SACRED AND HEATHEN TRADITIONS.
What appears to be of most importance is, the fact, attested
by the hieroglyphic paintings of the Mexican, as well as by
the tales now current in all quarters from the Arctic Ocean to
Cape Horn, that one of these great periods, called “the Age of
Waters,” closed with a convulsion, the account of which, in all
its broader outlines, is remarkably akin to the Mosaic record of
the Deluge.--ARCHDEACON CHARLES HARDWICK.
From time to time during the past half century travelers have unearthed
traditions from among heathen nations concerning the early history of
the world. They have deciphered inscriptions, found the key to the
hieroglyphics, or writings whose letters were yet pictures in form,
and, by questioning, learned from the heathen peoples themselves of
traditions and legends which bear upon the prominent events of early
history. These narratives are from a variety of sources and from
peoples differing widely in locality, language and civilization.
They are matters of curious interest, and they serve to confirm the
Biblical stories of the creation, deluge, dispersion of the races and
other events. They agree to a great extent among themselves, just as
far as is really possible considering the changing circumstances of
the peoples who hold them. But they serve another and more important
purpose to us just here. They throw much light on the early history of
the religions of which they form a part. They confirm the idea of the
original unity of the race and of the early existence of one religion
for the world.
The oldest civilizations of the world are, respectively, those of
Egypt, Babylon, Phenicia, the Hindu and the Greek. Among each of these
the traditions of the early events referred to above are found. Almost,
though not quite, all the nations of the world try to give some account
of the origin of the world and of nations. Many of the uncivilized
peoples, as the Indians of America, the Mexicans and the Pacific
Islanders, have some popular stories of the deluge. We propose to place
side by side some of these, that they may be compared with each other.
The traditions of the creation are often mixed up with those of the
deluge or the re-creation, and we give of them the versions accepted by
the best scholars.
TRADITIONS OF CREATION.
Among many peoples is found the teaching that man was made of the dust
of the earth. The Greeks represent Prometheus as moulding from clay
the first human beings, and giving them life by means of fire which he
stole from heaven. The Peruvians called the first man Alpa Camasca, or
“animated earth.” The Mandans, a tribe of Indians of North America,
believed that the Great Spirit formed two figures of clay, which he
dried and animated by the breath of his mouth. To the one was given
the name of the “first man,” to the other, “companion.” The Otaheitans
said that God made man of red earth, and the Dyacks of Borneo, that
he had been made of common dust. The Zoroastrians (or Parsees) in
the Bundehesh, a book containing none but ancient traditions, have
many traditions regarding the creation and fall of man. The garden
of Eden was undoubtedly in southern Persia, or near by, hence these
are traditions which have lingered around the spot where the events
happened. According to the Parsees, there was a garden where the first
human beings lived, and in it two trees, the one bearing “Haoma,”
supposed to give immortality to those who drank its juice. (Haoma and
the Hindu word “Soma” are probably different forms of one word. The
Hindu Soma was possessed of the same properties as the Parsee Haoma).
Then follows a story of the first temptation of man, bearing the
closest resemblance to the Bible story, even in the incident of the
tempter having taken the form of a serpent.
The inhabitants of the Caroline Islands, a group in Micronesia, said:
“In the beginning there was no death, but a certain Erigiregers, who
was one of the evil spirits, and who was sorry to see the happiness of
the human race, contrived to get for them a sort of death from which
they should never wake.” The Hottentots said that “their first parents
had committed so great a fault, and so grievously offended the Supreme
God, that he had cursed both them and their children.”
Berosus, the Chaldean, read from the inscriptions on the Assyrian
monuments, the tradition that there had been ten kings before the
deluge. Ten antediluvian heroes are mentioned in Genesis. The legends
of the Parsees say the same thing. In India the traditions tell of nine
Brahmadikas, who, with Brahma, the first of all, make ten, whom they
called the Ten Fathers. The Chinese count ten emperors, who reigned
before historical times began. There is a multitude of correspondences
similar to these. These are selected simply as specimens. There is
another tradition, well-nigh universal, and agreeing in all important
particulars as told by different nations. This is that concerning
the flood. In addition to traditions there are coins, medals and
monumental inscriptions which perpetuate the story, as is illustrated
in the specimen coin given below.
TRADITIONS OF THE DELUGE.
Let us keep in mind the differences between the nations holding the
tradition. It was impossible for them to have conferred with one
another, or to have copied from each other. The confusion of languages,
their wide separation in point of space and time, prevented this. The
oldest historic nation, Egypt, having lost most of its sacred books
before they were made known to other nations or even to the later
generations among themselves, possess few traces of the tradition. One
passage in the writings of Manetho, the historian, distinctly refers to
the deluge. “The Book of the Dead” constantly refers to the sun-god,
Ra, as voyaging in a boat on the celestial ocean, and Ra is said to
have been so disgusted with the insolence of men that he determined to
exterminate the race.
[Illustration: COIN REPRESENTING THE DELUGE.]
Clear and complete is the account which Berosus has preserved. He
was a learned Chaldean priest, living in the time of Alexander the
Great, about 325 B.C. This narrative is a translation made from the
inscriptions of the Assyrian monuments, and compared with traditions of
his own time.
THE CHALDEAN STORY.
After the death of Ardates, his son, Xisuthrus, reigned eighteen
_sori_ (an uncertain period). In his time happened a great deluge,
the history of which is thus described: The deity Kronos appeared to
him in a vision and warned him that on the 15th day of the month
Dæsius there would be a flood by which mankind would be destroyed. He
therefore enjoined him to write a history of the beginning, course
and end of all things; and to bury it in the City of the Sun, at
Sippara.[1] He was also to build a vessel, and to take with him into
it his friends and relatives, he was to put on board of it food and
drink, with different reptiles, birds and quadrupeds. As soon as he
had made all arrangements he was to commit himself to the deep. Having
asked the Deity whither he was to sail, he was answered: “To the gods,
after having offered a prayer for the good of mankind.” Whereupon,
not being disobedient to this heavenly vision, he built a vessel five
stadia in length and two in breadth. Into this he put everything which
he had prepared, and embarked in it with his wife, his children and his
personal friends. After the flood had been upon the earth and had in
due time abated, Xisuthrus sent out some birds from the vessel, which
not finding any food, nor any place where they could rest, returned
to the vessel. After an interval of some days, Xisuthrus sent out
the birds a second time, and now they returned to the ship with mud
on their feet. A third time he repeated the experiment and then they
returned no more. Xisuthrus hence judged that the earth was visible
above the waters, and accordingly he made an opening in the vessel,
and seeing that it was stranded upon the summit of a certain mountain,
he quitted it with his wife and daughter and the pilot. Having then
paid his adoration to the earth, and having built an altar and offered
sacrifice to the gods, he, together with those who had left the vessel
with him, disappeared. Those who had remained in the vessel, when they
found that Xisuthrus and his companions did not return, in their turn
left the vessel and began to look for him, calling him by his name. Him
they saw no more, but a voice came to them from heaven, bidding them
lead pious lives, and so join him who was gone to live with the gods,
and further informing them that his wife, his daughter and the pilot
had shared the same honor. It told them, moreover, that they should
return to Babylon, and how it was ordained that they should take up the
writings that had been buried in Sippara, and impart them to mankind,
and that the country where they then were was the land of Armenia.
Having heard these words this company offered sacrifices to the gods,
and taking a circuit journeyed to Babylon. The vessel having been thus
stranded in Armenia, and parts of it still remaining in the mountains
of the Corcyræans (or Cordyæans, _i. e._, the Kurds of Kurdistan),
in Armenia, the people scrape off the bitumen from the vessel and make
use of it by way of charms. Now, when those who were so commanded
returned to Babylon, they dug up the writings which had been buried at
Sippara; they also founded many cities and built temples, and thus the
country of Babylon became inhabited again.
The Hindoo narrative has been colored by the character of that people,
but yet it is preserved with great accuracy, and possesses many points
of likeness to the Biblical story.
THE HINDOO TRADITION.
The traditions of India appear in many forms. The one which most
remarkably agrees with the Biblical account is that contained in the
Mahábhárata. We are there told that Brahma, having taken the form of a
fish, appeared to the pious Manu (Satya, _i. e._, the righteous,
as Noah also is called), on the banks of the river Wirini. Thence,
at his request, Manu transferred him to the Ganges when he had grown
bigger, and finally, when he was too large for even the Ganges, to
the ocean. Brahma now announces to Manu the approach of the Deluge,
and bids him build a ship, and put in it all kinds of seeds, together
with the seven Rishic, or holy beings. The flood begins and covers the
whole earth. Brahma himself appears in the form of a horned fish and
the vessel being made fast to him, he draws it for many years, and
finally lands on the highest summit of Mount Himarat (_i. e._, the
Himalaya). Afterwards, by the command of God, the ship is made fast,
and in memory of the event, the mountain is called Naubandhana (_i.
e._, ship binding). By the favor of Brahma, Manu, after the Flood,
creates the new race of mankind, which is thenceforth termed Manudsha,
or born of Manu.
The Chinese story is sometimes called in question as possibly not
referring to the general deluge, but to some local flood. The truth
is, we know as yet comparatively little about the story, which is as
follows:
THE CHINESE TRADITION.
Fuh-he is the reputed founder of the Chinese civilization and the
author of the Yhi-king, the oldest of the sacred books. According to
the legend, he is represented as escaping from the waters of a deluge,
and re-appearing as the first man at the production of a renovated
world. He is attended by seven companions, his wife, three sons and
three daughters.
Dr. Gutzlaff, long a resident in China, says that he saw in one of the
Buddhist temples a representation of the deluge in plaster work. Let it
be kept in mind, that Buddhism incorporated in every land to which it
went all the traditions, myths and legends which it found current among
the people. “In beautiful stucco,” Dr. Gutzlaff says, “was depicted the
scene where Kwan-Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, looks down from heaven upon
the lonely Fuh-he (or Noah) in his ark, amidst the raging waves of a
deluge, with the dove with an olive branch in its beak, flying toward
the vessel.”
Passing to the other side of the Pacific Ocean, we find among the
Mexicans and the Americans traditions of the same character as the
above. These agree so precisely that they cannot be a myth, a mere
invention, but must of necessity, be the recollection of a real,
terrible event, indelibly impressed on the memories of their ancestors,
and faithfully handed down. That it has never been forgotten, nor its
important points altered, even though the dress of the story has been
changed, is an evidence of the awful impression which this judgment of
God left upon the nations descending from the survivors.
The Mexican traditions were first taken down as they were told to the
Dominican missionaries. Travelers have compared their accounts with the
hieroglyphics on ancient Mexican monuments and found them to agree.
THE MEXICAN LEGEND.
“Of the different nations that inhabit Mexico,” says A. von Humboldt,
“the following had paintings resembling the deluge of Coxcox, namely,
the Aztecs, the Mixtecs, the Zapotecs, the Tlascaltecs and the
Mechoacans. The Noah, Xisuthras, or Manu of these nations, is termed
Coxcox, Teo Cipactli, or Tezpi. He saved himself with his wife,
Xochiquetzatl, in a bark, or, according to other traditions, on a raft.
The painting represents Coxcox in the midst of the water waiting for
a bark. The mountain, the summit of which arises above the waters,
is the peak of Colhuacan, the Ararat of the Mexicans. At the foot of
the mountain are the heads of Coxcox and his wife. The latter is known
by two tresses in the form of horns, denoting the female sex. The
men born after the deluge were dumb: the dove from the top of a tree
distributed among them tongues, represented under the form of small
commas.” Of the Mechoacan tradition he writes, “that Coxcox, whom they
called Tezpi, embarked in a spacious _acalli_ with his wife, his
children, several animals and some grain. When the Great Spirit ordered
the waters to withdraw, Tezpi sent out from his bark a vulture, the
zopilote, or _vultur aura_. This bird did not return on account
of the carcasses with which the earth was strewn. Tezpi sent out other
birds, one of which, the humming-bird, alone returned, holding in
its beak a branch clad with leaves. Tezpi, seeing that fresh verdure
covered the soil, quitted his bark near the mountain of Colhuacan.”
The Peruvians also have legends of the deluge as have many of the
Polynesian islanders.
THE FIJI ISLANDERS’ TRADITION.
The Fiji Islanders say that “after the islands had been peopled by
the first man and woman, a great rain took place, by which they were
finally submerged; but before the highest places were covered by the
waters, two large double canoes made their appearance. In one of
these was Rokora, the god of carpenters, in the other Rokola, his
head workman, who picked up some of the people and kept them on board
until the waters had subsided; after which they were again landed on
the island. It is reported, that in former times, canoes were always
kept in readiness against another inundation. The persons thus saved,
eight in number, were landed at Mbenga, where the highest of their
gods is said to have made his first appearance. By virtue of this
tradition, the chiefs of Mbenga take rank before all others, and have
always acted a conspicuous part among the Fijis. They style themselves
_Ngalidura-ki-langi_--subject to heaven alone.”
AMERICAN INDIAN TRADITIONS.
Many of the tribes of North America related in their rude legends that
the human race had been destroyed by a deluge, and that their god, to
re-people the earth, had changed animals into men. The traveler, Henry,
repeats a tradition which he had heard from the Indians of the Lakes.
Formerly the Father of the Indian tribes lived toward the rising sun.
Having been warned by a dream that a deluge was coming to destroy the
earth, he constructed a raft, on which he saved himself with his family
and all animals. He floated thus many months on the water. The animals,
which then had the power of speech, complained aloud and murmured
against him. At last a new earth appeared, and he stepped down on it
with all these creatures, who thenceforward lost the power of speech as
a punishment for their murmurs against their preserver.
THE GREEK STORY.
Hellas has two versions of a flood, one associated with Ogyges, and the
other, in a far more elaborate form, with Deucalion. Both, however,
are of late origin. They were unknown to Homer and Hesiod. Herodotus,
though he mentions Deucalion as one of the first kings of the Hellenes,
says not a word about this flood. Pindar is the first writer who
mentions it. In Apollodorus and Ovid the story appears in a much more
definite shape, though, of course, this is but a re-writing of the
early tradition. Finally, Lucian gives a narrative not very different
from that of Ovid, except that he makes provision for the safety of
the animals, which Ovid does not. He attributes the necessity for the
Deluge to the exceeding wickedness of the existing race of men, and
declares that the earth opened and sent forth waters to swallow them
up, as well as that heavy rain fell upon them. Deucalion, as the one
righteous man, escaped with his wife and children and the animals he
had put into the chest and landed on the top of Parnassus, after nine
days and nine nights, during which the chief part of Hellas was under
water, and all men perished except a few who reached the tops of the
highest mountains. Plutarch mentions the dove which Deucalion made
use of to ascertain whether the flood was abated, though he may have
borrowed this from the Septuagint version of the Old Testament, access
to which he had probably enjoyed, and with which he was most likely
familiar.
The many points of agreement will be readily noted. The fact of a
deluge of waters sent by the Supreme Being, as a punishment for
man’s wickedness; the saving of a chosen few by means of a boat; the
re-peopling of the earth by these, all present points of likeness to
the Biblical account. This is inexplicable unless the record is true
and all the nations of the earth were made of one blood.
But these are not all of the remarkable agreements. Of the same
character as the above stories, are the traditions of the history of
the race after the flood, of the building of the tower of Babel, and
the confusion of tongues. We can call attention to but one of these,
the Chaldean account concerning the tower of Babel, which may be
regarded as a fair specimen of the many.
CHALDEAN STORY OF THE TOWER OF BABEL.
The story of the “Tower of the Tongues” was among the most ancient
recollections of the Chaldeans, and was one of the national traditions
of the Armenians, who had received it from the civilized nations
inhabiting the Tigro-Euphrates basin. Berosus records this event in
complete agreement with the Bible, as follows:
“They say that the first inhabitants of the earth, glorying in their
own strength and size and despising the gods, undertook to raise a
tower whose top should reach the sky, in the place in which Babylon now
stands; but when it approached the heaven, the wind assisted the gods
and overthrew the work upon its contrivers, and its ruins are said to
be still at Babylon; and the gods introduced a diversity of tongues
among men, who till that time had all spoken the same language; and a
war arose between Chronus and Titan. The place in which they built the
tower is now called Babylon, on account of the confusion of tongues,
for confusion is by the Hebrews called Babel.”
WHAT HAS THE BIBLE TO SAY ABOUT IDOLATRY?
There is another aspect of the relation of the Bible to the heathen
religions, to which we should call attention. In what terms does the
Bible speak of the worship of false gods and idols? The Israelites
were brought into contact with idolatry very early in their history.
The patriarchs were familiar with it, both as they journeyed abroad
and among their neighbors at home. Abraham’s parents were at least
partially idolatrous. Jacob, while living with Laban, was accustomed to
the sight of the teraphim and other gods. Joseph had for his wife the
daughter of a heathen Egyptian priest. Jacob and his children, during
their life in Egypt, were surrounded by temples, idol groves, sacred
beasts and all the paraphernalia of heathen worship. Moses was brought
up in all the learning of the Egyptians. Undoubtedly, as was customary
in Egypt, he had for his teachers Egyptian priests. When Israel made
its exodus from Egypt, the miraculous power which God gave to Moses
was brought into contact with the power of the sorcerers and magicians
of Pharaoh’s court. After they had left Egypt they remembered the
idol-worship they had been accustomed to see. The first idol ever made
and worshiped by the Hebrews, was the golden calf. Side by side with
this incident, is the first plain command against idolatry: “Thou shalt
have no other gods before me. Thou shalt not make unto thee any graven
image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven above, or that
is in the earth beneath, or that is in the waters under the earth: thou
shalt not bow down thyself to them, nor serve them.”
While God was giving this stern, strong, plain command to Moses, for
him to repeat to the chosen people of Israel, they were engaged in
their idolatrous worship. In the command to Israel, we see how God
regards the worship of idols. For awhile Israel regarded God’s command.
On their way to Canaan they yielded to the charms of the daughters of
Moab, and with most terribly wicked worship they bowed to the heathen
god Baal-Peor. For this they were severely punished. During the life
of Joshua they did not again yield to the temptations of idolatry.
Gideon’s father, Joash, worshiped Baal. After Gideon’s death, idolatry
became the national sin of Israel. From Samuel’s time until the reign
of Solomon, the people were loyal to Jehovah’s worship. Solomon’s
foreign wives brought with them the gods which they were accustomed to
worship, and soon all Israel was turned to worship them. From this
time until after the captivity at Babylon, idolatry was the constant
sin of Israel. Often God sent his messengers, the prophets, to warn
them of the danger of their sin. Often His judgments were shown in the
terrible calamities which came upon Israel. But it took the most awful
of all calamities, the temporary ruin of the nation, to work a complete
cure. God chose Israel as the people to preserve for the world the
pure worship of Himself, the one and the only God. How they failed to
fulfill their high calling we have seen.
God was preparing in Israel the true religion which was designed to be
universal. In Abraham’s seed all the families of the earth were to be
blessed. The Jews were made the keepers of the treasure of the promises
of the Saviour. God selected them from all the nations for this express
purpose; He gave them a territory shut off from that of other nations;
in their language, habits, ways of thinking and religion, they were
distinct from all others. They were to be kept separate until the time
when God should give the true religion to the whole world.