1876 British Viscount & Ambassador James Bryce - Noah's Ark Search

156 THE EXPLORERS OF ARARAT
certainly no one who had ever seen it rising in solitary majesty far above all its attendant peaks could doubt that its
summit must have first pierced the receding waves.
The modern Armenian tradition of course goes for nothing in settling the question, for that tradition cannot be
shown to be older than our own era, and is easily accounted for by the use of the word Ararat in the book of Genesis,
which the Armenians, when Jews or Christians came among them, would of course identify with their Ajrarat. Once
established, the tradition held its ground, and budded out into many fantastic legends, some of them still lingering in
Armenia, some only known to us by the notices of passing medieval travelers. Marco Polo, whose route does not
seem to have led him near it, says only, in speaking of Armenia:—“Here is an exceeding great mountain: on which it is
said the Ark of Noah rested, and for this cause it is called the mountain of the Ark of Noah. The circuit of its base
cannot be traversed in less than two days; and the ascent is rendered impossible by the snow on its summit, which
never dissolves, but is increased by each successive fall. On the lower declivities the melted snows cause an
abundant vegetation, and afford rich pastures for the cattle which in summer resort thither from all the surrounding
countries." But the Franciscan friar, William of Rubruk, who, in 1254, a little before Marco Polo’s time, had on his return
from Karakorum passed under Ararat, says that here upon the higher of two great mountains above the river Araxes
the Ark rested, which mountain cannot be ascended, though the earnest prayers of a pious monk prevailed so far that
a piece of the wood of the Ark was brought to him by an angel, which piece is still preserved in a church near by as a
holy relic. He gives Massis as the name of this mountain, and adds that it is the mother of the world: “super Massis
nullus debet ascendere quia est mater mundi.”
Sir John Maundeville, of pious and veracious memory, has also a good deal to tell us. After speaking of
Trapazond (Trebizond), and stating that from there “men go to Ermonye (Armenia) the Great unto a cytee [city] that is
clept [called] Artyroun (Erzerum), that was won’t to ben [been] a gode [good] cytee and a plentyous, but the Turkes
han gretly wasted it,” he proceeds:—“Fro Artyroun go men to an Hille that is clept [called] Sabisocolle. And there
besyde is another Hille that men clepen [called] Ararathe: but the Jews clepen it Taneez, where Noes Schipp [Ship]
rested: and zit is upon that Montayne: and men may see it a ferr in cleer wedre: and that Montayne is well a 7 Myle
high. And sum men seyn that they have seen and touched the Schipp; and put here Fyngres in the parties where the
Feend went out whan that Noe seyd ‘Benedicite.” But thei that seyn such Wordes seyn here Wille, for a man may not
gon up the Montayne for gret plentee of Snow that is alle weyes on that Montayne nouther Sommer ne Winter; so that
no man may gon up there: ne nevere man did, sithe the tyme of Noe: saf a Monk that be the grace of God broughte on
of the Planes down, that zit is in the Mynstre at the foot of the Montayne. And besyde is the Cytee of Dayne that Noe
founded. And faste by is the Cytee of Any [Ani], in the whiche were 1000 churches. But upon that Montayne to gon up
this Monk had gret desir; and so upon a day he wente up and whan he was upward the 3 part of the Montayne he was
so wery that he myghte no ferthere, and so he rested him and felle to slepe; and whan he awoke he fonde himself
liggynge at the foot of the Montayne. And then he preyed devoutly to God that he wolde vouche saf to suffre him gon
up. And an Angelle cam to him and seyde that he scholde gon up; and so he did. And sithe that tyme never non.
Wherfore men scholde [should] not beleeve such Woordes [Words].”
This laudable skepticism of Sir John’s prevailed, for it has long been almost an article of faith with the Armenian
Church that the top of Ararat is inaccessible. Even the legend of the monk, which, as we find from Friar William, is as
old as the thirteenth century, is usually given in a form, which confirms still further the sacredness of the mountain. St.
Jacob (Hagop), as the monk is named, was consumed by a pious desire to reach and venerate the holy Ark, which
could in seasons of fair weather be descried from beneath, and three several times he essayed to climb the steep and
rocky slopes. Each time, after reaching a great height, he fell into a deep sleep, and, when he woke, found himself at
the foot of the mountain. After the third time, and angel appeared to him while he still lay in slumber, and told him that
God had forbidden mortal foot ever to tread the sacred summit or touch the vessel in which mankind had been
preserved, but that on him, in reward for his devout perseverance, there should be bestowed a fragment of its wood.
This fragment he placed on the sleeper’s breast, and vanished; it is that which is still preserved in the treasury at
Etchmiadzin, or, as others say, in the monastery of Kjeghart; and the saint is commemorated by the little monastery of
St. Jacob, which stands, or rather stood till 1840, on the slopes of Ararat, above the valley of Arghuri, the spot of the
angel’s appearing. Every succeeding traveler has repeated this tale, with variations due to his informant or his own
imagination: so, though the reader has probably heard it, I dare not break through a custom so long established.
Among these repeaters is Sir John Chardin, who traveled through Armenia and Persia towards the end of the
seventeenth century, and whose remarks upon it are as follows. They show the progress which criticism had been
making since the days of the earlier Sir John.
“This is the Tale that they tell, upon which I shall observe 2 Things. First, that is has no coherence with the
relations of ancient authors as Josephus, Berosus, or Nicolaus of Damascus, who assure us that the Remainders of
the Ark were to be seen, and that the people took the Pitch with which it was besmeared as an Antidote against
Several Distempers. The second, that whereas it is taken for a Miracle that no Body can get up to the Top: I should
rather take it for a greater Miracle that any Man should climb up so high. For the Mountain is altogether uninhabited,
and from the Halfway to the Top of all, perpetually covered with Snow that never melts, so that all the Seasons of the
Year it appears to be a prodigious heap of nothing but Snow.”
Whether Chardin himself believed the Ark to be still on the top of the mountain, does not appear. In two views of it
which he gives, showing also Erivan and Etchmiadzin, the Ark appears, in shape exactly the Ark of the nursery on