LETTER that other theories of the origin of things, altho as

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fantastic as ignorance or folly could make them, were substituted instead. Tho some few minds at all times seem to have withstood the stream of popular extravagance, yet they could not arrest the mental deterioration on this subject.

Even in ancient Greece the creation of the world was not the opinion of the multitude, nor the public tenet of their priesthood. The cosmogony on which the ancient paganism was founded in the Grecian states, was that strange system which Hesiod has detailed in his Theogony; 13 and which Homer seems not to have discredited.14 This represents a chaos and a night without a Deity, to have been the first state of things; and deduces thence the earth, and

13 Hesiod says, that the Muses, the nine daughters of Mnemosyne, or Memory, sang, 'First the venerated race of the Gods, whom the Earth and the spacious Oupavoc or Sky brought forth from the beginning. From these were produced the Gods, the givers of good (EYEVOVTO).' Theog. 44-6. He called upon them to celebrate the sacred race of the ever-existing immortals, who were born (εžɛyεvovTO) out of the earth and the starry sky, and in the dark night, and whom the salt sea (TOVToç) nourished.' 415–7.

After further invocations for their inspiration, he details the system, which makes chaos the first of all things. From this came Erebus and black night, and from that Ether and the day. The Earth then produced the starry sky to cover itself, and then proceeds to bring forth the mountains, sea, and long train of gods and giants, which he enumerates. Hes. Theog. v. 116–153.

14 Homer makes Somnus, or Sleep, refuse to Juno to close the eyes of Jupiter. He says, 'I could easily put into slumber any other of the ever-existing gods, even the billows of the flowing ocean that has brought them all in being; but not the son of Saturn, unless he desire it.' He gives as his reason, that having once before done so, Jupiter would have thrown me into the sea, unless Night, the tamer of gods and men, had preserved me; for tho much enraged, he was afraid of exciting the displeasure of swift Night.' Iliad, 1. xiv. v. 244–262. These ideas represent the Ocean as the parent of Homer's divinities, and Night as their master, whom even Jupiter dreaded.

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from the earth, or from the anterior confusion of LETTER matter, those divinities, whom the chief part of the active-minded men of Greece, both lay and sacerdotal, the eminent in fame and rank, and the prominent in all the business and intellect of life, chose, with few exceptions, to uphold and worship. Thus they made material nature not only to precede their gods, but also to produce them, instead of being created by them. Orpheus, in the Argonautica, which, if not his composition, was meant to represent his ideas, puts his chaos, and skies, and earth and sea, before he notices any thing like an agency of a different kind, and this he calls Eros, or Desire.15 Aristophanes expresses similar ideas on the origin of things, and makes his birds' in this comedy claim, on this ground, a priority of birth, before the gods, as well as before men.16 What the popular drama

15 Orpheus placed Chaos as the first of all things, and speaks of it with two words, αμέγαρτον αναγκην, as if to imply that it existed by an uncontrollable necessity. Argon. v. 12. He afterwards took his lyre, and chanted to his companions: I sang the obscure hymn of the ancient (or beginning) Chaos, how it changed alternately the natures of things: how the Heaven or Sky (Ouranos) came to its boundary: the generation of the wide-bosomed Earth; and the depth of the Sea.' He then adds, Eros or Love, and afterwards the miserable Kronus.' Argon. v. 419–26. In the Orphic Hymn to Night, this is called the genitor of gods and men; Night the genesis of all things,' p. 188. So in another, Ocean is termed the 'genesis or producer of the immortal gods and mortal men.' Hymn 82. p. 278. Some other fragments of Orpheus express wiser ideas, as if his private and popular doctrines were not always alike.

16 First there was Chaos and Night; the black Erebus and the spacious Tartarus. There was neither earth, nor air, nor skies; but in the unbounded bosom of Erebus, black-winged Night first produced an egg below the winds, from which at the completed season the desirable Eros came forth, with golden wings like whirlwinds. He from Chaos generated a race (the birds), prior to that there was no immortals, before Eros intermingled all things, and then Ouranos (the Skies), Ocean and Earth, and the incorruptible race of the blessed Deities appeared.' Aristoph. Aves. v. 698.

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LETTER tist made his theme before an Athenian audience, at a time when he was satyrizing Socrates for deviating into religious novelties, we may assume to have corresponded with the established tenets and general sentiment. Other Grecians also derived their first gods from the material world," agreeing in the principle of postponing their deities to material existences, tho varying in some parts of the explaining theory.18 But the very fact of the ancients universally believing Zeus or Jupiter to have become the ruling and all-powerful god of their Olympus, by deposing his father Kronos or Saturn, is evidence that he could not be regarded as the Creator of the World, by the nations who worshipped him; as they represent him always as the son of an earlier God, whom Orpheus calls, apparently from his defeat and humiliation, the miserable Chronos,' and who was himself but an emergence or production of an anterior state of things.

19

17 Thus Hieronymus and Hellanicus, two historians, narrated, that 'Water was from the beginning, and matter, Yλn, from which the Earth was produced, putting water and earth, as the two principles of things. The third principle after these, and generated from them, was a dragon, having naturally the head of a bull and lion, with the countenance of a God, He has wings upon his shoulders, and is named the incorruptible Chronos and Hercules. Necessity also (avayкny) being the same as nature, is connected with him.' Damascias states this, cited in Cory's Ancient Fragments, p. 312. 2d ed.

18 Epimenides affirms, that the two first principles are Air and Night.' Damascias, p. 317. Acusilaus appears to me to regard chaos as the first principle, and altogether unknown, and after this one to place the duad Erebus as the male, and Night as the female; from these were generated Ether and Eros, and Metis (counsel). From these, according to the relation of Eudemus, he deduces the vast multitude of the other gods.' Damascias, ap. Cory. p. 316.

19 This is the general system taught by the Grecian poets, and by several of their historians and mythologists, and is alluded to in the Argonautica, when Orpheus describes himself to have chanted' of

the

21

The Phenician theology was grounded on the same notions.20 The Egyptians had much similarity," while the Babylonian opinions, as stated by Berosus, are as wild as absurdity could dream, but equally precluding the supposition that the world was an intelligent creation of an intelligent Deity." Even many of those philosophers, who must have emancipated themselves from these mythologies, yet could not rise to this great truth, but chose rather to believe the world to have been eternal, and never made at

the miserable Cronos, and how the royal government of the blessed immortals came to Dia (Jupiter), delighting in thunder.' Arg. v. 424, 5.

"Sanchoniathon makes the principle of all things a condensed air or wind, and a turbid chaos, like Erebus, from whose union Mot or Mud was produced. From this came the generation of the universe, and animals without sensation, from whom issued animals with intelligence, in the shape of an egg, called Zophasemin, or the inspectors of the heavens, the sun, moon and stars.' Euseb. to Prep. Evan. 1. 1. c. 10. p.

21 Eusebius remarks, that Chæremon and others believe that nothing existed before the visible worlds. Placing the Egyptian opinions as the head of these, who say that there were no Gods before the planets and the constellations of the zodiac.' Euseb. Prep. Evan. 1. iii. c. 4. p. Damascias mentions, that 'the Egyptian philosophers with us deliver their occult truth from certain Egyptian discourses; as, that the one principle of all things was hymned as unknown darkness, and that the two principles are water and sand.' Damas. Cory. p. 320. Brucker, who discusses the question fairly, decides, 'that there can be no doubt that they deemed matter to have been eternal, and never made or created.' Hist. Phil. v. i. p. 298. This matter, distinguished into the four elements, was the beginning of things. So Manetho and Hecatæus taught. Diog. Laert. i. s. 10.

22 There was a time in which darkness and water were all that existed. In these were monstrous animals of double natures: men with two wings, and others with four, and two faces. They had one body, but two faces; one male, the other female. Some human forms had legs and horns of goats; others were half horse and half men. Bulls with human heads, and dogs with four-fold bodies,' &c. &c. of all which there were likenesses in the Temple of Belus.' Syncell. Chron. p. 28. Euseb. Chron. p. 5. the Armenian Transl.

LETTER

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LETTER all. Aristotle is noted for entertaining this misconception,23 and the preferred opinion even of the Grecian philosophers, who admitted a Deity was to give at least a co-eternity to matter.24

Relics of the sacred communication of the creation were, however, retained, tho in a clouded state, in some parts of the world. The Tyrrhenians were an instance of this.25 The Persian Magi, likewise; tho involving what was true with much that was absurd.26 The individual who stands most prominent to us for right ideas on this great subject was that Athenian, who, as he is pourtrayed in his more natural shape by Xenophon, had wiser opinions than any of his

23 In his work de Cœlo, Aristotle maintains the eternity of the world, meaning by that the whole mundane system, and denies that there was any body beyond it, or any space, vacuity or time. L. i. c. 10. He asserts that it never was and never could be generated, and was incorruptible, and could not be dissolved. C. 11, 12. It is obvious that these opinions excluded all ideas of an intelligent creation, or of a Maker's power over it. He re-asserts both its past and future eternity. L. ii. c. 1. This opinion, which seems to have been rather adopted than invented by him, descended to Pliny, who using some of Aristotle's phrases, calls the world, eternum; neque genitum ; neque interiturum unquam.' Nat. Hist. 1. ii. c. 1.

24 The theory contended for by Plato was a coalition between an eternity and a fabrication. He admitted matter to be eternal, but in his Timæus argued that the world had an artificer, who made it to be a vast living animal ; ' a whole animal, in the highest degree perfect from perfect parts' (p. 460); 'but without legs and feet.' 'On all these accounts he rendered the universe, a blessed God.' p. 462. He says, it is necessary to call the world an animal, endued with intellect, and generated through the providence of Deity.' Plato Tim. Taylor's Transl. p. 458. This is not an intellectual creation of the world, nor a beginning of it. So his translator and disciple intimates, for he says, When the world is said by Plato to be generated, this term does not imply any temporal commencement of its existence.' Introd. p. 401.

25 Sacred Hist. vol. i. p. 30.

26 Ib. So the Chaldean Oracles, quoted by Proclus, speak of a Maker (IlonTns) framing the world. Procl. in Timeo, p. 154.