Legends of Old Testament characters, from the Talmud and other sourcesBaring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Religion
Legends of Old Testament characters, from the Talmud and other sources
Baring-Gould, S. (Sabine)
Bible. Old Testament -- Legends; Jewish legends
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.”
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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