OT § 13

Noah did everything the Lord had commanded him, and he was six hundred years old when the waters of the flood overflowed the earth. And Noah entered the ark, and his sons, his wife, and his sons' wives with him, and so on. The age of Noah signifies the perfection of those who enter the Church and, through faith and actions worthy of faith, reach eternal joys. For six times a hundred makes six hundred; and the number six, in which the world was made or formed, not undeservingly signifies the perfection of good action. The number one hundred, moreover, as we mentioned above, is transferred in digital computation from the left to the right, and is especially appropriate for those who in the final judgment will stand on the Judge's right hand and will hear: Come, blessed of my Father, receive the kingdom (Matthew 25:34). Therefore, the number one hundred multiplied by six signifies that perfection of spiritual virtues which is not shown externally for the favor of men, but fulfilled for the glory of the Creator in the hope of heavenly reward; and justly, the leader of the ark, in which the state of the Church is expressed, in the time of his age also signifies the devotion of those who enter thus, that through the merits of good action they may also deserve to pass to eternal salvation. Although it can also be properly understood that since the waters of the flood designate the wave of baptism, the age of Noah then insinuates the perfection to which those who are baptized ought to strive. When it prefigures the time of the final judgment, the same number of his years figuratively announces what kind of people will enter everlasting rest with the Lord, which the name Noah means, that is, those worthy of heavenly entry by the effect of good work and purity of heart intention.

Hippolytus, the Syrian expositor of the Targum, has said: We find in an ancient Hebrew copy that God commanded Noah to range the wild beasts in order in the lower floor or storey, and to separate the males from the females by putting wooden stakes between them.

And thus, too, he did with all the cattle, and also with the birds in the middle storey. And God ordered the males thus to be separated from the females for the sake of decency and purity, lest they should perchance get intermingled with each other.

Moreover, God said to Moses: Provide victuals for yourself and your children. And let them be of wheat, ground, pounded, kneaded with water, and dried. And Noah there and then bade his wife, and his sons' wives, diligently attend to kneading dough and laying it in the oven. They kneaded dough accordingly, and prepared just about as much as might be sufficient for them, so that nothing should remain over but the very least.

And God charged Noah, saying to him: Whosoever shall first announce to you the approach of the deluge, him you shall destroy that very moment. In the meantime, moreover, the wife of Cham was standing by, about to put a large piece of bread into the oven. And suddenly, according to the word of the Lord, water rushed forth from the oven, and the flow of water penetrated and destroyed the bread. Therefore the wife of Cham exclaimed, addressing herself to Noah: Oh, sir, the word of God is come good: "that which God foretold is come to pass; "execute, therefore, that which the Lord commanded. And when Noah heard the words of the wife of Chain, he said to her: Is then the flood already come? The wife of Cham said to him: Thou hast said it. God, however, suddenly charged Noah, saying: Destroy not the wife of Cham; for from thy mouth is the beginning of destruction-"thou didst first say, The flood is come." At the voice of Noah the flood came, and suddenly the water destroyed that bread. And the floodgates of heaven were opened, and the rains broke upon the earth. And that same voice, in sooth, which had said of old, "Let the waters be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear," gave permission to the fountain of waters and the floods of the seas to break forth of their own accord, and brought out the waters.

Consider what God said about the world: Let all its high places be brought low, and they were brought low; and let its low places be raised from its depths.

And the earth was made bare and empty of all existence, as it was at the beginning.

And the rain descended from above, and the earth burst open beneath. And the frame of the earth was destroyed, and its primitive order was broken. And the world became such as it was when desolated at the beginning by the waters which flowed over it. Nor was any one of the existences upon it left in its integrity.

Its former structure went to wreck, and the earth was disfigured by the flood of waters that burst upon it, and by the magnitude of its inundations, and the multitude of showers, and the eruption from its depths, as the waters continually broke forth. In fine, it was left such as it was formerly.

Was not Noah a holy man, who alone in the whole human race together with his whole house deserved to be delivered from the flood? And is not the church prefigured by Noah and his sons? They escape the flood, with wood (which symbolizes the cross) carrying them.

During the actual exorcism, while waiting for the others, let men be with men and women with women. For now I need Noah's ark that I may have Noah and his sons together, separate from his wife and his sons' wives. For although the ark was one and the door was closed, yet decorum was observed. So now, though the church doors are barred and you are all inside, let distinctions be kept: men with men, women with women. Let not the principle of salvation be made a pretext for spiritual license. Keeping close together is a good rule, provided that passion is kept at a distance.

The seven souls, however, who are given to the holy and righteous Noah, are recognized to have had a type of the seven churches, which through Christ are to escape the destruction of the fire of judgment and are to reign in the new earth with Christ. But perhaps it may disturb someone, why the churches are called seven, when one is spread upon the entire globe. Seven churches, thus, because of the septenary spirit, though it is one, are named plurally. For just as there is one body, and seven are the members, or seven duties of the members—i.e., head, hands, feet, sight, hearing, taste, and smell—thus too the body of the Church is one, yet septiform by grace of the charisms. But also seven eyes of the Lord, and seven stars in the right hand of him seated on the throne, and seven golden candelabra, and seven lamps in the tabernacle of the Lord, and seven angels, seven trumpets, seven bowls, seven women seizing one man—i.e., the Church's virtues holding Christ—and seven columns in Solomon's house, with which the house of the Church is supported and built; but also John the blessed apostle writes to seven churches, and Paul, an equally venerable apostle, gave epistles to seven churches likewise, though to the rest he wrote by name, so as not to exceed the number seven of the churches; for also the seven loaves of bread in the Gospel and the seven baskets full of fragments, overflowing, revealed an image of the septiform Church. And for that reason, divine Scripture says: Noah entered into the ark and seven souls with him.

Those seven souls revealed, as I have said, the seven churches; I shall briefly prove that in every single church there are the seven churches. For seven are the gifts of the charisms, as through Isaiah the renowned prophet the Lord has deigned to manifest: And there will rest upon him the spirit of wisdom, the spirit of understanding, of counsel, of virtue, of knowledge, of piety, the spirit of fear of God; we cannot all have them all, but we individuals have single ones. But only Christ the Lord has all, whereby the body is whole; but in us, single ones, whereby we are counted as members. Therefore, whoever of the number of brothers consisting in one and in the same church have had the spirit of wisdom, these all having one charism make one church. Indeed, church means the congregation of the saints; lastly, the blessed apostle Paul, when he was writing to the Church, added what the Church is, saying: to the saints and faithful; and also through this whoever holy and faithful brothers have the spirit of understanding make another church as another class; also, by similar reason, whoever have the spirit of counsel make a third class as a third church; and those whom the spirit of virtue has filled are numbered as the fourth church; in the same way too those whom the spirit of knowledge has inundated are counted in the fifth church; thus too those whom the spirit of piety has united show the number of the sixth church, and those whom the spirit of the fear of God has conjoined are referred to the seventh church. For when we are separate, we individuals have the single charisms; however, when we convene into one, we all make the one and whole and perfect septiform Church, whose is the body of Christ. These are the seven souls who were given in the destruction of water to Noah, who stretched forth an image of Christ.

For through water, as the righteous are saved, thus the sinners and the impious are punished, just as those seven churches in the end of the age, with all the nations perishing, through Christ are to be freed from the cataclysm of fire, as I have already said, and to perceive the glory of the heavenly kingdom, because, just as no one could evade the cataclysm of water, except who is reserved in the ark, thus too nobody can flee on the day of divine judgment, except whom the ark of the Catholic Church has sheltered.

Christ was also represented in Noah, and the world, in that ark. For why were all living creatures shut up in that ark except to signify all the nations? For God did not lack the capability of creating anew every species of living things. For when no creatures were in existence, did he not say, "Let the earth bring forth" and the earth brought forth? So from the same source as he made them then, he could remake them. God made them by a word, so God could remake them by a word.