Philo, at the end of the second book On the Life of Moses, indicates that Noah himself gathered the animals, and that they followed him not only not reluctantly, but even willingly and quietly — just as sheep are wont to follow their shepherd in a flock wherever they are led: so that not only the tame ones, but even the fierce and savage ones, putting off, as it were, their natural savagery, yielded entirely to the leading and obedience of Noah. And thus Philo writes: “So it came about that no animal refused obedience to Noah, even the huge beasts growing tame and following their preserver of their own accord, like a shepherd. And after they had betaken themselves within one receptacle, it could be called a rival of the whole world — containing, indeed, as many kinds of living creatures as were found at that time in all lands, or were to be found in the future — scarcely comprehensible by any speech.” So Philo.¹

But if Philo meant this, which the aforesaid words present, without doubt he was not right. For Noah could not, either by himself or through others, search out and traverse all the regions and coasts and all the places of the earth in which the animals were dispersed throughout the whole world, and, gathering them from every quarter, bring them to the ark: he could not, I say, do this without the delay of a very long time, nor without the most troublesome and scarcely tolerable endurance of immense labor.²

John Buteo makes Hugh of St. Victor affirm that, as the flood grew strong and covered the lands, all the living creatures, seeking some escape from the present destruction, fled from every side to the ark by swimming. The words of Hugh, from which Buteo drew that opinion, are these, in the first book On the Moral Ark, chapter three: “The third story of the ark, in which were the animals that needed the breathing of open air, was the first to rise above the waters, in such a way that, for the animals ascending to the ark through the water from outside, the door would be met almost on the level.” So Hugh. But this opinion both divine Scripture rejects and reason refutes. For the narrative of Moses in chapter 7 of Genesis plainly shows that the animals had entered the ark before the flood began; nay rather, before the inundation of the waters and after the entry of the animals into the ark, God is there said to have closed the door from outside. What of this: that if the waters had inundated the earth before the entry of the animals into the ark, many species of living creatures would have perished — either overwhelmed by the sudden waters, or unable to swim, or at least unable to reach the ark by swimming — and the concourse and gathering of all the animals to the ark could not have come about except in a very long time.³

That opinion, therefore — as it is widely current and approved by most Doctors, so it is also the true one — that by the will and power of God, and by the ministry of the Ange[ls]…⁴

…of the Angels, all the animals were gathered from every quarter and led to the ark. This God indicated not obscurely in those words which Moses reports toward the end of the sixth chapter. For in place of what the Latin translation has (“Two of all shall go in with thee, that they may live”), in Greek and Hebrew it is: “they shall go in,” or “they shall come to thee” — that is, they shall come of their own accord, not sought out and gathered by thy care or labor.⁵

“This was not” (Augustine says, in book 15 of The City of God, chapter 27) “the care of that man, or of those men, but divine: for Noah did not bring them in captured, but admitted them as they came and entered. For to this end is what was said: ‘They shall enter to thee’ — not, that is, by the act of man, but by the nod of God.” This [says] Augustine.⁶

Cajetan too, weighing those very words (“Two of all shall come to thee”), writes thus: “Hence is solved the question, how Noah gathered two of all the living creatures: for God clearly absolved him from this care, by saying, ‘They shall come to thee.’ For by the divine nod, by the ministry of Angels, there came of all the animals a male and a female to Noah; but it was Noah's care and work to bring it about that the living creatures which had come should enter the ark, and find nests or dwellings in it, and there be fed by him. From this miracle of their coming, learn the rest of the consequent matters concerning the peace of the animals with Noah: for they are of the same reasoning.” Thus far from Cajetan.⁷

A certain opinion of Philo must here be corrected in passing, who makes this distinction between the ark of Noah and the earthly Paradise in which God placed Adam: that within the ark there were both men and animals, both clean and unclean, but in the earthly Paradise there was no animal devoid of reason, but man only. For thus Moses said in the second chapter: “God planted a Paradise, in which he placed the man whom he had formed”; and a little after: “God took the man, and placed him in the Paradise of pleasure, that he might dress it and keep it.”⁸

And Philo gives a certain Tropological reason for this difference. For thus he writes in the book entitled On the Planting of Noah: “It is not to be wondered at why all the species of living creatures are brought into that huge ark prepared for the flood, but none into Paradise. For that ark signified the human body, which necessarily contains the monstrous and untamed plagues of the affections and of the vices; but Paradise is capable of the virtues alone, which admit nothing untamed or that lacks reason.” So Philo.⁹

But I by no means assent to Philo that there was no animal within Paradise: for I can bring forward, as authors of the contrary opinion, most illustrious men — Josephus in the first book of the Antiquities, Basil in the Oration which he wrote on Paradise, Augustine in book 15 of The City of God, chapter 11, and Damascene in the second book On the Orthodox Faith, chapter 10 — although he, in the very next chapter, as if forgetful of what he had said before, seems to write the contrary. For how is it credible that the animals were not in Paradise, when all the living creatures were brought to Adam himself, as he dwelt in Paradise, that he might impose names on them, and to him…¹⁰

…and to him was given by God dominion over all the animals? Where, too, was the serpent that tempted and deceived Eve, except within Paradise? At whose appearance and speech Eve would have been astonished as at an unwonted thing, nor would she have conversed with it so familiarly, had she not previously seen both it and the other living creatures in Paradise. But let us pass on to other matters.¹¹