2 fragments of their writings transmitted to us. The Egyptians, Diodorus Siculus informs us, affirmed, that in the beginning the Heavens and the Earth were in one lump, mixed and blended together in the same mass. This assertion may at first sight seem to differ from Moses, who makes the Heavens and the Earth distinct at their first creation; but it is obvious to observe, that the Egyptians did not take the word Heaven in the large and extended sense, but only signified by it the air and planetary regions belonging to our world; for the first Greeks, who had their learning from Egypt, agree very fully with Moses in this point. "In the beginning," says Orpheus", "the Heavens were made by GoD, and in the Heavens there was a chaos, and a terrible darkness was on all the parts of this chaos, and covered all things under the Heaven." This is very agreeable to that of Moses : In the beginning GOD created the Heavens and the Earth, and the Earth was without form, and void, i. e. was a chaos, and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Orpheus ? Diodor. Sic. lib. i, p. 4. Suid. voc. 'Opp: Cedren. ex Timol. p. 57; Procl. in Tim. 6. 5. p. 117. did not conceive that the Heavens and the Earth had ever been in one mass: for as Syrian" observes, the Heavens and the chaos were, according to Orpheus, the principia, out of which the rest were pro duced. The ancient heathen writers do not generally begin their accounts so high as the creation of the Heavens and the chaos; they commonly go no farther back than to the formation of the chaos into a world. Moses describes this in the following manner: The Earth was without form, and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the Spirit of Gop moved upon the face of the waters. Anaxagoras, as Laertius informs us, began his book, "All things were at first in one mass, but an intelligent agent came and put them in order ; or as Aristotled gives us his opinion, " all things," says he, "lay in one mass, for a Arist. Metaph. p. 7. • Παντα χρήματα ην ομε ειτα Νες ελθών αυτα διεκόσμησε. Lib. ii, seg. 6. * Φησι γαρ ̓Αναξαγόρας, ομε παντων οντων και ηρεμέντων τον απειρον χρονον, κινησιν εμποιήσαι τον Νεν και διακρίναι. Arist. Phys. Ausc. lib. viii, c. 1. d2 1 vast space of time, but an intelligent agent came and put them in motion, and so separated them from one another.". We have Sanchoniathon's account of things in Eusebius, and if we throw aside the mythology and false philosophy which those who lived after him added to his writings, we may pick up a few very ancient and remarkable truths, namely, that there was a dark and confused chaos, and a blast of wind or air to put it in a ferment or agitation. This wind he calls aveμos Koia, not the wind Colpia, as Eusebius seems to take it, but aveμos Col-pi-Jah, i. e. the wind or breath of the voice of the mouth of the LORD; and if this was his meaning, he very emphatically expresses God's making all things with a word, and intimates also what the Chaldee paraphrast insinuates from the words of Moses, that the chaos was put into its first agitation by a mighty and strong wind. Some general hints of these things are to be found in many remains of the ancient Greek writers. Thales's opinion was, that the first principle of all things was udwg, or waterf. And Tully affirms this to have been his opinion; but it should be remarked, from Plutarch's observation, that Thales's dwg was not pure elementary water. The successors of Thales came by degrees to think that water, by being condensed, might be made earth, and by being rarefied would evaporate into air; and some writers have hence imagined, that Thales thought water to be the initium rerum, i. e. the first principle out of which all other things were made: but this was not the doctrine of Thales. The ancient philosophers are said to have called water, chaos, from χέω, the Greek word which signifies diffusion; so that the word chaos was used ambiguously, sometimes as a proper name, and sometimes for water; and it is conceived, that this might occasion the opinion of Thales to be mistaken, and himself to be represented as asserting the beginning of things to be from chaos, water, when he meant from a chaos. But take him in the other sense, asserting things to have arisen from water; it is easy to suppose that he f. Αρχην των παντων υδωρ υπερησατο. Laert. lib. i, seg. 27. * Lib. de Natura Deorum i, sec. 10. Thales Milesius aquam dixit esse initium rerum. מוד poses means, by water, a fluid substance, for this was the ancient doctrine. Thus San. choniathon argues, from the chaos he supor muddy matter to arise; and thus Orpheus, out of the fluid chaos, arose a muddy substance; and Apollonius', out of the muddy substance the Earth was formed, i. e. says the scholiast, the chaos, of which all things were made, was a fluid substance, which, by settling, became mud, and that in time dried and condensed into solid earth. It is remarkable that Moses calls the chaos, water, in this sense; the Spirit of God, he says, moved upon the face of the maim, waters, or fluid matter. The fragments to be collected from the Greek writers are but few and short; the Egyptian are something larger. According to Diodorusk, they assert, 1. as I have before hinted, that the Heavens and Earth were at first in one confused and mixed heap. 2. That upon a separation, the lightest and most fiery parts flew upwards', and became * Εκ τ8 ύδατος ιλύς κατέση. k Lib. i. This was the opinion of Empedocles. 'Euredoxλns πύρινα τα αδρα εκ το πυρώδες, οπερ ο αιθήρ εν εαυτω περιέχων εξέθλιψε κατα την πρωτην διακρισιν. Plutarch. Placit. Phil. ii, 13. |