“Wherefore, in short, at the first, when all the earth had been stained with sins, God brought a flood upon the world, which you say happened under Deucalion; and at that time He saved a certain righteous man, with his sons, in an ark, and with him the race of all plants and animals. 824 And yet even those who sprang from them, after a time, again did deeds like to those of their predecessors; for those things that had befallen them were forgotten, so that their descendants did not even believe that the flood had taken place. Wherefore God also decreed that there should not be another flood in the present world, else there should have been one in every generation, according to the account of their sins by reason of their unbelief; but He rather granted that certain angels who delight in evil should bear sway over the several nations—and to them was given power over individual men, yet only on this condition, if any one first had made himself subject to them by sinning—until He should come who delights in good, and by Him the number of the righteous should be completed, and by the increase of the number of p. 179 pious men all over the world impiety should be in some measure repressed, and it should be known to all that all that is good is done by God.
[Comp. book iv. 12; Homily VIII. 17.—R.]