Let both these traditions be compared with Berosus’ account of Hoa, or the fish-god (vide Rawlinson, “Anct. Mon.” i. p. 155, and supra, [p. 238]).
“He is said to have transmitted to mankind the knowledge of grammar and mathematics, and of all arts (or of any kind of art), and of the polity of cities, the construction and dedication of temples, the introduction of laws, to have taught them geometry, and to have shown them by example, the mode of sowing the seed and gathering the fruits of the earth; and along with them to have tradated all the secrets which tend to harmonise life. And no one else in that time was found so experienced as he.”[272]
In the traditions, however, which connect Noah with the Saturnian reign,[273] it appears to me that threefold confusion has to be disentangled.
I. There is a tradition of a golden and of a silver age frequently transfused.
II. When thus transfused there is often along with the tradition of a golden or silver age trace of a subordinate and incongruous tradition of a state of nature as a state of barbarism—both at the early commencement of things.
III. There is a double tradition of the succession of ages, the one ante-, the other post-diluvian.
I. The tradition of the golden age is primarily the tradition of Paradise, to which succeeded in gradation of degeneracy a silver, brass, and iron age. Of this line of tradition we have seen distinct trace in Sanchoniathon (supra, [p. 127]).
But there is also, as we have just seen, a tradition of another golden age connected with Saturn, Janus, &c., and of this perhaps we have the most direct testimony in the Chinese tradition.
“The Chinese traditions,” says Professor Rawlinson (Bampton Lectures, ii., quoting “Horæ Mos.” iv. 147) “are said to be less clear and decisive (than the Babylonian). They speak of a ‘first heaven’ and age of innocence when ‘the whole creation enjoyed a state of happiness; when everything was beautiful, everything was good; all things were perfect in their kind. Whereunto succeeded a second heaven, introduced by a great convulsion, in which the pillars of heaven were broken, the earth shook to its foundations, the heavens sank lower towards the north, the sun, moon, and stars changed their motions, the earth fell to pieces, and the waters enclosed within its bosom burst forth with violence and overflowed,’” &c.
Here, then, is a tradition of a second heaven, or a Saturnian reign, following a convulsion which will perhaps be conceded to be a tradition of the universal Deluge (vide [p. 223]), and which links the tradition of the Saturnian reign with the patriarch Noah?[274]