[Footnote 165: Modern Atheism, p. 10.]
[Footnote 166: I. Kings, xiv., and II. Kings, xxiii.]
LECTURE VIII.
INDIRECT TRIBUTES OF HEATHEN SYSTEMS TO THE DOCTRINES OF THE BIBLE
I am to speak of certain indirect tributes borne by the non-Christian religions to the doctrines of Christianity. One such tribute of great value we have already considered in the prevalence of early monotheism, so far corroborating the scriptural account of man's first estate, and affording many proofs which corroborate the scriptural doctrine of human apostasy. Others of the same general bearing will now be considered. The history of man's origin, the strange traditions of his fall by transgression and his banishment from Eden, of the conflict of good with evil represented by a serpent, of the Deluge and the dispersion of the human race, have all been the subjects of ridicule by anti-Christian writers:—though by turns they have recognized these same facts and have used them as proofs that Christianity had borrowed them from old myths. The idea of sacrifice, or atonement, of Divine incarnation, of a trinity, of mediation, of a salvation by faith instead of one's own merits, have been represented as unphilosophical, and therefore improbable in the nature of the case.
It becomes an important question, therefore, whether other religions of mankind show similar traditions, however widely they have dwelt apart, and however diversified their languages, literatures, and institutions may have been in other respects. And it is also an important question, whether even under heathen systems, the consciousness of sin and the deepest moral yearnings of men have found expression along the very lines which are represented by the Christian doctrines of grace. To these questions we now address ourselves. What are the lessons of the various ethnic traditions? And how are we to account for their striking similarities? The most obvious theory is, that a common origin must be assigned to them, that they are dim reminiscences of a real knowledge once clear and distinct. The fact that with their essential unity they differ from each other and differ from our Scriptural record, seems to rather strengthen the theory that all—our own included—have been handed down from the pre-Mosaic times—ours being divinely edited by an inspired and infallible author. Their differences are such as might have been expected from separate transmissions, independently made.
We have, first of all, the various traditions of the Creation. In most heathen races there have appeared, in their later stages, grave and grotesque cosmogonies; and a too common impression is, that these represent the real teachings of their sacred books or their earliest traditions. But when one enters upon a careful study of the non-Christian religions, and traces them back to their sources, he finds more rational accounts of the Creation and the order of nature, and sees striking points of resemblance to the Mosaic record. The story of Genesis represents the "Beginning" as formless, chaotic, and dark. The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. The heavens and the earth were separated. Light appeared long before the sun and moon were visible, and the day and night were clearly defined. Creation proceeded in a certain order from vegetable to animal life, and from lower animals to higher, and last of all man appeared. In heathen systems we find fragments of this traditional account, and, as a rule, they are more or less clear in proportion to their nearness to, or departure from, the great cradle of the human race.[167] Thus Professor Rawlinson quotes from an Assyrian account of the creation, as found upon the clay tablets discovered in the palace of Assur-bani-pal, a description of formlessness, emptiness, and darkness on the deep—of a separation between the earth and sky—and of the light as preceding the appearance of the sun. That account also places the creation of animals before that of man, whom it represents as being formed of the dust of the earth, and as receiving a divine effluence from the Creator.[168] According to an Etruscan saga quoted by Suidas, God created the world in six periods of 1,000 years each. In the first, the heavens and the earth; in the second, the firmament; in the third, the seas; in the fourth, the sun, moon, and stars; in the fifth, the beasts of the land, the air, and the sea; in the sixth, man. According to a passage in the Persian Avesta, the supreme Ormazd created the visible world by his word in six periods or thousands of years: in the first, the heavens with the stars; in the second, the water and the clouds; in the third, the earth and the mountains; in the fourth, the trees and the plants; in the fifth, the beasts which sprang from the primeval beast; in the sixth, man.[169]
As we get farther away from the supposed early home of the race, the traditions become more fragmentary and indistinct. The Rig Veda, Mandala, x., 129, tells us that:
"In the beginning there was neither naught nor aught; There was neither day nor night nor light nor darkness; Only the EXISTENT ONE breathed calmly. Next came darkness, gloom on gloom. Next all was water—chaos indiscrete."[170]
Strikingly similar is the language quoted in a former lecture from the prayer of a Chinese emperor of the Ming Dynasty. It runs thus: "Of old, in the beginning, there was the great chaos without form and dark. The five elements had not begun to revolve, nor the sun and moon to shine. In the midst thereof there presented itself neither form nor sound. Thou, O Spiritual Sovereign, didst divide the grosser parts from the purer. Thou madest heaven: Thou madest earth: Thou madest man."