One may observe the similar beginnings of the world at its birth and again, after the Flood, of the world as it were reborn, and the benefits bestowed by God on man. For at the beginning of the world God imparted to man newly created three goods — and those great and excellent: first, fecundity of nature for the swift and manifold propagation of the human race, when blessing him He said, “Increase and multiply”; second, excellence of rule and dominion over the animals, “Have dominion,” He says, “over the fishes of the sea and the birds of the air and all the living things that move upon the earth”; third, abundance of food for protecting and sustaining life, “Behold I have given you every herb and all the trees, that they may be for food to you and to all the animals of the earth.” These same three goods and benefits, the world being purified and renewed by the flood, God willed to renew also in those eight men who had escaped the disaster of the flood. The good of fecundity He granted them when, blessing Noah and his sons (as is written at the beginning of this chapter), He said, “Increase and multiply”; the right of commanding the animals, when He added, “And let the fear and dread of you be upon all the animals”; finally food, not only necessary but also convenient and best for nourishing man, when He subjoined, “Everything that moves and lives shall be food for you.” With like benefits, therefore, God endowed man both when He first created him and when He saved him from the destruction of the flood.²

But although those goods were similar in kind in both ages of the world and states of man, yet in species and in degrees of excellence and perfection they were most dissimilar. For in the state of innocence human fecundity would have been such that not only would numerous offspring be generated, but [offspring] perfect alike in mind and in body [though] childlike, and without any labor or trouble of the parents. And man's dominion over the animals would have been altogether quiet and peaceful, with no resistance of the animals and no difficulty for man. Food, moreover, from those things which the earth would have generated of nature's own accord, would not only have been sufficient for nourishing man, but much most healthful and most pleasant, and would have removed from man all need of, or desire for, flesh. But after the flood these goods, mixed with various evils and hardships, were greatly diminished and corrupted. Fecund indeed was man's nature after the flood: but with how great labors, vices, and calamities that fecundity is joined can scarcely be told. Scarcely any of the animals do we command at our pleasure and without labor; the more excellent and nobler we subdue only by art and force and by tricks and terrors. And the more abundant the food given to man after the flood than before, the more cle[arly]…³

…the more clearly it indicates man's greater need, proceeding from the greater frailty of health and weakness of body which befell him after the flood.⁴

And that Moses narrates in this chapter that God twice blessed Noah and his sons and said, “Increase and multiply,” served to make more certain the assurance of the promised fecundity, and that they might in no way doubt that so great a fewness of them would, in the briefest time, be multiplied into a most ample multitude of posterity; which indeed, just as God had promised, so plainly came to pass. For in the time which intervened between the flood and the birth of Abraham — that is, within three hundred years — the human race was propagated so numerously that (on the authority of Ctesias) Diodorus relates, in his third book, that Ninus, founder of the monarchy of the Assyrians (in the forty-third year of whose reign Eusebius makes Abraham to have been born), had in his army seventeen hundred thousand foot, two hundred thousand horse, and scythed chariots a little less than ten thousand six hundred; and that at the same time Zoroaster, king of the Bactrians, about to do battle with Ninus, raised an army of four hundred thousand men. Behold: in the army of only two kings there were more than two million three hundred thousand men.⁵

That phrase, “Let the fear and dread of you be upon all the animals of the earth” (or as it is in Hebrew, “The fear and dread of you shall be upon all the animals”), makes Noah and his sons secure, the fear being removed which they might have conceived — lest, on account of their fewness, destruction or some great harm should befall them from animals so many and so savage. So far is it, says God, from the animals' having to strike fear and dread into you, that you rather shall be formidable and terrible to them; which is said not only of those few men, but of all their posterity: for all animals are held in check and fear man — they dread even his shadow, even his footprints, as Basil proves of fishes and Pliny of elephants — and scarcely any animal, however savage and truculent, attacks man unless either provoked, or driven by hunger, or seized by fear of itself or by some other perturbation. There are many [animals] greater, stronger, swifter, and more strongly armed with the natural weapons of claws, teeth, and horns than man: yet against them all he prevails by two things, intelligence and the hand; for by these he fashions weapons and instruments of every kind, with which he easily conquers all living things and subjects them, to use at his pleasure, to his service.⁶

St. Gregory, from the fact that God said to Noah and his sons, “Let the fear and dread of you be upon all the animals,” argues that he who is set over others ought by no means to wish to be feared by his subjects. For he writes thus in book 21 of the Morals, chapter 11, upon those words of Job chapter 31, “If I have despised to abide judgment with my servant”: “Nature begot all men equal; but, the order of merits varying, a hidden distinction sets some after [other]s…⁷

…sets some after others. But that very diversity which came in from vice is rightly ordered by the divine judgments, so that, since not every man walks the road of life equally, one may be ruled by another. But holy men, when they are set over [others], regard not the power of rank in themselves, but the equality of condition: and they rejoice not to be over men, but to profit them. For significantly God said to Noah and his sons, ‘Let the fear and dread of you be upon all the animals of the earth’: He did not say, ‘upon the men who shall be,’ but ‘upon the animals’: for man is by nature set above the living creatures, but not above men; and therefore it is said to him that he be feared by the animals, but not by men. For it is against nature to be proud — to wish to be feared by equals: although holy men do desire to be feared even by those not subject to them; but then [only], when they perceive that God is by no means feared by them, so that those who do not dread the divine judgments may at least fear to sin through human dread. For in that they exact fear for themselves from those who live perversely, they rule as it were not men but brute animals. But when the vice that should be corrected is absent, they rejoice not in the excellence of power but in the condition of equality: and they shun not only to be feared by them, but even to be honored more than is necessary. For they do not deem it a slight harm of humility that they suffer, if perhaps they are esteemed by them at a higher [rate] on account of the merit of rank.” Thus St. Gregory.⁸