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ℹ️ The Chinese and English alongside are this site's own translation, made directly from the original text on this page (not the CUV or the WEB, which follow the Masoretic Text and a different textual tradition).
But those who contend that these were not deeds done, but only figures of things to be signified, first suppose that so great a flood could not have come to pass, such that by growing it rose fifteen cubits above the highest mountains, on account of the peak of Mount Olympus, above which they maintain that clouds cannot form, because the sky is already so lofty there that that thicker air is not there where winds, mists, and rains are generated; nor do they consider that the earth, thickest of all the elements, could have been there. Or perhaps do they deny that the peak of a mountain is earth?
Why then do they contend that it was permitted for lands to be exalted even to those spaces of the sky, but that it was not permitted for waters to be exalted, when these very measurers and weighers of the elements maintain that waters are higher and lighter than lands? What reason therefore do they bring forward why the heavier and lower earth should have invaded the place of the more tranquil sky through the rolling of so many years, but the lighter and higher water should not have been permitted to reach thither even for a brief time? They say also that the capacity of that ark could not have held so many kinds of animals in both sexes, two of the unclean, seven of the clean.
These men seem to me to reckon nothing but three hundred cubits of length and fifty of breadth, and not to consider that there was just as much again in the upper stories, and likewise just as much again in the upper of the upper stories, and that thereby, those cubits being multiplied by three, they come to nine hundred by a hundred and fifty. But if we consider what Origen not inelegantly propounded — namely that Moses, a man of God, learned, as it is written, in all the wisdom of the Egyptians, who cherished geometry, could have signified geometric cubits, where one, they assert, is worth as much as six of ours — who would not see how great a quantity of things that magnitude could hold?
For as to that which they argue — that an ark of such great magnitude could not have been put together — they most ineptly cavil, since they know that immense cities have been built, and they do not consider the hundred years during which that ark was fabricated. Unless perhaps stone can adhere to stone joined only by lime, so that a wall is carried around for so many miles, but wood cannot adhere to wood by dovetail-joints, tenons, nails, and the glue of bitumen, so that an ark be fabricated stretched far and wide not with curved but with straight lines, which no effort of men shall launch into the sea, but the wave shall lift up when it comes, by the natural order of weights, and shall steer it as it floats — by divine providence rather than human prudence — lest it run into shipwreck anywhere.
But as to what is wont to be inquired most scrupulously concerning the tiniest little creatures — not only such as are mice and lizards, but even such as locusts, beetles, flies, and finally fleas — whether they were not in that ark in a greater number than that which was fixed when God commanded this: those whom these things trouble must first be admonished that what was said is to be understood thus. 'The things which creep upon the earth,' so that it was not necessary that those be preserved in the ark which can live in the waters — not only submerged, like fishes, but even floating on the surface, like many winged creatures. Then, when it is said, 'Male and female they shall be,' it is assuredly understood to be said for restoring the race;
and thereby it was not necessary that those be there which can be born without coupling, from various things or from the corruptions of things; or, if they were there, as they are wont to be in houses, they could have been there without any fixed number. Or if the most sacred mystery which was being enacted, and the figure of so great a matter, could not otherwise be fulfilled even in the truth of the deed, except that all should be there in that certain number, this was not the care of that man, or of those men, but divine. For Noah did not bring them in captured, but permitted them as they came and entered. For to this end avails what was said: 'They shall enter in unto thee' — not, that is, by the act of man, but by the nod of God;
so indeed, that those which lack sex are not to be believed to have been there. For it was prescribed and defined: 'Male and female they shall be.' There are indeed some which are so born from various things without coupling that afterwards they couple and beget, like flies; but others in which there is nothing of male and female, like bees. Furthermore, those which so have sex that they do not have offspring, like mules of either kind — it would be a wonder if they were there, and it did not rather suffice that their parents were there, namely the equine and asinine kind; and if there are any others which by the mingling of a different kind beget some kind. But if this too pertained to the mystery, they were there. For this kind too has male and female.
It is also wont to trouble not a few, regarding the kinds of food which those animals could have there which are thought to feed on nothing but flesh — whether they were there beyond the number, without transgression of the command, being forced to be shut in there by the necessity of nourishing others; or rather — which is more to be believed — whether, besides flesh, there could have been some foods which would suit all. For we know how many animals whose food is flesh feed on grains and fruits, and especially on figs and chestnuts. What wonder therefore, if that wise and just man, admonished also divinely as to what was suitable for each, prepared and stored up for each kind, without flesh, a fitting nourishment? For what is there upon which hunger would not compel one to feed?
or what could God not make pleasant and wholesome — he who could even grant, by divine facility, that they should live without food, unless it were fitting, for the fulfilling of the figure of so great a mystery, that they should also be fed? But that so manifold signs of deeds done do not pertain to the prefiguring of the Church, no one is permitted to suppose, unless he be contentious. For now the nations have so filled the Church, both the clean and the unclean, until the sure end be reached, that they are held together by a certain framework of its unity, so that from this one most manifest instance it is not lawful to doubt even concerning the others, which are said somewhat more obscurely and can be recognized with more difficulty.
Since these things are so, no one, even the hard-hearted, will dare to think either that these things were written in vain, nor can it probably be said that they signify nothing since they were done, nor that they were only significative sayings and not deeds, nor that they are alien to the signifying of the Church; but rather it must be believed both that they were wisely committed to memory and to letters, and that they were done, and that they signify something, and that this very something pertains to the prefiguring of the Church. Now, having been brought up to this point, this book is to be closed, so that the course of both cities — namely the earthly, living according to man, and the heavenly, living according to God — may be traced after the flood and thenceforward in the things that follow.