In the first place, we must speak of the men, who, it is clear from the narrative of Moses, were only eight: for he relates, toward the end of the sixth chapter, that God commanded Noah that he, with his wife, and his three sons with their wives, should enter the ark; and in the following chapter he writes that these only entered the ark; and he records, in the eighth chapter, that these same only went out of the ark when the flood was over. St. Peter likewise, in the third chapter of his first epistle, says that only eight souls were saved in the ark by water. Berosus Annianus even gives the names of those women: for he calls Noah's wife “Tytaea the Great,” and the other three “Pandora,” “Noëlla,” and “Noëgla.” Epiphanius, in Heresy 26, disputing against the Gnostics who had attached the name “Noria” to Noah's wife, says that she was called “Barthenon.”¹

But as for that which might move some to wonder — that Noah, over six hundred years, begot no more than three sons, and these not before his five-hundredth year, and that none of those sons, over a hundred years (for so long they lived before the Flood), procreated any son — how this is to be understood has been explained by us in the ninth book.

There is, moreover, a common opinion of the Hebrew and Christian Doctors that Noah and his sons, while they were in the ark, did not engage in procreation, but abstained from their wives that whole year. For that seemed to be rather a time for mourning so great a calamity of the human race and of the world, and for doing penance, than for seeking and enjoying pleasure, even lawful and permitted.²

Indeed many have thought the same about the animals, which, they suppose, did not engage in procreation while they were in the ark. If this was so, it came about either because, while they were in the ark, the animals were small and immature for procreation; or because the males were separated from the females in the Ark; or because during all that time no desire of procreating came upon the animals — whether on account of the harshness of the season and the inconvenience of the place, or because the ardor of lust naturally implanted in animals was, by divine power, extinguished throughout that year.

But this perhaps might raise a doubt for the reader: where Enoch was at the time of the flood — Enoch, who, it is agreed, was not in the ark and lived before the flood, and not only survived the flood but is even yet alive. Many would answer that Enoch was, at the time of the flood, in the earthly Paradise, supposing that place to have been untouched by the flood. But against this opinion we have disputed at length in the former volume of our Commentaries on Genesis — in the third book, which is on the earthly Paradise, in the fifth question; and in the seventh book, in the last Disputation, which is on the Translation of Enoch, in the seventh question.³

Let us therefore say briefly: that Moses, in this history of the Flood, and St. Peter, in the place mentioned above, affirmed that all men perished in the flood except those eight, and did not make an exception of Enoch — who was then living and lived after the flood — for this reason: that they were speaking of men whose dwelling and manner of life on earth was known, and who lived in the human and customary way. But Enoch, because he was outside the society of men and unknown to all mortals, and did not pass his life in the human manner, was therefore passed over in silence, just as though he were not on the earth. But where he was at the time of the flood, what mortal could, or would dare, to say? Certainly, wherever it pleased God, he could be preserved — whether in the air above the waters of the flood, or elsewhere.

But that God said to Noah, “Go in thou, and all thy house, into the ark; for thee I have seen just before me in this generation” (Gen. 7), indicates not obscurely that Noah alone, on account of his exceptional piety and holiness, was worthy to be preserved from the disaster of the flood by so great a miracle; but that the remaining seven persons were saved for Noah's sake — who, though they were not equal to Noah in uprightness, were nevertheless either good, or at least less wicked than those who perished in the flood. There was also this cause of their preservation: that they might be the authors of restoring and multiplying the human race after the flood. God could indeed have propagated the race of men from Noah alone; but divine wisdom judged this manner of propagation to be the more excellent.⁴

“Although the sons of Noah and their wives,” says Chrysostom, “were far from the virtue of that just man, they were nevertheless free from the graver sins of their age. They obtained safety also for two other reasons: both in honor of the just man, and for the sake of posterity. For it is the custom of the merciful God to grant this honor to his servants, that for their sake others too may be saved. This was granted also to St. Paul: for as he sailed to Rome, on account of a very great storm…”⁵

“…when the ship was in peril from the storm, God granted the safety of all who were in it together with him.” Likewise it was done in this place. Moreover, God willed to leave some seed and root in the sons of Noah for the establishment of posterity: not that it was impossible for God to form men again, and from one stock to make increase again, but because this commended itself to his goodness. So Chrysostom. To the same effect Ambrose wrote some things eloquently, in his book On Noah and the Ark, chapter 11.⁶