It is perhaps contained also in the word by which Berosus designates this same creature--Oannes--which may be explained as _Hoa-ana,_ or "the god Hoa." There are no means of strictly determining the precise meaning of the word in Babylonian; but it is perhaps allowable to connect it, provisionally, with the Arabic Hiya, which is at once life and "a serpent," since, according to the best authority, there are very strong grounds for connecting Hea or Hoa with the serpent of Scripture and the Paradisaical traditions of the tree of knowledge and the tree of life.
Hoa occupies, in the first Triad, the position which in the classical mythology is filled by Poseidon or Neptune, and in some respects he corresponds to him.

He is "the lord of the earth," just as Neptune is [Greek]; he is "the king of rivers;" and he comes from the sea to teach the Babylonians; but he is never called "the lord of the sea." That title belongs to Nin or Ninip.

Hoa is "the lord of the abyss," or of "the great deep," which does not seem to be the sea, but something distinct from it.

His most important titles are those which invest him with the character, so prominently brought out in Oe and Oannes, of the god of science and knowledge.

He is "the intelligent guide," or, according to another interpretation, "the intelligent fish," "the teacher of mankind," "the lord of understanding." One of his emblems is the "wedge" or "arrowhead," the essential element of cuneiform writing, which seems to be assigned to him as the inventor, or at least the patron of the Chaldaean alphabet.