Fragments on Genesis 97–115

“the snake,” it says, “was the wisest of all the wild beasts.” And in the Acts a viper bit Paul and hung from his hand; and it adds, “When the barbarians saw the beast hanging.” And in Leviticus, see to what it applies “creeping thing,” in no way to what is now called so in common usage: “These,” it says, “you shall eat of the creeping things among the birds which go upon four legs, which have legs above their feet to leap with on the earth; and these you shall eat of them: the bruchus and what is like it, and the locust and what is like it, and the attakes and what is like it, and the ophiomachus and what is like it; and every creeping thing among the birds which has four feet is an abomination to you, and by these you shall be defiled.” Man, then, does not rule over the great sea monsters nor over the wild beasts, which perhaps were not made for his sake at all. Something like what is recorded here as under man's authority is said in the eighth psalm: “You subjected all things under his feet, sheep and all oxen, and further the cattle of the plain, the birds of heaven and the fish of the sea, those that pass through the paths of the seas.” For here too the sea monsters and the wild beasts are passed over in silence. [Gen 2:2] “And God finished on the sixth day his works which he had made.” Some, thinking it absurd that God, like a builder who could not finish the building without several days, should have completed the world in several days, say that all things came to be at once, and establish this from here; and they think the list of the days and of what came to be in them was given for the sake of order. For what they are establishing they might plausibly use the text, “He spoke, and they came to be; he commanded, and they were created.” [Gen 2:4] “This is the book of the origin of heaven and earth, when it came to be, in the day when the Lord God made the heaven and the earth.” The word “book” in this place does not stand at all among the Hebrews; it is an error of a Hebrew scribe, misled by that other place, where Aquila has, “This is the book of the generations of Adam,” and the Seventy, “This is the book of the origin of men.” For he thought that “book” had been omitted in this place too, and so added it. [Gen 2:8–9] “And God planted a paradise in Eden toward the east, and put there the man whom he had formed. And God further made to spring up out of the earth every tree beautiful to the sight and good for

food.” When in reading we rise above the myths and the interpretation according to the letter, let us seek what those trees are which God cultivates; we say that there are no perceptible trees in that place. [Of the same.] In the translation “a garden in Eden” has been set down, the translator using the Hebrew word itself. The proper interpretation of Eden is “delight.” The Hebrews, then, have handed down that the place in which the Lord God planted the paradise, or the garden, is called Eden; and they say that it is the middle of the world, like the pupil of the eye. Therefore the river Pishon too is interpreted “mouth of the pupil,” since the first river goes out from Eden. What they hand down is this: Eden, which is interpreted “delight,” existed before the garden came to be, for the garden was planted in it. [Gen 2:12] “And the gold of that land is good.” When the mouth is changed by our virtue and good thoughts have the mastery, then it nourishes good doctrines; hinting at these, the word said “good gold.” [Gen 2:13] “And the name of the second river is Gihon; this is the one that encircles all the land of Ethiopia.” Ethiopia, which in Hebrew is Cush, also signifies darkening. It is named, then, from Ethiopia, that is, from Cush, because of the darkness of complexion which he had compared with his other brothers. [Gen 2:15] “And he put him in the paradise.” Those who are reborn through divine baptism are placed in the paradise, that is, in the church, to work the spiritual works that are within; and they receive the commandment to love all the brothers and to eat the fruit that comes through patience, according to what was said: “From every tree in the paradise you shall eat for food.” But the one who uses the snake's reasonings transgresses the commandment of him who regenerated him, loving some as good and hating others as wicked; this is the tree of knowing good, and whoever tastes of it without restraint dies, not because God made death, but because the man hated his neighbour. For “God did not make death, nor does he delight in the destruction of the living”; nor is he moved by the passion of anger, nor does he devise anything for vengeance, nor is he altered according to the condition each deserves; but “he made all things in wisdom,” having determined beforehand that they be judged under a spiritual law. For this reason he says to Adam: “In the day you eat, you shall die by death.” And so he has assigned what is due to follow naturally upon each act, good or evil, and not by a contrivance, as some think, who do not know the spiritual law.

[Gen 3:21] “And the Lord God made for Adam and his wife garments of skin, and clothed them.” What must we understand by the garments of skin? It is very foolish and old-womanish, and unworthy of God, to think that God stripped the skins off some animals, killed or dead in some other way, and made garment shapes, stitching the skins together like a leatherworker. Again, to avoid such an absurdity, to say that the garments of skin are nothing other than bodies is plausible and able to win assent, but not clear as being true. For if the garments of skin are flesh and bones, how does Adam say before them, “This now is bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh”? Some, then, getting around these difficulties, have declared that the garments of skin are the mortality with which Adam and Eve were clothed, having been made mortal because of sin. But not even they can very easily show how God, and not sin, produces mortality in the transgressor. Besides, they are forced to say that flesh and bones are not by their own nature corruptible, if indeed our forefathers received mortality later because of sin. And if paradise is a divine place, let them say how each of the members there, not having been made in vain, performed its proper activity. As to the “nostril” that is said in Aquila and Symmachus, or the “face” in the Seventy, of the one formed, into which God breathed the breath of life, it must be said that we must not cling to the letter of Scripture as true, but seek the treasure hidden in the letter. [Gen 3:24] “And he stationed the cherubim.” Not only do the ministering spirits, sent out for the sake of those who are to inherit salvation, guard the way to the tree of life; opposing powers also guard it, hindering those who wish to approach the tree of life. [Gen 4:8] “And Cain said to Abel his brother: Let us go out into the plain.” In the Hebrew what Cain said to Abel is not written; and Aquila and his colleagues have shown that the Hebrews say that this, as in the reading of the Seventy, stands here in the apocryphon. [Gen 4:13] “And Cain said to the Lord God: My sin is too great to be forgiven me.” He did not divide rightly; he despised the divine legislation; he killed a brother; besides that, he killed a righteous man; he lied; he asked for death, despairing of life and of repentance.

[Gen 5:3] “And he begot according to his form and according to his image.” To those who think that the image of God is one thing and the one “according to the image” another, it must be said: [consider] whether Adam is one and his image another, and whether there is a third, according to which the Adam “according to the image” … They will use “Lord, in your city you will bring their image to nothing,” and “Surely man walks about as an image.” But we must ask in what Adam's form differs from his image. [Gen 5:22] “And Enoch pleased God after he had begotten Methuselah.” If he pleased him after begetting Methuselah, before this, according to Scripture, he was not pleasing. Clearly he became pleasing through repentance, when he begot “the sending away of death,” the death which they had before he begot him. [Gen 6:7] “And God said: I will wipe out man whom I made from the face of the earth.” Not “I will wipe out” absolutely, but “from the earth.” For the one who was made is not of a nature to be wiped out altogether, since the one made has been made according to the image of God. [Gen 6:9] “These are the generations of Noah,” and so on. If this were written in the more common way, “These are the generations of Noah” should have been followed by “Noah begot three sons.” But as it is, since his generation is one of righteousness, “these are the generations” is put first, and “being a righteous man” follows. “Noah pleased God.” [Gen 6:10] “And Noah begot three sons, Shem, Ham, Japheth.” What precedes contains: “Lamech lived one hundred and eighty-eight years and begot Noah. And Lamech lived, after he had begotten Noah, five hundred and sixty-five years; and all the days of Lamech came to seven hundred and fifty-three years, and he died. And Noah was five hundred years old, and he begot three sons.” And in this we find a discrepancy of sixty-five years concerning Noah. But here Scripture says that Noah pleased God, as it is written also of Enoch. For he too, when he pleased God, was then also translated by him. Likewise, then, divine Scripture did not reckon to Noah the sixty-five years before his pleasing God; just as with Abraham the sixty years before his knowledge of God were not reckoned to his life, and thirty years of Enoch, and twenty years of Saul, and of Solomon

[Gen 6:11–12] “And the earth was corrupted before God, and the earth was filled with injustice; and the Lord God saw the earth, and it was corrupted, because all flesh had corrupted its way upon the earth.” Injustice corrupts the earth, but righteousness preserves it; and the one who sins, as far as in him lies, corrupts the earth. The earth was not corrupted in the flood (for then it washed off its corruption), but in its injustice. And what corrupted the way of God is not spirit but flesh: “For the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God”; and “Those who live in the flesh cannot please God.” [Gen 6:19–20] “Two by two of all you shall bring into the ark, that you may feed them with you; they shall be male and female.” Since he wished the men who entered the ark to remain pure of intercourse, he brings them in in this way, commanding them by the order of their entering how to spend their time in the ark. For it was not fitting that, while their like were perishing, these should give themselves to beds and childbearing. But when the terrors had passed and need called for the earth to be filled with human beings, he brings them out in married pairs, saying: “Go out, you and your wife, and your sons, and your sons' wives.” [Gen 7:2] “And of all the clean cattle bring in to you seven by seven, male and female; and of the cattle that are not clean two by two,” and so on. One might ask how, when the law had not yet distinguished clean and unclean, this is said to Noah as to one who knew the difference of the unclean. Hence it is worth considering whether Noah knew these things from the law of nature, according to “When Gentiles who do not have the law do by nature the things of the law.” [Gen 7:6] “And Noah was six hundred years old, and the flood of water came upon the earth.” Perhaps “of water” is added here to distinguish it from a flood that is to come by fire. [Gen 7:9] “And there went in to Noah into the ark two by two of all flesh.” As to the letter, one might ask why it is not said, “the unclean two by two and the clean seven by seven,” but the clean are passed over in silence. But see whether there is a defence in the words “of all flesh,” the unclean alone being meant by “of all flesh.” [Gen 9:1] “And God blessed Noah and his sons, and said to them: Increase and multiply, and fill the earth.” How did Noah increase and multiply, when he had not yet begotten after the flood? Perhaps, then, “Increase and multiply” must not be heard bodily. And if here it is not meant bodily, because of Noah, it is clear that according to the intention of the spiritual law it was so in the beginning too.

[Gen 9:2] “And the trembling and fear of you shall be upon all the wild beasts of the earth,” and so on. One forces the letter by asserting that every animal is afraid when it sees a human being, even the wild beasts in … But perhaps it is better to understand that the evil powers, the wild beasts of the earth, and the other remaining kinds, suffer fear from the righteous man, and that the trembling is upon such as these. For the evil powers fear the righteous man. [Gen 9:4–5] “Only flesh with the blood of life you shall not eat; for I will require your blood of your lives; from the hand of all the wild beasts I will require it.” Since the letter is incongruous, it must be said that the wild beasts are opposing powers, responsible for the sinning soul's dying, from whose hand the death of the one who has sinned will be required. But it is possible to take it also of the cattle, in that he commanded the goring bull to be stoned. [Gen 9:6] “For in the image of God I made man.” God says, “In the image of God I made man”; and the image of the invisible God is the Saviour. Therefore, according to Scripture too, the Saviour is God. [Gen 9:18] “And the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, Japheth; and Ham was the father of Canaan.” Why did Scripture, having said, “And the sons of Noah who came out of the ark were Shem, Ham, Japheth,” add, “And Ham, this one is the father of Canaan”? For if it had to mention the sons, it should have mentioned all of them, and not Canaan alone. Canaan himself too became impious, as the story shows. The Spirit, then, wishing to show the kinship of the father with the son, in a way separates him from the piety of his brothers by adding, “Ham was the father of Canaan.” For all were sons of Noah by birth, but this one alone was not a son in character, but the father of a son like himself. Therefore it is stated emphatically, “He is the father of Canaan.” The Hebrew who said this also brought forward a tradition of this kind, adding a proof to the tradition: that Canaan was the first to see his grandfather's nakedness, and reported it to his father alone, as if mocking the old man. And Ham, when he ought, like his brothers, not to have approached his father impiously, but to have rebuked the one who first saw and was slandering, was himself persuaded, and went in, and saw, and reported it to his brothers. These things too would seem a myth, were not the proof strong: “And Noah awoke from his sleep,” it says, “and knew what his youngest son had done to him.” For Ham was not his younger son, but the second; for it says, “Shem and Ham and Japheth,” and if it had wished to point to the youngest, it would have said Japheth. But since grandfathers always call their grandchildren, and even distant descendants, sons,

Scripture said that the very youngest of his descendants, Canaan, was recognized by Noah as the one who had done these things. And that this is so, the divine oracle at once adds; for he said: “Cursed be Canaan; a servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.” And if anyone wonders why Ham, though himself impious, did not receive the same curse as his son, let him recognize that if “he shall be a servant of servants” had been said to Ham, his brothers too would have shared in the slavery, just as Canaan's brothers became slaves according to the curse, those whose slave Canaan was declared to be. [Gen 9:11] “All flesh shall no longer die.” He promises no longer to bring the universal flood, [and] the mind of human beings, inclined to evil from youth, is no longer so all its days, as it was before the flood. For he allots some slight pardon to the young because their age slips easily. Therefore he says: “I will not again curse the earth because of the works of men, for the mind of man is diligently inclined to evil from youth”; that is: I know that youth will slip easily in those to come. Do not fear, then; for this reason I will no longer bring total destruction upon you. [Gen 9:20–21] “And Noah began to be a man who tilled the earth, and planted a vineyard, and drank of the wine, and became drunk, and was uncovered in his house.” Noah did not know the nature of wine, that it intoxicates; Scripture testifies to this by saying “began” and “was uncovered.” [Of the same.] Earthly wine strips the mind of the knowledge of intelligible things. [Of the same.] The fruit of the tree of knowing good and evil was like the wine that stripped Noah. [Of the same.] Even if Noah became drunk and was uncovered, yet it was in his house; for it is a saint's part not to be uncovered outside his own house. [Gen 10:9] “This one was a giant hunter before the Lord God.” “Hunter” is not used here of the righteous; and observe whether it ever is elsewhere. [Gen 11:1] “And the whole earth was one lip, and there was one voice for all.” To those who do not understand “I and the Father are one,” and for this reason deny the Son's own hypostasis, we shall bring forward, “The whole earth was one lip, and there was one voice for all.” Seeking the difference between lip

and voice, we shall say that voice is used of the language, and perhaps lip of the thought; or the reverse. [Gen 11:7] “Come, let us go down and confuse their tongue there, so that they may not hear each one his neighbour's voice.” The confusion of tongues is a mark of vice; a mark of virtue, that “the heart and soul of all who believed was one.” And if you observe Scripture in this way, you will find that where there is a multitude of number, where schism, where division and discord and the like, these are marks of vice; but where there is unity and concord and much power in words, these are marks of virtue. [Gen 11:26] “And Terah lived seventy years and begot Abram and Nahor and Haran.” Terah, at seventy years of age, begot the father of the nation that keeps the seventh day as a feast. I consider whether he did not beget the three as triplets. For otherwise, being seventy years old, he could not become the father of the three by one wife; and no more wives of his are mentioned. [Gen 12:10] “And Abram went down into Egypt to sojourn there, because the famine was severe on the earth.” Abraham did not dwell in Egypt but sojourned there, because the famine was severe on the earth. [Gen 13:7] “And the Canaanites and the Perizzites then dwelt in the land.” Being wicked, the Canaanites dwelt in the land and did not sojourn in it. So the wicked dwell in the land; they do not sojourn in it. [Gen 13:9] “If you go to the left, I will go to the right; if you to the right, I to the left,” and so on. Even if the choice was granted to Lot by Abraham's gentleness, one must observe that the one who chose does not enjoy his choice, while the one who yielded has what was left to him blessed. [Gen 13:14–15] “And God said to Abram, after Lot had separated from him: Look up with your eyes and see from the place where you now are, to the north and the southwest, and the east and the sea; for all the land which you see I will give to you.” Encouragement from God follows those who achieve virtue. After he had yielded the choice to his brother, and Lot had chosen the most beautiful and fertile region, God appeared to Abraham, cheering him with words of encouragement and kind promises, all but saying: You have despised this least and perceptible land; I will give you the land of the meek, in the land of the living. Look up, then, with the eyes of the mind, and see from the place where you now are; and the place of the righteous man is virtue, from which he watches for what is in hope and awaits what is laid up in the heavens.

For if this were not so, how much land was he likely to see with perceptible eyes? Or how far could he gaze, running round in a circle and turning his sight about? [Gen 14:11] “And they took all the cavalry of Sodom.” The Sodomites are said, as wicked men, to have a cavalry, now named for the first time. [Gen 14:13] “And one of those who had been rescued came and reported to Abram the crosser.” Abraham is called “the crosser” because, having crossed from the land of the Chaldeans through Mesopotamia, he came to the regions of the Canaanites. Aquila and his colleagues translate it “Hebrew.” [Gen 15:5] “And he said to him: Look up to heaven and count the stars, if you are able to number them; so shall your seed be.” For it says that the offspring of the saint's soul, both in number and in brightness, since God works with him, become so many and such. These very things present the divine blessing. [Gen 15:8] “And he said: Master, Lord, by what shall I know that I shall inherit it?” and so on. It was not like one who had believed, whose faith was reckoned to him for righteousness, to disbelieve, as one might think. But perhaps, having believed before, he now asks also for knowledge about what he has believed. God does not legislate to Abraham to sacrifice; rather, [he asks for victims] since the most ancient people confirmed their oaths by such means. [Gen 15:16] “And in the fourth generation they shall return here; for the sins of the Amorites are not yet filled up until now.” The four hundred years are given so that Abraham's seed might multiply and the signs that took place might occur. How then is “The sins of the Amorites are not yet filled up” to be taken? To show that they are justly cast out because of sin. For when he says, “I repented,” he does not say what he undergoes, nor undergo what he says, but sets forth the outrageousness of what has happened. And a little later: Then there were long ago in Palestine righteous men, Melchizedek and many others; for he was not simply a priest when there were none who obeyed. “Not yet filled up” stands, then, for “a holy man has not yet failed from among them”: they have not yet been filled and brought to completion in sins. For ten righteous men save the city, and at that time there were not a few. [Gen 15:13] “They shall afflict them four hundred years.” Why does the Apostle speak of thirty extra years, those of the covenant which he made with Abraham, of the journey out of Egypt in the desert, and of the giving of the law? What is said here does not conflict with what is written in Exodus. For there it is said, “After four hundred and thirty years the power of the Lord went out of Egypt,” but here it says “after four hundred.” But one must notice that it was not said that they went out when the four hundred years were completed, but after four hundred years, which indicates the thirty as well.

[Gen 16:4] “And her mistress was dishonoured before her.” It was deliberately not made clear by whom, so that we might seek and find that virtue is apt to be dishonoured when it gives birth to preliminary studies; not at all by Abraham, but either by the maidservant or by those who rejoice in her offspring before the birth of better ones. [Gen 17:5] “And your name shall no longer be called Abram, but your name shall be Abraham.” Seek the interpretations of the names, for they were named with power by the Holy Spirit. But one must also know this, that names indicate habits, conditions, and qualities, from which one can see the fitness of the one named. [Gen 17:18] “And Abraham said to God: Let this Ishmael live before you.” Abraham asked something special for Ishmael, not content with “let him live”; therefore he added “before you.” For to live before the Lord belongs to the blessed and the saints alone. [Gen 18:11] “And Abraham and Sarah were old, advanced in days.” Perhaps “advanced in days” is used only of the righteous. If this is so, no wicked man has advanced. [Gen 18:23] “And Abraham drew near and said: Do not destroy the righteous with the ungodly.” This is praise of Abraham. For the firmness of his piety is shown, which is why he was able to draw near. The drawing near is not to be understood bodily. [Gen 19:1] “And Lot was sitting by the gate of Sodom.” Lot was not inside Sodom, but by the gate. I myself would say that, just as Abraham sat outside the tent, watching for passers-by for hospitality's sake even at an unseasonable time (for it was midday), so his kinsman, who imitated his ways, sat by the gate, inviting the passers-by, even when evening had already come; knowing especially the impiety of the people of Sodom, and that there was no rest there for strangers. [Gen 19:3] “And he pressed them, and they went into his house.” Since Lot was not such as Abraham, for this reason they hesitated to go over to him and needed to be pressed. [Gen 19:11] “And the men who were at the door of the house they struck with blindness.” It is for their good that those who used their sight badly are struck with blindness and are hindered from sinning by the blindness. [Gen 19:25] “And he overthrew all these cities, and all the surrounding region, and all the inhabitants in the cities, and all that springs up