05_Biblica_1_H_Collins_Layout 1 05/11/12 12:19 Pagina 413 413 NOAH, DEUCALION, AND THE NEW TESTAMENT seems to date from before 70 B.C.E. 22, and to have come from Phry- gia, since it has Noah’s ark landing there (1:262). In addition to the LXX, and possibly Jewish sources such as the tales represented in 1 Enoch, it appears that in framing history as four declining ages the author followed the structure of Hesiod’s Works and Days; the mention of the “giants” (1:124) is similar to what we saw in Ovid and in Josephus above. Of interest for this study is the way God commands Noah (1:129) to “preach repentance” ( , an idea picked up by other Jewish and early Christian writers (see below on Theophilus and 2 Peter). The Apocryphal books contain several references to Noah and the flood, most of them being incidental. For example, Wisdom 10,4, in a list of people whom personified Wisdom helped, tells us: When the earth was flooded because of him, wisdom again saved it, steering the righteous man by a paltry piece of wood. A little later, in a context about how sailors must rely on God for a safe journey rather than foolish wooden idols (14,1-11), we find this (14,3-6): (3) but it is your providence ( , O Father, that steers its course, because you have given it a path in the sea, and a safe way through the waves, (4) showing that you can save from every danger, so that even if a man lacks skill, he may put to sea. (5) It is your will that works of your wisdom should not be without effect; therefore men trust their lives even to the smallest piece of wood, and passing through the billows on a raft they come safely to land ( ). (6) For even in the beginning, when arrogant giants were perishing , the hope of the world took refuge on a raft ( ), and guided by your hand left to the world the seed of a new generation. See J.J. COLLINS, “Sibylline Oracles”, The Old Testament Pseudepigra- 22 pha (ed. J. CHARLESWORTH) (Garden City, NY 1983) I, 330-334.