rendered "pitch."

246. You may ask: Why does God prescribe everything so accurately? The
injunction to build the ark should have been sufficient. Reason could
determine for itself the rules concerning dimensions and mode of
construction. Why, then, does God give such careful instruction with
reference to dimensions and materials? Certainly that Noah, after
undertaking all things according to the Lord's direction (as Moses
built the tabernacle according to the model received on the mount),
should with the greater faith trust that he and his people were to be
saved, nor entertain any doubt concerning a work ordered by the Lord
himself, even how it should be made. This is the reason the Lord gives
his directions with such attention to detail.

V. 15. _And this is how thou shalt make it: the length of the ark
three hundred cubits, the breadth of it fifty cubits, and the height
of it thirty cubits._

247. A nice geometrical and mathematical exercise concerning the form
and dimensions of the ark is here presented. The views of writers
vary. Some claim it was four-cornered, others that it was gabled like
nearly all our structures in Europe. As for myself, I hold it was
four-cornered. Eastern people's were not acquainted with gabled
buildings. Theirs were evidently of four-cornered form, as the Bible
mentions people walking on roofs. Similar was the shape of the temple.

248. There is a difference of opinion also concerning the arrangement
of the animals in their quarters, which occupied the upper, which the
central and which the lower places, this being the distinction
warranted by the text. No certainty, however, can be arrived at. It is
likely that Noah himself and the birds occupied the upper part, the
clean animals the central and the unclean animals the lower one. The
rabbis assert the lower part served the purpose of storing dung. But I
think the dung was thrown out of the window, for its removal was
necessitated by such a multitude of beasts abiding in the ark for over
a year.

249. Augustine quotes Philo against Faustus in stating that on
geometrical principles, the ark had the proportions of the human body,
for when a man lies on the ground his body is ten times as long as it
is high and six times as long as broad. So three hundred cubits are
six times fifty and ten times thirty.

250. An application is made of this to the body of Christ, the Church,
which has baptism as the door, through which clean and unc