(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.
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