Commenting on the above, Bunsen is constrained to admit that
it is usually understood as being "decidedly pantheistic." He
suggests, however, that the writer may HAVE INTENDED TO
SAY (the italics are mine) that "the spirit who was
heretofore the Creator was the unconscious spirit."
Berosus, the scholar of Babylon, who, until a comparatively
recent time has furnished all the information extant concerning
Babylonian antiquities, in his account of the creation of man and
of the universe, says that in the beginning all was water and
darkness; that in the water were the beginnings of life; but as
yet there was no order. Men were there with the wings of birds
and even with the feet of beasts. There were also quadrupeds and
men with fishes' tails, all of which had been produced by a
twofold principle. Over this incongruous mass a woman presided.
This woman is called Omoroka by the Babylonians and by the
Chaldeans Thalatth. The latter name, signifies, "bearing" or "egg
producing."
In the Babylonian Kosmogony, according to Endemus, the pupil
of Aristotle, the beginning of the universe was called Tauthe,
which being interpreted means "Mother of the Gods." Associated
with her sometimes appears the male principle--Apason. In the
history of Berosus, there is given an account of Oaunes--a
mythical teacher of Babylon, who appeared with the head of a
human being and the body of a fish or serpent. This personage
brought to the Babylonians all the knowledge which they
possessed. Oaunes wrote "concerning the generation of mankind, of
their different ways of life, and of their civil polity." He it
was who gave the above account of creation. He says that finally
Omoroka, or Thalatth, the woman who existed before the creation,
was divided, one half of her forming the heavens, "the other half
the earth." "All this," Berosus declares, "was an allegorical
description of Nature."[93]
[93] Prof. Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis, pp. 34, 35.
In the following legend will be observed the groundwork for
the story of the flood. Xisuthrus was a king of Chaldea. To him
the deity, Kronos, appeared in a vision and warned him that upon
the fifteenth day of the month Daesius there would be a flood, by
which mankind would be destroyed. He therefore enjoined him to
write a history of the beginning, progress, and conclusion of all
things down to the present time, and to bury it in Sippara, the
City of the Sun. He was commanded also to build a vessel, and
take with him into it his friends and relations, and to convey on
board everything necessary to sustain life, together with all the
different animals, both birds and quadrupeds, and trust himself
fearlessly to the deep. Having asked the deity whither he was to
sail, he was answered: "To the gods"; upon which he offered up a
prayer for the good of mankind. He then obeyed the divine
admonition, and built a vessel five stadia in length and two in
breadth. Into this he put everything which he had prepared, and
last of all conveyed into it his wife, his children, and his
friends.
"After the flood had been upon the earth, and was in time
abated, Xisuthrus sent out birds from the vessel, which not
finding any food, nor any place whereupon they might rest their
feet, returned to him again. After an interval of some days, he
sent them forth a second time; and they now returned with their
feet tinged with mud. He made a trial a third time with these
birds; but they returned to him no more: from which he judged
that the surface of the earth had appeared above the waters. He
therefore made an opening in the vessel, end upon looking out
found that it was stranded upon the side of some mountain, upon
which he immediately quitted it with his wife, his daughter, and
the pilot. Xisuthrus then paid his adoration to the earth: and,
having constructed an altar, offered sacrifices to the gods, and,
with those who had come out of the vessel with him, disappeared.
Him they saw no more, but they could distinguish his voice in the
air, and could hear him admonish them to pay due regard to the
gods. He informed them that it was on account of his piety that
he had been taken away to live with the gods, and that his wife
and daughter had obtained the same honor."
It is more than likely that this story, which as we have seen
has extended to the remotest corners of the earth, has an
esoteric meaning, and that it embodies the doctrines of the
ancients relative to re- incarnation and the renewal of worlds.
Doubtless it portrays not only the end of a cycle, but that by it
is prefigured the fortunes of a human soul, which in its ascent,
is from time to time forced into a human body.
All the early Kosmogonies are intermingled with the history of
a great flood, from the ravages of which an ark which contained a
man was saved. The Gothic story of creation indicates that the
Scythians belonged to the same race as the Chaldeans. At the
beginning of time when nothing had been formed, and before the
earth, the sea, or the heavens appeared, Muspelsheim existed. A
breath of heat passing over the vapors, melted them into water,
and from this water was formed a cow named Aedumla, who was the
progenitor of Odin, Vile, and Ve, the Trinity of the Gothic
nation.
There is also another tradition, probably a later, which
asserts that from the drops of water produced by the primeval
breath of heat, a man, Ymer, was brought forth. The son of Ymer
was preserved in a storm-tossed bark, his father being dragged
into the middle of the abyss, where, from his body the earth was
produced. The sea was made of his blood, the mountains of his
bones, and the rocks of his teeth. As three of his descendants
were walking on the shore one day, they found two pieces of wood
which had been washed up by the waves. Of these they made a man
and a woman. The man they named Aske and the woman Emla. From
this pair has descended the human race.
The marked resemblance between the characters of the Gothic
Ymer and the Chaldean Omoroka, from each of whose bodies the
universe is created, has been observed by various writers. After
referring to Mallet's conclusions upon this subject, Faber
remarks:
"They are indeed evidently the same person, not only
in point of character, but, if I mistake not, in appellation: for
Ymer or Umer is Omer-Oca expressed in a more simple form. The
difference of sex does by no means invalidate this opinion, which
rests upon the perfect identity of their characters: for the
Great Mother, like the Great Father, was an hermaphrodite; or,
rather, that person from whom all things were supposed to be
produced, was the Great Father and the Great Mother united
together in one compound being. Ymer and Omoroca are each the
same as that hermaphrodite Jupiter of the Orphic
theology."
We have observed, however, that in all the older traditions
this hermaphrodite conception is accounted as female, it is the
Great Mother within whom is contained the male; in later ages,
however, it is represented as male, the female being concealed
beneath convenient symbols.
The Trinity of the Goths was male; yet as Odin could not
create independently of the female energy he is provided with a
wife, Frigga, to whom "all fair things belonged, and who had
priestesses among the early German tribes." Frigga when
worshipped alone was both female and male. According to one
German tradition, Tiw (Zeus), which in its earliest conception
was female, was the parent of the first man. This man begat three
sons who became the fathers of the three Deutsch tribes. Ish (or
Ash) was the parent of the Franks and Allemans; Ing was the
progenitor of the Swedes, Angles, and Saxons; and Er, or Erman,
was the eponymous leader of the tribes called by the Romans
Hermiones.
The Kosmogony of the Chinese is similar in all respects to
that of other countries. The first man, Puoncu, was born from an
egg.
The Chinese say that this egg-born Puoncu, who is identical
with Brahm, Noah, and Adam, is not the great Creator or God, but
only the first man. Their great God or Tien is a Unity which
comprehends three, and their human triad--a triplicated being who
is the parent of the human race--is a lower expression of the
same power, and to him has finally been ascribed the office of
Creator.
The Kosmogony of the Japanese begins with the opening of the
sacred egg from which all things were produced. This egg is
identical with the ark, and from it the diluvian patriarch was
born. He was "Baal-Peor or the lord of opening; and, from an idea
that the Ark was an universal mother, he was considered as the
masculine principle of generation, and was adored by his apostate
descendants with all the abominations of phallic worship."
In the Theogony of Hesiod, Uranus is represented as being the
parent of three sons, and the same legend repeated in the story
of Cronus portrays him also as a triplicated deity. According to
the Peruvian Kosmogony all things sprang from Viracocha who is
said to be identical with the Greek Aphrodite. Besides this
superior God they venerated a triad which was closely connected
with the sun. These gods were called Chuquilla, Catuilla, and
Intyllapa. They say that as their ancestors journeyed from a
remote country to the Northwest they bore the image of their god
in a coifer or box made of reeds. To the four priests who had
charge of this box or ark he communicated his oracles and
directions. He not only gave them laws but taught them the
ceremonies and sacrifices which they were to observe. "And even
as the pillar of cloud and fire conducted the Israelites in their
passage through the wilderness, so this Spanish devil gave them
notice when to advance forward, and when to stay."[94]
[94] Faber, Pagan Idolatry, book i., ch. v.
According to Marsden, the New Zealanders believe that three
gods created the first man, and that the first woman was made
from one of his ribs.
Among the Otaheitans and various tribes of Indians, the belief
prevails that all created things have proceeded from a
triplicated deity who was saved from the ravages of a flood in an
ark or ship.
The fact is observed that the Theogonies and Kosmogonies of
all peoples have reference to a flood or to the renewal of life
after the destruction of the world, and that the Great Father who
is preserved, and who comes forth from an ark or ship with the
seeds of a former world, represents the beginning of a new era.
Adam with his three sons, Cain, Abel, and Seth, Noah with his
triad, Shem, Ham, and Japheth, Menu and his triple offspring, and
so on, all mean exactly the same thing, namely, the renewal of
life at the close of a cycle, or manwantara.
From the traditions extant in nearly every quarter of the
globe, it would seem that, prior to the so- called flood in the
time of Noah, man, as a Creator, had not to any extent been
worshipped, but, on the contrary, that the great universal dual
principle which pervades Nature and which is back of matter and
force, for instance Tien among the Chinese, Iav among the
Hebrews, and Aum among the Hindoos, had been the Deity adored;
but with the decline of virtue and knowledge, this God was
gradually abandoned for a lesser one, a deity better suited to
the comprehension of "fallen" man.
In the Elohistic narrative of creation which appears in the
first chapter of Genesis, a dual or triune God, female and male,
says, Let us make man in our own image, and accordingly a male
and a female are created. In the Jehovistic account, however, in
the second chapter of the same book, a document of much later
date, man is made first and afterward woman. In fact, in the
latter narrative she appears as an afterthought and is created
simply for his use; she is taken from his side and is wholly
dependent upon him for existence. This fact is recognized by
Bishop Colenso in the following words:
"Thus in the second account of creation, the man is
APPARENTLY created first, and the woman is CERTAINLY created the
last, of all living creatures; whereas, in the older story the
man and woman are created last of all, as the crowning work of
Elohim, and are created together--'and Elohim created man in His
own image, in the image of Elohim created He him; male and female
created He them.' This ancient Elohistic narrative, then, the
Jehovist had before him; and he enlarged and enlivened it by
introducing a number of passages recording additional incidents
in the lives of the patriarchs before and after the flood, and
especially by inserting the second account of the creation, ii.,
4-25."
Colenso observes that verse four of chapter second belongs to
the Elohist, and that it was removed from its original position
at the beginning of Gen. i., in order to form the commencement of
the Jehovistic account of the creation.[95]
[95] Lectures on the Pentateuch, p. 32.
Quoting from Bishop Browne in the New Bible Commentary, the
same writer remarks that in the Elohistic account of the creation
"we have that which was probably the ancient primeval record of
the formation of the world."[96]
[96] Ibid. p. 16.
The oldest or Elohistic portion of Genesis is, at the present
time, seen to conceal great wisdom and a knowledge of Nature far
surpassing that of later times.
According to Higgins, the first verse of the first chapter of
Genesis, if properly translated, would not declare that in the
beginning God created the heavens and the earth, but that Wisdom
"formed" the earth and the planets. In none of the ancient
Kosmogonies can there be a word found regarding the creation of
matter. From the facts which have come down to us respecting the
speculations of the ancients, it is plain that the original
conception was, that within the primeval beginnings described in
their Kosmogonies, in chaos or unorganized matter, was contained
primeval force; no attempt, however, was made by them to account
for the creation of either motion or matter.
As soon as human beings began to speculate on the attributes
of their Deity; when the two principles composing it began to
separate, and the idea was gaining ground that the male was the
only important factor in reproduction, the sun became male, the
earth and sea female. Still, even then the doctrine seems not to
have been questioned, that the creative agency had proceeded from
matter, or that it was developed in and through it. The belief
that something can be made from nothing was reserved for a later
age.
In the oldest Semitic Kosmogonies, we are assured that the
self-conscious God who is manifested in the order of the
universe, proceeded out of the great abyss, and out of
unorganized, dark, primeval matter. During the earlier historic
period, however, by both Jew and Gentile, the belief was
entertained that spirit is material. It is the essence of fire--a
substance akin to the galvanic or electric fluid. This masculine
element, the manifestation of which is desire, or heat, and which
was finally set up as an eternal, self-existent, creative force,
or God, was originally regarded as a manifestation of matter, and
as having no independent existence. In an earlier age, this
so-called creative agency is associated with a force far superior
to itself, namely, Light or Wisdom. Minerva, who is the first
emanation from the Deity, "formed" all things. She it is who
discriminates all things and gives laws to the universe. "She
represented to the Greeks that spiritual element which lifts
knowledge into wisdom, and talent into genius."[97] But with the
importance which began to be assumed by man when he began to
regard himself as a creator, and when through ignorance and
sensuality the principles of a more enlightened race were
forgotten, desire, or heat, was separated from matter and came to
be regarded as an independent entity, which itself had created
matter out of nothing. Thus is noticed the extent to which the
god-idea has been developed in accordance with the relative
positions of the sexes.
[97] L. T. Ives, Art Words.
According to the Grecian mythology, much of which was a
comparatively late development, mortal woman was the handiwork of
Vulcan the Firegod, who, being commissioned by Jove to execute "a
snare for gods and man," moulded the beauteous form of woman.
This is a worthy example of the contempt and scorn shown by the
Greeks for women during the later period of their career as a
nation. That such contempt was a later development is shown in
the fact that woman was originally the gift of Pallas Athene, or
Wisdom. When she first appeared on the scene she was crowned by
the gods, in fact she was the first object honored with a crown.
Concerning the conceptions regarding women as held at an earlier
age, and those which came to prevail after she had become "the
cause of evil in the world," we have the following from
Tertullian:
"If there was a Pandora, whom Hesiod mentions as the
first woman, hers was the first head the Graces crowned, for she
received gifts from all the gods, whence she got her name
Pandora. But Moses, a prophet, not a poet-shepherd, shows us the
first woman Eve having her loins more naturally girt about with
leaves than her temples with flowers. Pandora then is a
myth."[98]
[98] Tertullian, vol. i., p. 341.
Woman, who was originally the gift of Wisdom, or Minerva, and
who when created was garlanded with flowers as the crown of
creation, became, in course of time, an accursed and wicked thing
who must henceforth cover herself with leaves to hide her shame.
Tertullian, who, with the rest of the early fathers in the
Christian church, had imbibed the latter doctrine concerning her,
could not believe the tradition set forth by Hesiod; therefore
Pandora was a myth, while the corrupted fable, that of Eve as the
tempter, was accepted as a natural representation of
womanhood.
When woman was created, "all the gods conferred a gifted
grace."
"Round her fair brow the lovely-tressed Hours
A garland twined of Spring's purpureal flowers:
The whole attire Minerva's graceful art
Disposed, adjusted, form'd to every part."[99]
[99] Hesiod, Works and Days.
Later, however, Pandora herself becomes the pourer forth of
ills on the head of defenceless man.