About the number of the parts of the Ark — namely, how many there were in it — there arises the first question to be treated by us. Philo, toward the end of the second book On the Life of Moses, seems to have made four such parts of the Ark, which he names ‘floorings.’ For he writes thus: ‘Noah built a very great work of timber, three hundred cubits in length, fifty in breadth, thirty in height, distinguished by continuous cells, some lowest, others arranged in the second and in the third and fourth flooring.’ The same Josephus signifies, in the first book of the Antiquities: ‘Noah,’ he says, ‘built an ark of four floorings; and the ark was firm, both in roof and in sides, against all the force of storms and the assault of the waves.’ But to the use of what things each of those floorings was destined, neither Philo nor Josephus indicated.²

Origen makes those parts of the Ark five, distinguishing them thus and designating them for various uses: one he makes the lowest, near the base of the Ark, into which place were thrown the excrement and filth of the whole Ark; in the second, which was above this, were stored the fodder and food of all the animals; in the third dwelt the beasts that were wild and untamed; in the fourth, the gentler animals, both quadrupeds and creeping things and birds; in the fifth and highest, men and birds. Origen’s words, in the second homily on this sixth chapter of Genesis, are these: ‘Now within, the parts called the lower parts of the ark are placed “two-chambered,” that is, containing a double habitation; but the upper, “three-chambered,” as if we should say distinguished by triple upper-rooms. And these distinctions of habitations are said to have been made for this: that the different animals or kinds of beasts might more easily be separated in their several lodgings, and the tame and harmless be set apart from the wild beasts. It has been handed down to us, and not without probability, that the lower parts, which we called two-chambered, were double in this manner. For because the animals were a whole year in the ark, it was necessary to provide them food for the whole year; and not food only, but also to assign places for their droppings, that neither the animals themselves nor the men might at the same time be troubled by the stench. They relate, then, that the lowest part of the ark, which was in the bottom, was destined for receiving such filth and excrement; but that which was above this pertained to the keeping of fodder. For it seemed necessa-…’³

…ry that, for the beasts carnivorous by their nature, animals should be separately introduced into the ark and assigned for their food and the preserving of their life, for the sake of repairing posterity; but for the other, non-carnivorous animals, other foods should be kept, according as the natural need of each demanded. To these uses, then, the two lower parts of the ark, which are called two-chambered, pertained. And the three upper parts of the ark were thus distinguished: in the third, the wild and untamed animals had their dwelling; in the fourth, the gentler animals lodged; in the fifth and highest, men, whom, as God made them superior to all animals in reason and wisdom, so it was fitting that they should be higher in dwelling and habitation in the ark. So Origen; who seems to have been led to this five-part division of the Ark from the translation of the Septuagint translators. For it has thus: ‘Lower parts two-chambered and three-chambered shalt thou make it,’ as if to say that the inner capacity of the ark was to be divided into five chambers.⁴

But St. Augustine, understanding and explaining these words of the Septuagint translators much otherwise, seems to make only three principal parts of the ark. For in the book of Questions on Genesis, q. 6, he writes thus: ‘As to what he says, when he speaks of the building of the ark, “Two-chambered and three-chambered shalt thou make it,” it is usually asked whether the lower parts were to be two-chambered and three-chambered. But in this distinction he wished the whole structure of his ark to be understood — that it should have lower parts, have middle and upper parts, which are called three-chambered. For in the first habitation, that is in the lower parts, the ark was once-chambered; in the second habitation above the lower it was now two-chambered; and by this, in the third above the second, it was three-chambered.’ So there Augustine. Similar is what the same writes in book 15 of The City of God, the last chapter, distinguishing the ark into three parts, each of which would be three hundred cubits long and fifty broad.⁵

The Scholastic History, Lyra, Tostatus, Denis the Carthusian, and not a few others of the more recent writers, besides Origen’s five-part division of the Ark, hand down another, also five-part, but distinguished by a different reckoning. For first they make three principal parts of the ark — the lowest, the middle, and the highest; and the lowest they call the ‘dung-part’ and like the bilge of a ship; the middle they assign to the keeping of food, and make it two-chambered, that is, distinguished into two spaces according to the length of the ark, in the one storing herbs and greens, in the other fruits and more solid foods; the highest part of the ark they destine to the habitation of animals and men, making it tripartite, so that in its two outer parts (according to length) the animals dwelt — in the one the wild, in the other the tame — while the middle part contained the habitation of the men. And these things have been handed down by others about the disposition of the Ark and the distinction of its parts.⁶

I think I shall act more in keeping with the narrative of Moses if I make three principal parts of his ark — three, I mean, which pertained to the habitation of animals and men and the preservation of food, the bottom of the ark being passed over; for if one wishes to take account of this too in the division of the ark, the ark will have to be divided into four parts. And the first (beginning from the lowest) contained the base and bottom of the ark according to its whole length and breadth, but had four or five cubits of the ark’s height; this was the receptacle of all the filth of the ark, flowing down thither from every quarter through channels prepared for it, and was like the bilge of a ship — unless perhaps someone think that the bottom of the ark was filled with ballast (as is done in ships) for the greater stability and firmness of the ark in the waters; but that the excrement and filth of the ark were thrown not into the bottom of the ark, but outside the ark into the waters, through holes and slanting openings made in the ark in many places for that use.⁷

Above this lowest part of the ark, then (of which, as Origen holds, Moses made no mention in the description of the Ark), there were three other principal parts of the ark, each having indeed the whole length and breadth of the ark, but only a part of the height. In the first were placed all the land animals, to which we assign eight or nine cubits of height; for no land animal has yet been seen exceeding the height of eight cubits. Above this was a second part, likewise eight cubits high, containing all the storerooms of food; above this, finally, was the third and highest, assigned to the habitation of men and birds, nine or ten cubits high, which, since it was three hundred cubits long, was amply spacious and capacious enough for those few men and all the birds; for although there are very many species of birds, yet nearly all of them are of small bodily bulk, especially since they could be stored not only within the ark, but in little boxes hung on the sides of the ark. Above the roof of this highest part was the peak and ridge of the ark, of what figure and how great a size it was will be said below. And how each of these three parts of the ark was filled and furnished with very many little rooms, or ‘nests’ (as Scripture calls them), we shall explain in the next Disputation, which follows this. And this is our opinion about the disposition and distinction of the parts of the Ark. Credit is built up for it from the Hebrew Scripture itself, which has thus, word for word, in this place: ‘Lower, and second, and third shalt thou make it.’ That is, ‘Thou shalt make in the ark three stories, lowest, middle, and highest’; for that ‘shalt thou make it’ is put for ‘in it,’ or because the whole ark was nothing else than such a tripartite set of stories. The Chaldee paraphrase has it similarly. And that those words of the Septuagint translators, ‘Lower parts two-chambered and three-chambered shalt thou make it,’ render the same sense, we showed a little above with the blessed Augustine as interpreter.⁸

The same sense belongs also to our Latin translation, although it is not easy to accommodate all its words to the understanding of this sense. It has thus: ‘Below, upper-rooms (cenacula) and three-storied (tristega) shalt thou make in it.’ That ‘cenacula’ signifies ample places in buildings — that is, long and broad — so called because in such places the ancients, having arranged the dining-couches (triclinia), were wont to dine; thence the word was carried over to signify any other ample places of buildings…⁹

…was carried over. Those three parts of the ark, then, whose amplitude we have described, the Latin translator denoted by the word ‘cenaculum.’ For what follows, ‘and tristega,’ is an explanation of the word ‘cenaculum’; for it often happens in the sacred writings that, when two words are put, the latter is, as it were, an interpretation of the former. The Latin translator, then, declaring how many those cenacula of the ark were and how separated, named them ‘tristega,’ which means ‘three roofs,’ indicating that those cenacula were three and distinguished by three roofs. For the first roof was above the cenaculum of the animals; the second, above the cenaculum where the food was; the third and highest, above the cenaculum in which was the habitation of the men. For that fourth roof, by which the bottom of the ark was covered, is not mentioned, nor the last roof containing the peak and ridge of the ark; but only the roofs of those parts of the ark are named which parts had been prepared for the use of the animals and men.¹⁰

But that adverb ‘below’ (deorsum), to what it ought to be referred and with what joined, is not easy to understand. For if it be joined with those following words, ‘Cenacula and tristega shalt thou make in it,’ it does not seem to render a true sense, since the cenacula and the three stories were not ‘below,’ that is in the bottom of the ark, but distributed through the whole ark itself. But if it be joined with those immediately preceding words, ‘The door thou shalt make in the side of the ark,’ and that ‘below’ joined with this: first, it plainly disagrees with the Hebrew Scripture, the Chaldee paraphrase, and the translation of the Septuagint, which join that ‘below’ (for which they have ‘lower parts’) with what follows; next, no true sense results, for the door of the ark was not made ‘below,’ that is in the bottom of the ark, for it would have been most inconvenient and of no use at all. Tostatus joins ‘below’ with what was said about the door, and refers ‘below’ not to the ark (as if the door were to be made in the bottom of the ark), but joins it with what Moses had said a little before about the window: ‘Thou shalt make a window in the ark, but the door of the ark thou shalt set in the side below’ — so that Moses signifies that the door ought to be made below the window; for the window was in the upper part of the cenaculum of the men, but the door was below, either in the cenaculum of the men itself, or even below this, that is in the cenaculum of the animals. But if that ‘below’ be joined with what follows (and indeed it seems it should be joined), it can be expounded in two ways. First, that ‘below’ means the same as the bottom of the ark, which was like a bilge, so that what the Hebrew Scripture and the Greek translation called ‘the lower parts of the ark,’ the Latin translator said ‘below’; so that the sense is this: Make first the ‘below’ of the ark, that is the first story which contains the bottom of the ark, and above this thou shalt make the cenacula for the use of the habitation of animals and men and the preservation of food, and these thou shalt make ‘three-storied,’ that is distinguished from one another by three roofs or stories or floorings. That ‘below’ can also be referred to what preceded about making the door, so that we think the door of the ark was in the highest cenaculum, which was the men’s, but that God ordered to be made ‘below’ — that is, below the door,…¹¹

…three other cenacula in number, and ‘three-storied,’ that is distinguished by three roofs, so that one was above another. And the first cenaculum was to be destined for the keeping of food; the second, for the habitation of the animals; the third was to contain the bottom and the lowest part of the Ark. For although the bottom of the Ark cannot properly be called a cenaculum, yet, the word being taken broadly (as it is often used), nothing forbids its being so named. Nor does any more convenient way occur to me of explaining these words of the Latin translation, so that it may both have a true sense and not seem to disagree with the Hebrew Scripture and the translation of the Septuagint.¹²