Chapter 7.—Whether Even the
Remotest Islands Received Their Fauna from the Animals Which Were
Preserved, Through the Deluge, in the Ark.
There is a question raised about
all those kinds of beasts which are not domesticated, nor are
produced like frogs from the earth, but are propagated by male and
female parents, such as wolves and animals of that kind; and it is
asked how they could be found in the islands after the deluge, in
which all the animals not in the ark perished, unless the breed was
restored from those which were preserved in pairs in the ark. It
might, indeed, be said that they crossed to the islands by
swimming, but this could only be true of those very near the
mainland; whereas there are some so distant, that we fancy no
animal could swim to them. But if men caught them and took them
across with themselves, and thus propagated these breeds in their
new abodes, this would not imply an incredible fondness for the
chase. At the same time, it cannot be denied that by the
intervention of angels they might be transferred by God’s order
or permission. If, however, they were produced out of the earth
as at their first creation, when God said, “Let the earth bring
forth the living creature,”
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this makes it more evident that all
kinds of animals were preserved in the ark, not so much for the
sake of renewing the stock, as of prefiguring the various nations
which were to be saved in the church; this, I say, is more evident,
if the earth brought forth many animals in islands to which they
could not cross over.
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Gen. i. 24
.