(65) Why is it that after the sons of the just man have been named Shem, Ham, and Japhet, he relates only the generations of the middle one, saying, “And Ham was the Father of Canaan;” and afterwards he adds, “These are the three sons of Noah?” (#Ge 9:18). Mentioning four men, Noah and his sons, he says that these were obedient. Because the grandson Canaan was in his habits like his Father who begat him, on that account, instead of mentioning only one, he includes both in his enumeration, so that they are four in number, three in virtue. But in the meantime in the scripture he mentions only the generations of the middle one, on account of the just man whom he is going to speak of subsequently, because although he was his father, since Ham is the Father of Canaan, still he does not mention the father with blame, but with respect to the man with whom he thought it fair that the son should be a partaker, he yet did not give the father a participation with him. In the second place, perhaps he thus gives a premonitory warning also to those persons who by the acuteness of their mental vision can see a long way off what is at a distance, namely, that he designs to take away the land of the Canaanites from them after the lapse of many ages, and to give it to his chosen people who are thoroughly devoted to God. Therefore he chooses to designate the chief inhabitant of that region, namely Canaan, and to show that he both practised singular and peculiar wickedness of his own, and also all the wickedness of his father, so that in every part he might be convicted of an ignoble slavery and submission. This is the literal meaning of these words. But if we have a regard to the inward sense, he does not say that Ham had a son named Canaan, but he predicates offspring of him alone, saying, “Ham was the Father of Canaan.” Since such a disposition as that of Ham is always the Father of such designs as those of Canaan, and that the very names themselves intimate this. For if we translate them into another language, Ham means heat or hot; and Canaan means merchants, or buyers, or causes, or recipients. Accordingly, he is not now speaking manifestly of generations, nor is he saying that one man is the Father or the son of another man, but he is evidently demonstrating the connection between one counsel and another, by reason of its alienation from all familiarity with virtue.
ABOUT THE CULTIVATION OF THE EARTH
(66) What is the meaning of the statement, “Noah began to be a cultivator of the earth?” (Genesis 9:20). He is here comparing Noah to the first created man who was formed out of the earth; for in that manner also does he speak of him when he came forth out of the ark; since both then and now there took place a first beginning of the cultivation of the land, each being after a deluge. For also, at the time of the original creation of the world the earth was, as it were, a lake, being covered by an inundation of water, for the sacred historian could not tell us that God said, “Let the waters be gathered together into one body, and let the dry land appear,” unless it had previously been inundated with waters which now returned into certain depths of the earth. Nor again is the expression a purposeless one, “He began to be a tiller of the earth,” for in the second generation he was himself the beginning of men, and also of seed, and of the cultivation of the land, and of the life of all other things. This is the literal meaning of the words. But if we look to their inner sense, a distinction is made between being a cultivator of the earth and a tiller of it; as the murderer of his brother is represented as tilling the earth, but not as cultivating it. For by the earth our body is symbolically represented, which is by its nature earthly, and which the unjust and wicked man tills like a lazy hireling, but which the man endued with virtue cultivates like a skilful manager of plants and an agriculturist of good works appointed to superintend it. Because the workman of the body, the mind, as being carnal, procures carnal pleasures; but the cultivator of the earth is careful to produce useful fruits, those, namely, which are to be obtained by the study of continence, and modesty, and sound wisdom; and he prunes away all superfluous excesses and bad habits which spring up around, like the thin and misplaced branches of trees.
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