We have also various statements respecting this early time in the fragments of Sanchoniathon and Berosus. The former, whose writings, however, are of doubtful authenticity, tells us that Genos, the Cain of Scripture, with Genea his wife, used in seasons of drought to raise their hands to the sun as Lord of Heaven, thus indicating the existence among the antediluvians of that idolatrous worship of the heavenly bodies, the revival of which not long after the flood Job regarded with such abhor rence (Job. xxxi. 26). He also speaks of the cor ruption of manners, the birth of giants, and the adoration of the images of deceased heroes, but takes no notice of the deluge. Berosus, whose authenticity is undoubted, and who drew the mate rials of his history from afchives preserved in the temple of Belus, being himself priest of Belus in the time of Alexander the Great, gives an account of the creation and the early ages of the world corresponding with that of Moses ; and after enume rating a dynasty which reigned in Babylonia before the deluge, and which some recognise as the race that sprang from the union of the sons of God with the daughters of men, tells of the building of an enormous ark by the pious Xisuthrus, who, with a few companions, was preserved alive, while the rest of the world perished in the waters. Berosus, like Moses, makes the ark rest after the deluge on the mountains of Armenia, from whence the com panions of Xisuthrus descended again by his direc tion to Babylonia, he himself being taken up tc dwell with the gods.
The loth and r rth chapters of Genesis carry on the patriarchal genealogies from the deluge to the call of Abraham. The first of these chapters, which the reader should have before him in studying this page, is called Toldoth B'nei Noach, a wonderful historical record, which has extorted the admiration of all modern ethnologists, who continually find in it anticipations of their greatest discoveries.
1. For instance, in the first generation of the sons ofJaphet, eldest son of Noah, the Iapetus ot Greek mythology, we find Gomer, whence the Cimmcrii, Cimbri, and Cymry or Welsh, whence also the names Cambria and Cumberland; and according to many great authorities cited by Faber, the whole Celtic race—Magog the probable ances tor of the Moguls—Madai of the Medes—Javan of the Ionians or early Greeks, as well as of the Hindu Yavanas. In this conjunction of the Medes with the Cimbri and the Greeks, we have a suffi cient indication of the great discovery of Schlegel, expressed in the word /ride-European, regarding the affinity of the principal nations of Europe with the Aryan or Indo-Persic stock. Tubal has been recognised in Tobolsk, Mesheck in Muscovy ant/ Moscow, Tiraz in Thrace.
The name of Ashkenaz, the eldest son of Gomer, has been traced in Sacagena, or Sacassena (a pro vince of Armenia), whence perhaps Saxons—in the Ascanitici of the Pains Meeotis—in Axenus, the ancient name of the Euxine — in Scandia or Scandinavia—and in Scania, a modern province of Sweden. It may also be observed that Germany is now called Ashkenaz by the Rabbis. Elishah, the eldest son of Javan, may have given his name to Elis, a city of the Peloponnessus, Tarshish to Tarsus of Cilicia, or Tartessus in Spain. The Kittim, or
Chittim, were the inhabitants of the coasts of Greece and Italy, the Dodanim were perhaps the Dardani.
2. Ham is the next mentioned son of Noah. It has been usual to consider all his descendants as affected by the curse pronounced on his youngest son Canaan, but neither the facts of history nor the words of Scripture bear out this view. Cush, his eldest son, settled in Ethiopia, from whence his descendants spread through the south of Arabia upwards to Chusistan or Susiana. This, which has always been the traditional belief respecting the descendants of Cush, has received the fullest con firmation from the recently discovered cuneiform inscriptions, which clearly establish an ethnic con nection between the Ethiopians or Cushites, who adjoined Egypt, and the primitive inhabitants ot Babylonia. The names of the sons of Cush, Seba, Havilah, etc., and of his grandsons Sheba and Dedan, may be traced in Ethiopia, Arabia, and Idumea, and fall in with the discovery that there are two races of Arabs, the one Cushite, which colonised Arabia from Ethiopia, and were known in after ages as the Homerites or Himyerites, the other, as we shall see hereafter, descended from Shem. Cush is also believed to be the progenitor of the Goths, the Scyths, and the Scots. Mizraim, or Mizr, the second son of Ham, was the ancestor of the Egyptians, and, in the names of his sons, Eudim, Anamim, etc., we recog,nise the inhabitants of various parts of Egypt or the adjoining regions of Africa, following a general direction from the Mediterranean southwards. The most recent opinion respecting the descendants of Phut is that they wcre the Budii of Herodotus, a distinct Median tribe of Scyths, the Putiya of the Persian, and the Budu of the Babylonian inscriptions. Among the sons of Canaan we recognize as well the names of places on the coast of Syria as of the tribes with which the people of Israel were brought into conflict after they entered the promised land, and some of them appear to be rather local designations than names of persons. The general direction of these settle ments is from south to north.
The only names of men given in the third gene ration of Ham's posterity are Sheba and Dedan, the sons of Raamah, and the object of naming them, according to Dr. Hales, was to introduce Nimrod, who, he doubts not, was the son of Sheba, and great-grandson of Cush, and supports his opinion by the testimony of Abulfaragi. He also supposes the name Nimrod (meaning the rebel), to be a parody on his true name Nin, which we recognise in Ninus and Nineveh, of -which he was the builder, according to the mar ginal reading of Gen. x. 1. He appears to have subdued in succession the descendants of Ar phaxad, settled in Babylonia, and the descendants Asshur, settled in the country which afterwards became the centre of the Assyrian empire. He is considered to be the Orion of Greek mythology, the Belus of history, and the Bala Rama of the Hindus. This coincides with the view taken above of his descent from Raamah.