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.

CRETE, an island in the Mediterranean, now called Candia, Titus i, 5. Nature had endowed this island with all that renders man happy; the inhabitants, likewise, had formerly a constitution which was renowned and frequently compared with that of the Spartans; but at this time, and even long before, all, even laws and morals, had sunk very low. The character of this nation was mutable, prone to quarrelling, to civil disturbances and frays, to robberies and violences. Avaricious and base to a degree of sordid greediness, they considered nothing as ignoble which gratified this inclination. Thence arose their treachery, their false and deceitful disposition, which had passed into a common proverb. Even in the times of purer morals they were decidedly addicted to wine; and their propensity to incontinence was frequently censured and noticed by the ancients. Religion itself was one cause of the many excesses of this nation. Many deities were born among them; they also showed their tombs and catacombs, and celebrated the feasts and mysteries of all. They therefore had continually holydays, diversions, and idle times, and one of their native poets (Diodorus calls him Θεολόγος) gave them the testimony which Paul found to be so true, Titus i, 12. Jews also had established themselves among them, who according to all appearance could have improved here but very little in morality. The Apostle seems to have considered them a more dangerous people than the inhabitants themselves.

CRIMSON, כרמיל, 2 Chron. ii, 7, iii, 14, the name of a colour. Bochart supposes it to be the cochlea purpuraria, or purple from a kind of shell-fish taken near Mount Carmel. But as the name of the mount is said to mean a vineyard, one may rather suppose the colour to signify that of grapes; like the redness of the vesture of him who trod the wine-press, Isa. lxiii, 1, 2. What our version renders crimson, Isa. i, 18; Jer. iv, 30, should be scarlet.