The Septuagint translation, lately corrected at Rome, has thus: “Cursed be the boy Canaan”; which reading Chrysostom and Augustine also followed. If we embrace this reading, we must not doubt that Canaan was already born at the time Noah spoke these words: for, had he not been born, Noah would not have called him by his proper name and noted his boyish age. But although we do not read the word “boy” (which neither the Hebrew nor the Chaldaic nor the Latin have), nevertheless it is probable that Canaan was by then born: for how would Noah have cursed one not yet born? I know that Origen, Ambrose, and Rupert thought the contrary. But to me what I have said is more like the truth. And so what Moses here narrates of Noah's drunkenness and the curse of Canaan happened at least ten years after the flood, since Canaan was then already a boy and had three other brothers older in birth. Moreover that word, “cursed,” as Theodoret and others interpret, does not contain a wish and imprecation of evil, but a prophetic prediction of the things that were to come upon his posterity. Nor is the verb “be” to be understood, but the verb “is” or “will be,” in this sense: “He is cursed,” namely in his posterity, according to God's eternal predestination and ordination; or, “He will be cursed,” namely in his own time, at which time God's ordination will come to effect. This exposition is helped by what is next subjoined: “A servant of servants shall he be to his brothers.”²

But if anyone should altogether wish Noah's speech to contain an imprecation of evil, that interpretation too has a very good sense. For Noah imprecates evil upon his [grand]son not from impatience of the injury received from him, nor from ardor of vengeance, but from the most holy zeal of justice. Namely, he imprecates upon him an evil merited and due to his crimes; and not without the prompting and inspiration of God, whose will and decree this was, as he was not ignorant. And the blessing and curse of a father has great force for the good and evil of children. Wherefore a father's blessing is vehemently to be desired, his curse to be dreaded. For it is written: “The blessing of the father establishes the houses of the children, but the curse roots up the foundations.”³

But two questions arise here, not to be passed over: of which the first is, why was not Cham, who had sinned, cursed, but Chanaan his son? To this it can be variously answered. First, because Chanaan first of all saw Noah's nakedness and baseness, mocked it, and told it to his father; therefore Noah rightly laid his curse chiefly upon him. This is the opinion of the Hebrews, which Theodoret recounts not without assent, and Cajetan plainly approves. Next, that the magnitude of Cham's crime might be more expressly shown — which had been so great that it deserved to be punished not in himself only, but even in his son and his posterity. Besides, if [Cham] had been cursed…⁴

…Cham, his curse would have seemed to pertain to his whole posterity, whereas that curse comprehended only the posterity to be propagated through his son Chanaan, and not through the other three sons Chus, Mesrain, and Phut. Besides, since God had blessed all the sons of Noah when they came out of the ark, Noah would not have dared to curse any of them, thinking it wicked that he should assign a curse to one to whom God had imparted His blessing. This reason Chrysostom and Theodoret touched on.⁵

St. Ambrose brings forward three reasons: one, that the grief of Cham might be the sharper, understanding that on account of his crime his son too (whom he loved uniquely as the youngest in birth and most like himself in disposition and character), and indeed even his posterity, would be punished with the penalty of a most base servitude. The second, that Chanaan — both by his own crimes (for he was most wicked) and by the imitation of his father's impiety and malice — was most worthy of such a curse. The third, that the gravity of Cham's sin might be more openly declared, whose penalty was ended not in himself only, but extended even to his posterity. To these add that Noah saw by the prophetic spirit that the posterity of Cham to be generated from his son Chanaan — I mean the nation of the Canaanites — would be most wicked and most impious, and therefore hateful to God, accursed and execrable and to be exterminated from their seats; but that those who were left would be made subject to the service of the posterity of Sem (that is, to the Hebrews). This, I say, when Noah had seen by the prophetic spirit, following God's sentence, he heaped his curse chiefly upon Chanaan, the parent of the Canaanites.⁶