CHAP. the curfe pronounced by God against Cain, Gen. iv. 11, 12.

I.

39.

to be taken

And now art thou curfed from the earth, which has opened her mouth to receive thy brother's blood from thy hand. When thou tilleft the ground, it shall not henceforth yield unto thee her frength. In fhort, if the reader fees caufe to prefer Grotius's opinion, then he must of confequence look on the land of Nod to be Arabia Deferta, or at leaft to be feated therein, and fo to be part of it. If he prefers Huetius's opinion, that the Anuchtha mentioned by Ptolemy is the fame with the city of Enoch built by Cain, then he muft of confequence look on the land of Nod to be seated in Sufiana.

I fhall only obferve further, that as to the name itself, It is uncer- there are no remainders of it to be found. Indeed it is not tain, whether the certain, that the word Nod fhould be taken for a proper word Nod is name: nay, it is actually rendered by fome interpreters as an for a proper appellative, denoting a fugitive, or one that is banished, which appellative. very well expreffes the condition wherein Cain was, as appears from Gen. iv. 12. 14. A fugitive fhalt thou be, &c. In a word, it is not to be doubted, but, if the word Nod is to be understood as a proper name, the land of Nod was fo called, as being the land wherein the fugitive Cain lived.

name or an

40.

The conclufion.

And thus much for the places of the antediluvian earth, mentioned in facred hiftory.

CHAP.

CHA P. II.

Of the Mountains of Ararat, whereon the Ark of Noah rested, upon the abating of the Flood: together with some confiderations concerning the Place where the Ark was made, the Wood it was made of, and the Form it was made in.

THE fhort account of the antediluvian world, given in the

I.

Noah's

fix first chapters of Genefis, is followed, in the seventh Ark, upon and eighth chapters of the fame book, with an account of the the abating of the flood, Deluge or Flood: upon the abating whereof the facred hifto- refted on the rian tells us, that the Ark refted upon the mountains of Ararat, mountains Gen. viii. 4. It is therefore to be enquired, which are the mountains of Ararat; and then, in what particular place of the faid mountains the Ark did fo reft.

of Ararat.

2.

The rife of

that the

were in

As to the first query, it may not be unuseful to take notice, in the first place, of a palpable error, concerning the fi- the error, tuation of these mountains, which occurs in fome verses, mountains which go under the name of Sibylline Oracles. There we of Ararat are told, that the mountains of Ararat lay in Phrygia; which Phrygia, is no ways reconcileable to the facred text. The learned Bo- near the city Apamea, chart has happily light on the ground of this mistake; which furnamed arofe in all likelihood from the fituation of a city in Phrygia, Cibotus. called Apamea Cibotus. The word Cibotus is a Greek word, denoting in that language an Ark; and it is the very fame word, which the feventy Interpreters make use of to denote the Ark of Noah. Now from the city Apamea having the furname of Cibotus given it, the author of those verses (falfely attributed to the Sibyls) inferred, that the Ark of Noah rested there on an adjoining hill, and that this was the occafion, that gave the furname of Cibotus to Apamea. But the inference is by no means conclufive, forafmuch as there might be other reasons for impofing that furname on the city forementioned, namely this (as is obferved by the learned Bochart), that the city was inclosed in the shape of an Ark

by

II.

CHAP. by three rivers that furround it. In like manner, the fame learned perfon obferves, that the port of Alexandria was called Cibotus from the bay that environed it.

3.

tains of A

rarat lay in

Armenia.

Let us now proceed to discover the true mountains of The moun- Ararat. It is then, I think, univerfally agreed by the learned, that the word Ararat does in the facred Scriptures denote the country called by the Greeks, and from them by other weftern nations, Armenia. Whence the most received opinion is this, that the mountains of Ararat amount to the fame as the mountains of Armenia, and fo lie within the country of Armenia.

4.

Some will have the

of Ararat to

yond Armenia.

a

But fome contend, that though Ararat be taken in Scripture to denote Armenia, yet the mountains of Ararat may exmountains tend beyond the country of Ararat. That mighty ridge of extend be- mountains, which, beginning in the Leffer Afia, runs as far as the Old India (now-a-days called the East Indies), by the ancients commonly called Mount Taurus, might very well, fay thefe, be called by Mofes the mountains of Ararat, becaufe that was the first country of the Greater Afia, by which they paffed, and where they were of greater note than they had been formerly. Juft as fome hills with us in England are called Malvern hills, because they are highest near that village, though they extend themfelves into other lordships. Hence the favourers of this opinion do not scruple to extend the mountains of Ararat as far as to Mount Caucafus, in the confines of Tartary, Perfia, and India.

5.

Two opi

nions con

cerning the part of the

mountains

of Ararat,

Having laid before the reader the two opinions, which divide the learned, as to the fituation of the mountains of Ararat themselves, I proceed now to fhew, in what part of these mountains the Ark of Noah is fuppofed to have refted, according to each opinion. And from what is alledged on both fides as to this matter, the judicious reader will be able to infer, which opinion is best grounded, and therefore preferable. As to that opinion, which takes the mountains of Ararat to is, that the be fituated within the country of Ararat or Armenia, the fol

where the Ark refted.

6.

One opinion

Ark refted

on the Gor

diæan

Mountains.

See Heylin's Cefnogr. p. 78. Edit. A. D. 1665.

lowers

1

II.

lowers of it (fome very few excepted) do agree, that the Ark CHAP. of Noah refted in that part of the mountains of Ararat, which in Greek and Latin writers is styled the Gordiæan mountains, (or, with some variation, the mountains of the Cordyæi, Cordueni, Carduchi, Curdi, &c.) and which lies near the fpring of the Tigris, at most not very far from it. For the proof hereof many teftimonies of the ancients might be brought, fome 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 faid persons came out of the Ark, was by the Armenians distinguished by a word importing the fame, 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 fince the Deluge was not only caused by rains, but also by the overflowing of the ocean, as the Scripture tells us, Gen. vii. 11. faying, that the fountains of the great deep were broken up ; this overflowing, which came from the Perfian Sea, running from the south, and meeting the Ark, of course carried it away to the north towards the Gordiæan Mountains. And the learned and ingenious Bishop Huetius has obferved, that, confidering the figure of the Ark, which made it not fo fit for speedy failing, and alfo its heaviness, which made it draw much water, the space of an hundred and fifty days, which was the time the Deluge lafted, 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 fituation of thefe mountains in refpect to the course of the waters of the Deluge, and also its diftance from the place where Noah lived and built the Ark, do jointly conspire to render this hypothefis ftill more probable.

According

Let us now fee, what place for the refting of the Ark is 7. affigned by those, who will have the mountains of Ararat to to the other extend beyond the country of Ararat or Armenia; and that opinion, the is the top of Mount Caucasus in the confines of Tartary, Perfia, and India. Among the arguments made ufe of for Mount Cau

Ark refted on the top of

cafus, in the this confines of

II.

Tartary,

India.

a

CHAP. this opinion, the chief both in authority and weight is acknowledged, by fome of its defenders, to be that which is drawn from the facred text, Gen. xi. 2. where it is said, that, Perfia, and as they went from the Eaft, they found a plain in the land of Shinaar, and they dwelt there. If then they came from the Eaft, as the text plainly says, it might well be, that they came from those parts of Afia on the fouth of Caucafus, which lie eaft of Shinaar, though fomewhat bending to the north; but it is impoffible, fay the defenders of this laft opinion, that they fhould come from the Gordiæan Mountains in the Greater Armenia, which lie not only full north of Shinaar, but many degrees to the weft. To this is added an old and conftant tradition among the inhabitants of the region near Caucafus, formerly called Margiana, that a great vineyard in this country was of Noah's planting, after that he was defcended from the adjacent mountain, according to what we read, Gen. ix. 20.

8. The former opinion feems the

nerally received.

Such are the two opinions concerning the place, where Noah's Ark refted; and fuch are, at least, the chief arguments, on which each is founded. The reader fees, that each most probable; and as lays claim to a tradition, as one of its fupports. It is then to fuch is ge- be confidered, which tradition carries in it greatest evidence, as to matter of fact. Taking it for granted, that there was such a vineyard in Margiana, as is mentioned by one fide; yet this will by no means amount to an evident, or indeed any proof, that the Ark refted in the neighbouring mountain of Caucafus, because that the faid vineyard might have been planted by another befide Noah. But, fuppofing 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 veffel, which by the make of them might reasonably be conjectured to have been relicks of the Ark; this feems to carry in it fome good evidence, that the Ark refted there; because it cannot be well conceived, why any fuch veffel should have been built there, or how it fhould have come thither, if not built there, but by the waters of the Flood. Again, fince

See Heylin's Cofm. p. 7.

the