Part 15

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.

II.

_Indian Traditions._--India, in its turn, affords us an account of the Deluge, which by its poverty strikingly contrasts with that of the Bible and the Chaldeans. Its most simple and ancient form is found in the _Catapatha Brahmana_ of the Rig-Veda. It has been translated for the first time by M. Max Muller.

"One morning water for washing was brought to Manu, and when he had washed himself a fish remained in his hands. And it addressed these words to him:--'Protect me and I will save thee.' 'From what wilt thou save me?' 'A deluge will sweep all creatures away; it is from that I will save thee.' 'How shall I protect thee?' The fish replied: 'While we are small we run great dangers, for fish swallow fish. Keep me at first in a vase; when I become too large for it dig a basin to put me into. When I shall have grown still more, throw me into the ocean; then I shall be preserved from destruction.' Soon it grew a large fish. It said to Manu, 'The very year I shall have reached my full growth the Deluge will happen. Then build a vessel and worship me. When the waters rise, enter the vessel and I will save thee.'

"After keeping him thus, Manu carried the fish to the sea. In the year indicated Manu built a vessel and worshipped the fish. And when the Deluge came he entered the vessel. Then the fish came swimming up to him, and Manu fastened the cable of the ship to the horn of the fish, by which means the latter made it pass over the mountain of the North. The fish said, 'I have saved thee; fasten the vessel to a tree that the water may not sweep it away while thou art on the mountain; and in proportion as the waters decrease thou shalt descend.' Manu descended with the waters, and this is what is called the _descent of Manu_ on the mountain of the North. The deluge had carried away all creatures, and Manu remained alone."

Next in order of date and complication, which always goes on loading the narrative more and more with fantastic and parasitical details, comes the version in the enormous epic of _Mahabharata_. That of the poem called _Bhagavata-Purana_ is still more recent and fabulous. Finally, the same tradition forms the subject of an entire poem of very low date, the _Matsya-Purana_, of which an analysis has been given by the great Indian scholar, Wilson.

In the preface to the third volume of his edition of _Bhagavata-Purana_, Eugene Burnouf has carefully compared the three narratives known at the time he wrote (that of the _Catapatha Brahmana_ has been since discovered), with a view to clearing up the origin of the Indian tradition of the Deluge. He points out in a discussion that deserves to remain a model of erudition and subtle criticism, that it is absolutely wanting in the Vedic hymns, where we only find distant allusions to it that seem to belong to a different kind of legend altogether, and also that this tradition was primitively foreign to the essentially Indian system of _Manvantaras_, or periodic destructions of the world. He thence concludes that it must have been imported into India subsequently to the adoption of this system, which is, however, very ancient, being common to Brahmanism and Buddhism, and therefore inclines to look upon it as a Semitic importation that took place in historic times, not, indeed, of Genesis, but more probably of the Babylonian tradition.

The discovery of an original edition of the latter confirms the theory of the French savant. The leading feature which distinguishes the Indian narrative is the part assigned to a god who puts on the form of a fish, in order to warn Manu, to guide his vessel and save him from the flood. The nature of the metamorphosis is the only fundamental and primitive point, for different versions vary as to the personality of the god who assumes this form--the _Brahmana_ leaves it uncertain, the _Mahabharata_ fixes on Brahma, and the compilers of the _Puranas_ on Vishnu. This is the more remarkable that this metamorphosis into a fish _Matsyavatara_ remains isolated in Indian mythology, is foreign to its habitual symbolism, and gives rise to no ulterior developments: no trace being found in India of that fish-worship which was so important and widespread among other ancient people. Burnouf rightly saw in this a sign of importation from without, and especially of its Babylonian origin, for classic testimony, recently confirmed by native monuments, shows us that in the religion of Babylon the conception of ichthyomorphic gods held a more prominent place than elsewhere. The part played by the divine fish with regard to Manu in the Indian legend, is attributed both by the Epic of Uruk and by Berosus to the god Ea, who is also designated Schalman, "the Saviour." Now this god, whose type of representation we now know certainly from Assyrian and Babylonian monuments, is essentially the ichthyomorphic god, and his image almost invariably combines the forms of fish and man. In astronomical tables frequent mention is made of the catasterism of the "fish of Ea," which is indubitably our sign Pisces, since it presides over the month Adar. It is to a connection of ideas based on the diluvian record, that we must attribute the placing of Pisces--primarily of the "fish of Ea"--next to Aquarius, whose relation to the history of the Deluge we have already pointed out. Here we have an evident allusion to the part of Saviour attributed by the people who invented the Zodiac, to the god Ea in the flood, and to the idea of an ichthyomorphic nature especially belonging to this aspect of his personality. Ea is, moreover, the Oannes, lawgiver of the fragments of Berosus, half-man, half-fish, whose form, answering to the description given by the Chaldean history, has been discovered in the sculptures of Assyrian palaces and on cylinders, the Euahanes of Hygin, and the Oes of Helladios.[46]

Whenever we find among two different peoples one same legend, with as _special_ a circumstance which does not spring _naturally_ and _necessarily_ from the fundamental facts of the narrative, and when, moreover, this circumstance is closely connected with the whole religious conceptions of one of these peoples, and remains isolated and alien from the customary symbolism of the other, criticism lays it down as an absolute rule that we must conclude the legend to have been transmitted from the one to the other in an already fixed form, to be a foreign importation, superimposed, not fused with the national, and as it were genial, traditions of the people, who have received, without having created it.

We must also remark that in the _Puranas_ it is no longer Manu Vaivasata that the divine fish saves from the Deluge, but a different personage, the King of the Dasas--_i.e._, fishers, Satyravata, "the man who loves justice and truth," strikingly corresponding to the Chaldean Khasisatra. Nor is the Puranic version of the Legend of the Deluge to be despised, though it be of recent date and full of fantastic and often puerile details. In certain aspects it is less Aryanized than that of _Brahmana_ or than the _Mahabharata_, and above all it gives some circumstances omitted in these earlier versions, which must yet have belonged to the original foundation, since they appear in the Babylonian legend; a circumstance preserved no doubt by the oral tradition--popular and not Brahmanic--with which the _Puranas_ are so deeply imbued. This has been already observed by Pictet, who lays due stress on the following passage of the _Bhagavata-Purana_: "In _seven days_," said Vishnu to Satyravata, "the three worlds shall be submerged." There is nothing like this in the _Brahmana_ nor the _Mahabharata_, but in Genesis the Lord says to Noah, "_Yet seven days_ and I will cause it to rain upon the earth;" and a little further we read, "_After seven days_ the waters of the flood were upon the earth." And we have just pointed out the parts played by hebdomades as successive periods in that system of the duration of the flood, adopted by the author of the Jehovist documents inserted in Genesis, as well as by the compiler of the Chaldean Epic of Uruk. Nor must we pay less attention to what the _Bhagavata-Purana_ says of the directions given by the fish-god to Satyravata for the placing of the sacred Scriptures in a safe place in order to preserve them from Hayagriva, a marine horse dwelling in the abyss, and of the conflict of the god with this Hayagriva, who had stolen the Vedas and thus produced the cataclysm by disturbing the order of the world. This circumstance too is wanting in the more ancient compositions, even in the _Mahabharata_, but it is a most important one, and cannot be looked on as a spontaneous product of Indian soil, for we recognize in it under an Indian garb the very tradition of the interment of the sacred writings at Sippara by Khasisatra, such as we have it in the fragments of Berosus.

It is the Chaldean form, then, of the tradition that the Indians have adopted owing to communications which the commercial relations between the countries render historically natural, and they afterwards amplified it with the exuberance peculiar to their imagination. But they must have adopted it all the more readily because it agreed with a tradition, which under a somewhat different form had been brought by their ancestors from the primitive cradle of the Aryan race. That the recollection of the flood did indeed form part of the original groundwork of the legends as to the origin of the world held by this great race, is beyond all doubt. For if Indians have accepted the Chaldean form of the story, so nearly allied to that of Genesis, all other nations of Aryan descent show themselves possessed of entirely original versions of the cataclysm which cannot be held to have been borrowed either from Babylonian or Hebrew sources.

III.

_Traditions of other Aryan Peoples._--Among the Iranians, in the sacred books containing the fundamental Zoroastrian doctrines, and dating very far back, we meet with a tradition which must assuredly be looked upon as a variety of that of the Deluge, though possessing a special character, and diverging in some essential particulars from those we have been examining. It relates how Yima, who in the original and primitive conception was the father of the human race, was warned by Ahuramazda, the good deity, of the earth being about to be devastated by a flood. The god ordered Yima to construct a refuge, a square garden, _vara_, protected by an enclosure, and to cause the germs of men, beasts, and plants to enter it, in order to escape annihilation. Accordingly, when the inundation occurred, the garden of Yima with all that it contained was alone spared, and the message of safety was brought thither by the bird Karshipta, the envoy of Ahuramazda.[47]