very name or an appellative. well expresses the condition wherein Cain was, CHAP. II. as appears from Gen. iv. 12. 14. A fugitive shalt thou be, &c. In a word, it is not to be doubted, proper but, if the word Nod is to be understood as a proper name, the land of Nod was so called, as being the land wherein the fugitive Cain lived. And thus much for the places of the antediluvian earth, mentioned in sacred history. 40. The conclusion. CHAPTER II. Of the Mountains of Ararat, whereon the Ark of Noah rested, upon the abating of the Flood: together with some Considerations concerning the Place where the Ark was made, the Wood it was made of, and the Form it was made in. 1. the abating THE short account of the antediluvian world, given in the six first chapters of Genesis, is fol- Noah's lowed in the seventh and eighth chapters of the Ark, upon same book, with an account of the Deluge or of the flood, Flood: upon the abating whereof the sacred his- rested on torian tells us, that the Ark rested upon the moun- the mountains of Ararat, Gen. viii. 4. It is therefore to be enquired, which are the mountains of Ararat; and then, in what particular place of the said mountains the Ark did so rest. tains of Ararat. the that the As to the first query, it may not be unuseful to 2. take notice, in the first place, of a palpable error, The rise of concerning the situation of these mountains, which error, occurs in some verses, which go under the name of mountains Sibylline Oracles. There we are told, that the of Ararat mountains of Ararat lay in Phrygia; which is no were in ways reconcileable to the sacred text. The learned near the Bochart has happily lighted on the ground of this city Apamistake; which arose in all likelihood from the mea, sursituation of a city in Phrygia, called Apamea named Ci Phrygia, botus. PARTI. Cibotus. The word Cibotus is a Greek word, de 3. tains of A Armenia. noting in that language an Ark; and it is the very same word, which the Seventy Interpreters make use of to denote the Ark of Noah. Now from the city Apamea having the surname of Cibotus given it, the author of those verses (falsely attributed to the Sibyls) inferred, that the Ark of Noah rested there on an adjoining hill, and that this was the occasion, that gave the surname of Cibotus to Apamea. But the inference is by no means conclusive, forasmuch as there might be other reasons for imposing that surname on the city forementioned, namely this, (as is observed by the learned Bochart), that the city was inclosed in the shape of an Ark by three rivers that surrounded it. In like manner, the same learned person observes, that the port of Alexandria was called Cibotus from the bay that environed it. Let us now proceed to discover the true mounThe mountains of Ararat. It is then, I think, universally rarat lay in agreed by the learned, that the word Ararat does in the sacred Scriptures denote the country called by the Greeks, and from them by other western nations, Armenia. Whence the most received opinion is this, that the mountains of Ararat amount to the same as the mountains of Armenia, and so lie within the country of Armenia. 4. Some will have the mountains of Ararat to extend beyond Ar menia. * But some contend, that though Ararat be taken in Scripture to denote Armenia, yet the mountains of Ararat may extend beyond the country of Ararat. That mighty ridge of mountains, which, beginning in the Lesser Asia, runs as far as the Old India, (now-a-days called the East Indies), by the ancients commonly called Mount Taurus, might very well, say these, be called by Moses the mountains of Ararat, because that was the first country of the Greater Asia, by which they passed, and where they were of greater note than they had been formerly. Just as some hills with us in England are called Malvern hills, because they are See Heylin's Cosmography, p. 78. edit. A.D. 1665. highest near that village, though they extend them- CHAP. II. selves into other lordships. Hence the favourers of this opinion do not scruple to extend the mountains of Ararat as far as to Mount Caucasus, in the confines of Tartary, Persia, and India. 5. Having laid before the reader the two opinions which divide the learned, as to the situation of the Two opimountains of Ararat themselves, I proceed now to nions conshew, in what part of these mountains the Ark of cerning the part of the Noah is supposed to have rested, according to each mountains opinion. And from what is alledged on both sides of Ararat, as to this matter, the judicious reader will be able where the to infer, which opinion is best grounded, and Ark rested. therefore preferable. few ex nion is, that the Ark rested As to that opinion, which takes the mountains of 6. Ararat to be situated within the country of Ararat One opior Armenia, the followers of it (some very cepted) do agree, that the Ark of Noah rested in that part of the mountains of Ararat, which in on the Greek and Latin writers is styled the Gordiæan Gordiæan mountains, (or, with some variation, the mountains Mountains. of the Cordyæi, Cordueni, Carduchi, Curdi, &c.) and which lies near the spring of the Tigris, at most not very far from it. For the proof hereof many testimonies of the ancients might be brought, some of which tell us, that the relicks of the Ark were in that place; and also that in the neighbourhood there was a town called Cemain or Thamana, so called from those eight persons, which came out of the Ark; for the Hebrew word for eight is shemen; as also that the very place, where the said persons came out of the Ark, was by the Armenians distinguished by a word importing the same, as by a proper name. Further, it is probably supposed, that Noah built the Ark in the country of Eden, (of which more anon); and since the Deluge was not only caused by rains, but also by the overflowing of the ocean, as the Scripture tells us, Gen. vii. 11. saying, that the fountains of the great deep were broken up; this overflowing, which came from the Persian Sea, running from the south, and meeting the Ark, of course carried it PART I. 7. opinion, the Ark rested on the top of Mount in the confines of Tartary, India. away to the north towards the Gordiæan Mountains. And the learned and ingenious Bishop Huetius has observed, that, considering the figure of the Ark, which made it not so fit for speedy sailing, and also its heaviness, which made it draw much water, the space of an hundred and fifty days, which was the time the Deluge lasted, was but a proportionable time for the moving of the Ark, from the place where it was made, to the Gordiæan Mountains. So that both the situation of these mountains in respect to the course of the waters of the Deluge, and also its distance from the place where Noah lived and built the Ark, do jointly conspire to render this hypothesis still more probable. Let us now see, what place for the resting of the According Ark is assigned by those, who will have the mounto the other tains of Ararat to extend beyond the country of Ararat or Armenia; and that is the top of Mount Caucasus in the confines of Tartary, Persia, and India. Among the arguments made use of for this opinion, the chief both in authority and weight is acknowledged, by * some of its defenders, to be that which is drawn from the sacred text, Gen. xi. 2. where it is said, that, as they went from the East, Persia, and they found a plain in the land of Shinaar, and they dwelt there. If then they came from the East, as the text plainly says, it might well be, that they came from those parts of Asia on the south of Caucasus, which lie east of Shinaar, though somewhat bending to the north; but it is impossible, say the defenders of this last opinion, that they should come from the Gordiæan Mountains in the Greater Armenia, which lie not only full north of Shinaar, but many degrees to the west. To this is added an old and constant tradition among the inhabitants of the region near Caucasus, formerly called Margiana, that a great vineyard in this country was of Noah's planting, after that he was * See Heylin's Cosmography, p. 7. descended from the adjacent mountain, according CHAP. II. to what we read, Gen. ix. 20. 8. seems the most pro received. Such are the two opinions concerning the place, where Noah's Ark rested; and such are, at least, The former the chief arguments, on which each is founded. opinion The reader sees, that each lays claim to a tradition, as one of its supports. It is then to be con- bable; and sidered, which tradition carries in it greatest evi- as such is dence, as to matter of fact. Taking it for granted, generally that there was such a vineyard in Margiana, as is mentioned by one side; yet this will by no means amount to an evident, or indeed any proof, that the Ark rested in the neighbouring mountain of Caucasus, because that the said vineyard night have been planted by another beside Noah. But, supposing it true, that in the more early ages of the world, after the Flood, there were to be seen on the Gordiæan Mountains the remainders of a large vessel, which by the make of them might reasonably be conjectured to have been relicks of the Ark; this seems to carry in it some good evidence, that the Ark rested there; because it cannot be well conceived, why any such vessel should have been built there, or how it should have come thither, if not built there, but by the waters of the Flood. Again, since the Ark is reasonably supposed to have been built somewhere in Eden, or the parts adjoining, (of which more by and bye), it is to be considered, whether Mount Caucasus is not at too great a distance for such a vessel, as the Ark was, to be carried to, in the space of the Flood's rising. Further, it is to be considered, that the waters of the Ocean, breaking in upon the land in these parts from the south, must naturally carry the Ark northward; whereas the place of Mount Caucasus assigned for that, which the Ark rested on, is not only further northward, but also a great deal more eastward, than that of the Gordiæan Mountains is westward, in respect of the place whence the Ark was carried. Further, it may be rationally conjectured, that the waters of the Caspian Sea, as well as of the main Ocean, |