If we look to the actual tenor of the whole narrative as delivered by Moses (Gen. viii and ix), we shall ob-
serve that the manifest immediate purport of it is the same as that of the rest of the early portion of his his- tory', viz. as forming part of the introductiun to the LAW. Thus we find, in the first instance, the narrative dwelling on the distinction of clean and unclean beasts (vii, 2) ; afterwards on the covenant with Noah ; the promise of future enjoyment of the earth and its fruits ; the prohibition of eating blood ; the punishment of murder (ix, 4, etc.) ; all constituting, in fact, some of the rudiments out of which the Mosaic law was framed, and which were thus brought before the Israelites as forming an anticipatorj' sanction for it. Kegarded in a Christian light, the narrative is important solely in respect to the applications made of it in the New Tes- tament, and these are only of the following kind: it is referred to as a warning of Christ's coming (Matt. xxiv, 38 ; Luke xvii, 27) ; as an assurance of judgment on sin (2 Pet. ii, 5) ; and of God's long-suffering ; while the ark is made a type of l)aptism and Christian salva- tion (1 Pet. iii, 20) ; and, lastly, Noah is set forth as an example of faith (Heb. xi, 7). In these applications no reference is made to the ph3'sical nature of the event, nor even to its literal universality. Thej^ are all allusions, not to the event abstracted!}', but only in the way of argument with the parties addressed in sup- port of other truths ; an appeal to the Old Testament addressed to those who already believed in it^n the first of the instances cited, to the Jews — in the others, to Jewish converts to Christianity (compare 1 Pet. i, 1, and 2 Pet. iii, 1). Indeed, if the terms "earth" (VjN) and "heavens" (C'^'^ui) be referred in the Mosaic nar- rative itself to the visible extent of land and superin- cumbent arch of sky (as thej' often signif}-), all direct statement of the universality of the deluge over the surAice of the globe will at once disappear. That it was coextensive with the spread of the human race at the time is indeed demanded by the conditions of the sacred history [see Antediluvians] ; but there is no evidence that the population before the flood was either so extensive or so widelj' disseminated as manj' have imagined, calculating upon the inapposite rate of mod- ern increase and later usages. On the contraiy, it ap- pears that even after the deluge the inhabitants were still so greatly inclined to cluster around one native centre that the catastrophe of Babel was requisite in order to induce a fulfilment of the divine behest that mankind should "fill the earth." UndoubtedU', if read from the present advanced stage of the world'a histor}', it would be impossible to understand the lan- guage otherwise than of an absolute universality ; for, now that every region of the world is known, and known to be more or less occupied bj' man and beast, it must have been in the strictest sense a world-em- bracing catastrophe which could be described as en- veloping in a watery shroud every hill under the whole heaven, and destroj'ing every living thing that moved on the face of the eaith. But here it must be remembered, the sacred narrative dates from the com- parative infancy of the world, when but a limited por- tion of it was peopled or known ; and it is always one of the most natural, as well as most fertile sources of error, respecting the interpretation of such early rec- ords, that one is apt to overlook the change of circum- stances, and contemplate what is written from a mod- ern point of view. Hence the embarrassments so often felt, and the misjudgments sometimes actually pronounced, respecting those parts of Scripture which speak of the movements of the heavenly bodies in lan- guage suited to the aj)parent, but at variance, as has now been ascertained, with the real phenomena. In such cases it is forgotten that the Bible was not in- tended to teach the truths of physical science, or point the way to discoveries in the merely natural sphere. Of things in these departments of knowledge it uses the language of common life. So, whatever in the scriptural account of the deluge touches on geographi-
FLOOR
602 FLORENCE, COUNCIL OF
cal limits or matters strictly physical, ought to be taken with the qualitications inseparable from the bounded horizon of men's views and relations at the time. Accordinylj', there were not wanting theologi- cal writers who, long before any geological fact, or well-ascertained fact of any sort in ph^-sical science, had appeared to shake men's faith in a strictl}' univer- sal deluge, actually' put the interpretation now sug- gested as competent upon the narrative of the deluge. Thus Poole, who flourished in the middle of the 17th century, says in his Synopsis on Gen. vii, 19: "It is not to be supposed that the entire globe of the earth was covered with water. Where was the need of overwhelming those regions in wliich there were no human beings? It would be highly unreasonable to suppose that mankind had so increased before the del- uge as to have penetrated to all the corners of the earth. It is, indeed, not probable that they had ex- tended beyond the limits of Syria and Mesopotamia. It would be absurd to affirm that the effects of the punishment inflicted upon men alone applied to places in which there were no men." Hence he concludes that "if not so much as the hundredth part of the globe was overspread with water, still tiie deluge would be universal, because the extirpation took effect upon all the part of the world which was inliabited." In like manner Stillingfleet, a writer of the same pe- riod, in Iiis Origines Sacj-(e (bk. iii, ch. iv.), states that "he cannot see anj' urgent necessity from the Scrip- ture to assert that the flood did spread over all the surface of the earth. The flood was universal as to mankind ; but from thence follows no necessity at all of asserting the universality of it as to the globe of the earth, unless it be sufficientlj^ proved that the whole earth was peopled before the flood — which I despair of ever seeing proved." Indeed, this view dates much farther back than the comparatively recent time when these authors lived ; for while bishop Patrick himself took the other and commoner view, we find him thus noting in his commentarj' on Gen. vii, 19: "There were those anciently (i. e. in the earlier ages), and they have their successors now, who imagined the flood was not universal — a\X iv <p oi Tort dvOpMiroi tiJKOvv — but onl}' there where men then dwelt ; as the author of the Questiones ad Orthodoxos tells us. Quest. 34." It is certain, therefore, that this is not a ques- tion between scientific naturalists on the one side, and men of simple faith in Scripture on the other. Apart from the cultivation or the discoveries of science, we have two classes of interpreters of Scripture, one of whicli find no reason to believe in more than a restrict- ed universality, while the other press the language to its farthest possible extent — take it, not as descriptive of God's judgment upon tlie earth, in so far merely as it was occupied by men, but witli reference to the globe at large, and to an event in its natural historj'. See Offerhaus, Be dilnvio NoMco (Franeck. 1094) ; Hardt, Jlistoi-'ia diluvii Noachi (Helmst. 1728) ; Diecke, Ueher die Snndjhith (St. Gall, 18G1) ; Rendell, History of the Flood (Lond. 1851, 18G4).— Kitto, s. v. ; Fairbairn, s. v. Compare Deluge.