Page:The Chaldean Account of Genesis (1876).djvu/70

48

They say that the first inhabitants of the earth, glorying in their own strength and size and despising the gods, undertook to raise a tower whose top should reach the sky, in the place in which Babylon now stands; but when it approached the heaven the winds assisted the gods, and overthrew the work upon its contrivers, and its ruins are said to be still at Babylon; and the gods introduced a diversity of tongues among men, who till that time had all spoken the same language; and a war arose between Cronos and Titan. The place in which they built the tower is now called Babylon on account of the confusion of tongues, for confusion is by the Hebrews called Babel.—''Euseb. Præp. Evan.'' lib. ix.; ''Syncel. Chron. xliv.; Euseb. Chron.'' xiii.

There is above Minyas in the land of Armenia a very great mountain which is called Baris, to which it is said that many persons retreated at the time of the Deluge and were saved, and that one in particular was carried thither in an ark and was landed on its summit, and that the remains of the vessel were long preserved upon the mountain. Perhaps this was the same individual of whom Moses, the legislator of the Jews, has made mention.—''Jos. Ant. Jud. i. 3; Euseb. Præp. Evan.'' ix.