in its primary import, signifies the bringing into being
something which did not exist before. The term is therefore most
generally applied to the original production of the materials whereof
the visible world is composed. It is also used in a secondary or
subordinate sense, to denote those subsequent operations of the Deity
upon the matter so produced, by which the whole system of nature, and
all the primitive _genera_ of things, received their forms, qualities,
and laws. The accounts of the creation of the world which have existed
among different nations, are called _Cosmogonies_. Moses’s is
unquestionably the most ancient; and had it no other circumstance to
recommend it, its superior antiquity alone would give it a just claim to
our attention. It is evidently Moses’s intention to give a history of
man, and of religion, and an account of creation. In the way in which he
has detailed it, it would have been foreign to his plan, had it not been
necessary to obviate that most ancient and most natural species of
idolatry, the worship of the heavenly bodies. His first care, therefore,
is to affirm decidedly, that God created the heavens and the earth; and
then he proceeds to mention the order in which the various objects of
creation were called into existence. First of all, the materials, of
which the future universe was to be composed, were created. These were
jumbled together in one indigested mass, which the ancients called
chaos, and which they conceived to be eternal; but which Moses affirms
to have been created by the power of God. The materials of the chaos
were either held in solution by the waters, or floated in them, or were
sunk under them; and they were reduced into form by the Spirit of God
moving upon the face of the waters. Light was the first distinct object
of creation: fishes were the first living things; man was last in the
order of creation.
2. The account given by Moses is distinguished by its simplicity. That
it involves difficulties which our faculties cannot comprehend, is only
what might be expected from a detail of the operations of the omnipotent
mind, which can never be fully understood but by the Being who planned
them. Most of the writers who come nearest to Moses in point of
antiquity have favoured the world with cosmogonies; and there is a
wonderful coincidence in some leading particulars between their accounts
and his. They all have his chaos; and they all state water to have been
the prevailing principle before the arrangement of the universe began.
The systems became gradually more complicated, as the writers receded
farther from the age of primitive tradition; and they increased in
absurdity in proportion to the degree of philosophy which was applied to
the subject. The problem of creation has been said to be, “Matter and
motion being given, to form a world;” and the presumption of man has
often led him to attempt the solution of this intricate question. But
the true problem was, “Neither matter nor motion being given, to form a
world.” At first, the cosmogonists contented themselves with reasoning
on the traditional or historical accounts they had received; but it is
irksome to be shackled by authority; and after they had acquired a
smattering of knowledge, they began to think that they could point out a
much better way of forming the world than that which had been
transmitted to them by the consenting voice of antiquity. Epicurus was
most distinguished in this hopeful work of invention; and produced a
cosmogony on the principle of a fortuitous concourse of atoms, whose
extravagant absurdity has hitherto preserved it from oblivion. From his
day to ours, the world has been annoyed with systems; but these are now
modified by the theories of chemists and geologists, whose speculations,
in so far as they proceed on the principle of induction, have sometimes
been attended with useful results; but, when applied to solve the
problem of creation, will serve, like the systems of their forerunners,
to demonstrate the ignorance and the presumption of man.
3. The early cosmogonies are chiefly interesting from their resemblance
to that of Moses; which proves that they have either been derived from
him, or from some ancient prevailing tradition respecting the true
history of creation. The most ancient author next to Moses, of whose
writings any fragments remain, is Sanchoniatho, the Phenician. His
writings were translated by Philo Byblius; and portions of this version
are preserved by Eusebius. These writings come to us rather in an
apocryphal form; they contain, however, no internal evidence which can
affect their authenticity; they pretty nearly resemble the traditions of
the Greeks, and are, perhaps, the parent stock from which these
traditions are derived. The notions detailed by Sanchoniatho are almost
translated by Hesiod, who mentions the primeval chaos, and states ἔρος,
or _love_, to be its first offspring. Anaxagoras was the first among the
Greeks who entertained tolerably accurate notions on the subject of
creation: he assumed the agency of an intelligent mind in the
arrangement of the chaotic materials. These sentiments gradually
prevailed among the Greeks; from whom they passed to the Romans, and
were generally adopted, notwithstanding the efforts which were made to
establish the doctrines of Epicurus by the nervous poetry of Lucretius.
Ovid has collected the orthodox doctrines which prevailed on the
subject, both among Greeks and Romans; and has expressed them with
uncommon elegance and perspicuity in the first chapter of his
“Metamorphoses.” There is so striking a coincidence between his account
and that of Moses that one would almost think that he was translating
from the first chapter of Genesis; and there can be no doubt that the
Mosaic writings were well known at that time, both among the Greeks and
Romans. Megasthenes, who lived in the time of Seleucus Nicanor, affirms,
that all the doctrines of the Greeks respecting the creation, and the
constitution of nature, were current among the Bramins in India, and the
Jews in Syria. He must, of course, have been acquainted with the
writings of the latter, before he could make the comparison. Juvenal
talks of the writings of Moses as well known:--
_Tradidit arcano quodcunque volumine Moses._
[Whatever Moses has transmitted in his mystic volume.]
We are therefore inclined to think that Ovid actually copied from the
Bible; for he adopts the very order detailed by Moses. Moses mentions
the works of creation in the following order: the separation of the sea
from the dry land; the creation of the heavenly bodies; of marine
animals; of fowls and land animals; of man. Observe now the order of the
Roman poet:--
_Ante mare et terras, et, quod tegit omnia, cœlum,
Unus erat toto naturæ vultus in orbe,
Quem dixere chaos, rudis, indigestaque moles.
Hanc Deus, et melior litem natura diremit.
Nam cœlo terras, et terras abscidit undis;
Et liquidum spisso secrevit ab aëre cœlum.
Neu regio foret ulla suis animalibus orba;
Astra tenent cœleste solum, formæque deorum;
Cesserunt nitidis habitandæ piscibus undæ:
Terra feras cepit, volucres agitabilis aër.
Sanctius his animal, mentisque capacius altæ
Deerat adhuc, et quod dominari in cætera posset:
Natus homo est._
“Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And heav’n’s high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of nature; if a face:
Rather, a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion’d, and unframed,
Of jarring seeds; and justly _chaos_ named.
But God, or nature, while they thus contend,
To these intestine discords put an end;
Then earth from air, and seas from earth were driv’n,
And grosser air sunk from ethereal heav’n.
Thus when the God, whatever god was he,
Had form’d the whole, and made the parts agree,
That no unequal portions might be found,
He moulded earth into a spacious round.
Then, every void of nature to supply,
With forms of gods he fills the vacant sky:
New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share: }
New colonies of birds, to people air; }
And to their oozy beds the finny fish repair. }
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was man design’d:
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form’d, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heav’nly fire
The God of nature did his soul inspire,” &c.
DRYDEN.
Here we see all the principal objects of creation mentioned exactly in
the same order which Moses had assigned to them in his writings; and
when we consider what follows;--the war of the giants; the general
corruption of the world; the universal deluge; the preservation of
Deucalion and Pyrrha; their sacrifices to the gods on leaving the vessel
in which they had been preserved;--there can scarcely remain a doubt
that Ovid borrowed, either directly or at second hand, from Moses. What
he says, too, is perfectly consistent with the received notions on the
subject, though it is probable that they had never before been so
regularly methodised. This train of reasoning would lead us to conclude
that Ovid, and indeed the whole Heathen world, derived their notions
respecting the creation, and the early history of mankind, from the
sacred Scriptures: and it shows how deficient their own resources were,
when the pride of philosophy was forced to borrow from those whom it
affected to despise. With regard to the western mythologists, then,
there can be little doubt that their cosmogonies, at least such of them
as profess to be historical, and not theoretical, are derived from
Moses; and the same may be affirmed with regard to the traditions of the
east: as they were the same with those of Greece in the time of
Megasthenes, whose testimony to this effect is quoted both by Clemens
Alexandrinus and Strabo, we may naturally conclude that they had the
same origin.
4. The Hindoo mythology has grown, in the natural uninterrupted progress
of corruption, to such monstrous and complicated absurdity, that in many
cases it stands unique in extravagance. In the more ancient Hindoo
writings, however, many sublime sentiments occur; and in the “Institutes
of Menu,” many passages are found relating to the creation, which bear a
strong resemblance to the account given by Moses. They are thus given in
an advertisement, prefixed to the fifth volume of the “Asiatic
Researches,” and are intended as a supplement to a former treatise on
the Hindoo religion:--
“This universe existed only in the first divine idea, yet unexpanded, as
if involved in darkness, imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable by
reason, and undiscovered by revelation, as if it were wholly immersed in
sleep. When the sole self-existing Power, himself undiscerned, but
making this world discernible, with five elements and other principles
of nature, appeared with undiminished glory, expanding his idea, or
dispelling the gloom. He, whom the mind alone can perceive, whose
essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists
from eternity, even he, the soul of all beings, whom no being can
comprehend, shone forth in person. He, having willed to produce various
beings from his own divine substance, first with a thought created the
waters. The waters are called _nara_, because they are the production of
_Nara_, or the Spirit of God; and since they were his first _ayana_, or
place of motion, he thence is called _Narayana_, or moving on the
waters. From that which is, the first cause, not the object of sense,
existing every where in substance, not existing to our perception,
without beginning or end, was produced the divine male. He framed the
heaven above, and the earth beneath; in the midst he placed the subtile
ether, the eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of waters. He
framed all creatures. He, too, first assigned to all creatures distinct
names, distinct acts, and distinct occupations. He gave being to time,
and the divisions of time; to the stars also, and the planets; to
rivers, oceans, and mountains; to level plains, and uneven valleys. For
the sake of distinguishing actions, he made a total difference between
right and wrong. Having divided his own substance, the mighty Power
became half male, half female. He whose powers are incomprehensible,
having created this universe, was again absorbed in the spirit, changing
the time of energy for the time of repose.”
In these passages we have evidently a philosophical comment on the
account of creation given by Moses, or as transmitted from the same
source of primitive tradition. We also see in these passages the
rudiments of the Platonic philosophy, the eternal ideas in the divine
mind, &c; and were any question to arise respecting the original author
of these notions, we should have little hesitation in giving it against
the Greeks. They were the greatest plagiaries both in literature and
philosophy, and they have scarcely an article of literary property which
they can call their own, except their poetry. Their sages penetrated
into Egypt and India, and on their return stigmatized the natives of
these countries as barbarians, lest they should be suspected of stealing
their inventions.
5. The Chaldean cosmogony, according to Berosus, when divested of
allegory, seems to resolve itself into this, that darkness and water
existed from eternity; that Belus divided the humid mass, and gave birth
to creation; that the human mind is an emanation from the divine nature.
The cosmogony of the ancient Persians is very clumsy. They introduce two
eternal principles, the one good, called _Oromasdes_, the other evil,
called _Arimanius_; and they make these two principles contend with each
other in the creation and government of the world. Each has his
province, which he strives to enlarge; and _Mithras_ is the mediator to
moderate their contentions. This is the most inartificial plan that has
been devised to account for the existence of evil, and has the least
pretensions to a philosophical basis. The Egyptian cosmogony, according
to the account given of it by Plutarch, seems to bear a strong
resemblance to the Phenician, as detailed by Sanchoniatho. According to
the Egyptian account, there was an eternal chaos, and an eternal spirit
united with it, whose agency at last arranged the discordant materials,
and produced the visible system of the universe. The cosmogony of the
northern nations, as may be collected from the Edda, supposes an eternal
principle prior to the formation of the world. The Orphic Fragments
state every thing to have existed in God, and to proceed from him. The
notion implied in this maxim is suspected to be _pantheistic_, that is,
to imply the universe to be God; which, however, might be a more modern
perversion. Plato supposed the world to be produced by the Deity,
uniting eternal, immutable ideas, or forms, to variable matter.
Aristotle had no cosmogony, because he supposed the world to be without
beginning and without end. According to the Stoical doctrine, the divine
nature, acting on matter, first produced moisture, and then the other
elements, which are reciprocally convertible.
something which did not exist before. The term is therefore most
generally applied to the original production of the materials whereof
the visible world is composed. It is also used in a secondary or
subordinate sense, to denote those subsequent operations of the Deity
upon the matter so produced, by which the whole system of nature, and
all the primitive _genera_ of things, received their forms, qualities,
and laws. The accounts of the creation of the world which have existed
among different nations, are called _Cosmogonies_. Moses’s is
unquestionably the most ancient; and had it no other circumstance to
recommend it, its superior antiquity alone would give it a just claim to
our attention. It is evidently Moses’s intention to give a history of
man, and of religion, and an account of creation. In the way in which he
has detailed it, it would have been foreign to his plan, had it not been
necessary to obviate that most ancient and most natural species of
idolatry, the worship of the heavenly bodies. His first care, therefore,
is to affirm decidedly, that God created the heavens and the earth; and
then he proceeds to mention the order in which the various objects of
creation were called into existence. First of all, the materials, of
which the future universe was to be composed, were created. These were
jumbled together in one indigested mass, which the ancients called
chaos, and which they conceived to be eternal; but which Moses affirms
to have been created by the power of God. The materials of the chaos
were either held in solution by the waters, or floated in them, or were
sunk under them; and they were reduced into form by the Spirit of God
moving upon the face of the waters. Light was the first distinct object
of creation: fishes were the first living things; man was last in the
order of creation.
2. The account given by Moses is distinguished by its simplicity. That
it involves difficulties which our faculties cannot comprehend, is only
what might be expected from a detail of the operations of the omnipotent
mind, which can never be fully understood but by the Being who planned
them. Most of the writers who come nearest to Moses in point of
antiquity have favoured the world with cosmogonies; and there is a
wonderful coincidence in some leading particulars between their accounts
and his. They all have his chaos; and they all state water to have been
the prevailing principle before the arrangement of the universe began.
The systems became gradually more complicated, as the writers receded
farther from the age of primitive tradition; and they increased in
absurdity in proportion to the degree of philosophy which was applied to
the subject. The problem of creation has been said to be, “Matter and
motion being given, to form a world;” and the presumption of man has
often led him to attempt the solution of this intricate question. But
the true problem was, “Neither matter nor motion being given, to form a
world.” At first, the cosmogonists contented themselves with reasoning
on the traditional or historical accounts they had received; but it is
irksome to be shackled by authority; and after they had acquired a
smattering of knowledge, they began to think that they could point out a
much better way of forming the world than that which had been
transmitted to them by the consenting voice of antiquity. Epicurus was
most distinguished in this hopeful work of invention; and produced a
cosmogony on the principle of a fortuitous concourse of atoms, whose
extravagant absurdity has hitherto preserved it from oblivion. From his
day to ours, the world has been annoyed with systems; but these are now
modified by the theories of chemists and geologists, whose speculations,
in so far as they proceed on the principle of induction, have sometimes
been attended with useful results; but, when applied to solve the
problem of creation, will serve, like the systems of their forerunners,
to demonstrate the ignorance and the presumption of man.
3. The early cosmogonies are chiefly interesting from their resemblance
to that of Moses; which proves that they have either been derived from
him, or from some ancient prevailing tradition respecting the true
history of creation. The most ancient author next to Moses, of whose
writings any fragments remain, is Sanchoniatho, the Phenician. His
writings were translated by Philo Byblius; and portions of this version
are preserved by Eusebius. These writings come to us rather in an
apocryphal form; they contain, however, no internal evidence which can
affect their authenticity; they pretty nearly resemble the traditions of
the Greeks, and are, perhaps, the parent stock from which these
traditions are derived. The notions detailed by Sanchoniatho are almost
translated by Hesiod, who mentions the primeval chaos, and states ἔρος,
or _love_, to be its first offspring. Anaxagoras was the first among the
Greeks who entertained tolerably accurate notions on the subject of
creation: he assumed the agency of an intelligent mind in the
arrangement of the chaotic materials. These sentiments gradually
prevailed among the Greeks; from whom they passed to the Romans, and
were generally adopted, notwithstanding the efforts which were made to
establish the doctrines of Epicurus by the nervous poetry of Lucretius.
Ovid has collected the orthodox doctrines which prevailed on the
subject, both among Greeks and Romans; and has expressed them with
uncommon elegance and perspicuity in the first chapter of his
“Metamorphoses.” There is so striking a coincidence between his account
and that of Moses that one would almost think that he was translating
from the first chapter of Genesis; and there can be no doubt that the
Mosaic writings were well known at that time, both among the Greeks and
Romans. Megasthenes, who lived in the time of Seleucus Nicanor, affirms,
that all the doctrines of the Greeks respecting the creation, and the
constitution of nature, were current among the Bramins in India, and the
Jews in Syria. He must, of course, have been acquainted with the
writings of the latter, before he could make the comparison. Juvenal
talks of the writings of Moses as well known:--
_Tradidit arcano quodcunque volumine Moses._
[Whatever Moses has transmitted in his mystic volume.]
We are therefore inclined to think that Ovid actually copied from the
Bible; for he adopts the very order detailed by Moses. Moses mentions
the works of creation in the following order: the separation of the sea
from the dry land; the creation of the heavenly bodies; of marine
animals; of fowls and land animals; of man. Observe now the order of the
Roman poet:--
_Ante mare et terras, et, quod tegit omnia, cœlum,
Unus erat toto naturæ vultus in orbe,
Quem dixere chaos, rudis, indigestaque moles.
Hanc Deus, et melior litem natura diremit.
Nam cœlo terras, et terras abscidit undis;
Et liquidum spisso secrevit ab aëre cœlum.
Neu regio foret ulla suis animalibus orba;
Astra tenent cœleste solum, formæque deorum;
Cesserunt nitidis habitandæ piscibus undæ:
Terra feras cepit, volucres agitabilis aër.
Sanctius his animal, mentisque capacius altæ
Deerat adhuc, et quod dominari in cætera posset:
Natus homo est._
“Before the seas, and this terrestrial ball,
And heav’n’s high canopy, that covers all,
One was the face of nature; if a face:
Rather, a rude and indigested mass:
A lifeless lump, unfashion’d, and unframed,
Of jarring seeds; and justly _chaos_ named.
But God, or nature, while they thus contend,
To these intestine discords put an end;
Then earth from air, and seas from earth were driv’n,
And grosser air sunk from ethereal heav’n.
Thus when the God, whatever god was he,
Had form’d the whole, and made the parts agree,
That no unequal portions might be found,
He moulded earth into a spacious round.
Then, every void of nature to supply,
With forms of gods he fills the vacant sky:
New herds of beasts he sends, the plains to share: }
New colonies of birds, to people air; }
And to their oozy beds the finny fish repair. }
A creature of a more exalted kind
Was wanting yet, and then was man design’d:
Conscious of thought, of more capacious breast,
For empire form’d, and fit to rule the rest:
Whether with particles of heav’nly fire
The God of nature did his soul inspire,” &c.
DRYDEN.
Here we see all the principal objects of creation mentioned exactly in
the same order which Moses had assigned to them in his writings; and
when we consider what follows;--the war of the giants; the general
corruption of the world; the universal deluge; the preservation of
Deucalion and Pyrrha; their sacrifices to the gods on leaving the vessel
in which they had been preserved;--there can scarcely remain a doubt
that Ovid borrowed, either directly or at second hand, from Moses. What
he says, too, is perfectly consistent with the received notions on the
subject, though it is probable that they had never before been so
regularly methodised. This train of reasoning would lead us to conclude
that Ovid, and indeed the whole Heathen world, derived their notions
respecting the creation, and the early history of mankind, from the
sacred Scriptures: and it shows how deficient their own resources were,
when the pride of philosophy was forced to borrow from those whom it
affected to despise. With regard to the western mythologists, then,
there can be little doubt that their cosmogonies, at least such of them
as profess to be historical, and not theoretical, are derived from
Moses; and the same may be affirmed with regard to the traditions of the
east: as they were the same with those of Greece in the time of
Megasthenes, whose testimony to this effect is quoted both by Clemens
Alexandrinus and Strabo, we may naturally conclude that they had the
same origin.
4. The Hindoo mythology has grown, in the natural uninterrupted progress
of corruption, to such monstrous and complicated absurdity, that in many
cases it stands unique in extravagance. In the more ancient Hindoo
writings, however, many sublime sentiments occur; and in the “Institutes
of Menu,” many passages are found relating to the creation, which bear a
strong resemblance to the account given by Moses. They are thus given in
an advertisement, prefixed to the fifth volume of the “Asiatic
Researches,” and are intended as a supplement to a former treatise on
the Hindoo religion:--
“This universe existed only in the first divine idea, yet unexpanded, as
if involved in darkness, imperceptible, undefinable, undiscoverable by
reason, and undiscovered by revelation, as if it were wholly immersed in
sleep. When the sole self-existing Power, himself undiscerned, but
making this world discernible, with five elements and other principles
of nature, appeared with undiminished glory, expanding his idea, or
dispelling the gloom. He, whom the mind alone can perceive, whose
essence eludes the external organs, who has no visible parts, who exists
from eternity, even he, the soul of all beings, whom no being can
comprehend, shone forth in person. He, having willed to produce various
beings from his own divine substance, first with a thought created the
waters. The waters are called _nara_, because they are the production of
_Nara_, or the Spirit of God; and since they were his first _ayana_, or
place of motion, he thence is called _Narayana_, or moving on the
waters. From that which is, the first cause, not the object of sense,
existing every where in substance, not existing to our perception,
without beginning or end, was produced the divine male. He framed the
heaven above, and the earth beneath; in the midst he placed the subtile
ether, the eight regions, and the permanent receptacle of waters. He
framed all creatures. He, too, first assigned to all creatures distinct
names, distinct acts, and distinct occupations. He gave being to time,
and the divisions of time; to the stars also, and the planets; to
rivers, oceans, and mountains; to level plains, and uneven valleys. For
the sake of distinguishing actions, he made a total difference between
right and wrong. Having divided his own substance, the mighty Power
became half male, half female. He whose powers are incomprehensible,
having created this universe, was again absorbed in the spirit, changing
the time of energy for the time of repose.”
In these passages we have evidently a philosophical comment on the
account of creation given by Moses, or as transmitted from the same
source of primitive tradition. We also see in these passages the
rudiments of the Platonic philosophy, the eternal ideas in the divine
mind, &c; and were any question to arise respecting the original author
of these notions, we should have little hesitation in giving it against
the Greeks. They were the greatest plagiaries both in literature and
philosophy, and they have scarcely an article of literary property which
they can call their own, except their poetry. Their sages penetrated
into Egypt and India, and on their return stigmatized the natives of
these countries as barbarians, lest they should be suspected of stealing
their inventions.
5. The Chaldean cosmogony, according to Berosus, when divested of
allegory, seems to resolve itself into this, that darkness and water
existed from eternity; that Belus divided the humid mass, and gave birth
to creation; that the human mind is an emanation from the divine nature.
The cosmogony of the ancient Persians is very clumsy. They introduce two
eternal principles, the one good, called _Oromasdes_, the other evil,
called _Arimanius_; and they make these two principles contend with each
other in the creation and government of the world. Each has his
province, which he strives to enlarge; and _Mithras_ is the mediator to
moderate their contentions. This is the most inartificial plan that has
been devised to account for the existence of evil, and has the least
pretensions to a philosophical basis. The Egyptian cosmogony, according
to the account given of it by Plutarch, seems to bear a strong
resemblance to the Phenician, as detailed by Sanchoniatho. According to
the Egyptian account, there was an eternal chaos, and an eternal spirit
united with it, whose agency at last arranged the discordant materials,
and produced the visible system of the universe. The cosmogony of the
northern nations, as may be collected from the Edda, supposes an eternal
principle prior to the formation of the world. The Orphic Fragments
state every thing to have existed in God, and to proceed from him. The
notion implied in this maxim is suspected to be _pantheistic_, that is,
to imply the universe to be God; which, however, might be a more modern
perversion. Plato supposed the world to be produced by the Deity,
uniting eternal, immutable ideas, or forms, to variable matter.
Aristotle had no cosmogony, because he supposed the world to be without
beginning and without end. According to the Stoical doctrine, the divine
nature, acting on matter, first produced moisture, and then the other
elements, which are reciprocally convertible.