Legends of the Patriarchs and Prophets. Baring-Gould Sabine

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СКАЧАТЬ left the ark two sorts of animals which had not entered it – the pig and the cat. These animals did not exist before the Deluge, and God created them in the ark because it was full of filth and human excrements, which caused a great stench. The persons in the ark, not being able to endure any longer the smell, complained to Noah. Then Noah passed his hand down the back of the elephant, and it evacuated the pig. The pig ate all the dung which was in the ark, and the stench was no more.

      “Some time after the rats gave great annoyance. They ate the food, and befouled what they did not eat. Then the voyagers went to Noah, and said to him, You delivered us in our former difficulty, but now we are plagued with rats, which gnaw our garments, eat our victuals, and cover every thing with their filth. Then Noah passed his hand down the back of the lion, who sneezed, and the cat leaped out of its nose. And the cat ate the rats.

      “When Noah had left the ark, he passed forty days on the mountain, till all the water had subsided into the sea. All the briny water that is there is what remains from the Flood.

      “Noah said to the raven, Go and place your foot on the earth and see what is the depth of the water. The raven departed; but, having found a carcase, it remained to devour it, and did not return. Noah was provoked, and he cursed the raven, saying, May God make thee contemptible among men and let carrion be thy food!

      “After that Noah sent forth the dove. The dove departed, and, without tarrying, put her feet in the water. The water of the Flood scalded and pickled the legs of the dove. It was hot and briny, and feathers would not grow on her legs any more, and the skin scaled off. Now, doves which have red and featherless legs are of the sort that Noah sent forth. The dove returning showed her legs to Noah, who said, May God render thee well-pleasing to men! For that reason the dove is dear to men’s hearts.”196

      Another version of the story is this. Noah blessed the dove, and since then she has borne a neck-ring of green feathers; but the raven, on the other hand, he cursed, that its flight should be crooked, and never direct like that of other birds.197 This is also a Jewish legend.198

      After that, Noah descended the mountain along with the eighty persons who had been saved with him, and he found that not a house was left standing on the face of the earth. Noah built a town consisting of eighty houses, – a house apiece for all who had been saved with him.199

      Fabricius, in his collection of apocrypha of the Old Testament, has published the prayer that Noah offered daily in the ark, beside the body of Adam, which he bore with him, to bury it on Golgotha.

      “O Lord, Thou art excellent in truth, and nothing is great beside Thee; look upon us in mercy; deliver us from this deluge of water for the sake of the pangs of Adam, the first man whom Thou didst make; for the sake of the blood of Abel, the holy one; for the sake of just Seth, in whom Thou didst delight; number us not amongst those who have broken Thy commandments, but cover us with Thy protection, for Thou art our deliverer, and to Thee alone are due the praises uttered by the works of Thy hands from all eternity.” And all the children of Noah responded, “Amen, O Lord.”200

      Noah is said to have left the ark on the tenth day of the first month of the Mussulman year, and to have instituted the fast which the Mahommedans observe on that day, to thank God for his deliverance.

      According to the Book of Enoch, the water of the Flood was transformed by God into fire, which will consume the world and the ungodly, at the consummation of all things.201

      The Targum of Palestine says that the dove plucked the leaf she brought to Noah from off a tree on the Mount of Olives.202

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      1

      Rev. xii. 7-9.

      2

      Isaiah xiv. 13, 14.

      3

      Luke x. 18.

      4

      Fabricius (J. A.), Codex Pseudepigraphus Vet. Test. Hamb., 1722, p. 21.

      5

      Jalkut Rubeni, 3, sub. tit. Sammael.

      6

      Fol. 139, col. 1: see Eisenmenger, i. p. 831.

      7

      Jalkut Rubeni, in Eisenmenger, i. p. 307.

      8

      Eisenmenger, i. p. 104.

      9

      Ibid., i. p. 820.

      10

      Ibid., ii. 416, 420, 421.

      11

      Chronique de Tabari. Paris, 1867, i. c. xxvii.

      12

      Abulfeda, Hist. Ante-Islamica. Lipsiæ, 1831, p. 13.

      13

      1 Cor. x. 20.

      14

      Majer, Mythologische Lexicon, Th. i. p. 231.

      15

      Orig. adv. Cels. vi. 42.

      16

      Lettres Edifiantes, viii. p. 420.

      17

      Bibliothèque СКАЧАТЬ