The story of the Deluge, and other incidents recorded in the Old
Testament, together with numerous legends, were known and
treasured by the Ancients as sacred traditions from the earliest
ages of the world.

We learn from St. Paul that "Moses was skilled in all the
knowledge of the Egyptians." He must therefore have been familiar
not only with the ancient poems and sacred writings, but also
with the scientific, historical, legal and didactic literature of
the times, from which, no doubt, he borrowed all that was best in
the Mosiac Code that he drew up for the Chosen People of God.
This old literature Moses confirmed and purified, even as Christ
at a later period, confirmed and elevated all that was best in
the Hebrew belief. Hence from these Oriental scholars we learn
that the Hebrew was only one of several languages which enjoyed
at different times a development of the highest culture and
polish, although the teaching of the old Rabbis was that the
Bible was the first set of historical and religious books to be
written. Such was the current belief for many ages; and while
this view of the Scriptures is now known to be untrue, they are,
in fact, the most ancient and complete writings now in existence,
although the discovery in Jerusalem, thirty-five or forty years
ago, of the inscriptions of Siloe, take us back about eight
hundred years before Christ; but these Siloeian inscriptions are
not complete examples of literature.

"The Ancient culture of the East," says Professor A. H. Sayce,
"was pre-eminently a literary one. We have learned that long
before the day of Moses, or even Abraham, there were books and