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Read Online Textbook Christmas in Watch Hill A Small Town Holiday Duet Sara Celi Ebook All Chapter PDF
Read Online Textbook Christmas in Watch Hill A Small Town Holiday Duet Sara Celi Ebook All Chapter PDF
Bowed under his toil, dripping with perspiration, stood the patriarch
Noah, labouring to break the hard clods. All at once Satan appeared
and said to him,—
“What new undertaking have you in hand? What new fruit do you
expect to extract from these clods?”
“I plant the grape,” answered the patriarch.
“The grape! proud plant, most precious fruit! joy and delight to men!
Your labour is great; will you allow me to assist you? Let us share the
labour of producing the vine.”
The patriarch in a fit of exhaustion consented.
Satan hastened, got a lamb, slaughtered it, and poured its blood
over the clods of earth. “Thence shall it come,” said Satan, “that
those who taste of the juice of the grape, shall be soft-spirited and
gentle as this lamb.”
But Noah sighed; Satan continued his work; he caught a lion, slew
that, and poured the blood upon the soil prepared for the plant.
“Thence shall it come,” said he, “that those who taste the juice of the
grape shall be strong and courageous as the lion.”
Noah shuddered. Satan continued his work; he seized a pig and
slaughtered it, and drenched the soil with its blood. “Thence shall it
come,” said he, “that those who drink of the juice of the grape in
excess, shall be filthy, degraded, and bestial as the swine.”[246]
The Mussulman tradition is somewhat similar.
“When Ham had planted the vine, Satan watered it with the blood of
a peacock. When it thrust forth leaves, he sprinkled it with the blood
of an ape; when it formed grapes, he drenched it with the blood of a
lion; when the grapes were ripe, he watered it with the blood of a
swine.
“The vine, watered by the blood of these four animals, has assumed
these characters. The first glass of wine makes a man animated, his
vivacity great, his colour is heightened. In this condition he is like the
peacock. When the fumes of the liquor rise into his head, he is gay,
leaps and gambols as an ape. Drunkenness takes possession of
him, he is like a furious lion. When it is at its height, he is like the
swine: he falls and grovels on the ground, stretches himself out, and
goes to sleep.”[247]
Mohammed, to justify his forbidding his disciples to drink wine, cites
the history of the two angels, Arot and Harot.
“God,” says he, “charged them with a commission on the earth. A
young lady invited them to dinner, and they found the wine so good
that they got drunk. They then remarked that their hostess was
beautiful, and they were filled with love which they declared to her.
This lady, who was prudent, replied that she would only listen to their
protestations when she knew the words by which they were enabled
to ascend to heaven. When she had learned these words, she
mounted to the throne of God, who, as a reward for her virtue,
transformed her into a shining star (the Morning Star), and
condemned the two drunken angels to await the day of judgment,
suspended by their heels in the well of Babel, near Bagdad, which
Mussulman pilgrims visit.”
According to Tabari,[248] Ham, for having laughed at his father’s
drunkenness, was cursed by Noah, that his skin should become
black, as well as all the fruits which were to grow in the land he
should inhabit, and thus the purple grape arose. It was the white
grape that Ham transplanted, but it blackened in his hands.
Abulfaraj relates that after the Deluge, Noah divided the habitable
world between his sons. He gave to Ham the country of the Black, to
Shem that of the Brown, and to Japheth that of the Red.[249] Noah
also, he continues, said to his son Shem, “When I am dead, take the
bier of our father Adam from the ark, and, together with your son
Melchizedek, who is a priest of the Most High, go with the body of
Adam whither an angel shall guide you.”
This they did; and an angel directed them to mount Breitalmakdes
(Jerusalem), where they deposited the bier on a certain hill, and
instantly it sank out of their sight into the ground. Then Shem
returned to his home, but not so Melchizedek, who remained to
guard the body of Adam: and he built there a city called Jerusalem,
and he was called Melek Salim, the King of Peace, and there he
spent the rest of his life in the worship of God; he touched not
women, nor shed blood, but offered to God oblations of bread and
wine.[250]
Eutychius, the Egyptian patriarch of Alexandria, in his Annals, which
are rife with Oriental traditions, gives a fuller account of the same
incident.
When Noah was near his death, he bade Shem take the body of
Adam, and go with Melchizedek, son of Peleg, whither the angel of
the Lord should lead. “And,” said he, “thou shalt enjoin on
Melchizedek to fix his habitation there, to take to him no wife, and to
spend his life in acts of devotion, for God has chosen him to
preserve His true worship. He shall build himself no house, nor shall
he shed blood of beast, or bird, or any animal; nor shall he offer
there any oblation save bread and wine; and let the skins of lions be
his only vesture; he shall remain alone there; he shall not clip his
hair, or pare his nails; for he is a priest of the Most High. The angel
of God shall go before you, till ye come to the place where ye shall
bury the body of Adam, and know that that place is the middle of the
world.” Now Noah died on Wednesday, at the second hour, in the
second month of Ayar, which is the same as Bashnes, in the nine
hundred and fiftieth year of his age. And this year Shem was aged
forty-five. The sons of Noah buried him, and bewailed him forty days.
[251]
Ham, the accursed, the third son of Noah, was the inventor or the
preserver of magic. As we have already seen, he buried the books of
magic which existed in the world, before the Deluge swept over the
globe; and when it abated he exhumed them. Cerco d’Ascoli, in the
fourth chapter of his “Commentary on the Sphere of Sacrabosco,”
declares that he had seen a book of magic which had been
composed by Ham, “which contained the elements and practice of
necromancy.” Certain it is that apocryphal books of alchemy and
conjuration of spirits existed in the Middle Ages, which purported to
have been composed by Ham.
Ham was turned black, according to the Talmud, because he did not
maintain himself in perfect continence whilst in the ark;[255] other
authorities say his skin became sooty in consequence of his scoffing
at his father’s drunkenness; and Japheth, for having smiled, says the
Mussulman lost the gift of prophecy from his family.[256]
Berosus supposed that Ham was the same as Zoroaster.
Japheth, according to Khondemir, was given by his father all the land
to the east and north of Ararat; he was the progenitor of the Turks,
the Sclaves, of Gog and Magog, says Tabari. Before he started with
his family to people these countries, Noah gave him a stone, on
which was written the great name of God. The Turks say that, by
means of this stone, Noah was able to guide the course of the ark
without sail or oars. The Turks have similar stones, which, they
pretend, came by a process of generation from the parental stone
given to Japheth.[257] He is said by the Mussulmans to have had
eleven male children: Sin or Tchin, the father of the Chinese; Scklab,
the ancestor of the Sclavonian races; Manschug or Magog, the
parent of the Scythians and Kalmuks; Gomari, the father of the
Franks; Turk and Khalos, the ancestors of the Turks; Khozaz, from
whom the Khozarans trace their pedigree; Rus, father of the
Russians; Souffan, Ghoy, and Tarag, from whom the Turcomans
derive.
Ilak, son of Turk, discovered the use of salt by having let fall a piece
of meat he was eating on the ground covered with saline deposit.
Of Shem the Rabbis have somewhat to say. “I have found in the
Midrash that the Rabbi Johanan, son of Nuri, said: ‘The holy, ever-
blessed God took Shem, son of Noah, and consecrated him priest of
the Most High, that he should minister before Him; and He let his
Majesty dwell with Him, and He gave him the name Melchizedek, a
priest of the Most High God, king of Salem. His brother Japheth
learnt the law of him in his school, till Abraham came, who learnt it in
the school of Shem. For this Abraham obtained, praying to God that
his Majesty should remain and dwell in the house of Shem,
wherefore it was said of him, Thou art a priest for ever after the order
of Melchizedek.’”[258]
Shem learned his knowledge from the Book of Wisdom which
Raphael, the holy angel, gave to Adam; but Shem’s instructor was
the angel Jophiel.[259]
The Rabbi Gerson writes in his book called “Sepher geliloth erez
Israel,” that having travelled through the lands of Og, king of Bashan,
he saw there a grave which measured eighty ells, and it was
indicated to him as the sepulchre of Shem.[260] A curious tradition that
Shem, Ham, and Japheth fell asleep in a cave, and woke up at the
Nativity of Christ, and that they were themselves the three wise men
who came to adore Him, shall be mentioned more fully when we
treat of the legends connected with the New Testament characters.
Shem is said to have received the priesthood instead of Noah,
because Noah was bitten by the lion as he was leaving the ark, and,
being suffused with blood, became incapable of receiving the
priesthood.
Shem is believed to have written many books, and apocryphal
writings of his exist.