Flood story according to Cosmas (1)

Text
Cosmas Indicopleustes, Topographia Christiana 12.1-2:
In the Chaldean books of Berossus and certain others it is thus written: that ten kings reigned over the Chaldeans 2242 myriads of years, but, under their tenth king Xisouthros, as they called him, there was a great flood, and that Xisouthros being warned by God embarked in a ship with his wife and kindred and cattle, and that having been brought over in safety, as their story goes, to the mountains of Armenia, he offered sacrifices of thanksgiving to the Gods after the flood. These writers have thus presented in a new form nearly all the account given by Moses; for men continued to live in the earth beyond [the Ocean] 2242 years for a course of ten generations, and, under Noah who was tenth the flood having occurred, they passed over to this earth by means of the Ark. For Noah is he whom they call Xisouthros. But by having changed the days into years, they asserted that those ten kings had lived 2242 myriads of years, since the number of years reckoned by Moses to have elapsed from Adam to the deluge of Noah was 2242. In like manner the philosopher Timaeus also describes this earth as sorrounded by the Ocean, and the Ocean as surrounded by the more remote earth. For he supposes that there is to westward an island, Atlantis, lying out in the Ocean, in the direction of Gadeira (Cadiz), of an enormous magnitude, and relates that the ten kings having procures mercenaries from the nations in this island came from the earth far away, and conquered Europe and Asia, but were afterwards conquered by the Athenians, while that island itself was submerged by God under the sea. Both Plato and Aristotle praise this philosopher, and Proclus has written a commentary on him. He himself expresses views similar to our own with some modifications, transferring the scene of the events from the east to the west. Moreover he mentions those ten generations as well as that earth which lies beyond the Ocean.

Source (list of abbreviations)
Cosmas Indicopleustes, Topographia Christiana 12.1-2

Bibliography

Amar Annus

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