Divine Patience and Human Response

Eighty-six and sixty-four, a cube, for four times four is sixty-four. But also, being tripled up to seven from the unit, the seven hundred twenty-nine is formed, and being both a square and a cube: one, three, nine, twenty-seven, eighty-one, two hundred forty-three, seven hundred twenty-nine, as it has been said, completes both a cube and a square; thus the square: seventy-two times twenty-seven is seven hundred twenty-nine; thus the cube: nine times ninety-nine is seven hundred twenty-nine. The square signifies stability, but the cube signifies something else.

Therefore, what has been spoken concerning the numbers would not be unrepresentative, having been proven by not involving the divine letters in nothing. And to those things spoken, it is appropriate to add that a porthole was appropriately left in the ark, so that, lest another origin arise, a heresy concerning two creators be introduced. For if, even with such security made, the heretics find differences, introducing divinities, how much more would they find plausible arguments for their own evil hypothesis.

For, 'And in seven days I will cause rain upon the earth forty days and forty nights; and I will destroy all the living things which I have made upon the face of the earth' (Genesis 7:4, 17). And this is foretold by the philanthropy of God for correction, in order to hear about the destruction that shall be after seven days, just as in the disasters we have set aside the preaching according to Jonah, which also happened through the repentance of the Ninevites, as it occurred. And forty days and forty nights of rain from above and below has happened in this way, so that the mountains were overwhelmed by fifty cubits.

If even the number according to which the destruction occurred has a reason, consider how 'I will destroy all the living things which I have made upon the face of the earth.' Some, having taken the matter of the destruction, thought that a previous world had endured a conflagration according to the Stoics, with the same elements existing in the matter which is unchangeable from this world. But this was sketched...

If in the demonstration of dogmas; for it is not possible for the movements of souls to occur without deviation from what has happened and what is to happen, so as to differ in no way.

Genesis 6:22: 'And Noah did all that the Lord God commanded him.' For all the things the Lord God commanded to be done are a testimony for man, and it is said in those things which preceded. The blessed David was also worthy of such an acceptance, concerning whom God said to find 'David the son of Jesse, a man after my own heart, who will do all my will' (Acts 13:22).

Genesis 6:3: 'And Noah was five hundred years old, and the flood of water came upon the earth.'... regarding the goodness of God, how in a hundred percent of years he allowed the ark to be made; for this is evident from the five hundred years from when Noah began to... it became wise toward the assembling of all things, so that seeing the strangeness of the construction, men might hear, learn the reason, and cease from wickedness. If they had heard and repented, the flood would not have come.

That this happened for the sake of long-suffering and to call men to repentance, Peter, the spokesman of the apostles, in the epistle concerning him, marks out concerning the Savior: 'In which also he went and preached to the spirits in prison, who indeed in the days of Noah, while the ark was being constructed, were disobedient, when the long-suffering of God was waiting' (1 Peter 3:19). And from this let us observe that he said many sins occur 'upon the earth' (Revelation 18:4); but God does not bring the flood... for some reason of long-suffering, he makes this a place of repentance, giving it. So also, after a transgression, he gave a law that forbids, and after admonitions, he brings reproofs, not casting them away. And in the... you will find this.

Israel, being part of the Lord and a son of God, transgressed his commands, even though God was doing all things for him. For what does he say in Isaiah? 'A horn was raised up for the beloved in a horn in a place of drinking' (Isaiah 49:2), where 'horn' refers to the kingship, and 'place of drinking' signifies the instruction through law and prophets. 'And...'