38 ARMENIA OCCUPIED BY HA1K. [ c h a p . I ll
region so designated; it is conceived to be formed by tbe
monosyllable o p s , with the prefixes e l , which signifies light,
splendour, Almighty power, and majesty, and t h e o s (God);
thus it would signify either the eternity of heaven and earth,
or eternal God over earth; which would accord with the knowledge
allowed to be possessed by this people,1 one of whose
designations was, the God-like Cushites; while another was,
sons of light, or wise men, who divine secret things.2,
japhet’s pos- From the eldest son of Noah came a portion of the Medes,
sessions. i ber;anS) Sclavonians, and Babylonians; also the followers of
Ashkenaz and Biphath in Lesser Asia,3 who appear to have
settled in Pontus, Bithynia, and Cappadocia.
Regarding the descendants of Togormah, the son of Gomer,4
we find from Armenian history that Ha'ik or Ha'icus, the representative
of the line of Japhet, and the undoubted father of the
Armenians, collected his followers to the number of 300, and
quitting Babylonia, apparently with the second Cushite branch,
at the time of the confusion of language, he proceeded to the
foot of Mount Ararat; this event took place about the year
b . c . 2107, or rather 2607 of the Julian period.6
Commixture On arriving, they were joined by a portion of the people who
Jfaphetsand°f had been settled in that part of the country, secluded from
Ham. civilized intercourse since the descent from the Ark. They
probably had been without any regular form of government,
but they spoke the primitive language of Noah. These were,
it is presumed, a portion of the followers of Ham, who had
continued in the neighbourhood, when the bulk of the tribe
quitted that part of Armenia; and if this view of the matter
be well founded, the sons of Ham became a second time mixed
with those of J aphet.
1 An explanation given by M r. Colin Mackenzie, who came to this conclusion,
from the fact that Opism is a generic mode of worship or reverence
' among many nations ; such as Oropian, a worshipper, or descendant of the sun
and earth, from Orus, the Egyptian Apollo ; Oropus, a city of Macedonia,
Oropus, a city of Bceotia, &c.
s Arpha-chasd, M. Court de Gibelin, Monde primitif, pp. 8, 9.
3 ’Abú-1-Faraj. Hist. Dyn., pp. 8, 11.
4 Wells’ Geography of the Old Testament, vol. I., p. 58.
5 Moses Choronensis, cap. IX .