{"author":null,"backreferences":[{"context_html":"<p>Let us now see how it can be plainly made out that in the\r\nenormously protracted lives of those men the years were not\r\nso short that ten of their years were equal to only one of ours,\r\nbut were of as great length as our own, which are measured\r\nby the course of the sun. It is proved by this, that Scripture\r\nstates that the flood occurred in the six hundredth year of\r\nNoah's life. But why in the same place is it also written,\r\n\"The waters of the flood were upon the earth in the six\r\nhundredth year of Noah's life, in the second month, the\r\ntwenty-seventh day of the month,\"<a id=\"FNanchor_173_173\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_173_173\">[173]</a> if that very brief year (of\r\nwhich it took ten to make one of ours) consisted of thirty-six\r\ndays? For so scant a year, if the ancient usage dignified\r\nit with the name of year, either has not months, or its month\r\nmust be three days, so that it may have twelve of them. How\r\nthen was it here said, \"In the six hundredth year, the second\r\nmonth, the twenty-seventh day of the month,\" unless the\r\nmonths then were of the same length as the months now?\r\nFor how else could it be said that the flood began on the\r\ntwenty-seventh day of the second month? Then afterwards,\r\nat the end of the flood, it is thus written: \"And the ark rested\r\nin the seventh month, on the twenty-seventh day of the month,\r\non the mountains of Ararat. And the waters decreased continually\r\nuntil the eleventh month: on the first day of the\r\nmonth were the tops of the mountains seen.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_174_174\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_174_174\">[174]</a> But if the<span class=\"pagenum\"><a id=\"Page_74\">[Pg 74]</a></span>\r\nmonths were such as we have, then so were the years. And\r\ncertainly months of three days each could not have a twenty-seventh\r\nday. Or if every measure of time was diminished in\r\nproportion, and a thirtieth part of three days was then called\r\na day, then that great deluge, which is recorded to have lasted\r\nforty days and forty nights, was really over in less than four\r\nof our days. Who can away with such foolishness and absurdity?\r\nFar be this error from us,—an error which seeks to\r\nbuild up our faith in the divine Scriptures on false conjecture,\r\nonly to demolish our faith at another point. It is plain that\r\nthe day then was what it now is, a space of four-and-twenty\r\nhours, determined by the lapse of day and night; the month\r\nthen equal to the month now, which is defined by the rise\r\nand completion of one moon; the year then equal to the year\r\nnow, which is completed by twelve lunar months, with the\r\naddition of five days and a-fourth to adjust it with the course\r\nof the sun. It was a year of this length which was reckoned\r\nthe six hundredth of Noah's life; and in the second month,\r\nthe twenty-seventh day of the month, the flood began,—a\r\nflood which, as is recorded, was caused by heavy rains continuing\r\nfor forty days, which days had not only two hours\r\nand a little more, but four-and-twenty hours, completing a\r\nnight and a day. And consequently those antediluvians lived\r\nmore than 900 years, which were years as long as those\r\nwhich afterwards Abraham lived 175 of, and after him his\r\nson Isaac 180, and his son Jacob nearly 150, and some time\r\nafter, Moses 120, and men now seventy or eighty, or not\r\nmuch longer, of which years it is said, \"their strength is\r\nlabour and sorrow.\"<a id=\"FNanchor_175_175\"></a><a class=\"fnanchor pginternal\" href=\"#Footnote_175_175\">[175]</a></p>","headings":["THE CITY OF GOD.","BOOK FIFTEENTH.","ARGUMENT."],"marker_anchor":null,"paragraph_id":"pg45305-paragraph-129"}],"canonical_references":[],"date_end":null,"date_start":null,"deduplication_fingerprint":"7132f4d452ee75b3818c0d1bfa6dad3333f1f96960df81fb8abff9bb5108d966","edition_title":"The City of God, Volume II","edition_translators":["Marcus Dods","George Wilson (Books XVII-XVIII)"],"edition_year":1871,"explicit_reference_candidates":[{"book":"GEN","chapter":8,"kind":"unreviewed","source_notation":"Gen. viii. 4","verse":4,"verse_end":4}],"headings":[],"id":"pg45305-Footnote_174_174","license_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/policy/license.html","public_import_allowed":false,"record_kind":"original-editor-translator-note","review_required":["work and recension attribution","original-work chronology","Bible reference numbering and citation kind","English edition rights and attribution"],"review_status":"needs_review","rights_evidence":"Provider catalog reports public domain in the USA. Original transcription title leaves state T. & T. Clark, Edinburgh, 1871; printed translator allocation retained. Gutenberg credits Internet Archive/Canadian Libraries without an exact scan identifier. Full provider license preserved with acquired original; republication and per-work metadata remain unreviewed.","source_anchor":"Footnote_174_174","source_ebook":45305,"source_html":"<div class=\"footnote\">\n<p><a id=\"Footnote_174_174\"></a><a class=\"pginternal\" href=\"#FNanchor_174_174\"><span class=\"label\">[174]</span></a> Gen. viii. 4, 5.</p></div>","source_sha256":"7e0ced9e70512f3cf050b53c9d548e36b70d468d875153869f95d8aff5bbb530","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/45305/pg45305-images.html#Footnote_174_174","text_sha256":"df2ce2f62c1b2ad92bcbc5aa4a5dfc1207afd7556356a3a75115489890f8557c","verified":false,"work_id":null}