05_Biblica_1_H_Collins_Layout 1 05/11/12 12:19 Pagina 419 419 NOaH, deUCaLION, aNd THe NeW TesTaMeNT or ill: and then after the narration of these things he begins his ar- rangement of the laws, following Moses in this also. Like other Church Fathers, eusebius considered Moses to be the source of the wisdom Plato had. Here it is plain that eusebius con- nects the Platonic story to the Mosaic one. eusebius, then, agrees with Josephus in finding both the Mesopotamian and the Platonic In his City of God, 18.8, 10, augustine draws on the roman his- versions of the flood to be parallel to the Mosaic one. torian Marcus Terentius Varro (1st century B.C.e.) as a witness to the historicity of the disastrous flood associated with deucalion, apparently agreeing with eusebius’ connection of this flood with the biblical event. as a general rule, Christian authors make parallels between the biblical story and the Gentile stories for the same reasons the sec- view. By way of contrast, Chrysostom, in his Homilies on Genesis, ond Temple Jewish authors do, namely with an apologetic end in simply sticks to the biblical text, without mentioning the pagan sto- ries at all. apparently he did not feel pressure here to make apolo- getic moves. IV. analysis of the New Testament evidence From the materials surveyed already, it readily appears that at least some second Temple Jewish and early Christian authors con- sidered the stories of Noah, deucalion, and sisuthros to be about the same persons and events. Certainly they would resolve any case of disagreement in favor of the biblical story; but it served apolo- getic aims to show the connections between the various traditions. Further, these sources seem to have been aware of Plato’s version of the deucalion story — whether directly from Plato or in a form influenced by him. I have already acknowledged that no New Testament author makes explicit mention of any other source for the flood story than the Bible. Hence, any indications of a connection will come from indirect clues, such as vocabulary. This, however, is just what Feld- kurt aland’s Synopsis Quattuor Evangeliorum presents Matthew man found in the case of Josephus’ allusions to Plato’s story. 24,37-39 as a synoptic parallel to Luke 17,26-27. While there is indeed