Works (CSEL) 11 part 4/6

If he observes someone shrinking back at the beginning, nevertheless he does not despair of the profit of changing and correcting him. For just as the good physician, even if it is not yet the time for the remedy, nonetheless first sends ahead a watchful eye of visitation, then does not neglect the vigils of a just expectation, and yielding for a little to the passions awaits the opportunity of healing, which, when it has been offered, he does not let pass without performing his office: so therefore the wise man too, by words and discourses, like a physician with his medicines, desires to cure the contrary passions.

And because in all things one must make use of the remedy of divine favor, therefore he waited seven days, in which the whole world is described as having been completed and rest provided for its Maker, so that from that Author of all things might be drawn a discipline for human activity. The dove, then, returned at evening, having a leaf of the olive and a branch in its mouth. Not idly did Scripture set down both the evening and its returning and its having a leaf of the olive and a little branch in its mouth—so that you should not think that virtue is fleeing from the profit to come, if it might gain any souls; nor again that you should suppose it to have been without light and hidden in some darkness, but rather that, gleaming with the brightness of day, it waited until the setting of day and so returned to him.

With whom even at evening it could not have darkness. The leaf, too, which it brought with it—even though it seems to have brought back that small leaf—signified some hope, though not great, of those who should repent of their error; for the leaf could not be without a shoot. Therefore, as of a correction beginning to sprout, it carried, though not great, yet some token—a leaf of the olive, on which tree the olive is produced, from which oil is made, by which this material light is fed and the obscurity of darkness is put to flight. And what is more familiar to virtue than light?

The leaf, therefore, and the little branch are a token of correction; but correction has as its root, as it were, penitence—a penitence which cannot sprout in the turbid, but in those who have already received the spiritual word. In the mouth, too, the little branch of the olive is seen to have been brought, not in vain, because virtue and wisdom have their brightness in speech, and at the very appearance its light shines forth, especially when it speaks peaceable things, since this branch too those who seek peace have been wont to carry before them.

It bore the little branch, because simplicity, by its purity and sincerity, pours into our ears certain seeds of usefulness; and the teaching of good virtue either rouses to diligence and invites to a reward, conscious to itself of good discipline, or implants in the sinner a desire of doing penance and following a new way of life. Moreover, how holy Noah came to know that the water had failed from the earth, as it is written, seems worth considering. First of all, according to the letter, because he could understand whether the leaf brought to him was dry or moist; and then, because the dove is not of such a kind as to be able to draw up fruits hidden beneath the water. But whether that leaf had sprouted before the flood or at the time of the flood must be considered by you.

If before the flood, the just man rejoiced that some fruit had been preserved from the old seed, and from it gathered a token of divine mercy—namely that the flood had now withdrawn, which mercy might show forth the fruit to which the floods could not have done harm. If the leaf was born at the time of the flood, the just man surely perceived that new seeds of heavenly mercy had budded forth, so that the roots of the trees were alive and, as though with the soul renewed, were sprouting their ancient offspring and returning to their accustomed births, the token of which the leaves sent ahead made manifest.

But he gathered this rather by a deeper interpretation: that the Lord our God, although offended by the bitter errors of our iniquity, nonetheless preserved for us some seed, even a slight one, of the virtue of our ancient lineage and homeland, lest the whole token of His work and of His creature regarding the human race should be wholly cut away. Whence Isaiah also says: 'Unless the Lord of Sabaoth had left us a seed, we would have become like Sodom and we would have been made like Gomorrah,' expressing, in the name of the one city, a sign of blindness, and in the name of the other, sterility. For thus the Chaldeans in their native tongue named Sodom and Gomorrah, signifying blindness and sterility.

And rightly, in this image of cities, the Lord cut away human vices rather than judged men to be punished. A third time the dove is sent out after seven days, and this same dove does not return. Whence let us consider, lest what we said above be found to be contradictory. If indeed in word the dove, but in deed virtue, did not return to the just man, then has the just man been deserted and defrauded of his gift? By no means. For never is a man of this kind sundered from virtue; nor, when he sends justice forth from his mouth and brings in a discourse of some virtue, does he strip himself of virtue and despoil himself of the equity that others are to imitate; but, in the stead of the sun, he illumines others when he sends forth the rays of his own light.

Fire indeed warms those who draw near, in such a way that it itself possesses the heat of its own nature. Does the light of day fail when it illumines the whole world with its brightness? It keeps its course unhindered and its nature undiminished. So too this virtue, in the image of the dove, while the flood was still seething—as a bird, indeed, upon the earth, but as virtue, amid the passions of men—returns to the just man, because in the breasts of the wicked virtue had not been able to find a place where it might cleave. And therefore, returning to that second lodging of its own, it cleaves and rests.

But truly, when the floods of the passions have died down, and very many have become eager to be sharers of the word they have heard and the teaching they have come to know, then the discipline of virtue begins to be no longer the patrimony of one man but a common good, and like a cup of wisdom it is drunk by very many who before, though thirsting, refused to drink—as now the floods seethe in the breasts of the Jews, and although the water of heavenly teaching overflows and the draught abounds, they think it ought not to be drunk. The Gospel is read, virtue goes forth from the heavenly word, the priest expounds it in the church; but lest perchance, placed alone within the ark, he cannot be heard, sometimes, having gone out of the church, where he meets a Jew, he admonishes him and brings forward an example from the heavenly Scriptures:

they close their ears, lest the fountain wash them even against their will and the moisture of the Lord's word besprinkle them. But if any have believed, they run to the fountain, they seek out the teaching, they long that the Gospel be instilled into them, nor are they satisfied with the constancy of their drinking. Thus they desire eagerly to be filled from the fountain of wisdom which before they were eager to flee. What fountain? Hear Him who says: 'If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, rivers of living water shall flow from his belly.' In the six hundred and first year of Noah's life, on the first day of the first month, Scripture says 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 does that addition about the diminishing of the water mean, since the reckoning computed above seems to have closed out a year—a year which begins from the second month and proceeds on into the second month of the following year—unless perhaps we wish to take here a figure of the just man set forth: so that the first year was that in which the flood began, namely the first year after the six hundredth, and again the first year and the first month after the six hundredth year, when the water was diminished from the face of the earth, because the just man was first in virtue even in the generation of sinners (which was blotted out on account of its sins), 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 rightly he had escaped first.

For rightly is honor paid to him who was both first of the earlier generation and the beginning of the later, who deserved both to escape from the former and to be propagated for the seedbed of the latter. For when others had perished, he alone, by the merit of an excellent life and the prerogative of virtue, rich before God, did not experience the corruption of malice; through him it came to pass that the whole body of the human race should neither seem to be abolished upon the earth nor be left cut off from the grace of God. 'And Noah,' it says, 'uncovered the roof of the ark.' Since we have taken the ark, as we interpreted above, for the image of the body, let us understand what it is to uncover the body—according, namely, to the deeper sense. For the rest, it is clear in what way the ark could be opened according to the letter.

What, then, is the roof of the human body, which was closed up in the flood, unless perhaps we take it to be pleasure? Pleasure which covered this our body and as it were veiled it through that error of Adam. And it is judged to be especially like a roof, because all sense is in the head; thence comes pleasure, which had the whole body subject to it.

But when the mind of the just man, sober and whole, kindled by desire of divine knowledge, wished to leap up and fly away into things on high from the corruption of the flood, it uncovered all the things that were a hindrance, and it laid bare again and unveiled the appearance of pleasure, which with a certain covering veiled the other parts of the body—so that it might not only free the body from the service of an ignoble mistress, but might also lay hold of the things that are incorporeal; for the things which are not seen are eternal. And therefore the just man, free from corruption and desirous of eternity, sought the Lord whom he did not see. But as for its saying the first or second month, and that it is a day of the spring season, you have it said elsewhere also: 'This month shall be for you the first among the days of the year.'

For he who is first in grace after the peril, this man rightly received the prerogative of the first month. But do not let it disturb you that we said above that the leaf found on the branch could have been produced after the flood, even though for the most part herbs are wont to sprout beneath the water. Yet, that every scruple may be removed, what great thing is it if, at God's command, on the one day on which the water was diminished, the earth straightway sprouted—since the same God is both the restorer and the founder of fruits, and was not forgetful of the use of His own work?

Finally, you have in the very beginning that He commanded that the earth should sprout the herb of pasture and the fruit-bearing tree with its fruit—'and straightway the earth put forth the herb of pasture having seed according to its kind, and the fruit-bearing tree'—and that was one single day, on which God commanded or made these things. Therefore God, not unmindful of His own benefit, but unmindful of our iniquity, restored His own work in the same measure of time in which He had begun it. And the Lord God said to Noah: 'Go forth from the ark, you and your wife and your sons.' And so, the water receding and the earth dried, Noah was able to go forth from the ark. But the just man arrogates nothing to himself; rather he commits himself wholly to the divine command.

And most of all, he who had entered by a heavenly oracle ought to await a heavenly response in order to go forth; for justice is modest, since iniquity is immodest, which usurps things not due and does not reverence its Author. Now let us ask by what reasoning, as long as they were entering the ark, this was the order of those entering: that he himself entered first and his sons, then his wife and the wives of his sons. But when they went out, the order was changed. For it is written: 'He himself went out, and his wife and his sons and the wives of his sons.' And the letter indeed signifies, in the entrance, abstinence from generation; in the going forth, the use of generation.

For then the father with the sons entered first, and the sons with their parent, and afterward his wife and the wives of his sons—that is, the sexes were not mingled at the entrance, but were mingled at the going forth. Openly, therefore, by the very order of entering, the just man utters a certain voice: that the time was not one of intercourse nor of delights, when destruction threatened all. Whence in the Gospel the Lord says, rebuking the fact that in the days of Noah they ate and drank, took wives and gave their daughters in marriage, and therefore on account of their intemperance the flood came upon them.

That time, therefore, was a time of mourning, not of gladness; and hence the just man took no delight in the fellowship of his wife, nor did the just sons seek conjugal union—for how unseemly it would be that, at the very time when the living were dying, those destined to perish should then be begotten! But afterward, rightly, when the flood had receded, the use and care of marriage succeeded for the seedbed of the rest. And so it is not men with men, but women with men, that go forth, so that the manly mingling among themselves should appear forbidden, but the union of man and woman, by the lawful lot of marriage, permitted.

But the deeper sense holds this: that, where there is peril, certain manly and stronger deliberations should cleave to the mind, and that the mind should as it were guard itself by a certain offspring of sons, so that against tempests and graver passions a certain manly battle-line might come to meet them. But when the peril has run its course, there is no hindrance if softer thoughts be joined to the stronger ones—not so that the stronger should be made effeminate by the softer, but so that the softer perceptions might be strengthened as it were by certain manly ones, since all our counsels are directed toward virtue, justice, integrity, and fortitude, and by a certain practice and seedbed of virtue the stronger counsels can be created and grow up.

It is not, therefore, useful, when there is some confusion of vices that occupies the mind, to sow certain thoughts and to generate and bring the mind to bear them. But when the desires have been pressed down and the mind has come to rest, then, a certain seedbed of deliberation having been received, virtues and good works can sprout. 'And Noah,' it says, 'built an altar to God.' For what reason, when above the Lord admonished what Noah should do and Noah did all things, did he now do this which he was not admonished to do? Perhaps the question is raised. But surely the Lord ought not, like a greedy man, to demand the recompense of grace; and the just man understood that the true rendering of thanks is one that is not commanded but offered. And so he suffered no delay.

For indeed the grateful virtue of the soul excludes the passion of hesitation; but he who, being a debtor of grace, waits for it to be exacted of him, is ungrateful. But the fact that it says he built 'to God,' and did not say 'to the Lord,' but 'to God'—according to the interpretation of the name, this rendering of thanks seems not to be compelled, as though to a master, but to be the virtue of the just man, compliant and grateful. As though he set apart for God what is of imperial authority, and named what is of benefit. 'And he took of the clean beasts and of the clean birds, and offered,' it says, 'holocausts.' The letter is plain, that we ought to offer those things which are uncontaminated, in which the affection of the offerer may shine forth; but the deeper interpretation holds this: that the clean beasts are seen to be the senses of the wise man, and the birds his understanding.

which are far more subtle and lighter. But now let us consider more diligently what it is that He says, that the Lord God, reflecting, said: 'I will not again curse the earth because of the works of men, since the heart of man is set diligently upon evil from his youth. Therefore I will not again strike all flesh, as I have done, all the days of the earth.' Even though He had taken vengeance upon the race of men, He had nonetheless recognized that the vengeance of the law avails toward fear and the knowledge of teaching rather than toward a change of nature—a nature which can be corrected in some, but cannot be changed in all.

The Lord, therefore, took vengeance that we might fear; He spared that we might be preserved; and He took vengeance once, for an example of fear; He spared for the rest, lest the bitterness of sin should always have dominion; and at the same time because, if anyone should desire to avenge sins too frequently, he is held to be harsh rather than censorious. And therefore God says: 'I will not again curse the earth because of the works of men'—that is, because He willed to declare His mercy concerning the whole of mankind, and yet ought not to bring a certain security and negligence upon human minds: He takes vengeance upon a few, He preserves the many. Then, when He says:

'I will not again,' He shows that He lightens the hardships of men rather than aggravates them, knowing that the sins of men cannot be utterly taken away—as in the proverb, that just as if anyone should wish to draw up water with a fine-meshed net, so is he who tries to take away malice from the breasts of men. 'I will not again,' He says, 'curse the earth because of the sins of men, since the perception of man remains diligently upon evil from his youth.' See how God signifies that we sin studiously, by saying that the perception of man remains diligently upon evil—by which saying He seems to signify that the heart of man is diligently inclined toward sins, and that in our governing faculty there is a slipperiness of sinning, and what is worse, that the zeal for it is not lacking.

For He says 'diligently,' as though we were anxious lest an immunity from fault should creep up on us. Then He did not say into one evil, but into many evils, and added 'from his youth'; for from that age malice grows, although elsewhere we have read that not even an infant of one day is without sin, but neither is infancy without sin on account of the infirmity of the body, while diligence and zeal in sinning begin from youth—so that the boy sins as though weak, the young man as though wicked, who studiously desires to commit sins and glories in his crimes; for among very many, innocence is held to be cowardice and fault is reckoned for praise. Thus young men have been wont to boast in luxury and in delights and in the inclinations of adulteries.

Fault, therefore, grows with the years. He declares, then, that the whole race of men is now not to be consumed, when He says: 'I will not again strike all flesh,' but vengeance is reserved in part. What that also is which He says—'seed and harvest, cold and heat, summer and spring, day and night shall not cease'—this, according to the letter, signifies that they will abide, abiding according to the Lord's institution and their own state in their seasons, the animals being incorrupt in the future, and all the woodlands. For when the seasons are corrupted, those things also are corrupted which are generated each in their own seasons. But if there is a confusion of seasons, how can those things which are generative remain, once confusion has been made?

Therefore it is the seasons that either corrupt or preserve, according as they themselves possess their proper quality. And for this reason the year is drawn from contraries—spring, autumn, summer, and winter. Just as the harmony of a song is seen to consist of low and high notes mingled together, so therefore this world too is held together from contraries: from air and earth, fire and water. Our bodies also preserve a certain order of nature by cold and heat, moisture and dryness. For if the natural order and measure is confounded, then destruction must necessarily follow. Therefore the Lord, the confusion of the flood being removed, promises that a fixed order of seasons shall be for the permanence of the world. But the deeper sense holds this: that by 'seed' we should understand the beginning, by 'harvest' we should understand the end.

In both there is the cause of salvation. The one without the other is incomplete, for it says: 'Where there is a beginning, an end is sought; nor can there be a beginning with the end taken away, and the end returns into the beginning.' Therefore he records that, so long as it is in this world, the human race will always recur to the same point: that, when the year begins, it may end; when it ends, it may begin; lest the world be dissolved in the midst of time. So too the mind, when it seems to begin something, let it strive on even to the end and seek the term of its work.

When it finishes some work, let it not as it were take holiday as though the work were consummated, but let it recur to other works and always exercise the increases of virtue, since indeed it sees that the earth is always recalled to its own fruits—diverse fruits which are born either in spring and summer, as in the regions of the East, or in summer and autumn, as in the regions of the West. At one time the seedbeds of the lands put forth their offspring, but at another time we gather the fruits of the trees. The fruits, therefore, are of two kinds, necessary and pleasurable: the necessary from the seeds of the lands, but the pleasurable from the fruits of the trees. And so our body, as it were in spring—that is, in 'ear' (éar)—is fed with natural food. For 'éar' in the Greek name is called 'ver' in the Latin.

And so Scripture took its example from the regions of the East, and especially from Egypt, through which the Hebrew passed. But the soul is nourished by pleasures—that is, by the fruits of wisdom—and to it, just as cold and heat are contrary to our body, so fear and anger appear hostile. Yet because it is in the body, it must of necessity have both anger and fear, nor can it be without these, by the necessity of bodily nature. And therefore the mind of the wise man dispenses just restraints, lest it mingle anger and fear and there arise a certain confusion and flood in his soul. And as for what it says, 'day and night,' by the day you understand the illuminating power, by the night you recognize the dark folly.

And so even in fear, as in cold, the illuminating power can be present. Likewise temperance can restrain anger, so that in fear a man is not utterly dissolved but is rather, through fear, directed toward works of virtue—for instance, if a persecutor presses upon him, so that you fear God the more and judge that eternal punishments are more to be shunned than present ones; and while you fear these, you are kindled toward glory, angered at faithlessness and at wickedness, and again, inflamed with anger, you temper your agitation by the fear of God. And the Lord blessed Noah and his sons, saying: Increase and multiply and fill the earth and have dominion over it.

And the fear and dread of you shall be upon all the beasts of the earth and upon all the birds of heaven and upon all things that move upon the earth and upon all the fishes of the sea. This prerogative of power over the other living creatures seems to be granted to man also in the earlier passages; but in that place where it says that God made man to the image of God, it adds: male and female he made them, 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 creeping things. This I have noted so that you may understand that a twofold generation of man is expressed: the one according to the image of God, the other according to the molding from the clay of the earth.

In short, that creation of man from the clay of the earth seems to have been made after the world, after God had rested from his works. In a manner, the molding of the earthen statue is brought forth late. There was no rain upon the earth, nor did man till the earth. Then God fashioned man from the mire of the earth and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul. But that other man, who on the sixth day—as upon a perfect number, by which all the works of God were brought to completion—was established as it were by a perfect operation, was made according to the image of God. To him is also compared this man who in the flood was found righteous.

And therefore God set him above all earthly things, just as he had set that one made to the image of God, because both kept themselves free from earthly vices: the one who was so begotten that he owed nothing to earthly defilement, the other who had been approved in dangers and tested in sufferings, and found to be one who in confusion had not been subject to confusion. But a deeper sense holds that the righteous man is increased by the greatness and multitude of virtue and of doctrine, and fills the earth as though it were a heart, in which there might be a receptacle of things intelligible. Thus he allows nothing to be empty of wisdom which folly might invade.

He therefore has dominion over all earthly passions, and likewise over the bodily senses; he subdues the beasts also to himself by a certain terror and fear—those beasts in which a likeness of malice and of savagery seems to dwell. For all malice is fierce and wild: it is puffed up with a kind of airy swelling. Nor is it obscure that certain creeping things have a certain semblance of deadly passions, by which a kind of venom seems to be poured into the mind.

Over all these, then, the righteous man rules; with them he does not mingle himself, but restrains them—if his mind is led neither by delight nor by desire, is broken neither by sadness nor by fear, and does not run the course of this life as something slippery and fleeting through luxury and indulgence, but the wise man, through continence and temperance, banishes such passions from himself. Yet because Scripture immediately added: 'all creeping things that are alive shall be food for you,' lest perhaps it disturb you that we earlier spoke of venomous creeping things, know that some creeping things are venomous, others tame. Of the tame creeping things, then, understand these: though they do not all creep upon belly and breast like serpents, yet they have tiny feet, so that they seem rather to creep than to walk.

Therefore take the unclean bodily passions as like the venomous creeping things, but the seemly ones as like the tame. For every affection that is apart from the enticement of base delight is indeed a passion, but a good passion. Softer desire and anger and fear—these are harmful passions of the soul; but harmless affections are good passions. And by these a certain use and ground of living is supplied to us; with the food of these we make use for the grace of life, with the banquets of these we are delighted. What too is the meaning of what it says: 'as the green herbs of fodder I have given you all things'? In which even those who understand it simply, so as not to weigh the careful examination of the discourse, do not seem to be opposed to us.

For there are those who think that the herbs seem to have been assigned to us as food by God's command, in order that we ought to use these rather than fleshly banquets. I myself would gladly assent to these, so that the use of herbs might grow ingrained in the human race toward greater frugality and temperance—were it not that I saw it could be objected to me by those who do not gladly accept this, that not all herbs are found suited to the food of men; and again, that not every kind of man 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 the small portion of a few men; for this precept is given to all men. And so let us consider what it said.

'As the green herbs of fodder,' it says, 'I have given you all things.' It did not say: I have given you all the herbs for food. Let those, then, who eat flesh use it as if it were herbs—not for distension nor for the fattening of the body, which the banquets of flesh are wont to produce.