OT § 16

Now let us consider more carefully what He says: And the Lord God said: Considering, I will not add to curse the earth on account of the works of men; because the heart of man remains diligently upon evil from his youth (Genesis 8:21). Therefore, He would not strike the whole earth again, as He did, all the days of the earth. Although He had sought revenge on the human race, yet He knew that the revenge of the law profits for fear, and the knowledge of doctrine, more than for a change in 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 us so that we might be saved. And He took vengeance once as an example of fear, but spared us for the rest so that the bitterness of sin may not always rule over us, and also because if anyone desires to avenge sins more frequently, they are considered harsher rather than more lenient. Therefore, the Lord says: I will no longer add to curse the earth because of the works of men, that is, because He wanted to declare His mercy towards all mankind, and yet He should not have brought a certain security and negligence to human minds; He takes vengeance on a few, but reserves more.

"And the Lord smelled a sweet savor, and He said to him: I will never again curse the ground because of humans." It was appropriate that, as a holy man and providing for future things, just as Abel consecrated the first age of the world by offering sacrifices to God, Noah would also consecrate the beginning of the second world age. This same act is remembered to have been done by Abraham and Melchizedek at the beginning of the third age, and by King David, a patriarch of the fourth age, on the threshing floor of Araunah the Jebusite. Jesus, the high priest, and Zerubbabel, at the beginning of the fifth age, are also said to have done this upon restoring the altar which the Chaldeans had destroyed. All these prefigured the highest King and our true High Priest, who dedicated the entirety of the sixth age, indeed the beginning of the sixth age, to God with the sacrifice of His own body and blood on the altar of the holy cross. What is said, that the Lord smelled a sweet odor from Noah's offering, does not signify the fragrance that could delight human nostrils coming from burning sacrifices. It refers instead to the odor of virtues, which coming from the purest heart of the offerer, ascends to the sight of Divine Majesty. This is the kind of scent that Isaac, the patriarch, smelled in his son Jacob when he said: "See, the scent of my son is like the scent of a field that the Lord has blessed" (Genesis 27:27), and of which the Apostle says: "We are the pleasing aroma of Christ to God" (2 Corinthians 2:15). In mystical interpretations, it is appropriate that Noah offers a sacrifice after the flood, because this is the order of our consecration in Christ: first, we are washed in the fountain of life, and then we are refreshed at the sacred altar with the offering of the Lord. Hence the Apostle says: "But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified" (1 Corinthians 6:11). Washed in baptism, sanctified by the saving sacrifice, justified by good works. In the burnt offerings which were offered to the Lord from clean animals after the flood, holy martyrs can also be particularly prefigured. These, after the baptismal washing, maintained the purity of life and even shed their blood for the Lord. Burnt offerings, known as holocausts, were consumed entirely by fire and were the sacrifices of which nothing was consumed by the offerers. This name fittingly applies to martyrs, who merit to glorify God not only in their lives but also in their deaths. The altar on which these holocausts are offered is the heart of the elect, built by our Noah, Christ, and infused with the fire of His Spirit, which He sent to earth and wished vehemently to be kindled. There are many holocausts but one altar, because the heart and soul of the multitude of believers were one, without any separation; as the Apostle says: "Endeavor to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace" (Ephesians 4:3). Burnt offerings are offered from all the clean animals and birds, symbolizing believers from every nation, every kind of people, from every age, who have attained the palm of martyrdom. If there is believed to be any distinction between clean animals and clean birds, the animals offered in burnt offerings represent those who from the common life of the people of God became martyrs; the birds symbolize those who, accustomed to frequently seeking heavenly things through flights of contemplation, were additionally crowned by a precious death. Thus, clean and unclean animals and birds exit the ark cleansed by the flood, but only clean ones are offered in sacrifice to the Lord. Believers emerge from the baptismal laver with the forgiveness of sins, but many of them return to the filth of sins afterward. Some persevere firmly in the cleanliness of life received until the end. Some tend so meticulously to the cleanliness once obtained that they even lay down their lives for its preservation. Since clean animals and birds entered the ark by sevens, it is evident that holocausts offered to the Lord came from these paired survivors. It is fitting that birds and animals in the seventh number are deputed as offerings to the Lord, symbolizing the grace of the sevenfold Spirit, by whose gift, believers are given not only the faith in the Lord but also the endurance to suffer for Him. Rightly, in animals and birds found in the seventh number and made holocausts, the glory of virgins can also be signified. Virginity, being an unequal number in that it prefers a celibate life free from marital union, offers itself as a holocaust to the Lord, consecrated perfectly to the Creator through the fire of supreme love. Of these, John says in Revelation: "These are those who did not defile themselves with women; they are virgins. They follow the Lamb wherever He goes. These were redeemed from among men, firstfruits to God and the Lamb" (Revelation 14:4). When Noah offers holocausts, the Lord smells a sweet savor, because God the Father graciously accepts both the passion of blessed martyrs and the virginal life of believers consecrated and offered through the grace of Christ.

And he said to him: "I will no longer curse the ground because of man; for the intent and thought of the human heart are prone to evil from their youth. Therefore, I will never again strike down every living being as I have done." The Lord promises not to curse the earth again, nor strike every living being, because humans are so prone to sin that even if they were punished again by a flood, nonetheless, after it has passed, they would again involve themselves in vices and crimes. It should be noted that although the intent of the human heart is said to be prone to evil from youth, from which time the incentives of carnal desires are naturally generated in us, it does not follow that we first begin to be subject to sins from the time of puberty, though from then the wantonness of age prompts us to commit greater deeds. For there is also that divine sentence which says: "A heavy yoke is upon the children of Adam from the day they come forth from their mother's womb" (Sirach 40:1), referring to the yoke of the first transgression, because of which we are all conceived in iniquities and born in sins, although from the onset of youth we willingly add many more to those burdens with which we involuntarily came into this light due to the guilt inherited from our father; from all of which we are only freed by the grace of God through Jesus Christ. Therefore, He says, "I will never again strike down every living being as I have done; but the extent of this promise of mercy He manifests by adding:

The manner in which sacrifice was introduced is seen in the fact that Abel offered a sacrifice by faith, and so did Noah, of whose offering it is said: The Lord smelled the sweet odor. And these sacrifices represented that which Christ offered on the cross. Hence it is said, the Lord smelled: God was appeased by the death of His only Son. By contrast, the demons, because of their pride, seek to be worshiped as God Himself, in order to obtain on earth the honor they could not have in heaven, and because men are farthest removed from God. A man who makes such sacrifices offers the blood of Christ, in that it was shed in order to appease the Father.

"The Lord smelled" not the smell of the flesh or the smoke of wood, but rather he looked out and saw the simplicity of heart with which Noah offered the sacrifice from all and on behalf of all. And his Lord spoke to him, as he desired that Noah hear, "Because of your righteousness, a remnant was preserved and did not perish in that flood that took place. And because of your sacrifice that was from all flesh and on behalf of all flesh, I will never again bring a flood upon the earth." God thus bound himself beforehand by this promise so that even if mankind were constantly to follow the evil thought of their inclination, he would never again bring a flood upon them.

The Scripture says, "And the Lord smelled a sweet odor," that is, he accepted the offerings. But do not imagine that God has nostrils, since God is invisible spirit. Yet what is carried up from the altar is the odor and smoke from burning bodies, and nothing is more malodorous than such a savor. But that you may learn that God attends to the intention of the one offering the sacrifice and then accepts or rejects it, Scripture calls the odor and smoke a sweet savor.

All the days of the earth, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, night and day, shall not cease. For when he had said all the days, he immediately added of the earth, so that you may understand that during all the days in which the earth will have its present state, men should be free from the threat of a universal flood; yet the time will not fail when, ceasing this succession of fleeting events which is carried out annually, the whole world with its living things will perish by fire, as Peter attests, who says: For the heavens existed long ago, and the earth was formed out of water and by means of water by the word of God, by means of which the world that then existed was deluged with water and perished. But by the same word the present heavens and earth are stored up for fire, being kept until the day of judgment (2 Peter 3:5). It should be noted here that the heavens which he says were destroyed by water or will perish by fire are none other than this turbulent air which is nearest to the earth, from which the birds of the air are named because they fly in it. For the ethereal or starry heavens are not to be consumed by fire, just as they were not consumed by water.

And because there was neither planting nor harvest during that year and the seasonal cycles had been disturbed, God restored to the earth that which had been taken away in his anger. God then said, "All the days of the earth, planting and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night shall not cease from the earth." For throughout the entire year, until the earth dried up, winter, with no summer, had been upon them.

And God blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth. And the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon all animals of the earth, and upon all the birds of the air, with everything that moves upon the ground. All the fish of the sea are handed over to you, and everything that moves and lives shall be food for you; just as I gave you green plants, I give you everything. It is clear from the text that the second age of the world, like the first and the beginnings of others, is blessed by the Lord. Noah is blessed with his sons, that is, with all those who are born of his flesh and endowed with faith and obedience, demonstrating truly that they are his sons; for his progeny is commanded to fill the earth, as is evident that it has come to pass; for men are said to be a terror to all the animals of the earth and the birds of the air; for these, together with the fishes, are permitted to be eaten, as they were given herbs to eat up to the time of the flood. Where it is noted that since their terror and dread is commanded to be over the animals, certainly it is prohibited from being over men. For to desire to be feared by an equal is manifestly to be proud contrary to nature; and yet it is necessary that governors be feared by their subjects when they find that God is least feared by them. For in that they demand fear from those living perversely, they dominate not as men, but as animals, because evidently insofar as the subjects are beastly, insofar they ought also to lie under fear. According to the spiritual understanding, however, Noah is blessed with his sons, namely our Lord and Savior with the apostles, whom he also deigned to call sons, saying: Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them (Matt. 9:15). God the Father commanded them to grow and multiply over the whole world, when the Lord said to his disciples: Go into the whole world and preach the Gospel to every creature (Mark 16:14), that is, to all nations. For all the commands of the Lord and Savior are indeed those of the Father. He himself said: What I speak, therefore, I speak just as the Father has told me (John 12:50). He subjected all animals that move on the earth, all the birds of the air, and all the fish of the sea to their dominion when he said: Whatever you bind on earth shall be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven (Matt. 18:18). For animals, birds, and fish represent persons of different dispositions and characters, all of which after the flood are given as food to Noah's sons, because after the Lord brought the gift of the saving bath to the world, he wanted this to be administered to all nations as well, saying to the apostles: Go therefore and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit (Matt. 28:19). For these are given as food to Noah's sons according to what was shown to Peter in a mystical sheet with all the quadrupeds and reptiles of the earth: Rise, Peter, kill and eat (Acts 10:13); that is, convert the pagans from their wicked way of life by preaching the truth; and bring them into the members of the Church by initiating them into sacred mysteries; whence it is rightly added here:

And the Lord blessed Noah and his sons and said to them: Be fruitful and multiply and replenish the earth; and the fear of you and the dread of you shall be upon every beast of the earth, and upon every fowl of the air, upon all that moveth upon the earth, and upon all the fishes of the sea; into your hands are they delivered. Every moving thing that liveth shall be food for you; as the green herb have I given you all; but flesh with the blood thereof shall ye not eat.

Lo! I have given you all things as the green herb to eat, but flesh in the blood thereof shall ye not eat; meaning this: Lately I interdicted you from eating many things, but now I permit you to eat of all things, and to eat even flesh. Sacrifice, therefore, and pour out the blood, and then eat the flesh as ye eat vegetables; and eat also of the olive, of which before the Flood it was not permitted to eat, because it also was the fruit of a tree

And He changed the food of men, giving them leave to eat flesh: for from Adam the first-formed until the Flood men ate only of seeds and the fruit of trees, and to eat flesh was not permitted to them. But since the three sons of Noah were the beginning of a race of men, God blessed them for multiplication and increase, saying: "Increase and multiply, and replenish the earth and rule it; and the fear and dread of you shall be upon every living thing of animals and upon all the fowls of the air; and they shall be to you for meat, even as the green herb: but the flesh with the blood of life ye shall not eat: for your blood also will I requite at the hand of all beasts and at the hand of man. Whoso sheddeth a man's blood, in return for his blood shall it be shed." For He made man the image of God; and the image of God is the Son, after whose image man was made: and for this cause He appeared in the end of the times that He might show the image (to be) like unto Himself. According to this covenant the race of man multiplied, springing up from the seed of the three.

Moreover, you were commanded to abstain from certain kinds of food, in order that you might keep God before your eyes while you ate and drank, seeing that you were prone and very ready to depart from His knowledge, as Moses also affirms: "The people ate and drank, and rose up to play." And again: "Jacob ate, and was satisfied, and waxed fat; and he who was beloved kicked: he waxed fat, he grew thick, he was enlarged, and he forsook God who had made him." For it was told you by Moses in the book of Genesis, that God granted to Noah, being a just man, to eat of every animal, but not of flesh with the blood, which is dead. And as he was ready to say, "as the green herbs," I anticipated him: "Why do you not receive this statement, 'as the green herbs,' in the sense in which it was given by God, to wit, that just as God has granted the herbs for sustenance to man, even so has He given the animals for the diet of flesh? But, you say, a distinction was laid down thereafter to Noah, because we do not eat certain herbs. As you interpret it, the thing is incredible. And first I shall not occupy myself with this, though able to say and to hold that every vegetable is food, and fit to be eaten. But although we discriminate between green herbs, not eating all, we refrain from eating some, not because they are common or unclean, but because they are bitter, or deadly, or thorny. But we lay hands on and take of all herbs which are sweet, very nourishing and good, whether they are marine or land plants. Thus also God by the mouth of Moses commanded you to abstain from unclean and improper and violent animals: when, moreover, though you were eating manna in the desert, and were seeing all those wondrous acts wrought for you by God, you made and worshipped the golden calf. Hence he cries continually, and justly, 'They are foolish children, in whom is no faith.'"

Except that you shall not eat flesh with its blood. For blood rightly denotes carnal desires and carnal sense. Blood is poured out when one renounces carnal temptations and thoughts, in which one lived poorly, so that such people can say with the Apostle: Yet I live, now not I; but Christ lives in me (Gal. II, 29). And again: I conferred not immediately with flesh and blood (Gal. I, 16): otherwise, whoever begins to incorporate those persevering in former crimes into the unity of the holy Church by baptizing them, as if eating beasts given by the Lord with blood, because he receives into society those whose conscience is still held by their old way of life as if suffocated. They say that this was the greatest transgression of the giants because they ate flesh with blood; and therefore the Lord, having destroyed them by the flood, indeed allowed people to eat flesh, but prohibited them from doing so with blood.

God also blessed Noah and his sons that they might be fruitful and multiply and that fear of them should fall upon all flesh both in the sea and on dry land. "Only you shall not eat flesh with its life." That means you shall eat no flesh that has not been slaughtered and whose blood, which is its life, has not been drained.

From this the eating of meat takes its beginning, not for the purpose of prompting them to gluttony. But since some of the people were about to offer sacrifices and make thanksgiving to the Lord, he grants them authority over food and obviates any anxiety about foods lest they seem to be abstaining from foods because they were not properly consecrated. "I have given you them all," he says, "as I did the green grass." Then, as in the case of Adam when he instructed him to abstain from the one tree while enjoying the others, so in this case too. After permitting the consumption of all foods without hesitation, he says, "except you are not to eat flesh with its lifeblood in it." So what does this statement mean? It means "strangled," for an animal's blood is its soul. So since they were about to offer sacrifices in the form of animals, he is teaching them in these words that as long as the blood has been set aside for me, the flesh is for you. In doing so, however, he is intent upon resisting in advance any impulse toward homicide.

Indeed, I will require your blood, and the blood of your souls from all beasts, and from the hand of man (Gen. IX, 5). He compared it to bestial malice, or rather even accumulated the wickedness of man beyond the ferocity of beasts, by saying: From the hand of the brother of man. Indeed, beasts have nothing in common with us in nature, and they are not bound by any brotherly right. If they harm humans, they harm them as strangers. They do not violate the laws of nature; they do not forget the bond of kinship. Therefore, a person sins more gravely if they plot against their brother. And the Lord promised that He would seek the blood of a man from the hand of his brother, saying: 'I will require the blood of a man from the hand of his brother.' Is not a brother someone whom a rational nature has brought forth from a certain womb, and the same mother's generation has joined us together? For the same nature is the mother of all humans, and therefore we are all brothers, generated from the same mother, and bound by the same right of kinship.

For I will require your lifeblood; from every beast I will require it and from man, from his fellow man I will require the life of man. Whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed. For in a typological sense, lifeblood refers to that vital essence by which humans are animated, sustained, and live in the flesh through the soul, just as the hand of beasts typologically refers to the act of devouring by which they kill a man. For who in sound mind would truly believe that the blood of man pertains to the substance of the soul? Although the same legislator seems to say more clearly elsewhere: For the life of every creature is its blood (Leviticus 17:14). Thus it is said in the same way as it is said And the rock was Christ, not that it was, but that it signified. The law was not without purpose in wanting to signify the soul through the blood, that is, an invisible thing through a visible thing, except that blood, diffused through all veins from the heart itself, predominates in our body more than other fluids, so that wherever a wound may be inflicted, no other fluid but itself emerges. Thus the soul, which invisibly prevails over all that we consist of, is better signified by that which visibly prevails over all that we consist of. It is clear to understand how God seeks the soul of man from the hand of man, demanding retribution from him who has sinned; but it can indeed be reasonably asked how it is also required from beasts, which lack reason, unless perhaps we can understand here the mystery of the future resurrection intimated to us, when all the bodies of the human race, which have either been consumed by wild beasts or destroyed in any other way, or corrupted, are restored incorrupt, and all souls of humans, separated from their bodies by any manner of death, are restored to their bodies, so that they may obtain either eternal life for their good deeds, or eternal death for their bad deeds, in judgment with those same bodies. It is aptly added:

God requires the blood now and in the future. He requires it now in the case of a death that he decreed for a murderer, and also a stoning with which a goring bull is to be stoned. At the end, at the time of the resurrection, God will require that animals return all they ate from the flesh of man. God said, "From the hand of a man and of his brother I will require the life of a man," just as satisfaction for the blood of Abel was required from Cain, that is, "whoever sheds the blood of man, by man shall his blood be shed."

"Whoever sheds someone's blood, his own will be shed in payment for that person's blood, because I have made the human person in God's image." Consider, I ask you, how much fear he struck in them with that remark. He is saying even if you are not restrained from murderous hands by kinship or by a sense of fellowship of nature, and even if you thrust aside all brotherly feeling and become completely committed to a bloody murder, you must think twice. Consider the fact that the person has been created in God's image. Mark the degree of honor accorded him by God! Think on the fact that he has received authority over all creation. Then you will give up your murderous intent. So what does he mean? If someone has committed countless murders and shed so much blood, how can he give adequate satisfaction simply by the shedding of his own blood? Do not have these thoughts, human being that you are. Instead you do well to consider in advance that you will receive an immortal body that will have the capacity to undergo constant and everlasting punishment.

Moreover, sacred Scripture, too, testifies to the fact that there will be a resurrection of the body. Indeed, God already had said to Noah after the flood, "Even as the green herbs have I delivered them all to you: saving that flesh with blood of its life you shall not eat. And I will require your blood of your lives, at the hand of every beast I will require it. And at the hand of every man I will require the life of his brother. Whosoever shall shed man's blood, for that blood his blood will be shed: for I made man to the image of God." How can he require the blood of men at the hand of every beast, unless he raises the bodies of those who die? For beasts will not die in the place of human beings.

Whoever sheds human blood, their blood shall be shed. Many have shed human blood, and their blood has not been shed. And others have killed a man with poison or by hanging, and yet when the man is dead, blood is not shed; how then will the Lord shed their blood in such a man when he who has killed has not shed blood, unless because the blood of man, as we have said, should be understood to be his vital substance by which he subsists? Whoever sheds it, that is, whoever kills a man by some kind of death, his blood will be shed because by sinning he loses eternal life. For the soul that sins will die (Ezekiel 18:20). Which is similar to what is said to Peter: For all those who take up the sword will perish by the sword; as if it were openly said: All who unjustly kill a man, and they themselves perish by killing in the soul. It is fittingly added:

For man was made in the image of God. Therefore, it is a greater crime to kill an innocent man; because whoever does this not only destroys the work which God made but also corrupts His image. Therefore God requires the souls of men from beasts or men by whom they were driven from the body, because He made man in His image in that He intended him to remain for eternity, and not to perish with the death of the body like the animals; and for the sake of this sacrament, it is not permitted to eat flesh with blood, so that we may always be reminded by this command that we were created according to the substance of our soul in the image of our Creator, and that we should fear corrupting that same image in ourselves by sinning.

The suggestion of compensation for the relatives of the murdered man is in itself reasonable, but it ought not to be even remotely connected with the case for or against capital punishment. If it is, we shall be giving countenance to the archaic, and surely erroneous view that murder is primarily an offence not against society but against individuals.

Dr Davis rightly reproves me for using the word society as I did. This hypostatised abstraction has already done harm enough. But I only meant 'all of us'. The absurdity of the view which treats murder as an offence against a single family is best illustrated by a case in the private speeches of Demosthenes (I can't turn it up at the moment, but your more scholarly readers no doubt can).

A man, A, set free a female slave, B, his old nurse. B married. Her husband died without issue. Someone then murdered B. But under Athenian law no one could prosecute because there was no injured party. A could not act because B, when murdered, was no longer his property. There was no widower, and there were no orphans.

Whoso sheddeth man's blood, by man shall his blood be shed, for in the image of God have I made man. Hence it is manifest that God, both before the transgression and long after its occurrence, gave to man the same honour and power and dominion.