St. Augustine, in book 18 of The City of God, chapter 8, signifies that the history of the Gentiles, both Greek and Latin, was ignorant of this flood of Noah; and he calls Varro as a witness, by whom it was reported that in the monuments of literature and of ancient memory nothing is found older than the flood of Ogyges (which happened many ages after Noah's). The words of St. Augustine are these: “Among the writers of history it is not agreed when that Ogygius lived, in whose times also a great flood occurred: not that greatest one, in which no men escaped except those who could be in the Ark — which neither the Greek nor the Latin history of the Gentiles knows; but yet [a flood] greater than [the one] which was afterward in the time of Deucalion. And Varro indeed began [a part] of the book of which I made mention above from the flood of Ogyges, and proposes nothing older — from which he proceeds to Roman affairs — than the flood of Ogyges.” So Augustine.¹

But that the memory of Noah's flood is found among many of the pagan writers is so firmly established by the testimonies of many ancient writers that it cannot be denied without obstinacy. Hear Josephus, in the first book of the Antiquities, writing thus: “Of this flood and the Ark all the writers of barbarian history make mention, and among these Berosus the Chaldean. For, narrating about this flood, he writes roughly thus: It is reported that a part of this vessel survives in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordicaeans [Gordyaeans], and that some scrape off the bitumen from it and carry it away with them, which the men of that place are accustomed to use in place of an amulet. Of these things Hieronymus, who wrote the Antiquities of the Phoenicians, makes mention, and Mnaseas and several others. Nay, Nicolaus of Damascus too, in the ninety-sixth book, narrates about these matters in these words: There is above the region of the Minyans a great mountain in Armenia by the name of Baris, on which they say that many fugitives were saved at the time of the flood; and that a certain one, carried in an ark, came to rest on the top of this mountain, and that the remains of its timbers lasted a long time. This perhaps was he of whom the lawgiver of the Jews, Moses, also writes.” So Nicolaus. And thus far from Josephus.²

Eusebius, in the ninth book of the Preparation for the Gospel, when, at the beginning of the fourth chapter, he had recalled the same words of Josephus which we just set down, himself subjoins these: “I will,” he says, “transcribe for you some things from Abydenus the historian: Sisithrus,” he says, “next received the principate, to whom Saturn signified that a great force of waters was to come. Wherefore, desiring to save himself, he fled by ship to Armenia; but the waters overtook him on the way. But on the third day, after the waters had ceased, he sent out birds, that by them he might know whether anywhere land stood forth: which, since all things were covered with the face of the sea, returned to Sisithrus (for they could nowhere alight). After some days the same was done. Sent out a third time, they returned to him with their feet full of mud; and then the gods snatched Sisithrus away from among men. And the ship is still found in Armenia, whose timbers wonderfully bring a remedy to men against many diseases.” Thus far from Abydenus, as Eusebius reports him.³

Cyril too, in the first book Against Julian, for proving the same brings forward the testimony of Alexander Polyhistor. Nor did Plato himself give an obscure indication of that flood, when in the Timaeus he introduces a certain Egyptian priest, relating to Solon, from the sacred books of the Egyptians, that before the particular floods known and celebrated by the Greeks there had been, in antiquity, a certain greatest inundation of waters and devastation of the earth: and this does not seem to have been able to be any other than Noah's flood. To this also pertains what Pomponius Mela, Pliny, and Solinus reported: that Joppa, a maritime city of Judaea, is proclaimed the oldest of all the cities of the earth, and is believed to have existed before the flood. Which cannot be referred to the flood of Ogyges or of Deucalion: for these floods, circumscribed by the boundaries of Greece, did not touch the land of Syria or Judaea; nor would it be wonderful that Joppa existed before those floods, [since] very many cities are celebrated as older [than they].⁴

Finally, Plutarch, in the book On the Cleverness of Animals, relates that it was reported by those who wrote about the flood of Deucalion that a dove sent out of the ark by Deucalion, when it had returned, was a sign of storm; but when, flying out again, it had not returned, was a sign of fair weather: which indeed was taken from the Mosaic history of Noah's flood. From which also were drawn the things which Ovid sang about the flood of Deucalion: for the whole description of that flood fits not so much the Deucalionic flood as the Noachic; so that, a few things being removed, some Jewish or Christian Poet would seem to have wished to set forth in verse the history of Moses about Noah's flood. From these things it appears that it cannot be denied that Noah's flood was known to the pagans — whether by the reading of the sacred writings, or by hearing and report, or by the relation or monuments of the Chaldeans and Egyptians, among which nations there was once a long dwelling of the Hebrews. Therefore, someone will say, did St. Augustine, who thought the contrary, err through ignorance or forgetfulness of history and antiquity? By no means. For Augusti[ne]…⁵

…Augustine did not say precisely that the flood of Noah was known to no historians, but only said that it was unknown to the Greek and Roman histories, saying nothing about the barbarian histories: which is indeed true. For [as for] those by whom we said above it was reported about Noah's flood, one may observe that they were barbarians, or certainly writers of barbarian histories and affairs.⁶