60*2 



DELUGE. 



Deluge. 

 Iroquois. 



Orient*! 

 testimo- 

 nies. 



J'osephus. 



Among the Iroquois it is reported,' that a certain 

 spirit, called by them Olkon, was ; the creator cf the 

 world ; and that another being called Messou, repaired 

 it after a deluge, which happened in consequence of 

 Otkon's dogs having one day when he was hunting 

 with them lost themselves in a great lake, which, in con- 

 sequence of this, overflowed in its banks, and in a short 

 time covered the whole earth. 



Passing from the more remote western to the eastern 

 continent, nearer to the region where Noah is general- 

 ly supposed to have lived, we find the traditions re- 

 specting the deluge still more particular and minute. 



According to Josephus, there were a multitude of 

 ancient authors, who concurred in asserting that the 

 world had once been destroyed by a flood : " This de- 

 luge," says he, " and the ark, are mentioned by all 

 who have written Barbaric histories, one of whom is 

 Berosus the Chaldean. Speaking of this event, he 

 affirms, that in Armenia, upon a mountain of the Co- 

 rydeans, part of the ship is even yet remaining. It is 

 a custom to scrape from off it some of the bitumen with 

 which it was covered, and to cany it about as a talis- 

 man against diseases. Jerome the Egyptian, who 

 wrote the ancient history of Phenicia, and Mnaseas, 

 and many others, likewise mention these events. Ni- 

 colaus Damascenus relates, that there is a great moun- 

 tain in Armenia, situated above Minyas, which is call- 

 ed Paris, to which many persons fled at the time of 

 the deluge, and were preserved. One in particular was 

 conveyed in an ark to the very summit of the moun- 

 tain, and a considerable part of the vessel still remains. 

 He perhaps may be the man concerning whom Moses 

 the Jewish lawgiver wrote." Joseph. Antiq. Jud. lib. i. 

 cap. 12. 



Eusebius (Prcep. Evnng. lib. ix. c. 19-) informs us, 

 that Melo, a bitter enemy of the Jews, and whose tes- 

 timony is on this account peculiarly valuable, takes no- 

 tice of the person who was saved along with his sons 

 from the flood, having been, after his preservation, 

 driven away from Armenia, whence he retired to the 

 mountainous parts of Syria. Abydenus, after giving 

 an account of the deluge from which Xisuthrus, the 

 Chaldean Noah, was saved, concludes with asserting, 

 in exact concurrence with Berosus, that the ark first 

 rested on the mountains of Armenia, and that its re- 

 mains were used by the natives as a talisman. (Eusebii 

 Prcep. Evang. lib. i. c. 12.) And Plutarch (de Solerl. 

 Animal, v. ii.) mentions the Noachic dove, being sent 

 out of the ark, and returning to it again, as an inti- 

 mation to Deucalion that the storm had not yet ceas- 

 ed. 

 Chinese tra. This, however, is by no means all. Sir W. Jones, 

 *lition. speaking of one of the Chinese fables, says, "Although 

 I cannot insist with confidence, that the rainbow men- 

 tioned in it alludes to the Mosaic narrative of the 

 flood, nor build any solid argument on the divine per- 

 son Niu-va, of whose character, and even of whose 

 sex, the historians of China speak very doubtfully ; I 

 may nevertheless assure yon, after full inquiry and con- 

 sideration, that the Chinese believe the earth to have 

 been wholly covered with water, which, in works of 

 •undisputed authenticity, they describe as flow in g abun- 

 dantly, then subsiding, and separating the higher from 

 the lower age of mankind ; that the divisions of time, 

 from which their poetical history begins, just preceded 

 the appearance of Fo-hi, in the mountains of China ; 

 but that the great inundation in the reign of Yao, was 

 either confined to the low lands of his kingdom, if the 

 whole account of it be not a fable, or if it contains any 



Mclo. 



allusion to the flood of Noah, has been ignorantly mis- Deluge. 

 placed by the Chinese annalists." Asiat. Research, vol. S ~T"""- / 

 ii. Diss, on the Chinese. 



The account given by Plutarch of the Egyptian Osi- Egyptian, 

 ris, affords some grounds for imagining, that he also is 

 the same person with Noah. He is said to have been 

 a husbandman, a legislator, and a zealous advocate for 

 theworship of thegods. Typhonhaving conspiredagainst 

 him, and, try a stratagem, having prevailed on him to enter 

 into an ark, which was immediately closed on him, he, 

 in this situation, floated down the Nile into the Sea. 

 Now as, according to Plutarch, Typhon is merely a my- 

 thological person expressive of the ocean, this tradition 

 evidently signifies nothing more than that the charac- 

 ter denominated Osiris was in danger from the sea, and 

 that he escaped by entering into an ark. Nor is it un- 

 deserving of notice, that he is said to have entered this 

 vessel on the seventeenth of the month Athyr, which pre- 

 cisely agrees with the day of the patriarch's embarka- 

 tion, previous to the commencement of the deluge. 

 (Plut. de Isid. et Osir. p. 356, &c.) Plato also men- 

 tions, that a priest of Sais declared to Solon, that, pre- 

 vious to the partial deluges of Ogyges and Deucalion, 

 a universal one had taken place, in which the original 

 constitution of the earth was considerably altered. ZY- 

 •mceus, p. 23. It is no doubt true, that Diodorus Sicu- 

 lus (Bibl. Hist. lib. i.) asserts, that the Egyptians main- 

 tained the flood of Deucalion to have been universal ; 

 but this discrepancy must appeal - , to every one who 

 attends to the confusion which frequently pervades dif- 

 ferent accounts of the very same event, insufficient to 

 invalidate the position, that the Egyptians did believe 

 in a deluge that was universal. 



A similar belief prevailed among such of the ancient Persian. 

 Persians as professed to hold their religion in its an- 

 cient purity, though some sects among them denied it 

 entirely, and others maintained that it was only partial. 

 Zoroaster is said to have affirmed, that such a catas- 

 trophe was occasioned by the wickedness and diabolic 

 arts of a person called Malcus ; and, according to ano- 

 ther of their authors, Noah himself dwelt in the moun- 

 tain from which the waters of the deluge burst forth, 

 though, by the same writer, an absurd tradition is 

 mentioned of the particular place from which they is- 

 sued : " Zala-Cupha dicitur fuisse nomen vetulce ex cu- 

 jusfurno aqua dHuvii primo erupii." Hyde de Relig. 

 Vet. Pers. c. x. 



Berosus, who lived in the time of Alexander, and Chaldean. 

 wrote the history of the Babylonians, relates, that the 

 general deluge happened in the days of king Xisuthrus-, 

 who, like Noah, was the tenth in descent from the first 

 created yman. Having in a dream been warned by 

 Cronus or Saturn of the approaching calamity, he was 

 commanded to build an immense ship, and embark in 

 it with his wife, his children, and his friends ; having 

 first furnished it with provisions, and put into it a 

 number both of birds and fourfooted animals. As soon 

 as these preparations were completed, the flood com- 

 menced, and the whole world perished beneath its wa- 

 ters. After it began to abate, Xisuthrus sent out some 

 of the birds, which, finding neither food nor resting- 

 place, returned immediately to the ship. In the course 

 of a few days he again let out the birds, but they came 

 back to him having their feet covered with mud. The 

 third time, however, that he sent them out, they re- 

 turned no more. Concluding from this that the flood 

 was decreasing, and the earth again appearing, he 

 made an aperture in the side of the vessel, and percei- 

 ved that it was approaching a mountain on which it. 



