Having laid, as I think, in what has been premised in the last chapter, grounds for a presumption that primitive traditions may be shrouded in the ancient mythology, I proceed to seek traditions of the patriarch Noah among the inscriptions and monuments of the ChaldÆans; for then we shall find ourselves in a period when the results of modern archÆological science are in contact with the events and incidents of primitive patriarchal life recorded in Scripture; and, in seeking them where we shall best find them, in the able and discriminating pages of Rawlinson, we shall at least feel that we are treading on safe and solid ground.

The deities in the ChaldÆan Pantheon are thus enumerated by Professor Rawlinson—

In a note at p. 142 it is said, “These schemes themselves were probably not genealogical at first ... but after a while given to separate and independent deities, recognised in different places by distinct communities, or even by distinct races;” (vide Bunsen’s “Egypt,” iv. 66; English Tran.)

Now to this opinion I venture unreservedly to adhere, and I connect it with the statement (id. i. 72), that “ChaldÆa in the earliest times to which we can go back, seems to have been inhabited by four principal tribes. The early kings are continually represented in the monuments as sovereigns over the Kiprat-arbat, or ‘Four Races’ (vide supra, p.30). These ‘Four Races’ are sometimes called the Arba Lisun or ‘Four Tongues,’ whence we may conclude that they were distinguished from one another, among other differences, by a variety in their forms of speech ... an examination of the written remains has furnished reasons for believing that the differences were great and marked; the languages, in fact, belonging to the four great varieties of human speech, the Hamitic, Semitic, Aryan, and Turanian.” Compare pp. 39, 40.

If it is allowed that there may have been mythological systems corresponding to these divers nationalities, we may fairly conclude that the deities above enumerated may not necessarily have been different deities, but the same deities viewed in different lights, or included in duplicate in the way of incorporation, or in recognition of subordinate nationalities. If, therefore, I find the representation of Noah in any one of these deities, is there not a prima facie probability that I shall find the reduplication of him in others? I consider, at least, that I shall have warrant for thus collecting the scattered traditions concerning the patriarch who stands at the head of the second propagation of our race.

But first as to the god Il or Ra—

IL OR RA.

If in the Il or Ra of the ChaldÆans the primitive monotheism is not revealed, I do not see how it can be discerned in the Zeus of the Greeks. We have the same god in the same relation in the Scandinavian, or at any rate in the Lapland mythology. Leems (“Account of Danish Lapland,” Pinkerton, i. 458) says—“Of the Gods inhabiting the starry mansions the greatest is Radien, yet it is uncertain whether he is over every part of the sidereal sky, or whether he governs only some part of it. Be this as it may, I shall be bold to affirm that the Laplanders never comprehended, under the name of this false god, the true God; which is obvious from this, that some have not scrupled to put the image or likeness of the true God by the side of their Radien, on Runic boxes.”[145] If, however, of their gods “the greatest was Radien,” they would not have placed the true God by his side until they had become acquainted with the true God, or until they had come to commingle Christianity and Paganism; but then would they not have placed “Ra;” by the side of the true God as His counterpart? I am assuming that “Radien;” means simply the god Ra, as I suppose Mr Max MÜller would recognise “dien;” as cognate to “Dyaus” ... “Dieu.”

Yet it has been opposed, in limine, to M. L’Abbe Gainet’s valuable chapter on the “Monotheisme des Peuples primitifs,” “that he does not meet the specific assertions of historians such as Rawlinson, who finds idolatry prevalent among the ChaldÆans on their first appearance on the stage of history.”

I must submit, however, that although the discovery of idolatry at this early period may appear to disturb the particular theory, yet on closer examination it will be found to sustain L’Abbe Gainet’s argument, on the whole, by sustaining the truth of tradition upon which his main argument reposes; for the idolatry which we find is intimately bound up with the worship of Belus, identified with Nimrod, whose rebellion against the Lord has always been in tradition, and is according to the more accepted interpretation of the sacred text. The discovery of idolatry, therefore, under the particular circumstances, is exactly what we should expect, and affords a remarkable confirmation of the fidelity of tradition.

Moreover, there are ChaldÆans and ChaldÆans, as we have just seen in Rawlinson (sup. p. 184), and as will be made more evident in the following passage from Gainet’s “Monotheisme,” &c.

The pure monotheism here alluded to may have been preserved in ChaldÆan families of Semitic origin, but the extract I have just given from Rawlinson seems to prove that the knowledge was preserved also, dimly and obscurely, among the predominant ChaldÆans of Hamitic descent. This will be more apparent from the monotheistic epithets attached to the three next deities.

ANA.

“Ana is the head of the first triad which follows immediately after the obscure god Ra.” “Ana, like Il and Ra, is thought to have been a word originally signifying God in the highest sense.” “He corresponds in many respects to the classical Hades, who, like him, heads[146] the triad to which he belongs.” In so far he is undistinguishable from Il or Ra, and may only transmit the monotheistic tradition through a different channel. But Ana has human epithets applied to him very suggestive of hero-worship. “His epithets are chiefly such as mark priority and antiquity.” “He is the Old Ana,” “the original chief,” “the father of the gods” [inter alia, of Bil Nipru, i.e. Nimrod]. He is also called—which imports another association of ideas—“the lord of spirits and demons,” “the king of the lower world,”[147] “the lord of darkness or death,” “the ruler of the far-off city.”

Setting aside such titles as belong exclusively to the Deity, but assuming hero-worship—supposing man deified—who more appropriately placed in these primitive times at the head of the list, than their original progenitor Adam.[148] To whom would these titles, “the old Ana,”[149] “the original chief,” “the lord of darkness and death,” he who introduced death into the world, more exactly apply? Rawlinson also says—“His position is well marked by Damascius, who gives the three gods Anus, Illinus, and AÜs, as next in succession to the primeval pair, Assorus and Missara,” i. 145. Now, it will not be contested, I think, that Assorus is the same as Alorus, the first of the ten antediluvian (deluge of Xisuthrus) Assyrian kings enumerated by Berosus, and which correspond to the ten antediluvian patriarchs. Consequently Assorus = Alorus = Adam.[150]

Here, then, we have a reduplication, or else what I have above referred to, the tendency to place the head of the dynasty at the top of the list superior to gods and men. In any case, granting this juxtaposition, would there not have been the proximate risk and probability of the two running into one another and becoming confounded, on the supposition that Ana and Alorus were not originally identical?

This will become more evident when we have considered the next in the triad—

BIL OR ENU.

But the evidence, though it will more clearly establish the fact of hero-worship, will perhaps raise a doubt whether we have rightly regarded Adam as the object of hero-worship in Ana, a point which we will then consider.

Rawlinson says of this god—“He is the Illinus (Il-Enu) of Damascius.” “His name, which seems to mean merely lord” (again the primitive monotheistic appellation) “is usually followed by a qualificative adjunct possessing great interest. It is proposed to read this term as Nipru, or in the feminine Niprut, a word which cannot fail to recall the scriptural Nimrod, who is in the Septuagint Nebroth. The term nipru seems to be formed from the root napar, which is the Syriac “to pursue,” to “make to flee,” and which has in Assyrian nearly the same meaning. Thus Bil Nipru would be aptly translated as “the hunter lord” or the “god presiding over the chase,” while at the same time it might combine the meaning of the “conquering lord” or “the great conqueror.”

Here, at any rate, it must be admitted that “we have, in this instance, an admixture of hero-worship in the ChaldÆan religion” (Rawlinson, i. 148). But if in one instance what À priori reason is there that it should not be so in others? Let us, then, examine further. The name of this deity, as Bel Nipru or Nimrod, has, I consider, been completely traced in the pages of Rawlinson (to which I must refer my readers). But what are we to say about the alternative name of Enu? And why, although no great stress can be laid upon the location of a deity in a genealogy or a system, yet why is Nimrod thus placed intermediate between Adam and the third of the triad Hoa, whom, on grounds quite irrespective of the similarity of name, I identify with Noah?[151] If Ana is Adam, and Hoa Noah, why should not Enu, in another point of view, be Enoch? There is, I admit, an absence of direct evidence, but I think I discover a link of connection in a note in Rawlinson (i. p. 196). “Arab writers record a number of remarkable traditions, in which he (Nimrod) plays a conspicuous part.” “Yacut declares that Nimrod attempted to mount to heaven on the wings of an eagle, and makes Niffers (Calneh) the scene of this occurrence (Lex. Geograph. in voc. Niffer). It is supposed that we have here an allusion to the building of the Tower of Babel.” But I cannot help regarding it as much more certainly like an allusion to Enoch’s disappearance from the earth. At p. 187, Prof. Rawlinson notices the confusion of Xisuthrus with Enoch, which proves that the tradition of Enoch was amongst them, and would have been common also to the Hamitic Arabs.[152]

I will now return to my doubt as to Ana. For although I feel tolerably certain that Ana in his human attributes represents one or other of the antediluvian patriarchs, it may well be that he is only a reduplication of Enu = Enoch. If we are to seek in the translation of Enoch the clue to the origin of the deification of man, and its commencement in the person of Nimrod (vide supra, p. 160), it is likely, in the legend of the apotheosis of Nimrod, that all the analogies should have been sought for in the striking historical event which was in tradition. There is, moreover, the analogy of name with Annacus, Hannachus = Enoch.[153] If he is Enoch, he naturally also falls into his place as second to Assorus.

I retain, however, my original opinion, that Ana is Adam (though possibly with some confusion with Enoch), in addition to the arguments already urged, upon the following grounds:— Rawlinson mentions (i. 147) “Telane,” or the “Mound of Ana,” distinct from Kalneh or “Kalana.” We know that there has been a constant tradition that the bones of Adam were preserved in the ark, and this name of the “Mound of Ana” may be connected with it. If so, it will also account for Ana (Dis = Orcus) being the patron deity of Erech, “the great city of the dead, the necropolis of Lower Babylonia” (Rawlinson i. 146).

The son of Ana is Vul. If Vul could be identified with Vulcan, and Vulcan with Tubalcain, it would go far to decide the point that Ana was Adam.But in the matter of etymology, I do not know that we can advance beyond the quaint phrase of old Sir Walter Raleigh in his “History of the World,” that “there is a certain likelihood of name between Tubalcain and Vulcan.” I rely more upon the wide-spread tradition of Tubalcain in the legends of DÆdalus, Vulcan, Weland, Galant, Wielant, Wayland Smith, which approaches very nearly an identification. Vide Wilson’s “ArchÆologia of Scotland,” p. 210. Compare the Phoenician tradition, Bunsen’s “Egypt,” iv. 217, 219.

It is to be noted, however, that although Ana (vide Rawlinson) “like Adam had several sons, he had only two of any celebrity” (we can suppose that Abel had died out of the Cainite tradition), “Vul and another whose name represents ‘darkness’ or ‘the west,’” which might well be the view of Seth from a Cainite point of view (and it is traditional that the Cainite lore was preserved by Cham in the ark). Now it is remarkable that the Scripture (Gen. iv.) expressly says that Cain dwelt on the east side of Eden.

I now come to

HEA OR HOA.

I have said that I shall not rely too much on the resemblance of name, Hoa; but I must draw attention to the curious resemblance which lurks in the name “AÜs” to the words upon which the Vicomte D’Anselme has founded an argument in the appended note.[155]

In the above extract from Rawlinson, although Hoa is said not to be “the true fish-god,” yet he is called “the intelligent fish,” and is associated with that mystic animal, half man half fish, which came up from the Persian Gulf to teach astronomy and letters to the first settlers on Euphrates and Tigris.

Let us compare this information with the following “History of the Fish,” which the AbbÉ Gainet, i. 199, has translated from the MahÂbhÂrata. The same history has been translated from the Bhagavad Pourana by Sir W. Jones (“Asiatic Researches”). Indeed, as the AbbÉ Gainet argues, as this same history is found in all the religious poems of India, there is a certain security that it would not have been taken from the Hebrews.

I shall merely attempt to give the drift of the legend from the AbbÉ Gainet’s original translation of that portion of the Matysia Pourana which has reference to Noah:—

Here we seem to see what looks like the commencement of the legendary origin of the fish symbol; and here also we see it unmistakeably in connection with Noah. We have, moreover, seen the connection of Hoa with the fish.[159] Let us now turn to his reduplication, as I conceive, in Nin, or Ninip, who is said to be “the true fish god.”

“His names, Bar and Nin, are respectively a Semitic and a Hamitic term, signifying ‘Lord,’ or ‘Master,’” (p. 166). Astronomically Nin “should be Saturn.” However, a set of epithets which seem to point to his stellar character are very difficult to reconcile with the notion that, as a celestial luminary, he was (the dark and distant) Saturn. We find him called, “the light of heaven and earth,” “he who, like the sun, the light of the gods, irradiates the nations.” All this is very difficult to reconcile with legends arising out of the simple worship of a celestial luminary, but perfectly consistent with the supposition of the patriarch Noah, after deification, being located in the planetary system. The phrase, “he who, like the sun, the light of the gods, irradiates the nations,” is perfectly applicable to him who, as Oannes, we have ever regarded as “the god of science and of knowledge” and who “taught astronomy and letters to the first settlers on the Euphrates and Tigris.” Let us glance at the other epithets applied to Nin in the inscriptions. He is the “lord of the brave,” “the champion,” “the warrior who subdues foes,” “he who strengthens the hearts of his followers.” [The Scripture mentions the repeated assurances of the Almighty to Noah, that there should not be another Deluge; and the above is in keeping with the tradition that the early inhabitants long hesitated to quit the mountains for the plains, and only did so incited by the example of the patriarch.] “The destroyer of enemies,” “the reducer of the disobedient,” “the exterminator of rebels,” “he whose sword is good.” Like Nergal, or Mars, he is a god of battle and the chase. (I shall refer later on to these warlike epithets as applied to Noah.) At the same time he has qualities which seem wholly unconnected with any that have been hitherto mentioned. He is the true “fish-god” of Berosus, and is figured as such in the Scriptures. (I hope I may persuade some reader, who may be interested in this inquiry, to compare the figure of Nin, in Rawlinson, i. 167, with figure 23, Dupaix’s “New Spain” in Lord Kingsborough’s “Mexico,” representing an emblematic figure with fish[160] (as in the representation of Nin) over a human head, which also has inverted tusks. Compare also with representations of Neph, associated with snake and ram’s head, and also with “History of the Fish,” supra, p. 197.) To continue—in this point of view he (Nin) is called the “god of the sea,” “he who dwells in the deep” and again, somewhat curiously, “the opener of the aqueducts.” Now, as applied to Noah, this is not at all strange, and corresponds to the Scriptural phrase, “He opened the fountains of the deeps.” Subsequently to deification we cannot be surprised to find all that was done by the Almighty attributed to the individual to whom it was done; as in Prometheus we have a double legend of the Creator, who created man with the vital spark, and of Prometheus, the man who was so created. “Besides these epithets he has many of a more general character, as ‘the powerful chief,’ ‘the supreme,’ ‘the favourite of the gods,’ ‘the chief of the spirits,’ and the like.”

I must, moreover, request attention to the following from Rawlinson, i. 168,—“Nin’s emblem in Assyria is the man-bull, the impersonation of strength and power. He guards the palaces of the Assyrian kings, who reckon him their tutelary god, and gives his name to their capital city. We may conjecture that in Babylonia his emblem was the sacred fish, which is often seen in different forms upon the cylinders.”[161]

I turn to Gainet, i. 198, and I find this legend concerning the man-bull from Bertrand’s “Dict. des Religions,” 38, i. ii.[162]

“D’aprÈs les livres Parsis, le souverain CrÉateur sut que le mauvais gÉnie se disposait À tenter l’homme. Il ne jugea pas À propos de l’empÊcher par lui-mÊme; il se contenta d’envoyer des anges pour veiller sur l’homme. Cependant le mal augmenta; l’homme se perdit; Dieu envoya un Deluge, qui dura dix jours et dix nuits et dÉtruisit le genre humain. L’apparition de Kaioumons (l’homme-taureau), le premier homme, y est aussi prÉcÉdÉe de la creation d’une grande eau.” Here, in a confused tradition, with Adam—just as Nin is confused with Hercules and Saturn—the man-bull is apparently associated with a great flood.

In the curious Etruscan monument commemorative of the Deluge—discovered in 1696—and to which Cardinal Wiseman draws attention in his “Conferences” (vide Gainet, i. 190), being a vase supposed to represent the ark, and containing figures of twenty couples of (12) animals, (6) birds, (2) serpents, &c., and several human figures represented in the act of escaping from an inundation, there were also discovered certain signets and amulets. These consisted of hands joined, heads of oxen, and olives. Now the olive in connection with the Deluge will speak for itself,—the hands joined are the symbol of Janus (vide next chapter), and heads of oxen—here unmistakably connected with the Deluge—may also be conjectured to have allusion to the man-bull above referred to.

Thus Nin, through both his emblems (bull and fish), is brought into contact with the Noachic tradition.[163] It is also said (Rawlinson, i. 174) of Nergal, vide supra, who is clearly identified with Nimrod,—“Again, if Nergal is the man-lion, his association in the buildings with the man-bull would be exactly parallel with the conjunction which we so constantly find between him and Nin in the inscriptions.”

It is true that the majority of the inscriptions, p. 169, assert that Nin was the son of Bel-Nimrod. This may be referred to that tendency, previously noted in ancient nations, to place the ancestor with whom they were themselves identified at the head of every genealogy. One inscription, however, “makes Bel-Nimrod the son of Nin instead of his father.” Nin, in any case, is unquestionably brought into close historical relationship with Bel-Nimrod, an historical character, and we must, in fine, choose whether we shall admit him to be Noah—to whom all the epithets would apply—or whether, upon the more literal construction of the inscriptions, we shall believe him to be some nameless son or successor of Nimrod.

There is one god more in whom I fancy I see a counterpart of Noah, or at least a counterpart of Hoa and Nin—viz.

NEBO.

I base my conclusion upon the epithets applied to him in common with Hoa and Nin, and inconsistently applied if, according to the evidence, p. 177, “mythologically he was a deity of no very great eminence,” but in no way conflicting with the supposition that he represented the tradition of Noah, the counterpart to the tradition of Hoa and Nin, among some subordinate nationality, and such appears to be the fact. “When Nebo first appears in Assyria, it is as a foreign god, whose worship is brought thither from Babylonia,” p. 178. Of Nebo it is said, “his name is the same or nearly so, both in Babylonian and Assyrian, and we may perhaps assign it a Semitic derivation, from the root ‘nibbah,’ to prophesy. It is his special function to preside over knowledge and learning. He is called ‘the god who possesses intelligence’—‘he who hears from afar’—‘he who teaches,’ or ‘he who teaches and instructs.’ In this point of view he of course approximates to Hoa, whose son he is called in some inscriptions, and to whom he bears a general resemblance. Like Hoa, he is symbolised by the simple wedge or arrow-head, the primary and essential element of cuneiform writing, to mark his joint presidency with that god over writing and literature. At the same time Nebo has, like so many of the ChaldÆan gods, a number of general titles, implying divine powers, which, if they had belonged to him only, would have seemed to prove him the supreme deity. He is ‘the lord of lords, who has no equal in power,’ ‘the supreme chief,’ ‘the sustainer,’ ‘the supporter,’ the ‘ever ready,’ ‘the guardian over the heavens and the earth,’ ‘the lord of the constellations,’ ‘the holder of the sceptre of power,’ ‘he who grants to kings the sceptre of royalty for the governance of their people’” (Rawlinson, i. 177).

There is just a possibility, however, that Nebo may be Sem or Shem. He would be the son of Hoa as Nebo was stated to be.

I think, moreover, a striking resemblance will be seen between the above epithets and the traditions concerning Shem, collected by Calmet (Dict. “Sem.”)

“The Jews attribute to Sem the theological tradition of the things which Noah taught to the first men.... They say that he is the same as Melchisedek.... In fine, the Hebrews believe that he taught men the law of justice, the manner of counting the months and years, and the intercalations of the months. They pretend that God gave him the spirit of prophecy one hundred years after the Deluge, and that he continued to prophesy during four hundred years, with little fruit among mankind, who had become very corrupt. Methodius says that he remained in the isle of the sun, that he invented astronomy, and that he was the first king who ruled over the earth.”[164]