Casting Out The Crow

Per hanc igitur fenestram corvum primum justus emisit. Quaerenda causa, nec tamen latet quantum ad litteram pertinet; quia plerique quasi annuntium futurorum corvum aestimant, et voces ejus observant, volatusque rimantur. Sensus autem altior significat quod mens justi quando mundare se incipit, quae tenebrosa sunt, et immunda, et temeraria primo a se repellit. Siquidem omnis impudentia, atque culpa tenebrosa est, et mortuis pascitur, sicut corvus: lumini autem vicina virtus quae mentis puritate et simplicitate resplendet. Et ideo tamquam emittitur et fugatur culpa, et separatur ab innocentia, ut nihil remaneat in viri justi mente tenebrosum. Denique egressus corvus non revertitur ad justum; quia fugitans omnis culpa est aequitatis, nec probitati videtur et justitiae convenire. Denique evasisse se credit injustus tamquam de vinculis, cum justus ab ejus se consortio separaverit, diluvii cujusdam et corruptelae familiaris, ut corvus qui cum siccitatem terrae nusquam inveniret, non reversus, est, sed remansit. Sanctus Ambrosius Mediolanensis, De Noe et Arca, Caput XVII

Through this window the righteous man first sent the crow. 1 And the reason for this must be sought lest much be hidden which the passage contains, for many yet judge that the crow is some sort of herald of the future, and to the voice of it they attend and the manner of its flight. But this has a higher significance because the mind of the righteous when it begins to clean itself, first casts out of itself that which is dark and unclean and defiling. Certainly all shamelessness and fault is darkness and a feeder on the dead like a crow, but around virtue light shines, and it is resplendent in the pure and simple mind. And therefore the crow is cast out and fault flees and it is separated from innocence, that nothing of darkness remain in the mind of the righteous man. And having departed the crow does not return to the righteous, for every fault is in flight from justice, nor is it seen to associate with the honest and upright, for just as the unrighteous man believes himself to have escaped as from chains when he is removed from the company of the righteous man, so it is with the crow, which is a familiar of the flood and corruption, who when it did not discover dry land did not return but remained. Saint Ambrose, On Noah and the Ark, Chap 17 1 Gen 8.6