturbances. It is shameful to outlive one’s children, it is wearisome. When we hear so many adversities of our dearest ones, to pluck this light of day: to undergo the diverse waves and storms of the churches themselves, whether present or to receive in the mind—who is so strong as to bear it patiently? And therefore this rest was also to be sought by us, so that while we consider the holy Noah with greater attention, we too may be refreshed, just as the whole race rested in him from its labors and sorrow.

Hence Noah is so called, which in Latin means "just" or "rest." Indeed, his parents said, "This one will make us rest from labors, from sorrow, and from the earth, which the Lord God cursed." If you think this refers to what actually happened, since the flood occurred under him, it seems to bring not rest to men but destruction, not a remission of evils but an accumulation of miseries. But if you consider the mind of a just man, you will notice that justice alone is born for others rather than for itself, seeking not what is useful to itself but what is useful to all. This makes us rest from works of iniquity; this recalls us from sorrow, because while we do what is just, we fear nothing with the security of a pure conscience, and we do not suffer grievous pain; for nothing is more painful than the guilt of fault. Let us also rest from all care of earthly life, which vexes our body and soul with frequent pains and wears away our life.

To him, however, three sons were born: Shem, Ham, and Japheth. These names signify 'good,' 'evil,' and 'indifferent,' so that he seems to have possessed goodness by the grace of nature, to have by no means lacked the temptations of evils, and to have abounded in indifferent things—that is, as it were, in the equipment of virtues. The reason, moreover, why he placed evil in the middle is evident: because the good of nature is inherent in all, and it does not cast them out like shipwrecked persons into the light, but rather props them up with strength so that they are not overwhelmed by the temptations of malice nor succumb as if weak; and it fortifies and clothes them, as it were, with certain coverings of indifferent things—which are health, good physical condition, beauty, energy, wealth, glory, nobility of birth—so that, fortified by this endowment, they may guard the goodness of nature, and confine that evil so that it cannot harm, and, as if shut in, strangle it. Do we not see, as it were, a certain battle line of virtues drawn up for war, so that the weaker are in the middle, while on the right and left, as on the wings, are the stronger, through whom the whole line receives its strength?

Hence a certain Greek poet says: "He placed the evil in the middle." Thus, therefore, as if by a good commander under God's command, nature, which knows how to generate us for the battles of this world, has placed what is good in the first rank, what is harmful in the second, and what is helpful in the third, so that the enemy, enclosed as if in the middle, may be overwhelmed by doubled forces wherever he turns, lest he wear down each of them individually as if with equal battles and have the ability to escape from natural straits and spread more widely. But because this is the order where they are born, whereas where they beget, Japheth is written first, Ham third, lest anyone think we have said the opposite in later passages, the reasoning of that passage must also be explained. Good indeed, as if in a certain nobility of nature, precedes, but evil follows. For there are contrary thoughts of the mind, which certainly arise later. As long as these are shut up within, as it were, and do not sprout as in plants, they are fostered in a certain bosom of a good mind, lest they emerge. For as long as evil is in the will, not in entelecheia—that is, in deed and effect—the goodness of the mind, like a charioteer, restrains or reins in the malice attempting to burst forth. But when it has boiled over and broken out like an ulcer, so that it cannot spread more widely and contaminate neighboring parts, then just providence succeeds, lest that indifferent thing, which the common people call a secondary good, as it were, give way, when it can no longer resist the seething evil.

Therefore, lest it spread its harmful poison more widely and infect many by generating corruptions, that first good, which is good by nature, changes its place and changes its order, so as to bring aid to the struggling flank and take up that part of the battle line which labors more; for the virtue of a warrior is necessary in more difficult places, just as the presence of a good guardian is more frequent where the walls are weaker. And so that no part is without a defender, while that good sustains the more vulnerable parts, then that indifferent thing takes the higher place, as if the more perfect good assigns that part to itself; for nothing is more perfect than virtue. Indifferent things, however, do not have the strength of robust virtue, but they increase and spread its grace. Hence Japheth is so called, because 'breadth' is signified in Latin. Nor did holy Noah alone abound in the generation of sons, but generation poured itself forth universally, especially at that time. This does not seem idle. For, with the flood about to follow, it should not have been thought that the grace of fertility was lacking to that generation which the floods swallowed up, so that what was an abundance of the human race might be attributed to divine grace, and that the flood which followed might be ascribed to our iniquities, who by our sins turn away the Lord's mercy. Thus also in later times you will find that the coming sterility of Egypt was preceded by an equal number of years of fertility. For it is the chief principle of virtue to begin with benefits and to sow grace beforehand.

Hence David says: "I will sing to you, Lord, of mercy and judgment." The grace of a benefit comes first; the censure of sober discipline follows. Therefore, it is divine that goods are sent ahead; it is ours that they are changed. God himself declares this, saying: "My spirit will not remain in men, because they are flesh." The Holy Spirit is the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of knowledge. Therefore, he has wisdom; he also has discipline, just as concerning Bezalel, who was commanded by divine oracle to make the sacred tabernacle, Scripture says that he was filled with the spirit of prudence and discipline. This spirit, then, is given to men, but it does not remain. The reason why it does not remain is revealed: because they are flesh; for the nature of flesh resists discipline, since it obeys pleasure. Finally, concerning the Lord Jesus alone it is written: "He upon whom you see the spirit descending from heaven and remaining upon him, this is the one who baptizes with the Holy Spirit." For it remained in him whom no impediments of carnal corruption could recall, so that he might hold to the order of incorrupt and unmixed discipline, whose flesh did not see corruption.

Therefore, through the one Lord Jesus, salvation is declared to come to the nations, who alone could not have been just, when every generation was in error, unless, born of a virgin, he was in no way bound by the privilege of a guilty generation. "Behold," he says, "I was conceived in iniquities, and my mother bore me in sins," says the one who was considered just above all others. Whom, then, would I call just, except one free from these bonds, whom the bonds of common nature do not hold? All are under sin from Adam; death reigned over all. Let the one just in the sight of God come, of whom it is no longer said with an exception: "He did not sin with his lips," but: "He committed no sin." Now, there were giants on the earth in those days. The author of divine Scripture does not wish those giants to be seen as sons of the earth in the manner of the poets, but asserts that those whom he calls by this name, wishing to express their bodily magnitude, were born from angels and women. And let us consider whether men who devote themselves to the cultivation of their flesh, but take no care for the soul, are not like the giants, just as those who, according to the poetic fable born from the earth, relying on the bulk of their bodies, are said to have held the higher powers in contempt. Or are they to be considered different, who, though consisting of soul and body, reject the vigor of the mind, than which the soul has nothing more precious, and show themselves as imitators of this flesh, as if heirs of maternal stupidity?

Therefore, those who labor in vain, arrogantly claiming the heavens for themselves by their prayers and brooding over earthly works, are condemned with greater severity, because, by choosing the lower and despising the higher fellowship, they are bound as if by voluntary sins. Scripture often calls angels sons of God, because souls are not generated from any human being. Thus, God has not disdained to call faithful men his sons. Therefore, just as men of praiseworthy life are called sons of God, so those whose works are carnal we call sons of the flesh, by the authority of the Scriptures. For the evangelist John says that as many as received the Lord Jesus, he gave them the power to become sons of God who believe in his name, who are born not from bloodlines, nor from the will of the flesh, nor from the will of a man, but from God. Hence, later you have that the Lord was angry, because although he considered—that is, knew—that a man placed in the region of the earth, bearing flesh, could not be without sin—for the earth is like a place of temptations, and the flesh a snare of corruption—nevertheless, since they had a mind capable of reason and the virtue of the soul infused into the body, they rushed into a fall without any consideration, from which they were unwilling to recall themselves. For God does not think as men do.

so that some new judgment may befall him, nor does He become angry as if He were changeable, but these things are read so that the harshness of our sins, which has merited the offense of the divinity, may be expressed, as if guilt had grown to such a point that even God, who is naturally moved neither by anger nor by hatred nor by any passion, seemed to have been provoked to wrath. Moreover, He threatened that He would destroy man. "From man," He says, "to cattle, and from reptiles to birds, I will destroy." What had the irrational creatures done wrong? But because they had been made for the sake of man, once he for whom they were made was destroyed, it followed that they too would be destroyed, since there was no one to use them. In a deeper sense, however, it is revealed that man is the mind, which is capable of reason; for man is defined as a living, mortal, rational animal. Therefore, when the principal element is extinguished, all sense is likewise extinguished, because nothing of salvation remains when the foundation of salvation, virtue, has failed. For the condemnation of the rest and for the expression of divine piety, Noah is said to have found grace with God. At the same time, it is shown that the offense of others does not overshadow a just man, when he himself is preserved as the seed of the whole race, he who is praised not by the nobility of birth, but by the merit of justice and perfection. For the lineage of proven men is the progeny of virtues, because just as the human race is men, so the race of souls is virtues.

For indeed, families of men are ennobled by the splendor of lineage, but the grace of souls is brightened by the splendor of virtue. But the earth was corrupted before God, and it was filled, it says, with injustice. The cause of earthly corruption is manifest, because the injustice of men corrupted the earth. Whence also the Lord God says: The time of every man has come before me, because the earth has been filled with its iniquities. The time of all men is indeed in the sight of God and in His will. For it is not, as people commonly say, a fatal decree that is alleged, but nevertheless I think it is said specifically here, because in His Gospel the Lord, about to redeem the human race through the passion of His body and to cleanse it with His blood and the sacrament of baptism, says: Father, the hour has come, glorify Your Son, so that the Son may also glorify You. Therefore, because in the flood the remnants of the human race were preserved through Noah's ark as a seedbed for future restoration and renewal, He prefaced here: The time of every man has come, because the earth has been filled with its iniquities. This is in figure; but in truth it says: The remnants were saved through the love of grace. Whence the apostle exclaims, saying:

Sin abounded, so that grace might abound. "Every flesh," it says, "corrupted its own way." Here it placed "flesh" for the earthly man, in whom the enticement of the flesh corrupted his way. If he had understood what gift he had received from God, he would certainly not have allowed the flesh to obstruct the virtues of the soul. Thus the flesh was the cause of the corruption even of the soul, which is like a certain region and place of pleasure, from which, as from a spring, the rivers of lusts and evil passions burst forth and spread widely. By these the rowing of the soul, once the helmsman has been thrown out, is submerged, when the mind itself, conquered by certain storms and gales, yields its place. But it says beautifully that man corrupted the way of his own nature. For his way was in paradise, on that path of beatitudes, in that flower of virtues, in that incorruptible grace, which way he polluted with earthly footprints. Others have: "his way," that is, of God. This it usually declares with the word "Lord.

But now I think I must speak about the ark of Noah itself, which, if anyone wishes to consider it more closely, he will find that the figure of the human body is described in its construction. For what does God mean when he says: "Make yourself an ark of squared timbers"? Certainly we call "squared" that which stands well in all its parts and is consistent with itself. And so both God, the author of our body and the builder of nature, is established, and the work itself is signified as perfect by these words. Moreover, that the members of a human being are squared is evident reason. If you consider a man's chest, consider his belly with equal measure of length and breadth, except when the natural measure is exceeded by a belly distended with pleasures and feasts. As for the feet and hands, arms, thighs, and legs, who does not perceive by sight alone that they are divided into four parts? However, many of them, even if they are not of the same length or breadth, nevertheless preserve a certain analogy, so that in these also a fitting measure and proportion concur: length is greater than breadth, breadth than height. And just as there is a threefold dimension of the ark's timber—for indeed he prescribed that a length of three hundred cubits, a breadth of fifty cubits, and a height of thirty cubits be kept—so also in our body there is a greatest, a middle, and a least dimension: greatest according to length, middle according to breadth, least according to height; yet the whole body, woven together from individual members, appears squared.

For it is also customary that we call those men "square" whom we consider neither excessively tall nor robust in quality of body. What also the statement means: "You shall make nests in the ark" seems by no means to be passed over in silence. For I think it was said naturally, because our entire body is woven together like a nest, so that the vital spirit penetrates all parts of the viscera and pours itself from our principal part through each limb. Our eyes are a kind of nest, into which sight inserts itself. The hollows of our ears are nests, through which hearing pours in and, as it were, descends into a deep pit. The nose is a nest, which draws odor to itself. The fourth nest, larger than the others, is the gap of the mouth, in which taste is nourished until it matures and from which the voice flies forth, in which the tongue lies hidden, which, like an organ of the voice, modulates its sounds with artificial sweetness and, although itself irrational, expresses a rational voice. The pericranium is a nest; that membrane which cherishes the brain and holds it within itself is a nest. The viscera of the lung and heart are nests. Indeed, the nest of our breath—that is, of the air we draw in and by which we are nourished in this life—is the lung; but the nest of the blood and of the spirit is the heart. For there are two cavities of it: one by which it receives blood, as if in a kind of hollow, and pours it into the veins; the other by which, irrigated from that upper cavity, it draws it down into the arteries in a continuous passage. The stronger bones also have nests; for they are hollowed out within, in which cavities the marrow is found.

Within the softer viscera themselves are the nests of desire or pain. And if one considers other things, one will find more nests in this fabric of the human body. Whence I think that the Psalmist spoke not only mystically but also naturally: "For the sparrow finds a home for itself, and the turtledove a nest for itself, where it may place its young." For there is already in this body a nest of chastity, in which there was a nest of irrational lust. But where before misshapen offspring were nourished by lust, there now the inheritance of comely chastity grows. "Daub it with pitch," it says. The human body consists of many bones and sinews and other things. And both externally and internally, joined by a suitable structure, it adheres to itself and is held by its own condition, which the Greeks call *hexis*, so that the spirit which is infused within, or the spiritual substance which works within, being constrained as if by twin bonds, does not wander, but is restrained to a suitable and harmonious unity and a strong connection. Therefore the ark is ordered to be bound with pitch; for pitch is of a vehement nature for binding. Whence it is called in Greek *pissa*, that is, protection, because it connects what is disjoined and binds with an indissoluble bond, so that you would believe they come together in a natural unity. For this reason the ark is bound with pitch both inside and out, lest that connection be easily broken.

Elsewhere, that is in Exodus, that ark which is the imitative image of the intelligible world in the saints is gilded both within and without. For just as gold is more precious than bitumen, so that ark which is in the saints is more excellent than this one. Indeed, here he placed simple wood, but there he included wood that is incorruptible, declaring the merits of the saints. He also added there that the supports are immovable, because the station of the saints is stable and firm, since they have followed the path of a praiseworthy life under the guidance of virtue, avoiding the associations of corruption. This ark, however, as in the flood, was driven hither and thither by uncertain motion, because the condition of sinners is unstable and their life, in a flood of overflowing passions, is subject to corruption and wanders in inconstant error. Nor should that be overlooked, that when he said: "And you shall make the ark three hundred cubits in length, fifty cubits in width, and thirty cubits in height," he added: "You shall finish the ark by gathering it and complete it at the top by a cubit," so that to the rest of the body, which was of a measure suitable to itself, he might join the head of a man, like a royal citadel, for the sake of grace and beauty, from which, while all senses are transmitted to the other parts of the body, then especially the eyes, as watchers and guardians of nature placed by providence, would look down from above upon nearly the entire state of our city.

The mind itself, situated there according to the opinion of many, and especially of Solomon, who says: "The eyes of the wise man are in his head," as if in an imperial hall, draws together a council of virtues for itself; surrounded by this retinue, it is both more fortified and, as from some inner sanctuary, imparts governance to the whole body, and knows how to deliver responses through which we can not only look back upon ourselves and see not only what is before our feet, but also gaze upon the very secrets of the heavens with the deep gaze of wisdom. There, therefore, is the whole sum of our salvation, there is grace: from there, guardianship, from there also beauty is acquired for the whole body, which first flourishes in the face; for it is fitting that the splendor of the royal hall be more outstanding, in which, just as the use is greater, so too is the brilliance. For if you consider the individual parts which in the human form seem composed for some use, such as eyes for seeing, ears for hearing, nostrils for smelling, mouth for speaking, they serve use in such a way that they also provide beauty. How deformed are the faces of the blind! And what wonder if the human face without eyes is deformed, when the very sky without the sun does not have its own beauty? We spend sad days without the sun, nights without the moon do not please; for they themselves are, as it were, the eyes of the world. Remove the lights of the stars, and there is a certain deformity of blindness in the sky itself.

The eyelashes themselves, which fringe the circle of the eyes and extend like a line of battle, lest the pupil be harmed by some filth or cloud of dust, and they themselves intercept anything that has been brought in that could harm the eye; if they fall out due to blepharitis, how unbecoming it is; if the eyelid is too contracted; if the eyebrows are shaved, which, like the appearance of precious necklaces, shine as if woven with gems. The ears, too, have as necessary a use as they have a seemly appearance; if anyone has mutilated them, he will bring deformity to the whole face. In them, nature has so elaborated its work that the very windings of the cavities, curved with wonderful foresight, have added a great deal of utility, lest sound suddenly strike the secret parts of the head. Indeed, we often see many people startled by an unexpected noise and terrified by the sound of some voice or uproar. The very wax that is generated within those same windings binds the hearing like a kind of glue. At the same time, if a more violent impulse of some sound occurs, it is broken and slowed down, so that it soothes as something announced beforehand rather than, coming unexpectedly, shakes the inner parts. Also, if little worms try to penetrate the ear, they are held by a certain stickiness of the wax.

Flattened nostrils seem contrary to nature. If they were cut open, how could life continue, with the breathing passage removed? How would it be considered more the face of a beast than the countenance of a man? The hair of the head covers the head with a pleasing wrap, like some attendants of a royal court, so that the breeze does not harm the brain, nor the rain strike it, nor the sun burn it. Yet nature so restores it that, depending on sex, either longer or shorter hair is pleasing, and depending on age, or often on the quality of the season and the year. In the elderly, gray hair is welcome; in children, it is remarkable. In summer, it is pleasant to have it cut shorter; in winter, more generously. For women, hair is an ornament; for men, it is a disgrace. Finally, the apostle expressed this more clearly, saying: "Does not nature itself teach you that if a man has long hair, it is a disgrace to him, but if a woman has hair, it is a glory to her?" What shall I say of the very palace through which courtly words proceed, those indicators of our mind and messengers of our spirit? What of the very order of the teeth, which, while with their work they supply strength to the whole body, are also the modulators of the voice itself?

If any of these should fall, the voice falters. We have spoken at greater length about the head because it was fitting that all the senses be placed in the highest part, whence all functions would be distributed through the remaining parts. To our head, moreover, the neck is nearest at the back; on the right and left are the arms, which guard the imperial citadel like faithful watchmen; indeed, these parts in us are stronger, the nearer they are to the head, and these are more excellent. The chest, too, is like a kind of sanctuary of wisdom, and the stomach like a kind of witness, as the physicians say, and a confidant of the head’s secrets and a partner in its compassion, to which the head transfers all its own conditions, whether healthful or adverse. The sides, buttocks, thighs, and legs indicate by their very appearance the breadth of measure, and the steps of the feet, which, though they seem rather slender, nevertheless become broader when we walk. But it added beautifully: "You shall make the door on the side," declaring that part of the body through which we are accustomed to discharge the superfluities of food, so that it might surround with greater honor those things which we consider more ignoble in the body. This the Scripture expressed much more gracefully than what Socrates is said to have stated in the book of Plato.

For when that—whether Socrates himself or Plato, who was in Egypt—could have either read that in the writings of Moses or learned it from those who had read it, moved by the discovery of what is fitting, he thought a door had been opened for himself, praising the plan of our Maker because it especially suited what is fitting, that he turned certain channels and exits of our passages to the rear, lest our sight be offended in the purgations of the belly. But the apostle, saying, "The members of the body which seem weaker are necessary," surpassed the descriptions of philosophy with one simple word, and we surround with more abundant honor those members of the body which we think more ignoble, and those which are dishonorable have our more abundant honesty. For the sign of our sobriety and temperance is especially recognized there; for gluttons are either distended by surfeits to the point of danger or are often loosened by emptied bowels.

The apostle beautifully applied this also to the members of the Church. For what are our dishonorable and superfluous things except luxury, except lasciviousness? If someone entangled by these in the time of youth, when he has advanced to a more mature age, comes to baptism, renounces his former ways, sheds his earlier habits, lays down his sins, is buried together with the Lord Jesus, the world is crucified to him and he to the world—does not that man, granted remission of sins, possess a more abundant honorableness than that catechumen whose life was considered more innocent? And to use the example of the apostle himself: he was a Jew, he was a persecutor; called to the grace of Christ, he began to be an apostle. And because more was forgiven him, he began to love more, to labor more abundantly than all the apostles, becoming a vessel of election, sent as a teacher of the Gentiles. Did he not attain a richer and more honorable glory than very many of the apostles themselves, he who was previously both dishonorable and inglorious, when he persecuted the Church of God? That poor man, that weak man in the Church, redeemed you by his own vows. And to open up greater mysteries: what was so ignoble as the Gentile people? Poor, as one who had no utterances of God, weak and lame in both feet, who had believed neither in the Law nor in the Gospel, yet when called, he believed and, baptized, received grace. Therefore, because more was forgiven him, he loves more. The Jewish people remained, though lame in one foot, although they are lame even in the Law itself.

Therefore, that man who was considered most glorious lost everything—a wonderful counselor, a prudent architect, and a wise listener—while this man, who was ignoble, gained everything through the title of faith, the trophy of the martyrs, and the glory of the company of angels. So Plato applied the splendor of his speech as best he could, but the apostle, who possessed the spirit of God, revealed the mystery. Enough has been said about the door, since those who were behind have become first. Now let us inquire into what the Lord meant when he said: "You will make the lower parts of the ark two-storied and three-storied." By saying "lower parts," we understand that he wished us to perceive the receptacles of food, that is, those viscera which process the food received, as being esteemed in a lower place. For food is corruptible, and what is corruptible should not be compared to higher things, but to lower ones. Likewise, because food is carried downward, a small portion of it benefits the body's strength and nourishment, while the rest is discharged to be purged by the belly, since the intestines are

The things that descend as superfluities of food, our Maker so arranged that they are not stretched straight from the stomach to the bottom, but are coiled and bent back, so that the use of our life might be prolonged. For if the intestines of man, which receive and convey the food, were extended, it would pass through immediately without any delay, and we would necessarily be perpetually hungry, perpetually feasting, or, if the supply of nourishment ceased, we would instantly perish. But now, in that bending and winding of the intestines, both twofold and threefold, the food clings and, descending gradually, supplies strength, infuses moisture into the body, maintains satiety, postpones the desire for eating, and there is neither a sudden discharge nor a hasty evacuation, nor an insatiable appetite, nor an unquenchable lust for feasting. First, then, there would be need and hunger; next, from these would follow a continuous and unbroken cycle of eating. But what is more shameful than always being devoted to the belly, which, when filled, must be emptied, and when emptied, must be refilled? Third, what remains but death intermingled with the very foods and feasts? For how could they prolong life any longer, eating and hungering at the same time, drinking and thirsting, and emptying out everything they had taken before they were filled, and immediately hungering again? But now, as the food descends gradually, natural providence tempers both hunger and indigestion. For first, in the stomach, which many call the upper belly, the food is prepared; then it is cooked in the liver and digested by that vapor.

Its juice is divided among specific portions of the viscera, from which the whole body grows strong. This is sufficiently attested by the growth of the young and the persistence of the old. The remainder of the food flows down into the belly, which we all call "the belly" without addition, though many call it the lower belly, from which it is necessary that the waste, which had already descended full of corruption, be discharged through that transverse opening. Although these things seem to be so composed by natural craftsmanship according to God's command, yet unless the measure of eating and acting is preserved by us, a flood is generated, as it were, by the overflowing passions, and a certain ruin of the whole body; for intemperance kindles lust, produces indigestion, and creates corruption. And so either the internal parts are stretched by hardness and shaken with pains, or, by the uncooked moisture of foods and the harshness of indigestion, a certain inner covering of the intestines is scraped, because, as it is asserted, their double covering is like the form of papyrus: one outer covering, which the experts or those who have examined more curiously say is continuous from top to bottom, and another inner covering, woven as it were to the sides, whence they say it is not entirely dissolved when scraped; for if the inner covering were continuous, its rupture would be incurable. There, by the delay of attachments, the remnants of food adhere; and if these attachments are loosened, half-eaten foods and flowing drinks pass through.

This is the flood of man. Hence it seems to me that through the figure of this ark God wished to teach us how we may be safe from this particular flood. For corruption is the cause of the flood. When it has crept in, the waters are opened, all the fountains of desires boil up, so that the whole body is submerged in so great and so deep a flood of vices. For nothing subjects man to such miserable servitude as lust and desires of that kind, which, by a certain yoke of heavy crimes, oppress the wretched conscience, so that it cannot raise itself up, inasmuch as it has lost the freedom of innocence. The greatest remedy, therefore, in this flood is to set up a just man and to choose him as the executor of the heavenly command. Who is the just man in us except the vigor of the mind, which encloses within that ark every kind of living thing that is upon the earth? Therefore restrain also all your irrational passions and subject all your senses to the mind and accustom them to the commands of the spirit. Do not allow your desires to fly out, your lust to go forth into the crowd: and through the rational mind you will be able to free even your irrational and unclean sins from every danger of the flood.

All things," it says, "which are on the earth will die." Why, indeed, had the mute animals offended? For what reason were they subjected to punishment, they who have no sense of sin? But just as in war, when the general is killed by the enemy, his army dies with him and all military strength is diminished, so it did not seem to depart from justice that, when man perished—to whom the Lord God gave a certain royal power over every kind of animal, so that he presided over all birds, wild beasts, and animals with imperial authority—the irrational animals also should die together. Finally, whenever there is a pestilence due to a corrupted region of the sky, a dire plague first contaminates those things which are irrational, and especially dogs, horses, cattle, and those which seem to associate with men; thus the force of disease also involves the human race. This, therefore, is the first cause of a just assertion, as I think; the second is that no one accuses nature because the rest of the members of our body die when the head alone is removed, although we see many survive with hands and feet amputated. But the prerogative of the other members is not the same as that of the head, and therefore, when it is cut off, from which our senses proceed into the rest of the body, all the members also die together; nor in this is the providence of the Creator lacking, nor is the fragility of human substance refuted.

Similarly, therefore, let no one now argue that man is the head and a kind of principal of the other animals, so that when he dies it should not seem surprising if the other living beings die along with him. The third point is that animals lacking reason were generated not for their own sake, but for the sake of man; for they were created for the sake of man, so that by their subjection the human condition might be superior. Finally, the prophet attributes this to the grace of man, saying: "You have subjected everything under his feet, all sheep and cattle, and moreover the beasts of the field, the birds of the air and the fish of the sea," because all those things exist for his sake—some for utility, others for delight, others for pleasure. It was therefore consistent that when man was destroyed from the face of the earth, for whose sake they were made, they too would be destroyed by the same ruin. This is according to the simple exposition of the reading. But a higher and deeper interpretation adds that when the soul is bowed down by a mass of passions and is submerged by a heavy and, as it were, diverse surge of desires, all earthly thoughts and concupiscences rush headlong, because each sinner becomes more insolent the more grievous the crimes he has committed. For by use and practice, wickedness increases, and by impunity, audacity is nourished. Therefore, it withdraws from all respect for honesty, and in it all earthly things die by the bitterness of deadly sin, which destroys the sinner by a true and perpetual death; for no one dies more grievously than he who lives in sin.

In him each passion dies: sight dies, which announces sin, which gazes upon a deceitful woman, which is captivated by the beauty of another's face, which the eyes of a harlot have ensnared, which the gaze of a fornicatress has entangled. Does not one seem to die who has driven the dart of lust into himself, who has rushed headlong into the pit of death? Hearing also dies, when it reports crimes, when it announces the speech of a seducing adulterer, when it instills into the mind the words of a harlot who seduces a youth with much flattery of speech and binds him with the snares of her lips. The voice dies in silence, if it does not confess to God; it dies in loquacity, because it is written for you: "From much speaking you will not escape sin"; it dies through wrath, when it exceeds the measure of vengeance. Finally, every sense dies, if it is a minister of iniquity. And therefore, because all earthly things perish in the flood, but only the just man endures forever, it is said to him: "I will establish my covenant with you," for he is the heir of divine grace, he is the possessor of the heavenly inheritance, the sharer of the most blessed honors. And indeed, when men die, they are accustomed to transfer their patrimony by will, and the inheritance does not pass until the testator lives; but God, since he is everlasting, transfers to the just the inheritance of his divine substance, and, himself not in need, bestows his own without any loss from the gift, he whom the sharers of his honors do not burden. Rather, he enjoys that which we use all the more.

Finally, the Lord Jesus became poor, though he was rich, so that his poverty might enrich us; he who fulfilled both testaments with his own blood, in order to make us co-heirs of his life and heirs of his death, so that we might have both the fellowship of life and the benefit of death. But he grants much to the just man by saying: "I will establish my covenant with you," because a rational and faithful man is himself the covenant of God. For he is the inheritance of God, he is the possession in whom the power of the divine covenant resides, in whom the fruit of judgment, in whom the inheritance of the promise lies; of whom David said: "Behold the inheritance of the Lord's son, the reward, the fruit of the womb." But now, with the deeper mystery safely expounded, let us proceed to the rest. "Enter," he says, "you and your whole household into the ark, because I have seen you just in this generation." The faith of the prophetic statement is clearly supported also in this passage, because the fool is foolish only to himself, but the wise man is wise to himself and to many others. Thus, by the merit of the just Noah, even his household is saved in the flood. So it is with sailors at sea and armies in war: if the former are not lacking the skill of the helmsman, and the latter the prudence of the commander, they are safe from danger by another's help. But because a good commander has a good army, therefore we understand that the praise of the just man is not overlooked even in this, that he established his household in such a way that it shone with the fellowship of virtue, and deservedly the kindred found safety. Nor is it inconsistent if later either a son or a wife offends.

The just man was sleeping when his son went astray. The woman too, as the weaker sex, was disturbed by the weight of the danger, believing that the whole world was perishing by divine fire—why are you surprised that she could not follow her husband, when the just man himself, warned by angels, barely escaped? And what wonder is it if error creeps upon a man or his attention relaxes? Blame, then, because even the just man got drunk. But I think these matters should be reserved for their proper place. Now let us consider what remains. For he spoke beautifully: "Because I saw you just in this generation." Many men seem just to men, few to God: differently to men, differently to God—to men according to the outward appearance of life, to God according to purity of mind and the truth of virtue; men approve what is external, God examines what is within. Note, however, that he added: "in this generation," so that he would neither condemn those before nor exclude those after, and would rightly affirm that the flood occurred with the destruction of that generation, which had no share in equity.

This according to the letter. But a deeper sense invites us to think that the vigor of the mind is in the soul, and the soul is in the body, as the father of the household is in his own house. For what the mind is in the soul, that the soul is in the body. If the mind is safe, the house is safe, the soul is safe; if the soul is unharmed, the flesh is unharmed. For a sober mind restrains all passions, governs the senses, rules speech. And therefore the Lord rightly says to the just man: "Go inside," that is: go inside yourself, into your mind, into the principal part of your soul. There is safety there, there is the helm; outside is the flood, outside is danger. But if you have been inside, you are safe even outside, because where the mind is its own master, thoughts are good, executions are good. For if no vice overshadows the mind, thoughts are sincere. If chastity is in one's zeal, if temperance is in one's heart, no flame of lust blazes up, no ulcers of sickness creep forth; for sobriety of mind is the medicine of the body.

Let us now consider on what principle he orders that from the clean animals seven and seven, male and female, be brought into the ark, but from the unclean, two and two, so that seed may be propagated over the whole earth. And, as I judge, he asserts that the clean week enters, because the number seven is pure and sacred; it is mixed with nothing nor generated from anything else. Therefore it is called virgin, because it generates nothing from itself, and deservedly, as being exempt from and immune to maternal birth and female union, even though the week is named by a feminine word, it has the grace of virile sanctification; for every male opening the womb shall be called holy to the Lord, that is, holy. And in the prophet you have: she fled and gave birth to a male, that is, a holy one. But the number two is not full, because it is divided. What is not full is considered empty. But the number seven is full, because the week is like the decade, and similar to that first one, because alpha is in the likeness of that which is always, from which flow and are moved the virtues that exist in every kind. These are natural matters.

Now to speak of the moral sense, there is no doubt that the irrational part of our soul is divided into the five senses, the voice, and the generative faculty, which seem to be of a feminine nature, because our senses quickly creep into material and worldly things. Hence it is clear that they have a substance of a softer nature. But to an educated and industrious man, all things are clean, because the wisdom of an exercised man and virtue transfuse a masculine firmness into these. Therefore, by the judgment of a prudent man and the purpose of a governing man, they are transferred from the quality of the inferior sex into a stronger substance. For the judgment of a wise man is strong and fixed, not changeable, like that of a foolish and stupid man, whose counsel wavers with uncertainty, or like that of a wicked man, who does not choose what is true and just, but what is advantageous to himself, or who cuts himself off from the truth and separates himself from justice. For justice is a singular good, valued by itself alone at its own price, while iniquity, as if divided, produces now hatred, now gain, and confuses things that ought to be kept separate. For a foolish man changes like the moon, and, disfigured by the shifting variety of his humors, stains his soul with the foul contagion of a leprous body, often mixing wholesome thoughts with harmful ones.

But perhaps you may be justly troubled because you see that clean and unclean animals are commanded to be brought into the ark, since I said that dishonorable things should not be mixed with honorable discussions. Nor do I deny that there are in our soul certain seeds and, as it were, principles of irrational but clean motions, and also of those that are not clean. For human nature is capable of contraries, so that both malice and virtue have entry into it, and rightly at the beginning of this book, which is Genesis, you have read, under the species of a tree in the midst of paradise, the knowledge of good and evil. Concerning this tree of knowledge of good and evil, it is commanded that it not be tasted, because our mind, in which there is cognition and discipline, receives the notion of good and evil. Therefore, just as the craftsman of nature preserved animals for propagating and even renewing the species, so that the whole earth might be filled with the seed of animals, so also he did not think that the earthly substance of our body should be left empty of passions of this kind, as of unclean animals, which, when it is inundated with delights and luxury as if by a kind of flood, is tossed about by the aforementioned passions. But when each person, by sobriety and continence, has drained away the flood of passions and uncovered a certain dryness of the soul, he begins to give life to his own body and to the purity of the soul, whose governance is wisdom.

It is also worth inquiring with zeal what the reason is why, after Noah entered the ark and brought in the animals, the flood occurred after seven days. For it does not seem idle that not more or fewer days were interposed, but as many as there were in the constitution of the world. For the world was made in six days; on the seventh day God rested from his works. By which sign he declared that he himself is the author of both the world and the flood. He established the world on account of his goodness; he made the flood by reason of our sins. Therefore men were admonished, even by the number of days in which the world was created, that they ought to reconcile their creator not only with tears and prayer, but with correction of their morals. So the Lord gave a space for penance, preferring to forgive rather than to punish, so that, suspended by the terror of the impending flood, he might compel them to seek pardon, so that while they shudder at the danger of future death, they might renounce impiety and injustice. Secondly, we may gather from this also the clemency of the Lord, who is merciful beyond measure, because he wished to relax the offense of many years, contracted from the beginning of the world up to the end, in a few days, if they had repented. For God is unmindful of sin, a rewarder of virtue, as he himself says in the prophet: "I am, I am the one who blots out iniquities and will not remember. But you, remember, and let us be judged; speak your iniquities, that you may be justified.

For when it has perceived that true virtue has been poured back into the soul, it attributes so much honor to it that it not only grants pardon for past sins, but also bestows grace and justifications. Therefore it waited also until the seventh day, the very day on which it rested from work, so that if correction were demanded, correction would follow, and it would rest from indignation. It was also a matter of concern not to pass over the fact that it said the flood occurred for forty days and added forty nights. For we know that a day is called what the sun, illuminating the earth, marks, and a night what the surrounding darkness separates from the brightness of day; and often by us a day is signified in such a way that we do not include the night, and often in such a way that we do include it. For when we signify a month of thirty days, we also signify the nights. Hence, since it would have been sufficient for Moses to have said that the flood lasted forty days, it is asked why he added "and forty nights." And some have understood it in this way.

Those who came before us, so that the destruction of both men and women by the flood might be demonstrated, referred the day to the man, who is purer, like light, and the night to the woman, who is described as created while the man slept; likewise because the man is first, as it were the author, who stirs the woman's virtue and rouses it to childbirth; he is clearer in public action, she is more obscure, as though confined within domestic walls and close to night; she arose second in place and, formed from the man's rib, owes her grace to the superior; she is also subject to the privilege of the stronger number and is to be compared to material things by the use of childbearing. But the number of danger is consonant in both, because sins are also consonant, and rightly the spans of time do not differ, because the merits of the offenses do not differ. Not a few also examine with no little care the reason why the flood lasted forty days. And we can say that the material number was assigned to sadder things, that is, to the destruction of creation, but the week to the constitution of the whole world, that is, to happier things. But perhaps it is relevant that the law was also given in forty days. Moses observed and remained on Mount Sinai for that many days when he received the prescribed law. Rightly, therefore, the precepts for avoiding sins are bestowed by the same number by which the penalty for guilt was paid, so that we may recognize that in the same span of life praise ought to be acquired through correction, as punishable guilt can be committed.

Hence now the forty days are prescribed not for punishment, but for life, so that by this number, through more frequent fasts and prayers, we may lighten the penalties of our sins and, intent on the prescribed law, correct our error with devotion and faith. Thus, through the Lord's resurrection, the fortieth day is no longer considered the last, but the first, and life is counted from that point, whereas before the number of death was reckoned for the consummation of the world and the destruction of the human race. "And I will destroy," he says, "every resurrection of flesh from the face of the earth." O the beauty of the heavenly words, if one examines them with the fitting understanding of a pious mind! God is angered by our sins, but does not forget his mercy: he threatens punishment, but does not permit destruction: he moderates vengeance, he restrains severity. He says he will destroy the flesh not from the earth, but from the face of the earth. He cuts off the flower, but preserves the roots: he allows the power of human substance to remain in the depth, which labors on the surface, but within remains impassible and immune from harm, preserved for the replacement of those who are not subject to guilt. He fittingly placed "I will destroy" as if it were the strokes of letters, which are erased without fraud to the books and without diminution of the tablets. The ink is erased, but the wood remains. The elements are erased, so that often better ones may be written; the ink is removed, but the substance is not destroyed. "I will destroy," he says, "the corruption of the flesh, so that I may write incorruption.

Let the resurrection of the flesh be erased from the face of the earth, so that I may write in the heavens those who rise again. Let it be erased from the book of the earth, so that I may write in the book of life. Let them be erased, my Lord, Lord, let the elements of iron be erased quickly, so that the elements of Christ may be written. Let the earthly resurrection be abolished, so that heavenly grace may overflow. Come, Moses, prepare your lap, receive the law, take up the letters which the wretched ones already... let the divine hides not erase. Take up the tablets which the Lord establishes for eternity. Would that you yourself not break them! My own fault had taken even those from me, had not the Lord restored them. Rightly indeed, Moses, you were indignant, that those who did not render obedience should not have divine privileges, but I think you broke them not for me, but for the Jews. You broke them for the Jews, you received them for me. The earlier ones were broken, so that the later ones might remain. You broke them in the hearts of the Jews; for what good was it that they should hold the tablets, when they could not hold the prescriptions of them? Behold, they say they hold the second tablets, but they do not hold them. They say they read the divine elements, but they do not read them. Moses says the tablets were written by the finger of God: they do not read the finger of God, they read iron. They see ink, they do not see the Spirit of God: but the Church knows not ink, it knows the Spirit. And therefore Paul knows how to write not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God. O sacrilegious, inept people of the Jews! A man writes with the Spirit of God, and a man nurtured under the law, and they want God to have written with ink, not with the Spirit.

Therefore, to return to the earlier points: God erases the resurrection of the flesh as if it were a written letter. By this it is declared that he erased the superfluous birth of men on account of their impiety, as if in the form of letters, but preserved the substance and manner of life of the human race, as if in the permanence of tablets, so that from it the remaining seed might sprout. To this opinion even the following seems to conform, because he says: “I will erase,” he says, “every resurrection of the flesh.” But to the resurrection, by the common usage of nature, purgation seems contrary, because by purgation the luxuriance of resurrection is cut back and suppressed. Yet everything that is purged loses its form, but preserves and improves its substance. Therefore the Lord, by the purgation of the flood, repressed the corporeal practice and manner of life of that generation, which had degenerated from the beauty of nature and the comeliness of the gift received. This according to the literal sense. But as pertains to the higher meaning, the type of the flood is a figure of the purgation of our soul. Thus, when our mind [from corporeal things—] has washed itself from the allurements of this world, in which it formerly took delight, it will wipe away the old filth of desire by good thoughts, as if absorbing the bitterness of the previously turbid streams through purer waters.

And he did, it says, all that the Lord God commanded him. The just man receives commands, the slave receives orders. He is counted in the place of a friend who has done whatever he undertook to carry out; he who wavers in his duties is bound over to the servitude of labor. Finally, the Lord Jesus also says in the Gospel: "You are my friends, if you do what I command you. I will no longer call you slaves." Therefore, a command is given as to a friend; it is given to him who, with strong love and sober counsel, carries out what has been commanded. Nor did the Lord's judgment deceive him. The just man fulfilled everything, not a part, but everything that was commanded to him, and therefore he receives the testimony of divine Scripture. Nor should you think it superfluous that it placed together "Lord" and "God"—for God is in the Lord and the Lord is in God—but so that you may understand the common precept of the Father and the Son. Some before us, however, have interpreted it thus: that by saying "Lord and God" in this place, it expressed a twofold power, both of punishing and of pardoning, and because here it first punishes sinners, it therefore said "Lord" first, but since afterwards it grants indulgence so that the seedbed of the just may be propagated, it therefore named "God" afterwards. Finally, when about to make the world, God is spoken of: "In the beginning God made the heaven and the earth. And God said: 'Let there be light.'

There is also that not superficial consideration, that the flood occurred in the six hundredth year of Noah, in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month. That the seventh month is of the spring season is not doubted, when growing things increase, the field brings forth, the offspring of both lands and animals pours forth. Therefore he made the flood at that time, when the grief of those who were being punished in their abundance would be greater, at that time the vengeance more terrible, as if God were saying: 'Behold, everything according to the grace of divine providence’s liberality, rich nature has produced; everything for the use of men the more fruitful earth has caused to sprout. Crops of wheat are seen, fields are filled with barley, the tresses of trees are clothed with flowers of future fruits: the earth is not lacking in its services, nor the beasts in their gifts, which are released in their customary births, so that nothing is lacking for man: man alone is lacking in his own parts, he does not know his author, from whom everything is provided to him, he neglects his creator. Man despises his rewarder, although God has not despised his own work. Let everything perish with man, for whose sake everything was born. Let man be consumed in his own riches, let him die with his own endowment.' The earth had committed no wrong before man, it erred in no fruits: in man alone it recognizes that it has degenerated, bearing thorns and thistles instead of fruits. That which alone is admirable, the principal part of the mind, has perished. Why then are all those things preserved? For this reason: water is not poured in after the harvest, lest the earth feel a benefit rather than a flood.

Finally, in the spring season among the Egyptians, but in a different month, the Nile overflows, so that the earth softens for casting seeds and receives the sown seeds with a more gentle embrace, a more clement bosom. That the flood occurs in the six hundredth year of Noah seems to indicate this, because Adam was created on the sixth day. The same number, that is, which is called perfect, is preserved both in the founder and in the restorer, because the number six is the source of the sixtieth and the six hundredth. The same month is called both the first and the seventh. But we ought rather to observe the first, that after the flood, in the spring season, the care of cultivating the fields is restored, and the produce of the calm and fertile soil begins to come forth. By this it is signified that God would never have made the destruction of men at that number or time at which he made the beginning, unless he had been offended by monstrous crimes. At the same time, the rationale of the season and the number promises leniency, that even when angered he is reminded by the preceding causes of his own benefits, so that he does not utterly destroy the substance of those whom he himself bestowed.

And all the fountains of the deep burst forth, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. Scripture fittingly expressed the force of the deluge by saying that heaven and earth were equally set in motion, from which elements every beginning of this world consists. Therefore, with masses of water flowing in from all sides, the enclosed race of men is pressed upon. This is according to the literal sense. But as pertains to the higher meaning, by the symbol of heaven the human mind is signified, and by the term earth, the body and the senses. Great shipwrecks, then, occur when the whirlwind and storm of the mind and likewise of the body and of all the senses are mingled together. Let us weigh carefully what has been said. Often the fraud and deceit of the mind exercise their poison, yet the sobriety of the body and continence overshadow the dishonesty of the mind. Frequently the mind is slippery with uncertain faith and opinion, but yet the body indulges in pleasures and luxury, so that frugality excuses the error of the mind, just as there are many heretics who are unwilling to feign bodily continence, so that they may acquire credibility for their assertion by the testimony of a sober flesh. And although they are slippery in understanding, yet insofar as they are less base, they are considered somewhat more excusable.

But when the poisons of the mind and the contagions of bodily obscenity confound all sense and vigor, and the mind, slippery with uncertain motion, foul with the ink of malice, inflamed with the fury of cruelty, is also incited by bodily shamefulness, and the avaricious disposition, impatient with moderate means, is precipitated by the desire for luxury and the lust for squandering into the crime of seeking another's life, then there is a great flood, with all passions equally rushing in; then folly, injustice, rashness, wickedness, faithlessness seem to pour forth from the upper part like the floodgates of the mind. Thence from the earthly fountain of the body burst forth lust, drunkenness, luxury, and finally the downfalls of various crimes, which deeply effeminate both the strength of the body and the vigor of the mind. And God closed the ark from the outside. The meaning is clear according to the letter. The ark had to be closed and securely fenced with a defense, lest the wandering streams of the flood penetrate it. Nor is an interpretation of a higher sense incongruous, if we judge that the human body, which this ark that is described prefigures, is fenced with skin to be defended from cold and heat, which the divine craftsman, for the protection of all the members, clothed with natural coverings and invested with a certain enveloping covering, so that it neither freezes with cold nor is dissolved by summer heat.

The water therefore overflowed and lifted the ark, and it was carried upon the surface of the waters. Not without reason did the water overflow, when the floodgates of the sky were opened and the springs of waters and the rivers burst forth from the earth. This was said with great emphasis. For where there is a rupture, there must necessarily be an irrevocable outpouring, nor is the collapse of vast torrents easily checked. What is written is therefore clear. But if you think it should be considered more deeply, our flesh is agitated by diverse passions and fluctuates like a sea, by which it is tossed here and there as if upon the waves of its own troubles, now by hunger, now by thirst, now by desire, now by joy, now by grief. I also think this should not be passed over, that Scripture did not omit how many cubits of water there were upon the earth; for it said that the water was fifteen cubits above the highest mountains. The simple understanding is therefore evident, but the allegory embraces the five senses, which are in our body like high mountains, which overshadow this flesh with passions and are often assailed by beasts and agitated by their dense and dark places. Whence also the Lord, coming through the faith of believing nations to his church, came from Libanus, as the prophet Ambacum says: "The Lord will come from Libanus, from a shady and dark mountain." The church also comes from Libanus, as the Song of Songs has it. For thus we read: "Come here from Libanus, bride, come here from Libanus.

You will cross and pass through from the beginning of faith, from the lairs of lions and the mountains of leopards, which are the gentile peoples. They, who formerly suffered heavy incursions of bestial passions, now stand out by the height of faith and the sublimity of devotion. Through these mountains, therefore, Christ came, suppressing by evangelical disputations the movements of that fierce body and destroying that height of heart and self-exalting pride by obedience and humility of his own; and deservedly those whom the floods of heavy passions formerly overwhelmed began to bear the fruit of gentleness. Concerning the number of cubits, some before us have estimated thus: that the five senses have a threefold collection, because sight sees the visible, hearing hears the audible, smell smells the odorous, taste tastes the sapid, and touch touches what is subject to the substance of touching. Therefore the five senses have been considered threefold, either according to that: "Write for yourself threefold." I, however, consider that more suitable interpretation to be that we take the sense of earthly man, and of animal man, and of spiritual man, which the currents of that flood transcended.

All flesh that was moving died. This is clear even according to the literal sense, and it properly and naturally expressed the corruption of the flesh by indicating a stormy commotion. For a vicious commotion does not occur except through the corruption of the affections; for the flesh moves the pleasures and is itself moved by the pleasures, and such a commotion creates corruption. Therefore, the cause of corruption is the commotion of this world, through which the soul of each individual degenerates. For when vicious passions move the mind, corruption is generated; when the pursuits of virtues are aroused, there is progress in discipline. Therefore, everyone who was on dry land died: for those whom the wave of such a great flood had submerged could not but die. This is according to the text and the sequence of words. But if you seek the allegory, there is no doubt that, by the example of drier wood, which burns up as soon as fire begins to lick it, so the soul, unless it is moistened by the dew of various virtues, irrigated by some draught of wisdom and the fountain of justice and the irrigation of chastity, like a vital root dried up, blazes up in the fire of desires or, dashed by the flood of the flesh, collapses. Therefore, the mind should always feast on the thoughts of good works, so that the mind, inebriated with the sap of prudence, may grow fat, so that it may not easily yield to the injury of the bodily flood and, emasculated by the dry neglect of care, die.

Therefore the Lord warns us not to withdraw from the fountain of wisdom, to drink the cups of virtue, lest anyone wither under the sun of iniquity and be unable to withstand the storm of persecution. For it is written: But if they do this in a moist place, what will happen in a dry one? God, it says, destroyed everything that was upon the face of the earth. The literal explanation is evident, but allegory reveals to us the pride that exalts itself in this earthly and fragile substance and, forgetful of divine things, despises human things, deforming even the bearing and gait of an arrogant man. Such are those whom Isaiah describes as the daughters of Judea, flashing with the nods of their eyes and tossing their heads high. For there are those of this kind, raising their eyebrows, with puffed-up heart, swollen chest, and neck thrown back, who barely touch the ground with the soles of their feet, but balance their whole body and hang in empty weight, advancing forward in their step while tilting their head backward, gazing at the sky but disdaining the earth, as if afflicted with a pain in the neck that prevents them from bending it. These, then, God has erased from the book of life, saying: Everyone who exalts himself will be humbled, and he does not allow them, through their contrivances, to adhere to the merits of the saints in heavenly things.

All who were outside the ark were destroyed; only Noah remained in the ark with those who were with him. The simpler meaning 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, after those who used to gnaw at his food, cast shade on his foliage, and hinder the growth of his branches have been killed, remained alone with his own, as one exempt from irrational passions. His own are the pure reasonings of the mind that cleave to virtue. And it is well added that he remained in the ark, as if it seemed scarcely credible that, with bodily passions cut off, he still dwelt in the body, so that, although he already lacked earthly contaminations, he still preserved the substance of the body, though uncorrupted, and, as if incorporeal, was borne upon the flood in the body, not swallowed up, bearing a body as if placed in the inner part of the ark, but governing the body itself, as if incorporeal, amid such great disturbances, with passions that could not overcome him.

The Lord remembered Noah and the beasts and the pack animals, as the divine Scripture says. Many are troubled as to why the writer did not say that God also remembered Noah’s wife and sons, when He remembered the beasts and the pack animals. But when it said that God remembered Noah, in the head and master of the household it comprehended his remaining kindred. At the same time, a certain consensus of the remaining kindred seems to be expressed. For when all are mutually dear to one another, there is one household; but when they disagree, they are separated and split into many households. Therefore, where there is charity, by the name of the elder, on whom the rest depend, the whole household is signified, just as if one should say “tree,” he certainly includes also the branches; if one names “branch,” he likewise embraces in one and the same word the fruits that are on it. Nor is it without purpose that it first said that God remembered Noah, then the beasts, afterwards the pack animals—that is, why it did not name after man those animals that are gentler, but the fiercer ones. In this, the reason seems to be that those which were fiercer might be tamed by the proximity of each side. This also appears to be declared in that poetic verse: . For from this the poet also took it, so that he would arrange the order of an army about to fight in such a way that he placed the weaker in the middle, so that they might be helped all the more from either side by the stronger and take up the fighting of each side. In these things the sequence of the text is made clear.

But in a 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 this life, he must necessarily have in his body, as in that ark, grievous beasts. For there is no mind, no soul, which does not also receive the wild movements of evil thoughts. Thus the soul of the foolish sharpens bestial motions and kindles the poisons of serpents, but the vigor of the wise man mitigates and restrains them. And the Lord brought a spirit over the earth, and the water ceased. I do not think this is said in such a way that we take "spirit" to mean wind. For wind could not dry up the deluge: otherwise, since the sea is daily agitated by winds, it would surely be emptied. For how would the sea not be emptied by the force of winds, when the deluge spread throughout the whole world, reaching, as they say, to the Pillars of Hercules, and the great sea boiling over the tops of high mountains, had yielded to it? Therefore, that deluge was undoubtedly checked by the invisible power of the divine spirit, by heavenly operation, not by a blast. Whence it is written: "All things from you expect that you give them food in due time. When you open your hand, all things 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 be turned into their dust. You will send forth your spirit, and they will be created, and you will renew the face of the earth.

Therefore it is the Spirit, to whose operation all things seem to yield, in whom the very power of the heavens resides, as it is written: "The heavens were made firm by the word of the Lord, and all their power by the breath of His mouth." This Spirit is the creator of all things, as Job also says: "The divine Spirit who made me." Now let us consider what it is that Scripture says: "The sources of the waters were closed, and the floodgates of the sky." I do not think this is obscure. For the flood diminishes by the same causes by which it grew. The sources of the waters had burst forth, the floodgates of the sky had been opened, so that the earth was inundated by waters flowing in from every side. Those things from which the origin of the flood had flowed ought to have been closed, so that its decline might begin. This is what the literal sense says, but a more subtle interpretation expresses that the flood of the soul had flowed in through a vice of the mind and bodily luxury, so that malice was mingled with passion, and passion with malice. When the physician, the Word of God, enters to visit the soul, which was laboring under a long sickness from the wickedness of disputes and the bitterness of passions, the causes of the sickness ought first to have been cut off. For the beginning of medicine is to cut off the causes of the disease, lest those things that harm be supplied any longer for the increase of the sickness. This the Law also teaches us. For when leprosy has stopped, so that it no longer spreads, then it says that a certain stopping and staying 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 flood of error cease, that fault be halted, lest it creep. When the incitement of fault and sin ceases, safety is secure, and the unimpaired vigor of the soul flows back. And the ark rested, it says, in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month. Unless you attend diligently, even according to the letter, the comprehension of this passage is difficult. And first of all, one must beware lest the frequent repetition of the seventh month disturb anyone. For it is written thus: in the six hundredth year, in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the flood began; for one hundred and fifty days there was an infusion of waters; the ark rested on the mountain in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month; afterwards, by the mercy of God, the waters began to decrease; for one hundred and fifty days the diminution of the waters took place; afterwards the tops of the mountains appeared; then after forty days, the holy Noe opened the door of the ark; the raven was sent out and did not return; the dove was sent out and returned empty; again after seven days it was sent out and returned with an olive branch; a third time after seven days it was sent out and did not return; then Noe understood that all the water had receded. And thus a year is shown to be completed in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month [and thus a year is shown to be completed in the six hundred and first year of Noe, in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month].

What pertains to the clear explanation, then, is that the equality of the earth is restored after the flood in the same month and on the same day on which it was corrupted at the beginning of the flood's inundation. For in the spring season every field grows green and the earth brings forth fruits. Then trees begin to bud, fruits to sprout. Therefore the Lord restored and reestablished its rich quality. So in the second month, that is, April—for the first month is March, in which the just man has his birthday, when the equality of nights and days is reckoned, that is, on the eighth day before the Kalends of April, as the Romans think, or as others hold, on the fifth—, in the second month, I say, that is, April, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, the flood began. Spring, moreover, is considered the beginning of the year, not according to the custom of the season, but according to the prerogative of nature, so that because then the hope of the year begins and fruit begins to show itself, then the beginning of the year seems to occur. The seventh month, however, according to the number, is the one called September, because even if the year seems to begin from the month of September, as the practice of the present indictions shows—for then is the sowing of seeds—nevertheless, from the time when fuller grace begins to show itself, from that the origin of the year is derived, and therefore what is considered the first month by another reckoning is held to be the seventh by a different estimation. Then the ark came to rest, that is, in the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, on the mountains of Ararat. From that time the flood began to diminish.

Consider also that by the same numbers by which some things begin, they are resolved: the flood began in the second month of the year on the twenty-seventh day of the month; the flood flowed in for one hundred and fifty days; for another one hundred and fifty days the flood receded; for forty days the excessive force raged with celestial rain and the eruption of springs; after another forty days had passed, when the tops of the mountains were seen, on the first day of the eleventh month holy Noe released the raven. Thus it is established that by the same number by which the flood was accumulated, it was diminished. Hence Scripture teaches us that order must be preserved. Now, what the door of the ark is, which the just man opened, has been said above according to the rationale of the body. But according to a higher interpretation, it seems that this should be said: the senses of the body are held to be like doors. For through these, as if through doors, there enters into our mind, as it were, a certain comprehension of sensible things. Therefore our mind seems to look out through these senses, and especially through vision, which is considered more excellent than all the senses of the body, because it is akin to light, and through it, as we gaze upon the sky, the earth, the seas, and also the sun, the moon, and the stars with which the axis is adorned, we understand that God is the maker and ruler of the world, and we believe that these things could not have been made or be able to endure without God as author and creator of such great works.

Through this window, therefore, the righteous man first sent out the raven. The reason must be sought, yet it is not hidden as far as the literal sense is concerned, because many consider the raven as a kind of herald of future events and observe its cries and examine its flights. The deeper meaning, however, signifies that when the righteous man begins to purify himself, he first repels from himself those things that are dark, unclean, and rash, since all shamelessness and fault are dark and feed on the dead, like the raven; virtue, on the other hand, is near to the light, shining with the purity and simplicity of the mind. And so fault is, as it were, sent out and put to flight and separated from innocence, so that nothing dark remains in the mind of the righteous man. Finally, the raven, once sent out, does not return to the righteous man, because every fault is a fugitive from equity and does not seem to suit uprightness and justice. Indeed, the unjust man believes he has escaped as if from chains, when the righteous man has separated himself from his company, from a kind of flood and familiar corruption, like the raven, which, when it found dryness of the land nowhere, did not return but remained.

It must also be considered why it is not said that the raven returned until the water dried from the earth, as if indeed it returned afterward. But this is a familiar expression of divine Scripture, since in the Gospel it is also written of Saint Mary that Joseph did not know her until she gave birth to her son, although indeed he did not know her even afterward. Then what sort of expression is this, that it should say "until the water dried from the earth," not "the earth from the water"? And indeed, common usage also has this custom. Nevertheless, some before us have judged that an immoderate force of the passions seems to be expressed by this turn of phrase, because the soul is consumed by turbulent and stormy passions, but when they fail and, as it were, wither away, it recovers its strength. Therefore, the form of guilt does not return into the soul of the righteous man, leaving it as if dry and dead, and no longer able to harm it. Nor is that empty, that the dove is sent out afterward; for simplicity dissolves malice, and virtue dissolves guilt.

Malice, therefore, loves the flood, flees the company of a righteous mind, and, as if desolate and without any fixed abode, remains, having no communion with virtue. Virtue, however, returns, loving the associations of the just and being more familiar with the benefit to be bestowed, which may confer what is salutary and warn of what is to be avoided as harmful, just as the dove, when released, seeing that the water had ceased, returned as if full of righteousness, to announce to the one by whom it had been sent what he should still beware of, and, by waiting, would later obtain a better fruit. Moreover, that the dove, not finding its rest, returns to him, gave a clear indication through birds of this kind how great a difference there is between malice and virtue to be expressed, since the raven, released earlier, when the flood seemed to swell somewhat more, was seen to have found a place to alight. And certainly the raven is not of such a kind as other birds that are accustomed to have their dwelling in the waters.

Therefore, when the raven seems to have found a place to remain, but the dove has not found one, the evident reason is that a deeper interpretation is signified: because malice is accustomed to mingle with the restless passions and desires by which the soul is corrupted, and, as if delighting in kindred and domestic things, it locates its abode there; but virtue, offended at the very first sight of that appearance, hastened to return to the mind and soul of the just man, because it has established for itself a most secure lodging there, since elsewhere, like the dove, such virtue cannot find a safe haven. For simplicity is slow to find a harbor among the wiles of this world and the waves of worldly desires. Thus, just as virtue, as if for the sake of visiting, having gone forth a little, hastens to return to the best mind and does not depart far from the just man, so also the just man and the one zealous for virtue, when he knows that virtue is approaching, expands the bosom of his mind. For what does it mean that the man zealous for virtue, Noah, extending his hand, received it and brought it in to himself? Although this seems plain according to the letter, you do not easily grasp it unless you are familiar with the custom of the wise man, who uses virtue as a kind of scout and seems to entrust to it a certain prerogative for investigating and conducting affairs. Therefore, virtue examines natures, so that if any of them seems suitable to it, it may be able to add progress to it.

For there is a certain common goodness of wisdom, both generous and bountiful in its usefulness, so that it associates with itself those whom it perceives to be well-mannered. But when it sees that the nature of some resists its own purpose, it flies back and returns, as if to a familiar dwelling-place; and the wise and industrious man hastens to receive it, as if with a certain hand of the mind, opening his whole heart, wherein he held it even when absent; for the wise man can never be without his own virtue. What further is meant by the fact that he kept the dove for seven other days and then sent it out again, except that you may understand that the good and best purpose of the wise man always strives to join others to itself, to correct the erring, to set right those who wander? If he sees someone recoiling at the outset, he nevertheless does not despair of his improvement and correction. For just as a good physician, even if the time for treatment is not yet right, nevertheless first sends ahead a preliminary visit, then does not neglect the watch of a just expectation, and, yielding for a while to the passions, awaits the opportunity to heal; and when it is offered, he does not neglect his duty: so also the wise man, by words and disputations, as a physician by remedies, desires to heal contrary passions. And because in all things the remedy of divine favor must be used, therefore he waited seven days, in which the whole world is described as having been completed and rest granted to the worker, so that from that author of all things the discipline of human labor might be taken.

Therefore the dove returned at evening, bearing an olive leaf and a twig in its mouth. It is not without purpose that it set down both "evening" and "returned" and "bearing an olive leaf and a small twig in its mouth," so that you might not think that virtue, fleeing, was seeking future advances, if it could acquire any, nor, on the other hand, that you might recognize it as having been without light and hidden in some darkness, but rather that it, gleaming with the brightness of day, waited until the setting of the sun and thus returned to him, with whom it could not even have the darkness of evening. The leaf which it brought with it, even though it seems to have brought that small leaf, signified the hope of those who would repent of their error—if not great, yet some hope; for a leaf could not exist without a shoot. Therefore, as if of a sprouting correction, it carried a sign—though not a great one, yet some sign—and an olive leaf, from which tree the olive is produced, from which oil is made, by which this material light is nourished and the darkness of shadows is put to flight. And what is more familiar to virtue than light? Therefore the leaf and the small twig are a sign of correction; correction, however, has repentance as its root, as it were, which repentance cannot sprout in those who are troubled, but only in those who have already received spiritual speech.

in its mouth, the olive twig seems to have been brought not without purpose, because virtue and wisdom in speech have their own clarity, and its light immediately shines forth in its very appearance, especially when it speaks peacefully, since those seeking peace are accustomed to carry this twig as well. It bore the twig because simplicity, by its purity and sincerity, pours certain seeds of usefulness into our ears and either provokes the virtue of good teaching to persistence and invites to the reward of a discipline conscious of its own goodness, or instills in the sinner a desire for performing penance and following a better way of life. Moreover, how holy Noah knew that the water had receded from the earth, as it is written, seems worthy of consideration. First of all, according to the letter, because he could understand whether a dry or moist leaf had been brought; then, because a dove of this kind is not such that it could pluck fruits hidden under water. But you must consider whether that leaf had sprouted before the flood or during the time of the flood. If before the flood, the just man rejoiced that some fruit from the old seed had been preserved, and from this he gathered a sign of divine mercy, that the flood had already receded, which showed a fruit that the floods could not have harmed. If the leaf was born during the time of the flood.

The just man indeed perceived that new seeds of heavenly mercy had sprouted, so that the roots of the trees would live and, as if with revived life, would put forth old offspring and return to their accustomed births, whose sign the sent-ahead leaves demonstrated. But he gathered this rather by a deeper interpretation, because our Lord God, although he had been offended by the bitter errors of our iniquity, nevertheless preserved some seed, however small, of our ancient lineage and native virtue, lest the entire distinction of his work and creation concerning the human race be utterly cut off. Whence also Isaiah says: Unless the Lord Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and we would have been like Gomorrah, expressing in the name of one city the sign of blindness, in the name of the other sterility. For in their native tongue the Chaldeans called Sodom and Gomorrah, signifying blindness and sterility. And rightly did the Lord, in this kind of city, judge it better to cut off human vices than to punish the men themselves.

For the third time the dove is sent out after seven days, and it does not return. Let us consider this, lest it be found contrary to what we said above. If indeed the dove is a word, but the virtue in its action does not return to the just man, has the just man then been abandoned and defrauded of his gift? By no means. For a man of this kind is never separated from virtue, nor, when he sends forth justice from his mouth and introduces a discussion of some virtue, does he divest himself of virtue and strip himself of the equity to be imitated by others; rather, like the sun, he illuminates others while emitting the rays of his own light. Fire, of course, warms those who approach, yet it itself retains the heat of its own nature. Does the light of day fail when it illuminates the whole world with its brightness? It keeps its unimpeded course and its unimpaired nature. So too does that virtue in the form of the dove, while the flood was still raging. Yet according to the bird, it returns to the just man on the earth; according to virtue, it returns to him amid human passions, because it could not find a way to take hold in the hearts of the wicked. And so, in that second resting place, returning, it clings and reposes.

But when the floods of passions have subsided and the teachings of the word heard have been discovered, many have striven to be sharers; then the discipline of virtue begins to be not the patrimony of one, but a common good, and the cup of wisdom is drunk by many who, though previously thirsty, were unwilling to drink, just as now the floods seethe in the hearts of the Jews, and although the water of heavenly doctrine overflows and the drink abounds, they think it is not to be drunk. The Gospel is read, virtue issues from the heavenly word, the priest preaches in the church; but lest perhaps, placed alone in the ark, he might not be heard, sometimes he also goes out of the church, where he meets a Jew, and warns him, and brings an example from the heavenly scriptures: they close their ears, lest even unwillingly the fountain wash them and the moisture of the Lord’s word sprinkle them. But if any have believed, they run to the fountain, they seek out doctrine, they long for the Gospel to be instilled in them, and they are not satisfied with the constant drinking. Thus they eagerly desire to be filled from the fountain of wisdom, which before they were eager to flee. What fountain? Hear him saying: If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. He who believes in me, as Scripture said, rivers of living water will flow from his belly.

In the six hundred and first year of Noah's life, on the first day of the first month, it says that the water was diminished from the face of the earth; but in the second month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month, it records that the earth was dried. What is the meaning of that addition concerning the diminution of the water, when the calculation above seems to have concluded the year, which year begins from the second month and proceeds as far as the second month of the other year, unless perhaps we wish to take it that the form of the just man is here declared, so that this was the first year 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, even in the generation of sinners which was destroyed on account of their offenses, was first in virtue, and in the second generation which began after the flood, he was first in order, because he was the first of the second generation. And deservedly he had escaped first. Rightly, therefore, is honor paid to him who was both first of the first generation and the beginning of the later one, who merited both to escape from that one and to be propagated as a seed for this one. For when others had perished, he alone, by the merit of his excellent life and the prerogative of his virtue, rich before God, did not experience the corruption of wickedness, through whom it came about that the whole body of the human race was neither seen to be abolished on earth nor left cut off from the grace of God.

And Noah uncovered the roof of the ark, it says. Since we have interpreted the ark as a type of the body, according to a higher sense, let us understand what it means to uncover the body. Otherwise, it is clear how the ark could be opened according to the literal sense. What, then, is the roof of the human body, which was closed during the flood, unless perhaps we take it as pleasure, which covered this body of ours and, as it were, concealed it through that error of Adam? And it is considered especially like a roof because all sensation is in the head; from there comes pleasure, which held the entire body subject. But when the mind of a just man, sober and whole from the corruption of the flood, inflamed with desire for divine knowledge, wished to leap forth and fly to higher things, it uncovered everything that was an impediment and uncovered and revealed the form of pleasure, which with a kind of covering concealed the other parts of the body, so that not only would it free the body from the servitude of an ignoble mistress, but it would also comprehend those things which are incorporeal; for things which are not seen are eternal. And therefore the just man, free from corruption, desirous of eternity, sought the Lord whom he did not see.

But as for the statement that the first month or the second is the day of the spring season, you also have it said elsewhere: "This first month shall be for you among the days of the year." For he who is first in grace after the peril rightly received the prerogative of the first month. Do not be disturbed, however, by what we said above, that a leaf could have been generated on a branch after the flood, even though under water plants are often accustomed to sprout. Nevertheless, so that every scruple may be removed, what great thing is it if, at God's command, on the one day when the water had subsided, the earth immediately sprouted, since He is the restorer and creator of fruits and has not forgotten the use of His own work? Finally, you have it at the very beginning that He commanded the earth to bring forth fodder-grass and fruit-bearing trees with their fruit—and immediately the earth brought forth fodder-grass having seed according to its kind and fruit-bearing trees—and that was one day on which God commanded or did these things. Therefore, God, not unmindful of His own beneficence, but unmindful of our iniquity, restored His work in the same quantity of time with which it began.

And the Lord God said to Noah: come out of the ark, you and your wife and your sons. Therefore, as the water receded and the land dried, Noah was able to come out of the ark. But the just man arrogates nothing to himself; rather, he commits himself entirely to the divine command. And especially he who had entered by a heavenly oracle ought to await a heavenly response to depart; for justice is modest, because iniquity is immodest, which usurps what is not due and does not revere its author. Now let us inquire for what reason, as long as they were entering the ark, this was the order of those entering: that first he himself entered and his sons, then his wife and the wives of his sons. But when they came out, the order was changed. For it is written: he came out, he and his wife and his sons and the wives of his sons. And the text indeed signifies in the entry abstinence from generation, in the exit the use of generation. For then the father with his sons entered first, and the sons with their parent, and afterwards his wife and the wives of his sons, that is, the sexes are not mingled at the entry, they are mingled at the exit. Clearly, therefore, by the very order of entry, the just man utters a kind of voice, that that time was not one of intercourse nor of pleasures, when destruction threatened all. Whence in the Gospel the Lord says, reproaching that in the times of Noah they ate and drank, took wives and gave their daughters in marriage, and therefore because of their intemperance the flood came.

That was a time of sorrow, not of joy, and for that reason the just man took no delight in the company of his wife, or the sons of the just man sought conjugal union — for how unseemly it was that at a time when the living were dying, those destined to perish should be begotten! — but afterwards, when the flood had receded, the use and care of marriage rightly succeeded for the propagation of the rest. And so it is not men with men, but women with men who come out, so that the forbidden mixture of male with male might be seen to be prohibited, while the union of male and female by the lawful lot of marriage is permitted. The deeper sense, however, is this: that where there is danger, certain virile and stronger disputations should adhere to the mind, and the mind should protect itself, as it were, by some offspring of sons, so that during storms and more severe passions a certain virile edge may confront them. But when the danger is past, there is no harm if softer thoughts are joined to stronger ones, not so that the stronger are effeminated by the softer, but so that the softer senses are strengthened, as it were, by certain virile ones, since all our counsels are directed toward virtue, justice, integrity, and fortitude, and by some use and seedbed, virtue can be created and grow into stronger counsels. It is not useful, therefore, when there is some confusion of vices that occupies the mind, to sow, generate, and bring forth any thoughts, nor for the mind to be in labor.

But when the desires have been suppressed and the mind has rested, then, having received a certain seedbed of discussion, the virtues and good works can germinate. "And Noah built," it says, "an altar to God." It may be asked for what reason, when the Lord above instructed him what to do and Noah did everything, he did this thing which he was not instructed to do. But surely the Lord ought not, as if avaricious, to demand the reward of gratitude, and the just man understood that true thanksgiving is that which is not commanded, but offered. Therefore, he suffered no delay. For a grateful disposition of the mind excludes the passion of hesitation; but he who, as a debtor of gratitude, waits for it to be demanded from him is ungrateful. Now, it says "he built to God" and not "to the Lord," but "to God." According to the interpretation of the name, this action of thanksgiving does not seem to be coerced, as if to a lord, but is the compliant and grateful virtue of a just man. As if to God, he set aside what is imperial; he named what is of benefit. "And he took from the clean beasts and from the clean birds," it says, "and offered holocausts." The literal meaning is clear: that we ought to offer those things which are uncontaminated, in which the affection of the offerer shines forth. The higher interpretation, however, holds that the clean beasts seem to be the senses of the wise man, and the birds the intellects, which are far more subtle and light.

Now let us consider more carefully what it means when it says that the Lord God thought and said: I will not add to cursing the earth because of the works of men, for the heart of man remains diligently upon evil from youth. Therefore He will not yet add to striking every living thing, as He did, for all the days of the earth. And although He had taken vengeance upon the human race, yet He had recognized that the vengeance of the law profits more for fear and for the knowledge of teaching than for the change of nature, which can be corrected in some, but cannot be changed in all. Therefore the Lord took vengeance so that we might fear, He spared so that we might be preserved, and He took vengeance once for an example of fear, He spared for the remainder, lest the bitterness of sin always dominate, and also because if someone desires to avenge sins too frequently, he is considered harsh rather than censorious. And so God says: I will not add to cursing the earth because of the works of men, that is, because He wished to declare His piety toward the whole of humanity, and yet He ought not to bring a certain security and negligence to human minds; He takes vengeance on a few, He preserves more. Then when He says: I will not add, He shows that He lightens the hardships of men more than He aggravates them, knowing that the sins of men cannot be completely removed, as in the proverb that if someone wishes to draw water with a fine net, so it is for one who tries to remove malice from the hearts of men.

He says: I will not add to cursing the earth because of the sins of men, because the sense of man remains diligently upon evils from youth. See how earnestly God indicates that we sin, by saying that the sense of man remains diligently upon evils, by which statement he seems to indicate that the heart of man diligently inclines toward sins, and that there is in our principal part a slippery tendency to sin, and—what is worse—that diligence is not lacking. For he says “diligently” as if we were anxious that immunity from guilt might be able to steal upon us. Then he did not say “into one evil,” but “into many evils,” and he added “from youth”; for from that age malice grows, although elsewhere we have read that not even a one-day-old infant is without sin, but infancy is not without sin because of the weakness of the body; however, diligence and the zeal for sinning begin from youth, so that a child sins as if from weakness, a young man as if from wickedness, who eagerly desires to commit sins and glories in crimes; for among many, innocence is considered cowardice and guilt is considered praise. Thus young men are accustomed to boast of luxury and pleasures and the passions of adulteries. Therefore guilt grows with ages. So he declares that the whole human race is not now to be destroyed, when he says: I will not add to strike every living thing, but vengeance is preserved in part.

What also is the meaning of the statement: "seed and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not rest"? According to the literal sense, this signifies that animals or all wooded places will remain enduring, incorrupt through the seasons, in accordance with the Lord's institution and their own state. For when the seasons are disrupted, those things which are generated in their respective seasons are also corrupted. But if there is a confusion of the seasons, how can the generating things themselves, which are brought forth in confusion, endure? Therefore, it is the seasons which either corrupt or preserve, according to the quality they themselves possess. And for this reason the year is drawn from opposites: spring, autumn, summer, and winter. Just as the harmony of a song seems to consist of a mixture of low and high notes, so also this world is held together by opposites: air and earth, fire and water. Our bodies too preserve a certain order of nature through cold and heat, moisture and dryness. For if the natural order and measure are confounded, then destruction must necessarily follow. Therefore, the Lord, with the confusion of the flood removed, promises that a fixed order of the seasons will continue for the endurance of the world.

The deeper meaning, however, is that by "seed" we understand the beginning, and by "harvest" we understand the end. In each lies the cause of salvation. One without the other is incomplete, because it is said: "Where there is a beginning, an end is sought, and the beginning cannot exist with the end removed, nor the end return into the beginning." Therefore, it recalls that the human race will always revolve in the same cycle, as long as it is in this world, so that when the year begins, it ends, and when it ends, it begins, and the world is not dissolved in the middle of time. Thus also the mind, when it seems to begin something, should strive to the end and seek the completion of its work. When it finishes some work, it should not rest as if the work were completed, but should turn to other works and always exercise increments of virtue, since it sees that the earth is always recalled into its fruits, which are born either in different seasons—spring and summer, as in the eastern regions, or in summer and autumn, as in the western regions. At one time the seeds of the earth bring forth their offspring, at another time we gather the fruits of trees. Therefore, fruits are divided into necessary and pleasurable: necessary from the seeds of the earth, but pleasurable from the fruits of trees. Thus our body is nourished like spring, that is, by natural food. But by the Greek name, "spring" is called in Latin. Therefore, Scripture took its example from the eastern regions and especially from Egypt, through which the Hebrew passed, or from the regions of Phoenicia.

The soul, however, is nourished by the fruits of wisdom, that is, by the pleasures of the virtues. For it, again, just as cold and heat are contrary to our body, so fear and anger seem adverse. But because it is in the body, it is necessary that it have both anger and fear, nor can it be without these due to the necessity of bodily nature. And therefore the mind of the wise person dispenses just moderations, lest it mix anger and fear and cause a certain confusion and deluge in that person's soul. As for what it says, "by day and by night," by day you understand the illuminating virtue, by night you recognize dark foolishness. And so even in fear, as in cold, there can be an illuminating virtue. Similarly, temperance can restrain anger, so that in fear someone does not completely dissolve and is rather directed by fear toward works of virtue. For example, if a persecutor presses on, so that you fear God more and think that eternal punishments are to be avoided more than present ones—while you fear these, you are inflamed with anger against faithlessness and crime, and again, when inflamed with anger, you moderate it with the fear of divine disturbance.

And the Lord blessed Noah and his sons, saying: "Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it. And your fear and trembling shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and all the birds of the sky and upon all things that move upon the earth and upon all the fishes of the sea." This prerogative of power over the other animals seems to have been attributed to man also in earlier passages, but in that place where it said that God made man in the image of God, it says: "He made them male and female and blessed them, saying: 'Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it and have power over the fishes of the sea and the birds and the beasts of the earth and the reptiles.'" I have mentioned this so that you may understand that a twofold generation of man is expressed: one according to the image of God, the other according to the molding from the mud of the earth. Finally, that creation of man from the mud of the earth seems to have been made after the world, after God rested from his works. The molding of the earthly statue is, as it were, generated late. There was no rain upon the earth, nor did man till the earth. Then God fashioned man from the mud of the earth and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man was made into a living soul. But that man who on the sixth day, as if by a perfect number by which all the works of God were completed, was established as if by a perfect operation, was made according to the image of God. With him is also compared the one who was found righteous in the flood.

and therefore God set him over all earthly things, just as he made that one in the image of God, because each refrained from earthly vices—the one who was born in such a way that he owed nothing to earthly contagion, the other who had been tested in dangers and examined in passions and found not to have been subject to confusion in the confusion. But a deeper sense holds that the just man is increased by the magnitude and multitude of virtue and doctrine and fills the earth like a kind of heart, in which there is a receptacle of intelligible things. Thus he suffers nothing empty of wisdom to exist, which folly might invade. Therefore he rules over all earthly passions, and also over bodily senses, and subdues beasts to himself by a certain terror and fear, in which a species of malice and ferocity seems to inhere. For all malice is harsh and wild: it is inflated by a certain airy swelling. Nor is it obscure that certain reptiles have a kind of species of deadly passions, from which a certain poison seems to be infused into the mind. Therefore the just man commands all these, with which he does not mingle, but restrains them, if his mind is not led by pleasure, not by desire, not broken by sadness and fear, not even by luxury and delights as if it were conducting the slippery and fleeting course of this life, but the wise man banishes such passions from himself by continence and temperance.

But because he immediately added: "All the reptiles that are alive shall be for you to eat," lest perhaps it trouble you that we spoke earlier about venomous reptiles, know that there are other reptiles that are venomous, and others that are gentle. Understand this, therefore, concerning gentle reptiles, which, even if they do not all crawl on their belly and chest like snakes, nevertheless have such small feet that they seem to crawl rather than walk. Therefore, take the unclean bodily passions as similar to venomous reptiles, and the seemly ones as similar to gentle reptiles. For every affection that is apart from the enticement of base pleasure is indeed a passion, but a good passion. Desire that is softer, and anger and fear—these are passions of a harmful soul; but harmless affections are good passions. And from these, a certain use for living is provided to us and a reason; we use the food of these for the grace of life, we delight in the feasts of these. What also is the meaning of what he says: "I have given you all things like the herbs of the field"? In this, even those who understand it simply, so that they do not weigh the examination of the discourse, do not seem to us to be contrary.

There are those who think that vegetables seem to have been assigned to us for food by God's command, so that we ought to use them more than meat dishes. I myself would gladly agree to this, so that the use of vegetables might become ingrained in the human race for frugality and temperance, were I not to see that those who do not accept this willingly could object to me that not all vegetables are found suitable for human food, and then that not every kind of human is led by love of wisdom and continence so as to be able to follow continence. And therefore, what is a general precept we cannot divert to a small portion of men; for this precept is given to all men. And so let us consider what he said. "Just as vegetables," he says, "I have given you all things as fodder." He did not say, "I have given you all vegetables for food." Therefore, let those who use meat use it as vegetables, not for distention nor for the fat of the body, which meat feasts are accustomed to produce. But just as not all vegetables are suitable for use as food, so also not every living reptile is suitable for the use of feasting, since we must abstain from all venomous ones, although luxury has advanced even to this point, that it consults more for delight than for danger, and in many cases, having cut away what is said to be naturally venomous, it claims the remaining part for food, which, even if not full of danger, is nevertheless near to danger, and some corruption necessarily infuses itself into the juice of the whole flesh.

Many even transfix stags and swift animals of this kind with poisoned arrows, and afterwards, having cut away a certain part of the limbs, they use the rest of the body for food. But as pertains to the deeper meaning—that is, the point from which the statement is chiefly made—irrational passions ought to be subject to the mind of the wise man just as vegetables are to a rustic, and he should use them like crawling thoughts, as a farmer uses vegetables, which cannot cause harm, yet do not have the savor of stronger food. For the general and common precept does not enjoin the higher kinds of virtues, which are certainly the province of the few. But even if someone cannot provide himself with the stronger feasts of virtues, he should nevertheless have such passions as do not harm, but delight. Therefore, in the beginning, holy Moses informed and instructed us concerning the insufflation of the soul, so that we might not slip into the diverse opinions of the philosophers, who cannot agree even among themselves. For many have held various views, such as Critias and his disciples, who said that the soul is blood—that soul, namely, by which we live, which is sentient, not that soul which is considered rational and intelligible, belonging to the inner man. Hippocrates, however, although he did not disapprove of Critias’s talent nor refute his argument, nevertheless did not assent to his opinion. Aristotle called it *entelecheia*; others have held that it is fire.

Let us therefore maintain this division: we separate what is rational in the soul, whose substance is the divine spirit, as Scripture says: "because He breathed into his face the breath of life." There is also in it a certain vital nourishment, by which this body is animated, and also the pleasurable. The substance of those parts of the soul—both the vital and the pleasurable—is called blood by some, although Scripture also has said: "The soul of all flesh is blood." Properly, therefore, it called the soul of the flesh blood; for in flesh there is pleasure and passion, not mind and reasoning. Yet if you attend carefully, this passage explains that one. For when it said here that blood is the soul, it certainly signified that the soul is one thing and blood another, so that the substance of the soul is the vital spirit, but that vital spirit itself does not by itself and without blood provide the use of living. Rather, it is mixed with blood, because there are what are called arteries, like receptacles of spirit, which not only contain pure air but also blood—though a far smaller portion of blood. For since the vessels are twofold—one being veins, which is called φλέψ in Greek, the other arteries—a vein has more blood than spirit, that is, an artery has less blood and much more spirit. The mixture varies according to the natural diversity of each individual person.

But a higher sense ought to delight you, which signifies that blood is called soul for this reason, because blood is warm and fiery, just as virtue is. Therefore, whoever has been kindled by the pursuit of virtue and has taken up the vapor of praise excludes all the delights of the belly. Those thoughts which are carnal and earthly, he says, you will reject as unfit for spiritual food, being placed in the ardor of virtue. For he did not eat flesh—that is, think something earthly—who said: "My food is to do the will of my Father, who is in heaven," inspiring in men the pursuits of virtue and instilling the desire for divine knowledge. Therefore, earthly and weak thoughts are considered as if emasculated and without the use of blood, just as one who has lost a great deal of blood is said to be emasculated: indeed, with the loss of blood, one grows cold. Therefore, whoever is diligent in virtues sends away and rejects bodily foods, except as much as he knows is sufficient for nature; but whoever is more negligent, having followed the slippery and watery course of this life as if with lost footsteps, falls into the womb and the belly. And so, he desires those things which are earthly, alien to heavenly food, and he who cannot say: "But our conversation is in heaven.

And so, to summon us to more hidden foods, the same author says: "Do not touch, do not defile, do not taste those things which are corrupting by their very use, according to the precepts and teachings of men; which indeed have a reason of wisdom in the observance of religion and humility of heart, not in indulgence of the body, not in any honor paid to satiety and care of the flesh." Moreover, later passages confirm that this is the meaning; for thus it says: "Indeed, I will demand your blood and your souls from all beasts and from the hand of man." He compared it to bestial malice, and even aggravated the iniquity of man beyond the savagery of beasts by saying: "from the hand of a brother man." For beasts have nothing in common with us by nature; they are bound by no fraternal right, as it were. If they harm men, they harm them as strangers; they do not violate the laws of nature, they do not forget the affection of brotherhood. Therefore, man sins more gravely who plots against a brother, and therefore the Lord promised that he would avenge more severely, saying: "I will demand the blood of a man from the hand of his brother." Is he not a brother whom a certain womb of rational nature has brought forth and whom generation from the same mother has joined to us? For the same nature is the mother of all men, and therefore we are all brothers, born of one and the same mother, and bound by the same right of kinship.

And so the Lord called him brother, and him a brother from whom a brother's blood is sought, by which he signifies that danger is more to be feared from those who are joined to one by fraternal right. For from this come plots, from this come more frequent dangers to men, and to grasp a particular case, that among special brothers in the division of an inheritance, hatreds frequently arise. Then, if more has been bestowed on a brother by his parents, the other brothers become more indignant and try to take away by fratricide the favor conferred by their parents. These are the more suspect wars, wars not of cities but of individual households. Therefore, the Lord includes in the judgment of vengeance those whom he knew would be more likely to plot against him. The third point is that he called him brother, not because the parricide is worthy of the name of piety, but so that he might be more burdened by the term of piety, and from this the crime might increase, so that the heavenly vengeance might be more just. Therefore, our Lord God promises vengeance, so that even in this way the one who has forgotten piety may be broken by fear and know that even if a murderer escapes men, he cannot escape the judgment of God, but is reserved for a greater and eternal punishment.

But in a higher sense we understand this: that we must beware not only of the snares of outsiders, but also of our own, that is, of the thoughts domestic to us; and further, that we must be on guard not only against malice of the mind, but also against our very words. Hence he says: "From much speaking you will not escape sin." Therefore this seems to signify that we must render an account to the Lord not only for our deed, but also for our speech, which is more domestic. And so we must consider more carefully, lest we incur offense either by word or by deed, because just as confession by the mouth leads to salvation, so a slip of the mouth leads to death. "Whoever," he says, "sheds the blood of a man, for that man's blood his own shall be shed." The phrasing is not mistaken, but a verbal emphasis is made, in that he who has shed the blood of a man is himself shed like blood, which snatches from him the hope of posterity; because just as blood poured on the ground is scattered here and there, so the soul of the impious is dissolved after the manner of bodily frailty, since it is also said of the soul that its death is corruption, in that it is defrauded of the gift of heavenly grace and, as if dashed against the rocks of malice, diminishes the body of its own soundness.

It also disturbs many that He said: "I made man to the image of God," and did not say: "to my image," since He Himself is God. But understand that there is both the Father and the Son. And although all things were made through the Son, yet we read that the Father made all things and made them through the Son, as it is written: "You have made all things in wisdom." Therefore, whether the Father says that He made man to the image of the Word, or the Son says that He made man to the image of God the Father, He shows that man's nature is something familiar and domestic to God—that is, of rational man, according to which we are created to the image of God—and for that reason it is not unavenged before God when something is seen to have been committed cruelly and impiously against an animal domestic to itself. Therefore, the reason added to the vengeance brings it about that, first, we exclude the opinions of certain philosophers who deny that God has care over men; and then, knowing that the prerogative of our vengeance remains with God, we neither commit against others what is to be avenged by divine judgment, nor do we ourselves excessively fear death, since we know that the killing of an innocent man is held in no contempt before God.

He said: "There will not be a flood," he says, "to corrupt the whole earth." It seems doubtful whether it is to be understood that 'there will not be a flood that corrupts the earth' — for floods are accustomed to do this — or rather that there will not be such a flood by which the whole earth is corrupted, which the later words reveal when they say that the whole earth is not to be corrupted; for it shows that floods will indeed occur, but not such as could corrupt the whole earth. The deeper sense, however, holds that the Lord's providence will be such that the flood of bodily passions will not be so great that the whole soul perishes. And indeed I do not dare to say that the Lord seems to decree that no soul can perish utterly. For what do we say about the parricide? What also about the homicide, what about the adulterer, what about the transgressor? What parts of their soul do we reserve for pardon? Hence I rather think that our Lord God provokes us, so that even if someone has other, lighter passions, he does not utterly despair of divine grace nor lose confidence that he will live at all, but even if he is lustful and cannot avoid the pursuit of lust, he nevertheless strives to refrain from adultery; let there be a delight in feasting, not in debauchery. But also if someone is, I know not, avaricious, who has seized others' goods, cast out orphans, driven out widows, yet later, having returned to penitence, restores what he took away.

Finally, Zacchaeus earned forgiveness because he promised not only to restore what he had taken from some, but to give back fourfold, and also to donate half his patrimony to the poor. Let us also consider more carefully what it means when He says: "I will set my bow in the cloud, and it will be a sign of the eternal covenant between me and the earth. And when I have clouded the clouds over the earth, my bow will appear in the cloud, and I will remember my covenant." For it is not, as many suppose, that He speaks of that bow which men call the rainbow, by which some signs of rains are declared, in which various colors are formed, as it were, from the rays of the sun, now glowing red, now shining with a brighter light, whence future rain is also signified, because a certain inconstancy of clearness is shown by that many-colored appearance. Some call this bow "iris," but far be it from us to say that this is the bow of God; for this bow, which is called the rainbow, is usually seen by day, and does not appear at night. Nor is it seen even by day if the air is covered with dark clouds, unless perhaps when heavier clouds begin to break up.

Therefore, let us consider whether, because the bow from which arrows are shot is now drawn, now relaxed, Scripture may seem to signify a certain tension and relaxation, through which things are neither utterly shattered by excessive tension, but there is a certain measure and a certain test of divine power. There is, then, an invisible power of God, which, by the species of this bow, moderates drawing and relaxing according to divine will, mercy, and power, suffering neither that all things be confounded by excessive slackness nor shattered by excessive force. It is said to be placed in the clouds because the aid of divine providence is especially needed when masses of clouds gather into storms and tempests. Hence it says: "I will place my bow in the cloud," not "I will place my arrow." For the bow is the instrument for shooting the arrow; thus the bow itself does not wound, but the arrow. And therefore the Lord places the bow rather than the arrow in the clouds—that is, not that which wounds, but that which bears a sign of terror, and is not accustomed to have the effect of a wound.

Now, as to why, when above he counted three sons of Noah—Shem, Ham, and Japheth—in this passage he included the generation of only the middle son—that is, when it says: "Now Ham was the father of Canaan; these were the three sons of Noah"—and especially since the other two were righteous and this middle one was unrighteous: the generation of the unrighteous is therefore recorded before that of the righteous. For we cannot deny what is written, but his generation is added in order to heap up his own offense, because, although he had a son and was a father, he alone did not acknowledge his own father, whom he ought rather to have known. And therefore he deserved to have a wicked son, because he had been wicked toward his father. At the same time it signifies that from that Canaan came the Canaanites, who after many generations, oppressed by the righteous people, yielded to them in their possession. Therefore it is evident that Canaan, who was the son of this Ham who behaved impiously toward his father, was the ancestor of the Canaanites.

The deeper meaning, however, is indicated by the interpretation of the names. For Ham means 'heat', and Canaan 'their disturbance'. For one who is hot is continually moved and disturbed, and therefore it is most clearly declared that he was not so much a man who was the father of men, but an evil passion, the begetter of a wicked passion, which was alien from the character of the father, that is, from the practice of virtue. And Noah began to be a man who tilled the earth. At first glance, Noah, a just man, seems to be compared to that Adam who was made from the earth, because it is written of him that, cast out of paradise, he began to work the earth, and of this man also, that, having come out of the ark, he became a tiller of the soil. And in each case, a certain form of flood had almost preceded, because Noah after the flood and Adam after the constitution of the world according to the fashioning of the body. For, that the world might be made, water was gathered into one gathering, so that the earth, which previously could not be seen through the confusion of the waters, might be seen. Therefore, just as that first-born master seems to have worked the earth, so also Noah, coming out of the ark, became the author of sowing and cultivation. These things are thought to be similar: but if you consider the words, which already express the force of the deeper meaning, it is one thing to be a worker of the earth, another to be a tiller of the soil; for one acts in the place of a hireling, the other in the place of a father of the household. Finally, Cain, who killed his brother, was a worker of the earth.

and that you may know that working the earth is more servile than free, his parricidal labor is included under the curse. For it is written: "You will work the earth, and it will not increase its power to give to you. Groaning and trembling you will be upon the earth." Now the earth is our flesh, which the wicked man works, but the good man cultivates. The former seeks a wage from the earth, as it were; the latter reaps good fruits and the grace of discipline, so as to make his field more fruitful and able to respond to the master's cultivation and to show the cultivator's indulgence. But what else does the worker seek except only the food for his body, intent on the use of his belly and content to unfold only that which can profit him for sustenance? The other, however, is nourished by the utility of fruits. You recognize what fruits the just man has. The fruits of the spirit are charity, joy, peace, patience, goodness. Therefore the good farmer has continence, chastity, so that if any trees quickly bend to the ground and sprout too profusely, he may cut them back, as it were, with the pruning hook of his temperance, so that they cast off what is weak and sprout what is seemly.

Why is it that the just man first plants a vineyard, and not wheat or barley? And how did the vine exist after the flood and the corruption of the earth? But we have spoken about this above, that in the springtime even the roots of corrupted vines were able to sprout. Hence I think that this must be resolved with greater care: that the just man first seeks what is pleasurable rather than what is necessary. For the fruits of wheat and barley are necessary, without which we cannot live, but wine is pleasurable, given for the sake of delight. Because he is just, he claimed this more for himself—that is, what was secondary rather than what is primary. For he offered the necessary means of living to God, which was... But wine is superfluous for men and not necessary. Yet perhaps you will say that men cannot live without drink, just as they cannot live without food. Therefore, is drink as necessary as food? I do not deny it. Is drink, then, necessary for thirst, as established by the Lord? I do not dispute it. And so for necessary drink, it is fitting to draw from springs and rivers, which were not made by human hand, but flowed by the command and operation of our Lord God. And lest, because we have spoken of the operation of the Lord, you twist that to the point that the operation of Cain seems to have had curses, consider that the name "cursed" does not apply to the operation, but because it is written "to work the earth." For he who works the earth is a hireling; but he is not a hireling, but a master, who says: "My father still works the land.

And I work. What does such a worker do? Listen: my food is to do the will of my Father, who is in heaven. And he drank, it says, of the wine and became drunk. It did not say: he drank wine, nor that the just man drank up wine, but of the wine, that is, he tasted from his portion. It is characteristic of a drunkard to swallow down all the wine and of an intemperate man to empty what he has taken, but for a continent man it is lawful to use a measured amount. There are, therefore, two kinds of drunkenness: one which brings unsteadiness to the body, trips up its steps, and disturbs the senses; the other which steams the mind with the grace of virtue and seems to avert every weakness. Whence the Apostle says: "Use a little wine on account of your frequent infirmities." For just as by this moderation in drinking wine is not for weakness but for health and relieves every weakness of the body, so also that noble drunkenness excludes every weakness of the flesh, concerning which it is written: "And the intoxicating cup, how splendid!" What is this drunkenness? "Be drunk," it says, "not with wine, in which there is luxury, but be filled with the Spirit," as the Apostle said. And so, according to the letter, it is a caution, and according to the deeper meaning of the wise man, it is a praise. He is cautious who, even if he is uncovered, is uncovered in his own house, where coverings and certain screens for drunkenness are not lacking, so that he may know how to hide his vices.

Physical coverings, therefore, clothe the bare body, like walls and roofs; but let us see what the coverings of the soul are. We will find those coverings, however, if we examine its baring. Now, the baring of the wise man is twofold. Our mind is clothed with a twofold garment, then, if it has committed an imprudent sin—for this is the baring, as it were, of a drunken mind, so that it does not know what it does wrong, as if, by a certain intoxication of ignorance, it slips, having been led into vice—or, on the other hand, if, buried in the sleep of negligence and ignorance, it does not know its own error. When we have fallen into these, or rather when we have fallen into many sins even through knowledge—for there is a certain natural intoxication even of our own infirmity, so that we are carried into vice by the impulse of pleasure, just as many, kindled by youthful heat or inflamed by luxury and delight or seized by the greed of avarice—certainly for all these, a remedy must be sought, so that someone may cover such infirmity of his, first with a certain shame and modesty, so that even if he is still placed on slippery ground for sinning, he nevertheless gives a sign of amendment. For it makes a great difference whether one desires to boast of his sins; in the latter case, base shamelessness, in the former, tolerable modesty shows the hope of future correction.

But there is another baring of the soul, by which it casts off and sheds the body like a kind of burden, fleeing as from a certain tomb of the flesh. For the open throat of such men is a tomb, in which the soul, burdened with diverse passions of desires and lusts, is as if entombed. Therefore, it strips itself of earthly accumulation and, as if escaping from certain nets cast around it, pours out whatever it has, once it has stripped itself of every snare of passions and turned away all that deformed appearance of earthly defilement, so that it may see the light of eternal beauty. I now ask why it did not simply say: 'Ham saw the baring of his father,' but: 'Ham, the father of Canaan, saw'? Certainly, Canaan had not yet been born. Why, then, did it add the name of the son, unless so that the inheritance might be disfigured by the vice of the author, and the author might be burdened by the wickedness of the son? Therefore, both the father in the son and the son in the father are convicted, having a common partnership in folly, wickedness, and also impiety. Nor could it happen that a good son would be born to one who himself, as a wicked son to a good father, had proved degenerate in both nature and training.

This is according to the literal sense. But as pertains to the higher meaning, all the worst characters take delight in the errors of others, and not only in their errors, but also in those things which seem to them to be evil, even if they are not. For Noah did not feel himself to be naked, who was clothed with the garment of wisdom. Indeed, neither did Adam, placed in paradise, think himself naked until after he committed the error of transgression. And, covered with the garment of wisdom and justice, he was stripped naked by the transgression of the heavenly commandments (he saw himself naked and thought he must be covered with leaves). Therefore Ham laughs, seeing his father stripped. For every wicked man, since he himself is a deviant from discipline, takes the falls of others not only as a solace for his own error, because he has found partners in guilt, but also rejoices with a wicked disposition, as if he himself had corrected his own faults. Therefore an evil mind rejoices that something has happened contrary to the intention of a wise man, since a fall of the body ought not to be considered a vice, even if it is thought a fall, unless the mind also inclines toward guilt.

Finally, errors of this kind should be judged venial, not to be pursued with hatred, not to be held up to ridicule; but a wicked mind, as I have said, when it thinks a wise man has erred, considers that it may insult him whose character it believes to be contrary to its own, because its own sin is refuted, as it were, by the silent testimony of a wise man, and it rejoices that for a just man neither his own learning has been of use, nor his justice has availed, nor have those things which pertain to the body had a favorable course. For among the wicked, these things are considered among the highest goods, placed in wealth or honor, which nevertheless contribute no fruit to the praise of virtue. For this reason, those who think that a lover of virtue has been defrauded of the gift of prosperity appear to be defenders of folly, who judge every good to be esteemed by temporal rather than by eternal things. What is it that Shem and Japheth placed a garment upon their shoulders and went backwards and covered their naked father and did not see his nakedness? The letter clearly expressed the affection of piety, that good sons took care not to see their father stripped of his cloak, lest paternal reverence be diminished even by the sight itself, since piety is often offended even by a silent countenance. Whence it is said that at Rome there was an ancient custom, that sons, especially those of puberty, should not enter the bath with their parents.