Ancient Cosmogonies.
The Mosaic method found in the first chapter of the book of Genesis is not the method of physical science; this seeks, by induction, after laws, principles and causes, stepping backwards step by step, seeking, by the light of physical science, the character of that unit which lies at the base of the whole series of all created things. “The world by wisdom knew not God.” The truth of this statement is monumented by the literature of the unbelievers of the nineteenth century. To-day, men who refuse Bible instruction talk of the unknown and the unknowable, thus conceding that their efforts as naturalists, or “natural men,” are not sufficient in their results to disclose the character of the great first cause. The same great failure has been, and ever will be, made by all mere naturalists. In view of this fact it is well that Moses gives us at once the great first cause in the phrase, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” There is in this sentence no limitation of time, so there is room here for astronomical ages, cycle upon cycle. There was time enough in that beginning for the present system of planets to be arranged from a single nebulous mass. In it we have a picture of matter in a crude condition, without fixedness of form, surrounded with darkness. Then comes the commencement of the great work of preparing our planet for the home of man, by the spirit of God moving over the chaos. There is nothing in this statement that should perplex any man, unless he is that fool who “says in his heart there is no God.” If the chaos here described was matter in a rare, gaseous condition, floating in space, molecular motion produced by the spirit of God [pg 059] brooding over it, and a chemical change producing electricity may have given the light called the first day.
Here is that troublesome word day. Why should it give trouble to any scientist? It is a part of his duty to know that neither this word nor the context in the first chapter of Genesis, nor biblical usage, requires us to limit the term to a period of twenty-four hours. But the context does limit it, in its first occurrence, to an indefinite period of light. “God called the light day!” In the fourth verse of the second chapter the word is used to cover the whole period of time past, both the beginning and the subsequent six work-days of the Almighty, thus: “These are the generations of the heavens and the earth when they were created, in the day when the Lord God made the earth and the heavens.” This is no modern invention, gotten up to serve a purpose; for Augustine so understood this matter in the fourth century. He called them “ineffable days,” describing them as alternate pauses in the work of God. Such was the interpretation given by the first Christians. Why should we try to measure this term day, in its first occurrences, by a chronometer which did not come into use until the fourth day? The notion that these days were twenty-four hours, sprang up in the middle ages, and is the child of the literalism and realism of those times. Moses gives seven great constructive periods of light, which beautifully harmonize with the seven great geological ages lying this side of his beginning. How he came to do this has perplexed the incredulous scholar and historian beyond measure; it is, indeed, a remarkable fact in literature, but it gives strength to the faith of the intelligent Christian. God was with Moses; his cosmogony bears evidence of inspiration. Compare his narrative with the cosmogonies of the ancient nations. There is but little similitude; if there was much it would not prove identity. It would be strange if the ancient nations should have no truth in their cosmogonies. And if they had, would it not be more strange for Moses to leave it out on that account? It would be well to remind you just here that the Almighty, and doubtless his man Moses also, knew that men possessed [pg 060] at least common sense. In the New Testament we have the word tartarus in its verb form. Where did it come from? The Apostle Peter, guided by the divine spirit, found it in Grecian mythology. Is it to be thrown out on that account? Nay, verily. A man of God, that is, a prophet, in any of the ancient ages as far back as Moses, is not to be regarded as under obligations to shun a truth because it was already in use among men. The man who would claim such a silly thing ought to be discarded from scientific and literary circles as a blockhead. The cosmogony of the Babylonians represents the beginning of things in darkness and water; in which great non-descript animals, hideous monsters, half-beasts and half-men, made their appearance; then a woman, who personates the creative spirit or principle, was split into two parts, and the heaven and the earth produced by the division. Next Belus, the supreme divinity, cut off his own head, and his blood, trickling down and mingling with the dust of the earth, produced human creatures having intelligence and spiritual life. The Phœnician cosmogony presents, first, an ether or a mist diffused in space. Next, a wind arose, and from this motion proceeded a Spiritual God, from whom proceeded an egg, which, being divided, produced the heavens and the earth. Next, the noise of thunder awakened beings into spiritual life. The Egyptian cosmogony presents a principal divinity, whose name was Ptah, the world-creating power, who shaped the cosmic egg, which again appears here, as in the Phœnician. Next, there followed from Ptah a long succession of gods, with many offices and powers—solar, telluric and spiritual—from whom, after a time, proceeded demigods, and then from these proceeded heroes, until the link of our humanity was reached. According to Grote, Grecian mythology opens with the gods prior, as well as superior, to man; it then descends gradually to heroes and then to the human race. Along with their gods are presented many monsters, ultra-human and extra-human, who can't consistently be styled gods, but who partake with gods and man in the attributes of free-will, conscious agency and susceptibility of pleasure and pain—such as the Harpies, the [pg 061] Gorgons, the Sirens, the Sphinx, the Cyclops, the Centaurs, etc. After a great struggle, or contest, among these wonderful creatures, there arises a stable government of Zeus, the chief among the gods. Then appears chaos, then the broad, firm, flat earth, with deep and dark tartarus below, and from these proceed different divinities and creatures, some grand and terrible, some simply monsters; their relations to each other violate all notions of decency and morality; their wars and slaughters, their gross and abominable crimes issue in successive creative products upon earth, which terminate at last in the appearance of man.
Next we will give you the cosmogony of the Vedas, as it is presented in what is known as the mystic hymn of the Vedas. It is Pantheistic to the core. “It is one of the earliest relics of Hindu thought and devotion:”
“Nor Aught nor Naught existed; yon bright sky
Was not, nor heaven's broad woof outstretched above.
What covered all? What sheltered? What concealed?
Was it the water's fathomless abyss?
There was not death—yet was there naught immortal;
There was no confine betwixt day and night;
The only One breathed breathless by itself;
Other than It nothing since has been.
Darkness there was, and all at first was veiled
In gloom profound—an ocean without light.
The germ that still lay covered in the husk
Burst forth, one nature, from the fervent heat.
Then first came love upon it, the new spring
Of mind—yea, poets in their hearts discerned,
Pondering, this bond between created things
And uncreated. Comes this spark from earth
Piercing and all-pervading, or from heaven?
Then seeds were sown, and mighty powers arose—
Nature below, and power and will above.
Who knows the secret? Who proclaimed it here?
Whence, whence this manifold creation sprang?
The gods themselves came later into being?
Who knows from whence this great creation sprang?
He from whom all this creation came,
Whether his will created or was mute,
The Most High Seer that is in highest heaven,
He knows it—or perchance even He knows it not.”
—The Rig-Veda, book 10, hymn 129. Translated from Max Mullers' “Chips from a German Workshop.”
This is Pantheistic throughout, and although it presents no absurd combinations of matter and spirit, yet it puts the material creation before the creation of the spiritual, and scarcely allows consciousness to “the One,” “the It,” from which, somehow, the creation proceeded. The Book of Menu, which is of equal value with the Veda among the Hindoos, gives the following account of the creation:
“Menu sat reclined, with his attention fixed on one object, the supreme God, when the divine sages approached him, and, after mutual salutations in due form, delivered the following address: Deign, sovereign ruler, to apprise us of the sacred laws in their order, as they must be followed by all the four classes, and by each of them, in their several degrees, together with the duties of every mixed class; for thou, Lord, and thou only among mortals, knowest the true sense, the first principle, and the prescribed ceremonies of this universal, supernatural Veda, unlimited in extent and unequalled in authority.
“He whose powers were measureless, being thus requested by the great sages, whose thoughts were profound, saluted them all with reverence and gave them a comprehensive answer, saying: Be it heard! 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; then the sole, self-existing power, himself undiscovered, 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 not 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 and placed in them a productive seed; that seed became an egg bright as gold, blazing like the luminary with a thousand beams; and in that egg he was born [pg 063] himself in the form of Brahma the great forefather of all spirits. The waters were called nara, because they were the production of Nara, or the spirit of God; and, since they were his first ayana, or place of motion, he thence is named Nayrayana, or moving on the waters. From that which is, the first cause, not the object of sense, existing everywhere in substance, not existing to our perception, without beginning or end, was produced the divine male, famed in all worlds under the appellation of Brahma. In that egg the great power sat inactive a whole year of the Creator, at the close of which, by his thought alone, he caused the egg to divide itself; and from its two divisions 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.
“From the supreme soul he drew forth mind, existing substantially, though unperceived by sense, immaterial; and before mind, or the reasoning power, he produced consciousness, the internal monitor, the ruler; and before them both he produced the great principle of the soul, or first expansion of the divine idea; and all vital forms endued with the three qualities of goodness, passion and darkness; and the five perceptions of sense, and the five organs of sensation. Thus, having at once pervaded, with emanations from the Supreme Spirit, the minutest portions of six principles immensely operative, consciousness and the five perceptions, he framed all creatures; and since the minutest particles of visible nature have a dependence on those six emanations from God, the wise have accordingly given the name of S'arira, or depending on six, that is, the ten organs on consciousness, and the five elements on as many perceptions, to his image or appearance in visible nature; thence proceed the great elements, endued with peculiar powers, the mind with operations infinitely subtile, the unperishable cause of all apparent forms.
“This universe, therefore, is compacted from the minute portions of these seven divine and active principles, the great soul, or first emanation, consciousness, and five perceptions; a mutable universe from immutable ideas. Among them each succeeding [pg 064] element acquires the quality of the preceding; and in as many degrees as each of them is advanced, with so many properties is it said to be endued. He, too, first assigned to all creatures distinct names, distinct acts, and distinct occupations, as they had been revealed in the pre-existing Veda. He, the supreme ruler, created an assemblage of inferior Deities, with divine attributes and pure souls, and a number of Genii exquisitely delicate; and he prescribed the sacrifice from the beginning. From fire, from air, and from the sun he milked out, as it were, three primordial Vedas, named Rich, Yajush and Saman, for the due performance of the sacrifice.
“He gave being to time and the divisions of time, to the stars also, and to the planets, to rivers, oceans and mountains, to level plains and uneven valleys, to devotion, speech, complacency, desire and wrath, and to the creation, which shall presently be mentioned; for he willed the existence of all those created things. For the sake of distinguishing actions, he made a total difference between right and wrong, and enured these sentient creatures to pleasure and pain, cold and heat, and other opposite pairs. With very minute transformable portions called matras, of the five elements, all this perceptible world was composed in fit order; and in whatever occupation the Supreme Lord first employed any vital soul, to that occupation the same soul attaches itself spontaneously when it receives a new body again and again. Whatever quality, noxious or innocent, harsh or mild, unjust or just, false or true, he conferred on any being at its creation, the same quality enters it, of course, on its future births; as the six seasons of the year attain respectively their peculiar marks in due time and of their own accord, even so the several acts of each embodied spirit attend it naturally.
“That the human race might be multiplied, he caused the Brahmen, the Cshatriya, the Vaisya and the Sudra to proceed from his mouth, his arm, his thigh and his foot.
“Having divided his own substance, the mighty power became half male, half female, or nature active and passive, and from that female he produced Viraz. Know me, O most excellent [pg 065] of Brahmens, to be that person whom the male power, Viraz, having performed austere devotion, produced by myself; me, the secondary framer of all this visible world. It was I who, desirous of giving birth to a race of men, performed very difficult religious duties, and first produced ten Lords of created beings, animated in holiness, Marichi, Atri, Angiras, Pulastya, Pulaha, Cratu, Prachetas, or Dacsha, Vasishtha, Bhrigu and Narada; they, abundant in glory, produced seven other Menu, together with deities and the mansions of deities, and Maharshis, or great sages, unlimited in power; benevolent genii, and fierce giants, blood-thirsty savages, heavenly quiristers, nymphs and demons, huge serpents and snakes of smaller size, birds of mighty wing, and separate companies of Pitirs, or progenitors of mankind; lightnings and thunder-bolts, clouds and colored bows of Indra, falling meteors, earth-rending vapors, comets and luminaries of various degrees; horse-faced sylvans, apes, fish, and a variety of birds, tame cattle, deer, men, and ravenous beasts with two rows of teeth; small and large reptiles, moths, lice, fleas, and common flies, with every biting knat and immovable substances of distinct sorts.”
Reader, I have given you this chapter of ancient cosmogonies under the conviction that a bare statement of them must convince any one of either the ignorance or dishonesty of infidels who claim that Moses learned all that he gave in his cosmogony from the ancient cosmogonies. How was it that Moses avoided all their errors and extravagance? How was it that he gave such a severely simple description of creation, which no rhetoric can improve, and no scientist successfully refute?
Can you believe that energy, or force, lies behind all things, operating them, without believing there is something lying behind it, to which it belongs?
Can you believe that a concourse of dead atoms held a solemn convention, went into harmonious action and produced life?