THE TOWER OF BABEL BOOK I.

Chapter II. Since nothing is more suited to the multiplication of mankind than an abundance of nourishment, without which they could not endure life, Noah—compelled by necessity—first of all taught his sons the method of cultivating the fields. He did this through the knowledge divinely infused into him (as we have previously shown regarding the construction of the Ark). Just as he had acted as a provident steward Latin: oeconomus, a household manager or provider before the Flood in gathering the necessary things for the use of the animals and the maintenance of the Ark, so too after the Flood, he spared no labor in cultivating his descendants and instructing them in the use of necessary things. As they were to fill the entire face of the orb through their migrations, they would propagate to posterity the methods and principles they had received as a wealthy inheritance—a successive tradition of arts flowing from Noah.

The necessity of the blacksmith's art and others. Furthermore, since they required other arts to subdue the earth for the exercise of agriculture, he trained his sons primarily in the Blacksmith’s art Latin: Ferraria arte. This was knowledge he had either drawn from the divine or had learned before the Flood from Tubal-cain, the master smith in every kind of iron and brass (as is held in Genesis Chapter IV). He fashioned tools not from native mountain mines—which at that time could not yet be worked—but from the iron implements he had brought with him into the Ark for this very purpose. These would have included plowshares, sickles, saws, grappling hooks, axes, knives, and the like. We also judge that he handed down the art of pottery, or the plastic art, by which jars, pots, bowls, and similar items for domestic use were fashioned from clay. The necessity of the builder's art. To protect themselves against storms and other injuries of the air, he prescribed the rules for building huts, cottages, and houses, just as he had seen and built before the Flood. The necessity of agriculture. Moreover, he brought into the Ark every kind of legume, as well as the seeds of wheat, emmer, and winter-wheat for farming, so that after the Flood, by the occasion of present necessity, he could live by immediately fertilizing the fields with seed. For how could that most provident steward have had seeds ready at hand if he had not carried them into the Ark with him? The entire earth was covered in filth and mud, and for several years could have produced none of these things. I wish the same to be understood regarding the planting of fruit-bearing trees and vineyards. For no sensible person could conceive how they could have lived for even the space of a single year without fruits, without bread, without meat, eggs, and the other supports for sustaining human life. Noah had foreseen that all these things would be necessary after the Flood; he knew that because of the grim and mournful face of the earth, all these things would be lacking. Hence, perhaps at the dictation of God himself, for the necessary requirements of a world being born anew, he carried with him into the Ark the seeds of all things, agricultural instruments, the shoots of fruit-bearing trees, and clusters of vines, so that he might use them for the benefit of men and animals without further delay.

The care and diligence of the wives. And while Noah taught these things to his sons, the care of matters proper to the female sex was left (if it is permitted to conjecture) to the wives. For these he prescribed the rules for sowing flax for the supply of clothing, soaking it in water, combing it into tow, and then spinning and weaving; he also gave instruction in the art of wool-working. Furthermore, he assigned them to the raising of hens and chicks for the procurement of eggs, and finally to every refinement of domestic service. In this way, these first colonies of mortals after the Flood most industriously put into execution what they had learned from Noah; and they, in turn, taught their descendants the various modes of living entrusted to them, as we shall demonstrate in the following pages.