Noe

NOE (Heb. Nōah; Septuagint Nōe; cf. Old Babylonian Nuḫīja). - The tenth of the "antediluvian patriarchs" (Gen. 5:28-31), son of Lamech, who lived to the age of 950 years (ibid. 9:29). In anticipation of the flood (v.), which occurred when he was 600 years old (ibid. 7:6), he received from God the order to build according to definite measurements and appearance the ark, in which he saved himself with his family and one or more pairs of every species of animal.

In this aspect of "hero of the flood," N. has a counterpart in those who escaped from similar general punishments, inflicted by the deity upon man, of which ancient mythologies tell, especially the Sumerian Ziusudra (the Ξιούθρος of Berosus [v.]), from whom derives the Utnapishtim of the Epic of Gilgamesh (tablet XI). There are, however, notable differences; for example, as regards the Babylonian myth: Utnapishtim after the flood becomes immortal and moves to the fortunate islands with the gods, whereas N. remains a man among men; Utnapishtim is saved because of the particular friendship that the god Ea has for him without any special foundation, whereas N. is saved because he is righteous: a point

(photo Post. Comm. arch. secre)
Nōe - N. praying in the ark. 2nd-century fresco in the so-called Greek Chapel (recent photo) - Rome, cemetery of Priscilla.

frequently emphasized in the subsequent biblical references to him.

When the flood was over, on the occasion of a sacrifice offered in gratitude by the survivors, God made a first promise that he would no longer in the future inflict upon the human race a punishment like that one (Gen. 8:21 ff.), a promise that God more solemnly confirmed some time later, stipulating with N. and his descendants a "covenant" (ibid. 9:8-17; cf. Is. 54:9), which he set as a divine seal upon N.'s condition as the new progenitor of the human race; in it he renewed and expanded certain dispositions already given to the first head, Adam (cf. Gen. 1:28 with 9:1-7: development of hunting and a carnivorous regime in the new historical phase of civilization). To the three sons of N., Shem, Ham and Japheth, Gen. 10:1-32 links all the peoples who enter into its vision of humanity, roughly anterior Asia with Shem, southeastern Europe with Japheth and northeastern Africa, including the Canaanite territory, with Ham.

After the flood comes the episode of Ham's (v.) lack of respect toward his father, who had fallen asleep shamefully after an abuse of wine, due more than anything to inexperience, and of the consequent curse of N. upon Canaan (v.), son of Ham, and blessing upon Shem and Japheth (Gen. 9:18-27). The curse upon the Canaanites (now vanished), which one is not authorized to extend to all the "Hamites," and the blessings for Shem and Japheth have a historico-ethnic significance: but in the latter case the patriarch's words clearly also fit into the history of messianism (Gen. 9:26-27), alluding to the acceptance by Japheth, demographically more extensive, of the religion of Shem.

In that episode the notice of the beginning, with N., of the cultivation of the vine, a symbolic expression of the development and perfecting of agricultural civilization, is of general historical importance. Perhaps with this aspect of N. as an expert vine-grower tradition wished, according to the well-known method of assonance, to connect the etymology of the name: one reads in fact that at the child's birth the father "called him Nōah, saying: This one will relieve us (verb niham) from our work and from the toil of our hands because of the ground, cursed (Gen. 3:17) by God" (ibid. 5:29); an allusion to the restorative effect of wine and to the new methods of agriculture.

In biblical tradition N. was praised as "righteous" (Ex. 14:14, 20), "hope of the world," who through trust in God preserved the human race (Wis. 14:6), "renewer in the time of destruction" (Eccl. 44:17-18), model of faith (Hebr. 11:17), "herald of the righteousness" that God punishes in universal corruption (II Pt. 2:5). There is further recognized in him an image of Christ in the hope that he brought with his birth, the virtues that he practiced, the office that he had as savior of humanity after having in vain exhorted it to penance by example and the building of the ark and, according to Jewish tradition (H. L. Strack-P. Billerbeck [v. bibl.], III, p. 769), by word, through the offering of the sacrifice acceptable to God and the renewal of the covenant with him.

Giovanni Rinaldi

ARCHAEOLOGY

In early Christian art the oldest representations of N.'s ark are found in the catacomb frescoes; the series opens with the one that depicts him as he comes out praying from the ark in the so-called Greek chapel in Priscilla. In all these catacomb frescoes and also on the sarcophagi the ark is a simple chest; it never has the form of a ship; just as in the mythical scenes of Deucalion and Pyrrha, of Danaë and Perseus, cast into the sea inside a chest. The only exception is at el-Baghaouat, where it takes on the appearance of a gondola (W. De Bock, Matériaux pour servir à l'arch. chrét. de l'Égypte, St. Petersburg 1901, p. 22 and pl. 12). The ark has locks and a lid almost always raised, according to the text aperiens Noc tectum arcae (Gen. 8:13). To G. Wilpert's list (Pitture, p. 332) other scenes must be added; in a hypogeum discovered near the tomb of the Scipios, between the Appian and the Latin Way, in an arcosolium there was N. in the ark (G. B. De Rossi, Conferenze di arch. crist., in Bull. arch. crist., 4th series, 4 [1886], p. 5 and pl. 3, 3). In the cemetery of Pamphilus, in an arcosolium earlier than 350, the closed ark is painted and outside it the raven departing and the dove returning with the little olive branch (E. Josi, Il cimitero di Panfilo, in Riv. di arch. crist., 3 [1926], p. 191, fig. 76). Two other scenes were found painted in the cemetery inter duas lauros (G. P. Kirsch, Un gruppo di cripte dipinte inedite del cimitero dei SS. Pietro Marcellino, ibid., 7 [1930], p. 219, fig. 9; p. 228, fig. 15).

N.'s ark is very frequent in the representations on sarcophagi as well. The oldest, according to Wilpert, is that of sarcophagus 119 (Sarcofagi, pl. 9, 3, p. 233).

In catacomb art, N. represents the deceased and therefore has a meaning of desire for salvation, just as the patriarch was saved from the flood. Indeed, on a Lateran sarcophagus (a. 236), belonging to a certain Iuliana, in the ark, in place of the patriarch, stands the deceased woman in prayer. In the floor of the synagogue discovered beneath the church of Sts. Cosmas and Damian in Gerasa is represented the scene of N. who, together with his family and the animals, comes out of the ark after the flood (F. M. Biebel, Mosaics in Gerasa City of the Decapolis, New Haven 1938, pp. 297-351). This scene is found again on a sarcophagus of Trier, whose front represents a great open chest, inside which are N. with his wife, his three sons and their respective wives, four-footed animals and birds, while outside the dove flies on high with the olive branch, and the raven stays on the ground (E. Le Blant, Les sarcofages chrétiens de la Gaule, Paris 1886, pl. 3, 1). The scene of N. in the ark is also found on not a few catacomb glasses (R. Garrucci, Storia dell'arte cristiana, III, Prato 1873-80, pls. 169-202) and on terracotta lamps. The ark from which N. leans out toward the dove that returns in flight with the olive branch in its beak or claws is also frequent on Roman sepulchral slabs (see examples in H. Leclercq, Arche, in DACL, I, II, cols. 2721-22). N. in the ark was also depicted in the mosaics of the mausoleum of Centcelles in the province of Tarragona (F. Camprubi, I musaici della cupola di Centcelles nella Spagna, in Riv. di arch. crist., 19 [1942], pp. 87-100); and in the basilica of St. Ambrose (V. Forcella and E. Soletti, Iscrizioni crist. di Milano, Codogno 1897, n. 208) and in a basilica of Spain, as is attested by Prudentius in his Dyttochaeum (n. 3). In the Ashburnham Pentateuch, on folio 9 a, the ark is represented on the waves, like a great hooped chest with a door and three closed windows; on folio 10 b the door, the windows and the roof of the ark are open. From the left window N. lets a first raven depart; from the right one a second raven, from the central one he receives the returning dove; from the wide-open door the family, composed of eight persons, is about to come out, and it is also seen above beneath the raised roof of the ark. The animals move away from the ark; on the left N., surrounded by his family, offers the thanksgiving sacrifice (O. von Gebhardt, The miniatures of the Ashburnham Pentateuch, London 1883, pp. 1-5). In the Cotton Codex N. leans out of the window to let the dove depart (British Museum, Cotton 3, 6; E. M. Thompson, Catalogue of ancient manuscripts in the British Museum, I, London 1881, pp. 20-21). In the Vienna Genesis the ark has several stories (Von Hartel and S. Wickhoff, Die Wiener Genesis, Vienna 1895, pl. 4).

Some coins of Apamea in Asia Minor from the times of Septimius Severus, Macrinus and Philip present on their reverses the representation of the open ark, with two persons inside and above it the raven and the dove with the olive branch; on the ark is written NOAH (H. Leclercq, Apamée, in DACL, I, II, cols. 2515-16, figs. 825-27). N.'s ark is also found on the papal coins (v. NUMISMATICA DI ROMA PAPALE, col. 2011).

Enrico Josi