“But very wonderful is the confirmation of the history as it is related in Hierapolis. In the neighbourhood of that city a great chasm opened which engulphed all the waters of the Flood. Thereupon Deucalion erected altars, and dedicated a temple to Here (Atergatis) over the chasm. I have seen this; it is very small: whether it was once large but has since become smaller, I cannot say; but I saw that it was small. For the confirmation of the history the following takes place: twice in the year the sea-water is brought into the temple. Not only do the priests bear it, but all Syria and Arabia, and many from beyond Euphrates, come and carry water. They pour it out in the temple; then it runs down into the chasm, and, though it may be very small, it takes in all the water poured into it. This they do, say they, because Deucalion instituted this rite as a memorial of his deliverance, and of the mercy of God.”[[210]]
Equally fully has the Babylonian tradition reached us from the Chaldee history of the old priest of Bel, Berosus (B.C. 260). The Chaldees had placed ten kings at the head of this mystic history, which answer to the ten generations in Genesis before the Flood. The last of these patriarchs was called Xisuthrus, who is the same as the Biblical Noah. Berosus relates the story of the Deluge thus: “Under the reign of Xisuthrus there was a great flood. Kronos (i.e. Bel) appeared to Xisuthrus in a dream, and warned him that all men would be destroyed by a deluge on the 15th of the month Dæsios, and he commanded him to write down all the learning and science of men, and to hide it in the sun-city Siparis, and then to build a ship and to enter it along with his family and relatives and nearest friends, and to take into it with him food and drink, and beasts and winged fowl. When he was asked whither he was about to sail, he was bidden reply: To the gods, to pray them that men may prosper. He obeyed; and made an ark five stadia long and two wide, laid in what was commanded, and sailed with his wife and child and relatives. When the flood abated, Xisuthrus sent out a bird which, as it found no food nor ground on which to perch, returned to the ship. After a day, he sent out another bird; this came back with mud on its feet. The third bird he sent out did not return. So Xisuthrus knew that the land appeared, and he broke a hole in the ship and saw that the ship was stranded on a mountain; so he disembarked with his wife and daughter and steersman; and when he had adored the earth, raised an altar, and offered to the gods, he vanished. Those who remained in the ship also went out, when they saw that Xisuthrus did not return, to seek Xisuthrus, and they called him by name. But Xisuthrus appeared again no more, only his voice was heard bidding them fear God, and telling them that he was taken to dwell with the gods, because he was pious. The same honour was accorded to his wife and daughter and to the steersman.” This refers to their being set in the sky as constellations: Xisuthrus as the water-bearer, the virgin, and steersman still occupy their places there. “He bade them,” continues Berosus, “return to Babylon, and, as Fate decreed, take his writings out of Siparis, and from them instruct men. The place where they found themselves was Armenia. Some fragments of the ship remain on the mountains of the Kordyæans in Armenia, and some take away particles and use them as amulets.”[[211]]
Eusebius has preserved a fragment of another Babylonian writer, Abydenos, which gives the same story precisely.[[212]]
Another Chaldee tradition preserved by Cassian is that, before the Flood, Ham concealed in the ground treatises of witchcraft and alchemy, and that, when the water abated, he recovered them.[[213]] According to Berosus also, Xisuthrus had three sons,—Zerovanos, Titan, and Japetosthes. Zerovanos is the same as Zoroaster.
From Phrygia also come to us traces of a Diluvian tradition. A number of coins of Apamea, a city of Phrygia, between the rivers Mæander and Marsyas, of the period of Septimius Severus and the following emperors, possibly bear reference to this event.[[214]] One, a coin of Philip, bears on the reverse something like a box, containing a man and woman; on the panel of the box, under the man, is written “Noe,” the dove is bringing the olive branch, and the raven is seated on the edge of the box above the head of the female figure. The same two persons are also represented on dry land, with the right hand uplifted in the attitude of prayer. Another coin with the same subject, on the reverse has, inscribed on the ark, ΝΗΤΩΝ.
To elucidate these coins, reference is made to a passage in the Sibylline Oracles to this effect: “In Phrygia lies steep, to be seen from afar, a mountain, named Ararat.... Therefrom streams the river Marsyas; but on its crest rested the ark (κιβωτός) when the rain abated.”[[215]] As the ancient name of Apamea seems to have been Kibotos, it is not unlikely that the Sibylline writer mixed together in those lines the Mosaic and the Phrygian traditions.
It must, however, be admitted that it is quite as probable that the box represents a temple, and the two figures tutelary deities, and that the “Noe” is a contraction for “Neocoros,” the most important title assumed by Greek cities, and often recorded on their coins.
The ancient Persian account in the Bundehesch is this:—“Taschter (the spirit ruling the waters) found water for thirty days and thirty nights upon the earth. Every water-drop was as big as a bowl. The earth was covered with water the height of a man. All idolaters on earth died through the rain; it penetrated all openings. Afterwards a wind from heaven divided the water and carried it away in clouds, as souls bear bodies; then Ormuzd collected all the water together and placed it as a boundary to the earth, and thus was the great ocean formed.”[[216]]
The ancient Indian tradition is, “that in the reign of the sun-born monarch Satyavrata, the whole earth was drowned, and the whole human race destroyed by a flood, except the pious prince himself, the seven Rishis and their several wives.” This general pralaya, or destruction, is the subject of the first Purana, or sacred poem; and the story is concisely told in the eighth book of the Bhagavata, from which the following is an abridged extract:—“The demon Hayagriva having purloined the Vedas from Brahma whilst he was reposing, the whole race of men became corrupt, except the seven Rishis and Satyavrata. This prince was performing his ablutions in the river Critamala, when Vishnu appeared to him in the shape of a small fish, and after several augmentations of bulk in different waters, was placed by Satyavrata in the ocean, when he thus addressed his amazed votary:—‘In seven days all creatures who have offended me shall be destroyed by a deluge; but thou shalt be secured in a capacious vessel miraculously formed. Take, therefore, all kinds of medicinal herbs and esculent grain for food, and, together with the seven holy men, your respective wives, and pairs of all animals, enter the ark without fear; then shalt thou know God face to face, and all thy questions shall be answered.’ Saying this, he disappeared; and, after seven days, the ocean began to overflow the coasts, and the earth to be flooded by constant showers, when Satyavrata, meditating on the Deity, saw a large vessel moving on the waters: he entered it, having in all respects conformed to the instructions of Vishnu, who, in the form of a large fish, suffered the vessel to be tied with a great sea-serpent, as with a cable, to his measureless horn. When the deluge had ceased, Vishnu slew the demon and recovered the Vedas, and instructed Satyavrata in divine knowledge.”[[217]]
The Mahabharata says that the boat containing Manu and his seven companions rested on Mount Naubhandanam, the highest peak of the Himalayas; and the name Naubhandanam signifies “ships stranding.”[[218]]