There were two floods, and both in Greece — the one, of Ogyges, in the Attic region; the other, of Deucalion, in Thessaly — recorded and celebrated by Greek and Roman writers. Wherefore it will not be irrelevant in this place to speak briefly about the time of each flood, so that it may be understood how much more recent and later than Noah's flood those floods were. The flood of Ogyges, which happened in the time of Ogyges reigning in the Attic region, and while Inachus and Phoroneus reigned among the Argives, so inundated and devastated the whole Attic region that it rendered it untilled and uninhabited for two hundred years. And that this flood was a thousand and twenty years before the first Olympiad, Eusebius relates in the tenth book of the Preparation for the Gospel, last chapter, on the authority of Julius Africanus, who confirms this same thing in the third book of the Annals, by the testimony of Hellanicus and Philochorus (who wrote the Annals of the Athenians), and likewise of Castor and Thallus (who diligently treated Syrian history), and also of Diodorus Siculus (who collected the history of the world into [his] Library)…¹

Nor is Orosius to be thought of a different opinion, affirming that the flood of Ogyges was a thousand and forty years before Rome was founded: since Rome was founded twenty-four years after the first Olympiad. The words of Orosius are these: “A thousand and forty years before the founding of the city, there was in Achaia a savage flood, with very great devastation of almost the whole province. Which, because it was poured out in the times of Ogyges, who was then the founder and king of Eleusis, gave its name to the place and the time.” This [says] Orosius.²

But when was the first Olympiad, according to sacred Chronology? It was, namely, in the eighth year of the reign of Ahaz king of Judah — that is, two hundred and eighty-three years after the beginning of the building of Solomon's temple, as is plain from the Chronology of the kings of Judah, which is described in the third and fourth books of Kings. The first Olympiad was likewise seven hundred and sixty-three years after the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt: for from that departure up to the building of Solomon's temple are counted, in the third book of Kings, chapter six, four hundred and eighty years. From these it follows that the flood of Ogyges preceded the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt by two hundred and sixty-three years, and fell about the ninetieth year of the age of the patriarch Jacob; and that it was after Noah's flood by nearly five hundred and forty years. But about computations of years of this kind, let the reader consult the things which have been more fully and diligently disputed by us in the eleventh book of our Commentaries on Daniel, in the second question.³

If, therefore, the things we have said about the flood of Ogyges are true, then John Annius is certainly to be laughed at, who did not fear to say that he whom the pagan writers name Ogyges was the very one whom the sacred writings call Noah, and that the Ogygian flood and the Noachic were the same — whereas (as we showed a little while ago) the flood of Ogyges was more than five hundred years after Noah's. Nor is the opinion to be approved of certain ancient writers, whom Justin Martyr (in the Hortatory Discourse to the Gentiles), Clement of Alexandria (in the first book of the Stromata), and Eusebius (in the tenth book, last chapter, of the Preparation for the Gospel) mention and follow; by whom it was reported that at the time when the flood of Ogyges happened, at that time Moses led the Hebrew people out of Egypt. But from the things said above it is plain that the departure of the Hebrews from Egypt was more than two hundred years later than the flood of Ogyges. Nay, Eusebius himself, in the Chronicle, makes Ogyges two centuries older than Moses.⁴

It follows that we should speak of the flood of Deucalion, equally celebrated by the poets and historians of the pagans. And many things indeed about the lineage, character, and deeds of Deucalion, and many also about the causes, magnitude, duration, and effect of the flood which received its name from him, could be said in this place: but these, as foreign to our purpose, and for the most part either fabulous or uncertain, we deliberately pass over. Nor do we undertake, for the present, to explain anything other than the time of the Deucalionic flood, so that we may make manifest to the reader how much more recent it was than either the Ogygian flood or the Noachic. About the king of Attica under whom the flood of Deucalion occurred, it is variously handed down. Eusebius, in the book of the Preparation for the Gospel, last chapter, only says that Cecrops preceded the Trojan War by about four hundred years, and that in that middle time, between Cecrops and the Trojan War, the flood of Deucalion and the conflagration of Phaethon occurred. But the same [Eusebius], in the Chronicle, marks the flood of Deucalion as in the reign of Cecrops. Varro, as St. Augustine reports in book 18 of The City of God, chapter 10, noted the flood of Deucalion as under king Cranaus, who succeeded Cecrops next. But Justin the historian, in the second book, and Orosius, in the first book, chapter nine, write that the flood of Deucalion happened in the reign of Amphictyon, who was the third from Cecrops. For thus, in that place which I set down before, Orosius says: “In the eight hundred and tenth year before Rome was founded, Amphictyon reigned at Athens, the third from Cecrops; in whose times a flood of waters consumed the greater part of the peoples of Thessaly, a few being saved by the refuges of the mountains, especially on Mount Parnassus, in whose circuit Deucalion then held the kingdom…”⁵

“…who, having received [the people] fleeing to him, cherished and nourished them on the twin ridges of Parnassus: by whom, on that account, they say the human race was restored. At that same time, father Liber [Bacchus], having subdued India, drenched it with blood, filled it with slaughter, polluted it with lusts — a nation never subject to any men, content only with its native repose.” So Orosius.⁶

Nor do the authors agree about the time of this flood. Solinus indeed, in chapter 18, makes this flood six hundred years later than the flood of Ogyges. “It is fitting to recall in this place,” says Solinus, “that after the first flood, noted in the times of Ogyges — when for nine and more months a continuous night had darkened the day — Delos was illuminated before all lands by the rays of the Sun, and obtained its name from this, that it was first restored to sight [Delos = ‘clear/visible’]. Between Ogyges and Deucalion a middle span of six hundred years is given.” So Solinus. But that he erred through ignorance or forgetfulness of history and Chronology is plain even from this argument: that it is consequent to that opinion that the flood of Deucalion was near to the times of the Trojan War; but that the Trojan War was many ages after the flood of Deucalion is agreed among the approved writers of ancient memory.⁷

But on the contrary, Clement of Alexandria, in the first book of the Stromata, marks the flood of Deucalion as one hundred and thirty-four years after the Ogygian. But not rightly: for thus it would have been not a few years before Cecrops, which pleases no one. Let us therefore follow, as the more probable, the opinion of Eusebius in the Chronicle and of Orosius in the first book, who make the flood of Deucalion later than the Ogygian by two hundred and thirty years — that is, about the fiftieth year of the age of Moses (although Eusebius there marks the seventieth, I do not know whether using a true computation of years): from which, however, Cyril is very near, in the first book Against Julian, referring the flood of Deucalion to the sixty-seventh year of Moses. Hence it is clear that this Deucalionic flood was nearly seven hundred and seventy years after the Noachic.⁸

Nor is it to be omitted here what Orosius prudently observed: that three very notable and memorable calamities happened in the same century — the Ten Plagues of Egypt, the flood of Deucalion, and the conflagration of Phaethon. For Orosius marks the plagues of Egypt as eight hundred and five years before Rome was founded, but the flood of Deucalion as eight hundred and ten years [before]. And about the conflagration of Phaethon he writes thus in the tenth chapter: “In these times too so vast and grievous a heat blazed up, that the Sun, carried through devious ways, is said not to have affected the whole world with heat, but to have scorched it with fire: and both the Ethiopian endured the impressed heat more than usual, and the Scythian [endured] the unaccustomed [heat]. From which also certain men, while they do not concede to God his ineffable power, seeking out empty little reasonings, wove the ridiculous fable of Phaethon.” This [says] Orosius; with whom Eusebius too, in the Chronicle, agrees.⁹