|
account or Narration of Noah's Flood, under that
name and notion; but it may be of use to observe
two things out of that History. First, that the Inundations recorded there came generally to pass in the
manner we have describ'd the Universal Deluge;
namely, by Earthquakes and an eruption of Subterraneous waters, the Earth being broken and falling in:
and of this we have elsewhere given a full account out
of their Authors. Secondly, that Deucalion's Deluge
in particular, which is suppos'd by most of the Ancient Fathers to represent Noah's Flood, is said to have
been accompanied with a gaping or disruption of the
Earth; Apollodorus saith, that the Mountains of Thessaly were divided asunder, or separate one from another at that time: And Lucian (de dea Syria) tells a
very remarkable story to this purpose, concerning
Deucalion's Deluge, and a ceremony observ'd in the
Temple of Hieropolis, in commemoration of it; which
ceremony seems to have been of that nature, as impli'd that there was an opening of the Earth at the
time of the Deluge, and that the waters subsided into
that again when the Deluge ceast. He saith, that
this Temple at Hieropolis was built upon a kind of
Abysse, or had a bottomless pit, or gaping of the
Earth in one part of it, and the people of Arabia and
Syria, and the Countries thereabouts twice a year repair'd to this Temple, and brought with them every
one a vessel of water, which they pour'd our upon
the floor of the Temple, and made a kind of an Inundation there in memory of Deucalion's Deluge; and
this water sunk by degrees into a Chasm or opening
of a Rock, which the Temple stood upon, and so
left the floor dry again. And this was a rite solemnly and religiously perform'd both by the Priests and by
the People. If Moses had left such a Religious rite
among the Jews, I should not have doubted to have
interpreted it concerning his Abysse, and the retiring
of the waters into it; but the actual disruption of the
Abysse could not well be represented by any ceremony. And thus much concerning the present question,
and the true application of our Theory to Noah's
Flood.
| | Image Size: 240x320 480x640
960x1280 1440x1920 1920x2560
|
