Fragments on Genesis

[Gen 1:2] … But if anyone stumbles because of human examples, so that he cannot accept that God makes the things that exist without an unbegotten matter lying beneath, since a sculptor cannot make his own work without bronze, nor a carpenter without timber, nor a builder without stones, we must ask him about the power of God: whether God, having willed to bring into being whatever he wishes, his will being neither at a loss nor feeble, is able to bring into being what he wishes. For by the same reasoning by which, according to all who admit Providence, he brings into being by his own word, as he wishes, qualities that did not exist, for the ordering of the universe, by his invisible power and wisdom, by this same reasoning his will is able also to make the substance come to be, as much of it as he needs. For we shall put this difficulty to those who do not wish this to be so: does it not follow for them that God was fortunate, since he found the substance unbegotten? If the unbegotten had not lain ready beneath him, he would have been able to make no work at all, but would have remained no creator, no father, no benefactor, not good, nor anything else that is rightly said of God. And whence came the measuring of the underlying substance to just such an amount, so that it sufficed for the existence of so great a world? For as if

there were some providence older than God, which of necessity will have put matter beneath God, taking care that the art present in him should not be idle for lack of a substance with which he could work and so adorn the world in its great beauty. And whence has it become receptive of every quality that God wishes, unless God himself made it for himself of such amount and such kind as he wished it to have? Granting, then, by way of hypothesis that matter is unbegotten, we shall say this to those who hold it: if, without Providence supplying the substance to God, it came to be of such a kind, then, had Providence been at work, what more would it have done than chance? And if he himself had wished to fashion matter when there was none, what more would his wisdom and divinity have made than what has come into being from the unbegotten? For if it is found that the very same thing would have come about by Providence as came into being without Providence, why should we not, in the case of the world too, set aside the creator and the craftsman? For just as it is absurd to say of the world, so skilfully fashioned, that it came to be such of itself without a wise craftsman, so to say that matter, of such amount and such kind and so yielding to God's craftsman Word, has existed without being begotten is … irrational. To those, however, who offer the comparison that no craftsman makes anything without matter, it must be said that they compare unlike things. For Providence supplies the matter to every craftsman, matter coming from a prior art, either human or divine. These things, then, will suffice for the present against those who, because it is said, “But the earth was invisible and unformed,” suppose that bodily nature is unbegotten.

[Gen 1:14] … the topic of fate: the intertwining of the planets with the signs in the zodiac, from which they think everything on earth happens, both to each human being and perhaps even to irrational animals. Moreover, many of those who are supposed to have believed are distracted by the question whether human affairs are under compulsion and cannot possibly happen otherwise than as the stars bring them about in their various configurations. And it follows for those who teach these things that they wholly abolish what is in our power, and with it praise and blame, and deeds worthy of approval and again deeds worthy of censure. If this is so, the proclaimed judgment of God is gone, and the threats against those who have sinned, that they will be punished, and the honours and blessednesses held out to those who have given themselves to better things; for none of these will any longer happen with reason. And if anyone follows out consistently what he teaches, faith too will be vain, and the coming of Christ achieves nothing, and the whole economy through the law and the prophets, and the labours of apostles to establish the churches of God through Christ; unless indeed, according to those who dare such things, Christ too, under the compulsion of the motion of the stars at his birth,

having been born, did and suffered everything, the God and Father of the universe not having given him his wonderful powers, but the stars. And with these godless and impious doctrines it also follows that believers are said to believe in God because they are led by the stars. We would ask them what God intended in making such a world that some in it, being men, suffer the things of women, though they are in no way themselves the cause of their licentiousness; while others, having taken on the condition of wild beasts, because the motion of the universe made them such, since God so ordered the universe, give themselves up to the most savage and utterly inhuman deeds, murders and piracies. And why need we speak of what happens among human beings and of the countless sins they commit, whom the champions of these noble doctrines release from every charge, ascribing to God the cause of everything that is done wickedly and blameworthily? And if some of them, as if defending God, say that the good God is another, who is the source of none of these things, and attach all such things to the creator, first, not even so will they be able to show, as they wish, that he is just; for how, on their view, could the father of so many evils reasonably be called just? Second, we must examine what they will say about themselves: are they subject to the motion of the stars, or have they been set free, so that, though living in this life, they have nothing worked upon them from that source? For if they say that they are subject to the stars, it is plain that the stars granted them to think this, and the creator, through the motion of the universe, will have suggested the doctrine about the God whom they have fashioned higher up, which they do not want. But if they answer that they are outside the creator's laws concerning the stars, then, so that what they say may not be an unproved assertion, let them try to bring us something more compelling, setting forth a difference

between a mind subject to nativity and fate and another free from them; for it is plain to those who know such people that, when asked to give an account, they will be quite unable to give one. In addition to what has been said, prayers too are superfluous, offered in vain. For if it has been compelled that certain things should happen, and the stars bring them about, and nothing can happen apart from their intertwining with one another, we ask God unreasonably to grant us certain things. And why need one lengthen the discussion further, setting forth the impiety of the doctrine of fate, a doctrine worn smooth among the many without examination? What has been said suffices for an outline. But let us remind ourselves from what point we have come to these matters: from examining the words “Let the lights be for signs.” Those who learn true things about anything either, having been eyewitnesses of the events, declare such things soundly, having seen what was undergone and what was done by those who underwent or acted; or they know such things by hearing from those who report them while being in no way the causes of what happened. Let us set aside for now from the discussion the fact that those who acted or suffered can, by narrating what they did or suffered, bring to knowledge of what was done someone who was not present. If, then, the one who is taught, by someone in no way the cause of the events, that such things have happened or will happen to such people, does not distinguish that the one who teaches about something as having happened or as about to happen is by no means the cause of the thing's being such, he will suppose that the one who showed that such things happened or will happen has done or will do the things he teaches about; but plainly he will suppose this wrongly. It is as if someone came upon a prophetic book which foretells what concerns Judas the betrayer and, having learned what would be and seeing it fulfilled, should think the book the cause of this having happened later, because he had learned from the book what Judas would do later; or again should suppose not the book to be the cause, but the one who first wrote it, or the one who worked through him, God, say. But just as, in the case of the prophecies about Judas, the words themselves, when examined, show that God was not the maker of Judas's betrayal, but only revealed, foreknowing them, the things that would be done by Judas's wickedness through his own fault, so if anyone penetrates the doctrine that God foreknows all things, and the things in which he has as it were stamped the words of his own

foreknowledge, he would perceive that neither is the one who foreknows by any means the cause of the things foreknown, nor are the things that received the imprints of the words of the foreknower's foreknowledge. That God knows long beforehand each thing that will come to be is plain, even without Scripture, straight from the notion of God, to anyone who understands what befits the power of God's mind. But if this must also be shown from the Scriptures, the prophecies are full of such examples. So also in the story of Susanna, God knowing all things before they come to be, since she says: “O eternal God, who knows hidden things, who knows all things before they come to be, you know that these men have borne false witness against me.” Most clearly, in the third book of Kingdoms, both the name of one who would reign and his deeds were recorded, prophesied many years before they happened, thus: “And Jeroboam made a feast in the eighth month, on the fifteenth day of the month, like the feast in the land of Judah, and he went up to the altar in Bethel which he had made, to sacrifice to the heifers which he had made.” Then a little later: “And behold, a man of God came out of Judah by the word of the Lord to Bethel, and Jeroboam was standing at the altar to offer sacrifice. And he cried out against the altar by the word of the Lord, and said: Altar, thus says the Lord: Behold, a son is born to the house of David, Josiah is his name, and he shall sacrifice upon you the priests of the high places who sacrifice upon you, and he shall burn men's bones upon you. And he gave a sign on that day, which the Lord had spoken, saying: Behold, the altar is torn apart, and the fat that is on it shall be poured out.” And a little later it is shown that the altar was indeed torn apart and the fat poured out from the altar, according to the sign which the man had given by the word of the Lord. And in Isaiah, who lived long before the captivity to Babylon, after which captivity Cyrus, king of the Persians, later arose and helped in the building of the temple that took place in the times of Ezra, these things are prophesied about Cyrus by name: “Thus says the Lord God to my anointed, Cyrus, whose right hand I have held, that nations may obey before him; and I will break the strength of kings; I will open doors before him, and gates shall not be shut. I will go before you and level mountains; I will shatter doors of bronze and break bars of iron. And I will give you dark treasures, hidden, unseen, that

you may know that I am the Lord God, who calls your name, the God of Israel. For the sake of my servant Jacob and Israel my chosen I will call you by your name, and I will receive you.” For from these words too it is clearly shown that, because of the people whom Cyrus benefited, God granted him, though he did not know the Hebrews' worship of God, to rule over many nations; and one can learn these things also from the Greeks who recorded the history of the Cyrus who had been prophesied. Further, in Daniel too, when Nebuchadnezzar was then reigning over the Babylonians, the kingdoms that would come after him are shown; they are shown through the image: the rule of the Babylonians being named gold, that of the Persians silver, that of the Macedonians bronze, and that of the Romans iron. And again, in the same prophet, the things concerning Darius, and Alexander, and the four successors of Alexander king of the Macedonians, and Ptolemy who ruled Egypt, the one surnamed Lagus, are prophesied thus: “And behold, a he-goat came from the southwest over the face of the whole earth, and the goat had a horn between its eyes. And it came up to the ram that had the horns, which I saw standing before the Oubal, and it ran at it in the force of its strength. And I saw it reaching the ram, and it was enraged against it, and struck the ram, and shattered both its horns, and the ram had no strength to stand before it; and it threw it to the ground and trampled it, and there was no one to rescue the ram from its hand. And the he-goat of the goats was magnified exceedingly; and when it had grown strong, its great horn was broken, and four other horns came up beneath it toward the four winds of heaven. And out of one of them came one strong horn, and it was magnified greatly toward the south and the west.” And why need we speak of the prophecies about Christ, such as the place of his birth, Bethlehem, and the place of his upbringing, Nazareth, and the withdrawal into Egypt, and the wonders he did, and the manner in which he was betrayed by Judas, who had been called to be an apostle? For all these are signs of God's foreknowledge. But the Saviour himself also says: “When you see Jerusalem surrounded by armies, then you will know that its desolation has come near.” For he foretold what happened later, the end, the razing of Jerusalem. Since, then, it has been shown by us that God foreknows

is one who foreknows, it is not out of place, in order that we may explain how the stars come to be for signs, to say that the stars must be understood to have been ordered to move in such a way, the so-called planets moving contrary to the fixed stars, that those who take signs from the configuration of the stars about everything that happens to each individual and in general may know them: not human beings (for to be able truly to discern from the motion of the stars what concerns each one of those who act or suffer anything whatever is far greater than human capacity), but the powers, who must necessarily know these things for many reasons, as we shall show in what follows as far as we can. But human beings, having understood something from certain observations, or else from the teaching of angels who transgressed their own order and, to the ruin of our race, taught some things about these matters, supposed that the stars from which they think they take the signs are the causes of the things which the word says they signify. About these also we shall at once treat more carefully, as in summary, as far as we can. Let these problems, then, be set forth: how, though God foreknows from eternity what is thought to be done by each, what is in our power is preserved; and in what way the stars are not producers of human affairs but only signifiers; and that human beings cannot have exact knowledge of these things, but the signs are set out for powers greater than human beings. What the reason is for God's having made the signs for the knowledge of the powers will be examined fourth. Let us see, then, the first problem. Fearing it, many of the Greeks, thinking that events are compelled and what is in our power is in no way preserved if God foreknows the future, dared to accept an impious doctrine rather than admit a doctrine which, as they say, is glorious about God but abolishes what is in our power, and with it praise and blame, and the acceptability of the virtues and the blameworthiness of the vices. And they say: “If God knew from eternity that this person would do wrong, and would do these wrongs, and God's knowledge is unerring, then the one foreseen to be such will certainly be unjust, doing these wrongs, and it is impossible that he not do wrong. And if it is impossible that he not do wrong, it has been compelled that he do wrong,

and it is impossible for him to do anything other than what God knew. And if it is impossible for him to do anything else, and no one who fails to do the impossible is blameworthy, we blame the unjust in vain.” And from the unjust man and his wrongs they pass on to the other sins as well; then, from the opposite side, to the deeds thought to be right; and they say it follows from God's having foreknown the future that what is in our power cannot be preserved. To them it must be said that God, … at the beginning of the making of the world, nothing happening without a cause, passes over in his mind each thing that will be, seeing that, since this has happened, this follows; and if this, the consequent, happens, this follows, and when that has come about, this will be; and having so passed through to the end of events, he knows what will be, without being in every case the cause of the occurrence of each of the things known. For just as, if someone sees a person rash through ignorance, and through his rashness setting foot recklessly on a slippery road, and perceives that he will slip and fall, he does not become the cause of that man's slip; so we must understand that God, having foreseen what each person will be like, also sees the causes of his being such, and that he will commit these sins or do these right deeds. And if we must say it, foreknowledge is not the cause of what happens (for God does not lay hold of the one foreknown as going to sin

when he sins); but we shall say something more paradoxical, yet true: that what will be is the cause of the foreknowledge about it being such as it is. For it does not happen because it has been known; rather, it has been known because it was going to happen. But a distinction is needed. If someone interprets “it will certainly be” as meaning that what is foreknown must happen by necessity, we do not grant it to him; for we shall not say that, because it was foreknown that Judas would become a betrayer, it was entirely necessary that Judas become a betrayer. At any rate, in the prophecies about Judas reproaches and accusations against Judas are recorded, setting before everyone his blameworthiness. But blame would not attach to him if he was a betrayer of necessity and it was not possible for him to become like the other apostles. See whether this is not shown by the texts we shall cite, which run thus: “Let there be none to pity his orphans, because he did not remember to show mercy, and he persecuted a poor and needy man, and one pierced in heart, to put him to death. And he loved cursing, and it shall come to him; and he did not desire blessing, and it shall be far from him.” But if someone interprets “it will certainly be” as meaning that these things will be, yet it was possible for them to happen otherwise, this we grant as true. For it is not possible for God to lie; but it is possible, concerning things that may happen and may not happen, to think both that they will happen and that they will not. We shall say this more clearly thus. If it is possible for Judas to be an apostle like Peter, it is possible for God to think concerning Judas that he will remain an apostle like Peter. If it is possible for Judas to become a betrayer, it is possible for God to think concerning him that he will be a betrayer. And if Judas will be a betrayer, God, by his foreknowledge of the two alternatives just stated, one of which may come to be, foreknowing the true one, will foreknow that Judas will become a betrayer; yet what the knowledge is about could also happen otherwise. And God's knowledge might say: “It is possible for this man to do this, but also the opposite; and both being possible, I know that he will do this.” For it is not as God would say, “It is not possible for this man to fly,” that he would,

when giving an oracle about someone, say, declare, “It is not possible for this man to be self-controlled.” For in a human being there is no power at all of flying, but there is a power of being self-controlled and of being licentious. Both these powers being present, the one who does not attend to words that turn him back and instruct him gives himself over to the worse; the one who has sought the truth and wished to live according to it, to the better. One man does not seek the truth because he flows away toward pleasure; another examines it, moved by the common notions and by exhortation. And again, one man chooses pleasure, not because he is unable to resist it, but because he does not struggle; another despises it, seeing the shamefulness often found in it. That God's foreknowledge, however, imposes no necessity on the things it has grasped, besides what has been said, this too shall be said: in many places of the Scriptures God commands the prophets to preach repentance, not pretending to know whether those who hear will turn or will remain in their sins; as in Jeremiah it is said: “Perhaps they will hear and repent.” For God, who is not ignorant whether they will hear or not, says, “Perhaps they will hear and repent,” as if showing from what is said that the powers are equally balanced; so that his foreknowledge, announced beforehand, may not make the hearers despair, presenting an appearance of necessity, as though turning were not in their power, and itself become, as it were, a cause of their sins; or again, so that for those who, from ignorance of the good that is foreknown, are able by struggling and resisting vice to live in virtue, foreknowledge may not become a cause of slackness, since they would no longer stand vigorously against sin, as though what was foretold would certainly happen. For in this way too the foreknowledge of a future good might become a kind of hindrance. God, then, ordering all things in the world for our benefit, has with good reason blinded us toward the future. For knowledge of it would have released us from contending against vice and, by seeming to have been settled, would have led us not to wrestle against sin and so to become subject to it more quickly. At the same time, foreknowledge … concerning someone, that he will certainly be good, would be at war with his becoming noble and good. For besides what we have, there is need of greater vigour and effort to become noble and good; but knowledge grasped beforehand that one will certainly be noble and good would slacken the discipline. Therefore it is to our advantage that we do not know whether we shall be good or wicked.

But since we have said that God has blinded us toward the future, see whether we can clarify in this way a text from Exodus that is in question: “Who made the hard of hearing and the deaf, the seeing and the blind? Is it not I, the Lord God?” That is, he has made the same person both blind and seeing: seeing toward the present, blind toward the future. What concerns the hard of hearing and the deaf it is not the present occasion to explain. That many of the things in our power have very many things not in our power as their causes, we too shall confess: if these had not happened (I mean the things not in our power), certain of the things in our power would not be done. But certain things in our power are done in consequence of these prior things not in our power, while it remains possible, on the same prior circumstances, to do other things besides what we do. But if anyone seeks for what is in our power to be detached from the universe, so that we do not choose these things because certain things have happened to us, he has forgotten that he is a part of the world and is enclosed in the community of human beings and of what surrounds us. I think, then, that it has been shown sufficiently, as in summary, that God's foreknowledge does not compel what is foreknown at all. Come, let us contend also that the stars are in no way producers of what happens among human beings, but only signifiers. It is clear that, if some configuration of the stars were thought to produce some of the things that happen to a human being (for let the argument now be about this), the configuration that occurred today, say, concerning this person cannot be understood to have produced what has happened in the past to another or to others. For everything that produces is prior to what is produced. But according to the teachings of those who profess such things,

things older than the configuration are thought to be foretold about human beings. For they profess, taking in some such way the hour of this person, to grasp where each of the planets stands in the perpendicular, or at which degree of the zodiacal sign, or at which minutes within it; and which star of the zodiac was on the eastern horizon, which on the western, which at mid-heaven, and which at the point opposite mid-heaven. And when they set out the stars which they think were configured thus at the time of so-and-so's birth, at the moment of the delivery of the one they are examining, they investigate not only the future but also the past, and what happened before the birth and the conception of the person concerned: about the father, what sort of man he is, rich or poor, sound in body or maimed, better or worse in character, without property or with much property, having this or that occupation; and the same about the mother and about older brothers, if there happen to be any. But let us for the present suppose that they grasp the truth in this matter, though we shall show later that it is not so. Let us then ask those who suppose that human affairs are compelled by the stars how today's configuration, being such and such, can have produced the older things. For if this is impossible, then, since what concerns the things older than the time is found not to be true … , it is clear that the stars, moving thus in heaven, did not produce the past events that happened before they were so placed. And if this is so, perhaps the one who admits that they speak the truth, attending to what is said about the future, will say that they speak the truth not by the stars' producing but by their signifying only. But if someone says that the stars do not produce the past, but that other configurations were the causes of those events, while the present configuration has only signified them, yet that the future is shown from the present configuration …

of so-and-so's birth, let him set forth the difference, showing that he can establish from the stars that these things have been understood truly as coming from producers, and those as coming from signifiers only. And if they cannot give the difference, they will in fairness agree that nothing in human affairs comes from the stars, but, as we said before, if anything, it is signified; as if someone took the past and the future not from the stars but from the mind of God, through some prophetic word. For just as we showed earlier that God's knowing what each person will do in no way harms the doctrine of what is in our power, so neither do the signs which God appointed for signifying hinder what is in our power; but, like a book containing the future prophetically, the whole heaven, being as it were God's book, can contain the future. Therefore in the Prayer of Joseph what is said by Jacob can be understood in this way: “For I read in the tablets of heaven all that will befall you and your sons.” And perhaps also “The heaven will be rolled up like a scroll” shows that the words it contains, which signify what will be, will be brought to completion and, so to speak, fulfilled, just as prophecies are said to be fulfilled by coming to pass. And thus the stars will have come to be for signs, according to the voice that says, “Let them be for signs.” But Jeremiah, turning us back to ourselves and removing the fear about the things thought to be signified, and perhaps also supposed to come from there, says: “Do not fear the signs of heaven.” Let us look also at a second argument showing how the stars cannot be producers but, if anything, signifiers. From very many nativities one can take what concerns one human being; this we say by hypothesis, granting that knowledge of them can be acquired by human beings. For suppose that, concerning this person, it is said that he will suffer this, and die by falling among robbers and being killed: they say that this can be taken both from his own nativity and, if he happens to have several brothers, from that of each of them. For they think that each one's nativity contains a brother who will die at the hands of robbers; likewise also

that of the father, and that of the mother, and that of the wife, and of his sons, and of the servants and his dearest friends, and perhaps even that of the killers themselves. How then is it possible that one who is contained in so many nativities (to grant them this) should be subject to the configuration of the stars of this nativity rather than of those? For it is unconvincing to say that the configuration in this person's own nativity produced these things, while that in the nativity of the others did not produce them but only signified them; and it is foolish to say that the nativity of all of them, each one, contained what produced this person's being killed, so that in, say, fifty nativities (I speak hypothetically) this person's being killed is contained. I do not know how they will be able to maintain that the configuration at the birth of nearly all those in Judea is such that they receive circumcision at eight days old, being mutilated and wounded, and falling into inflammation and wounds, and needing physicians at their very entrance into life; while that of those among the Ishmaelites in Arabia is such that all are circumcised at thirteen years old (for this is recorded about them); and again that of some among the Ethiopians is such that they have their kneecaps removed, and that of the Amazons that they have one of their breasts removed. For how do the stars do these things to these nations?

I think that, if we were to look closely, we shall not be able to say anything true about them, not even so far as to establish it. With so many methods of foretelling current, I do not know how people ran aground on saying that augury and divination by sacrifices do not contain the producing cause but only signify, and astronomy likewise, but no longer saying this of the casting of nativities. For if events are known (to grant that they are known), but happen from that source from which the knowledge is taken, why should events come from the stars rather than from birds, and rather from birds than from the entrails of victims or from shooting stars? These things, then, will suffice for the present to refute the stars' being producers of human affairs. But what we granted (for it did no harm to the argument), namely that human beings can grasp the heavenly configurations and the signs, and the things of which they are signs, let us now examine whether this is true. Those skilled in these matters say that the one who is to grasp truly what concerns the casting of nativities must know not only in which twelfth-part the so-called star is, but also at which degree of the twelfth-part and at which sixtieth; and the more precise say, at which sixtieth of the sixtieth. And they say that this must be done for each of the planets, examining its relation to

the fixed stars. Again, on the eastern horizon, they say, one will need to see not only which twelfth-part was on it, but also the degree and the sixtieth of the degree, the first or the second sixtieth. How then, when the hour, broadly reckoned, contains half a twelfth-part, can anyone take the sixtieth without having the proportion of the division of the hours, so as to know, for example, that so-and-so was born in the fourth hour, and a half, a quarter, an eighth, a sixteenth, and a thirty-second of an hour? For they say that what is signified varies very greatly through ignorance not only of the whole hour but even of a fraction of it. At any rate, with twins the interval between births is often a momentary part of an hour, and many variations in what befalls them and what they do occur, as those people say, owing to the relation of the stars and the portion of the twelfth-part at the horizon, which is not grasped by those who are thought to have observed the hour. For no one can say that the interval between this one's birth and that one's is a thirtieth of an hour. But let this be granted to them as regards taking the hour. A theorem is current which proves that the zodiacal circle, like the planets, moves from west to east one degree every hundred years, and in this long time changes the position of the twelfth-parts, the intelligible twelfth-part being one thing and the visible shape, so to speak, another; and that the outcomes come from the intelligible sign, which can scarcely be grasped. But let this too be granted, that the intelligible twelfth-part can be grasped, or that the truth can be taken from the perceptible twelfth-part. Yet the blending, as they call it, of the stars that stand in these configurations they themselves will confess they cannot preserve in every respect, when, say, the worse star indicated by one is dimmed because it is aspected by this better one, and dimmed to such or such a degree

these topics, to despair of grasping these things, which is in no way open to human beings, but reaches, if at all, only as far as their being signified. And if anyone has had experience of these matters, he will rather come to know how often those who speak of them, and those who have written about them, miss the mark in their conjectures than how often they are supposed to hit it. Isaiah, at any rate, as though these things cannot be found out by human beings, says to the daughter of the Chaldeans, who more than all others profess these things: “Let the astrologers of heaven stand up and save you; let them tell you what is about to come upon you.” For by these words we are taught that even those most devoted to learning about these things cannot make known beforehand what the Lord has willed to bring upon each nation. Now we have taken the prophetic word according to the letter. But if Jacob says that he read in the tablets of heaven what would befall his sons, and someone might object to us on this ground that Scripture shows the opposite of what we have said (for we said that a human being cannot grasp the signs, while Jacob says that he read in the tablets of heaven), we shall reply that the wise among us, having made use of a spirit greater than human nature, are taught secret things not in a human way but divinely; as Paul, who says: “I heard inexpressible words, which it is not permitted for a human being to speak.” For they know the changes of the solstices and the alterations of the seasons, the cycles of years and the positions of stars, not from human beings nor through human beings, but by the Spirit revealing them to them and purely announcing divine things, as God wills. And besides, Jacob was greater than a human being: he supplanted his brother, and he confesses in that very book from which we quoted “I read in the tablets of heaven” that he is a chief captain of the power of the Lord and has long possessed the name Israel; this he recognizes while serving in the body, when the archangel Uriel reminds him. After this it remains to examine and set before believers that the lights of heaven are set for signs; and it will be asked by those who go into these topics with more curiosity what the reason is for God's having made these signs in heaven. And one may say, first, that we believe what concerns the greatness of the mind of God, which has encompassed all knowledge concerning each thing that exists, so that not even what happens to be thought the least escapes his divinity;

this contains the conviction that he has encompassed in himself in this way things as it were infinite in number, yet not as a clear demonstration but as something believed, since it befits the unbegotten mind which is above every nature. In order, then, that this may be grasped by experience by those greater than human beings, and by holy souls released from the present bond, God made in heaven, through the revolution of the heavenly bodies, as it were letters and characters, so that those who have been taught and will be taught might read the signs of God. And it is not surprising that God does something also to make a display to the blessed, since Scripture says to Pharaoh: “For this very purpose I raised you up, that I might display my power in you, and that my name might be proclaimed in all the earth.” … of God, and of the proclaiming of his name in all the earth, consider how great a display of God's power the heavenly signs contain, since all things from eternity to the consummation are imprinted on the heaven, God's worthy book. Second, I conjecture that the signs are set for the powers that administer human affairs, so that some things they only know and others they carry out; just as, in the books we have, some things are written that we may know them, such as what concerns the making of the world and other mysteries, and others that, knowing them, we may do them, such as what concerns God's commandments and ordinances. It is possible, then, that the heavenly letters, which angels and divine powers are able to read well, contain some things to be read by the angels and ministers of God so that they may rejoice in knowing them, and others which they carry out, receiving them as commandments. And we shall not err if we say that the heaven and the stars correspond to what is in the law. But if worse energies, other than man, do some of the things foreknown and signified in heaven, it is not necessary that they too do what they do because they are reminded by God's letters; rather, just as men who do wrong, without learning that God has foreknown that this person will be wronged by them, do the wrong out of their own wickedness, so the powers opposed to God, having foreknown the wickedness of men who wish for evil things, carry it out by their own most shameful choice. The holy angels, however, “the ministering spirits sent out for service”, probably receive the commands written as from a law of God and do the better things in order, and when they must, and as they must, and as much as they must. For it would be absurd that they, being divine, should come at random and not by determination to give, say, an oracle to Abraham, and do something for Isaac, and rescue Jacob from danger, or stand over the spirit of this or that prophet. So that they may not do this at random or by chance, they read the book of God, and so do what falls to them. But, as we said before, what we do, and what the opposing energies accomplish against us, are done by our own choice

we do: disorderly when we sin, but instructed, not without angels, nor without divine letters, nor without holy ministers, when we do what is pleasing to God. And Clement of Rome, the disciple of the apostle Peter, speaking in agreement with this on the present problem to his father at Laodicea in the Circuits, says something most necessary at the end of such discussions, concerning the things of the nativity that seemed to have come true, in the fourteenth book: “And my father said: ‘Forgive me, my child. Your arguments of yesterday, being true, reasoned me into agreeing with you; but my conscience, like the remnant of a fever, torments me a little toward unbelief; for I know in myself that everything in my nativity was fulfilled for me.’ And I answered: ‘Consider with me, father, what kind of nature the science has, from what I advise. Meeting an astrologer, say to him first: “Such and such misfortunes happened to me at such a time; I want to learn from which of the stars they happened to me.” And he will say that the maleficent Mars or Saturn took over the periods, or one of them was returning to its place, or some star aspected this year from a square or from opposition, being in conjunction, or on a centre, or out of its sect. And he can say countless other things: besides these, that the beneficent star was not joined to the evil one, or did not aspect it, or was in such a figure, or out of its sect, or in eclipse, or unconnected, or among dim stars. And so, there being many pretexts, he can furnish proofs for what he has heard. After this astrologer, then, go to another and tell him the opposite: “Such a good thing happened to me at such a time” (name the same time), and demand from what in the nativity this happened. And yet, as I said before, even though you have lied, he can himself find among many figures one figure, and a second, and a third, and more, as having worked, from which he will say the good things came about. For it is impossible in any nativity of human beings, indeed at any hour, that some of the stars should not be well placed and others badly; for the circle is of equal parts, varied, holding countless pretexts, from which each can say what he wishes. For just as with ambiguous dreams we sometimes understand nothing, but once they have come to pass we bring forward a most fitting interpretation, so too the science can show us nothing clear before something has been fulfilled, but after the account of what has happened, then the cause of the outcome appears plain. Often, then, those who foretell stumble, and after the outcome they blame themselves, saying, “This was what did it, and we did not see it.” That even the very skilled stumble happens because they do not know, as I said yesterday, which causes in the nativity act necessarily and which not necessarily, and what we desire necessarily to do yet do not necessarily do. The reason is clear to us who have learned the mystery: having a free reasoning, we have sometimes resolved to restrain desire and have conquered it. But the astrologers, not knowing this very mystery, having pronounced on every choice from

the beginning, when they stumbled, invented the climacterics, making choice a matter of uncertainty, as we showed yesterday. But you, if you have anything further to say against this, speak.’ And he answered with an oath that nothing was truer than what had been said.” [Gen 1:16–17] “And God made the two great lights, the great light for the rules of the day and the lesser light for the rules of the night, and the stars. And God set them in the firmament of heaven to shine upon the earth and to rule the day and the night.” We must inquire whether “for the rules of the day” is the same as “and to rule the day,” and “for the rules of the night” the same as “and to rule the night.” For Aquila too kept the correspondence, putting “for authority” in place of “for the rules” and “to exercise authority” in place of “to rule.” Those who have devoted care to the examination of meanings say that, in passages with a pairing of appellatives and predicates, the appellatives come first, and the predicates arise from the appellatives. They call an appellative, for instance, prudence, which has a predicate, and the predicate is “being prudent”; likewise the appellative is self-control, the predicate “being self-controlled.” And they say that prudence comes first, and then the predicate arises from prudence, “being prudent.” These things we have observed, even if some will think we are acting against the intent of Scripture; for when God makes the lights, he makes the great one for the rules of the day and the lesser one for the rules of the night, but when he sets them in the firmament of heaven, it is no longer for the rules of the day and of the night, but for ruling the day and the night. For, in proper order and in keeping with the technical teaching on this topic, the appellatives are set first and then the predicates follow;

this has moved us to ask whether perhaps the matter was also understood in this way by the servant, especially since Aquila, who strives to translate most literally, did nothing other than render the appellative and the predicate. Let anyone who finds these things hard to accept consider whether an ethical problem, or one of natural philosophy or of theology, can be presented as it should be without precision in meanings and in what is made clear in the field of logic. For what is absurd about learning the proper usages in languages and attending carefully to meanings? There are times when, through ignorance of logic, we fall into great errors by not clearing up homonymies, ambiguities, misuses, proper usages, and distinctions. For instance, through ignorance that the term “world” is homonymous, those who did not clarify to what “The world lies in the evil one” applies (namely, that John said it there of earthly and human things) have fallen into thinking most impiously about the Creator. For supposing that “world” in this very passage signifies the system made of heaven and earth and what is in them, they make the most reckless and unholy pronouncements about God, though they can in no way show in fact how sun and moon and stars, which move in such order, lie in the evil one. Then, if we bring forward to them from “This is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world” that in these words “world” is said where sin abounds, that is, in the earthly places, if they are fair-minded they will accept what is said; but if they are contentious, behaving foolishly, they will persist in the wicked opinions they once formed, because of their ignorance of the homonymy. And again, if it is said, “God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself,” they will no longer be able to show that they have taken it of the whole world, that is, of the things in the whole world, especially on their own premises; for on their view too the word must be examined as homonymous. And concerning ambiguity, too, one who took pains could collect not a few examples of wicked interpretations, arising also from the placing of punctuation, and of countless other things. We have made this digression to show that for us too, who wish not to err concerning the truth in understanding the divine Scriptures, it is most necessary to know the parts of logic that come into use. We have needed them now too, to find the difference between what are said to have come to be “for the rules of the night” and “for ruling the day and the night.”

When the holy apostles and disciples of our Saviour were scattered over the whole inhabited world, Thomas, as tradition holds, was allotted Parthia, Andrew Scythia, and John Asia, where he lived and died at Ephesus. Peter seems to have preached in Pontus and Galatia and Bithynia, Cappadocia and Asia to the Jews of the dispersion; and at the end, having come to Rome, he was crucified head downward, having himself asked to suffer in this way. What need is there to speak of Paul, who fully preached the gospel of Christ from Jerusalem to Illyricum, and afterwards was martyred in Rome under Nero? [Selections] [Gen 1:11] “And God said: Let the earth bring forth the plant of grass, sowing seed according to kind and according to likeness.” It should not be passed over that the wording “God said: Let the earth bring forth the plant of grass, sowing seed according to kind and according to likeness” might seem a solecism, for “sowing” would not easily agree with “plant of grass.” How, then, can it be understood without a solecism, since most will take “sowing” as said of “plant of grass”? One may, using a slight pause with a middle stop, read thus: “Let the earth bring forth the plant of grass”; and then, after a break, add

“sowing seed according to kind,” so that it reads: “Let the earth bring forth the plant of grass, according to kind sowing seed,” “sowing seed” being attached to “kind.” [Gen 1:22] “Increase and multiply.” Increase signifies growth in size, multiplying the succession into a multitude that comes from intercourse. [Gen 1:26] “And God said: Let us make man according to our image and according to likeness.” We must first determine where the “according to the image” lies, in the body or in the soul. Let us first see what is used by those who say the former, among whom is Melito, who has left writings on God's being embodied. Finding members of God named, eyes of God looking upon the inhabited world, and his ears inclined to the prayer of the righteous, and “The Lord smelled a fragrant aroma,” and “The mouth of the Lord has spoken these things,” and an arm of God, and hands, and feet, and fingers, they declare outright that these teach nothing other than the form of God. And how, they say, did God appear to Abraham and Moses and the saints if he had no form? And if he had a form, in what character, if not the human? And they collect countless texts naming members of God. Against them we must contend first from the letter; and to those who know nothing beyond the letter we shall oppose texts contrary to their supposition: from Zechariah, that “Seven eyes of the Lord look upon all the earth.” If God has seven eyes and we two, we have not come to be according to his image. Moreover, we have no wings, but of God it says in the ninetieth psalm, “Under his wings you will hope.” If he has wings and we are a wingless animal, man has not come to be according to God's image. And how can the spherical heaven, which is always moving, be the throne of God, as they suppose? And how is the earth the footstool of his feet? Let them tell us. Since the body from the knees to the soles belongs to one who fills the space between heaven and earth, and the earth is in the middle of the whole world and surrounded by it, as is shown by geometrical proofs, are God's soles with us or with the antipodes? Have they filled our whole inhabited world, or do they take in something more, or less? Are his feet set apart because of the seas and rivers, or do they also tread upon the waters? And how is it that he whose throne is so great a heaven, and the earth the footstool

of his feet, is found walking only in paradise, or appears to Moses on the summit of Sinai? And how will one who holds these opinions about God not be called foolish? Then, after saying much to overturn such an opinion, he adds: But one who says that the “according to the image” is not in the body but in the rational soul will present a doctrine not to be despised, once he has grasped what its powers are. For the knowing power in the human being, which judges and does good, which acts justly and is strong, and in short accomplishes everything good, has come to be in him according to the image, from God. That actions characterize the “according to the image,” and not the form of the body, the Apostle clearly says in the letter to the Corinthians: “As we have borne the image of the earthly, let us also bear the image of the heavenly.” For he bears the earthly image who lives according to the flesh and does the works of the flesh, but the image of the heavenly the one who by the Spirit puts to death the deeds of the flesh. And in another letter, teaching how one must live, he adds to the commandments, “that you may become according to the image of the one who created.” The Lord is long-suffering, and the long-suffering man has what is according to God's image. The Lord is just and holy, and the Lord is compassionate and merciful. Therefore the one who loves justice and holiness, and who does and keeps the Saviour's commandment, “Be compassionate, as your Father is compassionate,” and “Be perfect, as your heavenly Father is perfect,” becomes an image of God in all respects. [Gen 1:28] “And rule over the fish of the sea, and the birds of heaven, and all the cattle, and all the earth, and all the creeping things that creep upon the earth.” One should observe that in the list of the creation of the animals the sea monsters are one thing and the creeping things of living souls another; and how man is now said to rule over the fish of the sea, while the kind of the sea monsters and that of the wild beasts are passed over in silence. For one must not think that these were not added idly, since it could have been written, “And let them rule over the fish, and the sea monsters of the sea, and the wild beasts of the earth, and the birds of heaven, and the cattle.” And consider whether, because of this silence, it is possible that not all the animals came to be for man's sake, but those over which he is said to rule, the fish of the sea, the birds of heaven, and the cattle of the earth, and perhaps also the creeping things of the earth, because of the most necessary uses of the medicines made from them; but that the great sea monsters and the wild beasts of the earth did not come to be for man's sake. For otherwise their naming too would have been added to the authority given to human beings. And we do not find in Scripture the kind of snakes ranked among creeping things, but among wild beasts. For

“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

from the earth.” The Lord destroys the ungodly, and their food as well, which is Sodomitic and harmful; among it is also a vine, of which it is written: “For their vine is from the vine of Sodom, and their tendril from Gomorrah.” [Gen 19:26] “And his wife looked back and became a pillar of salt.” It profited Lot's wife nothing to have been taken by the hand by the angels, even though she went out of Sodom, since she turned back. [Gen 20:4] “But Abimelech did not touch her.” “Did not touch” has emphasis, like “It is good for a man not to touch a woman”; that is, even without intercourse, not in any other way, with passion, to look at or to touch a woman. God, however, did not allow Abimelech to touch her; perhaps he does not allow anyone who thinks loftily to touch her, for such a thing is God-given. [Gen 22:5] “And Abraham said to his servants: Sit here with the donkey; the boy and I will go on as far as there, and when we have worshipped we will return to you.” He said this reckoning that God is able to raise even from the dead. [Gen 22:6] “And Abraham took the wood of the whole burnt offering and laid it on Isaac his son.” For Christ, carrying his own cross on his shoulders, suffered outside the gate, not forced into the passion by human strength, but by his own will and the will of God the Father. [Gen 22:20–21] “Behold, Milcah too has borne sons to Nahor your brother: Uz the firstborn,” and so on. They interpret Milcah “queen”; Uz “counselling”; Nahor “rest of light”; Buz “despised”; Kemuel “resurrection of God”; of the Syrians, “lofty”; Chesed “falsehood”; Hazo “seeing”; Pildash “fall of the needy” or “fall of poverty”; Jidlaph “abundance of hand” or “take a hand”; Bethuel “dweller of God” or “daughter of God”; Rebekah “patience”; Reumah “expected vision”; Tebah “chewing the cud”; Tahash “silence”; Maacah “empty bowel.” [Gen 24:13] “Behold, I stand by the spring of water.” Therefore we must strive to stand by the spring, so that the words “They have forsaken me, the spring of living water” may not apply to us too. [Gen 24:14] “And the virgin to whom I say, Lower

your jar,” and so on. The words befit the elder of Abraham's household and suit the ruler of all his possessions; and see what wisdom, what a sign he sets. [Gen 24:21] “And the man was observing her and kept silent, to know whether the Lord had prospered his way or not.” From this we can be taught that it is good for one who prays not to pray with a voice heard by the senses, but in the heart, to him who examines hearts and kidneys. [Gen 24:62] “And Isaac was going through the desert by the well of the vision.” A fitting journey for the saint: going through the desert because of his great withdrawal, and by the well of the vision because of his contemplation of the things concerning God. [Gen 24:63] “And Isaac went out into the plain toward evening to converse.” One who is going to converse about divine things must go out from earthly things; this is what it has now called “conversing.” It is not added with whom, fittingly, since such converse is not held with human beings, but either with God, or of a man with himself. [Of the same.] And “toward evening” is a symbol that one can hardly, on coming to old age, converse about the more divine things with comprehension. [Gen 25:1–2] “And Abraham again took a wife, whose name was Keturah; and she bore him Zimran,” and so on. From the children of Keturah came very many nations, which inhabited the Troglodyte desert, and Arabia Felix, and the land that stretches beyond it, and Midianitis, and the city of Midian, lying beside the desert beyond Arabia, opposite Paran, east of the Red Sea. From this the nation of the Midianites takes its name, from Midian, son of Abraham and Keturah; so that it is clear from this that Jethro, the father-in-law of Moses, was a descendant of Abraham and a kinsman of Moses. [Of the same.] Keturah is interpreted “smaller”

or “…”; Ishbak “release” or “…”; Shuah “good people”; … “turning away”; Teman “their failings” or “being completed”; Dedan “sufficient judgment” or “solitude”; Reuel “strong friend” or “shepherding of God”; Adbeel “serving God”; Asshurim “settled” or “directing”; Letushim “hammer-smiths”; Ephah “needy” or “lacking”; Epher “dust” or “…” or “ashes”; Hanoch “your grace”; Abida “height of my father”; Ephron “dust” or “earthy” or “ashes”; Zohar “midday”; Dumah “silence”; Mamre “from vision”; Massa “lifting up”; Ishmael “hearing of God”; Hadad “measure being emptied”; Nebaioth “prophecy”; Tema “completion”; Kedar “darkening”; Jetur “banished”; Adbeel “serving God”; Naphish “refreshment”; Mishma “attention” or “hearing”; Kedemah “the one in front”; Mibsam “from spices”; Havilah “in labour”; Shur “wall.” [Gen 26:2–3] “Dwell in the land of which I tell you, and sojourn in this land, and I will be with you and will bless you.” If, where one ought to dwell by God's command, one sojourns, God is with him and blesses him; but if, where one ought only to sojourn, one dwells, God is not with him, nor will he bless him. [Gen 26:5] “Because Abraham obeyed my voice and kept my ordinances and my statutes and my laws.” If the law according to Moses had not yet been written, yet Abraham kept what is mentioned, he kept them as “Gentiles who do not have the law, and do by nature the things of the law, showing the work of the law written in their hearts, their conscience bearing witness,” as the Apostle says. [Gen 26:19] “And Isaac's servants dug in the valley of Gerar and found there a well of living water.” Everyone who prays to be a child of Isaac must strive to understand these wells and to dig them in himself. [Gen 26:22] “And moving on from there he dug another well, and

they did not quarrel over it.” By not resisting those who wronged him he shows that he was truly guileless. Hence God, accepting him for his forbearance, appears to him and promises him land, so that he might not lose heart because, as a stranger and sojourner, he lay exposed to those who wished to wrong him, fulfilling each time what is said, “If they persecute you.” [Gen 27:22] “And he said: The voice is the voice of Jacob.” Recognizing the pious word, which would not have been said by Esau, “What the Lord your God delivered before me,” Isaac said, “The voice is the voice of Jacob.” [Gen 27:27] “And he said: Behold, the smell of my son is like the smell of a full field which the Lord has blessed.” Clearly the smell was not perceptible. For what smell could be compared to the smell of a field? But perhaps it was such as the Apostle had when he said: “We are the fragrance of Christ to God in every place.” I think that each virtue has its own fragrance, which completes the virtues. And conversely, vices are foul-smelling, according to the one who said: “My wounds stank and festered.” It befits the Lord to bless the field of the virtues that is fragrant to him. [Gen 27:42–43] “And she said to him: Behold, Esau your brother threatens to kill you; now therefore, child, hear my voice, and rise and flee to Mesopotamia.” We learn from this that we must run away from those who plot against us and flee persecutions, even if we are counted worthy of visions, as Jacob was. And one may take courage on seeing what followed for Jacob as he fled from Esau: he was counted worthy of visions, and became the father of twelve tribes; and on returning from the flight caused by the persecution, he becomes Israel instead of Jacob. [Gen 28:1] “You shall not take a wife from the daughters of Canaan.” The daughters of Canaan are wicked, not in Esau's eyes, but in the eyes of Isaac his father. [Gen 29:31] “And the Lord God, seeing that Leah was hated, opened her womb.” He opens the womb at the birth of saints; and according to the spiritual law he opens the womb of a soul, so that the one who is to be his mother may bring forth the Word of God. [Of the same.] For she who was elder in time first bore to God the synagogue and multitude of the Jews. [Gen 30:27] “And Laban said to him: If I have found favour before you, I would have taken omens; for God has blessed me at your coming.” There is no augury in Jacob; but Laban says, “I would have taken omens,” as one estranged from Jacob's choice; yet he was not wholly estranged from it, since he added to “I would have taken omens” the words “for God has blessed me at your coming.”

[Gen 30:37] “And Jacob took for himself a green rod of storax, and of walnut, and of plane.” The three rods are symbolically either the three powers of the soul, the rational, the spirited, and the desiring; or the three contemplations, of bodies, of incorporeal beings, and of the Holy Trinity; or, more generally, by the walnut he hinted at the practical life, by the storax at the contemplative, and by the plane at this world and the contemplation of it. Peeling off its green signifies renunciation of it: the green of the practical life is the love of pleasure; that of contemplation, being occupied with bodies; as for the green in the two other interpretations, test it yourself. [Gen 31:3] “And the Lord said to Jacob: Return to the land of your father and to your kindred, and I will be with you.” When Jacob had borne fruit and become rich while living outside his kindred, then the Lord said to him, “Return to the land of your father.” Something of this kind must be understood to be said by the Lord when we come to our departure, about to go away to our fathers. And he gives a prize to the one who returns to the land of his father and to his kindred. I think that the Lord was present to him in sleep. [Gen 31:7] “And your father cheated me and changed my wages of the ten lambs.” Aquila said “ten numbers,” Symmachus “ten times in number.” He meant, then, as the Hebrew says: Laban broke his agreements with Jacob ten times, because what was born in Jacob's name was very many, and he looked on him with envy; which the two versions made clear. [Gen 31:41] “And you cheated me of my wages of ten lambs.” Of lambs Scripture makes no mention at all; “which he agreed to give me”: nowhere does it appear that he agreed, but it is evident from what Jacob himself says. For just as Scripture does not show Lamech killing, but when he is questioned it becomes evident from his account what had happened, so also here. Often, then, Scripture has made known through someone's account what it did not relate when it was being done. [Gen 31:38] “Your sheep and your goats were not barren; I did not eat the rams of your sheep.” The frankness of a good shepherd appears in these words, and is to be emulated. Let those in the flocks and herds, then, bear spiritual fruits; and let us not devour the rich of the flock. Since his gods were not found, he makes an agreement with the divine Jacob; and the world, when it cast off the falsely named gods, became a friend of Christ. [Gen 31:46] “And Jacob said to his brothers: Gather stones; and they gathered stones.” And in

Ecclesiastes it is written: “A time to throw stones and a time to gather stones.” They are gathered by the command of Jacob, who was a type of Christ, so that the building may be completed on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ our Lord himself being the cornerstone, from living stones, when it becomes a spiritual house, a holy priesthood. [Gen 31:55] “And Laban turned back and went away to his place.” For the wicked man the place is near because of his vice; but for one who travels by way of progress, since the place is far off, the toil is not small. [Gen 32:1] “And the angels of God met him.” The Lord says, “I am the way.” Angels of God, then, meet the one who travels this way. [Gen 32:4] “And he commanded them, saying: Thus you shall say to my lord Esau: Thus says your servant Jacob: I have sojourned with Laban.” Out of respect he calls his elder brother his lord, without hypocrisy. Besides, “a submissive answer turns away wrath.” And as a man he was afraid, but trusting in God he did not flee, but prayed. [Gen 32:22] “He crossed the ford of the Jabbok.” The Jabbok is a river of Arabia, now called the Iambikes. [Gen 32:24] “And Jacob was left alone, and a man wrestled with him,” and so on. Who else could he be who is called at once man and God, wrestling and contending with Jacob, than the holy Word of God, who spoke to the fathers in many parts and in many ways, who is called Lord and God, who also blessed Jacob and named him Israel, adding, “for you have prevailed with God”? In this way the men of that time saw the Word of God, as also our Lord's apostles, who said: “What was from the beginning, we have seen with our eyes, and beheld, and our hands have handled, concerning the Word of life.” Having beheld this Word and Life, Jacob too adds: “For I have seen God face to face.” [Gen 37:3] “And Jacob loved Joseph more than all his sons, because he was the son of his old age; and he made him a many-coloured tunic.” The many-coloured tunic is the best habit, adorned with the virtues. [Gen 37:4] “And his brothers, seeing that their father loved him more than all his sons, hated him and could not speak anything peaceable to him.” The one who hates is unable to say anything peaceable to the one he hates. Let us put away hatred, then, so that we may be able to speak peaceable things.

[Gen 37:36] “And the Midianites sold Joseph into Egypt to Petephres, the eunuch of Pharaoh, the chief cook.” In this place Petephres is called Phoutiphar by Aquila and Symmachus, and in another place Phoutiphare. The interpretation of the present name is set beside the word …; the exposition of the other will appear in what follows. [Gen 38:9] “And Onan, knowing that the seed would not be his, when he went in to his brother's wife, poured it out on the ground.” Everyone who sows to the flesh and stores up the works of the flesh on the earth is like Onan; therefore he too is put to death by God. [Gen 39:2] “And the Lord was with Joseph, and he was a man who succeeded.” Like one shooting at a target, he directed his ruling faculty and always hit the mark. Scripture uses this word in many places. [Gen 39:5] “And the Lord blessed the house of the Egyptian because of Joseph.” Because of the saint who is in an Egyptian's house, the house is blessed, and the possessions, and the field of the Egyptian. But this is not a spiritual blessing. [Gen 40:1] “And after these things the chief cupbearer of the king of Egypt and the chief baker sinned against their lord, the king of Egypt.” I think that something corresponding to “They sinned against the king of Egypt” might be said of the martyrs: that they sin against the intelligible king of Egypt, but not against God. For they seem to sin against the law of the world, which is contrary to the law of God. [Gen 40:15] “For I was stolen away from the land of the Hebrews, and here I have done nothing.” By “Here I have done nothing” he hints that he did none of the native Egyptian things; and lying with one's master's wife was also an Egyptian deed. [Gen 40:18] “And Joseph answered and said to him: This is its interpretation: the three baskets are three days.” And above it was said, “The three stems are three days.” So “three days” is shown both by stems and by baskets, Providence using for the showing of three days examples proper to the life of each. You will find such things in the other Scriptures too: the same thing shown by examples that seem different. [Gen 40:20] “And it came to pass on the third day, it was Pharaoh's birthday, and he made a feast for all his servants.” One of those before us observed that he is wicked who honours the things of birth and welcomes the day of his birth; and we

confirm the account, finding the like also in the case of Herod, since the daughter of Herodias danced and John's head was cut off; and nowhere does a righteous man appear keeping his birthday. [Gen 41:1] “And it came to pass after two years of days, Pharaoh saw a dream. He thought he stood upon the river,” and so on. The one who trusts in flowing and unstable things thought he stood upon the river, from which what seem to be the goods of happiness come up when his cows are fat; but these are certainly devoured by the worse. With “he thought” you will compare “I thought we were binding sheaves.” And on the second dream: “As if,” he says, “the sun and the moon and the stars were bowing down to me.” And again the chief cupbearer: “In my sleep,” he says, “there was …” [Of the same.] The narrating voice of Scripture says, “He thought he stood upon the river,” not “by the bank of the river”; but Pharaoh says, “I thought I stood by the bank of the river,” not “upon the river.” The affairs in Egypt, however, those of worldly things, beginning from more pleasant things, of which the plenty is a symbol, end in something more bitter, of which the plenty and the famine are a type. Something similar can be observed in the story of the rich man. For he had, as it were, the seven years of plenty, receiving his good things in his life, clothed in purple and fine linen and making merry splendidly every day; but it ends for him in the opposite, receiving evils after his departure from here. You might see such things also in those who walk the broad and spacious way, whose end is destruction; but for those whose beginning is the narrow and afflicted way, the end is life. Therefore, woe to those who are full, for they will hunger; and to those who laugh, for they will weep. Blessed are those who mourn and weep, for they will be comforted. [Gen 41:2] “And behold, as it were out of the river came up seven cows,” and so on. Pharaoh's dreams were of cows and ears of grain; for the means by which the earth is tilled, and what it bears, became signs for the king foretelling plenty and barrenness. [Gen 41:5] “And Pharaoh woke and dreamed a second time; and behold, seven ears came up on one stem, choice and good.” Joseph saw not ears but sheaves; the Egyptian not sheaves but ears. And again, the chief cupbearer sees the three stems as three days, while the king sees the seven ears on one stem as the continuity of the seven years; so the interpretation of the one word “stem” differs. If, then, someone explains Scripture otherwise, let him not be thought to force it. And it should be further observed that in the case of the

plenty seven ears came up on one stem, but in the case of the famine seven ears indeed, but no longer on one stem; another translator says “on one stalk.” [Gen 41:8] “And it was morning, and his soul was troubled, and he sent and called all the interpreters of Egypt and all its wise men.” How he called the interpreters and wise men of all Egypt must be inquired at the same time with regard to the letter; and, with regard to the higher sense, whether Pharaoh needs Egyptian interpreters as wiser. We say “of all Egypt” as following from “all the interpreters of Egypt and all its wise men.” [Gen 41:8] “And Pharaoh told them his dream, and there was no one who interpreted it to Pharaoh.” I do not think that they were wholly silent, but rather that they said everything except the very interpretation of the dreams. But someone will say: How did Pharaoh know whether the interpreters and wise men of Egypt hit the mark in interpreting the dreams or not? To this the Hebrew said that Pharaoh, on seeing the dream, also saw its interpretation, which then fell from his memory. Hearing each of them speak, he did not recall what he knew he had seen. For this reason he was amazed at Joseph and at once advanced him, so that all Egypt, its grain, and the safety of the Egyptians were entrusted to him; since, as soon as Joseph explained the dreams, Pharaoh was reminded that they were the same as had been shown to him before. [Gen 41:16] “And Joseph answered Pharaoh and said: Without God the answer of salvation will not be given to Pharaoh.” Joseph is sensible in that he begins from God. Observe that to the woman he said, “And shall I do this evil thing and sin before God?” And to the eunuchs in the prison he says, “Is not their interpretation through God?” [Gen 41:38] “And Pharaoh said to all his servants: Shall we find such a man, who has the Spirit of God in himself?” Pharaoh, seeing something greater than human, that the solution of the dream which had fallen from his memory had been made plain by Joseph, said that he had the Spirit of God in himself. [Of the same.] Even Pharaoh was compelled to speak of one God; and with this agrees what was given above about the solution of the dream. [Gen 41:43] “And a herald proclaimed before him.” The Hebrew has “Abrech,” which properly signifies “tender father.” Fittingly he called a tender father the

Joseph, since, being tender in age, he showed himself to the Egyptians as a father, a saving rule. The word signifies nothing other than “to kneel”; for the herald's call is plain. [Gen 41:45] “And Pharaoh called Joseph's name Psonthomphanech.” Psonthomphanech is interpreted “to whom the future was revealed.” Aquila has Saphnath Phanech; Symmachus Saphthphane, “he revealed hidden things.” “And he gave him Asenath, daughter of Petephres, priest of Heliopolis, as wife.” “Phoutiphar” is the name of the father of the woman married to Joseph. Someone will suppose that this man is other than the one who bought Joseph. The Hebrews, however, have not taken it so; on the basis of an apocryphal writing they say that he is the same man, who became both Joseph's master and his father-in-law. And they say that this Asenath accused her mother before her father of having plotted against Joseph, not of having been plotted against; and that he gave her to Joseph, eager to show the Egyptians too that no such sin had been committed against his house. [Gen 41:51] “And Joseph called the name of the firstborn Manasseh, for God has made me forget all my toils and all that was my father's.” To forget all one's toils, God having brought it about, is clearly good; but whether Joseph also forgot everything that was his father Jacob's, and God did this to him, must be inquired. For God does not make Joseph forget Jacob's words and his own sonship; unless perhaps it means his toils, so that “toils” is understood with both: all my toils and all my father's toils. [Gen 41:52] “The name of the second he called Ephraim, for God has increased me in the land of my humiliation.” In a mystical sense, the spiritual Egypt is the land of the righteous man's humiliation; hence the Apostle speaks of “the body of our humiliation,” and the Psalms say, “Our life was humbled to the dust,” and again, “You humbled us in a place of affliction.” [Gen 42:6] “And Joseph was ruler of Egypt; he sold to all the people of the land. And Joseph's brothers came and bowed down to him with their face to the ground.” Because the sons of Jacob were not “people of the land,” he did not sell to them, but … the money twice. For it was fitting that the sons of Israel should receive the grain as a gift. [Of the same.] Gracefully, of the same persons, when they buy it says “sons of Israel,” but when they bow down, “Joseph's brothers.” … Benjamin … Joseph bows down … neither Esau nor … Therefore the temple comes to be in his portion.

[Gen 42:21] “Yes, for we are in sins concerning our brother, because we overlooked the anguish of his soul when he begged us.” “He begged” is among the things passed over in silence; for it is not recorded how he begged. [Gen 42:22] “Reuben answered and said to them: Did I not speak to you, saying, Do not wrong the boy? And you did not listen to me. And behold, his blood is required.” In what was said above, Joseph was sold to the Ishmaelites while Reuben was not present; and after he had been sold Reuben returned to the pit and did not see Joseph in the pit, and tore his clothes, and returned to his brothers and said, “The boy is not; and I, where shall I go?” And he does not appear to have learned from his brothers about Joseph, that he had been sold. Perhaps, then, thinking that he had been killed, he now says, “Behold, his blood is required.” [Gen 43:8] “And Judah said to Israel his father: Send the boy with me, and we will rise and go, that we may live.” Perhaps he prophesies that Benjamin was to be with the tribe of Judah. [Gen 43:9] “And I will take charge of him; from my hand require him, if I do not bring him to you,” and so on. Reckoning that nothing that can befall a human being would befall Benjamin, Judah makes the promise to his father prophetically, I think. [Gen 43:11] “Take of the fruits of the land in your vessels, and carry down to the man gifts: of resin, and of honey, incense and myrrh, and terebinth and nuts.” From the fruits of the land gifts are brought to Joseph which Egypt does not have: resin, honey, incense, myrrh, terebinth, nuts. And above, too, the camels were laden with incense, resin, and myrrh, but not also with honey and terebinth and nuts. [Of the same.] The Midianites bring down three kinds into Egypt with Joseph; the sons of Jacob add three others and bring them to Joseph. But the seed of Abraham brings both the first and the second. And it was fitting that the lesser should be brought by the illegitimate children of Abraham and the greater by the legitimate, since Egypt needed these. [Gen 43:18] “They said: Because of the money returned in our sacks at the beginning we are being brought in, to bring a false charge against us and attack us, to take us as slaves, and our donkeys.” It is unconvincing that men who thought themselves in such a crisis should worry about the donkeys, unless it is meant allegorically. [Gen 43:23] “And he said to them: Peace be to you, do not fear.” The man over Joseph's house seems to have said this because he had been helped toward the worship of God by Joseph. [Gen 43:34] “And Benjamin's portion was made greater than the portions

of all, five times as much as theirs.” It was made greater either because of Jerusalem, or as a type of the apostle Paul. And Joshua, being of the tribe of Ephraim, divided the land among the other tribes. [Gen 45:7] “For God sent me before you, to leave you a remnant.” Since God sent Joseph before his brothers into Egypt for the life of many, clearly God, in sending him to Egypt, made use of the jealousy and the choice of his brothers for the economy concerning Joseph, for the life of many. So there are times when God, making use of the sins of some, plans what is his own for the salvation of others. [Gen 45:8] “Now therefore it was not you who sent me here, but God; and he made me as a father to Pharaoh, and lord of all his house, and ruler of all the land of Egypt.” The one who rules bodily things and in no way yields to them could say, “God made me lord of all the land of Egypt.” [Gen 45:20] “And do not spare your goods with your eyes, for all the good things of Egypt shall be yours.” Whatever there is in the figuratively named Egypt belongs not to the Egyptians but to Israel. Therefore at the exodus too the Hebrews despoil the Egyptians and take vessels of gold and silver, and whatever good there was in Egypt. [Gen 46:4] “And I will bring you up at the end.” A promise fitting God: not only to bring up, but also to bring to the end the one who is brought up. [Of the same.] To those who seek the life after this one from the Pentateuch we shall say: since he who said, “I will bring you up,” does not lie, he brought him up later in this life, and after his departure he brought him up, when afterwards Joseph laid his hands on the eyes of Jacob's body. And God brought him up, leading Israel after the end of life to the end that is with himself. [Gen 46:5] “And Jacob rose up from the well of the oath, and the sons of Israel took up Jacob their father.” The one who came to the well of the oath is Israel, bringing with all his household, I think, Jacob; but the one who rises from the well of the oath is Jacob; for it was not Israel but Jacob who needed to rise. Then after this the sons, not of Jacob but of Israel, took up their father Jacob, who needed to be taken up. [Of the same.] Pharaoh sent wagons to carry not Israel but Jacob. Jacob entered into Egypt; he did not go down. For to Israel it was said, “Do not fear to go down into Egypt.” [Gen 46:6] “Jacob entered into Egypt, and all his seed with him.” Here “the seed of Jacob” is said; above, “the sons of Israel.” But if Jacob and all his seed entered into Egypt, and Er and Onan did not enter, they were not the seed of Jacob.

[Gen 46:7] “Daughters and daughters of his daughters.” Clearly, having his daughters with him, he also brought along his sons-in-law. For he could not bear to send his daughters out of his house, lest they turn to idolatry. [Of the same.] If Jacob has no other daughters, how do his daughters go down into Egypt? Perhaps, then, it is meant allegorically. Next it says that they are from Leah, and gives daughters, thirty-three, Dinah being named. [Gen 46:8] “These are the names of the sons of Israel who entered into Egypt.” These are the names of the sons, not of Jacob but of Israel, who entered, not went down, into Egypt. “Jacob's firstborn, Reuben,” and so on. Having said above that the names are those of the sons of Israel, it now says that Reuben is the firstborn of Jacob. [Of the same.] It should be noted that with the sons of Jacob born in the land of Canaan it counts also the sons of Joseph who were in Egypt. For this contributes to the later text, near the end, where it says, “Ephraim and Manasseh are mine, like Reuben and Simeon.” [Gen 46:30] “And Israel said to Joseph: From now on I will die, since I have seen your face; for you are still alive.” It is wonderful that one who had been in Egypt was not harmed by the Egyptians, and remained in the life according to God. Therefore Jacob, wondering at it, said to Joseph, “For you are still alive.” [Gen 46:34; 47:4] “Your servants are shepherds of sheep from childhood until now …” “And they said to Pharaoh: We have come to sojourn in the land.” They speak frankly to Pharaoh about being shepherds; then, so that Pharaoh may not be troubled, they say, “We have come to sojourn in the land.” [Gen 47:5–6] “And Pharaoh said to Joseph, saying: Let them dwell in the land of Goshen.” In the Tetrapla, from which this copy too was taken, following the order of the Hebrew and the other versions, the Seventy is shown to have been transposed in some places, so that what was first came to be last and what was last first; and it was found to have suffered this here too. For this reason we have set out the sequence, which is this: to “Let your servants dwell in the land of Goshen” is joined “And Pharaoh said to Joseph: Let them dwell in the land of Goshen; and if you know that there are among them,” and so on. “And if you know that there are capable men among them, appoint them rulers of my cattle.” Pharaoh wishes to appoint the capable men of Israel rulers of the Egyptians' cattle. If anyone of Israel is capable, let him flee such a purpose. [Gen 47:10] “And Jacob, having blessed Pharaoh, went out from him.” He would not have gone out from him if he had blessed a righteous man. One must ask whether anyone, having blessed a saint,

went away from him. And here he goes out after blessing; but above, Jacob goes in after receiving a blessing. [Gen 47:14] “And Joseph brought all the money into the house of Pharaoh.” And where should all the money of Egypt and Canaan have been but in the house of Pharaoh? [Gen 47:17] “And they brought their cattle to Joseph, and Joseph gave them bread in exchange for the horses, and for the sheep, and for the oxen, and for the donkeys.” Joseph does not do this cruelly, but so that they might not be worn out feeding the cattle, and so that afterwards they might receive them as a favour from … [Gen 47:18] “And there is nothing left to us before our lord but our own body and our land.” Since it is said of sinners, “Because they are flesh,” therefore now too the Egyptians, as flesh, say that what is left to them is not a soul, but their own body and their land. This must be thought to be said by all who are estranged from God. [Gen 47:19] “So that we may not die before you, and the land be made desolate, buy us and our land.” The Egyptians wish to live before Pharaoh, not before God. [Of the same.] The Egyptians wish to become Pharaoh's possession, as the saints are God's. [Gen 47:20] “For the famine prevailed over them.” Over the Egyptians, clearly; for it would not have been said of Israel that the famine prevailed over them. [Gen 48:2] “And Jacob, gathering strength, sat up on the bed.” He gathered strength and sat up in order to speak the inspired words. For I think that Jacob was troubled, but Israel gained strength, who also blessed the sons of Joseph, and so on; in this passage he is not named Jacob in the case of the children. [Gen 48:4] “And he said to me: Behold, I will increase you and multiply you.” Either the impious man does not increase, or he does not increase from God. You will say the same about “I will multiply,” for God says these things when he blesses. [Gen 48:5] “Ephraim and Manasseh are mine; like Reuben and Simeon they shall be mine.” As Reuben, so Ephraim, for both are firstborn; as Manasseh, so Simeon, for each is second to his mother. [Gen 48:6] “And the offspring which you beget after these shall be in the name of their brothers; they shall be called in their allotments.” Your other children who will be born, it says, will be ranked in the allotment under the tribes named after their brothers. [Gen 48:8] “And Israel, seeing Joseph's sons, said: Who are these?” and so on. “And Israel, seeing Joseph's sons” will seem to contradict “The eyes of Jacob were dim from old age”; unless perhaps the eyes being unable to see is compatible with Israel seeing the seed of Joseph, God showing him the things that would be.

[Gen 48:14] “And Israel, stretching out his right hand, laid it on the head of Ephraim.” This shows that the prophets understood what they were prophesying. Indeed, later the tribe of Ephraim led the ten tribes. For from it came the blessed Joshua son of Nun, a true type of Christ, as recorded in Numbers; therefore the blessing of Joseph too is referred to him. [Gen 48:20] “May God make you like Ephraim and like Manasseh; and he set Ephraim before Manasseh.” You will fittingly use this text about the more honoured standing in front in prayer. [Gen 49:9] “Crouching, you lay down like a lion and like a cub.” “You lay down” signifies the death undergone in the economy. Christ is a lion to those who have become wholly beastlike; to those who are still beginners, a cub.

[Gen 6:14–16] We must inquire what shape the ark must be understood to have. I think it is pyramid-shaped, starting from a length of three hundred cubits and a breadth of fifty, and drawn together up to the thirty cubits of height, so that the top comes to be a cubit in length and breadth. Let the lower parts of it, which are called “lower,” be of two storeys, and the parts above the two storeys, at the upper storey, of three storeys. Symmachus too set this out clearly, saying, “You shall make it with two decks and three decks.” Let there be understood in each storey compartments partitioned off, to separate animals of different kinds from one another; and let these partitioned compartments be called nests, or, as Symmachus put it, huts. And a little later: They say, then, that the lower deck, at the bottom of the two-storeyed part, was assigned for dung, and the one above it for gathering the animals' food; so that the flesh-eaters had a supply of flesh (other animals, besides those brought in to be preserved, being brought into the ark for the sake of food), and the others each had a supply of suitable food. So much for the account of the two-storeyed lower part. The three-storeyed part after this was assigned to the animals according to the nests just mentioned. And it is likely that to the kind of snakes and wild beasts the space of the lowest of the three storeys was allotted, and to the cattle and the rest of the tamer or gentler animals, in due order and reason, the upper parts. And it was necessary that man, just as by nature he is ruler

of the irrational animals, on which he has been set, so also in place he should be at the very top of the ark, about the third deck, having the rest of the animals under his hand. And we think that the side door, of which it is said, “And the door of the ark you shall make in its side,” was at the first deck from below, so that the animals, entering from there, might go off to the places assigned to the nests. This seems better to us to say than to suppose that the animals came down from above with much difficulty to their own places. The security of this closing door needed some more divine power, since no man outside could any longer pitch it so that water might not seep in. Therefore “the Lord God shut the door behind him.” Some raised the difficulty whether so great an ark could hold even the smallest part of

all the animals on earth. And especially Apelles, the disciple of Marcion, who became the father of a heresy different from his, wishing to reject the writings of Moses as not holy, raises this difficulty and adds: “The story, then, is false; the Scripture, then, is not from God”; not understanding what kind of three hundred cubits, and what kind of fifty, and how great the thirty were that Scripture named in the construction of the ark. But we learned from one of those of repute among the Hebrews that the three hundred cubits were so named as what geometers call a “power,” from the thirtieth square; so that our cubits of the length on the lower plane are ninety thousand; and likewise those of the breadth two thousand five hundred, and those of the height nine hundred. For it would be utterly absurd that one educated in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, who are most skilled in geometry, and brought up in the king's house, should not have seen that three hundred cubits of length taken in the common sense, and fifty of breadth, and thirty of height, would perhaps not have held even four elephants and their food for a year, when God had commanded that two by two of the unclean animals should enter the ark. But if, in order to

understand more clearly “drawing it together you shall make the ark, and you shall finish it to one cubit above,” one must set out the architectural account, so to speak, of the ark, come, let us set it out as it has occurred to us and as we have learned it. Consider with me that the length of the ark at the very bottom is three hundred of the cubits mentioned, taken as the so-called “power,” and the breadth fifty; then, cubit by cubit, ten cubits of the length are drawn in, and one and two-thirds of the breadth; so that at the thirtieth cubit of height there remain ten of the length and one and two-thirds of the breadth; and after this the drawing together is completed to one cubit. But if it seems forced to anyone that the cubit is the thirtieth and also the first of the height, let him attend to the wording, which says, “and thirty cubits the