Bad Advertisement?
Are you a Christian?
Online Store:Visit Our Store
| Chapter XLI PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP
Chapter XLI.
After this he continues as follows:
“They speak, in the next place, of a deluge, and of a
monstrous3875 ark, having within
it all things, and of a dove and a crow3876 as
messengers, falsifying and recklessly altering3877
3877 παραχαράττοντες
καὶ
ῥᾳδιουργοῦντες. |
the story of Deucalion; not expecting, I suppose, that these things
would come to light, but imagining that they were inventing stories
merely for young children.” Now in these remarks observe
the hostility—so unbecoming a philosopher—displayed by this
man towards this very ancient Jewish narrative. For, not being
able to say anything against the history of the deluge, and not
perceiving what he might have urged against the ark and its
dimensions,—viz., that, according to the general opinion, which
accepted the statements that it was three hundred cubits in length, and
fifty in breadth, and thirty in height, it was impossible to maintain
that it contained (all) the animals that were upon the earth, fourteen
specimens of every clean and four of every unclean beast,—he
merely termed it “monstrous, containing all things within
it.” Now wherein was its “monstrous” character,
seeing it is related to have been a hundred years in building, and to
have had the three hundred cubits of its length and the fifty of its
breadth contracted, until the thirty cubits of its height terminated in
a top one cubit long and one cubit broad? Why should we not
rather admire a structure which resembled an extensive city, if its
measurements be taken to mean what they are capable of
meaning,3878
3878 τῷ δυνάμει
λέγεσθαι τὰ
μέτρα. | so that it was nine
myriads of cubits long in the base, and two thousand five hundred in
breadth?3879
3879 [This question, which
is little short of astounding, illustrates the marvellous reach and
play of Origen’s fancy at times. See note supra, p.
262. S.] | And why
should we not admire the design evinced in having it so compactly
built, and rendered capable of sustaining a tempest which caused a
deluge? For it was not daubed with pitch, or any material of that
kind, but was securely coated with bitumen. And is it not a
subject of admiration, that by the providential arrangement of God, the
elements of all the races were brought into it, that the earth might
receive again the seeds of all living things, while God made use of a
most righteous man to be the progenitor of those who were to be born
after the deluge?E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
|