Part 285

bitter, is healing in its bitterness and gives life by causing death. Such soothing words serve to console us that we may learn to despise death and other perils and meet them with greater readiness. 96. Satan, also, has his cup; but it is sweet, and inebriates unto nausea. He who, attracted by its sweetness, drinks it, loses his life and dies the eternal death. Such was the cup the Babylonians drained, as the prophet has it (Jer 25,15-27). Let us, therefore, accept the cup of salvation with thanksgiving, and, as Paul declares of believers, rejoice in tribulation (Rom 5,3). 97. Having explained this figure of the ark and the meaning of the flood according to the canonical Scriptures, we will say something also about the other features of this story — about the raven which did not return, and the doves, the first of which returned because she found no resting-place for her foot, while the second brought back with her a twig from an olive tree, and the third did not return because the earth was no more covered by water. 98. In our treatise on the narrative proper, we stated that these things occurred to be a consolation for Noah and his sons; to assure them that God's wrath had passed and that he was now pacified. The dove did not bring the olive branch of her own volition. She miraculously obeyed divine power. So the serpent in paradise spoke, not of its own volition, but through the inspiration of the devil, who had taken possession of it. As, on that occasion, the serpent, by the devil's prompting, spoke, with the result that man was led into sin, so, on this occasion, it was not its own volition or instinct which moved the dove to bring the olive branch, but the prompting of God, in order that Noah might gain comfort from the pleasant sight. For the olive does not supply the dove with food; she prefers the several species of wheat or pease. 99. The incident of the dove, then, is a miraculous occurrence with a definite meaning. Th