I proceed to place in juxtaposition a recapitulation of the classical and oriental traditions, and the quotations from Helps above referred to.
“One peculiar circumstance, as Humboldt remarks, is very much to be noted in the ancient records and traditions of the Indian nations. In no less than three remarkable instances has superior civilisation been attributed to the sudden presence amongst them of persons differing from themselves in appearance and descent.”
[As to the argument to be derived from colour and appearance, vide supra, [p. 79].]
“Bochica, a white man with a beard, appeared to the Mozca Indians in the plains of Bogota, taught them how to build and to sow, formed them into communities, gave an outlet to the waters of the great lake [compare supra, [p. 70], Chronology], and having settled the government, civil and ecclesiastical, retired into a monastic state of penitence for two thousand years.[267]
“In like manner Manco Capac, accompanied by his sister Mama Ocllo, descended amongst the Peruvians, gave them a code of admirable laws, reduced them into communities, and then ascended to his father the Sun.”[268] (A confusion with the tradition of Enoch, parallel to the like confusion in the person of Xisuthrus,[269] unmistakably identified with Noah in the Babylonian tradition.)
“Amongst the Mexicans there suddenly appeared Quetzalcohuatl, the green-feathered (i.e. elegant) snake” (compare with Chaldæan fish-god, [p. 199]), “a white and bearded man of broad brow, dressed in strange dress, a legislator who recommended severe penances, lacerating his own body with the prickles of the agave and the thorns of the cactus, but who dissuaded his followers from human sacrifices. While he remained in Anahuana it was a Saturnian reign; but this great legislator, after moving on to the plains of Cholulas, and governing the Cholulans with wisdom, passed away to a distant country” [if this looks more like the movement among them of some apostolic missionary, it is also in keeping with the journey of Bacchus, “travelling through all nations,” &c.], “and was never heard of more.” It is said briefly of him, that “he ordained sacrifices of flowers and fruit, and stopped his ears, when he was spoken to of war.”[270] Such a saint is needed in all times, even in the present advanced state of civilisation in the old world.”[271]—Help’s “Spanish Conquest of America,” i. 286.
I have shown ([p. 211]) that Calmet (and other authorities of the same date might be adduced) identifies Saturn with Noah. Among other proofs he points to the tradition of Saturn devouring his children (with the exception of three), as a distorted tradition of the destruction of mankind according to the prediction of Noah, upon the canon of interpretation, “that men are said often to do what they do not prevent, or even what they predict.” I have also shown that this conjecture receives attestation from a fragment of Sanchoniathon’s (Phœnician),important whether regarded as a more ancient parallel tradition, or as the same tradition nearer the fountain-head.
Without recapitulating the other points of resemblance (vide [ch. x.]), let us compare what is said of Saturn with what is said of Bochica, Manco Capac, &c.
“Under Saturn,” says Plutarch, “was the golden age.” “Saturn is represented with a scythe, as the inventor of agriculture.” Virgil (Æn. viii. 315) describes Saturn as bringing the dispersed people from the mountains and giving them laws. I have also drawn attention to the Saturnalia as connecting Bacchus with Saturn. Now Cicero tells us that one Bacchus was king of Asia, and author of laws called Subazian; and Bacchus is also said to have travelled through all nations doing good, in all places, and teaching many things profitable to the life of man.
Noah has also been identified with Janus, and under Janus as under Saturn was the golden age; and it is, moreover, said (vide [p. 218]), “that in the time of Janus all families were full of religion and holiness.” He is said to have been the first that built temples and instituted sacred rites, and was therefore always mentioned at the beginning of sacrifices. [This, in common with what is said of Quetzalcohuatl is again possibly a combined tradition of Enoch and Noah.]