Hebrew Myths (18 page)

6
. The Greek myth runs as follows: ‘Disgusted by the cannibalism of the impious Pelasgians, Almighty Zeus let loose a great flood on earth, meaning to wipe out the whole race of man; but Deucalion, King of Phthia, warned by his father Prometheus the Titan whom he had visited in the Caucasus, built an ark, victualled it, and went aboard with his wife Pyrrha, a daughter of Epimetheus. Then the South Wind blew, rain fell and rivers roared down to the sea which, rising with astonishing speed, washed away every city of coast and plain; until the entire world was flooded, but for a few mountain tops, and all mortal creatures seemed to have been lost, except Deucalion and Pyrrha. The ark floated about for nine days until, at last, the waters subsided, and it came to rest on Mount Parnassus or, some tell, on Mount Aetna; or Mount Athos; or Mount Orthrys in Thessaly. It is said that Deucalion was reassured by a dove which he had sent on an exploratory flight.

7.
‘Disembarking in safety, they offered a sacrifice to Father Zeus, the preserver of fugitives, and went down to pray at the Goddess Themis’s shrine beside the River Cephissus: its roof now draped with seaweed, and its altar cold. They pleaded humbly that mankind should be renewed, and Zeus hearing their voices from afar, sent Hermes to assure them that whatever request they might make would be granted forthwith. Themis appeared in person, saying: “Shroud your heads, and throw the bones of your mother behind you!” Since Deucalion and Pyrrha had different mothers, both now dead, they decided that the goddess meant Mother Earth, whose bones were rocks lying on the riverbank. Therefore, stooping with shrouded heads, they picked up rocks and threw them over their shoulders; these became either men or women, according as Deucalion or Pyrrha had handled them. Thus mankind was renewed, and ever since “a people” (
laos
) and
“a stone” (
laas
) have been much the same word in many languages. Yet the flood proved of little avail; for some Pelasgians who had taken refuge on Mount Parnassus revived the cannibalistic abominations which had prompted Zeus’s vengeance.’

8
. In this version, apparently imported to Greece from Palestine, the Goddess Themis (‘Order’) renews man; and so probably did Ishtar the Creatrix in an earlier version of the
Gilgamesh Epic.
Deucalion’s son Hellen was the supposed ancestor of all Greeks, and ‘Deucalion’ means ‘new wine sailor’ (
deuco-halieus
); which makes a connexion with Noah, inventor of wine (see 21.
a
). Hellen was brother to Ariadne of Crete, who married Dionysus the Wine-god. Dionysus also voyaged in a new-moon boat full of animals, including a lion and a serpent. Deucalion’s wife was Pyrrha whose name means ‘bright red’, like wine.

9
. The Ark’s Biblical dimensions contravene the principles of shipbuilding: a wholly wooden three-decker 450 feet long would have broken up in even a slight swell. The timber used by Noah was not necessarily cedar, as most scholars hold, ‘gopher-wood’ being elsewhere unknown. It may have been acacia, the timber of Osiris’s funeral boat.

10
. Although absent from Greek or Mesopotamian Deluge myths, the rainbow as an assurance against floods occurs in European and Asiatic folklore. Stars are here imagined as bright studs plugged into the firmament, above which lie the Upper Waters.

11
. Sexual aggression is considered a male prerogative in the Middle East; complete passivity being expected of women. Midrashic fancy transfers this view from men to animals. Noah’s unwearying care for his charges reflects
Proverbs
XII. 10: ‘A righteous man regardeth the life of his beast.’ The belief that broken glass is an ostrich’s sole food, rather than used like the grit swallowed by poultry as a means of dealing with the contents of its crop, occurs two or three times in midrashic literature.

12
. Ravens were both venerated and shunned by the Hebrews. In
Job
XXVIII. 41 and
Psalm
CXLVII. 9, God takes especial care of them. In
Deuteronomy
XIV. 14, they are classed with unclean birds; and in
Proverbs
XXX. 17, they pluck out and eat the eyes of the ungodly. Yet in 1
Kings
XVII. 4–6, despite their accursed beaks, they feed Elijah; and in
Canticles
V. 11, Solomon’s locks are praised for being black as a raven’s wing. It is possible that in an earlier version the raven, not Ham, was turned black by way of punishment; for Ham’s descendants were the non-Negroid Canaanites, and in Greek myth the raven was turned from white to black either by Athene (Anath-Ishtar) for bringing bad news about the death of her priestesses, or by Apollo (Ea), for not picking out the eyes of his rival Ischys.

13
. The ‘pearl’ is a Gnostic symbol for the Soul of Man: as in the apocryphal ‘Hymn of the Pearl’ (
Acts of St. Thomas
); and in the Manichaean
Kephalaia.
A Mandaean text runs: ‘Who has carried away the pearl which illumined our perishable house?’ According to Jonas, it sometimes also
stands for ‘God’s Word’, which seems to be the meaning here. The Book of Wisdom given to Noah by Raphael has been omitted from
Genesis
, though the sacred book of Sippar mentioned by Berossus shows it to have formed part of the early Babylonian Deluge myth. This strengthens the view that Enoch who, like Utnapishtim, was rewarded for his virtues by residence in Paradise, and whom the angels helped to write a book of wisdom, is really Noah. ‘Raphael’ seems an error for ‘Raziel’ (see 6.
b. 12
).

14
. The Pleiades were associated with rain because their rising and setting marked the limits of the Mediterranean sailing season. One of them (not two) appears from Greek myth to have become extinct in the late second millennium
B.C.

(
a
) Noah, the first man to plant a vineyard, made wine from its grapes, grew drunk, and uncovered his secret parts… Ham, Canaan’s father, entered the tent where Noah lay, observed his nakedness, and presently told Shem and Japheth what he had seen. They laid a garment over their shoulders, walked backwards into the tent and covered their father’s nakedness, without looking at him. When Noah awoke from his drunken sleep, he saw what his little son [
sic
] had done to him, and cried: ‘God’s curse upon Canaan! May his brothers make him a slave of slaves! But blessed be the God of Shem, whom Canaan shall serve. May He also enlarge Japheth, to dwell in the tents of Shem; and Canaan shall serve them both.’

Noah lived another three hundred and fifty years.
²¹⁸

(
b
) Some embroider upon this story, saying that Noah brought grape-seed in the ark—or a vinestock from Eden—which he planted on Mount Lubar, one of the peaks of Ararat. His vines bore fruit that same day and, before nightfall, he harvested grapes, pressed them, made wine and drank freely of it.
²¹⁹

(
c
) Now Samael, the fallen angel, had come to Noah that morning and asked: ‘What are you doing?’ He answered: ‘I am planting vines.’

‘And what are they?’

‘The fruit is sweet, whether eaten fresh or dry, and yields wine to gladden man’s heart.’

Samael cried: ‘Come, let us share this vineyard; but do not trespass on my half, lest I harm you.’

When Noah agreed, Samael killed a lamb and buried it under a vine; then did the same to a lion, a pig and an ape, so that his vines drank the blood of all four beasts. Hence, though a man be less courageous than a lamb before he tastes wine, yet after drinking a little he will boast himself strong as a lion; and, drinking to excess, will become like a pig and soil his garments; and, drinking yet more, will become like an ape, lurch about foolishly, lose his wits and blaspheme God. So it was with Noah.
²²⁰

(
d
) Some say that at the height of his drunkenness he uncovered himself, whereupon Canaan, Ham’s little son, entered the tent, mischievously looped a stout cord about his grandfather’s genitals, drew it tight, and unmanned him. Ham then also entered. When he saw what had happened, he told Shem and Japheth, smiling as if it were a jest for idlers in the marketplace; but earned their curses.
²²¹

(
e
) Others say that Ham himself unmanned Noah who, awakening from his drunken sleep and understanding what had been done to him, cried: ‘Now I cannot beget the fourth son whose children I would have ordered to serve you and your brothers! Therefore it must be Canaan, your first-born, whom they enslave. And since you have disabled me from doing ugly things in the blackness of night, Canaan’s children shall be born ugly and black! Moreover, because you twisted your head around to see my nakedness, your grandchildren’s hair shall be twisted into kinks, and their eyes red; again, because your lips jested at my misfortune, theirs shall swell; and because you neglected my nakedness, they shall go naked, and their male members shall be shamefully elongated.’ Men of this race are called Negroes; their forefather Canaan commanded them to love theft and fornication, to be banded together in hatred of their masters and never to tell the truth.
²²²

(
f
) Others however acquit Ham of any such crime. They say that when Noah was disembarking on Ararat, the sick lion showed base ingratitude by dealing his genitals a blow with its paw, so that he could never again perform the marital act. For this reason Shem offered the sacrifice in Noah’s stead: men who have been thus injured being forbidden to serve at God’s altar.
²²³

***

1
. The
Genesis
version of this myth has been carelessly edited. Ham could not be blamed, in justice, for noticing his father’s nakedness; and Noah could never have laid such a grave curse upon Ham’s innocent son Canaan, even if this involuntary act had been Ham’s only fault. The text: ‘And Noah awoke from his wine, and knew what his little son had done
unto him,’ points to a gap in the narrative, plausibly filled by the midrashic account of his castration. Noah’s curse shows that the sinner was little Canaan, not Ham. ‘Ham, father of’ is clearly an editorial insertion.

2
. The myth is told to justify Hebrew enslavement of Canaanites—Canaan was
Chnas
for the Phoenicians, and
Agenor
for the Greeks. In one midrashic passage, sodomy has been added to Ham’s crimes. A long list of Canaanite sexual offences is contained in
Leviticus
XVIII; and King Rehoboam’s subjects are reproached in 1
Kings
XIV. 24 for practising ‘all the abominations of the nations whom the Lord drove out before the Children of Israel.’ The sexual modesty of Shem’s Hebrews is emphasized in this midrash, and God’s blessing extended to all sons of Japheth who have now joined them.

3
. ‘Japheth’ represents the Greek Iapetus, father by Asia of Prometheus and thus ancestor of the pre-diluvian human race. Iapetus was worshipped in Cilicia, former home of the Peoples of the Sea (see 30.
3
), who invaded Canaan, adopted the Hebrew language and, as we learn from the story of Samson and Delilah, were intermarrying with Hebrews. Shem and Japheth’s descendants made common cause against the Canaanites—the sons of Ham—whom they enslaved: a historical situation to which Noah’s curse gives mythical validity. Ham, identified by a play on words in
Psalms
CV. 23 and CVI. 22 with
Kemi
, ‘black’, a name given to Egypt, was according to
Genesis
X. 6, the father not only of Mizraim (Egypt) but of Put (Punt), the Negroes of the Somali Coast; and of Cush, the Negroes of Ethiopia, imported to Palestine as slaves. That Negroes are doomed to serve men of lighter colour was a view gratefully borrowed by Christians in the Middle Ages: a severe shortage of cheap manual labour, caused by plague, made the re-institution of slavery attractive.

4
. The myth of Shem, Ham and Japheth is related to the Greek myth of how five brothers, Coeus, Crius, Hyperion, Iapetus and Cronus successfully conspired against their father Uranus. Not only did Cronus castrate and supplant Uranus but, according to the Byzantine mythographer Tzetzes, Zeus followed his example in both particulars, with the help of Poseidon and Hades. In the Hittite myth, based on a Human original, the Supreme God Anu’s genitals were bitten off by his rebel son and cup-bearer Kumarbi, who afterwards rejoiced and laughed (as Ham is said to have done) until Anu cursed him. The God El himself, according to Philo of Byblus’s quotation from Sanchuniathon, castrated his father Uranus. The notion that any son could behave in this unfilial manner so horrified the editors of
Genesis
that they suppressed Ham’s castration of Noah altogether as the Greeks suppressed the myth of Cronus’s castration until Christian times; Plato in his
Republic
and
Euthyphro
repudiated even Uranus’s castration. Nevertheless, the myth of Noah’s castration and consequent supersession as God’s priest because of his injury, was preserved by the Jews. Canaan’s use of a cord for the operation does not ring true; a
pruning-knife from Noah’s vineyard is likely to have been the original instrument.