In addition to the instances adduced by Gainet, it will be remembered that the Jewish sabbath was from evening to evening, and with us the astronomical day commences at noon, and the commencement and termination of the civil day at mean midnight.
In the second [Chinese] dynasty the day commenced at mid-day. Wei-Wang, the founder of the third dynasty, fixed it at midnight.” (Bunsen’s “Egypt,” vol. iii. p. 390.)
In the Phœnician cosmogony “the beginning of all was a dark and stormy atmosphere,” “thick, unfathomable black chaos.” (Vide Bunsen’s “Egypt,” iv. 176.)
The New Zealanders have preserved the tradition with still greater distinctness. “In the beginning of time was Te Po (the night or darkness). In the generations that followed Te Po came Te Ao (the light);” &c., &c. (Vide Shortland’s “Traditions of the New Zealanders,” p. 55.)
Vide Gladstone, “Homer,” ii. 155; Cox, “Mythology of Aryan Nations,” i. 15, on the relation of Phoibos to Leto. “This is precisely the relation in which the mythical night stood to the day which was to be born of her.”
Vide on this point Wilkinson’s “Ancient Egyptians;” (I. chap. xiii.) “The Mygale,” says Champollion, “received divine honours by the Egyptians, because it is blind, and darkness is more ancient than light.” The Arabs have the expression “night and day;” (vide Wilkinson). Aristotle says “The theologians consider all things to have been born of night.” The Orphean fragments call “night the Genesis of all things.... The Anglo-Saxons also, like the Eastern nations, began their computations of time from night, and the years from that day corresponding with our Christmas, which they called “Mother Night,” and the Otaheitans refer the existence of their principal deities to a state of darkness, which they consider the origin of all things.” (Vide Gen. i. 2, 3; id. p. 273–4.)
[143] “Gesta Romanorum,” tale xviii. Swan. Rivingtons 1824.
[144] On this point, that Prometheus is Adam, vide M. Nicolas’ “Etudes Philos. sur le Christ.,” 1. ii. ch. v. 30 (19th edit.)
[145] In like manner, the Peruvians recognised “Pachacamac;” (vide infra, [p. 304]), in the description which the Spaniards gave of the true God; and in so far as they had retained the monotheistic belief, this was true. Garcilasso de la Vega, a most competent witness who testifies to this, adds—“If any one shall now ask me, who am a Catholic Christian Indian, by the infinite mercy, what name was given to God in my language, I should say Pachacamac.”—Hakluyt Society, ed. of Garcil. de la Vega, i. 107.
[146] “This is not a mere arbitrary supposition, for it is expressly said in Holy Writ, that the first man, ordained to be ‘the father of the whole earth’ (as he is then called), became, on his reconciliation with his Maker, the wisest of all men, and, according to tradition, the greatest of prophets, who in his far-reaching ken, foresaw the destinies of all mankind in all successive ages down to the end of the world. All this must be taken in a strict historical sense, for the moral interpretation we abandon to others. The pre-eminence of the Sethites chosen by God, and entirely devoted to His service, must be received as an undoubted historical fact, to which we find many pointed allusions even in the traditions of the other Asiatic nations. Nay, the hostility between the Sethites and Cainites, and the mutual relations of these two races, form the chief clue to the history of the primitive world, and even of many particular nations of antiquity.”—Fred. Von Schlegel’s “Philosophy of Hist.,” Robertson’s trans., p. 152.