all that died. On this account they gave it a name, and numbered their ancestors back to it. This they also learned from their old kinsmen, that when many hundred winters w^ere numbered, the course of the heavenly bodies was uneven; some had a longer course than others. From such things they susj)ected. that some one must be the ruler of the heavenly bodies who could stay their course at his own will, and he must be strong and mighty; and of him they thought that, if he ruled the prime elements, he must also have been before the heavenly bodies, and they saw that, if he ruled the course of the heavenly bodies, he must rule the sunshine, and the dew of the heavens, and the products of the earth that follow them; and thus, also, the wands of the air and therewith the storms of the sea. They knew not where his realm was, but they believed that he ruled over all things on the earth and in the air, over the heavens and the heavenly bodies, the seas and the weather. But in order that these things might be better told and remembered, they gave him the same name with themselves, and this belief has been changed in many ways, as the peoples have been separated and the tongues have been divided.
2. In his old age Noah shared the w^orld with his sons: for Ham he intended the western region, for Japheth the northern region, but for
