to God,* and feasted with his companions. However, the Armenians call this place Arofalov, the place of descent: for the Ark being saved in that place, its remains are shewed by the inhabitants of this day.

Now all the writers of profane history make mention of this flood, and of this ark, among whom is Berosus, the Chaldean; for when he was describing the circumstances of the flood, he goes on thus:

"It is said there is still some part of the ship, in Armenia, at the mountain of the Cordyæans; and that some people carry off pieces of the bitumen, which they take away, and use, chiefly as amulets, for the averting of mischiefs." Hieronymus the Egyptian also, who wrote the Phoenician Antiquities; and Manaseas, and many more make mention of the same. Nay, Nicolaus of Damascus, in his ninety-sixth Book, hath a particular relation about them, where he speaks thus: "There is a great mountain in Armenia, over Minyas, called Baris; upon which it is reported that many who fled at the time of the deluge were saved; and that one who was carried in an ark, came on shore upon the top of it, and that the remains of the timber were a great while preserved: this might be the man about whom Moses, the legislator of the Jews wrote."

But as for Noah, he was afraid, since God had determined to destroy mankind, lest he should drown the earth every year. So he offered burnt offerings, and besought God that nature might hereafter go on in its former orderly course, and that he would not bring on so great a judgment any more, by which the whole race of creatures might be in danger of destruction; but that, having now punished the wicked, he would of his goodness spare the remainder, and such as he had hitherto judged fit to be delivered from so severe a calamity; for that otherwise these last must be more miserable than the first, and that they must be condemned to a worse condition than the others, unless they be suffered

*Gen. viii. 20.

This place of descent is the proper interpretation of the Armenian name of this city. It is called in Ptolemy Naxuana, and by Moses Chorenensis, the Armenian Historian, Idsheuan; but at the place itself Nichidsheuan, which signifies the first place of descent; and is a lasting monument of the preservation of Noah in the Ark upon the top of that Mountain, at whose foot it was built, as the

to escape entirely; that as, if they be reserved for another deluge, while they must be afflicted with the terror and the sight of the deluge, and must also be destroyed by a second. He also intreated God to accept of his sacrifice, and to grant, that the earth might never again undergo the like effects of his wrath; that men might be permitted to go on cheerfully in cultivating the same; to build cities, and live happily in them; and that they might not be deprived of any of those good things which they enjoyed before the flood; but might attain to the old age which the ancient people had arrived at before.

When Noah had made these supplications, God, who loved the man for his righteousness, granted his prayers: and said, "that it was not he who brought the destruction on a polluted world, but that they underwent that vengeance on account of their own wickedness; and that he had not brought men into the world if he had himself determined to destroy them; it being an instance of greater wisdom not to have granted them life at all, than, after it was granted to procure their destruction. But the injuries," said he, "they offered to my holiness and virtue, forced me to bring this punishment upon them; but I will leave off for the time to come to require such punishments, the effects of so great wrath, for their future wicked actions; and especially on account of thy prayers. But if I shall at any time send tempests of rain in an extraordinary manner, be not affrighted at the copiousness of the showers, for the water shall no more overspread the earth. However I require you to abstain from shedding the blood of men, and to keep yourselves pure from murder, and to punish those who commit any such thing; I permit you to make use of all the other living creatures, at your pleasure, and as your appetites lead you; for I have made you lords of them all; both of those that walk on the land, and those that swim in the waters, and of those that fly in

first city or town after the flood. See Antiq. xx. 2, and Moses Chorenensis, page 71-72. Who also says, page 19, that, another town was related by tradition to have been called Seron, or the place of dispersion, on account of the first dispersion of Xisuthrus's or Noah's sons from thence. Whether any remains of this Ark be still preserved, as the people of the country suppose, I cannot certainly tell.

the regions of the air on high, excepting the blood, for therein is the life. But I will give you a sign that I have laid aside my anger by my bow;" whereby is meant the rainbow: for they determined that the rainbow was the bow of God. And when God had said and promised thus, he went away.

Now when Noah had lived three hundred and fifty years after the flood, and all that time happily, he died; being nine hundred and fifty years old, but let no one, upon comparing the lives of the ancients with our lives, and with the few years which we now live, think that what we have said of them is false; or make the shortness of our lives at present an argument that they did not attain to so long a duration of life; for those ancients were beloved of God, and lately made by God himself; and, because their food was then fitter for the prolongation of life, might well live so great a number of years. And besides, God afforded them a longer time of life on account of their virtue, and the good use they made of it in astronomical and geometrical discoveries, which would not have afforded them time for foretelling the periods of the stars, unless they had lived six hundred years, for the great year is completed in that interval.

Now I have for witnesses to what I have said all those that have written antiquities, both among the Greeks and Barbarians; for even Manetho, who wrote the Egyptian History; and Berosus, who collected the Chaldean Monuments; and Mochus, and Hestiæus, and besides these, Hieronymus, the Egyptian, and those that compose the Phoenician History, agree to what I here say. Hesiodt also,

and Hecatæus, and Hellanicus, and Aculsilaus; and besides these, Ephorus and Nicolaus relate, that the ancients lived a thousand years. But, as to these matters, let every one look upon them as they think fit.

years before the deluge. These first of all descended from the mountains into the plains, and fixed their habitation there and persuaded others, who were greatly afraid of the lower grounds on account of the flood, and so were very loth to come down from the higher places, to venture to follow their example. Now the plain in which they first dwelt was called Shinar. God also commanded them to send colonies abroad, for the thorough peopling of the earth, that they might not raise seditions among themselves, but might cultivate a great part of the earth, and enjoy its fruits after a plentiful manner; but they were so ill-instructed, that they did not obey God, for which reason they fell into calamities, and were made sensible by experience of what sin they had been guilty of; for when they flourished with a numerous youth, God admonished them again to send out colonies; but they imagining that the prosperity they enjoyed was not derived from the favour of God, but supposing that their own power was the proper cause of the plentiful condition they were in, did not obey him. Nay, they added to this disobedience to the divine. will, the suspicion that they were ordered to send out separate colonies, that, being divided asunder, they might the more easily be oppressed.

Now it was Nimrod who excited them to such an affront and contempt of God; he was the grandson of Ham, the son of Noah, a bold man, and of great strength of hand. He persuaded them not to ascribe it to God, as if it were through his means that they were happy, but to believe that it was their own courage that procured that happiness. He also gradually changed the government into tyranny, seeing no other method of turning men from the fear of God, but to bring them into a constant dependence on his own power. also said, "He would be revenged on God, if he should have a mind to drown the world again; for that he would build a tower too high for the waters to be able to reach, and that he would avenge himself on God for destroying their fore-fathers.

He

Now the multitude were very ready to follow the determination of Nimrod, and to

clined to think the writer here meant was Isidorus Characenus, who produced instances of kings who reigned a long time. But since the Greek copies, have constantly Hesiod,

F

esteem it a piece of cowardice to submit to God; and they built a tower, neither sparing any pains, nor being at any degree negligent about the work; and by reason of the multitude of hands employed in it, it grew very high sooner than any one could expect, but the thickness of it was so great, and it was so strongly built, that thereby its great height seemed, upon view, to be less than it really

was.

It was built of burnt brick, cemented together with mortar, made of bitumen, that it might not be liable to admit water. When God saw them acting so madly, he did not resolve to destroy them utterly, since they were not grown wiser by the destruction of the former sinners, but he caused a tumult among them by producing in them divers languages, and causing that through the multitude of those languages, they should not be able to understand one another. The place wherein they built the tower is now called Babylon, because of the confusion of that language which they readily understood before, for the Hebrew means by the word Babel,* confusion. The Sibylt also makes mention of the tower, and of the confusion of the language, when she says thus:-" When all men were of one language, some of them built an high tower, as if they would thereby ascend up to heaven, but the gods sent storms of wind, and overthrew the tower, and gave every one his peculiar language; and for this reason it was that the city was called Babylon." But as to the plain of Shinah, in the country of Babylonia, Hestiæus mentions it when he says, "Such of the priests as were saved took the sacred vessels of Jupiter Enyalius, and came to Shinar or Babylonia."

CHAP. V.

OF THE MANNER IN WHICH THE POSTERITY OF NOAH SENT OUT COLONIES, AND INHABITED THE WHOLE EARTH.

A

FTER this they were dispersed abroad on account of the difference of their

and since Hesiod says, that men's lives were once so long, that at one hundred years of age they might be esteemed great infants, I prefer that reading. But what a catalogue of ancient authors are there that confirm the sacred History in one of its most difficult branches! To which had Josephus read the Latin authors, as he did the Greek, he might have added Varro, the most learned of the Romans who made this enquiry, what the reason was that the ancients were supposed to have lived one thousand years? *Gen. xi. 29.

languages, and went out by colonies every where; and each colony took possession of that land unto which God led them, so that the whole continent was filled with them, both the inland and maritime countries. There were some also who passed over the sea in ships, and inhabited the islands; and some of those nations still retain the denominations which were given them by their first founders, but some have lost them, and some have only admitted certain changes in them, that they might be more intelligible to the inhabitants; and they were the Greeks who became the authors of such mutations; for when, in after ages they grew potent, they claimed to themselves the glory of antiquity, giving names to the nations that sounded well in Greek, that they might be better understood among themselves, and setting agreeable forms of government over them, as if they were a people derived from themselves.

CHAP. VI.

HOW EVERY NATION WAS DENOMINATED FROM THEIR FIRST

N

INHABITANTS.

TOW they were the grand-children of Noah, in honour of whom names were imposed on the nations by those that first seized upon them. Japhet, the son of Noah, had seven sons; they inhabited so, that beginning at the mountains Taurus and Amanus, they proceeded along Asia, as far as the river Tanais, and along Europe to Cadiz, and settling themselves on the lands they chose, which none had inhabited before, they called the nations by their own names; for Gomer founded those whom the Greeks called Galatians, but were then called Gomerites. Magog founded those that from him were named Magogites, but who are by the Greeks called Scythians. Now as to Javan and Madai, the sons of Japhet: from Madai came the Madeans, which are called Medes by the Greeks,

† See this testimony in the original, and in English in my Edition of the Sibylline oracles, page 11. 93, 94. but there it is in verse, as here in prose, the reason of which difference I by no means understand. But what is here remarkable is, that Moses Chorenensis, the Armenian historian, confirms this history, that God overthrew this tower by a terrible and divine storm; and confounded the language of the builders, and this from the earliest records belonging to that nation.