Deluge

DELUGE. - Cataclysm that struck humanity in the time of Noah.

I. BIBLICAL ACCOUNT (Gen. 6:1-9:19)

God saw that human wickedness had spread and "repented that he had made man."

The "sons of God," that is, the sons of Seth, so called because created by God and bound to him by a special bond of love (Gen. 4:26-5:32; cf. Ex. 4:24; Deut. 14:1 etc.), seduced by the beauty of the "daughters of men," who belonged to the line of Cain, were led astray by sensuality: "they are flesh." In his wrath God decided: "I will blot out man whom I have created from the face of the earth: and with man also the beasts" (Gen. 6:7), yet granting them 120 years to repent. Noah found favor, for himself and for his family; God commanded him to build an ark capable of containing, besides the 8 persons of the family, representatives of all the animals with everything necessary for living. Of the clean animals 7 pairs entered, because their flesh was to be offered in sacrifice (ibid., 6:20) and also eaten; of the unclean, one pair. God's covenant (ibid., 6:18) with Noah consisted in the promise to save him and his own from destruction in order to found with them a new humanity, faithful and holy.

With indomitable faith, Noah preached penance, announcing the imminent punishment. For long years he worked at building the ark under the mocking eyes of the wicked, who continued to revel (Mt. 24:37-39). When the time appointed for penance had passed in vain, by God's command he entered the ark with his own, and brought the animals into it. "Noah was 600 years old when the flood came, a deluge upon the earth. It was the 600th year of Noah's life, the 2nd month, the 17th day of the month. On that day the fountains of the great deep burst forth and the floodgates of heaven were opened and the rain poured down upon the earth for 40 days and 40 nights."

The water rose fifteen cubits (about 7.50 m) above the highest mountains, and "thus every being that was on the face of the earth was annihilated; both man and cattle... disappeared from the earth: only Noah remained, and those who were with him in the ark" (Gen. 7:23). For 40 days and 40 nights the rains and the surging waters beat down upon the earth; the waters went on rising and then remained stationary for 110 days; then they began to decrease (ibid., 8:3); after another 175 days they had completely withdrawn (ibid., 8:13), and at the end of 57 days the earth, dried out, was again habitable (ibid., 8:16): it was the 27th day of the 2nd month of the 601st year of Noah. To make sure, Noah had sent out of the ark a raven, which went back and forth until the waters should dry up (ibid., 8:7: the Clementine Vulgate erroneously reads: non revertebatur), and then three times a dove, which the first time returned at once, finding nowhere to set its foot; the second time bringing back "a plucked olive branch"; the third time it did not return again.

The moment had come to leave the ark: God gave the order (ibid., 8:15 ff.). Noah set foot again on the desolate earth, which had become the graveyard of so many creatures. To thank the Lord he "built an altar to Yahweh, and, having taken every kind of clean animal and clean bird, offered them in holocaust." In return, God dispelled men's anguish at the thought of another flood: "I will never again curse the earth." Human frailty itself moves God to mercy, after the flood had revealed his omnipotence, his holiness and his justice. God blessed Noah and his sons: "Increase and multiply and fill the earth"; he restored to man dominion over the animals and added the prohibition against eating "flesh with the blood," the vehicle of life (Lev. 17:14). God made the shedding of blood a sacrificial rite, while he opposed the shedding of human blood. As a guarantee of the covenant he established the rainbow as a sign of his greatness and his love.

II. HISTORICAL CHARACTER OF THE ACCOUNT

Modern criticism attributes the story of the Flood to a redactor who would have drawn on two contrasting sources: J and P (v. PENTATEUCO); the contradictions would be found especially in the numbers. But more than true contradictions, these are ways of speaking that complete one another: it is said in general that the animals must be brought in by pairs (Gen. 6, 19), and then the number is indicated (ibid., 7, 2); the entry into the ark cannot be said to be narrated twice merely because 7, 13 takes up 7, 7 again; 7, 12 speaks of the increase of the waters for 40 days, and 7, 24 says that they "prevailed upon the earth for 150." There is no solid reason to suppose two distinct sources. If a comparison is established with the Babylonian story of Gilgamesh, one encounters the same elements that the critics use to establish the sources J and P. Nor did the redactor

- if there was one - see a contradiction among the various data he brought together, just as he did not see one in the supposed partial sources.

The Flood is recalled in the Old and New Testaments: Wis. 10, 4; 16, 6 ff.; Sir. 16, 7; 44, 17-19; Is. 54, 9; Mt. 24, 37-39; Lk. 17, 26 ff.; I Pt. 3, 20 ff.; II Pt. 2, 5; Heb. 11, 7. These passages affirm the historicity not only of the fact, but also of the circumstances narrated in Genesis. This frightful punishment inflicted by God on sinful humanity, compared by Jesus to the universal judgment (Mt.

24, 37-39), was the work of divine omnipotence, which made use of natural causes: the waters coming from the marine abysses and violent cloudbursts (Gen. 7, 11 ff.). It was held that geology gave a confirmation of the account, and a century ago seashells and marine sands, the bones of caves and erratic boulders were adduced as demonstration of the universality of the biblical Flood. No less wrongly was the biblical Flood identified with the geological Flood of the Quaternary era. While the biblical Flood lasted a little more than a year, the geological one required a very long time, nor did it occur simultaneously over the whole earth. One must not, however, exclude a priori that the biblical Flood may have points of contact with certain phenomena of the glacial epoch.

The sandy layer found by C. L. Woolley at Ur of the Chaldees, during the excavations of 1927-29, cannot, it seems, be considered a remnant of the universal inundation of Mesopotamia (Babylonian Flood).

III. UNIVERSALITY OF DIVORCE

The biblical account describes a "universal" flood. Of what universality does the hagiographer intend to speak?

1. Absolute geographical universality was the common opinion among the Fathers and ancient doctors; but today it is abandoned. The progress of the sciences made it possible to observe: the species of mammals alone number 7,000 and 4,500 fossil; physics cannot find an explanation for all that water which would have been necessary to cover, indeed to exceed by about 7, 50 or 15 cubits, the highest mountains. If in Scripture there is mention of the flooding of the "earth" (Gen. 6, 7, 10; 7, 4, 18, 19; 8, 9), geographical universality does not necessarily follow, because "idioma est s. Scripturae (observes St. Jerome, In Is. 13, 5; PL 24, 456) ut omnem terram illius significet provinciae de qua sermo est". Having examined Gen. 41, 54 ff.; Deut. 2, 25; II Par. 20, 29; Act. 2, 5, one will easily admit that this is a matter of relative geographical universality. And thus "all the highest mountains" (Gen. 7, 19) are all the mountains of that region known to the author.

2. Relative anthropological universality. Once relative geographical universality is admitted, for the same reasons one accepts relative anthropological universality, championed by A. L. Motais, A. Scholz, Aem. Schöpfer, J. Schuster-B. Holzammer, or held to be a legitimate interpretation by F. Hummelauer, Schanz, H. Zschokke-G. Döller, H. Lesêtre, P. Heinisch, etc. But while a flood of the whole earth is never explicitly mentioned, we have instead: "the end of all flesh is come before me..." (ibid. 6, 13-17 and cf. 6, 6 f.).

3. Anthropological universality therefore appears more probable. Jesus affirms that in the flood all perished (Mt. 24, 39; Lc. 17, 29); and so teach the epistles of Peter: in the time of Noah (II Pt. 2, 5; 3, 6) "few, that is, eight souls were saved by water" (I Pt. 3, 20). Such anthropological universality is presented by the Fathers not as a dogma of faith, nor as a merely private opinion, but as connected with the faith of the Church, since in it they see prefigured the doctrine of the faith: "extra Ecclesiam nulla salus" (cf. St. Fulgentius, De remissione peccatorum, I, 20; St. Jerome, Adv. Iovinianum, 1, 17; St. Cyprian, De unitate Ecclesiae, 6). The "sensus Ecclesiae" stands for such universality (cf. the catechism of the Council of Trent, I, 10, 19). Ethnology provides a confirmation. The traditions of a flood that destroys men number 60, of which fully 40 are independent of the Babylonian-Hebrew form. Once the universal cataclysm is admitted, it is easily explained that the "primitive tradition" passed to the various peoples and emigrated with them to the various parts of the world.

Vincenzo M. Iacono

IV. IN NON-CHRISTIAN RELIGIONS

The belief in a flood, which occurred in more or less remote times and would have destroyed humanity, is common to many extinct and living peoples. Besides among the Hebrews, it is found, for example, among the Babylonians, among the Greeks (the myth of Ogyges and the myth of Deucalion and Pyrrha); among a very great number of native American populations, from the extreme north of the continent (Eskimos) to the extreme south (Yagan and Ona of Tierra del Fuego), and both among peoples of very low culture, such as the two just mentioned, and among peoples of higher civilization, such as the Maya of Yucatan and the ancient Peruvians; among populations of Australia, Polynesia, Micronesia, Melanesia, Indonesia; in India, in China, among the Andamanese, in northern Asia. On the African continent, however, the flood stories are not very widespread: the Masai, the Tim of Togo, the Konso of southern Ethiopia, some peoples of the Gold Coast and a few others believe in them.

F. H. Woods, by connecting the various elements found in the different flood stories, established a general schema of the myth itself to which almost all the particular forms living among individual peoples can be traced, with the necessary variations. It is as follows: a) one or more deities are angry with the antediluvians; b) generally for a specific reason; c) they therefore resolve to destroy humanity with a flood, d) saving, however, one or more men. e) The chosen ones, following the divine counsel, build a boat or ark, or else avail themselves of another means of salvation. f) They take with them a specimen of the animals necessary for the preservation of the species, seeds and provisions. g) Shortly afterwards, h) through rain or another cause, i) the flood comes. j) When it ceases, k) the survivors disembark on some mountain or on an island, l) and sometimes offer a sacrifice. m) The future descendants of men (and often also of animals) reproduce in a miraculous manner. n) He who was saved from the flood, or one of the most worthy among them, is taken up into heaven.

As has already been mentioned, the narrative does not appear among any people in the typological form described above, but varies in a more or less pronounced way. For example, sometimes the cause of the flood is not the wrath of the deity against men, but simply the wickedness of a hostile and evil superior being. In some versions, moreover, there recurs the episode of an animal (often a bird) which, from the ark or from the summit of the mountain where the survivors have taken refuge, is sent to explore whether the waters have receded. Worthy of note is the fact that some episodes of the myth, of a very particular character, are found among peoples distant in space and time. Such is the belief that, in order to make the human race rise again after the flood, the saved progenitors performed the act of throwing something behind their backs (for example, stones, as in the Greek legend of Deucalion and Pyrrha and in that of the Macusi of the Orinoco [Amazon]).

Interesting is the problem concerning the process of formation of the myth and its diffusion. In this regard various hypotheses have been formulated. One might think of the common memory of a universal flood, but historians of religions have not dwelt on this hypothesis. Or one might seek the psychological reason for the formation itself in a possible influence of the biblical account or in the memory of more or less notable local floods, or in the tendency to give a pseudo-scientific explanation to natural phenomena. Since it has been observed that flood legends are found more often in river and coastal regions, which are exposed to inundations, some scholars admit the possibility that cataclysms of this kind may have appeared to the consciousness of local populations as a worldwide catastrophe, connected in turn, in various ways, to the destiny of the world and of humanity.

To better evaluate the meaning of the flood stories in relation to their origin, it is appropriate to note that this cataclysm is often regarded as a means - like others, such as fire, earthquake, famines - which the Supreme Being uses to punish humanity. R. Pettazzoni, in examining the characteristics of the Celestial Being in the beliefs of primitive peoples, points out that among his attributes is also that of being the master of excessive and torrential rains - and, therefore, of floods and inundations - which he would unleash to punish men for evil actions. D. G. Brinton then maintains that, since the flood is often inserted in a complex of beliefs concerning periodic destructions of the universe, in this case, in the conceptions of many peoples, the expectation of the end of the world (millennium) would be the natural complement of this myth.

For the flood narratives of certain peoples it seems possible to speak of direct Christian influences, both through the teachings of missionaries and through the accounts of merchants, who reached certain regions even before the missionaries themselves (e.g., in the countries of the Gold Coast in Africa). The myths of the Masai (Mount Kenya [Africa]) reveal precisely the Christian influence due either to the work of missionaries or to contacts with the Christian (Coptic) Galla or with the Muslim Somalis, if not indeed with the Judaized Falashas of Abyssinia.

The problem of the diffusion of the flood narrative has recently been studied by Pia Laviosa Zambotti, who has framed the question in relation to that of the diffusion of agricultural civilization throughout the world, to which she has particularly devoted herself.

Tullio Tentori

V. IN ART

For the representation of the Flood v. NOAH. The iconographic theme of the Flood is not developed in Christian iconography except together with that of Noah's ark. In any case, it is only from the 16th century that in pictorial compositions where the ark and the episodes connected with it are represented, the landscape elements and therefore the storm and the flood come to acquire predominant value. - See plate XCVI.