VIII. In a few pages we have run through a period of fourteen centuries. It has been a gallop through, and nothing more, just to get a general view of the whole. We shall now take different groups from this great field under closer inspection; and then a great deal that has seemed obscure in this sketch will become clearer and will spring into life before us. Just in the same way we have a general but rather hazy recollection of the character of a country through which we have passed in an express train; but only those scenes live in our memory, and make a strong individual impression upon us, in which we have lingered long enough to observe all their details. The long history, of which we have taken a hurried survey, leaves a mournful impression at its close. It is true that we have watched Israel issuing from the night of superstition and immorality, and have seen how the light arose to some extent upon the people; but we have to close by dwelling upon the fact that this light was in a great measure quenched again, and that the efforts of the noblest of Israel's, sons could not prevent the Law from stifling to a great extent the freedom of the spirit. A sad result in truth! But about half a century before the fall of Jerusalem, in the former territory of the ten tribes, there rose a man in whom the spirit of the greatest prophets and the devoutest psalmists lived again, in whom all that had been true and beautiful in the religion of Israel was restored and purified. Jesus of Nazareth wakened a new life. But although he sprang from Israel, his creation in the spiritual world belongs no more to the history of the Israelite religion, but forms the material of a new one. Although in Israel, then, the light goes down, in Jesus of Nazareth it rises with fresh glory. Book I. THE GENERATIONS BEFORE MOSES. S CHAPTER I. THE FIRST ACCOUNT OF THE CREATION. GEN. I. 1-II. 3. OMETIMES it happens that a child, not more than a few years old, perhaps, gazing out of the window at the trees and flowers or over the snow-covered fields, or looking up at the kindly moon and the twinkling stars, asks all at once: Why, mother, wherever does the world come from? The child's question is often asked by grown-up people too. We know that everything we see around us comes into existence in the natural course of things - that animals are born, and plants grow up from seeds; and children at school are taught much more about the laws of life and nature now-a-days than formerly; but this is not enough to satisfy us. We want to understand how things began as well as how they go on; and the questions: Where did the first egg from which a bird was hatched come from? Where did the first grain of seed that grew into a fruit-bearing plant come from? Where did the sun, that inexhaustible fountain of warmth, come from? What was the beginning of everything that exists? such questions as these are always rising in the minds of men who take any interest in what they see, or reflect at all about it. Now, the learned men who study geology and astronomy are seeking the answers to these questions to the best of their power; and, thanks to their industry, they are getting on from step to step. That is to say, though the questions which have the greatest interest for us how was the matter formed out of which everything is made? and, how did the principle of life in plant, animal, or man itself, come into existence? still remain unanswered; yet the condition of the earth many centuries before human beings lived on it is revealed; the great changes which its surface and the various races of its inhabitants have undergone in the course of time are brought more and more to light; the laws of nature, by which our solar system is held together and kept in motion, are explained; and the size, the weight, and the distance from each other of many of the heavenly bodies are calculated. But the further a man advances in the knowledge of nature the more frankly does he admit that he knows comparatively little, and that there is much that he would gladly understand such as the origin of things, for example-to which he cannot penetrate. Science is modest. There is, however, another faculty which may be used to answer difficult questions, such as how the world was formed and came into existence, and that is the imagination which rests a great mass of supposed knowledge upon quite insufficient grounds of observation. The less knowledge a man has the more freely does he give the rein to his imagination; and, since very little was known in ancient times of the laws of nature and of the construction of the universe, it is not surprising that representations, not only of the history, but of the origin of the world, were produced by the imaginative powers The Greek name 66 of many different nations. cosmogony" is often given to these representations. The Israelites, amongst others, did what has just been described; and the Bible begins with a cosmogony. I will tell you the story, a little expanded to make it clearer, and illustrated by other passages from the writings of the Israelites. 1 First of all, God made the heaven and the earth; that is, everything that exists. But the world was as yet in utter confusion, a shapeless mass; earth and water were indistinguishable; and though the earth stood fast on its foundations, the water covered everything so that nothing like trees or animals could exist. Nay, darkness covered all things, and as yet there was no light of heaven. But a power was there to create order out of this confusion or chaos. The breath of God hovered over it. This state of things was not allowed to last, for God said, 1 Psalm civ. 5, 6. Let there be light! and lo! the light was there, and he pronounced it good. Then God gave the light the name of day, while he called the darkness night. So the first day went by. When it was evening again and the second day had begun, God called a spacious dome into existence to divide into two parts the huge mass of water which made up the greater portion of the chaos. So he made the vault that, firm as a metal mirror,1 rears itself high above the earth, and is supported by the mountains.2 Above this vault, which he called heaven, God collected the greater part of the waters which covered the earth; and then he enthroned himself above them, and made them the storehouse of the rain." So the second day went by. 4 The work of the second day was continued on the third. Like thunder, God's voice re-echoed over the waters, which still covered everything; and, lo! they were gathered together into the ocean, which washes the main land, and all the other seas and watercourses, while the mountains rose up and a part of the earth was made dry. At once all kinds of plants came out upon its surface, by the divine command; the grass covered the ground like a green carpet, the herbs sprang up with their means of propagation, the fruit-trees with seed-bearing fruit. God saw that it was good. When the fourth day had broken, glorious new works were made by God. There was light beneath the firmament already, but the heavenly bodies which regulate its coming and going did not exist as yet. God made them. He fixed the sun upon the firmament, and commanded him to give light to the earth by day; he appointed the moon as empress of the night, and then he spangled the vault of heaven with stars. The heavenly bodies were to serve as a distinction between night and day, as well as "for signs," that is, to announce God's judgments by their shining or eclipse, by their unexpected appearance, and by their relations to each other, and for fixing the feast times," and marking out the months and years. And when the heavens were beautified with these lights, then God pronounced it good. 6 On the fifth day the waters were peopled with fishes, and the space above the earth with birds. Wondrous sea mon 1 Job xxxvii. 18. 8 Psalm xxix. 3, 10; civ. 3, 13; 6 Jeremiah x. 2. Joel ii. 30, 31. 2 2 Sam. xxii. 8. Job xxvi. 11. cxlviii. 4. 5 Proverbs viii. 27. 7 Psalm civ. 19. sters, serpents, and crocodiles were formed by God, and the waters teemed with fishes and other animals, while the winged creatures hovered in the air and soared up to the canopy above. Divided into many races, they added life to the scene of creation, and God blessed them and made them fruitful, so that they should multiply and fill the earth. But however good the creations of the fifth day seemed in the eyes of God, the sixth was to crown his work; for on this day he commanded the earth to bring forth the four-footed beasts, both those which were to be man's domestic animals and the creeping things, and those that live in jungles and deserts, and beasts of prey, and wild game. Many kinds of all these appeared at once. Now the earth was ready to receive her master. Let us make man after our image! said God, speaking in the plural, as kings do; let them be rulers over all that has been made the fishes, the birds, the fourfooted and creeping animals. At his command it was so. He made mankind - men and women after his image, and gave them the blessing of fruitfulness, as well as dominion over all the animals. In distinction from the beasts, which had to feed on grass, he gave them grains and herbs and fruits for food. Then God looked upon all his work, and pronounced it good. And so the sixth day ended. The work of creation was finished. Heaven and earth, with all their inhabitants, were made, and God could cease from his creative work. On the seventh day, therefore, God created nothing more, but rested; and to commemorate this fact he blessed the seventh day of every week and declared it a holy day, consecrated to rest. There you have one of the Israelite representations of the creation of the world. We shall soon see that it was not the only one; but since the Bible opens with it, it has attracted more attention than the rest, and is even thought sometimes, by those who are imperfectly acquainted with the Bible, to be the only one. We have many grounds for valuing this legend highly; but we cannot regard it as a faithful description of the formation of the world. It is a great question whether the Israelites themselves accepted it as such. At any rate, this opinion was not held by the compiler of the book of Genesis, who placed, as we shall see in the following chapter, a second cosmogony, of quite different purport, immediately |