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this globe.-2. To an experimental sense, of the unsurmountable difficulty of arguing Divine Creation under that unreasonable concession. 66 The "interval, between the production of the matter "of the chaos and the formation of light, (says "the right reverend critic,) is undescribed and "unknown.' And why?-because the Chaos itself is undescribed and unknown" in the cosmogony of Moses. It is impossible, to reconcile the notion of a Chaos with that cosmogony; because, that notion originated in an ignorance of the divine creation which constitutes the fundamental principle of the latter. To attempt a reconciliation and union of the two, is therefore the same, as to attempt to reconcile the doctrines of a vacuum and a plenum, or any other two contradictory doctrines; and must be attended with the same results.

From those two causes alone, has proceeded that penury of learning and argument, which so remarkably characterises the first chapter of the Biblical Criticisms. Their learned author abstains, with a reserve totally irreconcilable with his usual sagacity, from all investigation of the true meaning of the words, tohu va-bohu; although it must be manifest to every one, that the whole question of a Mosaic Chaos rests, absolutely and exclusively, upon the interpretation of those two words. He overlooks, likewise, the essential critical fact which has been pointed out; that the sacred historian has already affirmed the creation

of the yearth, (which he explains to signify, the dry substance,) when he states the circumstances attending its creation in those words, tohu va-bohu. These, we have seen, were invisibility and bareness: circumstances which we are sure must have pertained to it, inasmuch as it was enveloped by the waters, and neither light, nor animal or vegetable structures, were yet created.

But, let us see how the case will stand, if we admit the Chaos, which the learned Prelate adopts, with so many others, from the heathen poets and philosophers; for, it is derived from no other quarter. According to this interpretation, we must read; In the beginning God created "the heaven and the earth: but the earth was "Chaos." And yet, what says the heathen original?

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Παντων μεν πρώτιστα Χαος γενετ' αυταρ έπειτα
γαι ευρύστερνος).

"The first of all things was Chaos, but afterwards "was the earth." Here, the heathen authority directly contradicts the Christian exposition, although the Christian exposition has only the heathen authority to plead in its support. The heathen, presupposed a Chaos, in order to obtain an earth; "Hesiodus non à Deo conditore sumens exordium, sed à Chao-Hesiod beginning, not

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'HESIOD. Theogon. 116.

? LACTANTIUS, lib. i, cap. 5.

"with a Creating God, but with Chaos:" Lactantius evidently considered these two principles, as essentially adverse, and incompatible. But, Moses obtained an earth by the creation of God. How inconsistent is it, then, in admitting the Mosaical statement of the creation of this earth by the wisdom and power of God, to admit at the same time, that the earth so created was a Chaos which should produce an earth? or, how is it possible to avoid perceiving, in those two adverse admissions, the confusion of two principles essentially hostile and irreconcilable?

That heathen Chaos, was apprehended and represented with great diversity. Some, with Aristotle, understood the Chaos of Hesiod to signify merely Toos1-place or void space;—thence xevoV2

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vacuity; and these derived Xaos, like xaopa, χασμα, from xavo-dehisco-to gape. Others, (like many of the mineral geologists of our own age,) assumed it to imply a confused assemblage of ele"ments"—" rudis inordinatæque materiæ confusa congeries." This notion, constituted the principle of the Phoenician and Chaldaic cosmogonies, afterwards embraced by some of the Greek philosophers; and these derived χαος from χεωfundo -to pour out. But, Josephus knew of no such article as a Chaos in the Mosaic cosmogony; for, he pointedly affirms, "that Moses does not begin "to speak of any natural operation, until after the

1 Natur. Auscult. cap. 2.

2 Ibid. 3 LACTANTIUS, lib. i. cap. 5.

"Divine cessation from creative operation on the "seventh day'."

The Hebrew Platonist, Philo, appears to have been the first who grafted the heathen Chaos upon the Mosaic record; and, from that graft, has sprung forth the Christian Chaos. Yet, Philo did not find it in the words, tohu va-bohu, where alone the Christian imagines that he has discovered it; for, he expressly interprets those two words to signify, αορατος και ακατασκευαστος —invisible and unfurnished, conformably with his ancient countrymen, the Septuagint, and Josephus; but he presupposed it, through a bias received in the Greek or Phoenician schools of philosophy. “ The Creator (he says) "made the heaven incorporeal, and the earth invi

sible, and poured the entire mass of the waters

upon the whole earth”. ὁ ποιων εποιει ουρανον ασώματον, και γην αορατον.—το σύμπαν ύδωρ εις απασαν την γην ανεκεχυτο : Thus far he followed the history. But he added, from his Phanician physiology; " that the waters, thus poured upon the "earth, penetrated into it as into a sponge,

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so as to reduce it to a deep mud”—και δια παντων αυτής επεφοίτηκει (το ύδωρ) των μερων, οία σπογγιας αναπεπωκυίας ικμάδα, ὡς είναι τελμα τε ἁμα

1

και δη και ΦΥΣΙΟΛΟΓΕΙΝ Μωϋσης μετα την έβδομην ΗΡΞΑΤΟ. Ant. Jud. lib. i. cap. 2.

2 "The Jewish Lawgiver Moses begins thus. "In the beginning God “ created the heaven and the earth, but the earth was invisible and un“ furnished” ὁ Ιουδαίων νομοθετης Μωυσης. αρχεται τον τρόπον τουτον Εν αρχή εποίησεν ὁ θεος τον ουρανον και την γην. ἡ δε γη ην αορατος και

xaι Babur ayλov'. This, was the Chaos of Philo; which notion, therefore, he did not attempt to deduce from the words of the record-tohu va-bohu, but superadded it to them from his own physical theory. Aquila and Theodotion, who came after Philo, are the first who appear to have brought this notion to the interpretation of the words tohu vabohu, which they did, by rendering those words XENON HAI QUÒEY-void and nothing. But, in so doing, they manifestly betray the quarter from whence they derived the notion; as likewise do those who followed, and who have introduced the interpretations, void, and without form. For Aristotle first interprets xaos-Chaos, to signify, TOTOS -place or space; next, xevoy vacuum or void; and he then inquires, whether that xevov-void, had dos-form?-The origin of the void and without form, is thus traced to the heathen school of Greece. No such senses were ever assigned to the Hebrew words by those ancients, who only looked for their signification within the Hebrew church and language. Symmachus approaches. near to the true interpretation, though he inverts the order of the words, when he renders the Hebrew, apyor xaι adianpitor-inactive, i. e. unproductive; and undistinguishable, i. e. imperceptible.

The heathen Chaos grafted by Philo on the Mosaic record, was therefore the first parent of

'De Mundi Opific. p. 6 and 8. See above, p. 123, note 2.

2 Natur. Auscult. cap. 8.