LETTER XVI.

Ancient Traditions of the Deluge in Chaldea, Assyria, Egypt, Greece, Rome, Phenicia, Syria, Armenia, and Persia.

THE most ancient account of the deluge, except that of the Pentateuch, but much later, which has escaped the ravages of time, is the narrative which Berosus has inserted in his Chaldean Annals. He lived in the period of the Macedonian dynasties, but what he mentions he declares that he compiled from the written documents kept at Babylon; so that it is their evidence we are reading when we peruse his statement. These described Chronos, one of their worshipped deities, as having appeared in a dream to the king Xisuthrus, to apprize him that mankind would be destroyed by a flood; and commanding him to build a naval vessel to contain his relations, the necessary food, and also birds and quadrupeds.

The brief detail which the historian of Chaldea has thus preserved of this people's tradition and public memorials of the event, comes nearest of any others to the Hebrew account; and being derived from an independent source, and coinciding with it in the most essential points of the divine premonition and causation of the preservation of one family, and of the enjoined fabrication of a floating ark for that purpose, with the conservation of animals likewise, and even of 'birds sent out to ascertain the state of the coast, this Chaldean record is an impressive testimony to the reality of the catastrophe, and of its moral causes.*

* This account was part of the second book of the Annals of Berosus, from which Alexander Polyhistor extracted the passage quoted by Euse'bius in his Greek Chronicle, p. 8, and by Syncellus, p. 28. Berosus also narrates, that this king built a vessel five stadia long by two broad, and entered it with his wife, children, and nearest friends. The flood came, and when it abated, Xisuthrus sent out some birds, which not finding any food, returned, Some days after they again flew out, and came back with muddy feet. Put out a third time, they returned no more. Thinking from this that the ground had become cleared of the waters, Xisuthrus opened his vessel, and found it resting on a mountain, on which he descended.-Ib. Josephus also cites Berosus to the same effect, in his first book against Appion. Apollodorus likewise more briefly quotes the Chaldean historian.-Euseb, p. 5. Sync. Chron. p. 39,

Abydenus was another ancient author, who, in his Median and Assyrian History, had notices of the same catastrophe, with some circumstances similar to the Chaldean account.* We learn from Diodorus Siculus, that the Egyptians had likewise preserved a memory of it, and discussed their origin from the calamitous event, either as having been preserved from its general devastation, or as springing up afterward anew from the teeming earth. All these allusions imply a universal deluge.

The destruction of the whole living world, in its primordial times, by a deluge to which, as in Egypt, the name of Deucalion was attached, was the prevalent opinion in Greece. From him and his wife Pyrrha, the human race were stated to have been renewed. Individual writers occasionally arose, who confined the incident to Greece; but this was not the popular or predominant impression. According to that, it was a general destruction of the existing mankind. The Greek mythologist, Apollodorus, details the tradition as it was usually accredited, and makes the third generation of men, or the Brazen Age, which preceded our Iron one, to have been that which so perished; though as Deucalion's antediluvian abode was in Greece, he only specifies the local effects there.+

τα

* Abydenus, as Eusebius quotes his writings on "ra Mndika kat Accupla," states that Chronos signified to Xisuthrus that there should be vast rains, πληθος ομβρων. He mentions the birds going out and returning, but that the third time they caine back with mud on their claws -Prep. Ev. p. 414, and Chron. p. 13. Cyril also gives the passage in his first book against Julian. It is likewise in Syncellus, p. 44. † Mentioning the persuasion of the Egyptians that they were the first of mankind, this historian adds, "They say, on the whole, that either in the flood, which occurred in the time of Deucalion, the greatest part of living things perished, but that it was likely that those who inhabited Egypt so much to the south, and so free from rain, were mostly preserved; or, as some declare, that all that were alive being destroyed, the earth again brought forth new natures of animals from their beginning."-Diod. Sic. 1. i. p. 10.

"When Jupiter determined to destroy the brazen race, Deucalion, by the advice of Prometheus, made a great ark, Aapvaka, put into it all necessary things, and entered it with Pyrrha. Jupiter then, pouring down heavy rains from heaven, overwhelmed the greatest part of Greece, so that all men perished except a few who fled to the highest mountains. He floated nine days and nights on the sea of waters, and at last stopped on Mount Parnassus. Then Jupiter sent Mercury to ask him what he wished, and he solicited that mankind might be made again. Jupiter bade him to throw stones over his head, from which men should come, and that those cast by Pyrrha should be turned

Our former Letter mentioned, that Hesiod inculcated that the second race of mankind had been removed by the divine power from the earth, on account of their wickedness. Neither account limits the destruction to Grecians only, but both apply it to the entire race of men then subsisting, called the Second or Silver Generation in the one, and the Brazen in the other; both represent the extinction as produced by the divine will, and as followed by a new race or production of human kind.

Lucian shows us that in his time the same ideas and belief were prevalent, for he exhibits his misanthrope Timon, as reproaching Jupiter for sending in his youthful days, that is, in the most ancient period of the world, such a calamity on human kind, and for a universal destruction of them by lightning, earthquake, and overwhelming waters, preserving only Deucalion in an ark.*

In his Essay on Dancing, he likewise mentions the ark, in which the relics of the human race were preserved.† In another of his works, his largest dissertation, which has been generally received as his, and which there are no satisfactory reasons to ascribe to any other, he narrates the Grecian opinions more fully about it. For this purpose, it is immaterial by whom they are stated. What we desire to know is, what traditions were in general circulation in pagan Greece on this subject. We have these at length in this treatise, and they correspond with Lucian's briefer intimations in his other compositions. He expressly professes to state the popular belief on this subject.‡ In this we find that the

into women."-Apoll. 1. i. p. 23. Though Greece is only mentioned, being the country Deucalion was by Grecians supposed to be living in, the rest of the account refers to all the human race.

*"For when you were young and excitable, and glowing with anger, you did many things violent and unjust. Your thunder was roaring; your lightnings flew about like darts; earthquakes were frequent; hail fell like stones; and that I boldly speak my mind, vehement and impetuous rains, every drop a river, came, so that in a short time such a ship-wreck was made under Deucalion, that all things were overwhelmed with the waters: scarcely one single ark (xißwTov) was saved, which reached Mount Lucoris, the embers as it were of the human race, preserved as the progeny of greater evil."-Lucian, Tipov Micav0p. s. 3, p. 59. Luc. de Saltat. v. i. p. 930.

"That Deucalion, under whom was the great water-'I heard of Deucalion in Greece, and the account which the Grecians speak of him. The μvoos is thus. The race which is now mankind was not the first, but all that generation perished. The present is the second race, and this

deluge was a general destruction of all mankind for their wickedness, and by a universal flood of waters, and that one family, with several animals, were preserved in an ark, and repeopled the earth.*

We have another authentication to us of the same accredited traditions in Greece, in the casual intimation of Plutarch, that a dove was let out of his ark by Deucalion, to ascertain if the catastrophe had ceased. He alludes to this as to a general notion abroad in his time, in the same way that he would to any other popular opinion. He refers to it as an illustration of his argument, which, in this treatise, was on the mental powers of the animated races.†

Plato has also incidentally left us an admission that a universal deluge, and only one, was the public opinion of Greece, for he introduces the Egyptian priest who meant to controvert it, as thus representing it.‡ Solon is here exhibited as having the same belief with his countrymen, and therefore it is clear that the popular idea was that also of the wisest and greatest men in Greece, in the sixth century before the Christian era. The Egyptian proceeds to tell him that there had been many, on the authority of the priesthood of the Nile; but that before" this mighty deluge," a great state and city of the Athenians, with a vast population and splendid history, had existed. This looks like an exagger

came again into multitude from Deucalion." After describing the wickedness of the former, he adds, 'Immediately a great water-flood came. Immense rains fell. The rivers flowed over largely, and the sea extensively overwhelmed, so that all things became waters, and every one perished except Deucalion, who alone of mankind was left for the second generation."-Luc. de Dea Syria. Op. v. ii. p. 882.

* Lucian goes on, "His preservation was thus effected. He had a great Aapvaka. To this, swine, horses, lions, serpents, and other animals came that inhabit the woods or are domesticated. He received all, and they did not hurt him, but a great amity prevailed among them, and all sailed in one ark while the waters prevailed. These things they relate of Deucalion among the Greeks."-Lucian de Dea Syria, p. 883.

It is in his treatise on the comparative sagacity of land and sea animals, "They say that a dove, dismissed from the ark (apvakos) to be an indication to Deucalion whether it had become fine weather, flew back again to him while in it."-Plut. de Solert. v. ii. p. 968.

This occurs in his Timæus, where, in detailing the Egyptian priest's lecture to Solon about the antiquities of their nation, which the Greeks were not acquainted with, he makes the priest to say, "You only mention one deluge of the earth."-Plat. Tim. v. iii. p. 23.

The priest details to him this account, according to which the Athenians bad existed for 8,000 years before this "mighty deluge." Solon VOL. II.-X

ated tradition of some part of the antediluvian history, as all that was placed before Deucalion, by any one, may have been. But it was what Solon and the Greeks had never heard of, and therefore the Egyptian detailed it to him as new history, and Plato preserves it as so narrated. No cas ual allusion can give a stronger testimony to the fact, that Deucalion's deluge was then considered by all Greece as a universal desolation, and as the only deluge. Plato in another work mentions the same catastrophe in the same meaning, and as implying the same extent of destruction.*

Aristotle seems to have been one of those who thought that the general tradition ought to be contracted into a local inundation of Greece only. Yet, as if aware that the public impression was against him, he does not choose to commit himself by explicitly declaring that it extended no farther. On the contrary, the words he has selected to employ give it a greater diffusion, for he introduces the qualifying adverb "chiefly." He says, "it chiefly happened about Greece."t

The Arundelian Marbles have the deluge of this Deucalion briefly inscribed on them, and state that he fled to Athens from the Lycoris ;‡ which is the mountain on which Lucian mentions that he was saved.

The Athenians believed that the flood retired from the land through a cavity in their district, over which their ancestors had erected a sacred building. Pausanias notes They made this event the subject of an annual

this.

declared that he had never heard of it, and therefore begged to know more about his unknown but " ancient fellow-citizens."-Plat. Tim. ib.

It is in his book on the Laws that Plato mentions the great deluge, in which the cities were destroyed, and the useful arts lost.-De Leg. 1. iii. p. 677.

It is in his Meteorology that he thus alludes to it: "As that called the deluge (karakλvopos) under Deucalion; for this, chiefly, (uatora) happened about the Grecian country, and of this, in ancient Hellas, which is between Dodona and Achelous, where the flood in many places made revolutions."-Arist. de Meteor. 1. i. c. 12, p. 370.

"After which was the karakλvopos under Deucalion, and he fled from the rains from Lucoria to Athens."-Mar. Arund. p. 2. It deserves our notice, that as Moses makes the first act of Noah after he quitted the ark to have been building an altar and offering a sacrifice, Gen, viii. so the Marbles add of Deucalion. " he built a temple to Jupiter and offered a sacrifice for his preservation," ra owrnpia εlvσev. ib.

Paus. Attica. I. i. p. 82. They placed his death and sepulchre in their city, and ascribed to him an ancient temple of Jupiter.-lb.