by an overflowing of the River Nile, in the time of Prometheus and Hercules, and continued but a Month, as we learn from Diodorus Si∣culus.
The third Deluge happened in Achaia, in the Province of Attica, and lasted threescore days, in the time of Ogyges the Athenian. Dio∣dorus speaks of it in his sixth Book, and Pausanias in his Attica relates, that in the lower Town of Athens, in the way that leads to the Temple of Jupiter Olympius, there was a hole seen in the ground a foot and a half wide, and thro' that hole the Waters of the Flood were sunk, wherefore it was a custom among the People, to throw every year into that hole, a kind of an offering made with Wheat-Flower and Honey.
The fourth Deluge was in Thessalia in Deu∣calion's time, and continued a whole Winter, as Aristotle tells us in the first Book of his Meteors.
The fifth hapned about the Ostia of the Ri∣ver Nile in Egypt, in the Reign of Proteus, and about the time of the Trojan War.
But Poets confound these Deluges, and say, that the Universal Deluge was in the time of Deucalion, the Son of Prometheus, who escaped alone with his Wife in a Boat on the top of Mount Parnassus in Ph••cis.
Lucian seems to countenance this opinion of the Poets in the Dea Syriae.
The most common opinion (says he) is, that Deucalion of Scythia is the founder of this Temple, (he means the Temple of Syria;) for the Greeks say, that the first Men being cruel and inso∣lent, faithless and void of Humanity, pe∣rished all by the Deluge, a great quantity of Water issuing out of the bowels of the Earth, which swell'd up the Rivers, and forc'd the Sea to overflow, by the assistance of Rain and violent Showers, so that all lay under water: only Deucalion remain'd, who escaped in an Ark with his Family, and two of each kind of all living Creatures, that fol∣lowed him into the Ark, both wild and tame, without hurting one another. He floated till the Waters were withdrawn, then po∣pulated the Earth again. They added ano∣ther wonder, that an Abyss opened of it self in their Country, which swallowed up all the Waters; and that Deucalion in memory of that Accident, erected there an Altar and built a Temple. A Man may still see there a very small Cliff, where the Inhabitants of that Country, with those of Syria, Arabia, and the Nations beyond the Euphrates, resort twice a year to the Neighbouring Sea, from whence they fetch abundance of Water, which they pour into the Temple, from whence it runs into that Hole; and the Ori∣gine of this Ceremony is likewise attributed to Deucalion, and instituted in commemorati∣on of that Accident.
This is what Holy Scripture informs us concerning the Universal Deluge.
The wickedness of Men being great in the Earth, at last the day of Punishment came. And the Lord commanded unto Noah to put in the Ark all sort of Provisions, and take two of each kind of unclean Animals, and seven of the clean Animals, viz. three Males and three Females to preserve their Specie upon the Earth, and one more for the Sacrifice after the Flood should be over. This being done, Noah shut up himself in the Ark, the seventeenth day of the second Month of the Solar Year, (which was the nineteenth of April according to our computation) with his three Sons and their Wives. It did rain forty days and forty nights. And God open∣ed the Cataracts of Heaven, and the Foun∣tains of the Deep; and the Waters increa∣sing during an hundred and fifty days, (the forty Days above-mentioned being included) were fifteen Cubits higher than the top of the highest Mountains. And all Flesh died, both Men and Beasts, and none escaped but those that were in the Ark. The hundred and fiftieth day the waters abated, by a great wind that the Lord raised, and the twenty seventh of the seventh Month, to reckon from the beginning of the Flood, the Ark rested upon a Mountain of Armenia; Hieronymus calls it Mount Taurus, because the River Araxes ran at the foot thereof.
Others grounding their Opinion upon a more anci∣ent Authority, tell us, that the Ark rested upon one of the
Gordian Mountains; and
Epi∣phanius says, that at his time they shew'd yet the remainders of the Ark. Many
Arabian Geographers and Historians are of this Opi∣nion.
The first day of the tenth Month the tops of the Mountains appeared. And Noah and his Family went out of the Ark the twenty seventh day of the second Month (the twenty ninth of April according to our account) by the command of the Lord, as he went in before by the same order.