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Cosmas Indicopleustes, Topographia Christiana 12.3-5: The writers of Chaldaean history, more ancient and living farther east, have mentioned in their works both the deluge and the building of the Tower, since they saw that Tower with their own eyes under the process of construction, being no doubt well aware that the men of that time, in fear of another flood, erected it for themselves as a place of refuge and safety. But the men of later times, when they read Moses also, and found that Noah, in whose time the deluge occurred, was the tenth from Adam, they feigned that they also had ten kings, who had reigned 2242 myriads of years, as has already been said. Of these the first was Aloros, that is, Adam; the second Alaapros, Seth; the third, Almēdōn, Enosh; the fourth, Ammeōn, Canaan; the fifth Ammegalaros, Mahalaleel; the sixth, Daonos, a keeper of sheep, Jared; the seventh, Euedōranchos, Enoch; the eighth, Amempsinanchos, Mathousalah; the ninth, Otiortēs, Lamech; the tenth, Xisouthros, Noah. In his time they say the great flood recorded by Moses occurred.
Timaeus alone, who has been already mentioned, drawing from what source I know not, but perhaps from the Chaldeans, recast the story of those ten kings, feigning that they came from the earth beyond the Ocean into the island of Atlantis, which he says was submerged below the sea, and that taking its inhabitants as mercenaries, and arriving in this earth, they conquered Europe and Asia - all which is a most manifest invention, for as he could not point out the island, he gave out that God had consigned to it a watery grave.
Source (list of abbreviations)
Cosmas Indicopleustes, Topographia Christiana 12.3-5
Bibliography
McCrindle 1897, 377, 380 | McCrindle, J.W. The Christian Topography of Cosmas, an Egyptian Monk. Translated from the Greek, with Notes and Introduction. London: Hakluyt Society 1897. |
Links (external links will open in a new browser window)
Cf. Berossus on the antediluvian history (1)
Cf. Berossus on the antediluvian history (2)
Cf. Berossus on the antediluvian history (3)
Cf. Berossus on the antediluvian history (4)
Cf. Berossus on the antediluvian history (5)
Cf. Berossus on the antediluvian history (6)
Cf. Berossus on the antediluvian history (7)
Cf. Berossus on the antediluvian history (8)
Cf. Berossus on the antediluvian history (9)
Cf. Flood story according to Cosmas (1)
Cf. The seven sages sent down to depths (1)
Cf. The ten antediluvian kings (1)
Amar Annus
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