NOAH (Hebrew Nôah, Septuagint Nôs; cf. ancient Babi-
lonian 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 (q.v.), which occurred when he was 600 years old (ibid. 7:6), he received from God the command to build, according to specific measurements and design, the ark, in which he saved himself with his family and one or more pairs of every kind of animal.
In this aspect of the “hero of the flood,” Noah corresponds to those who survived similar general punishments inflicted by the deity upon humanity, as recounted in ancient mythologies, especially the Sumerian Ziusudra (the Σιουδρος) of
Berosso [q.v.]), from whom
the Utnapishtim of the
epic of Gilgamesh
(tablet XI) derives. There are,
however, notable differences; for
example, with regard to the
Babylonian myth: after the
flood, Utnapishtim becomes
immortal and is transported to
the blessed islands with the gods,
whereas Noah 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 Noah
is saved because he is just: a point
frequently
emphasized in subsequent biblical references to him.
After the flood, on the occasion of a sacrifice offered by the survivors as a sign of gratitude, God made a first promise never again to inflict upon the human race a punishment like that one (Gen 8:21–22), a promise that God more solemnly confirmed some time later by stipulating with Noah and his descendants a “covenant” (ibid. 9:8–17; cf. Is 54:9), which set a divine seal upon Noah’s role as the new progenitor of the human race; in it God renewed and expanded certain provisions already given to the first man Adam (cf. Gen 1:28 with 9:1–7: the development of hunting and the carnivorous regime in the new historical phase of civilization). To Noah’s three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Gen 10:1–32 links all the peoples that enter into his vision of humanity, roughly Asia Minor with Shem, southeastern Europe with Japheth, and North-Eastern Africa, including the Canaanite territory, with Ham.
After the flood falls the episode of Ham’s (q.v.) lack of respect toward his father, who had fallen asleep in a drunken stupor, more from inexperience than anything else, and the consequent curse pronounced by Noah upon Canaan (q.v.), son of Ham, and the blessing upon Shem and Japheth (Gen 9:18–27). A historical-ethnic significance attaches to the curse upon the Canaanites (now extinct), which one is not authorized to extend to all “Hamites,” and to the blessings upon Shem and Japheth: in the latter case, however, the patriarch’s words clearly also enter into the history of messianism (Gen 9:26–27), alluding to the acceptance by Japheth, demographically more widespread, of the religion of Shem.
In that episode, of general historical importance is the notice of the beginning, with Noah, of viticulture, a symbolic expression of the development and perfection of agricultural civilization. Perhaps with this aspect of Noah as an expert viticulturist, tradition wished, according to the well-known method of assonance, to connect the etymology of the name: it is in fact read that at the birth of the child his father “called him Nôah, saying: This one shall give us relief (verb nîham) from our work and the toil of our hands because of the ground, which has been cursed (Gen 3:17) by God” (ibid. 5:29); an allusion to the restorative effect of wine and to new methods of agriculture.
In biblical tradition Noah was praised as “just” (Ezek 14:14, 20), “the hope of the world,” who through trust in God preserved the human race (Wis 14:6), “a renewer in the time of destruction” (Sir 44:17–18), a model of faith (Heb 11:7), “a herald of the justice” that God punishes in universal corruption (2 Pet 2:5). He is also recognized as an image of Christ in the hope that his birth brought, the virtues that he practiced,
In funerary art, Noah represents the deceased and thus has a meaning of the desire for salvation, as the patriarch was saved from the flood. Indeed, in a Lateran sarcophagus (dated 236), belonging to a woman named Iuliana, in the ark instead of the patriarch is the deceased woman praying. On the floor of the synagogue discovered beneath the church of SS. Cosmas and Damian in Gerasa is represented the scene of Noah together with his family and the animals exiting the ark after the flood (F. M. Biebel, *Mosaics in Gerasa City of the Decapolis*, New Haven 1938, pp. 207–351). This scene is also found in a sarcophagus from Trier, whose façade depicts a large open chest inside which is Noah with his wife, his three sons and their wives, quadrupeds and birds; outside, flying high is the dove with the olive branch, while the raven stands on the ground (E. Le Blant, *Les sarcophages chrétiens de la Gaule*, Paris 1886, pl. 3, 1). The scene of Noah in the ark is also found in not a few funerary glass vessels (R. Garrucci, *Storia dell’arte cristiana*, III, Prato 1873–80, pl. 169–202) and in terracotta lamps. The ark from which Noah reaches out toward the dove returning in flight with the olive branch in its beak or claws is also frequent on Roman sepulchral slabs (q.V. examples in H. Leclercq, *Arche*, in DACL, I, II, cols. 2721–22). Noah in the ark was also depicted in the museums of the mausoleum of Centcelles in the province of Tarragona (F. Camprubi, *I musei 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. Seletti, *Iscrizioni crist. di Milano*, Codogno 1897, no. 208) and in a basilica in Spain, as attested by Prudentius in his *Dittothecum* (no. 3). In the *Pentateuch* of Ashburnham on folio 9 the ark is depicted on the waves, as a large chest bound with a door and three closed windows; on folio 10b the door, the windows, and the roof of the ark are open. From the window on the left Noah sends out a first raven; from the one on the right a second raven; from the central one he receives the returning dove; from the wide-open door the family of eight persons is about to emerge, which is also seen above under the raised roof of the ark. The animals depart from the ark; on the left Noah, surrounded by his family, offers a sacrifice of thanksgiving (O. von Gebhardt, *The miniatures of the Ashburnham Pentateuch*, London 1883, pp. 1–5). In the Codex Cottonianus Noah leans out of the window to send forth the dove (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 multiple levels (Von Hartel and S. Wickhoff, *Die Wiener Genesis*, Vienna 1895, pl. 4).
Some coins from Apamea in Asia Minor from the time of Septimius Severus, Macrinus, and Philip display on their reverses the representation of the open ark, with two people inside and above it the raven and the dove with the olive branch; inside the ark is written NQE (H. Leclercq, *Apamee*, in DACL, I, II, cols. 2515–10, figs. 825–27). The ark of Noah is also found on papal coins (q.V. *NUMISMATICA DI ROMA* papale, cols. 2011).