Chapter 6

Noah’s Flood & the Tower of Babel

120 years of Grace

Neither Jerome(1) nor Augustine(2) held that Genesis 6:3 meant that the human life span was reduced to 120 years, because men lived for 200 or 300 years after the flood. Instead they saw it as the length of time that God had allotted for them to repent before He sent his judgement upon them. Jerome mentions that there were some who disagreed with him on this point, one of them being Lactantius.(3)

The Extent of the Flood

Table 6.1: The Opinion of Ancient Writers Concerning the Extent of Noah’s Flood

The evidence from the early church summarised in Table 6.1 is fairly conclusive. It was the unanimous opinion of the Jewish and early Christian writers who wrote on the subject that Noah’s Flood was a global event. In this the fathers cannot be said to be simply parroting the commonly held views of contemporary culture, because many used it to counter the local flood view which was held by all the Greek philosophers (except Xenophanes(4) c.560 - c. 478 BC). The Hellenistic Jew Philo of Alexandria understood Noah’s Flood to be universal, covering all the mountains, islands and continents, destroying all animals and men outside of the ark.(5) However, some of the phrases he uses are regarding the extent of the Flood are ambiguous. He writes, for example, that the flood “...extended almost beyond the pillars of Hercules and the great Mediterranean Sea, since the whole earth and all the spaces of the mountains were covered with water...”(6) Even Davis Young, who believes that the Flood was local, concedes that the phrase used meant that the flood was “tantamount to being universal.”(7) This tells us more about Philo’s limited understanding of the size of the earth than anything else.(8) Philo was emphatic that the Flood was anthropologically universal,(9) and destroyed all plants, animals and buildings (except for one house).(10) The roots and seeds of the plants were not destroyed because they were below the surface of the earth and the Lord promised only to destroy what was on “the face of the earth.”(11)

Theophilus of Antioch (for example) rejected Plato’s argument that Noah’s Flood was local and restricted to the plains, leaving the mountains uncovered. He maintained that it was universal and that only eight people were saved in an Ark, built at God’s command.(12) The Flood would never be repeated. Theophilus accounts for the name Deucalion (the equivalent of Noah in the Greek account of the Flood) by means of a word study:

...Noah, when he announced to the men then alive that there was a flood coming, prophesied to them, saying, Come thither, God calls you to repentance. On this account he was fitly called Deucalion.”(13) [Deucalion, from Deute, “come” andkaleo, “I call”](14)

The Shape of the Ark

Origen of Alexandria wrote fairly extensively on the Flood and so it is worth considering his views in some detail. In his second Homily on Genesis Origen told his congregation that he intended first to relate to them the literal sense of the account of Noah’s Ark, and then “...ascend from the historical account to the mystical and allegorical understanding of the spiritual meaning...”(15) Even in his literal account there are elements not found in the original Hebrew (such as the reference to the construction of ‘nests’ for the animals)(16) which are drawn from Philo of Alexandria.(17) He described the dimensions of the Ark (giving it 5 decks instead of 3) and (again apparently following Philo) thought that the Ark was shaped like a pyramid.(18) The reason for this being that they misunderstood the meaning of the phrase in Genesis 6:16 “finished to a cubit above”, which is better translated “finish the ark within a cubit of the top.” The result of this mistake is bizarre:

In the first place, therefore, we ask what sort of shape and form we should understand the appearance of the ark. I think, to the extent that it is manifest from these things which are described, rising with four angles from the bottom, and the same having been drawn together gradually all the way to the top, it has been brought together into the space of one cubit. For thus it is related that at its bases three hundred cubits are laid down in length, fifty in breadth, and thirty are raised in height, but they are brought together in a narrow peak so that its breadth and length are a cubit.(19)

It did not occur to either Philo or Origen that such an ark would only float upside down! On the contrary, he considered that the pointed top would allow the rain water to flow off more easily and the four corners act like a foundation!(20) Origen refuted the accusation of Apelles, a disciple of the Gnostic Marcion, that the ark was not large enough to hold all the animals. Rather than resorting to allegory he defended the literal meaning by arguing that Moses meant geometrical cubits - equal to 6 ordinary cubits.(21) This argument was later taken up at a later date by Augustine to answer the same challenge.(22) Celsus likewise pours scorn upon the account of the Flood, especially on the dimensions of the Ark. Origen’s answer is that the dimensions stated and the time given to build the Ark were all reasonable and can be taken literally.(23)He makes no reference to 2 Peter 3:3-10 in his discussion of the Flood, possibly because that passage contradicted his eschatology. He believed that the fire of the second great conflagration was to be taken figuratively for the judgement of God consuming the works of men (cf. 1 Cor. 3:13-15).(24) Such an interpretation, however, was not typical of the rest of the church of his day.(25)

The Church fathers on the Flood

Extrabiblical evidence was often referred to by the fathers. Eusebius cites Josephus’ references to Berossus the Chaldee, Hieronymus the Egyptian and Nicolaus of Damascus in support of the biblical account of the Flood.(26) In line with his negative view of pagan culture and learning Lactantius rejected the view that the account of Noah’s flood was borrowed from the Greeks. This could not be the case because the Greek account of the Flood was fatally flawed.

If, therefore, the flood took place for the purpose of the destroying wickedness, which had increased through the excessive multitude of men, how was Prometheus the maker of man, when his son Deucalion is said by the same writers to have been the only one who was preserved on account of his righteousness? How could a single descent and a single generation have so quickly filled the world with men?(27)

This led him to conclude that it was the Greeks who had borrowed and subsequently corrupted the older Genesis record. Augustine held that the account of the Flood was historical, but added that it should also be interpreted allegorically, as referring to Christ and to the Church.(28) He then went on to defend the historicity of the ark and the world-wide extent of the Flood. He concludes:

...no one, however stubborn, will venture to imagine that this narrative was written without an ulterior purpose; and it could not plausibly be said that the events, though historical, have no symbolic meaning, or that the account is not factual, but merely symbolical, or that the symbolism has nothing to do with the Church. No; we must believe that the writing of this historical record had a wise purpose, that the events are historical, that they have a symbolic meaning, and that this meaning gives a prophetic picture of the Church.(29)

Likewise the account of Noah’s family is referred to as a historical narrative which can be interpreted spiritually.(30)

The account of the Flood caused Chrysostom some problems in his sermons. He explained that the references to the ‘floodgates’ of heaven do not mean that there are actually physical sluices in the sky. Rather it was a way of expressing in human terms the promptness with which the waters responded to the divine command “...and inundated the whole world”.(31) Likewise it is pointless trying to work out how God made the flood waters subside. He believed that all such things must simply be taken on faith.(32)

Life in the Ark

A few of the church fathers felt that they had to explain the logistical difficulties raised by a year spent in the Ark. Ephrem the Syrian solved the problem of the storage of water by arguing that the water on the earth was not salty until the seas were gathered together.(33) For John Chrysostom the main question raised was how all those animals managed to survive for so long in such an enclosed space. Imagine the smell! That their survival was achieved by a miracle was the only explanation that he could come up with.(34)

Noah’s Drunkenness

By the third century AD Christian piety demanded certain standards, even from the Old Testament saints. While for Jewish writers like Philo Noah was the archetypal drunk and a warning of the perils of imbibing to excess,(35) the church fathers went to great lengths to excuse or explain his actions. Rabbinic writers even go so far as to claim that Noah fell from grace by planting a vineyard and becoming drunk.(36)

A number of ingenious solutions were proposed. Epiphanius of Salamis excused Noah by suggesting that he was overcome by grief and infirmity caused by old age.(37) Ephrem the Syrian held that Noah did not drink to excess - it had been so long since he had had a drink that he was intoxicated very quickly.(38) John Chrysostom sought to exonerate Noah by claiming that as he had never made or drunk wine before he did not know of its effects!(39) By way of contrast Lactantius was not concerned about vindicating Noah, but rather on demonstrating that he was the inventor of wine, rather than Bacchus.(40)

The Location of The Ark

Table 6.2: The Opinion of Ancient Writers Concerning the Location of the Ark

Other Physical Evidence of the Flood

a) Fossils

Modern young-earth creationist thought centres around the Flood of Noah as the source of the majority of geological formations and especially fossils. It is therefore of some interest to investigate what the ancients made of these structures. “In antiquity the term fossil meant anything dug from the ground, and the distinction between organic fossils and minerals was not clearly made until the modern period.”(41) Among the Greeks it appears to have become common knowledge that fossils were the result of the periodic flooding by the sea.(42) Xenophanes (c. 560- c. 478) is the first writer we know of to suggest this explanation. He believed that several of these floods occurred in the past, each wiping out all of mankind and so implying that they were universal in extent.(43) Later writers referred only to localised instances of flooding. The presence of salt lakes and springs were also noted as evidence cited as evidence of marine transgressions. Herodotus (484 - 430-420 BC) wrote:

Thus I give credit to those from whom I received this account of Egypt, and am myself, moreover, strongly of the same opinion, since I remarked that the country projects into the sea further than the neighbouring shores, and I observed that there were shells upon the hills, and that salt exuded from the soil to such an extent as even to injure the pyramids...(44)

Strabo (b. 64/63 BC - d. after AD 23?), records in his famous Geography (written between 27 BC and AD 14) many of the statements of earlier historians regarding fossils. Erastosthenes (c. 276 - c. 194 BC), Xanthus of Lydia (mid 5th century BC) and Strato (3rd century BC) are all said to have explained fossils as evidence that large areas of land were formerly covered by the sea.(45) Xenophanes, however, appears to have been unique amongst the Greek historians and philosophers in as much as he believed in a universal flood.

Writing over 300 years after Strabo Tertullian was in no doubt that this presence of fossils on the peaks of mountains was evidence that the flood was a world-wide event.

There was a time when her [the earth’s] whole orb, withal underwent mutation, overrun by all waters. To this day marine conchs and tritons’ horns sojourn as foreigners on the mountains, eager to prove to Plato that even the heights have inundated. But withal, by ebbing out, her orb again underwent a formal mutation; another, but the same. Even now her shape undergoes mutations...”(46)

The writings of the early church on fossils give no hint of the part they would later play in calling Mosaic history into question during the eighteenth century.(47)

b) Changed Geography

In his Lectures on Genesis Martin Luther recognised that the flood forever changed the geography of the world. Concerning the four rivers described in Genesis he says:

Therefore one must not imagine that the source of these rivers is the same today as it was at that time; but the situation is the same today as in the case of the earth, which now exists and brings forth trees, herbs, etc. If you compare these with the uncorrupted creation, they are like wretched remnants of that wealth which the earth had when it was created. Thus these rivers remain like ruins, but, to be sure, not in the same place; much less do they have the same sources.(48)

When we read the writings of the early church we find little evidence that the church fathers had any idea that the flood would bring about such dramatic changes. The Jewish historian Josephus wrongly attributed the pillar in the land of Siriad built at the command of Seth (Sesostris) King of Egypt to Seth, the son of Adam.(49) Clearly Josephus assumed that a pillar of stone would have survived the flood. Later Jerome, whilst discussing Origen’s allegorical interpretation of Genesis 1, asserts that the four rivers of Genesis are also meant literally because he himself has drunk from both the Gihon and the Euphrates.(50) Clearly he assumed that the rivers he visited were the same ones that existed before the Flood. One of the few writers who appears to have considered the possibility of a changed geography was Augustine. He rhetorically asks what has now become of the spring of water that waters the whole earth (Gen. 2:6)(51) and in his answer he says that the world has changed since the time of creation.

c) The Credibility of the Evidence

Despite the prominence that ancient accounts of the survival of Noah’s ark on a mountain top somewhere in the Near East there are good reasons for doubting the value of the evidence. It should be noted that none of the church fathers cited actually claimed to have seen the ark for himself. Julius Africanus claims to have seen the two mountains claimed as resting places of the ark, but not the ark itself. Hippolytus seems to actively discourage any search for proof of its survival or, at the very least, attempting to explain why such proof is not forthcoming. Table 6.2illustrates clearly the diversity of opinion in the early church concerning the location of the ark. The locations cited are not only not consistent, but are separated by many hundreds of miles which again undermines the credibility of the sightings.

The stock phrase “to this day” used in several of the accounts is often used etiologically in the Bible to explain to the origin of a present day object or custom. For example, the reason why the town of Beersheba got its name (Genesis 26:33), the origin of Joshua’s pillar (Joshua 4:9) and Absolom’s Monument (2 Samuel 18:18). Josephus and the early church fathers often used the phrase in the same way. Josephus claims, for example, that the pillar of salt that had been Lot’s wife was still visible “to this day” and that he himself had seen it.(52) Clement of Rome(53) and later Irenaeus of Lyons(54) both believed that the pillar still exists (but not that they have seen it themselves), no doubt using him as their source. Other writers have also had reason to question Josephus’ claims supporting his statements. Alberto R. Green, for example, points to Josephus’ statements regarding the building of Solomon’s temple. In this instance Josephus cites a record that he insists exists in the achives of Tyre, but does not say that he has examined it personally.(55)

In the fourth century Cyril of Jerusalem wrote that the stone that sealed Christ’s tomb still stands by the empty tomb in Jerusalem.(56) Dubious as these claims appear they pale in to insignificance next to Augustine’s assertion concerning the survival of Job’s ash-heap (Job 2:8):

The discourse concerning the three young men, and the Babylonian furnace, did, as it would seem, yesterday give no small comfort to your Charity; and still more the example in the case of Job, and that dunghill more to be venerated than any kingly throne. For from seeing a royal throne no advantage results to the spectators, but only a temporary pleasure, which has no profit; but from the sight of Job’s dunghill, one may derive every kind of benefit, yea, much divine wisdom and consolation, in order to patience. Therefore to this day many undertake a long pilgrimage, even across the sea, hastening from the extremities of the earth, as far as Arabia, that they may see that dunghill; and having beheld it, may kiss the land, which contained the wrestling-ground of such a victor, and received the blood that was more precious than all gold!(57)

Such claims would seem to further undermine the credibility of the early church fathers as unbiased witnesses to physical evidence used in support of their faith. Finally, it should be noted that nowhere in Scripture does it say that any of the above objects, the Ark of Noah included, have survived. The fact that the cannot be found today therefore does not disprove anything.

The Repopulation of the Earth

Among the modern challenges to the idea of a global flood is that of how certain species of plants and animals spread out from one location into the habitats in which we find them today. As far as I am aware only one Christian writer in antiquity attempted to answer a similar problem. When it came to filling that Ark with animals Augustine saw no problem because he believed that Noah did not need to catch them, because they came to him at God’s command.(58) The redistribution of the animals in the ark to the remote islands did cause him some difficulty. He made several suggestions: some arrived by swimming, some were taken by men in ships, others could have been transported by angels. His final solution involves the animals being spontaneously generated from the earth in their new locations - as they were in the beginning (he says). Therefore, Augustine wrote

...all species were in the ark not so much for the purpose of restoring the animal population as with a view of typifying the various nations, thus presenting a symbol of the Church. This must be the explanation, if the earth produced many animals on islands to which they could not cross.(59)

The Tower of Babel

As far as we can tell from their surviving comments the early church fathers accepted the account of Babel as a historical event, although for the most part they simply quoted the text without commenting on it in any detail. One of the church’s opponents, Celsus, claimed in the second century that the account of the Tower of Babel was a corrupted version of the Greek story of the sons of Aloeus, Otus and Ephialtes, recorded by Homer (c. 8th century BC).

And after her I saw Iphimedeia, wife of Aloeus, who declared that she had lain with Poseidon. She bore two sons, but short of life were they, godlike Otus, and far-famed Ephialtes - men whom the earth, the giver of grain, reared as the tallest, and far the comliest, after the famous Orion. For at nine years they were nine cubit in breadth and in height nine fathoms. Yea, and they threatened to raise the din of furious war against the mortals in Olympus. They were fain to pile Ossa on Olympus, and Pelion, with its waving forests, on Ossa, that so heaven might be scaled. And this they would have accomplished, if they had reached the measure of manhood; but the son of Zeus, whom fair-haired Leto bore, slew them both before the down blossomed beneath their temples and covered their chins with a growth of beard.”(60)

Origen countered Celsus’ argument with the (now familiar) claim that as Moses antedated Homer then Moses’ account of the confusion of tongues must be the original one.(61) Eusebius called upon extrabiblical evidence in support of the account of the confusion of languages, citing Josephus, Abydenus and the Sibylline Oracles.(62)

It appears to have been generally accepted that Babel resulted in the division of mankind into 72 language groups, being the number of post-flood chieftains.(63) Augustine referred to Genesis 11 on numerous occasions and clearly held the majority view that all the languages of the world are explained by the events at Babel:

We now see that from these three men, Noah’s sons, seventy-three nations - or rather seventy-two, as a calculation will show - and as many languages came into being on the earth, and by their increase they filled even the islands. However, the number of nations increased at a greater rate than the languages. For even in Africa we know of many barbarous nations using only one language.(64)

If there was only one language before Babel, what was it. Augustine view seems to change one this subject. In his Literal Commentary on Genesis he wrote:

We know, of course, that there was originally just one language before man in his pride built the tower after the flood and caused human society to be divided according to different languages. And whatever the original language was, what point is there in trying to discover it? (65)

By the time he wrote the City of God he had changed his mind and become convinced that Hebrew was the original language of man,(66) the position held by the majority.(67) There were those who stood against this position. Gregory of Nyssa, for example, argued that Hebrew was a recent language and rejected any notion that it might be the language of God Himself.(68) Finally, it is worth noting that Augustine understood the dividing of the earth (Genesis 10:25) as being caused by the diversity of languages arising after Babel.(69)

© 1998, 1999 Robert I. Bradshaw

References

(1) Jerome, Hebrew, 6.3 (Hayward, 37). Italics in original.

(2) Augustine, City, 15.24 (Bettenson, 642).

(3) Lactantius, Institutes, 2.14 (ANF, Vol. 7, 63).

(4) Adrian J. Desmond, “The Discovery of Marine Transgressions and the Explanation of Fossils in Antiquity,” American Journal of Science, Vol. 275 (June 1975): 699.

(5) Philo, Abraham, 41-44 (Yonge, 414).

(6) Philo, Q & A Gen., 2.28 (Yonge, 823-824).

(7) Davis A. Young, The Biblical Flood: A Case Study of the Church’s Response to Extrabiblical Evidence. (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans / Carlisle: The Paternoster Press, 1995), 12.

(8) Jack P. Lewis, A Study of the Interpretation of Noah and the Flood in Jewish and Christian Literature. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1968), 48.

(9) Philo, Moses 2.60 (Yonge, 496).

(10) Philo, Abraham, 45-46 (Yonge, 414-415).

(11) Philo, Q & A Gen. 2.15 (Yonge, 820).

(12) Theophilus, Autolycus, 3.18-19 (ANF, Vol. 2, 116-117).

(13) Theophilus, Autolycus, 3.19 (ANF, Vol. 2, 116-117).

(14)ANF, Vol. 2, 116, n. 8.

(15) Origen, Genesis, 2.1 (Heine, 72).

(16) Origen, Genesis, 2.1 (Heine, 72-73); cf. Philo, Q & A Gen. 2.3 (C.D. Yonge, The Works of Philo [Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1993], 814).

(17) Like Origin, Philo relied on a Greek translation and did not refer to the Hebrew Text.

(18) Cf. Philo, Q & A Gen. 2.5 (Yonge, 815).

(19) Origen, Genesis, 2.1 (Heine, 72-73).

(20) Origen, Genesis, 2.1 (Heine, 75).

(21) Origen, Genesis, 2.2 (Heine, 76-77).

(22) Augustine, City, 15.27; St. Augustine, Concerning the City of God Against the Pagans, trans. Henry Bettenson, 1972. (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1984), 646.

(23) Origen, Celsus, 4.41 (ANF, Vol. 4, 516).

(24) Origen, Celsus, 4.13 (ANF, Vol. 4, 502).

(25) Lewis, 171-172.

(26) Eusebius, Preparation, 9.10-11 (Gifford, Part 1, 445-446).

(27) Lactantius, Institutes, 2.11 (ANF, Vol. 7, 59).

(28) Augustine, City, 15.27 (Bettenson, 645).

(29) Augustine, City, 15.27 (Bettenson, 648).

(30) Augustine, City, 16.2 (Bettenson, 652).

(31) John Chrysostom, Genesis, 25.10 (Hill, 131-132).

(32) John Chrysostom, Genesis, 26.11 (Hill, 152).

(33) Ephrem the Syrian, Genesis, 1.10.2; 11.2 St. Ephrem The Syrian, Selected Prose Works: Commentary on Genesis, Commentary on Exodus, Homily on Our Lord, Letter to Publius, trans. Edward G. Mathews, Jr. & Joseph P. Amar. Kathleen McVey, ed. (Washington, D.C.: The Catholic University of America Press, 1994), 82-83.

(34) John Chrysostom, Genesis, 25.14 (Hill, 134-135).

(35) Philo, On Drunkeness, 4. C.D. Yonge, The Works of Philo (Peabody, Mass.: Hendrickson, 1993), 207.

(36) Louis Ginzberg, The Legends of the Jews, Vol. 1. (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society of America, 1925), 167-168.

(37) Epiphanius, Panarion, 43.3.8; Frank Williams, Translator, “The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis,” Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, Vol. 36. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994), 130.

(38) Ephrem the Syrian, Genesis, 7.1-2. (Mathew, Amar & McVey, 144).

(39) John Chrysostom, Genesis, 29.9 (Hill, 204-205); Chase, 53.

(40) Lactantius, Institutes, 2.14 (ANF, Vol. 7, 63).

(41) Francis C. Haber, The Age of the World: Moses to Darwin. (Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1959), 41.

(42) W.K.C. Guthrie, A History of Greek Philosophy, Vol. 1. (Cambridge: CUP, 1962), 387, n. 2.

(43) Adrian J. Desmond, “The Discovery of Marine Transgressions and the Explanation of Fossils in Antiquity,” American Journal of Science, Vol. 275 (June 1975): 698-699.

(44) Herodotus, History 2.12

(45) Strabo, Geography, 1.3.4 (translated by Horace Leonard Jones, “The Geography of Strabo,” LCL, Vol. 1. (London: William Heinemann, 1917), 181-187.

(46) Tertullian, Pallium, 2 (ANF, Vol. 4, 6)

(47) Haber, 105-115.

(48) Martin Luther, “Lectures on Genesis, Chapters 1-5,” Jaroslav Pelikan, ed. Luther’s Works, Vol. 1. (St. Louis, Missouri: Concordia Publishing House, 1958), 99.

(49) Josephus, Antiquities, 1.2.3 (1.71).

(50) Jerome, Letter, 51.5 (NPNF, 2nd series, Vol. 6, 86).

(51) Augustine, Literal 5.7.20 (Taylor, No. 41, 158).

(52) Josephus, Antiquities, 1.11.4 (1.203). Josephus likewise claims that a tower built by Daniel in Ecbebana, Media still exists "to thios day". See 10.11.7 (10.264).

(53) Clement of Rome, First Epistle 11 (ANF, Vol. 1, 8).

(54) Irenaeus, Heresies 4.31 (ANF, Vol. 1, 504).

(55) Josephus, Against Apion 1.107-108; Alberto R. Green, David’s Relations with Hiram: Biblical and Josephan Evidence for Tyrian Chronology. Carol.L. Myers & M. O’Connor (eds.), The Word of the Lord Shall Go Forth: Essays in Honor of DavidNoel Freedman on his Sixtieth Birthday. (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 1983), 381.

(56) Cyril of Jerusalem, Catechetical, 13.39; 14.32 (NPNF, 2nd series, Vol. 7, 93, 100).

(57) Augustine, Homily 5.1 (NFNF, 1st Series, Vol. 9, 371).

(58) Augustine, City, 15.27 (Bettenson, 647).

(59) Augustine, City, 16.7 (Bettenson, 661).

(60) Homer, Odyssey, 11.305-320; Trans. A.T. Murray, LCL, Vol. 1. (London: William Heinemann, 1969), 409.

(61) Origen, Celsus, 4.21 (ANF, Vol. 4, 505); cf. Origen, Celsus, 5.29 (ANF, Vol. 4., 555-556).

(62) Eusebius, Preparation, 9.11 (Gifford, Part 1, 447-448).

(63) Epiphanius, Panarion, 2.2.8-11; Frank Williams, Translator, “The Panarion of Epiphanius of Salamis,” Nag Hammadi and Manichaean Studies, Vol. 35. (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1994), 16; Hippolytus, On the Psalms, 9 (ANF, Vol. 5, 202). One source argued that there were only 70 languages - the number of Israelites who entered Egpyt. Pseudo-Clementine Homilies 18.4 (ANF, Vol. 8, 325).

(64) Augustine, City, 16.6 (Bettenson, 660).

(65) Augustine, Literal 9.12.20 (Taylor, No. 42, 84).

(66) Augustine, City, 16.11 (Bettenson, 667-670).

(67) Origen, Celsus, 5.30 (ANF, Vol. 4, 556); Jerome, Letter 18 (NPNF, 2nd series, Vol. 6, 22); Pseudo-Clementine Recognitions 1.30; 4.28 (ANF, Vol. 8, 85, 141).

(68) Gregory of Nyssa, Answer of Eunomius’ Second Book (NFNF, 2nd series, Vol. 5, 276).

(69) Augustine, City 16.9 (Bettenson, 664).