Noah

Oversimplified

• The one righteous man of his generation, saved with his family in the ark through the flood — a new beginning for humanity.
• The Fathers read the ark and the flood-waters as a type of the Church and of Baptism: judgment and salvation in the same water.

His Story

Noah (Hebrew Noach, "rest"), a descendant of Seth through Enoch, lives in a generation so corrupt that "the earth was filled with violence." Yet he is "a righteous man, blameless in his generation," who "walked with God" (Genesis 6.9). Warned of coming judgment, he builds an ark at God's command and is preserved in it with his wife, his three sons, and their wives, together with the animals, while the flood cleanses the earth (Genesis 7). When the waters recede he offers sacrifice, and God sets the rainbow as the sign of an everlasting covenant "never again to destroy the earth by flood" (Genesis 9.11-13). Noah plants a vineyard, fathers the nations anew, and dies at 950 years (Genesis 9.29).

Ark, Flood, and Font

St. Peter reads the flood as a figure of baptism: eight souls were "saved through water," which "baptism, corresponding to this, now saves you" (1 Peter 3.20-21). The ark becomes a standing image of the Church — the vessel of salvation borne over the waters of death.[^1] See The Church, Baptism, Typology in Scripture.

[^1]: Patristic typology reads the ark as the Church and the flood-waters as baptism — judgment and salvation in the same water.