I.

_Chaldean and Biblical Narratives._--Of the traditions relating to the

great cataclysm the most curious, no doubt, is that of the Chaldeans.

Its influence has stamped itself in an unmistakable manner on the

tradition of India; and, of all the accounts of the Deluge, it comes

nearest to that in Genesis. To whoever compares the two it becomes

evident that they must have been one and the same up to the time when

Terah and his family left Ur of the Chaldees to go into Palestine.

We have two versions of the Chaldean story--unequally developed indeed,

but exhibiting a remarkable agreement. The one most anciently known, and

also the shorter, is that which Berosus took from the sacred books of

Babylon and introduced into the history that he wrote for the use of

the Greeks.[32] After speaking of the last nine antediluvian kings, the

Chaldean priest continues thus:--

"Obartes Elbaratutu being dead, his son Xisuthros (Khasisatra)

reigned eighteen sares (64,800 years). It was under him that the

Great Deluge took place, the history of which is told in the sacred

documents as follows:--Cronos (Ea) appeared to him in his sleep, and

announced that on the fifteenth of the month of Daisios (the

Assyrian month Sivan--a little before the summer solstice), all men

should perish by a flood. He therefore commanded him to take the

beginning, the middle, and the end of whatever was consigned to

writing,[33] and to bury it in the City of the Sun, at Sippara; then

to build a vessel, and to enter into it with his family and dearest

friends; to place in this vessel provisions to eat and drink, and to

cause animals, birds, and quadrupeds to enter it; lastly, to prepare

everything for navigation. And when Xisuthros inquired in what

direction he should steer his bark, he was answered, 'towards the

gods,' and enjoined to pray that good might come of it for men.

"Xisuthros obeyed, and constructed a vessel five stadia long and

five broad; he collected all that had been prescribed to him, and

embarked his wife, his children, and his intimate friends.

"The Deluge having come, and soon going down, Xisuthros loosed some

of the birds. These finding no food nor place to alight on returned

to the ship. A few days later Xisuthros again let them free, but

they returned again to the vessel, their feet full of mud. Finally,

loosed the third time the birds came no more back. Then Xisuthros

understood that the earth was bare. He made an opening in the roof

of the ship, and saw that it had grounded on the top of a mountain.

He then descended with his wife, his daughter, and his pilot,

worshipped the earth, raised an altar, and there sacrificed to the

gods; at the same moment he vanished with those who accompanied him.

"Meanwhile those who had remained in the vessel not seeing Xisuthros

return, descended too and began to seek him, calling him by his

name. They saw Xisuthros no more; but a voice from heaven was heard

commanding them piety towards the gods; that he, indeed, was

receiving the reward of his piety in being carried away to dwell

thenceforth in the midst of the gods, and that his wife, his

daughter, and the pilot of the ship shared the same honour. The

voice further said that they were to return to Babylon, and

conformably to the decrees of fate, disinter the writings buried at

Sippara in order to transmit them to men. It added that the country

in which they found themselves was Armenia. These, then, having

heard the voice, sacrificed to the gods and returned on foot to

Babylon. Of the vessel of Xisuthros, which had finally landed in

Armenia, a portion is still to be found in the Gordyan Mountains in

Armenia, and pilgrims bring thence asphalte that they have scraped

from its fragments. It is used to keep off the influence of

witchcraft. As to the companions of Xisuthros, they came to Babylon,

disinterred the writings left at Sippara, founded numerous cities,

built temples, and restored Babylon."

By the side of this version, which, interesting though it be, is, after

all, second hand, we are now able to place an original

Chaldeo-Babylonian edition, which the lamented George Smith was the

first to decipher on the cuneiform tablets exhumed at Nineveh and now in

the British Museum. Here the narrative of the Deluge appears as an

episode in the eleventh tablet, or eleventh chaunt of the great epic of

the town of Uruk. The hero of this poem, a kind of Hercules, whose name

has not as yet been made out with certainty,[34] being attacked by

disease (a kind of leprosy), goes, with a view to its cure, to consult

the patriarch saved from the Deluge, Khasisatra, in the distant land to

which the gods have transported him, there to enjoy eternal felicity. He

asks Khasisatra to reveal the secret of the events which led to his

obtaining the privilege of immortality, and thus the patriarch is

induced to relate the cataclysm.

By a comparison of the three copies of the poem that the library of the

palace of Nineveh contained, it has been possible to restore the

narrative with hardly any breaks.[35] These three copies were, by order

of the King of Assyria, Asshurbanabal, made in the eighth century B.C.,

from a very ancient specimen in the sacerdotal library of the town of

Uruk, founded by the monarchs of the first Chaldean empire. It is

difficult precisely to fix the date of the original, copied by Assyrian

scribes, but it certainly goes back to the ancient empire, seventeen

centuries, at least, before our era, and even probably beyond; it was

therefore much anterior to Moses, and nearly contemporaneous with

Abraham. The variations presented by the three existing copies prove

that the original was in the primitive mode of writing called the

_hieratic_, a character which must have already become difficult to

decipher in the eighth century B.C., as the copyists have differed as to

the interpretation to be given to certain signs, and in other cases have

simply reproduced exactly the forms of such as they did not understand.

Finally, it results from a comparison of these variations, that the

original, transcribed by order of Asshurbanabal, must itself have been a

copy of some still more ancient manuscript, in which the original text

had already received interlinear comments. Some of the copyists have

introduced these into their text, others have omitted them. With these

preliminary observations I proceed to give integrally the narrative

ascribed in the poem to Khasisatra:--

"I will reveal to thee, O Izdhubar, the history of my

preservation--and tell to thee the decision of the gods.

"The town of Shurippak, a town which thou knowest, is situated on

the Euphrates--it was ancient and in it [men did not honour] the

gods. [I alone, I was] their servant, to the great gods--[The gods

took counsel on the appeal of] Anu--[a deluge was proposed by]

Bel--[and approved by Nabon, Nergal and] Adar.

"And the god [Ea] the immutable lord,--repeated this command in a

dream.--I listened to the decree of fate that he announced, and he

said to me:--'Man of Shiruppak, son of Ubaratutu--thou, build a

vessel and finish it [quickly].--[By a deluge] I will destroy

substance and life.--Cause thou to go up into the vessel the

substance of all that has life.--The vessel thou shall build--600

cubits shall be the measure of its length--and 60 cubits the amount

of its breadth and of its height.--[Launch it] thus on the ocean and

cover it with a roof.'--I understood, and I said to Ea, my

lord:--'[The vessel] that thou commandest me to build thus--[when] I

shall do it,--young and old [shall laugh at me.]'--[Ea opened his

mouth and] spoke.--He said to me, his servant:--'[If they laugh at

thee] thou shalt say to them: [shall be punished] he who has

insulted me, [for the protection of the gods] is over me.-- ... like

to caverns ... ---- ... I will exercise my judgment on that which is

on high and that which is below ... ---- ... Close the vessel ...

---- ... At a given moment that I shall cause thee to know,--enter

into it and draw the door of the ship towards thee.--Within it, thy

grains, thy furniture, thy provisions,--thy riches, thy

men-servants, and thy maid-servants, and thy young people--the

cattle of the field and the wild beasts of the plain that I will

assemble--and that I will send thee, shall be kept behind thy

door.'--Khasisatra opened his mouth and spoke;--he said to Ea, his

lord:--'No one has made [such a] ship.--On the prow I will

fix....--I shall see ... and the vessel ...--the vessel thou

commandest me to build [thus]--which in....[36]

"On the fifth day [the two sides of the bark] were raised.--In its

covering fourteen in all were its rafters--fourteen in all did it

count above.--I placed its roof and I covered it.--I embarked in it

on the sixth day; I divided its floors on the seventh;--I divided

the interior compartments on the eighth. I stopped up the chinks

through which the water entered in;--I visited the chinks and added

what was wanting.--I poured on the exterior three times 3,600

measures of asphalte,--and three times 3,600 measures of asphalte

within.--Three times 3,600 men, porters, brought on their heads the

chests of provisions.--I kept 3,600 chests for the nourishment of my

family,--and the mariners divided among themselves twice 3,600

chests.--For [provisioning] I had oxen slain;--I instituted

[rations] for each day.--In [anticipation of the need of] drinks, of

barrels and of wine--[I collected in quantity] like to the waters of

a river, [of provisions] in quantity like to the dust of the

earth.--[To arrange them in] the chests I set my hand to.-- ... of

the sun ... the vessel was completed.-- ... strong and--I had

carried above and below the furniture of the ship.--[This lading

filled the two-thirds.]

"All that I possessed I gathered together; all I possessed of silver

I gathered together; all that I possessed of gold I gathered--all

that I possessed of the substance of life of every kind I gathered

together.--I made all ascend into the vessel; my servants male and

female,--the cattle of the fields, the wild beasts of the plains,

and the sons of the people, I made them all ascend."

"Shamash (the sun) made the moment determined and----he announced it

in these terms: 'In the evening I will cause it to rain abundantly

from heaven; enter into the vessel and close the door.'----The fixed

moment had arrived, which he announced in these terms: 'In the

evening I will cause it to rain abundantly from heaven.'----When the

evening of that day arrived, I was afraid,----I entered into the

vessel and shut my door.----In shutting the vessel, to

Buzur-shadi-rabi, the pilot----I confided this dwelling, with all

that it contained.

"Mu-sheri-ina-namari[37]--rose from the foundations of heaven in a

black cloud;--Ramman[38] thundered in the midst of the cloud--and

Nabon and Sharru marched before;--they marched, devastating the

mountain and the plain;--Nergal[39] the powerful, dragged

chastisements after him;--Adar[40] advanced, overthrowing before

him;--the Archangels of the abyss brought destruction--in their

terrors they agitated the earth.--The inundation of Ramman swelled

up to the sky--and [the earth] became without lustre, was changed

into a desert.

"They broke ... of the surface of the earth like ...;--[they

destroyed] the living beings of the surface of the earth.--The

terrible [Deluge] on men swelled up to [heaven].--The brother no

longer saw his brother; men no longer knew each other. In

heaven--the gods became afraid of the water-spout, and--sought a

refuge; they mounted up to the heaven of Anu.[41]--The gods were

stretched out motionless, pressing one against another like

dogs.--Ishtar wailed like a child,--the great goddess pronounced her

discourse:--'Here is humanity returned into mud, and--this is the

misfortune that I have announced in the presence of the gods.--So I

announced the misfortune in the presence of the gods,--for the evil

I announced the terrible [chastisement] of men who are mine.--I am

the mother who gave birth to men, and--like to the race of fishes,

there they are filling the sea;--and the gods by reason of

that--which the archangels of the abyss are doing, weep with

me.'--The gods on their seats were seated in tears--and they held

their lips closed, [revolving] future things.

"Six days and as many nights passed; the wind, the water-spout, and

the diluvian rain were in all their strength. At the approach of the

seventh day the diluvian rain grew weaker, the terrible

water-spout--which had assailed after the fashion of an

earthquake--grew calm, the sea inclined to dry up, and the wind and

the water-spout came to an end. I looked at the sea, attentively

observing--and the whole of humanity had returned to mud; like unto

seaweeds the corpses floated. I opened the window, and the light

smote on my face. I was seized with sadness; I sat down and I

wept;--and my tears came over my face.

"I looked at the regions bounding the sea; towards the twelve points

of the horizon; not any continent.--The vessel was borne above the

land of Nizir--the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did

not permit it to pass over.--A day and a second day the mountain of

Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass over;--the

third and fourth day the mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and

did not permit it to pass over;--the fifth and sixth day the

mountain of Nizir arrested the vessel, and did not permit it to pass

over.--At the approach of the seventh day, I sent out and loosed a

dove. The dove went, turned, and--found no place to light on, and it

came back. I sent out and loosed a swallow; the swallow went,

turned, and--found no place to light on, and it came back. I sent

out and loosed a raven; the raven went and saw the corpses on the

waters; it ate, rested, turned and came not back.

"I then sent out (what was in the vessel) towards the four winds,

and I offered a sacrifice. I raised the pile of my burnt offering on

the peak of the mountain; seven by seven I disposed the measured

vases,[42]--and beneath I spread rushes, cedar, and juniper wood.

The gods were seized with the desire of it--the gods were seized

with a benevolent desire of it;--and the gods assembled like flies

above the master of the sacrifice. From afar, in approaching, the

great goddess raised the great zones that Anu has made for their

glory (the gods).[43] These gods, luminous crystal before me, I will

never leave them; in that day I prayed that I might never leave

them. 'Let the gods come to my sacrificial pile!--but never may Bel

come to my sacrificial pile! for he did not master himself, and he

has made the water-spout for the Deluge, and he has numbered my men

for the pit.'

"From far, in drawing near, Bel--saw the vessel, and Bel

stopped;--he was filled with anger against the gods and the

celestial archangels:--

"'No one shall come out alive! No man shall be preserved from the

abyss!'--Adar opened his mouth and said; he said to the warrior

Bel:--'What other than Ea should have formed this resolution?--for

Ea possesses knowledge and [he foresees] all.'--Ea opened his mouth

and spake; he said to the warrior Bel:--'O thou, herald of the gods,

warrior,--as thou didst not master thyself, thou hast made the

water-spout of the deluge.--Let the sinner carry the weight of his

sins, the blasphemer the weight of his blasphemy.--Please thyself

with this good pleasure and it shall never be infringed; faith in it

never [shall be violated.]--Instead of thy making a new deluge, let

lions appear and reduce the number of men; instead of thy making a

new deluge, let hyenas appear and reduce the number of men;--instead

of thy making a new deluge, let there be famine and let the earth be

[devastated];--instead of thy making a new deluge, let Dibbara[44]

appear, and let men be [mown down]. I have not revealed the decision

of the great gods;--it is Khasisatra who interpreted a dream and

comprehended what the gods had decided.'

"Then, when his resolve was arrested, Bel entered into the

vessel.--He took my hand and made me rise.--He made my wife rise and

made her place herself at my side.--He turned around us and stopped

short; he approached our group.--'Until now Khasisatra has made part

of perishable humanity;--but lo, now, Khasisatra and his wife are

going to be carried away to live like the gods,--and Khasisatra will

reside afar at the mouth of the rivers.'--They carried me away and

established me in a remote place at the mouth of the streams."

This narrative follows with great exactness the same course as that, or

rather as those of Genesis, and the analogies are on both sides

striking. It is well known, and has long been critically demonstrated,

that chapters vi., vii., viii. and ix. of Genesis contain two different

narratives of the Deluge, the one taken from the Elohist document, the

other from the Jehovist, both being skilfully combined by the final

editor. Reverencing their text, which he evidently considered sacred, he

omitted no fact given by either, so that we have the whole story twice

narrated in different terms; and, in spite of the way the verses are

mixed up, it is easy so to disentangle the two versions as that each

should form a continuous and unbroken narrative. Some critics have

recently pretended that, with regard to the stories of the Creation and

Deluge, both cuneiform documents disproved the distinction between the

two sources of Genesis, and proved the primitive unity of its

composition; that the same repetitions, in effect, were to be found

there. This was a premature conclusion, drawn from translations very

imperfect as yet, and requiring thorough revision; and, indeed,

confining ourselves to the story of the Deluge, such revision, carried

on according to strict philological principles, does away with the

arguments that had been based on the version of George Smith. None of

the repetitions of the final text of Genesis are observable in the

Chaldean poem; which, on the contrary, decisively confirms the

distinction made between the two narratives, the Elohist and Jehovist,

interwoven by the last compiler of the Pentateuch. It is with each of

these separately--when disentangled and compared--that the Chaldean

narrative coincides in its order--it is not with the result of their

combination. And nothing could be easier than to demonstrate this by a

synoptic table, in which the three narratives were collated.

Such a table would at once show their agreement and their difference,

what the three records have in common, and what each has added of its

own to the primitive outline. They are certainly three versions of the

same traditional history, and with the Chaldeo-Babylonians on the one

hand, and the Hebrews on the other, we have two parallel streams

proceeding from one source. Nevertheless, we must note on both sides

divergences of certain importance which prove the bifurcation of the two

traditions to have taken place at a very remote era, and the one of

which the Bible affords us the expression to be not merely an edition of

that preserved by the Chaldean priesthood, expurgated from a severely

monotheistic point of view.

The Biblical narrative bears the impress of an inland people, ignorant

of navigation. In Genesis, the name of the ark, _tebah_, signifies

"coffer," and not "vessel." Nothing is said about the launching of the

ark; there is no mention made of the sea, or of navigation; there is no

pilot. In the Epic of Uruk, on the contrary, everything shows it to have

been composed amidst a maritime population; every circumstance bears a

reflex of the manners and customs of people living on the shore of the

Persian Gulf. Khasisatra enters a vessel, properly so called; it is

launched, undergoes a trial trip, all its seams are caulked with

bitumen, it is entrusted to a pilot.

The Chaldeo-Babylonian narrative represents Khasisatra as a king, who

goes up into the ship surrounded by a whole population of servants and

companions; in the Bible, we have only Noah and his family who are

saved; the new human race has no other source than the patriarch's three

sons. Nor is there any trace in the Chaldean poem of the distinction (in

the Bible peculiar indeed only to the Jehovist) between clean and

unclean beasts, and of each kind of the former being numbered by sevens,

although in Babylonia the number seven had a specially sacramental

character.

As to the dimensions of the ark, we find a disagreement not only between

the Bible and the tablet copied by order of Asshurbanabal, but between

the latter and Berosus. Both Genesis and the cuneiform documents measure

the ark's dimensions by cubits, Berosus by stadia. Genesis states its

length and breadth to have been in the proportion of 6 to 1, Berosus of

5 to 2, the tablet in the British Museum of 10 to 1. On the other hand,

the fragments of Berosus do not treat of the relative dimensions of

height and breadth, and the tablet gives them as equal, while the Bible

speaks of thirty cubits of height and fifty of breadth. But these

differences as to figures have but a secondary importance; nothing so

liable to alterations and variations in different editions of the same

narrative. We may observe, however, that in Genesis it is only the

Elohist--always much addicted to figures--who gives the dimensions of

the ark. And, on the other hand, it is the Jehovist alone who tells of

the sending forth of the birds, which occupies a considerable place in

the Chaldean tradition. As to the variations here between the Biblical

story and that in the poem of Uruk, the latter adding the swallow to

the dove and the raven, and not attributing to the dove the part of a

messenger of good tidings, I do not think they go for much. The

agreement as to the main point is, in my eyes, of far more importance.

But what is, on the contrary, of very decided importance, is the

absolute disagreement as to the duration of the Deluge between the

Elohist and Jehovist, as well as between the two and the

Chaldeo-Babylonian narrator. Here we have a manifest trace of different

systems applying to the ancient tradition calendrical conceptions,

dissimilar in each record, and yet all seeming to have proceeded from

Chaldea.

By the Elohist the periods of the Deluge are indicated by the ordinal

numbers of the months, but these ordinal numbers relate to a lunar year,

beginning on the 1st of Tishri (September-October), at the autumnal

equinox. This is admitted by Josephus, and by the Author of the Targum

of the pseudo-Jonathan, as well as by Rashi and Kimchi, among the Jewish

commentators of the Middle Ages; and proved, as I conceive, by Michaelis

among the moderns. The rain begins to fall, and Noah enters into the ark

the 17th day of the second month--_i.e._, Marcheshvan. The great force

of the waters lasts 150 days, and the 17th of the seventh month--_i.e._,

Nisan (March-April)--the ark grounds on Mount Ararat. The 1st day of the

tenth month, or Tammuz (June-July), about the summer solstice, the

mountains are laid bare. The 1st day of the first month of the following

year--that is, of Tishri, at the autumnal equinox--the waters have

completely retired, and Noah leaves the ark on the 27th of the second

month. Thus the Deluge lasted a whole lunar year, plus eleven days--that

is to say, as Ewald well remarks, a solar year of 365 days. Now, under

the climatic conditions of Babylonia and Assyria, the rains of late

autumn begin towards the end of November, and at once the level of the

Euphrates and Tigris rises. The periodic overflow of the two rivers

occurs in the middle of March, and culminates at the end of May, from

which time the waters go down. At the end of June they have left the

plains, and from August to November are at their lowest level. Now the

dates of the Deluge, given by the Elohist, and re-stated as we have been

doing according to Michaelis and Knobel, accord perfectly with these

phases of the rising and falling of the two Mesopotamian rivers. They

accord even better in the primitive system which served for

starting-point to that of the Elohist, and which has been so ingeniously

restored by M. Schraeder,[45] a system attributing to the Deluge 300 days

in all, or a ten months' duration: 150 days for its greatest height and

150 for its decrease. According to this system, the leaving of the ark

must have taken place on the first day of the 601st year of Noah's

life--that is to say, on the 1st of Tishri, at the autumnal equinox.

Thus the deliverance of the father of the new humanity, as well as the

Covenant made by God with him and his race, were fixed on the very day

to which an ancient opinion which has maintained itself among the Jews

assigned the creation of the world. As to the beginning of the Deluge,

it occurred, according to the same system, on the 1st day of the third

month--that is to say, at the commencement of the lunation whose end

coincided with the Sun's entry into Capricorn, when the conjunction of

planets brought about periodic deluges according to an astrological

conception of Chaldean origin, which does not indeed appear a very

ancient one; but must have been based on data adopted by some of the

sacerdotal schools of Babylonia as to the epoch of the cataclysm.

It is also with the winter rains, and not with the swelling of the

Euphrates and Tigris in spring, that the calendrical construction,

according to which the antediluvian kings or patriarchs have been placed

in relation with solar mansions (a construction followed in Uruk's Epic

poem), causes the commencement of the Deluge to coincide. It connects,

in point of fact, the tradition of the cataclysm with the month of

Shabut (January-February), and with the sign of Aquarius. Accordingly, I

find great difficulty in admitting the exactness of the date, 15th of

Daisios, given in the extract of Alexander Polybister, as that assigned

by Berosus to the Deluge, for this would make the event occur in the

middle of the Assyrian month Sivan, at the beginning of July, in a

season of complete drought, when the rivers have reached their lowest

level. I hold this to be an evident error, due not to the author of the

Chaldean History himself, but to his transcriber. Berosus must have

written =menos ogdou; pempte kai dekate= the 15th of the eighth month,

translating into Greek the Assyrian name of the Arakh-Shanina. And by a

readily explicable error Cornelius Alexander must have turned it into

Daisios, which was the eighth month of the Syro-Macedonian Calendar,

forgetting the difference between the initial point of its year and that

of the Chaldeo-Assyrian. In reality, then, the date given by Berosus

only differed by two days from that adopted by the Elohist compiler of

Genesis. Besides, as Knobel rightly insists, in placing the commencement

of the Deluge at the 15th or 17th of a month, we place it always at the

full moon, for it is also with this phase of the light that lights the

night that popular belief in Egypt and Mesopotamia links the periodic

rise of Nile or Tigris.

The system of the Jehovist is quite a different one. According to him,

Jahveh announces the Deluge to Noah only seven days beforehand. The

waters are at their height for forty days, and decrease during forty

more. After these eighty days Noah sends out the three birds at

intervals of seven days, and thus it is on the 21st day after he has

opened the window of the ark for the first time that he, too, goes out

of the ark and offers his sacrifice to the Lord. Here the phases of the

cataclysm are evidently calculated on those of the annual spring outflow

of the Euphrates and Tigris, so that we need not hesitate to assign the

origin of the very form of the tradition received by the Jehovist

writer, to the cradle of the race of the Terahites in Chaldea. The

overflow of the two rivers of Mesopotamia lasts, in fact, for an average

of seventy-five days from the middle of March to the end of May; and

twenty-six days later--that is, at the end of the 101 in all (80 + 21 =

75 + 26 = 101), when the Jehovist makes Noah leave the ark--the lands

which have been inundated become once more practicable.

What, moreover, in the Jehovist narrative bears a very marked impress of

Chaldean origin is the part played in it by septennial periods; seven

days intervening between the announcement and the beginning of the

Deluge, seven between each sending forth of the birds. That religious

and mystic importance attached to the heptade which gave rise to the

conception of the seven days of creation, and to the invention of the

week, is an essentially Chaldean idea. It is among the

Chaldeo-Babylonians that we discover its origin and find its most

numerous applications. The story of Khasisatra, in the poem of Uruk,

invariably proceeds hebdomadally. The violence of the Deluge lasts seven

days, and so does the stay of the vessel on Mount Nizir when the waters

begin to go down. It is true, indeed, that the building of the vessel

occupies eight instead of seven days; but we must add the time necessary

for the embarkation of provisions, animals, passengers, and this will

enable us to calculate the whole duration of Khasisatra's preparations

between the vision sent him by Ea and the moment when he closes the

vessel at the approach of the rain, as consisting of fourteen days or

two hebdomades. This being granted, if the poem does not state precisely

the intervals at which the three birds were sent forth, we are justified

in applying here the figures used by the Jehovist in Genesis, and

counting seven days between the first and second sending forth, seven

between the second and third, and seven, lastly, between the departure

of the bird which does not return, and the leaving the vessel. The whole

interval, then, between the warning of Ea and the sacrifice of

Khasisatra, amounts to seven hebdomades--plainly a number intentionally

assigned. And the whole duration of the Deluge is doubled by the sacred

writer, who was the author of the Jehovist document, 7 × 2 × 7, instead

of 7 × 7; that is, fourteen weeks with just three days over, owing to

the writer having employed the round numbers 40 + 40 = 80 days, instead

of the precise number seventy-seven days or eleven hebdomades (7 + 4 ×

7), to indicate the interval between the beginning of the diluvian rain

and the sending forth of the first bird. And now, if we keep count of

the time between the announcing of the cataclysm by Jahveh and its

commencement, the figures of the Jehovist are in all 7 × 2 × 7 + 7 days,

and those of the system of the Chaldean poem 7 × 7. But they are on both

sides combinations of seven.

Where the Chaldeo-Babylonian narrative and that of the Bible absolutely

diverge, is in their statement of what, after the Deluge, befell the

righteous man saved from it. According to the figures of the Elohist,

Noah lives on among his descendants for 350 years, and dies at the age

of 950. Khasisatra receives the privilege of immortality; is carried

away "to live like the gods," and transported into "a distant place,"

where the hero of Uruk goes to visit him in order to learn the secrets

of life and death. But in the Bible we have something of the same kind

told us of Noah's great-grandfather Enoch, who "walked with God, and was

not, because God took him." We see, then, that the Babylonian tradition

united in the person of Khasisatra facts which the Bible distributes

between Enoch and Noah, the two whom Holy Scripture equally

characterizes as having "walked with God."

The author of the treatise "On the Syrian Goddess," erroneously

attributed to Lucian, acquaints us with the diluvian tradition of the

Arameans, directly derived from that of Chaldea, as it was narrated in

the celebrated Sanctuary of Hierapolis or Bambyce.

"The generality of people, he says, tell us that the founder of the

temple was Deucalion Sisythes, that Deucalion in whose time the

great inundation occurred. I have also heard the account given by

the Greeks themselves of Deucalion; the myth runs thus:--The actual

race of men is not the first, for there was a previous one, all the

members of which perished. We belong to a second race, descended

from Deucalion, and multiplied in the course of time. As to the

former men, they are said to have been full of insolence and pride,

committing many crimes, disregarding their oath, neglecting the

rights of hospitality, unsparing to suppliants, accordingly they

were punished by an immense disaster. All on a sudden enormous

volumes of water issued from the earth, and rains of extraordinary

abundance began to fall; the rivers left their beds, and the sea

overflowed its shores; the whole earth was covered with water, and

all men perished. Deucalion alone, because of his virtue and piety,

was preserved alive to give birth to a new race. This is how he was

saved:--He placed himself, his children, and his wives in a great

coffer that he had, in which pigs, horses, lions, serpents, and all

other terrestrial animals came to seek refuge with him. He received

them all, and while they were in the coffer Zeus inspired them with

reciprocal amity which prevented their devouring one another. In

this manner, shut up within one single coffer, they floated as long

as the waters remained in force. Such is the account given by the

Greeks of Deucalion.

"But to this which they equally tell, the people of Hierapolis add a

marvellous narrative:--That in their country a great chasm opened,

into which all the waters of the deluge poured. Then Deucalion

raised an altar and dedicated a temple to Hera (Atargatis) close to

this very chasm. I have seen it; it is very narrow, and situated

under the temple. Whether it was once large and has now shrunk, I do

not know; but I have seen it, and it is quite small. In memory of

the event the following is the rite accomplished:--Twice a year sea

water is brought to the temple. This is not only done by the

priests, but numerous pilgrims come from the whole of Syria and

Arabia, and even from beyond the Euphrates, bringing water. It is

poured out in the temple and goes into the cleft which, narrow as it

is, swallows up a considerable quantity. This is said to be in

virtue of a religious law instituted by Deucalion to preserve the

memory of the catastrophe and of the benefits that he received from

the gods. Such is the ancient tradition of the temple."

It appears to me difficult not to recognize an echo of fables popular

in all Semitic countries about this chasm of Hierapolis, and the part it

played in the Deluge,--in the enigmatic expressions of the Koran

respecting the oven _tannur_ which began to bubble and disgorge water

all around at the commencement of the Deluge. We know that this _tannur_

has been the occasion of most grotesque imaginings of Mussulman

commentators, who had lost the tradition of the story to which Mahomet

made allusion. And, moreover, the Koran formally states that the waters

of the Deluge were absorbed in the bosom of the earth.