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conceptions, every superstitious and idolatrous element. It will be the task of the following notes on the first chapters to prove this proposition. We have cleared the way for a plain and unsophisticated interpretation. We are fettered by no preconceived dogmatical views. We shall be enabled to attempt a conscientious penetration into the notions of the Hebrew historian; and shall in no instance be induced to force upon his words, by a contorting and delusive mode of exposition, our modern systems of philosophy. Thus may we hope to secure a positive advantage for Biblical science.

GENESIS I.

SUMMARY.-God created the matter of which heaven and earth consist (ver. 1); He brought the chaotic mass into shape and order; in six days He produced successively light, the heaven, the seas, the dry land and vegetation; the celestial orbs; the fishes and birds; the beasts and man (ver. 2-30). He approved of His works, both individually and collectively (ver. 31). He rested on the seventh day, and blessed and sanctified it (ii. 1-3).

1. In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.

1. The very opening sentence of Genesis manifests the infinite superiority of the Mosaic notions over all the systems of antiquity; it separates distinctly monotheism from the blind rule of physical powers, and from that dualism which recognises a good and an evil principle in the creation of the world; it marks the eternal division between Mosaism and paganism, between God and Nature; for it evidently represents God as the Creator and primary Cause of the Universe; perhaps in intentional opposition to the very far-spread ancient theory of an original matter, out of which the world was supposed to have been framed, or of the eternity of heaven and earth. The world, with its objects, is generated; it is neither iden. tical with God; nor a part of His substance; nor the product of chance or of stern fate; nor the result of an internal or external necessity, "as though God needed anything"; it is the free emanation of the will of God; it is the spontaneous work of His love. He alone was before all time, from all eternity; "before the mountains were brought forth, and before the earth and the world were formed." But yet, He is not a lifeless abstraction of Time, as the Zeruane Akerene of the Persians, who neither animates man's hopes

nor cheers him in his despair; who neither feels nor rouses sympathy; who is a shadow rather than a personal spirit; and who, in order to be accessible to the human capacities, is compelled to produce the two inimical deities Ormuzd and Ahriman, who, similar to the Osiris and Typhon of the Egyptians, dispute with each other the government of the world, and thus perpetuate on earth the din and fury of intestine war.

The Creator of the world is also its Ruler; for to Him alone belongs all power from eternity to eternity. The Bible does not, like the systems of philosophy, commence with a laborious proof of the existence of a Creator; this truth is the very foundation on which it rests; it is assumed as undisputed, and requires no demonstration: the Hebrew cosmogony alone is not preceded by a theogony. It is a fallacy to think, that the Egyptian cosmogony is essentially similar to that of Moses, who is still too often represented as nothing more than the expounder of the ordinary Egyptian wisdom. It is true, that in a most interesting Egyptian document, the celebrated Book of the Dead, Osiris is described as the creator of the world and of mankind; as the preserver of all creatures; as the eternal ruler and judge of

the universe; and the holy avenger of every crime and impiety; but that Osiris is far from being an immaterial deity; he is the sun and his light; he produces, therefore, first the other seven great planetary gods; then the twelve minor deities who represent the twelve parts of the Zodiac, and who, in their turn, produce the twenty-eight gods who preside over the stations of the moon, the seventy-two companions of the sun, and other deities. Osiris is, hence, denominated the creator and king of the gods; and, if he is called "light of the world," this is no figurative, but a strictly literal expression. It is, therefore, incorrect to infer that, in the belief of the Egyptians, God created the world out of nothing; that there was no chaos; and that He was from eternity. -But, further, Osiris is, in the later mythology of the Egyptians only, the creator of the world, and the highest god; in the carlier myths this was Kneph who produced the germ of the world from his mouth; or Phtha, corresponding with the Greck Vulcan; or Pan; or Ammon, who represents the productive power of the sun (Ra), who is most frequently called the creator of the universe, who was worshipped throughout all Egypt, but had his chief temple in Heliopolis or On (light), and who was, from the earliest times, viewed as a trinity of gods, consisting of Ammon Ra (the creator), Osiris Ra (the fructifying power), and Horus Ra (the dispenser of light). And ancient Greek writers give a very different account of the Egyptian cosmogony; they affirm expressly, that the ancient inhabitants of Egypt, when they looked with astonishment at the wonders of creation, were induced to the belief that there are two eternal gods, the authors of all things; namely, the sun and the moon, or Osiris and Isis; they introduce a complete theogony, and narrate how Phtha (Vulcan), the inventor of the fire, was succeeded by Saturn, who begat, with Rhea, the principal deities, Osiris and Isis, Typhon and Nephytis; they relate, that the wicked Typhon attempted to destroy Osiris, who had undertaken a distant expedition to all the countries between the

Nile and the Indus; that he forced him into a chest, and brought it to the river, from whence it was carried into the sea; that, however, Isis, the faithful wife of Osiris, contrived to recover the chest; but that Typhon found it again, and cut the body into many pieces which he scattered over the land, but which Isis buried wherever she found them, except one member which the fishes had eaten, and in honour of which an annual festival was celebrated: at last Osiris returned from the lower world, and instructed his son Horus to avenge him; Typhon was now attacked, and perfectly defeated. In whatever way these myths may be interpreted, whether Osiris and Isis are regarded as the sun and moon; or as the Nile and the earth; or as the representatives of the early civilisation of Egypt,which was from thence spread over the whole ancient world, whilst Typhon is the symbol of the destructive hot wind (samoom); or of the tyrannical winter; or of dark ignorance: it is evident that all these conceptions lie entirely within the circle of paganism, and that they were no more the source of the Mosaic doctrine than any other eastern tradition. For, the God of Moses is not only allpowerful and all-wise, which qualities even rude and barbarous tribes have bestowed upon their deities, but He is also all-loving; independent of any other existence,creating all, Himself not created; and, therefore, unchangeable; a free and absolute Being, because subject to no necessity; omnipresent, because He watches with provident care over His works. He is at once the most perfect Ideal, and the completest Reality; His thoughts are creations:thus, the very beginning of the Biblical canon reveals the highest, the most sublime attributes of God; it contains, as it were, the leading principle on which the whole Scriptural system is based, the vigorous root from which the imperishable stem of religious truth has sprung.

God is the author not only of matter (ver. 1), but of its wise and wonderful distribution in heaven and earth (ver. 2 et seq.). He called the universe into being out of nothing, not out of formless matter

2. And the earth was dreariness and emptiness, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. And the spirit of God hovered over the face of the waters.

co-eval in existence with Himself. He alone is the fountain and the origin of the world. Nor did He resign his power as Creator after having produced matter with its eternal attributes. The same will which has created the universe, suffices to reduce it into absolute nothing, or to suspend its laws, and temporarily to change its course, that is, to perform miracles.

2. Matter was created, but it was a shapeless mass; the elements were mixed in irregular confusion; it was a chaos. This gloomy state of things prevailed through the whole universe, both in that part which later formed the heaven and in that which was to constitute the earth. But the framing of the latter is the first object of our text; the arrangement of the heaven is reserved to a later act of creation (vers. 6-8, 14—19).— This elementary state of nature is thus described by Ovid (Metam. i. 6—9)—

"One was the face of Nature, if a face; Rather a rude and indigested mass, A lifeless lump, unfashioned and unframed,

Of jarring seeds, and justly chaos named."

The chief characteristic of the indistinct and dreary chaos is darkness; matter was still deprived of the rays of light, which can alone manifest order and beauty.

"No Sun was lighted up, the world to view;

No Moon did yet her blunted horns renew."

It is true, that heathen writers introduce the same feature; the Orphic songs describe chaos as a black right, enveloping every object with its gloomy wings; they state that at first, primeval night reigned supreme; and sometimes they even mention night as the mother of the gods, and of men. The chaos of the Bible produced, by the word of God, this beautiful

world of order and blessing; what did the primeval night of the classical Greeks generate? It brought forth cruel fate, terrible necessity, and death; it engendered mocking Momus and woeful care, the ruthless Parce and terrible Nemesis, and fraud, and criminal love, and strife; it was the parent of labour and troubleof tearful sorrow, and struggle, and death

- of famine, war, and carnage-of falsehood, perjury, and contempt of the laws - and of every crime. The Greek gods produce evil out of evil; to the God of the Hebrews there exists no evil, for He has created all things for the purposes of His wisdom, and He converts confusion into harmony.-The Chaldeans believed that during the chaos all was darkness and water, peopled by mis-shapeħ monsters; the Egyptians express it by a confusion of the limbs and parts of various animals; and the Phoenicians describe it as boundless, through many ages, and pervaded by a wind of black air, and dark as hell.

The ancient and purer Hindoo religion, as expounded in the Vedas and in the laws of Manu, teaches that originally the universe was involved in darkness; there was no visible trace of a world, or of water, or sky, nor aught above it; all was imperceptible, destitute of every distinct attribute, neither accessible to reason nor to the senses, and entirely immersed in sleep; that, however, after the expiration of a day of Brahman, which is equivalent to 4320 millions of human years, the great THAT, existing through itself, immaterial, and undistinguishable by mortal eyes, breathing without afflation, infinite and eternal, the soul of all beings and the mystery of all understandings, felt a dosire in his mind which became the original -productive seed; he dispersed the darkness; removed the husk in which the universe was enveloped; and, by the power of contemplation, made visible the

world, with its five elements and other principles, so that it shone in resplendent brilliancy and purity. The Hindoo legends approach, indeed, the Mosaic narrative perhaps more nearly than any other Eastern tradition; for they further narrate, that the original soul of the universe thought: "I will create worlds;" and water was called into existence; into its floods the spirit deposited a germ, which developed itself into an egg of beautiful lustre; and in this egg Brahman, or the Supreme Being, created himself; the waters bore the appellation, Spirit of God (Nara); and as they were his first place of motion (or Ayana), he is designated “moving on the waters" (or Narayana). These striking analogies remind us that, even with regard to the highest religious ideas, the historical student is justified in searching for their common national source, and that it is the philosopher's task to investigate psychologically their common mental origin. But we must not suppose that the Hebrew writings lose by such comparisons; they easily maintain their indisputable superiority: for in the Hindoo cosmogony, the great invisible God produced Brahman, and it was Brahman only who became the parent of all rational beings and of the cosmos: the Supreme Spirit and the Creator are two distinct persons. Thus the purity of the conception is destroyed; a leaning towards pantheisin is the pervading principle; the highest god created also a number of inferior deities (devas), with divine attributes and pure souls, bearing, like man, the divine image, mortal like him, and dependent on human actions; and a host of invisible genii (sadyas). And the Creator, how different is he from the God of Moses! He did not only produce the founders of the four principal Hindoo castes from his mouth, his arm, his thigh, and his foot, respectively; not only did the sun spring from his eye, the moon from his mind, the air from his ear, and fire from his mouth-so that every element was, in a grossly pantheistic manner, considered as himself, or as a part of his existence: but he divided his body,

into two parts, a male and a female half, and begat thus the divine Viradj, called "I"; who, on his part, through himself, by a rigid devotion, and by also dividing himself into two moieties, produced Manu; the latter, in the same manner, called the ten great saints (maharshis) into existence; who, under Manu's direction, created again seven other Manus, the gods, and a great number of powerful saints, the gnomes, giants, vampyres, a great variety of other creatures, the celestial phenomena, and mankind. Thus the direct sovereignty and majesty of the great Spirit is entirely lost by the vast number of intermediate agencies; the Creator and the creatures are not discriminated; a hundred and one gods assisted in framing the universe; the prayers of the Vedas teem with mythological allusions to the personified elements and planets; and many gods are subsequent to the production of the world.

Now Brahman is indeed defined as That whence all beings are produced, by which they live, and towards which they all tend; but even wise and holy men were uncertain whether this That was food, or life, or intellect, or happiness. Brahman is further, indeed, the great intelligence, the lord of creatures; but the gods are likewise he, and so are the five primary elements; he is only the first-born; he shares his divine nature with the sun, the moon, the air, and the water. It is, therefore, scarcely more than an isolated and transitory conception, if Brahman is occasionally described with the purest and sublimest attributes: none can comprehend him; his glory is so great that no image can express it; he pervades all regions; he is the immortal soul, eternally merged in profound contemplation; he is imperishable, incorporeal, and invisible, without form and quality, unaffected by worldly passions, unchangeable and omnipresent; in him the universe perpetually exists; in him this world is absorbed; he alone knows the mystery of creation, preservation, and destruction; he is the providence which governs all worlds. But these elevated notions are incessantly

mixed with the grossest superstitions and the most palpably pantheistic views: the Hindoo religion has a tendency to the highest truth, but it has not sufficient energy to follow that difficult path with undeviating attention; it stops and hesitates at every cross-way, and not unfrequently goes astray into barren deserts, or dark, entangled forests. Again, it is admitted even by philosophical inquirers into the literature of the Hindoos, that those abstract ideas do not represent the popular views, but are the speculations of some gifted sages, who strove to rise above the degrading materialism of the multitude. This remark holds true to such a degree, that Brahman never became the god of the people; that he never obtained a public worship; and that no temples were erected to his honour. He was exclusively the god of the priests and of the theologians, who from him assumed the name of Brahmans. How different is all this from the God of the Hebrews, and His relation to people and priests! But we remark further, with peculiar emphasis, that, according to a belief of the Hindoo philosophers, the whole creation was not the result of spontaneous love, but of a momentary forgetfulness of the Supreme Spirit, who once accidentally was stirred from his usual motionless rest and sleep-like contemplation: the world is the result of a mistake, which can only be corrected by its destruction; the things are but created in order to perish. This tragical and gloomy idea pervades the whole life of the Hindoos; its first consequence was the notion of the transmigration of souls; for as the latter are ultimately to be swallowed up in Brahman, who, however, receives them only when they have attained a state of moral perfection, they again and again enter a material form, until they are entirely purified; but even these renewed attempts at a higher moral state are a vain and hopeless effort; for it is taught, that with the same immutable necessity as the same seasons always produce the like kind of vegetation, the souls spontaneously follow, at each successive return on earth, the same course

which at their original creation was assigned to them, whether this be malice or kindness, virtue or vice, noble veracity or base falsehood. Thus man is the victim of the most oppressive fatalism. And just as the world has been created by accident, so it will be dissolved, when the Great Soul falls asleep and rests in profound slumber; until having gathered in again all elementary principles, it enters into a vegetable or animal seed, assumes a new form, awakes again, and after the expiration of 4320 millions of years, or one day of Brahman, reproduces the world, which is thus alternately brought forth and destroyed, according to the condition and nature of the Supreme Spirit: but after the lapse of a hundred years, consisting each of 360 days of Brahman, the universal destruction takes place, and Brahman himself will cease to exist. Whereas, therefore, in the Bible, the world, and everything that is created, is by God Himself declared to be perfect and excellent, in the laws of Manu the world is called a horrible creation, which unavoidably and incessantly works its own destruction.

We cannot, therefore, be surprised to find in the later Hindoo literature the most extravagant notions as the natural development of such cosmogonic theories; the world was believed to owe its origin to the desire of the deity "to diversify himself"; or it was thought that man and the universe were nothing but the mockery of a dream; idle shadows, which disturb the serenity of god; his ideal delusions, or Maya s, and destined to exist only so long as he is in a state of reverie. The later Buddhists regarded as the Creator Tao, or the immeasurable Space, which produced one; after which one produced two, and two three, till three brought forth all being3: this Tao is without action, and without thought; calm and self-subsistent. Such a motionless creating principle leads naturally to the inactive quietism which is the ideal of Buddhist felicity and perfection, but which is the reverse of that life of useful but unselfish activity which the

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