entertained by ecclesiastics that the earth will be destroyed by
fire, Celsus writes:

"The belief has spread among them, from a misunderstanding of the
accounts of these occurrences, that after lengthened cycles of
time, and the returns and conjunctions of planets,
conflagrations, and floods are wont to happen, and because after
the last flood, which took place in the time of Deucalion, the
lapse of time, agreeably to the vicissitude of all things,
requires a conflagration; and this made them give utterance to
the erroneous opinion that God will descend, bringing fire like a
torturer."[44]

[44] Origen against Celsus, book iv., ch. xi.


The mythologies of all nations are largely founded upon the
"religious history" of a flood. The doctrine of a triplicated
God saved from destruction by a storm-tossed ark which rested on
some local mountain answering to Ararat, and which was filled
with the natural elements of reproduction, is found amongst the
traditions of every country of the globe. In Egypt, the
destructive agency drives the God into the ark--or into the
fish's belly, where he is obliged to remain until the flood
subsides. In other words, at the time of the destruction of the
world, the creative agency is forced within the womb of Nature,
there to remain until it again comes forth to recreate the world;
nor does the symbolism end here, for this God--the sun, or the
reproductive power within it, which every year is put to death by
the cold of winter, must for a season remain lifeless, but, at