a proclaimer of divine wisdom; the old Babylonian Oannes-Ea, who was represented in the form of a fish, and daily came from the sea as a fish to teach the people wisdom.[52] His name was brought into connection with John's. With the rising of the renewed sun all that lived in darkness, as water-animal or fish, surrounded by all terrors of night and death,[53] became as the shining fiery firmament of the day. Thus the words of John the Baptist[54] gain especial meaning:
"I indeed baptize you with water unto repentance, but he that
cometh after me is mightier than I, whose shoes I am not worthy
to bear; he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire."
With Vollers we may also compare Chidher and Elias
(Moses and his servant Joshua) with Gilgamesh and
his brother Eabani. Gilgamesh wandered through the
world, driven by anxiety and longing, to find immortality.
His path led him across the seas to the wise Utnapishtim
(Noah), who knew how to cross the waters of death.
There Gilgamesh had to dive down to the bottom of the
sea for the magical herb which was to lead him back to
the land of men. When he had come again to his native
land a serpent stole the magic plant from him (the fish
again slid into the sea). But on the return from the
land of the blessed an immortal mariner accompanied
him, who, banished by a curse of Utnapishtim, was forbidden
to return to the land of the blessed. Gilgamesh's
journey had lost its purpose on account of the loss of the
magic herb; instead he is accompanied by an immortal,
whose fate, indeed, we cannot learn from the fragments
