UCSB LIBRARY xsnog BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. BY THE REVEREND J. A. ZAHM, C. S.C., PROFESSOR OF PHYSICS IN THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME; AUTHOR OF "SOUND AND MUSIC," ''CATHOLIC SCIENCE AND CATHOLIC SCIENTISTS," ETC. " 'Htir/ (5e OVTE TJ yvuaiQ avev Triareuf, ovd' ?/ iriarig avev CLEMENT OF ALEXANDRIA. Behold the star-writ book outspread in space, Read thou the rock-bound tome the ages trace, And from them learn that mortal mind nor hand Of Nature's smallest force hath full command. Ay, knowledge springs from faith, as bursts the flower From hidden seed, while in that blossom's dower Faith lives anew. 'Twas Eden's fateful tree That shrouded science in dim mystery. BALTIMORE: JOHN MURPHY & CO. 1895- COPYRIGHT, 1894, BY JOHN. MURPHY & Co. TO THE VERY REVEREND GILBERT FRANCTAIS, C.S..C. SUPERIOR-GENEHAL OP THE CONGREGATION OF THE HOLY CROSS, THE CULTURED SCHOLAR THE SUCCESSFUL EDUCATOR, THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED. INTRODUCTION. is pre-eminently an age of intellectual fer- ment an age of discovery and discussion and co-ordination. But in nothing is this mental quicken- ing and activity so conspicuous as in questions bearing on science in its relations to religion. Hence the interest aroused by all discoveries scientific, histor- ical, and archaeological which directly or indirectly affect the Bible, or tend in any way to modify our views of its contents, or throw new light on difficult and disputed passages. Hence also the interest which attaches to what has unfortunately,. I think, been called the Higher Criticism, and hence, too, the avidity with which the reading public follows current contro- versies respecting the origin and age of our race, as well as those regarding other similar topics, which, owing to the results of modern research, fwe must now, perforce, consider from new points of view. / A more extensive acquaintance with the natural and physical sciences, and the accumulation by Egyptologists and Assyriologists of a large mass of new historical facts of far-reaching importance, have thrown a flood of light on many parts of the Bible which previously were ill understood, if at all, and have supplied us 5 6 INTRODUCTION. with the necessary data for the solution of numerous perplexing problems of a scientifico-scriptural charac- ter which before were regarded as mysteries that were simply inexplicable. Those who still view the Bible as a divinely inspired book, despite the repeated attacks made on its authen- ticity and inspiration, as well as those who yet hold to the teachings of their faith, notwithstanding the theories of a certain school of scientists, who relegate religion and belief in a personal God to the limbo of idle fancies, are frequently accused of forswearing their liberty of thought, and of voluntarily placing themselves in a condition of intellectual thraldom which incapacitates them from appreciating the true significance of the most important inductions and gen- eralizations of modern science. Groundless as this charge is, there are not a few, even among intelligent people, who believe it to be substantially true. And yet nothing could be more false or absurd. As well say that the mariner forfeits his freedom of ac- tion because, forsooth, he gives heed to the buoys and lighthouses which are stationed along his coiirse, and which signalize reefs and shoals and indicate places where the safety of his vessel would be imperilled or where navigation is impossible. What buoys and lighthouses are to the seafaring man, that expressions of revealed truth and principles of Christian philos- ophy are to the man of science. They are so many \ beacons warning him of the hidden rocks of religious INTRODUCTION. 7 error or the treacherous coast-line of a false philoso- phy. They are lights in the darkness which point ' out the path which he may travel in safety, and which ) disclose to him the treacherous shallows where dan- ger is certain and destruction inevitable. As the master of a ship neither sacrifices his in- tellectual freedom nor commits an act of unwisdom by following the indications of buoy and lighthouse, so neither does the man of science forfeit his liberty of thought nor violate the dictates of right reason in suffering himself to be guided by the teachings of an infallible faith or by the divinely inspired words of the Book of books. And as the mariner's progress is not impeded by the number of lighthouses along his course, but rather assisted, so likewise is the man of science materially aided in his search after scientific .truth by the beacon-lights of faith which point out to Xv^ him in \^ unmistakable manner the true and safe irealms of science and philosophy. The truths of faith and the truths of science belong to different categories indeed, but notwithstanding this fact they can never come into conflict. The truths of science are of the natural order, while the truths of faith belong to an order which is supernatu- ral. But both have God for their author, and as He cannot contradict Himself, and as truth cannot be opposed to truth, so the truths of faith never can be at variance with the certain conclusions of science. Whether we study the Bible or the great book of 8 INTRODUCTION. Nature, we in either case have before us the Almighty's record, and the truths inculcated, if so be that we read aright, will in all cases be in perfect harmony with one another as well as with Truth itself. The testi- mony, therefore, of Holy Writ and the testimony of the rocks, far from being contradictory, will always, we shall find, be identical in evidence as they are one in origin. This being the case, the man of science is not only thoroughly untrammelled in his work, butj_he has absolutely nothing to apprehend, so far as his faith is concerned, from the most searching and the most pro- found investigations which may be instituted in any of the manifold departments of historical or scientific research and criticism] On the contrary, he welcomes every genuine contribution to science as a precious addition to the already vast store of knowledge, and he encourages the most thorough investigation in every line of human inquiry as something which is sure to issue in results which shall not only be of value to science, but which shall also be of priceless worth in illustrating and corroborating the truths of faith as well. Should we desire a proof of these assertions, we have it to hand in the life and works of the most eminent representatives of every branch of science and in the pos- itive declarations of the ablest leaders of thought of all time. Copernicus, Mersenne, Linnaeus, Champollion, Cuvier, Pascal, Newton, Sir Humphry Davy, Faraday, INTRODUCTION. 9 Ampere, Caucliy, Descartes, Johann Miiller, Schwann, L. Agassiz, Lenormant, Secchi, Leverrier, Dana, Pas- teur, Van Beneden, and scores of others equally illustri- ous, are undying witnesses of the essential oneness of the truth of science and faith, and of the certain con- viction, which these great exponents of science al- ways entertained, that the book of Nature and the book of the Spirit, although appealing to us in differ- ent tongues, ever voice the same testimony and pro- claim the same truth. They both, in words eloquent and sublime, tell us of a God infinite in wisdom and love and perfection, who ordains all things well, and who compasses His ends with infinite knowledge and power. [ No, the man of science is not intellectually ham- pered because he happens to be a man of faith and of strong religious persuasions. J His acceptance of the Bible does not handicap him in research nor preclude him from enjoying the completest mental liberty of which mortal man is capable. His faith shields him from danger as the beacon-light protects the mariner from harm, but it in no wise restricts his freedom of thought or action. By hearkening to the gentle voice of religion he escapes the 'errors of Atheism, Panthe- ism, Materialism, and Monism, which are at present so rampant, and which have more than anything else obstructed research and retarded the progress of true science. One may indeed reject the truths of the Bible and IO INTRODUCTION. discard the teachings of faith, as the mariner may ignore the saving bell or the friendly pharos, but lie does so at his peril. Far from gaining anything by this mad assertion of independence an independence which means not liberty and life, but rashness and de- struction he inevitably loses, and his loss carries with it the loss and death, it may be, of others besides. There is too much of doubt and uncertainty in the world of science for us to decline the undeniable helps of revelation too much fog and darkness enveloping many of the problems of philosophy for us to close our eyes to the sun of Truth or for us to make naught of the light of God's inspired word. Speaking for my single self and I am sure I but echo the sentiments of all Christian men of science can honestly and truly affirm that I have never once felt, during the quarter of a century and more which I have given to the study of religio-scientific questions, that the teachings of faith have in any way embar- rassed me, or detracted in the slightest degree from my enjoying the fullest measure of intellectual free- dom?! ^ n< ^ ^is is not because I have ever been dis- posed to minimize the force and scope of dogma or sought to explain away the certain declarations of Scripture, for it has never entered my mind to do either the one or the other. No one could be more strenuously opposed to rationalism in matters of re- ligion than I am, and no one could yield more ready and unconditional acquiescence to the teach- INTRODUCTION. I I ings of the Church in all matters pertaining to faith and morals. Rationalism in religion, however, is quite a dif- ferent thing from a legitimate use of the reason in discussing questions of science and history and archae- ology which may be incidentally mentioned in Scrip- ture or are indirectly and remotely connected with some teaching of faith. Herein I claim, as every one may claim and faith and the Church are the first to grant all the lawful demands of the intellect perfect freedom of investigation according to the principles and methods of science, prescinded from all the restraints of petty dogmatism, and the questionable authority of systems which are obsolete or of schools which have long survived their period of usefulness. Among such questions are those discussed in the following pages, especially the questions concerning the Mosaic Hexaemeron, the Noachian Deluge, the origin and antiquity of the human race, and the biblical chronol- ogy, not to mention a number of correlative topics of similar purport. Parts I. and II. of this work are composed of articles, revised and annotated, which have appeared in the American Ecclesiastical Review, while Part III. em- braces a series of papers which were printed in the American Catholic Quarterly Review. The articles cover substantially the same ground as a course of lectures which I gave last year before the Catholic Summer School at Plattsburgh, N. Y. lectures which 12 INTRODUCTION. excited widespread interest, and which for some time furnished both the religious and the secular press with special material for comment and criticism. With few exceptions I have more than reason to be gratified with the complimentary notices given of the lectures, especially by the secular press, and for the friendly spirit which it displayed on all occasions, as well as for the extreme interest it manifested in the questions dis- cussed. It is in consequence of these kindly notices, as well as of my desire to comply with repeated requests from all parts of the United States and Europe to have the lectures published, that I now give this volume to the public, trusting that it will prove an acceptable contribution to a subject which is daily growing in interest and importance. For the benefit of readers who may wish to pursue further the questions of which this book treats I have endeavored to indicate in the footnotes the chief authorities I have followed, and to give volume and page for the quotations and extracts I have reproduced. In attempting to discuss several great and comprehen- sive questions within the compass of a single small volume I have been necessarily brief, but, I trust, not obscure. For all shortcomings which may be de- tected and no one is more conscious of their existence than myself I crave in advance the reader's benignity and indulgence. J. A. ZAHM, C. S. C. NOTRE DAME UNIVERSITY, May 22, 1894. CONTENTS. PART I. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON IN THE LIGHT OF EXEGESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. CHAPTER I. MOSES AND SCIENCE. PAGE Systems of cosmogony and geogony. The world-egg of the Poly- nesians and Hindus. Hindu view of the earth. Natural history of the Hindus. Cosmogonies of Homer and of the Ionic School. Theories of Pythagoras and Ptolemy. Opinion of Plato. The cosmogony of Moses. Declarations of modern scholars respecting the Mosaic cosmogony. Dillman and Donoso Cortes On the Gene- siac narrative of creation. Chief lessons taught by the cosmogony of Moses. Statement of Cuvier. Genesis and science. Words of Linnaeus. -Difficulties of Genesis. Exploded theories. Liberty of thought enjoyed by children of the Church. The Bible not a text- book of science. Declarations of Cardinal Newman and Father Ryder. Faith and science always at one 23 CHAPTER II. ALLEGORISM AND LITERALISM. The Alexandrine School as represented by Clement of Alexandria and Origen. Allegorical, mystical, or ideal systems of interpretation. The Syrian School and the literal system of exegesis. The theory of intervals or restitution. The period or concordistic system. The eclectic system of St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Augustine. Philo Judaeus. Views of Clement of Alexandria. Genius and achieve- 13 14 CONTENTS. PAGE merits of Origen. His enidition and love of science. Opinion of St. Athanasius. The Alexandrine theory in the light of geology and palaeontology. Schools of Antioch, Edessa, and Caesarea. Teachings of St. Ephrem. Views of St. John Chrysostom. The Hexaetneron of St. Basil. Gnostics and Neo-Platonists. Mistakes of St. John Chrysostom and Cosmos Tndicopleustes. Defects of extreme literal- ism and allegorism. A via media 44 CHAPTER III. ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA AND THE NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS. Csesarea, " the metropolis of the arts and sciences." Objections of the Manichoeans and of Julian the Apostate. Love of science mani- fested by the Cappadocian Doctors. Learning and brilliancy of St. Gregory of Nyssa. Erroneous views entertained by the earlier students of science. Philosophic method of St. Gregory. He avoids the excessive allegorism of the Alexandrine and the exag- gerated literalism of the Syrian Schools. Gregory's system of cos- mogony explained. Meaning of the words " void and empty " inanis ef vacua as used in the first chapter of Genesis. Marvellous intuitions of St. Gregory. The primitive nebulous matter according to Gregory, and his views regarding the origin of the solar and stel- lar systems. Realization of difficulties which could not be solved until a much later period. St. Gregory of Nyssa the father and founder of the modern school of scriptural interpretation, and the originator of the nebular hypothesis as subsequently developed and explained by Laplace 60 CHAPTER IV. ST. AUGUSTINE AND EVOLUTION. St. Augustine's knowledge of profane science. His keen intellect, crit- ical acumen, and logical method. Eminent as philosopher, theo- logian, and exegetist. Founder and chief representative of the eclectic school of interpretation. His doubts and difficulties. Various systems adopted and rejected. His most important works on cosmogony. The meaning of the word " day " as employed in the Mosaic account of creation. St. Augustine's views regarding the government of the universe by law. His ideas concerning miracle? and specific creations. His interest in Hebrew cosmogony. The six days of creation and their explanation. Creation ,\\- nihilo CONTENTS. 1 5 PAGE of primordial matter, and evolution of worlds from primitive nebulous matter. Precursor and prophet of the modern school of exegesis. Creation by secondary causes, or derivative creation. St. Augus- tine anticipates the teachings of modern evolutionists. His causales rationes. The opus crealionis and the opus forinationis. Animals and plants created potentially, not as they now appear. The saint's exuberance of language and wealth of illustration. Formless mat- ter. Theory of creation as held by the Fathers and St. Thomas Aquinas. The laws of nature. Principles of exegesis. Value of science and philosophy in the service of faith. Invariability of the principles of exegesis, and changeableness of scientific theories. St. Gregory's views on the transformation of matter on the nature of light. Modern theories respecting the nature of light. Nothing in modern science to impair the truthfulness of the Mosaic cosmogony. Perfect harmony between Genesis and science ... 70 CHAPTER V. MODERN THEORIES OF COSMOGONY AND INTERPRETATION. The restitution or interval theory, a link between the literal and period theories. Proposed by Buckland and favored by Chalmers and Cardinal Wiseman. The period or concorclistic theory, proposed by Cuvier, and the one most favored at present. According to this theory the word "day," as used in the Genesiac narrative of creation, signifies an indeterminate period of time. The Mosaic days meta- phorical, not only as to their signification, but also as to their number. Creation of organized beings according to Genesis. Barrande and Cuvier on Genesis and geology. The concordistic theory but provisional. The theory of Bishop Clifford, who regards the first chapter of Genesis not as an historical narrative, but as a ritual hymn. Reasons in support of this view. Intellectual freedom of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church. St. Augustine on the inter- pretation of the Genesiac account of creation. Inspiration of the biblical writers. Father Faber on religion and science. No pos- sible antagonism between science and faith, and none between science and Genesis. Recapitulation and conclusion 92 l6 CONTENTS. PART II. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. CHAPTER I. THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND ZOOLOGICAL UNIVERSALITY OF THE DELUGE. PAGE Interest attaching to the subject. Notions of early geologists regarding fossils as reliquia: Diluvianie. Voltaire's opinions. Views of Buck- land and Moigno. When and by whom the geographical univer- sality of the Deluge was first called in question. Teaching of fossil remains. Number of species of animals. Divers centres of crea- tion and distribution. Multiplication of miracles. The water of the Deluge. Universal terms employed in the narrative of the Deluge ; their significance. Illustrations. Teaching of Fathers and Doctors. Statements of Pallavicini, St. Thomas, Patrizzi, and Fessler. Exceptions noted. Views of Franzelin and Suarez. Not of faith that the Deluge was universal, either as to the earth's sur- face or as to the animals which inhabit it. An open question to be settled by science 119 CHAPTER II. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL UNIVERSALITY OF THE DELUGE. Novelty of the question. Broached but recently. The Church has never taught that the universal destruction of mankind is of faith. Restricted meaning of universal terms. Objections on the part of science against the ethnographical universality of the Deluge. The teachings of geology, archaeology, ethnology, physiology, and linguistics. The Deluge in the light of scriptural exegesis. Opinion of Canon Motais. " Sons of God and daughters of men." Who were the Cainites? Prophecy of Balaam. Advocates of the theory of a restricted deluge. Resume of the question by Abbe Motais. Opinion of Cardinal Gonzalez. Liberty of thought in contro- verted questions. Words of Leo XIII. Testimony of St. Augus- tine and St. Thomas Aquinas 152 CONTENTS. I/ PART III. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE ACCORDING TO MODERN SCIENCE AND BIBLICAL CHRONOLOGY. CHAPTER I. THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN ACCORDING TO ASTRONOMY AND HISTORY. PAGE Imaginary antagonism between the teachings of Scripture and the find- ings of modern science. Prevalence of Rationalism during the first centuries of the Church's history, during the Middle Ages, and in modern times. English Deists, French Infidels, German Rational- ists. The work of Voltaire, Reimarus, Lessing, Strauss. Modern Materialism and Atheism. Dogmatism of science. Hindu astron- omy. Zodiacs of Esneh and Denderah. Champollion's discov- eries. Chronology of India. Researches of Sir William Jones, Klaproth, and Heeren. Opinions of Max Mtiller, Mgr. Laouenan, and Barthelemy Saint- Hilaire. Boasted antiquity of the Chinese without foundation. Monuments, papyri, and inscriptions of Egypt respecting the antiquity of man. Dynasties of Manetho. Views of Brugsch, Mariette, De Rouge, and Vigouroux. Cuneiform inscrip- tions of Western Asia. History of Berosus. Discoveries of Nie- buhr, Grotefend, Burnouf, Lassen, and Sir Henry Rawlinson. Investigations of Botta, Layard, and Smith. Library of Assur- banipal. Chaldean astronomy. Researches of Strassmaier and Epping. Assyrian chronology, its trustworthiness. The age of our race according to Egyptology and Assyriology 177 CHAPTER II. THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN ACCORDING TO GEOLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY. The Golden Age of the pagan poets. The teachings of certain mod- ern scientists regarding primitive man. Views of Hackel. His twenty-two types in the genealogy of man. Bathybius Hizckelii. Alaltis and Lemuria. Scientific Atheism. Declarations of Hackel, Vogt, Royer, Virchow, Buchner, and Flourens. Principles of 2 1 8 CONTENTS. PAGE Monism. Tertiary man. Investigations of Abb Bourgeois and Abbe Delaunay. M. Mortillet's Anthropopithecus. Lyell's Uni- formitarianism. Alluvial deposits. Rate of growths of peat-bogs. Formation of stalagmites. De Lapparent on the Quaternary Epoch. Was Europe inhabited in antediluvian times? Evi- dences of cataclysmic action. Destructive effects of earthquakes and volcanoes. Causes of the Ice Age. Theories of Lyell, Croll, and Geike. Observations of Prestwich and Wright. Views of Howorth and the Duke of Argyll. Ancient Greek and Roman authors on the climate of Europe. Declaration of M. Fuster. The mammoth, reindeer, cave-bear, cave-lion, hyena, and Irish elk. Animals which have become extinct within historic times .... 219 CHAPTER III. THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN ACCORDING TO PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY. GEOLOGICAL CHRONOMETERS. Evolution of the industrial arts. Views of Hesiod as compared with those of modern scientists concerning early man. The ages of Stone, Bronze, and Iron. No fixed period of time for the Stone Age. No Age of Bronze in Italy or Gaul. The succession of the ages not general nor absolute. Implements found in Chal- dean tombs and Assyrian ruins. The Iron Age in Africa. State- ment of Dr. Livingstone. Schliemann's excavations at Hissarlik and Mycense. Declarations of Percy and Tschering. Meaning of the term prehistoric. Phoenician bronze. The "ships of Tar- shish." Observations of M. Kerviler. Remains of primitive man. Skulls of Canstatt and Neanderthal. Kitchen-middings. Lake- dwellings of Switzerland and elsewhere. Geological chronometers. The Falls of Niagara and St. Anthony. The age of the world and the duration of life on its surface. Conclusions of various scientists. Building theories on trifles. Evidences of early man in the Trenton gravels. Declaration of Goethe 266 CHAPTER IV. THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN ACCORDING TO THE BIBLE. Difficulty and uncertainty of biblical chronology. Declarations of Abbe le Hir and Sylvestre de Sacy. Des Vignoles' " Chronology of CONTENTS. 19 PAGE Sacred History." L 1 Art i/e Verifier les Dates, by the Bene- dictines of St. Maur. The Hebrew and Samaritan texts of the Scriptures. The Greek version of the Septuagint. Variants of the divers texts and versions. Estimates of various chronologists. The labors of Scaliger, Lepsius, and Usher. Genealogical lists of the patriarchs. Lacuna; in these lists. Oriental systems of gen- ealogy. Illustrations from the Old and New Testaments. Probable mnemotechnic reasons for incomplete genealogical tables Views of Fathers Bellynck and Brucker. Value of the chronological statements of the Sacred Text. Opinions of Abbe de Foville and Abbe Bourgeois. Fabre d'Envieu and Valroger on Preadamites. Sundry estimates respecting the antiquity of man. Declaration of Vigouroux. Author's opinion regarding the age of our race. The question to be settled by history rather than by science. The cer- tain conclusions of science in harmony with the teachings of Holy . Writ. Vagaries of modern science and scientists. Indications of a return to a more conservative regime 293 PART I. Ube /iDosaic Ibejaemeron in tbe Xigbt of ano /IDooern Science. "Haec autem de Scriptura pauca posuimus ut congruere nostra cum philosophis doceremus." "We have alleged these few things from Scripture, so to show that our doctrines agree with those of the philosophers." ST JEROME, Adversus Jovinianum. BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. PART I. Ube /IDosaie ibejaemeron in tbe Xigbt of Ejeciesfs anfc /IDofcern Science. CHAPTER I. MOSES AND SCIENCE. COSMOGONIES OF POLYNESIANS AND HINDUS. TDROMINENT, if not chief, among the questions A that from time immemorial have engaged the attention of mankind are those pertaining to the origin and constitution of this world of ours. All nations and all peoples, with the exception of those in the lowest scale of intelligence, have had their peculiar theories regarding geogony and cosmogony, to which they have clung with greater or less tenacity. Some of these theories were very elaborately worked out and contained many elements of truth; others, 011 the contrary, were absurd and ridiculous in the ex- treme, and afford us the most striking evidence possi- ble regarding the simplicity of the people who accepted them, and their utter ignorance of the commonest laws and phenomena of 'nature. 23 24 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. According to the Sandwich Islanders, all was orig- inally a vast ocean. It was then that an immense bird deposited on the waters an egg from which arose the islands of Hawaii. But this idea of a world-egg is not peculiar to the Hawaiians. It obtains among the Polynesians generally, and has prevailed among many peoples of the Old World as well. We find special prominence given to it in the Ordinances of Menu, wherein the Hindu cosmogony is developed at length. Brahma, the progenitor of all the worlds, was, we are informed, born from a golden egg. In this egg the supreme power remained for a divine year. Each one of the three hundred and sixty days of this divine year was equal to 12,000,000 of our years. After this long period the cosmic egg broke, and from its fragments were formed the heavens and the earth, the atmosphere and the abyss of waters. The earth, according to the Shastras, " is a circular plain, resembling a water-lily. Its circumference is four hundred millions of miles. It is borne upon the backs of eight huge elephants ; the elephants stand upon the back of an immense tortoise, and the tortoise upon a thousand-headed serpent. Whenever the ser- pent becomes drowsy and nods, an earthquake is pro- duced. . . . The earth consists of seven concentric oceans and as many continents. They are arranged in regard to each other like the waves produced by throw- ing a pebble into water. The first ocean, the one nearest the centre, is filled with salt water, the second with milk, the third with the curds of milk, the fourth with melted butter, the fifth with the jiiice of the sugar-cane, the sixth with wine, and the seventh with fresh water. Bevond the seventh ocean is a land of THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 2$ pure gold, but inaccessible to man ; and far beyond that extends the land of darkness, containing places of torment for the wicked. " The continent at the centre of the earth is 250,000 miles in diameter. From its centre Mount Meru, composed entirely of gold and precious stones, rises to a height of 600,000 miles. Unlike all other mountains, it is much the largest at the top. It is crowned with three golden summits, which are the favorite residences of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva. Near these summits are the heavens of many of the inferior gods. One of them is described as being 800 miles in circumference and 40 miles in height. Its dome is supported by pil- lars composed of diamonds, its numerous palaces are of pure gold, and it is so ornamented with brilliant gems that its splendor exceeds the brightness of twelve suns. ' ' ! On the western slope of Mount Meru are found beau- tiful stretches of country, in which men who are of the color of gold live to the age of 10,000 or 12,000 years. According to the Mahabharata, "The beings on the earth are divided into two classes the animate and the inanimate. The animals constitute fourteen spe- cies, seven of which monkeys, bears, elephants, buf- faloes, wild boars, tigers, and lions are wild in the forests; whilst seven others men, sheep, goats, cows, horses, asses, and mules live with men in towns. Man is the first of domestic animals; the lion is the first of savage animals. There are five species of plants." 2 1 Historic Incidents and Life in India, by Caleb Wright and J. A. Brainerd, pp. 26, 27. ' l Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, in the Journal des Savants, Jan., 1868, pp. 33,34. 26 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. GREEK COSMOGONIES. In the time of Homer, about 900 B. c., it was believed that the earth, surrounded by the river Oceanus, filled the lower half of the sphere of the world, while .its tipper half extended aloft that Helios, the sun, quenched his fires every evening and relighted them the following morning, after having immersed himself in the deep waters of the ocean. Thales and the Stoics and those of their school, we are informed by Plutarch, taught that the earth is spherical, like a ball; Anaximander maintained that it was in the form of a stone column. Many fancied it to have the form of a cube, and to be attached by its four corners to the vault of the firmament. Others, among them Leucippus, imagined it to have the shape of a drum, while others still declared it to be a disk, protected by the river Oceanus or guarded by a serpent which encircled it. Epicurus, who accepted the popular belief, taught that the stars were extin- guished when they set, and relighted when they rose again that the earth is held in place by cords or lig- aments, just as the head is connected with the neck or trunk. To explain the revolution of the heavenly bodies, Anaximander taught that they were fixed in crystal spheres. Anaximenes, a disciple of Anaxi- mander, maintained that the earth is flat like a table. He likewise held the same view regarding the sun. In accordance with the generally accepted opinion of his age, he thought that the stars w r ere fixed like nails in a solid revolving sphere, which was invisible by reason of its transparency. In order to account for THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 27 the peculiar motions of the sun, moon, and planets, Pythagoras devised his famous theory of eccentrics and epicycles 1 a theory that, at a later date, was adopt- ed and developed by Ptolemy, and accepted as the true explanation of planetary movements until the time of Copernicus. To meet new difficulties presented by the peculiar motions of the sun, moon, and planets, Hudoxus of Cnidus increased the number of crystal spheres to twenty-six. But these spheres, which were regarded as so many heavens arranged one inside the other, were not yet sufficiently numerous to account for the many and varied motions of the planets. The number was therefore augmented until astronomers recognized no fewer than fifty-six of these solid, re- volving, invisible, transparent spheres. Plato regarded the heavenly bodies as animated beings. The world, according to him, was but an animal, and its spherical form was the type of per- fection. "The Creator," he tells us in the TiiH&its, "gave to the world the figure which was suitable and also natural. Now, to the animal which was to com- prehend all animals that figure was suitable which comprehends within itself all other figures. Where- fore he made the world in the form of a globe, round as from a lathe, having its extremes in every direction equidistant from the centre, the most perfect and the most like itself of all figures; for he considered that the like is infinitely fairer than the unlike. This he finished off, making the surface smooth all round for many reasons: in the first place, because the living being had no need of eyes when there was nothing remaining outside him to be seen, nor of ears when 1 Cf. Histoire de V Astronomic, par Ferdinand Hoefer, p. 107. 28 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. there was nothing to be heard; and there was no sur- rounding atmosphere to be breathed; nor would there have been any use of organs by the help of which he might receive his food or get rid of what he had already digested, since there was nothing which went from him or came into him; for there was nothing besides him. Of! design he was created thus, his own waste providing his own food, and all that he did or suffered taking place in and by himself. For- the Creator conceived that a being which was self-suf- ficient would be far more excellent than one which lacked anything; and, as he had no need to take any- thing or defend himself against any one, the Creator did not think it necessary to bestow upon him hands; nor had he any need of feet nor of the whole appa- ratus of walking; but the movement suited to his spherical form was assigned to him, being of all the seven that which is most appropriate to mind and intelligence; and he was made to move in the same manner and on the same spot, within his own limits revolving in a circle. All the other six motions were taken away from him, and he was made not to partake of their deviations. And as this circular movement required no feet, the universe was created without legs and without feet." l The foregoing theories of geogony and cosmogony are sufficient to show how hopelessly at sea even the greatest philosophers have been regarding the origin and constitution of the world. It were easy to adduce numerous other similar theories, but space forbids. We look upon them all as childish and absurd, and justly so. Nothing could be more preposterous, 1 Jowett's translation. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 29 according to our views of nature, than some of the cosmogonic notions entertained by the philosophers of Greece and India. Even the "divine Plato" did not, as we have seen, escape falling into the most ridic- ulous conceptions of the universe. True it is that most of the theories mentioned were formulated in the infancy of science. Their authors had not at their disposal the delicate instruments of precision which now enable the physicist and astronomer to solve with ease many of the problems which the sages of antiquity attacked in vain. Being deprived of the geographi- cal knowledge which is now ours, we need not be surprised that they accepted the most erroneous and foolish ideas respecting the form and size of the earth and the creatures which inhabit it. Chemistry was then unknown, and geology was not thought of until some thousands of years later. Fancy was substituted for fact, and the most extravagant vagaries were seriously offered in lieu of sober truth. COSMOGONY OF MOSES. Contrast we now the cosmogonal fantasies and spec- ulations of even the most eminent exponents of ancient Hindu and Greek thought with a system of cosmog- ony which dates back as far as if not farther than any of those of which I have spoken. "In the beginning," says Moses, "God created heaven and earth." How simple, and yet how sub- lime ! By a fiat of omnipotence, by a mere act of His will not with a thought, as the Hindus taught God created the world and all that is in it from nothing. The first chapter of Genesis so impressed the great 30 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. pagan rhetorician Longinus that he declared : "The legislator of the Jews, who was not an ordinary man, having strongly conceived the greatness and power of God, expressed it in all its dignity at the beginning of his laws in these words : God said, Let light be, and it was ; Let the earth be made, and the earth was made." Reflecting on the same sublime declarations of Genesis, the illustrious scientist and scholar Ampere did not hesitate to affirm : "Either Moses possessed as exten- sive a knowledge of the sciences as we now have, or he was inspired." "The first pages of the Mosaic account of creation," declares Jean Paul, "is of greater import than all the ponderous tomes of natu- ralists and philosophers." It gives us the first clear statement of creation by an almighty and self-existent Being, and furnishes us views of God and His crea- tures that are quite different from those which are at the foundation of the mythologies and false philosoph- ical systems of the ancient world. But the " Mosaic idea of creation an idea to which the sages of India, Greece, and Rome never attained is something with which we have been familiar from our infancy, and for this reason we do not attach the importance we otherwise should to the inspired words of Genesis." If, however, we give but a cursory examination to the pagan ideas which prevailed on the subject of creation among the peoples of Egypt, Phoenicia, and Babylon at the time of Moses and even long afterward for the religion of Brahma still affords us a striking instance in point "we shall," says Haneberg, "realize the full importance of the Mosaic dogma regarding God, the world, and man." In Genesis is an entire suppression " of that irrational THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 31 theory, so generally accepted in antiquity, of a di- vine being who was a slave to fate, and who acted only through necessity or caprice. In it is banished the terrible apprehension of a. blind tyranny of chance ; of a maleficent power, the enemy of man ; or of other similar phantoms that weighed down upon paganism like a mountain. Delivered from these vain fears, man may look at creation and heaven with confidence, because he knows that a personal God, living and powerful, is the Creator of the Universe." l "The Mosaic cosmogony alone," declares Delitzsch in his Commentary on Genesis* "proposes to us the idea of a creation from nothing, without eternal matter and without the intervention of any intermedi- ate being or demiurge. Paganism, it is true, permits us to catch a glimpse of this idea, but it is much obscured. Pagan cosmogonies either suppose pre- existing matter that is, dualism or they substitute emanation for creation, and then fall into pan- theism." Even such a rationalist as Dillman when speaking of the cosmogony of Genesis is forced to confess that "it does not contain a single word which is unworthy of the thought of God. From the moment an attempt was made to portray, in language intelligible to man, the work of creation, something that will ever remain a mystery to us, it has been impossible to outline a picture which is grander or more worthy. With reason, then, does one see in it a proof of its revealed character. Only there where God had manifested 1 Geschichte der bibl. Ojfenbarung, p. 12. 2 P. 71. 32 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. Himself could He be delineated. It is the work of the Spirit of Revelation." 1 Contrasting the cosmogonies of the ancient pagan world with that of Genesis, the illustrious Donoso Cortes truthfully observes that "in spite of marked differences they all have this in common, that they exhibit an infinite disproportion between the princi- ple, the mean, and the end ; between the agent, the act, and the work ; between the Creator, the act; His creation, and the creature. In all of them the universe ... is superior in dignity and beauty to the Creator who made it by His will to the agent of which it was the work and the principle which gave it being. This should not surprise us when we consider that the universe is a creation of God, whilst its Creator, according to all these cosmogonic systems, was a crea- tion of men. What wonder, then, if the work of the Creator was superior to the work of the creature ! . . . Where shall we find a man who, being part of the universe, is able to form a conception of a God who is greater than the universe, if he be not inspired by God? . . . Who can such an one be if it is not Moses?" 2 But Moses is not satisfied with the simple declara- tion that God in the beginning created heaven and earth. He descends to details. He tells us that all that exists, all that we can see, all creatures, the sun, the moon, and the stars, the fishes of the sea, the birds of the air, the animals that roam the earth, the flowers that delight the eye, the fruits that are grateful to the 1 Genesis, p. 9. 2 Quoted by Padre Mir in his learned work, La Creadon, p. 29. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 33 taste, man, the lord of creation, are the works of God. And because they are the works of God he also tells us that "God saw that it was good." PRIME OBJECT OF THE GENESIAC NARRATIVE. The reason for these detailed and explicit declara- tions is manifest. The Hebrew people had lived among idolaters and were surrounded by people who gave di- vine worship to many of God's creatures. Moses wished to impress upon their minds that neither the sun, nor the moon, nor the stars, neither any animal, nor the earth which affords its nourishment, nor any of the elements, are God, as was supposed by the Sabianism of the Orient, especially of Chaldea; by the worship of animals in Egypt; by the divine honors paid to the earth by the Romans, Pelasgians, and Germans; and by the cult of the fire- worshippers of Greece and Persia. All these things, the objects of the adoration of the heathen, are the works of God. There is no power opposed to God which is equal to Him. Neither is matter, as such, according to the later opinions of the Platonists, the seat of evil. Everything is the work of God, and everything, therefore, is good. 1 From the foregoing it is manifest that the prime object of the Mosaic narrative, like that of all revela- tion, was a religious one. "The Gospels," says St. Augustine, "do not tell -'us that our Lord said, 'I will send you the Holy Ghost to teach you the course of the sun and moon ;' we should endeavor to become Christians, and not astronomers." So it is with the 1 Cf. Hettinger's Apologie des Christ hent hums, chap. iv. vol. iii. 3 34 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. Mosaic account of creation. Its purport is not to ) teach geology, physics, zoology, or astronomy, but to / affirm in the most simple and direct manner the crea- tive act of God and His sovereignty over all creatures. Its object is not to anticipate any of the truths of science or philosophy, but to guard the chosen people of God against the pernicious errors and idolatrous practices which were then everywhere prevalent. The Holy Father, in his recent admirable Encyclical on the Study of the Holy Scriptures, clearly brings out this idea when he says: " It must be borne in mind, first of all, that the sacred writers or rather the Spirit of God, which spoke through them deemed it inad- visable to teach men these things that is, the inner constitution of visible objects since this conduces in no wise to salvation; and accordingly these writers, instead of entering into an investigation of nature, sometimes described and explained things in a cer- tain figurative style or in ordinary language, such as is employed among men, even of deep learning, at the present day." All the cosmogonies of the ancient world that of Moses excepted were, as we have seen, erroneous not only in the false views they gave of God, but also in the notions which they displayed of Nature and her laws. One and all, they have long since been rejected by science as ridiculous and absurd. Not so, however, with the cosmogony of Genesis. The more closely it has been examined in the light of the science of these latter days, the more has it been found to harmonize in the most remarkable manner with the latest results of scientific investigation. The words of the great Cuvier, who wrote in the early part of the century, are THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 35 as true now as when they were first penned. " Moses has left us," says the illustrious naturalist, "a cosmog- ony the exactitude of which is daily verified in the most admirable manner. Recent geological observa- tions are in perfect accord with Genesis regarding the order of appearance of the various forms of organized beings." GENESIS AND MODERN SCIENCE. Again, God not only created the world out of noth- ing, but He gave it its present form during a succession of epochs. According to Genesis, as well as according to science, He first created primitive, nebulous matter, and after a long, indefinite period of time He fashioned from this matter "without form " all the myriad forms of the organic and inorganic worlds. And, according to Genesis as well as according to science, the Creator proceeded from the simpler to the more complex. He first created light, without which organic development, as we know it, is impossible. He then separated the earth from the waters of the ocean and prepared it for the abode of terrestrial life. Plant life precedes animal life in the scheme of creation, and the waters of the deep are peopled before the dry land is inhabited. In both the vegetable and animal kingdoms the lower forms of life precede the higher. The culmination of the work of creation was man, whose apparition, according to both revelation and science, was poste- rior to that of all other creatures. Here we have in a few lines a resume of some of the most important conclusions of modern science respecting the origin of the earth and its inhabitants. /And the Mosaic account, be it remembered, was writ- 36 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. ten long before any attention was given to the natural or physical sciences, and many thousand years before geology, palaeontology, and astronomy had achieved those triumphs which will render this nineteenth century of ours for ever memorable^ And not only this. Moses makes statements in his narrative that were for many long ages regarded as contrary to science and philosophy declares truths which, humanly speaking, could not have been known before an exhaustive study had been made of the past life of our globe, and before the telescope and the spectroscope had given us the knowledge we now possess concerning the origin and constitution of the material universe. What Moses declared in the infancy of our race, and what science now affirms, not only was not accepted as true in the earlier ages of the world, but was rejected as positively erroneous. The various profane cosmog- onies that obtained from time to time among divers peoples were against it. Philosophers decried it as contrary to the teachings of science, and rationalists and unbelievers fancied they discovered in its supposed contradictions an argument against the inspiration and authenticity of the Sacred Record. But as Genesis was more carefully scrutinized and as science advanced it was found that a remarkable harmony existed be- tween the two, and that, far from being contradict- ory, they both told the same story, although in differ- ent languages. The conclusion, therefore, is inevit- able. There is something in Genesis above man something supernatural, something divine. In a word, Moses was inspired. In the words of Linnaeus: "It is materially demonstrated that he did not write and THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 37 could not write except under the inspiration of the Author of nature neutiquam suo ingenio sed altiori ductu." DIFFICULTIES OF GENESIS. I would not, however, have it inferred from what has been said that there are no difficulties in Genesis, or that I am disposed to underrate their magnitude. Far from it. ( What I do maintain and insist on is that there is nothing in the Mosaic cosmogony that is con- trary to any of the certain truths of science. Scien- tific theories without number have been formulated which were contrary to the teachings of the Mosaic narrative, biit theories are not science. In the last century especially, as well as during the present one, many of these hostile theories were based on geology and palaeontology. " From the time of Buffon," wrote Cardinal Wiseman more than fifty years ago, "system rose beside system, like the moving pillars of the des- ert, advancing in threatening array; but, like them, they were fabrics of sand; and though in 1806 the French Institute could count more than eighty such theories hostile to Scripture, not one of them has stood still or deserves to be recorded." x And more than this. All sorts of extravagant inter- pretations have been given to the first chapter of Gen- esis, some of which were even more absurd than the scientific speculations of which I have just spoken. But such commentaries are no more to be accepted as the last word on the Mosaic narrative than are the hypotheses and fantasies of scientists to be regarded as veritable science. That such theories and interpreta- 1 Science and Revealed Religion, vol. i. p. 268. 38 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. tions are discordant and contradictory is no evidence whatever of any discrepancy between the Mosaic cos- mogony and the/logical deductions from the known facts of science. (Theories and conjectures may be at variance with one another, but science and, the word of God never.) I have said that I have no disposition to minimize the difficulties of the Mosaic narrative of creation, nor have I. I think one may safely assert that no one chapter in the Bible contains so many and so great dif- ficulties as does the first chapter of Genesis. On no single chapter, probably, have the Fathers and school- men and commentators expended more time and learn- ing, and in no instance have they exhibited a wider divergence of views than when endeavoring to explain this self-same chapter, and reconcile certain of its dec- larations with the known or supposed teachings of pro- fane science. SCIENTIFIC FREEDOM OF CATHOLICS. And just here it may be observed that we could have no better illustration of the perfect liberty of thought enjoyed by the children of the Church in all matters outside of positive dogma than that afforded by the diversity of views entertained by saints and doctors respecting the true meaning of many controverted pas- sages of the Mosaic cosmogony. Commentators have endeavored to accommodate the declarations of the Hebrew lawgiver to the scientific notions of their time, and, as a consequence, we have in their interpre- tations a faithful reflex of all the speculations and vagaries that have at one time or another been put forth as genuine science. We often hear it said that THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 39 believers in dogma and the Bible especially Catholics are so hampered by restrictions of all kinds that they are ever in a condition of intellectual thraldom. We are told that there are many questions in science that we, as Catholics, may not investigate, much less dis- cuss, and that our religious beliefs forbid us to accept many of the demonstrated truths of science. I wish here and now to record in the most emphatic manner possible a formal and explicit denial of each and every one of these imputations, and to declare that they are utterly without foundation in fact. The example of the Fathers and the Schoolmen and the commentators of every age of the Church gives the lie to such fool- ish declarations. In everything outside of revealed truth and the doctrinal teaching of the Church they have shown us that they were ever permitted the greatest degree of latitude in exegesis, and that they always enjoyed the greatest possible measure of intel- lectual freedom. They recognized all along that the prime object of the Bible is to save souls, and not to teach science that its main purpose is, in the lan- guage of Cardinal Baronius, (" to teach us how to go to heaven, and not how the heavens go. "y The learned Catholic historian and Orientalist, Frangois Lenor- mant, expresses the same idea when he declares that the object of Scripture is not to inform us as to " how the things of earth go and what vicissitudes follow one another here below. The Holy Spirit has not been concerned with the revelation of scientific truths or with universal history. In such matters ' He has abandoned the world to the disputes of men ' tradidit mundum disputationibus eorztm" * In questions, then, 1 The Beginnings of History, Preface. 40 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. of chronology, biology, astronomy, geology, ethnology, and anthropology we must have recourse to reason and research, to observation and experiment. Induction, and not revelation, must be our guide in all such mat- ters, except and this is very rarely the case when a certain and incontrovertible statement of fact in mat- ters of science is made by the Sacred Text itself. The specific unity of the human race taught both by the Bible and the Church is a case in point. It is a grave mistake, therefore, to regard the Bible, especially the first two chapters of Genesis, as a com- pendium of science, as so many have done. For, as Cardinal Newman observes, "it seems unworthy of the divine greatness that the Almighty should, in the revelation of Himself to us, undertake mere secular duties, and assume the office of a narrator, as such, or an historian, or geographer, except in so far as the secular matters bear directly upon the revealed truth." Catholics who have a correct knowledge of the teachings of their faith will not admit that they are in any way hampered in the pursuit of science by the exigencies of dogma. On the contrary, they claim and enjoy, in the truest sense of the word, the greatest mental freedom a freedom that truth alone can give ; a freedom that those who are outside the pale of the Church know not of the freedom of the children of God. In the case of a Catholic "it is not," as Very Rev. Father Ryder truthfully remarks, "so much his free- dom of investigation as his freedom from investiga- tion that is controlled. He is bound to be rigid and exacting in his scientific method, to maintain cau- tiously all the reserves of doubt. He is precluded THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 41 from that facile abandonment to the prevailing wind of doctrine which is so characteristic of our modern scientific world. ... A Catholic man of science may be a specialist, but he is bound to be nay, he can hardly fail to be something more. He must \ know something of all the territories of science their outlines at least for he has a theology which is more than coextensive with them all, and which has a word to say of each, though it be only, as is commonly the case, to assure the student that here he is within his right and that his way is clear." l The faith of Catholics, consequently, far from restricting their liberty of research, gives it a vivify- ing principle which it could not otherwise possess. And far from circumscribing their views of nature or giving them false notions of the laws and phenomena of the material world, it extends their horizon, and illumines the field of their investigation with a bril- liance all its own. The mistake made by many in denying to Catholics liberty of thought in the study of science is that they confound liberty with license.. Revealed truth and dogma never do and never can conflict with science ; neither are they incompatible with the most perfect intellectual freedom. They are, however, incompatible with intellectual license. They save the Catholic scientist from many errors into which those who are not guided by religious truth inevitably fall ; they shield him from the blasts of false doctrine which the Eolus of error is ever sending forth from his cave, and enable him to steer clear both of the Scylla of ignorance and superstition on the one "The Proper Attitude of Catholics toward Modern Bible Criticism," in the Catholic World, June, 1893, pp. 405 et seq. 42 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. hand and the Charybdis of agnosticism and material- ism on the other. They protect him from flighty speculations which always issue in discomfiture. They hold him to the terra firma of true science, and thus, I like Hercules, he is able to vanquish the Antaeus of fallacy and hallucination with comparative ease. But let us now turn our attention to the teaching of the various schools of exegesis that have existed in diverse periods of the Church's history. A brief resume of what they have severally taught will be not only interesting, but instructive from several points of view. It will confirm what has been said concerning the liberty of thought accorded the children of the Church respecting matters outside of faith and dogma. It will show that while entertaining diverse and even contra- dictory opinions in matters of science, the Fathers and Doctors were always of one mind in everything that appertained to faith and revealed truth. / And more than this: it will prove conclusively something that is generally ignored, if not entirely unknown, and that is that some of the grandest conceptions and generalizations attributed to modern scientists are in reality due to the early Greek and Latin Fathers. Most people are wont to credit to contemporary science much that belongs to Tradition and the School, and this because they have been taught to believe that all the ideas of the earlier commentators of Genesis were fantastical and contrary to the results of modern scien- tific researches. \ Even the cursory examination that we shall be abre to make of the cosmogonic views of some of the Church's Doctors, especially St. Gregory and St. Augustine, will, I trust, effectively dispel these erroneous notions notions which have so long ob- THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 43 tained, even among those who should know better and demonstrate beyond any possibility of doubt that we have in some of the Fathers, especially the two just named, the precursors of the most illustrious expo- nents of a true theory of the visible universe and of evolution of the various forms of terrestrial life. We \ shall find that they have anticipated the noble con- i ceptions of Descartes, Laplace, and Herschel, and expressed them in words that cannot be misunder- stood. And we shall likewise learn that they have laid down principles which are in perfect accord with the latest and most approved theories regarding the origin and constitution of the universe and the devel- opment of the manifold forms of animal and vegetable life. I do not mean by this to assert that they had anything approaching the knowledge we now possess of the natural and physical sciences, because they had not. But what I do affirm and this I shall insist on, because it is capable of the completest demonstration is, that they had a clear conception of the nature of some of the most profound problems of science with -which the human mind has ever grappled, and which even now cannot be said to have received a complete solution. But more of this as we proceed. CHAPTER II. ALLEGORISM AND LITERALISM. DIVERS SCHOOLS OF INTERPRETATION. ONE of the greatest difficulties in the interpretation of the Mosaic account of creation turns on the mean- ing to be assigned to the word day. This is a difficulty which has been recognized from the earliest ages of the Church and has given rise to divers systems or schools of interpretation. Of these various schools it will be sufficient for our purpose to review briefly the teach- ings of the four principal ones. The Alexandrine School, of which the illustrious Origen was the most distinguished representative, favored what is known as the allegorical, mystical, or ideal system of interpreting the Genesiac days. The Syrian School stoutly opposed the teachings of the Alexandrines, and advocated what is called the lit- eral system. The most eminent exponents of this system were St. Ephrem and St. John Chrysostom and the great Cappadocian, St. Basil. The third sys- tem, adopted by Cardinal Wiseman, Buckland, Chal- mers, and other distinguished scientists of their time, defends what is known as the theory of intervals or restitution. The fourth system, which is the one now generally preferred, is called the period or concordistic system. The last two systems are quite modern and do not antedate the present century. They are based 44 THE MOSAIC IIEXAEMERON. 45 on the discoveries of geology and palaeontology, and are an attempt to reconcile the teachings of science with those of revelation. The period or concordistic system is due to the great Cuvier, who gave the first exposition of it in 1821. Besides these four systems of interpretation I must direct attention to a fifth, known as \\\^cclectic system championed by St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Augus- tine. It has had many followers, and has, probably, wielded a greater influence in exegesis, and that, too, for a longer time, than any other system of interpre- tation. CHRISTIAN SCHOOL OF ALEXANDRIA. According to the Alexandrian School, the Mosaic narrative of creation is to be interpreted as a simple allegory. The six days are not to be understood in a literal, but in a mystical, sense. The work of crea- tion was not distributed over a period of six days of twenty-four hours each, but all things in the material universe the cosmos were created instantly and simul- taneously. The words of Moses are to be understood not in their natural and ordinary acceptation, but are to be interpreted in a figurative sense. And more than this : by this method of procedure the text was forced to disclose divers moral and dogmatic teachings which are entirely excluded by the literal and common mean- ing of the words. The allegorical method of interpretation, which exercised such a profound influence on scriptural exegesis in the earlier ages of the Church, was intro- duced by the rabbinical schools of Palestine long anterior to the Christian era. It, however, found its 46 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. strongest advocates in the Judaeo-Alexandrine School, of which Aristobulus and Philo Judseus were the chief representatives. The former lived about one hundred and fifty years B. c., whilst the latter was a contemporary of our Lord. Philo was an ardent admirer of the Greek philosophy, especially that of Plato. Of him it was said: "Either Plato philonizes, or Philo platonizes. " He endeavored to reconcile the teachings of Plato with those of the Hebrew lawgiver, and when he could not do so by interpreting Moses literally, he had recourse to allegory. According to him, the narrative of the creation of the world and of man, and likewise the account of the Garden of Eden, are but figures and symbols. "When," says Philo, "Moses declares that God completed His work on the sixth day, you must not imagine that there is a ques- tion of an interval of days, but of the perfect number 1 six." This is the number of perfection, because it contains six unities, three dualities, and two trinities. When, therefore, the words of Genesis declare that the world was created in six days, we must understand that this is nothing more than a metaphorical declara- tion of the perfect order that reigns in the universe. "It would be the height of simplicity to think," affirms the Jewish philosopher, "that the world was created in six days, or indeed that any time whatever was required." The Christian School of Alexandria followed closely 1 A perfect number is one that is equal to all its divisors or aliquot parts. The first in the order of numbers is 6=1 + 2 + 3; the second is 28 = i + 2 + 4 + 7 + 14. 2 Et'//$ff Travv TO olecrddc f q/jte/xuC, i] nafto/ov \ji6ru K&OfUfV yeyovfvot, Sacrce Legis Allegor., lib. i. p. 41, edit. Turnebe. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 47 the allegorism of Philo. Its exponents, like the Jew- ish philosopher, reduced the narrative of Moses to a beautiful allegory, and contended that God created all things visible, the heavens, the earth, and all that it contains, plants, animals, man, in an instant of time. They imagined that they thereby attributed to the Creator an action more in harmony with His power and immutability. And the accomplishment of this action, which they conceived to be unique and gen- eral, is, they declared, plainly indicated in the first words of Genesis: "In the beginning God created heaven and earth.' 1 The first representative of this school whose opinions on the cosmogony of Moses have been preserved to our time is Clement of Alexandria, who died in the early part of the third century. He expressly declares that all creatures were created simultaneously, 6/j.ou that the distinction in the Mosaic narrative of the six days does not indicate a real succession of time, but is a manner of speaking by which the inspired author accommodates himself to our intelligence and to our habit of conceiving things. This is Philonism pure and simple. TEACHINGS OF ORIGEN. But it is in Origen, a pupil of Clement, that we find the most ardent advocate of allegorism. He was unquestionably the most learned man of his time. His knowledge was truly encyclopedic in character. He was not only a master of all branches of sacred knowledge, but was profoundly versed in all the de- partments of profane science as well. Besides this he had a capacity for work that was simply stupendous. 48 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. Living in the greatest intellectual centre of the world "in the Babel of profane erudition," asVillemain calls Alexandria surrounded by Gnostics and Neo-Plato- nists, whose intellects were as acute as their hatred of Christianity was intense, he soon perceived the neces- sity of making an effort to reconcile the teachings of faith with those of science and philosophy, and to show that the truths of revelation were in perfect accord with the certain principles of knowledge taught by Plato and Aristotle. He wished, in the language of Mgr. Freppel, 1 that " letters, the arts, and the sciences should form the propylaea of a temple of which phil- osophy should be the base and of which theology should be its summit and crown." He studied the Sacred Scriptures from every point of view, and wrote numerous and exhaustive commentaries on them. He established a school which was famous throughout the Orient, and introduced a system of exegesis that left its impress on all subsequent systems. Unfortunately, a great portion of Origen's volumin- ous works have been lost. Enough, however, is left of his writings to enable one to know his mind regard- ing the Genesiac days of creation. Like his predecessors, Philo and Clement, Origen believed in the simultaneous creation of the universe. His reason for holding this opinion was because he found it impossible to conceive of days, like the first three days of Genesis, with evenings and mornings, without sun and moon. "What man," he asks, "pos- sessed of ordinary common sense will believe that there could have been a first, a second, and a third day, an evening and a morning, without sun, or moon, or 1 Cours d' Eloquence Sacree, OrigZne, tome i. p. 46. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 49 stars ?' ' l For this reason lie does not hesitate to de- clare that the word "days" is to be interpreted figur- atively that it means not divisions of time or dura- tion, but refers rather to the order or gradation of God's works. The opinion of the celebrated bishop of Alexandria, St. Athanasius, respecting simultaneous creation was essentially the same as that of Origen: " No creature is older than another. All species were created at the same time by a single fiat of the Divine will." 2 But Origen' s teaching regarding the days of creation is negative rather than positive. He does not so much formulate a theory concerning the nature of these days as he demonstrates the inadequacy of six days to explain the facts detailed in the narrative of the inspired writer. His opinion regarding the simul- taniety of creation is rather a provisional conjecture than a clearly conceived hypothesis to be advocated to the exclusion of every other explanation. A careful examination of his works discloses this fact, and evinces beyond cavil that it was not succession in the divine works that he objected to, nor the idea of time as im- plied in the cosmogonic days. Neither did he combat the idea of days understood in a vague sense as synon- ymous for indefinite periods of time. It was the the- ory that the Mosaic days were days of twenty-four hours each that he repudiated, and which he found impossible to reconcile with either the facts of nature 1 T/f yovv EX<>>V vovv ol^fferai Trpurr/v KOI tievrepav Kal TP'ITTJV r/ftepav, sanepav re Kal Trpuiav X U P^ L ? ffliov yeyovErai, Kal ae/l^i'^f Kal aarpcjv. Tlepl apxuv, lib. iv. l6. 2 Ti> KTifffiaruv myJ&v erepov TOV trepov npoyeyovev, aM,' a$p6uf afia navra, ra yevrj evi nai TU avru -KpoGTayfiarai VTTECTT?/, Orat. ii., Contra Arian, n. 60. 4 50 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. or the words of the Sacred Text. We may therefore say of Origen what the Abbe* Motais affirms of the school of which the erudite Alexandrine was the most illustrious representative : " It is then undeniable that the School of Alexandria taught in reality but one thing the inadequateness of days of twenty-four hours for the interpretation of Moses. ' ' l The Alexandrine theory, as we now know, is con- trary to the teachings of science. Geology establishes the fact that the creation, or at least the ordering of the world, was not simultaneous, but gradual and pro- gressive. The earth did not at once appear, as we behold it to-day, divided into seas and continents, adorned with its garment of verdure, and animated by the presence of man and a multitude of animals of every species. Life was manifested only by degrees, as in the creation described by Moses, with whom geologists are in essential accord. "The error of the Alexandrines proceeded from the defects of the science of the time. Philo attempted to reconcile Hellenism with the teachings of Moses. Clement and Origen endeavored to apply the philo- sophical spirit to the data of a Christian revelation, and to demonstrate that Plato and his pagan compeers were one in their doctrines, and that, furthermore, in so far as they were true, they were one with the Bible. They essayed, therefore, to fathom the dogmas of revelation, and cause them to be respected by reason, by corroborating them by the authority of the most venerable sages of antiquity, and by making all human sciences ancillary to theology. The end was 1 Origin e du Monde d'apres la Tradition, ouvrage posthume du Chanoine Al. Motais, cle TOratoire de Rennes, p. 127. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 51 grand and noble, but the undertaking was difficult, and even the genius of Origen bent under the load. The masters of the Christian School falsely imagined that there were passages in Scripture which it was impossible to defend by taking them literally, and, hence, in order to explain them, they, after the example of Philo, had recourse to allegory." They fancied, among other things, that it was impossible to accept as literally true the biblical narrative of creation. How could one, for instance, believe that God was obliged to interrupt His work six different times before completing it ? How recon- cile this with His almighty power? The naturalists of that period never suspected that our globe had assumed its actual form only after a long series of revolutions. Ignorant of the truth and persuaded that the literal sense of the biblical narrative was irrecon- cilable with the philosophy of their epoch, Clement and Origen concluded that the first chapter of Moses was but an allegory, and they interpreted it accord- ingly. Such is the explanation of their exegetical system. But suppose their environment to have been different suppose them to be living in our day. We may be certain that the Clements and the Origens would hail with gladness the discoveries of geology, because they would not be obliged to change any of their fundamental principles regarding the accordance of science and faith. All that would be necessary would be to give these principles a different applica- tion. 2 1 La Cosmogonie mosaique, par 1'Abbe Vigouroux, pp. 35, 36. 2 Op. cit., p. 37. 52 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. THE LITERALISM OF THE SYRIAN SCHOOLS. The allegorism of the Alexandrine School an alle- gorism that was frequently of the most extravagant character was not long in provoking opposition. A reaction was inevitable, and it came from the schools of Edessa, Antioch, and Csesarea, the most distin- guished exponents of which were respectively St. Ephrem, St. John Chrysostom, and St. Basil. St. Ephrem, who wrote in Syriac, and w r hose writ- ings exercised for many centuries a profound influence on the thought of Western Asia, rejects in the most positive manner the Alexandrine teaching respecting simultaneous creation. "In the beginning," he declares, ' ' God created the substance of heaven and earth ; that is, of a heaven and an earth truly existing in nature. Let no one, therefore, presume to look for allegories in the work of the six days. It is not per- mitted to affirm that those things were created instantly which the Scripture informs us appeared successively and on separate and distinct days. It is equally forbidden to imagine that the words of Scrip- ture are names which do not designate things, or which designate things other than those that the words themselves signify. In the same manner, then, in which we understand by the heaven and earth which were at first created a true heaven and a true earth, and do not suppose that the two terms signify something else, so likewise should we be on our guard against holding to be without meaning the terms which express the arrangement of other substances and the sequence of divers works, and should^ boldly confess that the nature of these divers beings is very THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 53 accurately represented by the different terms by which they are denominated." l According to him, the days of Genesis are ordinary days of twenty-four hours each. But a very remarkable fact in St. Ephrem's view of creation is that he maintains that the first verse of Genesis teaches the creation ex nihilo of elementary matter, from which all the bodies of the material universe, earth, sun, moon, stars, were subsequently formed. We shall see in the sequel how this idea was at a later period developed by St. Gregory of Nyssa, and how it forestalled the general conception of Kant and Laplace concerning the nebular hypothesis. St. John Chrysostom, like the illustrious deacon of Edessa, formally repudiates the teaching of Origen and his school regarding simultaneous creation. God could, he is willing to concede, have created the uni- verse in the twinkling of an eye, but He did not choose to do so. On the contrary, He deigned to conform, in a measure, with our way of acting, in order that we might the more readily comprehend His work. He wished, moreover, to teach us that this world is not the result of chance, but the work of an all-wise Providence, who "ordained all things in measure and number and weight." Severien, bishop of Gabales in Syria, a contem- porary of St. John Chrysostom, expresses with even greater precision than the golden -mouthed orator his views regarding the Hexaemeron. At the same time he distinctly enunciates the opinion of St. Ephrem respecting the creation from nothing of the primitive matter from which all things visible were afterward Quoted by Motais, op. cit., p. 131 et seq. 54 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. fashioned. "God," lie tells ns, "made all things in the space of six days. The first day, however, differs from those which followed. On the first day God produced from nothing Ix prj ovnov and, starting from the second day, He did not create from nothing, but transformed according to His pleasure that which He created the first day. . . . God, then," he con- cludes, " created primal matter 3/c TWV xrfoftartav on the first day, and during the subsequent days He did no more than give form and beauty to what He had already called from nothing." l 1 Tyv fj.6puffiv Kai TT/V 6iaK6a/iT/aiv TUV KTia/LtaTuv, Orat. I. n. 3, De Mundi Great. It is a significant fact that in the narrative of creation given in the first chapter of Genesis the word JO3 (bara), to create from nothing, occurs only three times viz. in vs. i, 21, and 27. In the first instance the inspired writer speaks of the creation of the inorganic w r orld ; that is, of the elementarj- matter from which, according to St. Ephrem and his school, the universe is evolved. In the other two cases there is question of the creation of animal life and of man. Not only in the record of creation, however, but in almost every passage of Scripture in w T hich the term is found, the word K^3 (bara) signifies creation ex nihilo. It is the consecra- ted term, therefore, to designate, so far as human language can express such an idea, the creation of substance from nothing- ness, and its creation, furthermore, by the sole act of the Almighty's will. On examining the first two chapters of Genesis we shall find that there are no less than four different words to express the creative action of the Deity. Besides JO 3 (bar&), to create from nothing creation strictly so called we have also the words nt? (asah), to make ; iy; (yasar), to form ; and H33 (banah), to build. With the exception of the three cases signalized above viz. the creation of matter, the creation of life, and the crea- tion of man God does not, properly speaking, create, but merely fashions, His creatures from pre-existing material. Thus, He did not create, but "made, a firmament" from mate- THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 55 What St. Ephrem taught at Edessa and Nisibus because he was alternately the head of both these schools and what St. John Chrysostom maintained at Antioch, St. Basil defended at Caesarea. The master of the Schools of Edessa and Nisibus had laid down the canons of literalism, and the chief representatives of the Schools of Antioch and Caesarea accepted them with but slight modifications. The basis of St. Ephrem' s system of interpretation may be summed up in two propositions : First, that the things named by Moses have a real existence; and, secondly, that the Genesiac days are ordinary days of twenty-four hours. To these canons of St. Ephrem, St. Basil cordially subscribes. Nay more: in his defence of literalism he is disposed to go even farther than had any of his pre- decessors. Origen had pushed allegorism to its extreme limit. He saw a hidden meaning in the simplest dec- larations of Scripture. According to his method of interpretation, what he called the spiritual or mystical sense came first; the literal sense he named it the " corporeal sense " was in most cases "but secondary. rial which He had already brought from nothingness ; sim- ilarly, He did not create, but " He made, two great lights," and " He made the beasts of the field according to their kinds ; " He "formed out of the ground all the beasts of the earth ;" and He "built the rib which He took from Adam into a woman." It is interesting to observe in this connection that the prophet Isaias uses the first three of the above words in a single verse. In chapter xliii. v. 7 it is written : "And every one that calleth upon my name, I have created him for my glory, I have formed him and made him." For a full exposition of X"}3 (bara), as meaning to create in the strict acceptation of the term, see Gesenius' s Thesaurus Philologicus, pp. 235, 236. 56 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. But if Origen erred by carrying allegorism too far, St. Basil, in his efforts to counteract the tendency of the illustrious Alexandrine's teachings, fell into an anal- ogous error by laying too much stress on the literal method. In his zeal to conserve the true meaning of the words of the Sacred Text he rejected allegory entirely, and thus often confounded the proper sense, in which the words are to be taken ut sonant, with their figurative sense, which, in the mind of the author, gives their true literal meaning. In his ninth homily on the Hexaemeron he enunciates distinctly the principles of exegesis by which he is guided. " I know," he tells us, "the laws of allegory, although I am not their author, but have found them in the works of others. Those who do not follew the common inter- pretation of the Scriptures do not call ' water ' water. They see in this word something entirely different. And in like manner they give a fantastical meaning to the words 'plants' and 'fishes.' And yet more. The generation of reptiles and other creatures becomes, according to their arbitrary teaching, a subject of alle- gory. In this they resemble those who give to the objects of their dreams a signification which is in accordance with their tastes or desires. As for myself, I call ' a plant ' a plant, and I interpret the words 'plant,' 'fish,' 'wild animals,' and 'flocks' as I find them in the Scripture." He gives to these words their proper, literal meaning, because Moses employs the words ordinarily used for designating these objects. In a similar manner, because the inspired writer employs the word "day" in his narrative, he insists on attributing to it the primary signification of a period of twenty-four hours. ' In a word, he concludes, THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 57 though falsely and illogically, that because some of the words are to be understood in their plain, obvious sense, they are all to be so interpreted. . What he found reprehensible in Origen the application of a figurative sense to a whole narrative because some of the words of this narrative were figurative is pre- cisely similar to what we find fault with in his too close adherence to literalism. Because some of the words of the Genesiac narrative are undoubtedly to be taken in their proper and simple signification, he infers that all are to be thus understood that all fig- ures are to be rejected even when the words of the con- text plainly indicate, as in some of the passages of the first chapter of Genesis, that the figurative sense of the words is in reality the only one which can truly give the literal sense of their author. The Syrian Schools, therefore, as distinguished from the School of Alexandria, contend that the true sense of Holy Writ is to be found by a strict interpretation of the letter of the text, without, however, excluding entirely all allegory. But with them, as we have seen, the figurative sense is always secondary. They escaped, indeed, the reefs encountered by Origen and his followers, but they ran foul of other obstacles equally perilous. In their anxiety to preserve intact the word of God they fell into numerous errors in matters of science from which the Alexandrine School escaped. But we need not go far to seek the reason for such lapses into error. The natural and physical sciences did not receive the attention in Syria that was given them in Egypt's brilliant capital. The Doctors of Edessa and Nisibus and Antioch did not have to meet the objections proposed to the masters of the 58 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. Christian School of Alexandria by the keenest expo- nents of Neo-Platonism and Gnosticism. They had not to ward off shafts of sarcasm and ridicule like those which were so persistently directed against Origen by that precursor and prototype of Voltaire Celsus, one of the bitterest and keenest opponents of the Christian name. And it was because they were thus free from the attacks of anti-Christian philosophy that they were guilty of blunders in science which they would not otherwise have committed. Literal- ism, no doubt, rendered good service to the cause of exegesis, but its too exclusive adoption was the source of many errors that were prejudicial to the cause of both Scripture and science. A couple of instances in point will make my mean- ing clearer. St. John Chrysostom, interpreting literally the words of the Psalmist, "Who established the earth above the waters," maintains that the earth actually reposes on the waters. He fails to distinguish the metaphorical from the proper sense of the words, and mistakes a figurative statement for a positive declaration of science. Again, by a forced interpretation of the words of Isaias, "He that stretcheth out the heavens as noth- ing, and. spreadeth them out as a tent to dwell in," the Egyptian monk, Cosmas Indicopleustes, imagined that the universe had the form of a tent or of the tab- ernacle built by Moses in the wilderness, and that the earth is a rectangular plane twice as long as it is broad and enveloped on all sides by the heavens or firmament. No better example could be cited of the danger of insisting on a too literal interpretation of Scripture, THE MOSAIC IIEXAEMERON. 59 especially in matters that evidently come within the purview of science. If allegorism is fraught with danger when pushed too far, literalism is equally so when accepted as the chief, if not sole, norm of bib- lical interpretation. CHAPTER III. ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA AND THE NEBULAR HYPOTH- ESIS. VIA MEDIA OF ST. GREGORY OF NYSSA. A> a consequence of the failure of literalism and allegorism to satisfy the demands of critics and ex- plain numerous difficulties in the Mosaic account of creation not to speak of other parts of the Bible it soon became apparent that some other system of inter- pretation was required that would not be open to the defects inherent in the systems of Alexandria and Syria. A compromise was needed a sort of via media which would evade what was objectionable in the older schools, while it retained all that was good and consonant with the requirements of science and biblical criticism. The first one to broach this compromise and to pave the way for a via media was the illustrious brother of St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa. St. Basil, by the very brilliance and ardor of his defence of the literal school, had precipitated a reaction which was as inev- itable as was that which followed the allegorism of Origen. For Caesarea, where the great bishop gave his exposition of the Hexaemeron, like Alexandria, was, as St. Gregory Nazianzen tells us, "a metropolis of arts and sciences." In Csesarea, as in Alexandria, the Bible and the dogmas of Christianity were the 60 THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 6 1 objects of the constant attacks of pagan philosophy and Manichaean dualism. But no question, probably, excited greater interest or provoked more discussion than that respecting the origin of the world. To the Genesiac account of the unity of origin of all things the Manichseans opposed their system of dualism, while Julian the Apostate labored with demoniac zeal and persistency to prove that the cosmogony of Plato was superior to that of Moses. All the resources of Greek science were marshalled against the Christian citadel ; every species of stratagem was resorted to and every form of assault tried, but in vain. The Chris- tian defences remained impregnable, and the soldiers of the Crucified came forth from the conflict not only unscathed, but stronger than they had ever been be- fore, and better prepared to fight new battles and achieve other and more glorious triumphs. A characteristic of the great Cappadocian Doctors that we must not lose sight of was their great love of science. They were eminent not only for their vast knowledge of the Sacred Scriptures, but also for their accurate acquaintance with all the branches of profane science as taught in the best schools of their time. Indeed, in the Hexaemeron of St. Basil we have, according to the Abbe Bayle, a resume of all that was known in the illustrious prelate's day respecting astronomy, physics, and natural history. While studying at Athens he devoted special attention to profane sci- ence, and made a critical examination of the diverse systems of cosmogony as taught by the various schools of Greek philosophy. According to all accounts, he was one of the most learned men of his century, and if we detect errors of science in his exegesis, we must 62 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. attribute them to the defective knowledge of his age wheii all the inductive sciences were still in an in- choate state rather than to an ignorance on his part of any of the positive knowledge possessed by his con- temporaries. For we must not forget that in the time of the great bishop of Caesarea a-priori reasoning, rather than observation and experiment, was appealed to to explain the origin and nature of the visible universe. Theory and speculation, as a consequence, often took the place of real science, and errors innumerable were the inevitable result. Such being the case, far from finding fault with the mistakes in science which we observe in the works of the early Christian exegetists, we should rather be surprised that the errors are so few. They were cer- tainly not more numerous, nor more serious, than those found in the works of the ablest of the pro- fessional exponents of the profane science of the period. It were foolish to expect them to know more about geography than Eratosthenes and Strabo and Pomponius Mela, who had made a life-study of the subject; or to demand of them a more accurate know- ledge of astronomy than was possessed by Hipparchus or Ptolemy; or to suppose that they should have a more precise and a more extended acquaintance with physics and natural history than had Aristotle or Pliny. Such an exaction would be the height of unreason. As well might we find fault with them for not being so well versed in physics as Ampere or Maxwell, or reproach them for knowing less of astron- omy than Leverrier or Father Secchi, and less of geography than Humboldt, Malte-Brun, or Carl Ritter men whose science was based on the experiments THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 63 and observations of thousands of investigators and on the accumulated knowledge of wellnigh twenty cen- turies. NEBULAR HYPOTHESIS OF ST. GREGORY. But we may go yet further. Not only were the ex- egetists I have named, especially those of Alexandria and Caesarea, imbued with a love of science and fully abreast with every advance of scientific research, but they were the first to propose and develop a true theory of the origin of the world, and to lay the foundations of cosmogonic doctrines that are usually credited to investigators of a much later epoch. A most striking illustration of the truth of this statement is found in that marvel of exegesis the Hexaemeron of St. Greg- , ory of Nyssa wherein is developed, in unequivocal \ terms, the same hypothesis that has so long been re- ) garded as the special glory of the Systime du Monde (^ of L/aplace. St. Gregory of Nyssa, who was the youngest brother of St. Basil, was induced to write his great work by an elder brother, Peter, the bishop of Sebaste, who became alarmed at the criticisms that were constantly made on the cosmogonic views of the eloquent bishop of Caesarea. Gregory was inferior to Basil in eloquence and erudition, but surpassed him in scientific method and philosophic spirit. His prime, if not his sole, in- tention, when he took up his pen and engaged in the controversy was to defend his brother from the attacks of his critics. But he soon found himself, almost un- consciously and against his own will, forced to aban- don this idea. He discovered that the cosmoeonal 64 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. views of Basil could no longer withstand the onslaughts of the critical Greeks, who had carefully followed them from beginning to end. But he would never admit that there was any funda- mental difference between his teaching and that of his distinguished brother. He maintained that Basil, speaking in a large church to a numerous audience, was obliged to adapt his language to the intelligence of his hearers, but that in spite of his precautions he was often misunderstood. Gregory's purpose, then, was to explain the views of his brother, and not to contradict them or proclaim them untenable. But, although he disavows any intention of advocating aught that was different from what his brother had taught, and although he explicitly declares that his sole purpose is to graft a small shoot on the noble tree of his master, he does, as a matter of fact, teach doc- trines essentially different, and promulgates a theory of cosmogony that not only makes him the founder of a new school of exegesis, but which evinces that he was one of the clearest and boldest thinkers that the world has ever known; St. Gregory of Nyssa, like his brother St. Basil and his illustrious friend St. Gregory Nazianzen, accepted the Alexandrine doctrine of simultaneous creation. But he succeeded better than either his brother or his friend in keeping to the via media between the Alex- andrines on the one hand and the Syrians on the other. He avoids the excessive allegorism of the former as well as the exaggerated literalism of the latter. Like Origen and Athanasius, he admits the name and idea of simultaneous creation, but rejects the purely symbolic explanation of the first chapter of THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 65 Genesis which was given such vogue by Philo. With the Syrians he distinguishes six real days in the work of creation, but, unlike them, he is not a slave to the letter of the Sacred Text. His method is more criti- cal, and he acknowledges on all occasions the service that profane science may render to scriptural exegesis. 1 According to St. Gregory of Nyssa, the words "In the beginning God created heaven and earth " do not refer to the creation of the heavens and the earth as we now behold them, and still less do they signify the creation of the creatures plants, animals, and man that inhabit the earth. They refer rather to the cre- ation from nothing of the primitive cosmic matter, from which all forms of matter, organic and inorganic, were subsequently fashioned. In modern phraseology all the material universe was at first in a gaseous or nebulous condition, and from this nebulous matter all the heavenly bodies, sun, moon, stars, planets, were in course of time evolved. The saint finds a warrant for this intrepretation in the words of Genesis itself, for, according to the inspired writer, the earth after the first creative act was "void and empty," or, as the Septuagint has it,- "invisible and discomposed." 2 1 Cf. F. Vigouroux, op. cit., p. 88. 2 The words of the Vulgate are inanis et vacua. The Sep- tuagint, however, employs terms that are more expressive, and which are at the same time in perfect accord with the teaching of modern science regarding the origin of the w T orld. The words used by The Seventy are anparcx; nal aKaTaaneii-o^ invisi- bilis et incomposita and indicate a condition of things implied by the word chaos of the Greek philosophers, the " rudis indi- gestaque moles" of the Roman poet, and by the Hebrew words .17131 in/\ tdhott vdbohou, which are often rendered by the words solitudo et inanitas. 66 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. In the beginning, then, all things were created potentially rather than in act; they were contained naturally or in germ in the invisible and unformed matter that came forth from nothing in response to the divine fiat. The first sentence of Genesis tells us of creation properly so called the opus creationis. That which follows refers to the formation, from pre-exist- ing matter, of all the bodies of the universe. This is what theologians call the opus formaiionis, and what modern scientists denominate development, or evolution. In the beginning, therefore, according to St. Greg- ory of Nyssa, all was in a chaotic or nebulous state. But it did not remain so, because the Almighty put it under the action of certain physical laws by virtue of which it was to go through that long cycle of changes of which science speaks, and about the existence of which there can, it seems, no longer be any reasonable doubt. The manner in which the saint expresses himself when treating of this subject is, considering the scien- tific knowledge of his time, simply marvellous. He seems to have had an intuitive knowledge of what could not then be demonstrated, and of what could be known only after the revelations of modern geology and astronomy. In this respect he often reminds one of Aristotle, who had intuitions of certain of the laws and processes of nature of which there was no experi- mental evidence until more than two thousand years > after he had given expression to his opinions. After the primitive nebulous matter of the cosmos was created, certain molecules, St. Gregory teaches, began, under the influence of attraction, to unite with other molecules and to form separate masses of matter. THE MOSAIC HEXAE.MERON. 67 111 the course of time these masses of matter, rotating on their axes, gave off similar masses, which assumed a spherical form. In this wise were produced the sun and moon, stars and planets. The various heavenly bodies resulting from the con- densation of the primitive nebulae that filled all space exhibited, as St. Gregory declares, many and striking differences. They differed in size, weight, luminosity, in their relative distances from their centres of attrac- tion, and in the orbits which they describe with such unerring precision and harmony. But in this brilliant conception, in which he could but divine what Laplace and his compeers have made all but certain, St. Gregory recognized the existence of laws which he was unable to detect, much less com- prehend. These were the laws made known long ages afterward by the investigations of Kepler, Newton, and Plateau, and the laws of chemical affinity which have thrown such a flood of light on the secret opera- tions of nature. But in spite of its many defects, due to the ignorance of the age in which he lived, his Hexa- emeroii will ever remain a noble specimen of learning and philosophical acumen, and his theory of the for- mation of the world must always be regarded as a marvel of scientific divination that is unsurpassed by even the boldest conceptions of that master-intellect of the world Aristotle. No exegetist has ever been more happy in the employment of the scientific method ; no one has ever had a keener appreciation of the reign of law and order which obtains in the universe; no one has ever realized more thoroughly that the cosmos, as we now see it, far from being the work of chance or the result of a series of divine interventions, is the out- 68 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. come of a gradual evolution of that primordial matter which God created in the beginning, which He then put under what we call the laws of nature, and which He still conserves by His providence. Excepting un- important details, the general tenor of his cosmogony is to-day as consonant with the teachings of Scripture and the latest conclusions of science as is that of an interpreter of our own century. He is conscious of the difficulty of making the days of Genesis days of twenty-four hours, as did his brother and the expo- nents of the literal school generally, but out of respect for those whom he held in such great reverence he appears to have been unwilling to grapple with the difficulty directly, much less to propound a theory that could be construed as a contradiction of the doctrine of St. Basil, whom he had it in purpose to explain and defend. But, notwithstanding his deep reverence for his brother and the delicacy of feeling he exhibits toward him throughout his masterly work on Genesis, one cannot but recognize that he considered the teachings of the literal school inadequate to ex- plain the declarations of Moses, and that a new inter- pretation the one he himself so modestly suggests is the only one which can afford a logical answer to the difficulties raised, and which at the same time har- monizes with both the words of the Sacred Text and /with the teachings of profane science. His teaching I regarding the evolution of the universe under the ac- i tion of physical laws, and the gradual formation of the ! earth, and the successive production and development of the various creatures which inhabit it, leaves us in no doubt as to his theory of cosmogony, nor as to the fact that he is in all justice to be regarded as the father and THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 69 founder of the modern school of scriptural interpre- tation, as well as the real originator of the nebular hypothesis 1 that is so exclusively attributed to mod- ; ern thinkers, particularly Kant, Herschel, and Laplace. 1 The materialistic cosmologists of the Ionic Schools, espe- cially Thales, Anaximander, and Anaximenes, who are some- times credited with originating the nebular hypothesis, had but a vague perception of its truth. CHAPTER IV. ST. AUGUSTINE AND EVOLUTION. EXEGESIS, OLD AND NEW. ST. AUGUSTINE AND ECLECTICISM. BUT wonderful as were the scientific intuitions of St. Gregory of Nyssa, they were eclipsed by those of the illustrious Latin Doctor, St. Augustine. Both men were remarkable for the keenness of their perceptions and for the logical manner in which they treated every question that was presented them for discussion. Both had a complete acquaintance with the profane sciences as taught in their day, and recognized the assistance a knowledge of science may render the student of Scrip- ture. Both, too, excelled in the scientific and philo- sophic method, which they employed with singular success in the elucidation of controverted biblical topics, and possessed a critical faculty which was far superior to that observable in any of their contempo- raries. But, distinguished as he was among the exege- tists of his day, and notwithstanding the fact that he was facile princeps among the intellectual giants of his time and race, the bishop of Nyssa had neither the genius nor the erudition nor the comprehensiveness of view that we admire in the prelate of Hippo. In the great African doctor we seem to have combined the searching and potent dialectics of Plato, the profound scientific conceptions of Aristotle, the learning and 70 THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 71 versatility of Origen, the grace and eloquence of Basil and Chrysostom. Whether we regard him as philos- opher, theologian, or exegetist; as confuting Arians, Pelagians, and Manichaeans; or as vindicating the faith of the Gospel against paganism ; or grappling with the difficult and obscure questions of Mosaic cosmogony; or fixing, with long and steadfast gaze, his eagle eye on the mystery of the Trinity, the Doctor of Grace is ever admirable, at once the glory of the Church and the master of the ages. In scriptural exegesis he is the author of the system usually known as eclecticism, a system that was based in some measure on the teachings both of the Alex- andrine and Syrian Schools. Like St. Gregory of Nyssa, he saw the necessity of a via media between the systems advocated by Origen and Ephrem, but, unlike him, he was more positive in his repudiation of the insufficiency of literalism and in his condemna- tion of the extravagances of allegorism. He scruti- nized both systems closely, and exhibited in the most luminous manner the merits and defects of each. At one time he was disposed to take refuge in the simul- taneity of the Alexandrines ; at another he sought light in the interpretations of their opponents at Edessa and Csesarea. He critically examined, one by one, the theories of his predecessors and found them wanting. He evolved theories of his own until they numbered more than half a score, but without any satisfactory result. Indeed, the Mosaic Hexaemeron seemed to possess a special fascination for him, and the problems which it raised appeared to haunt him from the time of his conversion until the end of his life. He returns to them over and over, and takes 72 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. them up repeatedly as if for the first time. He rejects methods that he had once approved, and casts aside as untenable theories which he himself had most strongly supported. At one time he appears to be a disciple of Origen and Clement, at another a pupil of Ephrem and Basil. His is the intellect of genius groping in darkness and essaying the impossible in the region of mystery. We see this whenever the question of crea- tion is mooted in his "Confessions" and in his " City of God ;" in his unfinished work on Genesis, and in his " Retractions," and his crowning treatise on the subject the most complete antiquity has left us on creation the twelve books entitled De Genesi ad Litteram. MEANING OF THE WORD ' ' DAY. ' ' During the twenty-five best years of his life the first two chapters of Genesis were continually before the saint's mind. What did Moses mean by the words "days"? he asks again and again in accents of mingled pathos and despair. How could there be days in the ordinary acceptation of the word before the sun was created on the fourth day ? Were not the first three days mentioned by Moses periods of time rather than ordinary days of twenty-four hours each ? And what about the seventh day a day that had no evening a day, therefore, that still endures? And yet another difficulty : How explain, according to the laws of nature, which are the laws of God, the production and development of the various forms of plant and animal life in the short period of six ordinary days? THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 73 - The idea that God during the Genesiac days ope- rated in a manner different from that which subse- quently characterized His providence ; that the laws which governed the material universe were not the same then as they were afterward ; that the Hexa- emeron was distinguished by a series of miracles and a succession of specific creations, rather than by the reign of law that the Creator Himself had imposed on matter, and by which it was endowed with the power of gradual evolution and differentiation, seemed so repugnant to the keen and logical intellect of Augus- tine that he could never bring himself to adopt it, much less give it his support. That the Almighty should interrupt his work after having commenced it, that He should take it up six several times before completing it, was to his mind as inconsistent with just ideas of divine power and wis- dom as it was to that of Origen. What he knew of the uniformity of the laws of nature contradicted such an interpretation, and the more he studied the Sacred Text the less warrant there seemed to be for i.t in the words of the inspired writer. IHe does not deny the miraculous. Far from it. But he does not favor the invoking the aid of miracles without necessity or ap- pealing to them in every difficulty of interpretation, and thus making them serve the purpose of a Dcus ex machina. ) In his "Confessions" 1 St. Augustine gives us an idea of the special attraction which the Hebrew cos- mogony always possessed for him. " Let me hear and understand," he prays, "how in the beginning Thou didst make the heaven and the earth. Moses wrote 1 Book xi. cap. iii. 74 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. this; he wrote and departed passed hence from Thee to Thee. Nor now is he before me, for if he were I would hold him and ask him, and would adjure him by Thee that he would open unto me these things, and I would lend the ears of my body to the sounds bursting from his mouth. . . . As, then, I cannot inquire of him, I beseech Thee Thee, O Truth, full of whom he spoke truth Thee, my God, I beseech, forgive my sins; and do Thou, who didst give to that Thy servant to speak these things, grant to me also to understand them." The meaning of .the word "day" was as great an enigma to him as it was to Origen and his school. His reason revolts at the idea of regarding the days of Genesis as ordinary days of twenty-four hours. He is convinced that they cannot be true "solar days" that they are not produced by the revolution of the heavenly bodies. They must, therefore, be "entirely different from the days that compose our weeks" "of a character quite extraordinary and to us unknown." "What are these days?" he inquires in his great work De Civitate Dei. 1 "It is very difficult, if not impossible, to conceive, much less to declare in words. 2 The days which we know have an evening when the sun sets and a morning when the sun rises. But the first three days were without a sun, which, according to Scripture, was created only on the fourth day." "If," he writes elsewhere, "in the six other days the words evening and morning characterize a suc- cession of time analogous to that with which we are 1 Lib. xi. cap. vi. 2 " Qui dies cujusmodi ?int, aut perdifficile nobis, aut etiam impossibile est cogitare, quanto magis dicere." THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 75 familiar in the daily alternations of evening and morn- ing, I fail to see why the seventh day did not have an evening, and why it was not followed by another morning. I look in vain for a reason why it is not said of this day as of the others, ' And the evening and the morning were the seventh day.' In the hypothesis of ordinary days it is one of the seven which constitute the week, the repetition of which gives us months and years and centuries. It should, consequently, have had an evening, and been followed by the morning of the eighth day. Then, and then only, would Moses have completed his enumeration and returned to the first day named. It is, then, more than probable that the seven days of Genesis were entirely different in their duration from those which now mark the succession of time. Nothing of which we are now cognizant can give us any information regarding the first six days of the earth's formation. The evening and the morning, the light and darkness, called day and night, were not, then, the same as we now understand by solar days. Regarding the three days which preceded the formation of the sun this may be accepted as certain." l But if the Genesiac days are not solar days, what are they ? The saint has told us what they are not. Had he any conception of what they were ? A close study of his latest works will leave no doubt about this matter. The word " days," according to the illustrious doctor, are not to be taken in a literal, but in a figu- rative, sense. They mean, not ordinary days, but the works of creation which were unfolded in time by 1 De Genesi ad Litteram, lib. iv. cap. 18. 76 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. a series of progressive transformations. For a similar reason the words evening and morning are to be inter- preted metaphorically as meaning not dusk and dawn, but the beginning and end of the divine works. 1 God, according to St. Augustine as well as accord- ing to St. Gregory of Nyssa, first created matter in an elementary or nebulous state. From this primordial matter created ex nihilo was evolved, by the action of physical laws imposed on it by the Creator, all the various forms of terrestrial life that subsequently appeared. In this process of evolution there was succession, but no division of time. The Almighty completed the work He had begun, not intermit- tently and by a series of special creations, but through the agency of secondary causes by the operation of natural laws and forces causales rationes of which He was the Author. The seventh day, which has no evening, still endures. It means, therefore, a period of time, as do also the other six days, for they are and must be identical. The divine week spoken of in Genesis is consequently unlike the human week. The days in the two cases, far from being analogous, are widely dissimilar and express ideas totally different. The great doctor of Hippo was not, it is true, able to demonstrate the truth of his theory, but he showed that it was more reasonable and more probable than any others that had been advanced, and at the same 1 " Restat ergo ut intelligamus, in ipsa quidem mora tempo- ris ipsas distinctiones operum sic appellatas, vesparam propter transactionem consummati operis, et mane propter inchoa- tionem futuri operis." De Genesi contra Ma?iichceos, lib. i. cap. 14. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMKRON. 77 time more conformable both with the words of the Sacred Text and with the declarations of science. He blazed out the road to be travelled by those who came after him, and established principles which served as the basis of all future exegesis. " Unable to enter the port himself, he avoided mis- taking a moving island for the main land. If he cast anchor, it was but en passant and during the night only. His stops, while his vessel was riding at anchor, were but so many halts in his voyage. For twenty-five years he sailed the high seas without being able to touch land. Less fortunate than Columbus, he never reached the world which was the object of his quest. The voyage was too long for a mariner without a com- pass. But it prepared the way for discovery. He sig- nalized all the shoals, he pointed out the route, erected lighthouses, and indicated the direction to be taken. Unable to be the author of modern exegesis, he was its precursor and prophet. Prevented from establish- ing it on a firm basis, he did what was probably better. In the name of Moses he demonstrated its necessity." A little geology, a view of the fossil iferous strata of the earth's crust in the light of palaeontology, an ink- ling of the theory of cosmogony as based on the dis- coveries of modern physics and astronomy, were all that the saint required to place his system of inter- pretation on the solid foundation on which it now reposes. He was conscious of his ignorance of certain data, which he did not possess and of which he could not divine the character. But he looked to the future to 1 Origine du Monde, par Al. Motais, p. 220. 78 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. remove difficulties which to him were insuperable. And when, long centuries afterward, geology and astronomy achieved their glorious triumphs, exegetists had nothing more to do than apply the inductions of science to the principles which the great Doctor had laid down, and lo ! Moses became his own interpreter and the Bible and Science were one. DERIVATIVE CREATION. The most remarkable feature of St. Augustine's system of exegesis a feature that has been only incidentally alluded to in what precedes is the special stress he lays on the operation of natural laws, and the observations he makes concerning derivative creation or creation through the agency of secondary causes. In this respect he is unique among the Fathers, and far in advance of any of his predecessors. Indeed, it is only now that the world is beginning to awaken to a realization of the far-reaching character of the principles which the saint established, and of their complete harmony with both the teachings of science and the truths of revelation. This is especially the case in respect of the bearing of his doctrines on the modern theory of evolution. It may seem strange to some of my readers to be told that St. Augustine was the father of theistic evo- lution, and yet, paradoxical as it may appear, the statement is substantially true. Of course it is quite evident that he knew nothing about evolution as it is now taught. When nothing more was known of the sciences of botany, physiology, and zoology than the little that had been taught by Aristotle, Galen, and Pliny; when only a few species of animals and plants THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 79 had been studied, and those but imperfectly; when geology and palaeontology were unknown, and when the few fossils that were occasionally met with at- tracted either no attention or were regarded as mere lusus natures or evidences of the plastic power of the earth; when the microscope was undreamed of, and when the world of microscopic life, the world " of the infinitely little," was still hidden from the gaze of the investigator; when the telescope and the spectroscope were not available for researches regarding the origin and constitution of the physical universe, it could not be expected that even a genius like that of St. Augustine, marvellous as it was for its intuitions and for its grasp of scientific principles, would be able to take the same comprehensive view of the vast field of nature as one may now take fifteen hundred years later, or as the illustrious Doctor would himself take if he were now living. And if the saint could have had no knowledge of evolution in the sense in which it is now under- stood, still less could he have been an evolutionist like unto Darwin, Romanes, or Herbert Spencer, or like Schmidt, Vogt, or Ernst Haeckel. The faith he pro- fessed, the philosophy by which he was guided, and the revelation which illumined an intellect naturally perspicacious and open to truth made this impossible. In what sense, then, was he an evolutionist, and how may he be considered as the precursor or father of modern evolution ? Let us see. j We have already remarked that St. Augustine seems to have been the first of the Fathers to have a distinct conception of the fact that the world is under the reign of law, and that God in the government of the physi- 80 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. cal universe acts not directly or immediately, but indi- rectly and through the agency of secondary causes, or what we are pleased to denominate "the laws and forces of nature. " His language on this subject is so explicit that it cannot be mistaken. In his commentaries on Genesis, in his " City of God," as well as in his other works, he is continually speaking of the laws of nature leges naturtz by which created things are gov- erned; the ordinary course of nature usitatum cursitni ordinemqiie natures ; the causal reasons of things causales rationes which God gave to the world when He created all things, and in virtue of which inorganic matter became capable of transformation and organic matter acquired the power of development. He insists on it that we should explain the phenomena of the physical world in conformity with the nature of things naturas rerum and not by the constant intervention of miracles, and emphasizes the fact that the Almighty has "ordained all things in measure and number and weight." St. Augustine, as we have seen, clearly distinguishes between creation properly so called opus creationis and the work of formation or development opus for- -mationis. The former was direct and simultaneous, for God, the saint declares, created oinnia simul, while the latter, he contends, was gradual and progressive and conformable to the laws of nature which now obtain. He tells us distinctly that animals and plants were produced not as they now appear, but virtually and in germ in semine or ex seminibus and that the Creator gave to the earth the power of evolving from itself by the operation of natural laws the various forms of animal and vegetable life. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 8 1 "As there is invisibly in the seed," he affirms, "all that which in the course of time constitutes the tree, so also are we to view the world when it was created by God cum simul omnia creavit as containing all that which was subsequently manifested, not only the heavens with the sun and moon and stars, . . . but also those things which He produced potentially and causally potentialiter atque causaliter from the waters and the earth before they appeared as we now know them." 1 Again, he affirms that all things were in the beginning created in an elementary con- dition in quadam textura elemeniorum and received their development subsequently, acceptis opportuni- tatibus. In order that he may not be misunderstood the saint expressed himself in manifold ways. He has an exuberance of language to make his meaning clear, and a wealth of illustration which is as beautiful as it is simple and apposite. In commenting on the words, " Let the earth bring forth the green herb," he states explicitly that plants were created not directly, but potentially in fieri, in causa that the earth pro- duced herb and tree causally causaliter and in vir- tue of a power it had received from the Creator producendi accepisse virliitem? He insists on it that Moses in the first chapter of Genesis teaches that creation was successive, se- cundum intervalla tcmporum ; that the works of creation were not disconnected, but that, on the con- 1 De Genesi ad Lift. , lib. v. cap. xxiii. 2 " Causaliter ergo tune dictum est produx'sse terram herbam et lignum, id est producendi accepisse vivtutem." Op. cit., lib. v. cap. v. 6 82 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. trary, they were continuous and dovetailed, so to speak, into one another ; that there was a permixtio dierum ; that all things, plants, trees, and animals, appear, multiply, and develop according to the special laws of their nature /// agant temporaries numeros suos naturis propriis distributes ; that their develop- ment is normal, according to laws ordained for each individual ; that it was the same in the beginning as it is now ; that then, as now, it was effected not within a few ordinary solar days, but during a pe- riod of time which is indeterminate per vohunina sceculorum. "In the beginning," he declares in his great work against the Manichaeans, 1 "God created heaven and earth. By the words heaven and earth are meant all creatures made by God. They are thus denominated by the name of visible things in order that weak human minds may more readily comprehend them. Matter then as just created was invisible and formless, and in the condition which the Greeks designated by the word chaos. From this individual beings those having form were produced." This formless matter, which God created from noth- ing, was first called heaven and earth, and it is written j that " In the beginning God created heaven and ] earth," not because it was forthwith heaven and earth, i but because it was destined to become heaven and earth. 2 When we consider the seed of a tree, we ' say that it contains the roots, the trunk, the branches, the fruits, and the leaves, not because they are already there, but because they shall be produced from it. It is 1 De Genesi contra Manicheos, lib. i. cap. v. * " Non quia jam hoc erat, sed qtiia jam hoc esse poterat." THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 83 in this sense that it is declared that " In the beginning God created heaven and earth ; that is to say, the seed of the heaven and the earth when the matter of the heaven and the earth was yet in a confused state. Be- cause heaven and earth were to be produced from this matter, it is thus called by anticipation, as it were, heaven and earth." Verily, in reading these words we can fancy that we are perusing some modern scientific treatise on cosmogony instead of an exposition of Genesis written by a Father of the Church fifteen centuries ago. The theory of creation, therefore, as held by the Fathers, does not, contrary to what is so often sup- posed in our day, "necessitate the perpetual search after manifestations of miraculous powers and per- petual catastrophes. Creation is not a miraculous interference with the laws of nature, but the very institution of those laws. Law and regularity, not arbitrary intervention, was the patristic ideal of crea- tion. With this notion they admitted without diffi- culty the most surprising origin of living creatures, provided it took place by law. They held that when God said, 'Let the waters produce, let the earth pro- duce,' He conferred forces on the elements of earth and water which enabled them naturally to produce the various species of organic beings. This power, they thought, remains attached to the elements throughout all time." St. Thomas Aquinas brings out this idea clearly when, in quoting St. Augustine, he declares that "in the institution of nature we do not look for miracles, 1 L,oc. cit., lib. i. cap. vii. 84 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. but for the laws of nature. ' ' * The same Angel of the Schools, in comparing the literal interpretation of St. Basil with that advocated by St. Augustine, asserts that the former is more conformable to the text, but that the latter is more reasonable and better adapted to defend the Sacred Scriptures against the attacks of unbelievers. 2 PRINCIPLES OF EXEGESIS UNCHANGEABLE. From the foregoing it will be seen how ill founded is the charge that Catholic exegesis is continually changing in order to make way for the new. So far is this from being the case that it in many cases rejects the new and holds on to the old. This is particularly true of the theories of St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Augustine regarding the origin of the world, and it were easy to show that it is equally true of other views which they maintained. In details, in matters of minor importance, no one denies or can deny that there have been changes, or that Catholic exegetists have modified their expositions of the Scriptures so as to make them harmonize with the latest results of scientific research. But changes in matters of detail in biblical interpre- tation, changes in points of view regarding the Mosaic cosmogony, are quite different from changes of prin- ciples in questions of exegesis. The principles that have guided theologians and commentators have ever remained the same, however great may have been the 1 " In prima autem institutione naturae non quaeritur mirac- ulum, sed quid natura rerum habeat, ut Augustinus dicit. Lib. ii. sup. Gen. ad Litt., cap. i." Sum. lae, Ixvii. 4 ad 3. 2 Ibid. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 85 mutations of profane science, and however much sci- entific investigation may have caused us to revise our views of nature. Catholic exegetists have always regarded the Bible as the word of God, butume of the principles of inter- pretation which they never lose sight of, and which it is important for us to bear in mind here, is that we must submit certain questions of Scripture to the examination of both reason and science.) This is especially true of topics like the cosmogony of Moses, which refers to many things that come within the pur- view of science, and which science alone can explain. Origen attached so much importance to a knowledge of profane science that, as St. Gregory Thaumaturgus relates, he taught his students physics and astronomy before he introduced them to the study of Sacred Scripture. St. Augustine is no less positive in affirm- ing the necessity on the part of the commentator of making his interpretation accord with the dictates of reason and the certain data of science certissima ratione vel experienlia. He asserts expressly that the human sciences raise the mind to divine things dis- ciplines liberates afferent intellcctum ad divina ; that philosophy, which is the chief among the sciences omnium disciplinarum excogitatrix is of special ser- vice in begetting, defending, nourishing, and strength- ening the faith : Fides, qucz per scientiam gignitur, nutritur, defenditur, con'oboratur, One of the reasons that moved the Alexandrine School to adopt the theory of simultaneous creation was, as we have seen, that it harmonized better than any other theory with the philosophical systems then in vogue. And the reason why, at various stibse- 86 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. quent epochs, divers other views were held was because such views were considered to be more in consonance with the deductions of science and the declarations of the Sacred Text. The theories, then, of exegetists have changed because science or what was called science has changed, and not because there has been any change in, much less repudiation of, the principles of scrip- tural interpretation. The principles of exegesis that Origen taught, that Basil followed, that Augustine proclaimed were ever the same, and one with the principles that Catholic theologians now employ. Cardinal Franzelin, in his learned tractate on Sacred Scripture, expressly declares that "the interpretation of questions of Scripture which treat of natural things may be materially aided by the natural sciences." This view of the erudite cardinal, to which Leo XIII. gives renewed and emphatic expression in his late Encyclical Provide ntissimns Deus, is the one univer- sally held by contemporary theologians, and it was the one, and the only one, which found acceptance with the Fathers and Doctors of the early Church. No, I repeat it, the principles of exegesis have not changed, but science has progressed, and theories that were once considered as so much veritable science have been discarded for others which for the nonce are looked upon as being more tenable. If scientists themselves modify their views to suit the latest advance of science, can they, with any show of reason, find fault with theologians and exegetists 1 Interpretatio in locis Scripturse quse agunt de rebus natu- ralibus, multum juvari potest per scientias naturales. Tracta- tus de Trad, et Script., p. 731. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 87 for doing the same? Surely not. The Fathers and Doctors of the Church were fully abreast with the science of their time, and it were folly to expect more than this of them to exact of them a knowledge which those who made the pursuit of science a spe- cialty did not possess, or to imagine that they should be as far advanced in the inductive sciences as those who have had the benefit of long centuries of observa- tion and experiment. 1 So far, I have directed attention to the interpretation by the Fathers of the Genesiac word "day" to the theory of St. Gregory of Nyssa regarding the primi- tive matter from which the universe was formed, and to the still more remarkable theory of St. Augustine concerning organic evolution. It would not be a dif- ficult matter to point out other points of resemblance some of them almost equally striking between the views of the early Fathers in matters of science and the current teachings of some of the most competent exponents of contemporary thought. MATTER AND LIGHT. Thus, St. Gregory of Nyssa tells us that in nature there is transformation, but no annihilation, of matter. "Everything is transformed; nothing is lost." All things move, as it were, in a circle. There are, indeed, changes innumerable, but all things, sooner or later, return to their original condition. Under the influence of the sun clouds are formed from the sea; the clouds produce rain, and the rain eventually 1 See also, in this connection, the statement of Leo XIII. in the above-mentioned Encyclical. 88 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. returns again to the sea whence it came. So it is with the phenomena of combustion and decay, in the burn- ing of oil, in the disintegration of the human body. There is a continuous and uninterrupted cycle of changes, chemical and physical, but no destruction of matter. How like a paragraph from a modern treatise on chemistry are those words of the Hexaem- eron of the illustrious Greek exegetist of fifteen cen- turies ago ! Again : How wonderfully the views of the acute Greek Doctor regarding the nature of light are corrob- orated by the results of modern physical research ! It has been objected to the Mosaic cosmogony that it must be false because it represents light as having been created . before the sun and moon and stars. Light, according to the narrative of Genesis, was created on the first day, whereas the heavenly bodies were not called into existence until the fourth day. These statements, rationalists and superficial unbe- lievers have declared, are irreconcilable with the known conclusions of science, but so far is this from being the case that, paradoxical as it may appear, they are in perfect accord with the latest available knowledge regarding the nature of light. But St. Gregory of Nyssa finds no difficulty in admitting the existence of light before the formation of the sun and other celestial luminaries. Anticipating the corpus- cular theory of Newton, he imagined that light was a special kind of matter of which the luminous orbs of heaven were composed; that the light-giving mole- cules which compose the sun and moon and stars were originally disseminated throughout the primordial neb- ulous mass, and came together in virtue of certain THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 89 laws of affinity and attraction to which they were subject. His theory was wrong, we now say, and so . was Newton's wrong, although there are not wanting certain contemporary scientists who still aver that it is more tenable than any other theory yet advanced. But be that as it may, the fact remains that light, whatever its nature, could and undoubtedly did exist before the creation of the "two great lights" that Genesis speaks of as the work of the fourth day. | Whether or not we accept the Huyhenian hypothesis I that light is due to the vibration of a medium filling ; all space, known as the ether, the undulations of i which are capable of producing an impression on the ; retina, it still remains an incontestable fact, according /to L/aplace's beautiful theory, that "the sun is born] * of light, rather than light of the sun." For, long 1 before the nebulous mass from which the sun was evolved was sufficiently condensed to form the bril- liant luminary which we now behold, the revolving cosmic mass had, in virtue of its condensation and contraction, begun to emit light and dissipate the darkness that before had enveloped the immensity of i chaos. Not only this. The principle of light, what- ever it be, is, as all physicists are aware, ever latent round about us, and requires only special excitants to develop it and make us conscious of its existence. It is disclosed in the lightning's flash, in the aurora borealis and aurora australis, and in various phe- nomena of chemical and mechanical action and phos- phorescence. If, however, we interrogate scientists regarding the nature of light, the only response which we shall receive is, "We do not know." We can but study its gO BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. properties, and these lead us to believe that it is most probably -a mode of motion excited in the ether by what are called luminous bodies. It is the tindulatory movements of this ether which by means of the eye give rise to the sensation of sight. But of the true nature of light we are absolutely ignorant. " At what period in the development of the universe the emission of light began science is unable to say. It can, however, assert that light existed long prior to the separation of matter or the formation of distinct luminous bodies. For this reason there can, there- fore, be no question of a contradiction between the Genesiac narrative and the declarations of science regarding the origin of light." 1 There is certainly nothing in modern science that can impair in the least the truthfulness of the Mosaic cosmogony, much less discredit the Genesiac narra- tive. We may to-day have truer conceptions of the nature of light than had St. Gregory and St. Augus- tinej but the enemies of the Bible are no more able now to show any discrepancy between the certain data of science and the words of Genesis regarding the creation of light than were the impugners of the Inspired Record in the first ages of the Church's existence. And so I might continue giving illustrations of the perfect harmony that exists, and must exist, between Genesis and science. But my object is not to write a treatise on the subject, but only to exhibit, in a few of the more controverted points, the fact that there is no ground whatever for the statements that are so often made regarding the hopelessly irreconcilable : Schoepfungsgeschichte, p. 746. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 9! conflict which a certain class of scientists would have us believe exists between revelation and science between the declarations of Moses and the legitimate conclusions of the Higher Criticism or the indisput- able inductions of geology and astronomy. CHAPTER V. MODERN THEORIES OF COSMOGONY AND INTER PRE- TA TION. THE RESTITUTION OR INTERVAL THEORY. REGARDING the Restitution and Period theories, of which mention has already been made, a brief account will be sufficient. The Restitution or Interval theory, as it is some- times called, is a kind of link between the literal and period theories. Like the former, it interprets the word "day" literally, but at the same time it postu- lates an indefinite lapse of time between the first act of creation and the six days of Genesis. In this wise it aims to harmonize the assumptions of the two theories and to blend them into one. According to the interval theory, the creation of the earth, of animals, and of plants was slow and successive, as is evidenced by the facts of geology. But a great cataclysm supervened which destroyed all forms of ter- restrial life whence the fossiliferous deposits of the earth's crust and reduced everything to chaos. This, we are told, is what is signified by the words, "And the earth was void and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep." If, however, the first creation, indicated by the words, "In the beginning God created heaven and earth," was slow and successive, the second creation, or restoration, following the great catastrophe, was 92 THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 93 accomplished in such a short space of time six ordi- nary days that there is left no trace of it for scientific investigation. But this system, proposed by Buckland and favored by Chalmers, Cardinal Wiseman, and other distinguished scholars, has now but few if any defenders, as it is manifestly at variance with some of the simplest facts of geology. " A careful study of the earth's crust and the fossils which it contains," says a well-known French writer, "proves that the cataclysms which were formerly admitted never had any existence in fact that between the flora and fauna of any given period and those of the period following there was never any solution of con- tinuity. The species of one epoch overlap those of the next epoch. Among the mollusks at present existing in our seas, and even among contemporary mammals, there are many which antedate man's appa- rition on earth by centuries, and even many thousands of years. For this reason it is impossible to suppose that these animals were created only a few days before the advent of man." 1 THE PERIOD THEORY. According to the period theory, which at present has more defenders than any other, the "days" of Genesis were not ordinary days of twenty-four hours, but inde- terminate periods of time. It is also known as the concordistic theory, because its advocates contend that it exhibits a perfect accord between the teachings of 1 Lavaud de Lestrade : Accord de la Science avec le Premier Chapitre de la Genese, pp. 30 et seq. 94 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. science and the declarations of Genesis, in opposition to various non-concordistic theories, which deny any possible reconciliation between geology and Moses. The Genesiac days, concordists claim, were not ordi- nary solar days, but indefinite periods of time. The possibility of attaching any other meaning to the word is, they assure us, precluded, not only by science, which utterly repudiates days of twenty-four hours, but also by the Sacred Text itself. As all the readers of the Bible are aware, there are many passages in the Old Testament, not to speak of the New, in which the Hebrew word or, yom day signifies an indeterminate period of time. Indeed, one may find a striking instance in point without going outside of the Mosaic narrative of creation. In Genesis ii. 4 we read the words: " These are the gen- erations of the heaven and the earth, when they were created, in the day that the Lord made the heaven and the earth." Here the word "day" obviously signifies not any ordinary day, but an indefinite period of time. Again, as Abbe Vigouroux well observes, " Moses was obliged to employ the word or, ydm day to sig- nify period or epoch, as there is no special word in Hebrew to express this idea. This fact, generally unknown, deserves serious consideration. The repug- nance that many have to admitting day-epochs arises from the fact that they make our word day absolutely identical with the word or, ydm, which is not the case. We have the word "day" distinct from the word "epoch," whereas in Hebrew there is but one expres- sion for these two ideas. The Hebrew tongue is not so rich in its vocabulary as our own, and hence it is obliged to make a metaphorical use of the word or, THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 95 ydm, to express the idea that we attribute to the word epoch." l But more than this. The Mosaic days, as the writer just quoted remarks, are metaphorical, not only as to their signification, but also as to their number. The figure six in Genesis is not to be taken in a rigorous and absolute sense. It does not mean that there were only six epochs in the work of creation, but simply that there were several successive periods of develop- ment. The number six was chosen in order that the divine might correspond with the human week, in which six days are given to work, and the seventh, the Sabbath, is consecrated to repose. Furthermore, it must be noted that the cosmogony of Moses supplies only the chief outlines of the work of creation; the details, which are of less importance to the generality of men, are neglected. 2 Again, Genesis, be it remembered, was not intended by its author to serve as a treatise on natural or phys- ical science. Moses was neither a geologist nor an astronomer, and the scope of his narrative did not require of him either an exact or a profound know- ledge of science. All attempts, therefore, to find in his account of creation an anticipation of the results of modern geologic and astronomic discovery, and to exhibit a detailed and exact correspondence between 1 Manuel biblique, tome i. p. 444. It is scarcely necessary to observe here that the words "evening" and "morning," 3Tj ('ereb) and 1D3 (boker), employed in the Mosaic story of cre- ation, are likewise to be understood in a metaphorical sense. Cf. St. Augustine, ut supra, p. 199. 2 Cf. Les Livres Saints et la Critique rationaliste, par Abbe Vigouroux, tome iii. p. 262. 96 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. the days of Genesis and the different geological epochs, are as unwarranted as they are sure to prove nugatory. We cannot, as is so often imagined, draw a line of demarkation between any one geological age and that which precedes or follows it. The fauna and flora of one period frequently overlap those of proximate periods. Throughout the whole of geologic time from the Cambrian to the Quaternary Period we observe a dovetailing of the various forms of life into one another, and have exhibited in the most striking manner that permixtio dierum of which St. Augustine speaks, but of which he could have had no knowledge in the sense in which, since his day, it has been disclosed by geology. Both science and Genesis tell us of a gradation from the lower to the higher forms of life, and in this respect their testimony is as consonant as it is remarkable. M. Barrande, the most eminent of modern palaeon- tologists, and one most competent to interpret the facts we are now considering, declares, in speaking of the subject, that "As regards the creation of organized beings the whole Genesiac narrative may be reduced to the estab- lishing of three main facts, in reference to which it is in perfect harmony with the information which we have thus far gained by a study of geology. These facts are as follows: i. Vegetable preceded animal life both in the sea and on land. 2. Animal life was at first represented by animals living in the sea and by birds. 3. As a consequence animal life appeared on the land at a subsequent period, and man's advent postdates that of all other creatures. . . . " From this we infer that the inspired writer had it THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 97 in purpose to fix only the relative dates of apparition of plants and of marine and terrestrial animals, with- out entering into any historic detail relative to the subsequent development of animal and vegetable life. This development took place in the course of time, either in virtue of new and repeated acts of the Creator Himself, or as the result of laws originally established by Him, and of which He has not been pleased to reveal the nature. " In studying from this point of view the history of the creation of the vegetable and animal kingdoms as given by Moses, we find that it is in perfect harmony with that which geology has gleaned from the obser- vation of facts; that is, from a study of stratigraphic rocks and organic remains vegetable and animal which they contain." l These words of the distinguished French geologist are corroborated by a similar declaration of the illus- trious Cuyier, who does not hesitate to affirm that "the successive evolutions of creation, as they are traced for us by the first book of the Pentateuch, harmonize in a remarkable manner with the deductions we have been able to make from the discoveries of geology, zoology, and other sciences of our time." It must not, however, be forgotten that the concord- ist theory, like all other theories having for their object the reconciliation of science and Genesis, is but a theory and nothing more. Just now it is more gen- erally accepted than any other theory, and has, no doubt, much to recommend it. But even it does not explain numerous difficulties that still puzzle exege- tists. There are yet many problems to be solved 1 Quoted by Vigouroux, op. cit., p. 261. 7 98 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. problems of physical and natural science, problems of philosophy, problems of higher criticism which baffle all present efforts, and whose solution we must leave to the future. Judging from what has already been achieved, we can have no doubt about what remains to be accomplished. The result is foreshadowed by the triumphs of modern exegesis, which give a positive assurance that in God's own time all mysteries will be cleared up, and that both science and Genesis will eventually render the same testimony, and in language as clear as it shall be unmistakable. BISHOP CLIFFORD'S THEORY. Before closing our review of the most prominent theories that have obtained regarding the interpre- tation of the Mosaic Hexaemeron it will be well to say a few words of the now famous theory advanced a few years ago by the late English bishop, Clifford of Clifton. According to this theory, which is interme- diate in character between the theories advocated by the Schools of Alexandria and those of Edessa and Caesarea, between the allegorism of Origen, Clement, and Athanasius and the literalism of Ephrem, Chrys- ostom, and Basil, the first chapter of Genesis is not to be construed as an historical narrative, but as a rit- ual hymn. To quote the bishop's own words: "The first thirty-four verses of the Bible, although they stand foremost in the collection of the writings of Moses, form no portion of the book of Genesis which imme- diately follows them. They constitute a composition complete in itself. They are a sacred hymn recording the consecration of each day of the week to the mem- THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 99 ory of one or other of the works done by the true God, Creator of heaven and earth, in opposition to a custom established by the Egyptian priests of referring the \ days of the week to the sun, moon, and planets, and , of consecrating each day of the month to the memory \ of the actions of false deities. The hymn, when exam- ined by the light which the knowledge of the customs of Egypt, such as may at the present day be derived from the monuments and records of that country, throws upon it, shows how carefully its detail has been arranged for the purpose of guarding against those special dangers of idolatry to which the Isaael- ites were exposed at the time of their delivery from Egyptian bondage, thus affording an indirect but valuable confirmation of the fact that Moses was its author. This hymn not being a history of the cre- ation, but a ritual work, the statement in it must be interpreted in the sense in which similar statements are understood when they occur in writings of a rit- ual character. When it is said that certain works are performed on certain days of the week, nothing more .is implied than that those days are consecrated to the memory of the work referred to. Subject to this pro- viso, the works of Moses are to be understood in their usual sense and present no special difficulty. A day means the space of twenty-four hours in this as in other portions of the writings of the same author. By seven days are meant the days of the week, which are sim- ply referred to as the first, second, instead of Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, and so on, because, all reference to the planets being forbidden, there remains but the numerical order by which to cite them. Words de- scriptive of natural objects and phenomena, such as 100 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. the firmament, the deep, the waters above the firma- ment, and such like, mean nothing more or less than what was implied by the same words when used by the wise men of Egypt in the days of Moses. The notions of these men were wrong on many points of natural philosophy, but their error lay in the interpretation they gave to the phenomena ; the phenomena them- selves had a real existence. The language of Moses refers to the phenomena independently of any inter- pretation which may be given the same. At the pres- ent day we speak of the stars shining in the sky, 'the rain pouring down from the sky, the rainbow appear- ing in the sky, though we are all well aware that the stars are removed far above the atmosphere in which the rain gathers which reflects the rainbow. Thus understood, the words of Moses present no manner of opposition to scientific facts. In this hymn he records two things: First, that God created all things. This is a truth which no scientific fact can invalidate. Sec- ondly, that each of the first six days of the week is consecrated to some special work performed by God, and that the seventh is consecrated to the rest of God and must be kept holy. ... As to the order in which the various parts of the creation came into existence, and whether a longer or shorter period of time elapsed before our earth and its furniture assumed the appear- ance they now present, these are matters which form no part of Moses' task to explain. They enter not into his subject, and he does not allude to them, and there- fore, whatever be the conclusions which scientific men may come to on these points, they meet neither with approval nor with opposition from the words of Moses. The records of the stages of the existence of our globe THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. IOI form, no doubt, a subject of great interest to inquirers, but beyond the fact that in the beginning God created heaven and earth no revelation has been given to men concerning them. They belong exclusively to the province of science. They are a part of that travail vvhich God hath given to the sons of men to be exercised in it. He hath made all things good in their time, and hath delivered the world to their consideration (Bccles. iii. 10, n)." * SCIENCE AND PATRISTIC EXEGESIS. But it may be asked, What is the use of all this dis- cussion where there are so many elements of uncer- tainty ? ' ' What, ' ' inquires St. Augustine, ' ' is the net result of all this winnowing? Where is the good wheat that was to come of it? You raise questions without giving answers. Give us something positive, something conclusive." The response of the saint shall be also mine. I have done all that in the present state of science and exe- gesis it is possible to do. " I have shown that there is not a single declaration of science that is contrary to the teachings of Moses." 2 For us this is sufficient. 1 Dublin Review, April, 1881, pp. 330-332. See also same Review, Oct., 1881, and Jan. and April, 1883. 2 " Dicet aliquis : Quid tu tanta tritura dissertationis hujus, quid granorum, exuisti ? Quid eventilasti ? Cur propemo- dum in quaestionibus adhuc latent omnia? Affirma aliquid eorum quge multa posse intelligi disputasti. Cui respondeo, ad eum ipsum me cibum suaviter pervenisse, quo didici non haerere homini in respondendo secundum fidem, quod respon- dendum est hominibus qui calumniari libris nostrse salutis effectant, ut aliquid ipsi de natura rerum veracitus documentis IO2 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. There have, it is true, been theories innumerable which their authors fondly imagined were subversive of the Hexaemeron of Moses, and antagonistic, conse- quently, to the integrity of Scripture; but there is not to-day, any more than there was in the time of St. Augustine, a single fact of science that can justly be construed as contravening the system of cosmogony contained in Genesis or as opposed to the clear and explicit teachings of the inspired writer. I might here conclude, but there are a few other facts disclosed by this long discussion, which deserve at least a passing notice. The first of these facts is the perfect intellectual freedom that the Fathers and Doctors of the Church have always claimed and enjoyed in matters outside of positive dogma. This is particularly observable in the discussion and interpretation of such questions as the one we have been considering, where science rather than revelation must be appealed to for a solution of the difficulties encountered. We have a striking illustration of this liberty of thought in St. John Damascene, the last of the great theologians of the Oriental Church. In matters of cosmogony he chooses freely between the doctrines of the Syrian and Cappadocian Schools. At one time he declares for St. Ephrem, at another for St. Basil, and at still another for St. Gregory of Nyssa. He feels that he is treading on safe ground, and that he is per- fectly free to select such opinions as, according to his judgment, are most conformable to fact and truth. And St. Gregory of Nyssa not only shows that he demonstrate potuerint, ostendamus nostris Litteris non esse contrarium." De Genesi ad Litteram, lib. i. cap. 21. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 103 enjoyed perfect intellectual freedom himself, but also that he respected the opinions of others and allowed them equal liberty of thought. He does not, for instance, in the disputed questions of Mosaic cosmog- ony insist on the acceptance of his own views, but modestly declares "I think" this is so or may be so. St. Augustine, in referring to the divers interpreta- tions which the Genesiac record admits, says: "Let each one choose according to the best of his power; only let him not rashly put forward as known that which is unknown, and let him not fail to remember that he is but a man searching, as far as may be, into the works of God." 1 In another place he declares that "in the obscurities of natural things our investi- gations should be characterized by hypothesis rather than by positive declarations magis prcestemus dili- gentiam inquirendi, quani affirmandi temeritatcm" and does not hesitate to affirm that "rash and incon- siderate assertations in uncertain and doubtful passages of Scripture may easily degenerate into sacrilege." On every page of his works he inculcates both by pre- cept and example the caution and reserve that should be exercised in the discussion of disputed questions, and is ever ready to admit in problems of cosmogony the necessarily provisional character of many of his explanations. Thus, regarding one of his theories of the days of Genesis, he tells us frankly that it is but an attempt to explain a difficult problem, and that he may. sooner or later reject it for another theory. But he is the first to recognize the inadequateness of some of his hypotheses, and wishes better success to others. 2 1 De Genesi Liber Imperfectus, cap. ix. n. 80. 2 Fieri enini potest ut etiam ego aliani (sententiam) his 104 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. SCIENCE, SCRIPTURE, AND RELIGION. Another fact, often lost sight of, is that when the inspired writers of the Sacred Books make incidental reference to natural phenomena while teaching relig- ious truth, they accommodate themselves to the pre- vailing ideas regarding such phenomena. " Main- things in the Sacred Scriptures," says St. Jerome, '"are expressed according to the opinion of the times in which they were written, and not according to the truth." l / "The biblical writers," says Reusch, "received supernatural enlightenment from God, but the object of this enlightenment and of the divine revelation altogether was only to impart religions truths, not profane knowledge; and we ma}- therefore, without detracting from the respect due to the holy writers or in any way weakening the doctrine of inspiration, safely allow that the biblical writers were not in advance of their age in the matter of profane knowledge, and consequently of natural science. The praises given by certain French savants to the genius or scientific knowledge of the Jewish lawgiver because of the sup- posed anticipation in Genesis of modern scientific dis- coveries are, therefore, not to the purpose. As regards profane knowledge Moses was not raised above his contemporaries by divine revelation, and there is no divinae Scripturae verbis congruentiorem fortassis inveniam. Neque enini ita hanc confirmo lit aliam quae proponenda sit inveniri non posse contendam. De Genesi ad Z,///., lib. iv. cap. 28. 1 " Multa in Scripturis Sanctis dicuntur juxta opinionem illius temporis, quo gesta referuntur, et non juxta quod rei veritas continebat." JER. xxviii. 10, u. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 105 proof whatever of his being in a position to raise him- self above them by his own thought and inquiry." l "It might, indeed," declares Cardinal Newman, "have pleased the Almighty to have superseded phys- ical inquiry by revealing the truths which are its object, but He has not done so." And yet, notwith- standing this lack of revelation in matters of science, there is, and can, I repeat it, be no discrepancy between Genesis and science. For, "in Holy Scripture," as Kurtz has well expressed it, "all future science can find a place; it has made no mistake; no new science can cry out, ' si tacuisses. ' It is by this means that it shows its divine character in dealing with questions of natural science." "Theology itself," Father Faber happily observes, "will be found to fit all discoveries as they come. It is only the individual theologians who may sometimes have to humor their own private ideas." 2 If, then, there is nothing, and can be nothing, in science that is antagonistic to faith, still less is there anything about it, as some have absurdly fancied, that is irreligious. On the contrary /"to a religious mind," as the charming writer just quoted remarks, " phys- ical science is an intensely religious thing."/ "No sight," he avers, "can be more grateful to a true theologian than to behold the giant strides of scientific discovery and the bold methods of scientific research. He has nothing to fear for his faith, except an embarrassment arising from the very riches of its demonstration which these discoveries are continually supplying. Nothing can be more narrow, vulgar, or 1 Bibel und Nalur, English translation, p. 32. 2 The Blessed Sacrament, p. 331. 106 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. stupid than the idea of an antithesis between science and religion. It is true that some of the sciences, in the earlier periods of their construction, turned the heads of those who drank at their fountains, and crude theories, incompatible with the dogmas of faith, were the result. Yet these only changed, at last, to fresh and more striking proofs of the divine and unalterable truth of our holy faith; for further discovery and a larger induction led, in every case, to an abandonment of the irreligious theory." . . . "Geology, which is the history of nature, has been regarded as a science the cultivation of which is especially dangerous to religious habits of mind. [If it be so, it is the mind that is at fault, and not the science. J The whole series of controversies ending in the admission of the extreme modernness of the pres- ent surface of the globe and the novelty of man in creation is nothing else but a long chain of proof of the Mosaic narrative." But if there is, and can be, no antagonism between Genesis and science if, on the contrary, the two, as far as understood, are found to be in perfect accord there are difficulties yet unsolved. Darkness is still upon the deep mysteries of many problems of Mosaic cosmogony. The future, I am convinced, will do much toward dissipating this darkness. The past his- tory and present condition of both science and exe- gesis warrant such a view. But the perfect exhibition of all the hidden harmonies that we know to exist between science and revelation; the complete recon- ciliation of the Inspired Record and the record of the rocks; the fiat lux that shall dispel all the mists of 1 Op. cit., pp. 324-326. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 107 error and the clouds of misinterpretation which now prevent our seeing tilings as they are, may indeed be " a consummation devoutly to be wished," but some- thing, most likely/' that ishall be vouchsafed us only in that world where all is knowledge and light, where the mysteries of creation shall be revealed in the effulgence of God'sjglory. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. But notwithstanding the difficulties presented by the first two chapters of Genesis, the cosmogony of Moses is the only one which antiquity has left us that can claim our assent or challenge the investigation of science. There may be passages in it which do not at present admit of a satisfactory explanation, but there is nothing involving contradiction, and still less is there aught that can be pronounced an absurdity. Compared with the other cosmogonies of the ancient world, it is absolutely peerless, and is as far above them as history is above fiction, as truth above false- hood. Science may not unravel the knotty problems which still abound, but it cannot gainsay what Moses declares. Where there is apparent discord we are, from the very nature of the case, certain that there is perfect harmony. It is Only when we contrast the Mosaic account of creation with the cosmogonies of the more advanced nations of antiquity that we can realize how remark- able the declarations of the Hebrew lawgiver really are, and how he has answered questions before which pagan philosophy stood mute and impotent. The Aryans of early India surprise us by their 108 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. achievements in literature, science, and art. Since their discovery, in the last century, the Vedas and codes of laws of the ancient Hindu have been the sub- jects of wonder and enthusiastic comment by scholars the world over. But Hindu philosophy never arose to a true conception of the one God. The Brahmin, wherever found, meditating on the banks of the Indus or the Jumna, or officiating in the temples of Delhi and Benares, was an idolater who entertained the most grotesque notions regarding the origin and configura- tion of the world. The geogouies and cosmogonies of Assyria and Baby- lonia were scarcely less extravagant and absurd than were those of India. Recent discoveries have shown that the peoples of Mesopotamia had attained a degree of civilization that would not have been credited a few decades ago. The arts and sciences were cultivated with ardor, and libraries were found in all the prin- cipal cities of Mesopotamia. Her philosophers were famed for their wisdom, and the astronomers of Nine- veh and Babylon could predict eclipses and determine the courses of the heavenly bodies with a degree of precision that, considering the rude instruments at their disposal, is nothing short of marvellous. But the gods of Assyria and Babylonia were but blocks Of clay and stone variously fashioned by the hand of man, and the peoples inhabiting the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates were as far from a know- ledge of the true God, the Creator of all things out of nothing, as were the philosophical Brahmins who taught and speculated beyond the Himalayas. What has been said of India and Mesopotamia may be iterated with even greater truth of the land of the THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 109 Pharaohs. To Egypt even the greatest of the philos- ophers of Greece went in quest of knowledge, and many of the doctrines which they afterward taught their disciples were learned from the priests in the temples of Memphis and Heliopolis. Her ruins, scattered all along the Nile Valley from Ipsambul to Alexandria, are even now, after the lapse of thousands of years, the admiration of all who be- hold them. Philae, Thebes, and Abydos, great in decay, are, like the Pyramids of Gizeh, the best evidence of the greatness and genius of the people who could plan and execute such marvels. But the builders of Cheops and the designers and constructors of the Ramesseum and the Serapeum of Memphis, and the teachers of the sages of Greece, deified the river that brought fertility to their land, and worshipped not only the animals that grazed in the valley of the Nile, but even the reptiles that crawled in its slime and the leeks and onions which grew in its gardens. " Crocodilon adorat Pars hsec, ilia pavet saturam serpentibus ibin. Effigies sacri nitet aurea cercopitheci, Illic aeluros, hie piscem fluminis, illic Oppida tota canem venerantur, nemo Dianam. Porrum et cepe nefas violare et frangere morsu: O sanctas gentes, quibus haec nascuntur in hortis Numina!" l 1 " The snake-devouring ibis these enshrine, Those think the crocodile alone divine ; Others .... Set up a glittering brute of uncouth shape And bow before the image of an ape ! Thousands regard the hound with holy fear, Not one, Diana; and 'tis dangerous here 1 10 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. Nor was Greece, immortal Greece, the home of art, eloquence, poesy, of science, history, and philosophy, exempt from the errors and vagaries which were so characteristic of the great nations of the Orient. For thousands of years her art has been the art of the world, her literature the literature of the world, her philosophy the philosophy of the world. The culture of the world, the taste of the world, the sestheticism of the world, come to us from the land of Plato and Aristotle, Phidias and Sophocles, Pericles and Demos- thenes. For thousands of years she has been the inspi- ration of scholars in every clime, and has contributed to the advancement of knowledge in every department of human research. From the Academy and the Lyceum human genius winged its loftiest flight, and while soaring aloft in the blue empyrean surveyed the fairest domains of human thought. For thirty centuries the Greek mind has directed the meditations of the philosopher and controlled the speculations of the man of science. Her sculptured marbles have been the despair of all subsequent artists, as the Par- thenon, although in ruins, still remains a dream of unsurpassed loveliness. But the noblest productions of this great land, from the matchless poems of her sightless bard to the most exquisite carving that ever graced the Acropolis, were tinctured with false views of God, and were designed to perpetuate a system of religion and foster a form of idolatry that would for To violate an onion, or to stain The sanctity of leeks with tooth profane. O holy nations! sacro-sanct abodes ! Where every garden propagates its gods." JUVENAL, Sat. xv., vers. 2 et seq. THE MOSAIC HEXA-EMERON. m ever preclude man from having just notions of the Cre- ator of the universe or of His relations toward His creatures. Polytheism of the most ridiculous charac- ter dominated in Greece, and systems of cosmogony the most fantastical contended for supremacy in the greatest schools of an otherwise enlightened people. And so it was with Rome, imperial Rome, the con- queror 'of the world. The architectural wonders of Athens are reproduced in the City of the Seven Hills; the golden eloquence of Cicero recalls the burning philippics of Demosthenes; in the noble epic of Virgil we recognize the sublime inspiration of the Muse of Homer. But the gods of the Pantheon are the gods of Greece, reinforced by countless accessions from the temples of all the lands in which the Roman eagle had been carried, and in which Roman legions had been triumphant. Lucretius embalms in elegant verse the teachings of Epicurus; the myths of Hesiod are repeated by the author of the Metamorphoses, and all the errors of Greek philosophy are rehearsed in patri- cian villas and in the palaces of the Caesars. How different the doctrines of the legislator of Israel ! With a few bold strokes he gives us a pic- ture of the history of creation, and in a few simple words he tells us how in the beginning God created heaven and earth. There is no doubt, no vacillation, in the mind of the author of Genesis, no obscurity in his statements regarding the creative acts of Jehovah. In a single sentence he condemns the dualism of the Eastern sage and the doctrine of the eternity of mat- ter of the Greek Sophist. At the same time he brushes aside numberless other errors in philosophy and theol- ogy, and prepares the mind for a conception of the 112 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. Deity that even the greatest of the pagan philosophers never attained. In the cosmogony of Moses we have manifested in every line the spirit of revelation. Moses answers questions that the wise men of the ancient Gentile world had essayed in vain, because he is inspired. He declares the truth, because he is preserved from error by the Spirit of God. Only in his history of creation does reason find a satisfactory response to the queries suggested by the very existence of the visible universe, and in Genesis alone have we a cosmogony that is in accord with all the certain declarations of science. Infidel sciolism may reject the Mosaic account of cre- ation, and endeavor to offer a substitute, but all such attempts are sure to prove futile and to issue in con- tradictions and absurdities. Physical science cannot tell us anything about creation, cannot tell us any- thing about the beginning of things. Neither can it clear up the mystery enveloping the origin of life, nor show us matter, as the great Cuvier happily expresses it, s'organisant. Before Moses atheistic materialism and pantheistic idealism, so characteristic of pagan philosophy and pagan religion, go down as the pigmy before the giant, and the deification of nature is seen in all its hideousness and inconsistency. And the declarations of Moses remain the same whatever theories we may have regarding the inspira- tion of Genesis or the sources from which the history of creation was drawn. Is Genesis, as we now have it, revealed or inspired? that is, is the narrative a direct revelation in its entirety or is it simply a human tradition, the most ancient of our race, collected and used by writers who were inspired by the Spirit of THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 113 Truth ? Is the inspiration verbal, or does it extend only to the subject-matter of the text ? Does it include all the obiter dicta of the narrative, or does it embrace only objects of faith and morals, and obtain, to use the words of the Council of Trent regarding the true sense of the Sacred Scriptures, only " in rebus fidei et morum, ad cgdificationem doctrines Christiance pertinentium " ? Did Moses make use of traditions that were the common property of all the peoples of Western Asia, and was the inspiration under which he wrote limited to inerrancy only in the employment of the materials at hand and in the elimination from them of the imperfections with which they abounded? Did he have at his disposal a primitive tradition, inte- gral and unaltered, brought by Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees? or did he avail himself of other, it may be older, traditions or legends even that were cur- rent among the Accadians and Sumerians, who were the precursors of the Chaldeans and Assyrians in the valleys and on the plains of Mesopotamia? And if he used human documents, were they then encumbered with the exuberant polytheism of Chaldea, and viti- ated by the clumsy anthropomorphism that was so prevalent among all the pagan nations of antiquity? Are we to understand that in such an event inspiration meant simply the action of the Holy Ghost whereby Moses was able to substitute monotheism for polythe- ism, and convert a narrative replete with the grossest natural notions into a compendium of moral and dogmatic verities of the most exalted spiritual cha- racter? 1 1 I have purposely abstained, as beside my purpose, from any reference to the discussion which has so long obtained regarding 114 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. Such are a few of the questions asked by modern science and the Higher Criticism, and suggested by the Assyrio-Chaldean investigations of these latter days. So far as the contention of this paper is concerned the answers are immaterial. Affirmative or negative, the statements of the author of the Hexaemeron convey the same meaning and proclaim the same truths. Whatever the responses eventually given to the ques- tions propounded, it will ever remain an incontestable fact that the "theodicy of the Chaldean tablets is as far from that of the Pentateuch as the theodicy of the composite character of the Genesiac narrative of creation. Whether the first two chapters of Genesis were written by Moses or by some one else whether the date of their composition cor- responds to that assigned by the traditional view or whether it is much later matters not so far as my thesis is concerned. Neither does it matter whether there are two accounts the Jehovistic and Elohistic incorporated into the narrative, as critics contend, or whether the story is the production, not compilation, of but a single author. The words Elohini and Yahveh may have all the significance the Higher Criticism claims for them ; Genesis may have been written at a far later date than has usuallj' been believed ; it may have been the joint work of several writers ; but, even if these assumptions be granted, they in no wise militate against the conclusions I have drawn respecting the character of the cosmogony which a vague tradition ascribes to Moses. Other writers as well as the Hebrew lawgiver wrote under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and even if Moses had no part whatever in the author- ship of the Pentateuch which is to be proven the position I have taken respecting the cosmogony of Genesis would remain unchanged. It would still be all that I have asserted for it, and its author or authors, whoever they were, would still be entitled to all the encomiums bestowed on Moses, and the first two chapters of Genesis would still be as manifestly as ever the product of Divine inspiration. THE MOSAIC HEXAEMERON. 115 the Mahabharata or of the Theogony of Hesiod is from that of the Gospel. The Mosaic Hexaemeron is, then, proof against all attacks that may be directed against it in the name of modern science, Assyriology, or the Higher Criticism. It alone of all the cosmogonies of the ancient world has withstood the onslaughts of flippant skeptics and blatant Rationalists, because it alone has fully satisfied the demands of the intellect and the aspirations of the ; soul. What pagan philosophy ever failed to do, what i modern science, of itself, is incompetent to achieve, the author of Genesis has realized in his simple yet magnificent portrayal of God as Deum unum, Deiim j omnipotentem, Deum creatorem omnium visibiliiim et invisibilium. PART II. Ube IRoacbmn Deluge, PART II. IRoacbian Delude. CHAPTER I. THE GEOGRAPHICAL AND ZOOLOGICAL UNIVERSAL- ITY OF THE DELUGE. WIDESPREAD INTEREST IN THE QUESTION. BARRING the creation of the world and of man, it may be questioned if any event recorded in the Old Testament has given rise to more commen- taries and provoked more discussion than the terrible cataclysm recorded with such minuteness of detail in the seventh chapter of Genesis. The Fathers in their interpretations of the inspired volume, and the School- men in their ponderous tomes, devoted entire treatises to the consideration of the subject. The exegetists who succeeded the Schoolmen found the question of the Deluge no less interesting, and, judging from the space they gave to the discussion of the subject, they considered its elucidation of prime importance. With scarcely a dissenting voice the Fathers, the Schoolmen, and the exegetists who immediately followed them were at one regarding the universality of the catastrophe of which the Sacred Text gives such a vivid record. 119 120 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. The words of the Bible were taken literally, and the almost general consensus of opinion among theolo- gians and commentators was that the Deluge was universal, not only in relation to mankind, but also in reference to the earth's surface. The words de- scribing the great cataclysm seemed to be so clear and so explicit as to preclude the possibility of doubt, and among all classes, as well as with theologians and commentators, it was the generally received opinion ' | an opinion that with many differed but little from an particle of faith an opinion that could not be called ,in question by any consistent believer in the divine inspiration of the Scriptures without seemingly going counter to the teachings of the Church that the Flood prevailed over the whole earth and destroyed all the human race except the eight persons who were in the ark with Noah. FOSSILS AS WITNESSES OF THE UNIVERSALITY OF THE DELUGE. Fossil shells found on plain and mountain were appealed to as certain evidences of the extent and magnitude of the Deluge. Fossils found imbedded in the solid rock, in marl-beds, and in gravel-pits gave strength to the argument derived from shells scattered over the earth's surface. Woodward, an English geologist who wrote in the latter part of the seventeenth century, imagined "the whole terrestrial globe to have been taken to pieces and dissolved at the Flood, and the strata to have set- tled down from this promiscuous mass as any earthy sediment from a fluid." And to bolster up his fan- THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 12 1 ciful hypothesis he went so k far as to declare, contrary to all the facts in the case, that " marine bodies are lodged in the strata according to the order of their gravity, the heavier shells in stone, the lighter in chalk, and so of the rest." Thomas Burnet, a contemporary of Woodward, en- tertained still more extravagant views. In his Telluris Theoria Sacra, or "Sacred Theory of the Earth" a work which attracted widespread attention at the time he explained why the primeval earth enjoyed a perpetual spring before the Flood, showed how the crust of the globe was fissured by the sun's rays, so that it burst, and thus the diluvial waters were let loose from a supposed central abyss. At the same time, William Whiston, at first the deputy and subsequently the successor of Sir Isaac Newton in the chair of mathematics at Cambridge, published his Neiv Theory of the Earth, wherein he discussed the universal Deluge from a new standpoint. He attributed the Flood to the near approach to the earth of a comet, ' ' and the condensation of the vapor of its tail into water." Having ascribed an increase of the waters to this source, he adopted Woodward's theory, supposing all stratified deposits to have result- ed from the "chaotic sediment of the Flood." 1 These physico-theological systems of the English cosmologists were refuted and ridiculed by Vallisneri, Moro, and the Carmelite friar Generelli, who are justly regarded as the ablest exponents of the science of geology during the first decades of the eighteenth century. But, notwithstanding the researches and discoveries 1 Cf. Lyell's Principles of Geology, vol. i. chap. iii. 122 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. of the Italian school of geologists, so prevalent was the notion that fossils, wherever found, were the result , of Noah's Deluge that Voltaire, "in his anxiety to ( shake the popular belief in the universal Deluge, endeavored to inculcate scepticism as to the real nature of fossil shells, and to recall from contempt the exploded dogma of the sixteenth century that they were sports of nature." To Voltaire, Bernard Palissy, who was the first one in France to promulgate true notions respecting the nature of fossil shells, was but a visionary whose theories were both ridiculous and absurd. The views of the Italian geologists, as well as those of Palissy, \ he dismissed with a sneer or a simple expression of undisguised contempt. At best they gave him but little concern. It was against the popular views ad- vocated by Woodward, Burnet, Whiston, and their school views which obtained not only in England, but also in France and Germany as well that he directed all the resources of his genius and all the force of his sarcastic and sophistical pen. "The Scriptures," says the "Sage of Ferney," "tell us that there was a Deluge, but there is appar- ently no other monument of it on the earth but the memory of a terrible prodigy which warns us, but in vain, to be just." In his estimation it is but a fable, like the deluges of Deucalion and Ogyges, and this, forsooth, because there is no record of such an inunda- tion in the writings of Herodotus or Thucydides. Rather than give credence to the Bible, and rather than accept the scriptural narrative of the Deluge as then interpreted, the great infidel had recourse to the silliest and most puerile explanations of the nature THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 123 and occurrence of those countless and widespread wit- nesses (as was currently taught) of a great catastrophe the fossils which were everywhere so abundant. He did not hesitate to revive the exploded view that fossils were but lusus natures mere sports of nature 1 due to the plastic power of the earth itself. He was ready even to credit a story which was circulated about fossil shells having, been experimentally produced in a certain soft stone dans une pierre tendre or to be- lieve that marine shells were produced in fresh-water lakes of the existence of which there was not a scin- tilla of evidence. His views regarding ammonites are as amusing as they are far-fetched. "Reptiles," he informs us, "almost always form a spiral when not in motion; and it is not surprising that when they petrify they should assume the form of a volute. More natural still is it to conceive that certain stones spontaneously assume a spiral form. The Alps and the Vosges are full of them. These are what naturalists denominate cornua Ammonis" 2 1 In his Dictionaire philosophique, article " Coquilles," he asks : " Est on bien sur que le sol de la terre ne peut enfanter ces fossiles ? La formation des agates arborisees ne doit-elle pas nous faire suspendre notre jugement ? Un arbre n'a point produit 1' agate qui represente parfaitement un arbre ; la mer peut aussi n'avoir point produit ces coquilles fossiles qui ressemblent a des habitations de petits animaux marins." 2 Les reptiles forment presque toujours une spirale, lor,s- qu'ils ne sont pas en mouvement ; et il n'est pas surpremant que quand ils se petrifient, la pierre prenne la figure informe d'une volute. II est encore plus naturel qu'il y ait des pierres formes d'elles niemes en spirales : les Alpes, les Vosges en sont pleines. II a plu aux naturalistes d'appeler ces pierres des 124 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. The fossil remains of a reindeer and a hippopotamus which were discovered near Etampes, and which ex- cited a great deal of discussion at the time, found a simple explanation at the hands of Voltaire. They were simply specimens which had strayed from the collection of some naturalist skeletons "qifun curieux avail eu autrefois dan son cabinet. ' ' As a result of his examination of the faluns of Touraine, situated over a hundred miles from the sea, Palissy proved that the marl there found was composed of pulverized marine shells. This indi- cated that .the site now occupied by the faluns was formerly under the ocean. This to Voltaire was ab- surd. He sent for a box of the marl in order that he might examine it personally. As a result of his inspection he declares: "It is certain, as far as my eyes can give certitude, that this marl is a species of earth, and not a conglomeration of marine animals numbering more than a hundred thousand milliard milliard." * The fossil oyster-shells found in the Alps were, according to Voltaire, but the shells of fresh-water mussels. He was positive in maintaining, in the face of innumerable facts to the contrary, that ma- rine shells are always found near the ocean or on level plans but little above sea-level, but never at high altitudes, especially on the top of high mountains. When he was told that petrified fish had been found comes d" Amman. Dissertation sur les Changements arrives dans Notre Globe, Envoyee a V Academic de Boulogne. CBuvres completes de M. de Voltaire, Paris, Sanson et Cie., 1792, vol. 43, P- 131- 1 Op. cit., vol. 55, p. 330. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 12^ / in the mountains of Germany and Switzerland, he an- swered at once that their presence there could easily be accounted for. They were but fish which a trav- eller had taken with him, which, becoming spoiled, were thrown away and were subsequently petrified." ' New difficulties, however, multiplied in rapid suc- cession. Countless shells were found in Italy and France and round about Mont Cenis, which, it was claimed, resembled those occurring in the eastern Mediterranean. But, nothing daunted, Voltaire, as usual, had an answer to his hand, but such an answer as only one reduced to the narrowest straits would ever think of giving. The great infidel was leading a forlorn hope in his attack on geology and the Bible: the teachings of the two were one as then understood, but this he would never admit He was intent on discrediting the Bible, on relegating to the domain of fable the Genesiac nar- rative of the Flood, and to attain his end he employed arguments that were as ludicrous as they were irra- tional. His attempts at explaining the occurrence of marine shells resembling those found in the Syrian sea in the neighborhood of the Alps are so characteristic of the methods of Voltaire, and his style of argumentation generally, that I give at length what he says on this topic. "There have," he says, "been found in the prov- inces of Italy, France, and elsewhere small shells which, we are assured, originally came from the sea of Syria. I do not wish to call their origin in ques- tion; but should we not bear in mind that those count- 1 Op. cit., vol. 43, p. 331. 126 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. less hosts of pilgrims and Crusaders who carried their money to the Holy L/and brought back shells on their return ? Or should we prefer to believe that the sea of Jaffa and Sidon at one time overflowed Burgundy and Milan?" 1 Elsewhere he expresses himself as follows: "Is it altogether a fantastical idea to reflect on the immense crowds of pilgrims who travelled afoot from St. James in Galicia, and from all the provinces, to Rome by way of Mont Cenis, carrying shells on their caps? They came from Syria, from Egypt, from Greece, as well as from Poland and Austria. The number of those who thus went to Rome was a thousand times greater than was that of those who visited Mecca and Medina, because the roads to Rome are better and the trav- ellers were not forced to go in caravans. In a word, an oyster near Mont Cenis does not prove that the Indian Ocean has enveloped all the lands of our hemisphere." But when, later on, the bones of man were discov- ered in many of the caverns of Europe, it was thought, 1 Op. cit., vol. 43, p. 132. 2 This is such a typical specimen of Voltairean reasoning that I reproduce the original : " Est-ce d'ailleurs une idee tout- a-fait romanesque de faire reflexion a la foule innombrable de pelerins qui partaient a pied de St. Jacques en Galice et de toutes les provinces pour aller a Rome par le Mont Cenis, chargees de coquilles a leur bonnets ? II en venait de Syrie, d'Egypte, de Grece, comme de Polonge et d'Autriche. Le n ombre de Romipetes a ete mille fois plus considerable que celui des hagi qui ont visite la Mecque et Mdine, parce que les chemins de Rome sont plus faciles, et qu'on n'etait pas force d'aller par caravanes. En un mot, une huitre pres de Mont Cenis ne prouve pas que 1'ocean Indien ait enveloppe toutes les terres de notre hemisphere." Op. cit., vol. 55, p. 312. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. I2 7 by those who argued that the Deluge was universal, that the question was put beyond further discussion. Even such a distinguished geologist as Buckland saw in these remains of early man the relics of a universal Deluge reliquicE Diluviance and the majority of scientific men of his day were disposed to accept his conclusions as correct, and to consider the universality of the biblical Deluge as one of the demonstrated facts of geology. Indeed, so anxious were some of those who were interested in making the Sacred Text square with their preconceived notions regarding the nature and extent of the Flood that they saw a witness of the Deluge testis dihivia in a fossil that long passed as the skeleton of a man, but which more exact inves- tigation proved to be theTemains of an extinct sala- mander. The Andrias Scheuchzeri such was the name given this relic of an extinct form of animal life will always remain a monument to the credulity and the unguarded zeal of those who were too hasty in jumping at conclusions that were not justified by the facts on which they were made to repose. Whether there are now any geological traces of the Noachian Deluge is doubtful. 1 . Even granting that the Flood covered the whole earth, as some still con- tend, it is highly improbable that the changes effected on the earth's surface would have been of such a cha- racter as to be recognized so many ages after the event. 1 See, however, The Origin of the World, p. 256 and Modern Science and Bible Lands, chapters iii. and iv., by Sir J. W. Dawson. Compare also Howorth's two masterly works The Mammoth and the Flood and 77?^ Glacial Nightmare and the Flood. See also Professor Prestwich on the same topic in The Bulletin of the Victoria Institute, April, 1894. 128 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. / The late Abbe Moigno, who defended to the last day of his life the geographical universality of the Deluge, in referring to this matter expresses himself as fol- lows: "We refuse to accept as evidence of the Deluge not only the ancient deposits of shells which existed before it, and which it could not have produced, but also the presence in our part of the world of animal remains which are supposed to have belonged to other climates. We likewise decline to regard as witnesses of the Deluge a certain number of rhinoceroses and elephants which have been preserved in ice-beds; the countless boulders scattered over the soil, far from the mountains from which they were' detached; the organic debris found in caves and alluvial deposits; in a word, almost all that which the illustrious Buckland, in what was probably an excess of orthodoxy, pronounced the relics of the Deluge reliquicz Diluviance"^ DOUBTS AND DIFFICULTIES REGARDING A UNIVER- SAL DELUGE. One of the first seriously to controvert the theory of the geographical . universality of the Deluge was Isaac Voss, a Protestant theologian, in 1659, in his Dissertatio de Vera Mundi sEtate. He maintained that not more than the one-hundreth part of the earth \ was submerged by the Flood. The distinguished Ben- 1 edictine Dom Mabillon having, at the request of the i Congregation of the Index, examined the work of 1 Les Livres Saints et La Science. See also Splendeurs de la Foi, tome iii. chap. xi. For an interesting review of the ques- tion consult Bibel und Natur, by Dr. F. Reusch, cap. xx., xxi., xxii., and xxiii. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. I2 9 Voss, gave it as his opinion that the teaching of Voss regarding the non-universality of the Deluge was neither against faith nor morals, and could there- fore be tolerated. 1 Among English-speaking geologists, besides Charles Lyell, the first to call in question the universality of the Deluge were the famous Scotch geologist, Hugh Miller, 2 and the scarcely less eminent American geol- ogist, Prof. Edward Hitchcock. 3 Both, following Poole and Stillingfleet, directed attention to the fact that the words of the Mosaic account of the Flood did not necessarily imply that the Deluge was universal as to the earth's surface. They argued that it was uni- versal only in so far as man was concerned, and showed that this interpretation was in accordance with both Scripture and the teachings of science. At the time the two last-mentioned authors wrote, over a third of a century ago, the difficulties that had presented themselves to their predecessors against the acceptance of the opinion that the Deluge was universal had so increased that they seemed wellnigh inexplicable. And as the question was more closely examined and the knowledge of nature became more extensive new difficulties arose, whilst the older ones, instead of disappearing or dwindling in size, rapidly assumed larger proportions. So great, indeed, was the impetus given to the development of the natural sciences, and so numerous and important were the 1 " HCEC opin io " says Mabillon, " nullum continet errorem cap- italem neque contra fidem neque contra bonos mores ; Hague tole- rari potest ct criticorum disputationi perm ////." - Testimony of the Rocks, lectures vii. and viii. 3 Religion and Geology, lecture iv. 9 130 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND 1-AITII. contributions made by zoology and geology, that it soon became evident to every thinking man that the time had come for subjecting the older theories regard- ing the Deluge to thorough revision. In the first place, no one could any longer seriously maintain that the fossils found in the various strata of the earth's crust were deposited there by the Del- uxe of Noah. Such a view was now regarded as O *-> simply untenable, if not absurd. It contravened the most elementary principles of geological science principles about the truth of which there could no longer be any doubt. Again; owing to the active researches of naturalists the world over, it was discovered that the number of species of animals was far in excess of what had pre- viously been imagined. Indeed, when the number came to be computed, it was found to be far too great to find lodgment, not to speak of subsistence, in such an ark as Moses describes. The older interpreters were called upon to make provision for a few hundred species at most. These were all that were then known. But the number had risen to thousands, yea, to tens of thousands, and additions of new species were being made daily to the already formidable list. Whether, then, the exegetist measured the ark by the Hebraic or the Egyptian cubit, it still remained too small to accommodate such a multitude of living crea- tures and contain the food necessary for them during their enforced confinement therein. According to the most liberal calculations, the vessel built by Noah could not have been much larger than if indeed it was so large as the Great Eastern. Such a vessel N. might have been sufficiently capacious for the few THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 131 hundred species that the Fathers and Schoolmen had in mind, but it was totally inadequate to supply lodg- ment for the vast multitude that was known at the date at which Miller, Hitchcock, and their compeers wrote. And then a new difficulty presented itself that the earl-ier commentators could take no note of, and one, too, that could not be ignored. The advocates of a uni- versal Deluge had taken it for granted, apparently, that all the different species of animal, not to speak of vege- table, life might be found in one place on the earth's surface. Contrary to what Linnaeus had taught, Cu- vier and others pointed out the fact that there are several distinct foci or centres of animal life that certain species and classes of animals are found in one part of the world, while other species have their habitat in another part. Thus Australia is peculiarly the land of marsupials; Borneo, Java, and Sumatra, the habitat of the gibbon and the orang-outang; the giraffe, the zebra, and the chimpanzee are indigenous only in Africa ; while in America alone are found armadillos, ant-eaters, peccaries, bisons, llamas, and a large group of tailed monkeys entirely different from any ever seen in the Old World. And what holds good for the fauna and flora of to-day in these different coun- tries obtains for the fossil remains of the remote geologic past. It seems unreasonable, therefore, to suppose, even if the ark had been large enough, that the represen- tatives of the different species of animals of these various distant countries of the world came or were brought to the ark. And yet, according to the the- ory of those who interpret literally the story of the 132 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. Deluge, there were in the ark polar bears from Alaska, wapiti from Canada, tapirs and jaguars, sloths and condors from South America, lions, gorillas, and ostriches from Africa, elephants and tigers from India and Siam, lemurs from Madagascar, kangaroos, ornith- orhynchi, and emus from Australia. But, granting that all these animals, together with representatives of all the other species found in the various parts of the world, were in the ark; that there was room and food for them there for a year, the ques- tion arises, How did the}" get there ? How were they transported from their distant homes and conveyed across the broad oceans that separated them from the spot where the ark awaited them? And where did this multitude of animals, many of them carnivorous, find food after leaving the ark ? The earth then was deserted and desolate. Not a living creature, accord- ing to the theory we are now considering, then inhab- ited it ; nothing that could appease the hunger of the thousands of voracious beasts that could subsist only on the flesh of other animals. More than this. How were the representatives of all the various faunae of distant continents and far-off isles of the ocean returned to the places whence they came? One difficulty suggests another, and the more closely the question is investigated, the more numerous and the more formidable the difficulties become. MIRACLES. The advocates of a universal Deluge have a very simple way of disposing of all objections to their theory. " All things," they argue, "are possible with THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 133 God ; therefore a universal Deluge was possible. " They admit Divine intervention wherever a difficulty presents itself, and tell us it is as easy for God to work a hun- dred thousand or a million miracles as it is for Him to perform one. With them a miracle is the sure and final answer to every objection. But these good people are assuming what is to be proved. They assume that the Bible teaches the uni- \ versality of the Deluge, and on the assumption that it was universal they proceed at once to call in the aid of Divine interposition to account for everything that \ cannot be explained by the operation of purely natural agencies. They forget one of the first laws of sound hermeneutics, which forbids the arbitrary introduction of the miraculous in commenting on disputed or even j difficult passages of Scripture. They lose sight of the fact that neither the example of the Fathers nor that of approved exegetists will permit them to invoke the j aid of miracles simply to remove a difficulty or explain a vexed question of Scripture, especially when the words of the Sacred Text do not warrant one in as- suming the fact of a providential intervention. St. Augustine in his De Genesi ad Litter am, and St. Greg- ory of Nyssa in his Hexaemeron, are very explicit on this point. The substance of their teaching in this \ matter, briefly stated, is that miracles are not to be multiplied without reason, and that they are not to be introduced except when the text demands them or ! when it is otherwise inexplicable. Another difficulty that precluded the acceptance of the geographical universality of the Deluge was the impossibility of explaining the source of such an im- mense volume of water as the biblical inundation, if 134 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. the Mosaic account was to be taken literally, would presuppose. In Genesis we read that "all the fount- ains of the great deep were broken up and the flood- gates of heaven were opened;" "and the waters pre- vailed beyond measure upon the earth; and all the high mountains under the whole heaven were covered. The water was fifteen cubits higher than the mountains which it covered." But what do these words signify? Do they mean that the precipitation from the atmo- sphere and the invasion of the land by floods, caused by the upheaval of the ocean's bed, were sufficient to cover the highest mountains over the whole earth? When we remember that many of the peaks of the Andes and Himalayas are over twenty thousand feet high, and that the height of Mount Everest is nearly thirty thousand feet, and then call to mind the mean depth of the ocean according to Murray, 1 twelve thousand four hundred feet we shall see that the supply of water would be totally inadequate for such a submer- gence as is supposed. 2 Some have imagined that God specially created a sufficient quantity of water to inundate the entire earth and cover the highest mountains, and that after all flesh outside of the ark had been destroyed He annihilated the water thus specially created. This, however, is an assumption for which there is no war- rant in Scripture, and one which is so at variance with the known harmony of the laws of nature, and so con- trary to our ideas of God's providence and wisdom in 1 Mr. John Murray, of the Challenger expedition, is one of the highest living authorities on oceanography. ' 2 Cf. Le Deluge Biblique et les Races antedilui'iennes, par Jean d'Estienne, Revue des Questions scientifiques, Oct., 1885. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 135 the government of the world, that it has never been received with favor by exegetists of any weight. No one denies that God could have worked such a miracle had He so willed, but we are dealing with a question of fact, and not discussing what Omnipotence could or could not accomplish. In the light of science, therefore, especially in the light of geology, zoology, and physical geography, the theory of a universal Deluge is untenable. On any ground it is untenable without assuming the existence of such a number of miracles that the theory perforce falls by its own weight. 1 EXPLANATION OF TERMS. But it will be asked, What explanation is to be given of the universal terms employed in the biblical account of the Deluge? It is " all men " and "every living creature" that are to be destroyed; it is the "ivhole earth" that is to be submerged. The words "all," "every" totus, cunctus, omnis,iiniverms are absolute and exclude nothing. And it is these words, we are told, that must be satisfactorily explained before we are at liberty to accept any other theory than that which proclaims that the Deluge was universal. Nothing is of more frequent occurrence in the Old Testament than the employment of universal for par- ticular terms. The same peculiarity is observed in 1 Among the most distinguished of recent Catholic writers who teach that the Deluge affected only a portion of the earth's surface are Sorignet, Marcel de Serres, Geofroy, Lambert, Michelis, Schouppe, Pianciani, Zschokke, Reusch, Schoebel, Duihle de Saint-Projet, Vigouroux, Delsauz, Hettinger. Gut- tler, Bosizio, Brucker, and Lord Arundell of Wardour. 136 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. the New Testament, but not to such an extent as in the Old. It is a characteristic of ail Oriental tongues to use hyperbole, and at times in a way that we should pronounce extravagant. St. Augustine in a letter to St. Paulinus of Nola states that it is the custom of Scripture to speak of the part as of the whole. 1 He likewise observes that it is frequently necessary to explain the word "all" omnis in a restricted sense. He tells his correspondent that there are many pas- sages in the Sacred Text which at first sight present numerous difficulties, which, however, forthwith dis- appear on applying to the terms used a particular instead of a general or absolute signification. A few examples will illustrate the principle of the great Doctor, and show how universal is its application in explaining even the simplest narratives. In speaking of the famine which prevailed at the time of Jacob, Moses declares that "the famine pre- vailed in the whole world," that " the famine increased daily in all the land," and that " all the provinces came into Egypt to buy food and to seek some relief of their want." 2 None of these passages, however, are to be taken literally, notwithstanding the use of the absolute terms "all" and "whole" omnis and itniversus. Moses re- \ fers only to the countries and the peoples known to the / Hebrews. In a similar manner is to be explained the analogous passage in the book of Kings, where we read, "And 1 Scripturae mos est ita loqui de parte tamquam de toto, Epist. ad Paulin., cxlix. See also Pianciani's Cosmogonia Naturale Comparata col Genesi, pp. 243-245. 2 Genesis xii. 54, 56, 57. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 137 all the earth desired to see Solomon's face and to hear his wisdom, which God had given in his heart." 1 Onr Lord Himself uses similar language when He declares that the queen of Saba "came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon." St. Luke in like manner speaks in the same general terms when he tells us in the Acts of the Apostles that at the time of the descent of the Holy Ghost on the apostles there were assembled in Jerusalem " devout men out of every nation under heaven." In the case of the famine in the time of Jacob the people referred to did not live more than a few hun- dred miles, at the most, from the home of the patriarch. The queen of Saba dwelt, most likely, in Southern Ara- bia, distant, possibly, some ten or twelve hundred miles. The representatives of every nation under heaven in Jerusalem at the feast of Pentecost came from the coun- tries that were then known to the Jewish people, and, to judge from those named, none who were present at the time came from points distant more than a few thousand miles at the farthest. No exegetist has ever thought of taking the words literally, or of imagining that there were then present in the Holy City, Chinese and Japanese, Indians from Peru and Mexico, and strangers from the Isles of the South Pacific. And yet if the words were to be taken literally one would be perfectly justified in making such a supposition. A still more striking illustration of hyperbole, so characteristic of Hebrew thought and language is found in Sophonias: "Gathering, I will gather to- gether all things from off the face of the land, saith the Lord. I will gather man and beast, I will gather 1 III Kings, 24. 138 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. the birds of the air and the fishes of the sea: and the ungodly shall meet with ruin: and I will destroy men from off the face of the land, saith the Lord." l Here, to take the words literally, we have a menace of universal destruction. Not only all men and all ani- mals are to be destroyed, but all birds of the air and all fishes of the sea. The words threatening the de- struction of animate nature by the Deluge do not imply more, are not more precise and far-reaching. But what are the object and extent of divine wrath as expressed in these sweeping words of the prophet? Some interpreters tell us that reference is made to the land and people of Juda; others say that the menace is directed against Babylon, while others still maintain that the prophecy refers to the Phoenicians and other peoples on the borders of Palestine. But, whatever be the exact meaning of the text, it is generally agreed among commentators that the universal terms em- ployed have a meaning that is, if anything, more restricted than that of similar words in any of the passages yet quoted. And so is it in many other instances that might be adduced. The whole earth omnis terra sometimes applies only to the Promised Land; sometimes it em- braces only Egypt. At other times the same words are made to refer to the kingdom of David or of Solo- mon, and at others, again, to a stretch of country bounded by the visible horizon. 2 It is a mistake to suppose that the words of Scrip- ture are self-explanatory, or that we can arrive at the 1 Sophonias, I, 2 and 3. 2 Le Deluge Biblique devant la Foi, I Ecriture ct la Science, par Al. Motais, p. 52. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 139 signification of the words by considering them in themselves and apart from what precedes or follows them. In some cases we can determine the precise meaning of the terms used from the context. In others we must have recourse to parallel texts, and study the meaning of the passage in question in the light of the genius of the language and of the temper- ament of the people who spoke it. Many readers of the Scriptures fall into egregious errors by imagin- ing that they are obliged to apply the same rules of interpretation and criticism to the florid, picturesque, and hyperbolical languages of the Orient as they would in studying the meaning of an author who had written in English, French, or German. Sound, logi- cal exegesis, however, as Reithmayer has so clearly expressed it, requires us to interpret Scripture accord- ing to the mind of the writer and according to the mind of those for whom the author speaks. TEACHING OF FATHERS AND DOCTORS. But, conceding the gravity of the objections offered by science against the acceptance of the theory of a universal Deluge, and granting that the words of the Bible may, in certain cases, be interpreted in a re- stricted sense, are we justified in concluding from these facts that such a restricted use of language is applicable to the account that Moses gives of the Flood of Noah ? Comparing the language employed in the description of the Deluge with that used in other pas- sages of the inspired writings, it may be admitted that, in se, a restricted meaning may be attributed to the universal terms that occur in the narrative, but it 140 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. will be asked, Will the traditional interpretation that has been assigned to the great catastrophe permit us any liberty of opinion on the subject under discussion? What have the Fathers and Doctors of the Church thought and taught ? What have the Schoolmen and commentators of a subsequent age believed and pro- fessed? And are we not obliged to accept the tra- ditional teaching the teaching of the early Fathers and that of the mediaeval schools as the teaching of the Church ? And if it be found that these venerated and venerable authorities have, with almost unbroken unanimity, held that the Deluge was universal, can we as faithful children of the Church /r<7 jacturam pie- tatis, as Melchior Cano expresses it reject their teach- ing and regard the contrary view as tenable? We may for the nonce admit that the Fathers and Doctors, theologians and commentators, for the first sixteen centuries of the Church's history almost unan- imously believed and taught that the Flood was uni- versal. But, granting this to be true, are we obliged to regard their beliefs and teachings as anything more than the expressions of personal opinions concerning matters that any one is free to discuss? Or are we to consider their consensus of opinion regarding the Flood as a part of that body of doctrine which cannot be impugned without scandal and danger to faith ? Let us examine. It may at once be premised that very few of the texts of the Holy Scripture have been explicitly defined by the Church. And it may at the same time be further observed that an equally small number of passages are regarded as authoritatively and infallibly interpreted by the unanimous exegesis of the Fathers. Hence of the thousands of paragraphs THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 141 of which the Holy Scripture is composed, the num- ber on which the Church and her Doctors have pro- nounced authentic and solemn judgment is very small j indeed. The question now arises: Is the narrative of the I Deluge to be classed among those parts of Scripture to which have been given an authoritative interpretation? We can say, unhesitatingly, that in so far as the Church is concerned, as represented by her supreme ruler, nothing whatever has been decided. There is no papal judgment or interpretation bearing on the subject. In this respect, therefore, we are at full lib- i erty to elect any theory regarding the Deluge that may commend itself to our judgment. But is not the consensus of opinion of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church of that kind which we are compelled to accept as a part of the dogmatic teaching of the Church ? Let us see what are our privileges and what are our obligations in the face of patristic and scholastic teaching and opinion. A decree of the Council of Trent, renewed by the Council of the Vatican, declares that in "matters of ! faith and morals pertaining to the building up of Christian doctrine ... it is forbidden to interpret \ Scripture contrary to the unanimous consent of the j Fathers." 1 Now, according to Pallavicini, the great historian of the Council of Trent, " the Council had no inten- tion to prescribe a new rule or to restrain by new laws the manner of interpreting the Word of God, but simply declared as illicit and heretical what was so by its 1 Cone. Trid. Sess. iv.; Cone. Vatic. Constit. de Fide Catho- lica, 2. 142 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. nature, and what had always been held and proclaimed as such by Fathers, Pontiffs, and Councils." The decree had no reference to certain questions of minor importance qufestiunculce, as St. Vincent of Lerins calls them connected with biblical interpreta- tion. It referred rather to fundamental questions of faith and morals or, as the same St. Vincent puts it, to his dumtaxat prcecipue qucestionibus quibus totius Catholici dogmatis fundameuta nituntur. "When," says Cardinal Franzelin, "we inquire what is the measure of the authority which the unani- mous consent of the Fathers possesses in a question of theology, it is necessary to distinguish the different ways in which a given doctrine may be proposed by them, and to consider whether their opinion regarding such a doctrine is or is not tantamount to a declaration that it belongs to the common faith of the Church, or whether, on the contrary, their consensus of opinion may not rather refer to a doctrine or an explanation of a doctrine, connected indeed with religion and truth, but not so clearly proposed as to entitle it to be regarded as a dogma of faith." ! When there is question of Councils or Popes giving decisions, it is necessary, the same theologian declares, that they speak "in the plenitude of their authority, and that they deliver authentically a dogma proposed for universal acceptance." If, then, explicit and authentic definition is required when Popes and Councils speak, for a much stronger reason equal certainty of definition is demanded when there is question of the authority of the Fathers. It is important in this connection to remember the state- 1 Franzelin, DC Divina Traditionc et Scriptura, sect. ii. cap. i. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 143 ment of Bossuet, that " the Fathers in the interpreta- tion of the Scriptures do not urge the literal sense except when confirming dogmas and refuting heretics." Hence, Pallavicini teaches, it is necessary that there be question not only of doctrinal matters, but also of dogmas to be believed, and that the sense of the Sacred Text be declared certain by the unanimous teaching of the Fathers. It is necessary that the sig- nification of the text be approved as a dogma of faith tanquam dogma fodei a cnnctis Ecclesice Doctoribus comprobari and that the Fathers condemn, or show that they are disposed to condemn, as a heretic any one who rejects the truth which they enunciate or the article of faith which they proclaim. If, however, the Fathers regard a doctrine simply as religious and true, if they declare themselves only as if expressing an opinion " opinanliiim modo" they teach us by their example that we also may have the same liberty of opinion. Wherefore, in order that the consensus pa- trum may bear on the face of it the formula of Catholic truth, it must carry with it the evidences of undoubted and explicit dogmatic decisions. 1 St. Thomas Aquinas makes a beautiful distinction between things which are necessarily of faith and things which pertain to faith only accidentally, which will serve to elucidate the question under discussion. The Trinity and Unity of God, for instance, belong necessarily per se to the substance of faith. Many things of an historical nature historialia appertain to faith only accidentally per accidens about which even the saints have entertained different views, and 1 See Motais, Le Dkluge Biblique, pp. 132 et seq., whose argu- ment I have here followed. 144 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. regarding which they have given different interpreta- tions. Thus, that the world was created belongs to the substance of faith, and such is the unanimous teaching of the Fathers. But the manner and order of creation pertain to faith only accidentally. Hence many different explanations have been given regarding these questions without in the least affecting the truth of Scripture. 1 The distinction the Angelic Doctor lays down re- garding the creation of the world applies, it seems, with equal force to the Noachian Deluge. The fact of the Deluge no one can deny. Neither may we call in question the prophecy announcing the Flood n&r the purpose which it subserved. These are of faith, and explicitly declared so even by our Lord and His Apostles. The prophecy, we must admit, was miracu- lous, and therefore supernatural. The Deluge, although providential was, we may believe, but natural. The Almighty by His foreknowledge simply availed Him- self of natural agents in carrying out the execution of His decrees. We are at liberty, therefore, to maintain that the occurrence of the Deluge was natural, as we may believe that the destruction of Jerusalem was natural. The latter event was foretold with even greater detail than the former, but in both instances it was natural causes in one the forces of nature, in the other human agency that were executors of the divine Will. LIBERTY OF INTERPRETATION. And if we are free to explain the Deluge by the 1 In Lib. ii. Sent., Distinct xii. Art. 2. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 145 action of causes purely physical, we may likewise, a fortiori, avail ourselves of the same liberty of inter- pretation regarding the extent to which the catastrophe prevailed. Father de Smet, the celebrated president of the Bollandists, expresses this idea forcibly when he declares that u the Catholic savant, when in presence of a prodigy whose miraculous character is not clearly attested by a divine witness, has full liberty to examine it with all the severity which characterizes the dis- cussion of miracles by the members of the Sacred Congregation of Rites in cases of beatification and canonization." Even granting that the Scriptures declared not only the fact of the Deluge, but also informed us in detail as to its extent and the causes which operated in its production, such a recital would be an object of Catholic faith only accidentally, inas- much as it constitutes a part of the Sacred Text, but it would not of itself, as St. Thomas and Franzelin teach, enter into the things of faith and morals that pertain to the building up of Christian doctrine as based on the infallible interpretation of the Fathers. What St. Thomas says of matters which are purely historical historialia Patrizzi declares of matters of science and philosophy. "You will not find," this eminent theologian declares, "questions which are purely philosophical treated by the Fathers as pertain- ing to religion and Christian piety." ' St. Augustine 1 Institut. de Interpretatione Bibliorum, cap. v. Fessler, in commenting on the decree of the Council of Trent respect- ing the authority and scope of patristic teaching, declares : "Non itaque S. Synodns statuit piaculum esse a patribus dis- cedere in qusestionilms historicis, philosophicis, mathematecis, physicis, astronomicis, geographicis aliisque hujus modi rebus, 10 146 BIBLE, SCIEN'CE, AND FAITH. expresses the same sentiment with equal force and clearness. "In the obscurities of natural things," the great Doctor observes, "in which we recognize the omnipotence of God, we must proceed, not by affirming, but by inquiring, especially when there is a question of treating books commended to us by divine authority." In such matters, therefore in questions, namely, that are purely historical, philo- sophical, or scientific, as prescinded from any clear and certain connection with matters of faith and morals we have all the liberty of examination and discussion that even the most exacting investigator could reasonably desire. For this reason it is that Melchior Cano, when speaking of the nature and force of traditional interpretation, does not hesitate to declare, anent such subjects as the one under examina- tion, that "if all the Fathers had erred in their opin- ions, they would have been wrong in matters of slight moment." I have assumed, for the sake of argument, that the Fathers and Doctors of the Church were at one as to their views of the universality of the Deluge. This assumption, although in the main true, requires qualifica- tion. Their teaching, although apparently unanimous, admits of some exceptions which in the discussion of questions like the present have especial significance. Thus, notwithstanding the absolute expression, "all the earth" omnis terra some of the Fathers and older writers exclude Olympus and Atlas from the effects of the inundation, contending that these moun- qiiibus Sacrse Litterse materiam vastam suppeditant." Insti- tutiones Patrologitz, torn. i. p. 55. 1 De Genesi ad Litteram, cap. i. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 147 tains were too high for the waters of the Deluge to reach their summits. Others make the same excep- tion for the Garden of Eden. Others, again, go much farther, and say that the waters of the Deluge did not reach the summits of any of the mountains, but re- mained only on the plains below. More than this. They made exception, without any apparent hesitation, not only for different parts of the earth's surface, but also for different kinds of animal life. They found justification for such excep- tions in various reasons some of them very fanciful indeed of science and history and exegesis. 1 But the important fact disclosed by these exceptions made by the Fathers and contemporary authors, who were faith- ful children of the Church, is that they throw light on the bearing of Scripture exegesis at the time in question on the meaning to be attached to the words "all the earth" and "all flesh." If one exception could be made the Fathers made many what is to prevent us from freely interpreting the narrative of the Deluge in the restricted sense which we have been advocating? Even aside from the principles of inter- pretation which we have been considering, we should be justified by the example of the Fathers themselves in upholding the theory of the non-universality of the Flood. What has been said of the Fathers may with equal truth be affirmed of the Schoolmen and the exegetists who succeeded them. The Fathers in their capacity of witnesses and doctors of Tradition are, as Franzelin teaches, one of the essential parts of the magisterium and ministry divine-human instituted by God for the 1 See Motais, Le Deluge Biblique. 148 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. propagation of Christian doctrine in the world. But if the opinions of these preordained witnesses to the truth of Tradition are not binding on our reason ex- cept when they possess all the characters demanded by theology and the Church, for a stronger reason the unanimous consent of the School cannot be said to have such authority over our reason and conscience. This is what Pius IX. means when he declares that the constant and unanimous consent of theologians must refer not only to matters of faith, but that the doctrine taught must be held as true and as of Catholic faith. 1 And yet more. The common opinion of the Scho- lastics, even when deduced from sources of revelation, is not of faith, as Franzelin teaches, except when the truths it teaches are declared to be such. Suarez as- signs several reasons why such an unanimous opinion may not be of faith: "First, the text of Scripture in question may be so worded as to admit of several inter- pretations. Second, because the Church has given no decision in the matter. Third, because Tradition is not decisive on the question. ' ' 2 These declarations refer especially to opinions which are subject to change to opinions which even the Schoolmen themselves did not hesitate to abandon when sufficient reasons for so doing were forthcom- ing. Opinions regarding certain matters of science, history, and philosophy would come under this head. They would naturally change with the advance of knowledge and the progress of research. The various opinions entertained regarding the six days of creation is a case in point. And scarcely less noteworthy in this . ' Encyclical of Dec. 21, 1863. 2 Quoted by Motais in Le Deluge Biblique, p. 174. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 149 respect is the question of the universality of the Del- uge. It is a question rather of science and archaeology than of pure theology. Hence the changes of opinion that have been occasioned by modern scientific investi- gations and the new views that are now entertained by apologists and exegetists. The Fathers, as we have seen, interpret the text regarding the total destruction of mankind accord- ing to its most obvious meaning. They had no rea- son to hold a different opinion from that which they professed. The state of knowledge in their time did not admit of any other view, and even if one could have been formulated there would have been no means of verifying it. Like the Fathers, the Schoolmen gave an opinion on an equivocal passage of Scripture without any profound investigation, for the simple reason that the necessary data for such investigation were almost entirely want- ing. As a matter of habit, as it were, without reason- ing and without reflection, they accepted as true the opinions of the Fathers, but made no attempt to estab- lish the truth of these opinions. But while they took it for granted that the opinions taught were true, they did not propose them as neces- sary articles of belief. The very manner in which they express themselves evinces the contrary. Indeed, a brief examination of the way in which the School- men treated the question of the universality of the Deluge will convince one that the common opinion that was held regarding the catastrophe was one of those which, as De L/ugo says, might be universally defended in one age, and in consequence of the prog- ress of research be as universally rejected in the next. 150 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. And no less an authority than Cardinal Franzelin tells us that an opinion that has obtained general accept- ance among theologians may sometimes, by reason of the discovery of new data or because of more profound investigations, lose much of its pristine authority or even be abandoned entirely. It may then be accepted as a fact, which no one can gainsay, that not a single Scholastic, nor indeed any Catholic theologian of repute, has ever taught, from any point of view whatever, that the universality of the Deluge is of faith. The consent of Doctors may have been universal, but it was regarding a matter that was always open for examination and discussion. The consent, therefore, was at best a matter of opinion, and not one of positive judgment or dogmatic defi- nition. It was an opinion that obtained for centuries, not because it was not open to controversy, but because the materials supplied by modern criticism, and indis- pensable for successfully grappling with the question, were not then available. It was an opinion that had not been tried in the crucible of modern exegesis, and one, consequently, that never had any of the notes of truth and certitude possessed by a dogma of faith. The unanimity in question was, at best, something purely negative, and cannot be construed as authoritatively opposing a theory that, in the very nature of the case, was, at the time of which we speak, incapable of being formulated. True it is, the opinion is one that prevailed for over a thousand years one that was discussed in many bulky volumes from the times of St. Augustine and Tostatus to those of Mersenne and Pereira. But time alone in the discussion of such a question is not an THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 151 important factor. If it were a question of principles or one of pure theology, where all the elements and documents necessary for the elucidation of the case were at hand, the application of the ordinary rules of logic would be all that was necessary to draw certain and infallible conclusions. In such a case the solution of the question would involve nothing more than sim- ple reflection and ratiocination, and a genius like that of a St. Augustine or of a St. Thomas Aquinas would not demand time as an indispensable prerequisite for arriving at a conclusion. But with questions of physical and natural science, of history and philosophy, of archaeology and linguis- tics, it is quite otherwise. Hence St. Augustine, Ori- gen, and other Doctors felt constrained to leave to time the clearing up of many difficulties which in the state of limited information in their day were insoluble. If the illustrious bishop of Hippo could, toward the end of his life, find in his writings materials for a volume of retractions, how much more, if he were now living, would he not discover, in those obscure natural ques- tions that in his time were so puzzling, to amend or reject ! And if now, in the light of modern research and with the aid of sciences that were unknown to the Fathers and the Schoolmen, we still encounter insu- perable difficulties, even in connection with the ques- tion now under examination, how lenient should we not be in passing judgment on opinions that were then formed and generally received opinions which their authors would be the first to modify or abandon if they were now living or if they had had the data and inform- ation that modern natural and physical science has placed at our disposal ! CHAPTER II. THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL UNIVERSALITY OF THE DELUGE. NOVELTY OF THE QUESTION. WE are now prepared to go a step farther. The Deluge was not, as we may believe, universal as to the earth's surface nor as to the destruction of all forms of animal life. Was it, excluding those who were in the ark, universal as to man ? Until the last few years scarcely any one would have thought of giv- ing to this question other than an affirmative answer. Whatever views may have been entertained as to the geographical universality of the Deluge, it was almost, if not quite, unanimously believed that no exception could be made to the total destruction of our race except that stated in the seventh chapter of Genesis, where only Noah and his family are explicitly excluded from the all-destroying cataclysm. To question and, much more, to deny, the universality of the Deluge was, and is still, with the majority of the people, con- sidered tantamount to impugning the authority of the Bible or rejecting an article of faith. Nevertheless, if the question be examined without any preconceived notions, in the light of modern research and true exe- gesis, and with the seriousness and thoroughness to which it is entitled, it will, I think, be found that one may be justified in holding different views from those which have been so long current. This may, doubt- 152 THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 153 less, surprise some of my readers, and yet I make the statement deliberately and with a full knowledge of all the objections urged against such an interpretation. I know that I am mooting a question that was not seriously discussed until a few years ago, and calling attention to a theory that has as yet but few defenders. But is it not a privilege and a right of ours to examine the latest phases of modern thought, to consider the theories that are now agitating the thinking world, as well as inform ourselves regarding facts and principles about which there can be no controversy ? And if so, is it not our right, as well as our privilege, to scruti- nize what we may believe as well as what we must believe to discuss hypotheses and theories as well as doctrines and dogmas ? And are we not justified, therefore, in pushing our investigations to the farthest limits permitted by reason and sound criticism ? I think there can be but one answer to these queries that we should fail to keep abreast with the advance of modern discovery and modern thought if we should not avail ourselves of all the sources of information that are placed at our disposal, and examine, as far as may be, even the tentative efforts that have in view the solution of problems in which all students have been more or less interested from time immemorial. UNIVERSALITY OF THE DELUGE AN OPEN QUESTION. It will clear the way somewhat to premise that neither the Church nor Tradition nor the School has ever defined or taught that the universal destruc- tion of mankind by the Flood, excepting, of course, those in the ark, is of faith. In this respect there is 154 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. the same liberty of belief as there is regarding the geographical universality of the Deluge. And the principles laid down and the quotations from the Fathers and theologians which have been given as bear- ing on the latter case apply with equal force and truth to the former. There has been, it may be admitted, a common consent, which there was not until recently any reason for disputing, that all men except Noah and his family were destroyed; but it may, I think, be safely asserted that this common consent never amounted to anything more than an opinion, to stand or fall according to the evidence with which it might be supported. We have seen that the absolute expres- sions "all the earth," omnis terra, and u all flesh," omnis caro, may be used in a restricted sense that science demands it, that exegesis allows it. The ques- tion now presents itself naturally and logically: Can- not the universal terms "all men," universi homines, be likewise interpreted in a similar sense? There is certainly nothing in the narrative of the Deluge nor in any collateral text bearing upon the subject that precludes such an interpretation. Besides, the laws of logic and hermeneutics oblige us, if we are to be con- sistent, to deal with all the universal expressions of the text in question in the same manner, unless there be some special and positive reason for doing other- wise. But such positive reasons, it seems, are wanting, whilst, on the contrary, both Scripture and science afford many motives for believing that the expression "all men" is to JDC taken in a restricted sense, as well as "all flesh" and "all the earth." It has been said that the traditional teaching requires us to believe that the Deluge was universal, at least so THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 155 far as man is concerned, whatever we may be permit- ted to hold regarding its extent in other respects. This, however, is scarcely an exact statement of the facts in the case. The general consensus of the Fathers and Doctors does indeed suppose the destruc- tion of all men except Noah and his family. Some exceptions, however, are^made, and these logically open the door to as many more as the advance of science and the demands of exegesis may render necessary. According to the Septuagint, for instance, Methusa- lem lived fourteen years after the Deluge. But as he was not one of those in the Ark, some of the Fathers and commentators assume that he must have been saved by other means. -Again, Henoch is numbered by some commentators among those who escaped from the waters of the Deluge, and we are told that he was saved because the water did not reach the summit of the mountain where he was sojourning. But if we can allow two exceptions, why not as many more as the circumstances of the case may require? This, if not a logical necessity, is at least' exegetical con- sistency. To give a restricted meaning to some of the universal terms of the narrative of the Deluge "all the earth" and "all animals," for instance and an absolute meaning to others "all men" would, as Abbe Motais well observes, be tantamount to employ- ing two systems of weights and measures, and without v any scriptural warrant. And what are the reasons, it may be asked, that make for a change in the opinion that has so long obtained regarding the universal destruction of man- kind? They are twofold some are biblical, others are scientific. 156 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. It would take far more space than I have at my dis- posal for a complete discussion of the subject, but I may at least indicate the nature of the argument on which the theory is based. OBJECTIONS ON THE PART OF SCIENCE. The first serious objections to a universal destruc- tion of our race came from science. The relics of man found in various parts of Europe and Great Britain skeletons in caves, flint and stone imple- ments in gravel-pits, kitchen utensils in lake dwell- ings and round about shell-deposits seemed to give man a much greater antiquity than was allowed by the generally-received interpretation of the Mosaic Deluge. These remains seem to evince that men had found their way to very distant parts of the earth at a much earlier period than is usually supposed at a period certainly long anterior to the Deluge, if we are to rely on the dates ordinarily assigned to the occurrence of this catastrophe. Unless, then, we sup- pose the Deluge to have occurred much earlier than the majority of chronologists are disposed to concede, we must infer that some of the relics of man found in Europe and Asia, and possibly also in America, are antediluvian instead of postdiluvian. And if, further, the Deluge affected only a limited portion of territory at most probably only a small part of Western Asia, as there is now reason to believe then we are forced irresistibly to the conclusion that there were human beings in various other parts of the world who escaped the inundation described in Genesis. The conclusions of geology are corroborated by the THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 157 teachings of archaeology, ethnology, physiology, and linguistics. Egyptologists and Assyriologists, espe- cially, tell us of races and peoples inhabiting Egypt and parts of Asia who could scarcely have descended from Noah, unless it be assumed that chronologists have been entirely wrong regarding the dates which they have fixed for the Deluge. Full three thousand years B. c. the Egyptians found in the valley of the Nile tribes belonging to the negro race a race, there is reason to believe, that must have forestalled the Egyp- tians in the occupation of the country by at least sev- eral centuries. 1 And then it is difficult, if not impossible, on any of the known principles of ethnology and physiology, to account for the great difference in color, in anatom- ical and social characteristics, that distinguish the negro from the Egyptian. It is scarcely reasonable to suppose that such a radical divergence could have occurred in a few years, as we are forced to conclude if we derive both races from Noah. The only alterna- tive, therefore, is to admit that the negroes in Egypt and in other parts of Africa were of antediluvian ori- gin, and that they escaped destruction because the waters of the Flood did not e"xtend to the coun- tries which they inhabited. History and ethnology likewise tell us of antedilu- vians found by the descendants of Noah the Hamites, Semites, and Japhetites along the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates, and of an ancient yellow race that 1 See Lenormant's Histoire ancienne de V Orient, neuvieme edition, tome ii. p. 47, and Maspero's Histoire ancienne des Penples de V Orient, quatrieme edition, p. 17. 158 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. the sons of Japhet discovered when they reached the lands watered by the Ganges and the Indus. And this ancient yellow race was preceded by an earlier black, which had been driven to the forests and the mountains when the country was taken possession of N. by the former. But, even granting it possible to explain away the difficulties urged by the sciences just mentioned, we are confronted with almost, if not quite, as insuperable objections presented in the name of linguistics. There are, as is known, three great families of languages ( the monosyllabic and the agglutinate, spoken by the N yellow, black, and red races, and the flexional lan- ( guages, spoken by the white race or all those who can be traced with certainty to Noah or his sons. The monosyllabic and agglutinate languages are so entirely unlike the flexional that it is simply impossi- ble to account for their difference, unless we put back the Deluge much farther than any system of biblical chronology will warrant, or admit that those who speak monosyllabic and agglutinate tongues belong to pre- Noachic races, and that they all, by reason of their being far away from the land of the Deluge, escaped unharmed. If we admit what seem to be the logical and incon- trovertible deductions of geology, archaeology, ethnol- ogy, physiology, and linguistics, we remove at once all the difficulties that are urged in the name of these sci- ences, and find ourselves in a position to reconcile the many discrepancies which have so long puzzled the brains of exegetist and apologist. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 159 THE DELUGE IN THE LIGHT OF EXEGESIS. Singularly enough, when the results of scientific discovery proclaimed the necessity of revising the interpretations that had been in vogue regarding the total destruction of the race by the Deluge, it was ) found that there was nothing in the Sacred Text that [ forbade such a revision. On the contrary, it was found that the narrative of the Deluge might be reconciled with the opinion which exempts a part of the human race from the cataclysm. /God, it was said, inspired Moses to write an account of the Deluge. Moses makes use of a written document or avails himself of an oral tradition which was faithfully preserved among the descendants of the patriarchs. Noah and the members of his family had seen the waters invade all the country which was visible to them, and had witnessed the destruction of all animals and men round about them. They were naturally persuaded, therefore, that all the earth and that every living thing on its surface had been submerged. Hence the universal expressions made use of by them in reporting the event: "All flesh," "all things wherein there is the breath of life," "all the high mountains under the heaven." Moses had appropriated the doc- uments at hand, and, persuaded of the universality of the Deluge, made no change in. the expressions used. The Holy Ghost, having in view only the narrative of a prodigious inundation destined to punish the crimes of mankind, did not prevent the inspired writer from using these general expressions, inasmuch as these, when compared with similar expressions in other parts of the Bible, were susceptible of a more restricted l6o BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. sense. This restricted sense, applied to the expressions used, would at a later date correct the inexact or false idea that had been entertained regarding the extent of the Deluge. "For this reason, then, if the whole question of the non-universality of the Deluge were to be limited to the discussion of the simple text of Moses, there would be in this reasoning a fruitful ele- ment of solution." l Again, it had all along been assumed, at least by the majority of commentators, that the Deluge was primarily, if not entirely, an act of divine vengeance occasioned by the sins of the world. But the mercy of God, as displayed in the purification of the race ; His providence, as manifested in the conservation in all its integrity of the patriarchal line, and in a still more ineffable manner in the great work of Redemp- tion, from which the Deluge may not be disassociated, are factors that are lost sight of in such a circum- scribed view of the great catastrophe. "They forget," as Abbe Motais well observes, "the divine idea that embraces both Eden and Golgotha the promise made in the garden of Paradise and its fulfilment on the summit of Calvary." No, the Deluge was not simply an act of divine vengeance: it was rather a means which God, in His wisdom and goodness, employed for preserving intact the patriarchal line from which was to descend the Redeemer of the world; it was a necessity in order that "the sons of God" might be preserved from contamination by associating with " the daughters of men." And just here we come upon one of the chief dif- 1 P. Corluy, in La Controverse, pp. 74, 75, May, 1885. THE NOACH1AN DELUGE. l6l fictilties in the way of a true insight into the provi- dential reasons for the Deluge. What are meant by the expressions "sons of God" and "daughters of men"? Numerous and different interpretations have been given. Many have imagined that by the sons of God are understood the Sethites, and by the daughters of men are designated the Cainites. But a closer examination of the Sacred Text seems to evince that Moses intentionally ignored the Cainites, as he did the descendants of the other children of Adam. He was not concerned with them. They did not enter into the scope of his narrative. His object was to show the genealogy of the patriarchs from Noah through Seth to Adam. After the Deluge he deals only with Noah and the unbroken patriarchal line as descended from him. That there were among the mountains of Central Asia or along the valley of the Nile descendants of Cain and of other children of Adam he may or may not have known. But whether he knew of their existence or not and we can scarcely believe that he was in ignorance of their existence it matters not. / He was not writing a history of the world. He was tracing out a synopsis of the history of the Hebrew people, the chosen people of the Lord, the sons of God. To him all who were not Hebrews were " Goim," as in the estimation of Athenian writers all who were not Greeks were barbarians. No others entered into the plan of his narrative.^ The Cainites had long before emig'rated to distant parts of the world. The other descendants of the children of Adam not mentioned in the ethnographic chart are absent from the record of the Deluge, because they too had long previously sought a home in other 11 1 62 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. far-off lands, and did not, consequently, enter into the purview of the world spoken of by the inspired writer. To Moses, according to Abbe Motais, the patriarchs were the sons of God; the daughters of men were the women of the people who lived in their immediate vicinity. To Moses the sous of God and the daugh- ters of men were "all men" the universi homines whose destruction was decreed and carried into execu- tion by the Almighty. All the world was corrupt if the world of the patriarch became tainted. What matters it, from the Messianic point of view, that at the moment of the Incarnation virginity no longer existed in the world, provided it was still conserved in the heart of Mary ? What matters it, from the same point of view, that at the time of the Deluge corrup- tion infected the entire earth, provided that Noah, remaining true patriarch, is able to carry forward the world to Jacob and through Jacob to Jesus Christ? To effect the object in view it was not necessary to drown the entire race. Moses sees this, and does not, there- fore, feel constrained to say it was necessary for God to do that which it was not necessary for Him to do. Viewing the Deluge, then, as affecting only a part of the human race, there is not a single word in the nar- rative that does not admit of a ready explanation. 1 And yet more. Such an interpretation throws a flood of light on a number of other passages in Scrip- ture that have always been involved in the greatest obscurity. It will suffice for our present purpose to adduce a couple of paragraphs from the celebrated prophecy of Balaam, as recorded in the book of Numbers. 1 Motai's, op. cit., p. 298. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 163 "And when he (the prophet Balaam) saw Anialek, he took tip his parable and said: Amalek, the begin- ning of nations, whose latter ends shall be destroyed." " He saw also the Cainite ; and took up his parable and said: Thy habitation indeed is strong: but though thon built thy nest in a rock, lo ! he also, Cain, shall be exterminated." What are we to understand by the words " Cainite" and "the beginning of the nations"? Leaving aside the various interpretations that have been given by different commentators, is it not clear that, if we accept the theory of the Deluge as just explained, we have here meant the descendants of Cain who had escaped the great catastrophe that the prophet refers to an antediluvian race, and that, as compared with the descendants of Noah, who were post-diluvian, they were in very truth the beginning of nations? I might cite other passages from the Old Testament which corroborate this view in the most striking and unexpected manner. I might adduce numerous facts of archaeology that seem to put such an interpretation beyond doubt, but to develop the argument in full would require more space than I am here granted. From what has been said, it appears probable, if not certain, that the Deluge was universal neither geo- graphically nor zoologically nor ethnographically. What the extent of the Flood was cannot be deter- mined, but it seems to be almost certain that it was comparatively limited, both as to the amount of ter- ritory submerged and to the number of the human race destroyed. 2 1 Numbers xxiv. 20, 21. 2 One of the first to advance the theory of the non-universal- 164 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. The learned Oratorian, Abbe Motais, as the result of a critical and exhaustive examination of the latest ity of the Deluge as to man was Oleaster, a Dominican inquisi- tor in Portugal, in the sixteenth century. He based his the- ory on the celebrated prophecy of Balaam. He was followed in 1656 by La Peyrere in his famous work on Preadamites. During the two following centuries the same theory was de- fended by several other writers of note, especially Cuvier and Quatrefages. In 1853 and 1856 attention was called to it by the works of Klee and Schoebel. In 1866, D'Omalius d'Halloy advocated it in an address delivered before the class of science of the Belgian Academy. In 1869 and subsequently the theory was developed and strengthened in a remarkable manner by the learned historian and Orientalist, Francois Lenormant. In 1877, Dr. Scholz taught it in the Catholic University of Wurzburg, whilst in 1881, 1882, and 1885, Jean d'Estienne supported it in a series of learned articles in the Revue des Questions scien- tifiques. In 1883 it was defended in La Controverse by Mgr. Harlez, a professor in the University of Lou vain, whilst in the year following it was advocated by M. G. Dubor in the Museon and by Mgr. Clifford in the Tablet. But, by all odds, the most able and exhaustive work that has yet appeared on the subject is the one which I have so frequently quoted in these pages Le Deluge biblique devant la Foi, V Ecriture et la Science, by the late lamented Abbe Motais of the Oratory at Rennes. I may also refer to La Non-universalite du Deluge and Encore La Non-universalit^ du Deluge by the Abbe Robert, likewise of the Oratory of Rennes, who strongly champions the theory of his confrere, Abbe Motais, as well as to the masterly Apologie des Christenthums by Dr. Schanz, and to the admirable " Scrip- tural Questions" Second Series, No. 4 contributed to the Catholic World by the erudite Father A. F. Hewit. More re- cent studies on the subject which will well repay perusal are the works of Howorth already referred to, and Le Deluge de- vant la Critique historique, par M. Ra3'inond de Girard. THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 165 conclusions of science and biblical criticism anent the Noachian Deluge, summarizes his investigations as follows: "The logic of exegesis, the laws of hermeneutics, the study of parallel passages and of the personages therein referred to, all keep us within the circle in which the author (Moses) confines himself. Not a word, not an idea, not a reflection obliges us to go out- side of it. He is, then, in perfect accord with the plan and scope of his narrative and of his entire book when, after more than two thousand years of history conse- crated solely to the patriarchs, we perceive in the event that is to reform the lineage of the sons of God an inun- dation which sweeps away the world of the patriarchs and not the world of humanity. "And is this saying enough? Is not this conclu- sion more than permitted by logic ? Does not Moses demand it? Do not sound criticism and prudent exe- gesis require it? All other systems leave the mind uneasy and in suspense. Many objections remain without even a plausible solution. It is necessary to multiply miracles and to have recourse to diverse expe- dients. But with the exegesis we have indicated every difficulty disappears, not as the result of multiplied and distinct efforts, but by a single stroke by the simple admission of the non-universality of the Deluge. This is not a pure hypothesis. It is implicitly revealed in the plan of Genesis; it is explicitly proclaimed in the Pentateuch. The Rationalist is forced to admit it; the believer can accept it without denying any article of dogma. The imperfection and the insufficiency of the older traditional exegesis urge it; its tendencies and principles invite it. What is there, then, to pre- 1 66 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. elude such a view? Only a single word all Omnis ; that Omnis which neither the Fathers nor the Scholas- tics nor modern interpreters found to offer any special embarrassment; that Omnis which a hundred scrip- tural passages show is so often hyperbolic, which even the narrative of the Flood impels us to restrict, and which the design of the author explains always sa naturally and so necessarily. No, in truth, we do not find any motives for rejecting a solution at once so simple and so comprehensive and so rational. "Such is the thesis, or, if we wish, such is the hypothesis. Let it be taken up and studied, and con- tradicted even, but let it not be misrepresented. It is not the product of doubt, but of faith. It is the off- spring not of indifference, but of a passionate love of the Scriptures of a desire to defend and honor them, and of a firm conviction of the truth of their teachings. It has been written with the greatest respect for all the verities of religion as revealed in the Bible, and comes from the heart rather than from the pen. It is not born of the spirit of sect or party; its object is not to give support to the yet doubtful conclusions of profane science. The affirmations and attacks of science have been for us only an incentive to labor, and our study is one which is, before all and above all, one of pure exe- gesis. That which to our mind is most forcible and most convincing are arguments which are purely and simply biblical. He who adheres to the plan of Gene- 'is as formulated by Moses is on solid ground. This is the true citadel. Unless driven from this no one can ever, unless the Church speaks, justly refuse to a Catholic the liberty to reject, in the name of Moses himself, the total destruction of humanity by the THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 167 Deluge. It is this right to liberty, we repeat in con- clusion, that we have above all things wished to estab- lish. In defending this hypothesis we have carefully- measured our words and weighed our motives, and have all along had before our eyes the difficulties of other systems before which so many minds recoil. Let others judge of the value of these two motives, but let us be allowed to think that they are such as are justified by the severest and most exact exegesis. " If criticism ratifies this thesis, it'will have and this is something in its favor the honor of being established, not under the guarantee of profane sci- ence nor in consequence of some hostile discovery, but as the result of a free and respectful effort of Catholic exegesis. It cannot, then, be said that it is reason that dispossesses faith. Rather must it be affirmed that it is faith that perfects belief, since it is Moses who explains himself by what he has written. "Those who may reject the thesis, if such there should be, cannot at least refuse it the merit of being produced under the domination of great and holy pre- occupations, since its aim and purport are to remove objections urged against Catholic faith, to tranquillize souls, and to reassure consciences. Neither can any one deny that it is calculated to yield happy results. It makes God equally great in showing Him more benign, and the lesson it inculcates, being, as it is, less marked with the impress of vengeance, is also salu- tary. It exhibits, better than any other theory and in a brighter light, the lofty destiny of Israel ; the gene- alogical union by some perfidiously denied of the Synagogue and the Church; the continued and merci- ful action of God toward the world in order to bring it 1 68 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. to the Messiah. It places beyond all attack the grand dogma of Adamic descent. It reveals the majestic unity of the plan of Genesis, and affords a solid sup- port to the authenticity of the Divine Book. Finally, it gives Catholic exegesis the advantage of acting on the offensive against the prejudices of a Rationalism which perversely avails itself of the imperfect infor- mation of its opponents and of the exaggerated opin- ions which they maintain, rather through apathetic confidence than from enlightened respect for the Book of books." 1 1 La Deluge biblique, p. 339, et seq. It affords me great pleasure to reproduce here the opinion of the learned Cardi- nal Gonzalez on the Deluge as summarized in his masterly work, La Biblia y la Ciencia. His Eminence is not only a profound theologian and philosopher, and one full}' abreast with the latest advances in the natural and physical sciences, but he at the same time stands in the forefront of contempo- rary apologists on all questions bearing on science and religion. A man of pre-eminently liberal and comprehensive ideas, his views on all subjects which he has discussed deserve careful pondering. Referring to the question of the ethnographical universalitj' of the Deluge, this illustrious author declares: " La lucha real esta hoy entablada entre la teoria de la univer- salidad restringida que pudiera denominarse antropologica, la teoria que admite el exterminio de todos los hombres, fuera de la familia de Noe, y la teoria de la non-universalidad antropo- logica, la teoria que admite que, ademas de la familia de Noe, se libraron otros hombres del Diluvio. Considerado el pro- blema con relacion al testo biblico y a la tradicion ecclesias- tica, la primera teona se presenta como mas probable; consi- derado con relacion a la ciencia, parece mas probable la segunda: hoy por hoy, ninguna de las dos puede considerarse como cierta y demostrada, y una y otra pueden ser defendidas, como mas 6 menos probables, lo mismo en el terreno exegetico que en el terreno cientifico. " En todo caso, y cualquiera que sea la solucion cierta y de- THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 169 No better illustration than the subject we have been discussing could be instanced of the perfect liberty of opinion in matters not of faith which the Church per- mits her children. More than this. Not only does she grant us the greatest liberty of thought, but she also encourages us to add to her riches by appropriat- ing the treasures of the Egyptians. Has not Leo XIII. in his admirable Encyclical of February 15, 1882, exhorted us to make use of the discoveries of modern science? and does he not declare in a few words, in his letter throwing open the treasures of the Vatican to the scholars of the world, what is the spirit which should animate every honest investigator and cham- pion of science? The Crmrch does not fear the truth. She cannot abet what is false. 1 And let no one imagine that such liberty of opin- ion, such freedom of discussion, are calculated to fos- ter rationalism and skepticism. The very opposite is the case. Has not Renan, in his Souvenirs cT Enfance et de Jeunesse? told us that what he took as the Cath- olic teaching regarding the Deluge was one of the finitiva del problema, si alguna vez llega a obtenerse, en nada affectara ni a la verdad de la Biblia ni a la verdad de la ciencia. Cualquiera qtie sea la solucion, para el honibre de la fe y de la ciencia, para el escritor cristiano, la Biblia seguira siendo depo- sitaria de la palabra divina, la Iglesia seguira siendo columna et firmamentum veritatis, y la ciencia seguira siendo hija predilecta del Dios de las ciencias Deus scientiarum Dominus esi." La Riblia y la Ciencia, tomo ii. p. 683. 1 The memorable words of the illustrious Pontiff are: " Illud in primis scribentium observetur animo; priniam esse historiae legeni ne quid falsi dicere audeat: deinde ne quid veri non audeat; ne qua suspicio gratiae sit in scribendo, ne qua simultatis." 2 P. 293. BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. prime causes of his infidelity ? And have not many others in a similar manner suffered the pangs of doubt, if not the loss of faith, in consequence of mistaking the opinions of the Fathers and Doctors in matters of science and philosophy for the dogmatic definitions of the Church? And have not others, again, forged intellectual fetters for themselves in consequence of the erroneous notions they entertained regarding the sense of the Church the Intcllectus Catholicus which, far from impeding their researches in the do- main of science, is as broad and as liberal as Truth itself? There is such a thing as misguided zeal for the integrity of the Scriptures a misleading reverence for the authority of traditional and scholastic teaching. It will not do to interpret the Sacred Text under the influence of preconceived notions, especially when such notions have no positive scriptural warrant. Neither will it do to attribute greater weight to the teachings of the Fathers and the Schoolmen than these eminent Doctors of the Church intended they should have. If St. Augustine, St. Gregory of Nyssa, St. Jerome, St. Thomas Aquinas, or Albertus Magnus had before them all the facts disclosed by modern science, would they have expressed themselves on many questions as . they did ? We do them a great wrong to suppose for a moment that they would. If they were living now, can we have any doubt about the character of their teaching? Surely not. It would be absurd to suppose that the keenest and the most comprehensive and the most liberal minds the world has ever known would feel that they were committed to views that had been expressed when most of the data necessary for a proper THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 171 understanding of the subjects discussed were entirely wanting. Such an assumption, aside from being an injustice to them, would be an exhibition of egotism on our part that would be simply intolerable. To find fault with them for having one or two thou- sand years ago a less extensive knowledge of the nat- ural and physical sciences than we ourselves possess would be simply preposterous. 1 As well might it be affirmed that we should now know as much about the inductive sciences as will our successors ten or twenty centuries hence. Such an admission would be tanta- mount to asserting that the sum-total of natural knowledge is independent of research; that the nat- ural and physical sciences are not of a progressive character; that, contrary to the very nature of these sciences based, as they are, on the observation of facts and phenomena they are incapable of develop- ment. It is obvious that no sane mind can hold, much less defend, such a view. We must judge the Fathers and Doctors of the Church as we ourselves, under similar circumstances, would wish to be judged. We must view their opinions on the "obscure things 1 A fair sample of this irrational way of considering the opinions of the earlier commentators is afforded by Andrew D. White in his "Warfare of Science" and in his " New Chapters on the Warfare of Science," published in the Popular Science Monthly. A striking instance of ignoratio elenclii or of siippressio veri regarding the subject here discussed is seen in two articles " Lights of the Church and Light of Science" and " Hasisadra's Adventure" by Prof, Huxley in the Nine- teenth Century, reprinted in his latest work, Some Controverted Questions. Prof. Huxley is a great biologist, but in these two articles he has conspicuously demonstrated his ability to outdo Don Quixote in his onslaught on windmills. 1/2 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. of nature" as they themselves, in the light of our present knowledge, would view them. "It often happens," says St. Augustine, " that one who is not a Christian hath some knowledge derived from the clearest arguments or from the evidence of his senses about the earth, about the heavens, about the other elements of this world, about the movements and revolutions or about the size and distances of the stars, about certain eclipses of the sun and moon, about the course of the years and the seasons, about the nature of animals, plants, and minerals, and about other things of a like kind. Now, it is an unseemly and mischievous thing, and greatly to be avoided, that a Christian man, speaking on such matters as if ac- cording to the authority of Christian Scripture, should talk so foolishly that the unbeliever, on hearing him and observing the extravagance of his error, should hardly be able to refrain from laughing. And the great mis- chief is, not so much that the man himself is laughed at for his errors, but that our authors are believed by people without the Church to have taught such things, and so are condemned as unlearned and cast aside, to the great loss of those for whose salvation we are so much concerned. For when they find one belonging to the Christian body falling into error on a subject with which they themselves are thoroughly conversant, and when they see him, moreover, enforcing his groundless opinion by the authority of our sacred books, how are they likely to put trust in those books about the resurrection of the dead and the hope of eternal life and the kingdom of heaven, having already come to regard them as fallacious about those things they had themselves learned from observation or from unques- THE NOACHIAN DELUGE. 173 tionable evidence ? And, indeed, it were not easy to tell what trouble and sorrow some rash and presump- tuous men bring upon their prudent brethren, who, when they are charged with a perverse and false opin- ion by those who do not accept the authority of our books, attempt to put forward these same holy books in defence of that which they have lightly and falsely asserted, sometimes even quoting from memory what they think will suit their purpose, and putting forth many words, without well understanding either what they say or what they are talking about." 1 The Angelic Doctor, who quotes with approval these words of St. Augustine, is not less explicit in the statement of similar views. "As for myself," he declares, "I find that the safest way regarding those opinions held by the generality of philosophers and reconcilable with our faith is not to affirm them as dogmas, . . . and not to reject them 'as contrary to faith, for fear of affording the wise ones of the world an occasion to contemn the teachings of religion." Elsewhere he observes: " In questions of this sort there are two things to be observed: First, that the truth of Scripture be inviolably maintained; secondly, since Scripture doth admit of diverse interpretations, that we must not cling to any particular exposition with such pertinacity that if what we supposed to be the teaching of Scripture should afterward turn out to be clearly false, we should nevertheless still presume to put it forward, lest thereby we should expose the In- spired Word of God to the derision of unblievers and shut them out from the way of salvation." 3 1 De Genesi ad Litterarn, lib. i. cap. xix. '- Opusc., ix. 3 Summa Theologica, Pars Prima, Qusest. Ixvii., art. i. BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. In weighing the opinions of the Fathers and Doctors of the Church we must always carefully distinguish the object of faith from the motives on which it is based. Errors in physics, zoology, history, criticism, exegesis clo not impair the authority or the magisterium of the Fathers and Doctors when speaking in their capacity of witnesses to Tradition and of the common faith of the Church. We may not, indeed, without new and weighty reasons nova? rationis pondere, as Pallavicini expresses it reject the teaching of such venerable authorities in questions like the one now under discussion, but Tphen sufficiently grave reasons are forthcoming we may safely, and without incurring the note of rashness temeritatis nota modify our opinions so as to make them harmonize with the cer- tain data and conclusions of science. PART III. Hoe of tbe fwman 1Race according to flDooern Science anD Biblical PART III. Hoe of tbe Tbuman 1Race accoroing to jflDooern Science ano Biblical CHAPTER I. THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN ACCORDING TO ASTRONOMY AND HISTORY. INTRODUCTION. " r I ""HE pivotal centre," says the learned Father -1 Hewit, "around which a whole system of topics turns, is the topic of the antiquity of the human race." J With the exception of evolution, which has a literature of its own and counts its volumes by thou- sands and tens of thousands, no other scientific subject, it may be safely asserted, has provoked so much dis- cussion as has the antiquity of our race. For a full hundred years the question of the age of the human species has engaged the attention of scientists and bib- lical scholars, and yet, notwithstanding all that has been done in the various departments of knowledge, we are still very far from having definite information on many of the points in dispute. Many causes might be assigned for the interest that has been manifested in the question an interest which, far from subsiding, seems to enhance as time ' "Scriptural Questions," the Catholic World, p. 645, 1885. 12 177 178 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. rolls on but not the least potent has been, no doubt, the antagonism that by many was imagined to exist between the teachings of scriptural chronology and the findings of modern science. For this reason, therefore, the question of the age of the human race is one that must interest the biblical as well as the scientific stu- dent, and in consequence our modern scriptural exe- getists have given to the subject almost as much thought and study as have the most zealous votaries of science. The topic is certainly a fascinating one, and we need not be surprised that so many investi- gators have spent so much time in attempts at its elucidation. Like all scientific subjects which are tinged with a human and a religious interest, it has a charm that no subject of pure science can ever possess. And until all difficulties bearing on the question are cleared up, until all doubts arising from the supposed conflict of science with scriptural chronology are dissipated, and until it shall be demonstrated that there is and can be no dif- ference of teaching by science on the one hand and Scripture on the other regarding the time man has existed on earth, so long will the question of the antiquity of our race continue to have, for many inves- tigators at least, the paramount attraction that is now so notable. Fully to appreciate the reason of the great interest which attaches to the study of questions like the one under discussion, and to understand the cause of the wide divergence of views of a certain class of scientists on the one hand, and of orthodox scriptural inter- preters on the other, regarding many passages in the Bible, especially in the Pentateuch, it is necessary to THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 179 take cognizance of the influences which have con- tributed to the development of that pronounced form of Rationalism which is such a striking and dominant characteristic of our age. RATIONALISM AND DEISM. In every age of the Church, Rationalism has been more or less prevalent. In the first centuries of its existence it was championed by Celsus, Porphyry, Hierocles, and Julian the Apostate. In mediaeval times Averroes and his followers were its chief cory- phei. At the present time and during the past hun- dred years, for that matter the great stronghold of Rationalism is in Germany. But it would be scarcely true to say that the Rationalism now so rampant is an indigenous growth among the Germans. Luther did, indeed, sow the germs of free thought when he pro- claimed his principle of private interpretation of the Bible, but neither he nor his countrymen seemed to realize the consequences to which this principle would logically and inevitably lead. It is more consonant with the facts of history to regard German Rational- ism as an exotic, greatly developed and transformed, it is true, by reason of congenial soil and favorable environment, but nevertheless an exotic, transplanted from lands where the genius and temperament of the people, although in some respects similar to, are yet in others entirely different from, those of the Teutonic race. The first to perceive the full significance of the prin- ciples laid down by the heresiarchs of the sixteenth century, and the first to draw conclusions in accordance I So BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. with the premises involved, were the Deists of England. Lord Herbert of Cherbury is usually regarded as the father of English Deism. In his work on truth and revelation, 1 published in 1624, ne rejects revelation as useless and reduces Deism to a system. He soon had a large number of followers, and among them some of the keenest intellects and most famous wits of the time. The noted Materialist, Hobbes, although differing from Herbert in philosophy, shared many of his views on religion and morals. Among later Deists who con- tributed much toward sowing the seeds of doubt and free thought and sapping the foundations of religion in Great Britain were Shaftesbury, Blount, Toland, Collins, Tindal, Morgan, Woolston, Chubb, Whiston, \ Somers, Shrewsbury, Buckingham, and Bolingbroke. Toland regarded Christianity as a superstition, and had no respect either for revealed truth or the prin- ciples of natural morality. Tindal followed in the wake of Lord Herbert, and with Morgan united in considering the religion of Christ but a forerunner of natural religion. To Woolston the miracles of the Gospel were mere allegories. He, accordingly, with Chubb, Whiston, Shaftesbury, and, above all, with Hume, made his onslaughts on these evidences of re- vealed truth. Collins and Craig directed their shafts against the prophecies of the Old Testament. All combined to assail the authority of the Sacred Scrip- tures, and the consequence was that many whose faith was wavering soon found themselves deprived of the little they still possessed. 1 De Veritate pront Distiugititiir a Revelatione, a Verisimili, a Possibili, et a Falso. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. i8l Natural Religion and Rationalism were the first fruits of these persistent attacks on the Bible. But the work of religious disintegration was not to be confined to England. It was soon to affect France, and then Ger- many and other parts of Europe. During his enforced sojourn in England, Voltaire had found congenial asso- ciates among the leading Deists and free-thinkers of the day, and was not slow to imbibe their principles. As may easily be imagined, he was an apt pupil. Of all the English Deists, Bolingbroke seems to have exerted the greatest influence on the " Sage of Ferney," and to have supplied him with much of the material with which he afterward so violently assailed both the Old and the New Testament. But it was not argument that Voltaire employed in his assaults on Christianity, which at one time he egotistically fancied he could destroy, but refined derision and irony. A peerless master of epigram and endowed with a keen, penetrating understanding, he made the Bible and the Church the butt of his brilliant, flashing wit and of his caustic and withering ridicule. Understanding thoroughly, as he did, the temperament of his coun- trymen, Voltaire was fully aware of the power of the weapons he employed. Nothing, he knew, would affect a Frenchman sooner than sarcasm or a well- turned epigram, and accordingly, during his long and eventful warfare against Christianity, he never de- viated from the plan of campaign which he first adopted. To say that he was not in a measure suc- cessful in his nefarious purposes would be to contro- vert history. The evil that he accomplished can never be estimated. As Herbert was the father of Deism in England, so 1 82 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. was Voltaire the father of infidelity in France. But he was not alone in his attack on the Church and all that the French people until his time had revered as sacred. He was aided and abetted by a number of kindred spirits, like Diderot, Rousseau, Helvetius, Condillac, and others, who by their writings gener- ally, but above all by that monument of falsehood and impiety, the French Encyclopedic, made infidel- ity fashionable and paved the way for the Reign of Terror. From France the tidal- wave of free thought soon passed on to Germany, where it issued in forms of Rationalism and Materialism, Atheism and Nihilism, before which the world stood appalled. The work of destruction was inaugurated by Sam- uel Reimarus, a professor of philosophy in Hamburg. He died in 1768, leaving a collection of manuscripts -from which Lessing subsequently published numerous extracts under the title of Wolfenbiittelsche Fragmente ernes Ungenannten. Reimarus' s production was a direct attack on the historical basis of Christianity, and opened the flood-gates for the deluge of Ration- alism which has since extended its ravages from the mouth of the Elbe to the Mediterranean and from the Ural Mountains to the Irish Sea. Prior to the time of Reimarus there had been ex- hibited in certain quarters a disposition to question the inspiration of the Scriptures, but the public was not yet prepared for the revolutionary teachings of Reimarus and Lessing. The ^ illustrious Dutch jurist, Hugo Grotius, and the pantheistic Jew, Spinoza, had called in doubt some of the fundamental principles of theologians respecting biblical interpretation and criti- THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 183 cism ; but their doctrines lay practically dormant until the eighteenth century, when their influence began to be felt throughout the length and breadth of Europe an influence which has continued unabated in power and extent until the present day. Luther repudiated tradition; Lessing, who has been called the Luther of the eighteenth century, repudiated the Bible as a divinely-inspired work. Thenceforward, scriptural commentators seemed to vie with one another as to who could carry farthest the work of disintegra- tion and demolition. Every book, every chapter, every verse, every word of the Old and New Testaments, was submitted to the microscope of the "Higher Criti- cism." Every statement of Scripture was compared with the teachings of profane science, and declared true or false according as it agreed or disagreed with the latest prontinciamentos of scientific thought. The progress of Rationalism in Germany much re- sembled the advance of Deism in England. Good and pious men, in their frantic endeavors to save something of supernatural religion from utter shipwreck, threw everything overboard until they found they had left nothing but Natural Religion, which is but little more than Rationalism pure and simple. Such was the fate of Locke in his attempted answer to Lord Herbert, and such, too, was the fate of Semler, Henke, and Ernesti in their futile attempts to stay the torrent let loose by Lessing and Reimarus. They dissociated religion from theology, and fancied they could save Chris- tianity by rendering it independent of Scripture. The denial of the inspiration of the Bible was the first step toward the denial of Christianity. The second step was the denial of miracles, and this was 1 84 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. made by Eichhorn and Paulus. 1 The latter was deeply imbued with the ideas of Kant, who, according to Lecky, was, with Lessing, the chief leader in Ger- many in the war against the Bible. 2 The third and last step consisted in denying the authenticity of the Sacred Books, and this radical movement was made by the notorious David Friedrich Strauss. Under the pompous name of biblical criticism or critical theology he brushed aside all that his predecessors had left of the Sacred Text, and made the negation of the super- natural one of his fundamental tenets. What for so many ages had been regarded as undoubted facts and truthful narratives were pronounced by the author of * the Leben Jesu myths and mythical legends. 3 I have briefly traced Rationalism through its full course and found it to issue in Atheism and Nihilism. The doubts of Lessing and the skepticism of Kant led to the negations of Strauss, and the Pantheism of Hegel to the Atheism of Feuerbach and Schopenhauer. According to these representatives of the most ad- vanced German thought, the value and truth of dogma are to be estimated by its conformity with the latest results of scientific research. The principal dogmas /of the Christian faith are belief in a personal God, the creation of the universe out of nothing, and the im- mortality of the soul. But these beliefs are not in 1 "Melanges bibliques," Les Inventeurs de I Explication naturelle des Miracles, par F. Vigouroux. 2 History of the Rise and Influence of Rationalism in Europe, vol. i. p. 189, et seq. 3 Cf. Einleitung of Leben Jesu ; also. Introduction of Vie de Jesus, by Ernest Renan. See likewise Rawlinson's Historical Evidences of the Truth of the Scriptures. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 185 accordance with the teachings of science, and are therefore false/ Astronomy has driven God from heaven; reason has deprived Him of His court and taken from Him His angels and His saints. Geology and palaeontology have demonstrated the falsity of the Mosaic cosmogony; linguistic and prehistoric archae- ology have shown the futility of biblical chronology; and historical criticism has proved that the Old and New Testaments are nothing more than a tissue of myths and fables. Religion is a bugbear invented by a wily priestcraft; morality is a name for something that does not exist; law and order, restrictions on per- sonal liberty which should not be tolerated. Such is the last word of modern Rationalism, such the latest utterances of that science that has arrayed itself against the Bible and against all forms of super- natural religion. CERTAIN MODERN TENDENCIES. We are now in a position to understand -what would otherwise appear difficult if not unintelligible the attitude assumed by so many scientific men in the dis- cussion of all questions that have even a remote bear- ing on the inspiration and the authenticity of the Scriptures and on the evidences of revealed religion. They affect to have persuaded themselves, and they try to convince others, that the Bible is false, that Chris- tianity is a concatenation of falsehoods, and that it is the mission of science and of men of science to pro- claim to the world the irreconcilable antagonism be- tween revelation and science, between the teachings of religion and the latest conclusions of modern thought. 1 86 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. It must not, however, be inferred from the foregoing that there is any real antagonism between true science and religious dogma. Not only is this far from being the case, whatever modern Rationalists may declare to the contrary, but, what is more, it is impossible. There are, indeed, discrepancies and antagonisms between the protean theories of science and the teach- ings of faith, but this, from the very nature of the case, is inevitable. The doctrines of the Church are the expression of Truth itself, and therefore immutable. ; The hypotheses and the speculations which certain scientists set such store by are as changeable as the colors of the chameleon and as short-lived as the May- fly. Such theories, so often foisted on a credulous world in the name of science, are truly characterized in the words of the poet who speaks of " Ephemeral monsters, to be seen but once Things that could only show themselves and die." What I wish specially to direct attention to is the tendency of modern science to inculcate Utilitarian- ism in morals, Materialism in philosophy, and Ration- alism and skepticism in religion. True science and true scientists keep aloof from this tendency, but there are many students of nature who are uncon- sciously affected by it, even when they are absolutely free from any preconceived notions in their special lines of research. They live in an atmosphere of doubt, and are imbued with the spirit of criticism and Agnosticism which is everywhere rampant. Con- trary to their own principles, and in spite of them- selves, they are forced into the current of Rational- THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 187 ism, and ere they realize it they are engulfed in the maelstrom of Materialism or Pantheism. For, strange as it may appear, and inconsistent as it really is, men of science, who are so restive under authority, spiritual or religious, and who are wont to boast of perfect intellectual freedom, are often the greatest slaves to those who for the nonce are salut- ed as the hierophants of " advanced thought." The influence which Hackel, Karl Vogt, Biichner, Oscar Schmidt, Paul Bert, Darwin, Huxley, Romanes, Spen- cer, and others of their ilk have over their followers, even in matters disconnected with the sciences which they profess, is evidence, if any were required, of the truth of this statement. Contrary to what they assert, modern scientists are often more guided in their investigations by the magis- ter dixit of some wild theorist than they are by the facts of science and the indications of nature. This will explain the variations and contradictions which are so often palmed off on the public as veritable sci- ence, and account for the vagaries and absurdities that frequently constitute such a striking characteristic of some of our "advanced thinkers." What on one day obtains universal acquiescence sinks on the next to complete rejection. For men of science, at least the majority of them, have yet to learn that when they leave the domain of nature, where their researches should keep them, and enter into the region of specu- lation, they are, Icarus-like, courting certain failure if not utter destruction. Their experience is sure to be like that of the Rationalistic school in questions of Scripture and religion the verification of the old saying, quot homines tot sententice. 1 88 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. After this rather long preamble, we are now pre- pared to discuss the historical and the physico-scrip- tnral question of the antiquity of the human species, and to appreciate many of the aspects of the contro- versy which would otherwise be ill understood. It will be found that the variations in the history of heresies so graphically described by Bossuet are fully paralleled by the various phases assumed by the pro- tracted and heated debate between biblical scholars and scientists regarding the character of scriptural chronology, especially in its bearing on the always fascinating question of the age of our race. The first serious onslaught by men of science on the biblical chronology in its relation to the antiquity of man was inaugurated in the latter part of the last century. The atmosphere was then impregnated with the poison of free thought and irreligion, and the minds of many, even good men, were in a condi- tion of doubt and anxiety bordering almost on despair. It was a period of intellectual as well as of political revolution and anarchy, when the worst elements of society were in the ascendency and were bent on de- stroying thrones and altars and removing the last vestiges of the ancient regime. Bayle, Voltaire, Rousseau, Condillac, Diderot, Helvetius, D'Alembert had done their work. The "Encyclopaedists," so it seemed, had conquered. Rationalism and infidelity had triumphed. A new era was to be ushered in, and all traces of the past, in so far as the Church and religion were concerned, were to be consigned to oblivion. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 189 ASTRONOMICAL DISCUSSIONS. The attack was made in the name of astronomy, and was led by some of the ablest minds of the age. 'A careful examination of the astronomical tables of the Hindus, it was averred, proved conclusively that the Indian astronomers had made observations on the heavenly bodies full three thousand years before our era, and had cultivated the science of the stars twelve hundred years earlier than their first recorded obser- vations. In other words, it was contended that the Hindus had studied astronomy at least four thousand two hundred years before the Christian era that, con- sequently, these people had an antiquity far in excess of that assignable by the usually accepted scriptural chro- nology. Professor Playfair, the distinguished Scotch mathematician, in referring to these tables, discloses the animus which actuated himself and his confreres by the statement: "It is through the medium of astronomy alone that a few rays from those distant objects" (the primitive inhabitants of India) "can be conveyed in safety to the eye of the modern observer, so as to afford him a light which, though scanty, is pure and unbroken and free from the false coloring of vanity and superstition." It was not long, however, before it was demon- strated by some of the more prominent members of the Asiatic Society, notably by Mr. Beutly of Calcutta, and by the celebrated French astronomer, Delambre, that the calculations of Playfair, Bailly, and their associates were based on a myth. It was shown, be- yond question, that the earliest reliable astronomical observations of the Hindus, as given in their sacred 190 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. ] books, do not date back farther than 1421 B. c., and that their oldest extant treatise on astronomy belongs to a period not earlier than 570 A. D. Shortly after the excitement consequent on the dis- cussion of the Hindu astronomical tables had subsided a still greater sensation was produced by the finding, by some of the French savants who accompanied 'Napoleon to Egypt, of the now famous zodiacs of Denderah and Esneh. According to the calculations of certain astronomers and mathematicians, these zodiacs, as well as the temples in which they were found, had an antiquity utterly irreconcilable with any system of chronology that could be deduced from the facts and the genealogies of the Old Testament. The zodiac of Esneh, M. Nouet calculated, dated as far back as 4600 B. c., whilst M. Burckhardt's compu- tations assigned it to a period about seven thousand years before our era. According to a writer in the Edinburgh Revieiv, the zodiacs of Denderah could not "be referred to a period much later than three thousand eight hundred years ago," whereas that of Esneh was given an antiquity of "more than five thousand three hundred years." M. Dupuis went much farther, and estimated that the temples in which the zodiacs were discovered must have a min- imum age of fifteen thousand years. "I have," he exclaimed with self-complacency, " cast the anchor of truth into the ocean of time." But, as the sequel showed, he was mistaken; his ocean of time proved to be an ocean of error. "It was then," remarks a sagacious writer, com- menting on the zodiacs and the speculations to which they gave rise, "that science struck out into very bold THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 191 systems, and the spirit of infidelity, seizing upon the discovery, flattered itself with the hope of drawing from it new support. " The enemies of religion and the Bible again raised a cry of victory, and gravely announced that the Christian chronology was a thing of the past. But the shout of triumph, as in the case of the Hindu tables, was premature, for just when the infidels of France and England were rapturously singing their paeans of congratulation a young man a scholar and an explorer arrived from Egypt, bringing with him incontestable evidence that the calculations which assigned such great antiquity to the temples and zodiacs of Denderah and Esneh were entirely illusory and were utterly without foundation in fact. The young man's name was Jean Francois Champollion, the father of Egyptology, whose genius had unrav- elled the mysteries of the hieroglyphics that before his time disclosed as little regarding the past history of Nile-land, its monuments and its inhabitants, as the Sphinx itself. He had studied the zodiacs in situ, and was able to demonstrate to the satisfaction of even the most critical that, far from having the hoary antiquity claimed for them, they did not antedate the first two centuries. They did not belong to the times of some of the earlier Pharaohs, as many stoutly maintained, but were put in place during the Roman domination in Egypt, and some time during or be- tween the reigns of Tiberius and Antoninus Pius. The warfare waged in the name of astronomy against the biblical chronology was a signal failure. But, nothing daunted, the enemies of the Church betook themselves to a new arsenal, from which they fondly 192 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. hoped to draw more effective arms. These arsenals were the histories and literatures of certain of the Oriental nations, especially India, China, Egypt, and Assyria. HINDU CHRONOLOGY. Hindu literature and history, whose vast treasures had just been opened up to European scholars, seemed to promise them all they could desire. Herein, it was claimed, existed incontestable evidence of a civilization older than that of Greece and richer than that of Egypt the fountain-head, it was averred, of all other civilizations whatsoever. The poems, mythologies, and the genealogical lists of kings as given in the Vedas, Puranas, and Sutras were carefully scrutinized and compared; but the results arrived at, when above mere conjecture, were far from reliable, or satisfactory to those who were in quest of weapons which they could use against the Christian cause. Sir William Jones, the great Orientalist, and cer- tainly no friend of the Church, was the first to make a serious attempt to unravel the intricate web of Indian chronology. In his examination of Sanskrit records he met with absurdities and contradictions innumerable, but still, far from despairing, he pursued his inquiries with a persistence and an enthusiasm that must extort admiration even from his bitterest adversary. And what was the result of his investigations ? One that was a grievous disappointment to the anti-Chris- tian theorizers of his time, but one that was quite in consonance with the chronology of the Bible. Ac- cepting as legitimate the conclusions of a prejudiced investigator, but one who was remarkably well qual- THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 193 ified to give an opinion on the question under dis- cussion, " we have the establishment of a government in that country [India] no earlier than two thousand years before Christ, the age of Abraham, when the book of Genesis represents Egypt as possessing an established dynasty, and commerce and literature already flourishing in Phoenicia." l Wilfort, Klaproth, Heeren, and others continued the work inaugurated by Sir William Jones, and with essentially the same results. Heeren, after making a thorough examination of the Hindu writings, gives it as his opinion 'that "we cannot expect to find in them any critical or chronological history; it is one by poets composed and by poets preserved." And so com- pletely are the early annals of India involved in myth- ological fable that Klaproth does not hesitate to bring down the commencement of true chronological history to a period as late as the twelfth century of our era. The erudite Lassen, as the fruit of most laborious and extended researches in Indian history and litera- ture, arrives at conclusions which admirably harmo- nize with those of his predecessors whom we have just named. He places the date of the establishment of regular government in India somewhere between 2000 and 1500 B. c. a date quite in keeping with even the most conservative system of scriptural chronology. According to some of the most recent authorities on the subject Kruse and Ljttre, for instance none of the Hindu records deserve the name of history. They are enveloped in a poetical mantle of myth that utterly precludes any determination of time or the establish- 1 Cardinal Wiseman's Science and Revealed Religion, vol. ii. P- 33- 13 194 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND EA1TH. ment of any date which could serve as a certain basis of a system of chronology that would be even approx- imately correct. According to Max Miiller, the oldest of the Vedas, which are the most ancient monuments of Sanskrit literature, belong to a period not anterior to twelve or fifteen hundred years before the Christian era. For a long time the Laws of Manu the Manavadharma- sastra were, like the Vedic hymns, supposed to have a venerable antiquity. Sir William Jones fixed their date at 1280, and Elphinstone at 900, B. c. The learned Oxford philologist, in referring to them, says: u I doubt whether, in their present form, they can be older than the fourth century of our era; nay, I am prepared to see an even later date assigned to them. I know this will be heresy to many Sanskrit scholars, but we must try to be honest to ourselves." Elsewhere the same distinguished authority observes: " I ascribe the collection and systematic arrangement of the Vedic hymns and formulas, which we find in four books, or the Samhilas, for the Rig-veda, the Yagur-veda, the Sama-rcda, and the Athrarva-veda, to the Mantra period, from the year 800 B. c. to the year iooo." 2 Referring to the antiquity of the Rig- veda, he affirms: " One thing is certain: there is noth- ing more ancient and primitive, not only in India, but in the whole Aryan world, than the hymns of the Rig-veda. ' ' In a recent exhaustive and scholarly work, Brah- manism and its Relations? Mgr. Laouenan, vicar-apos- 1 India : What it Can Teach Us, lecture iii. * Lectures on the Origin and Growth of Religion, p. 145. 3 This remarkable work Du Brahmamsme et ses Rapports THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 195 tolic of Pondiclierry, India, reiterates what lias been so often remarked by others. " The special character- istics," he observes in the introduction to his book, "of all Indian literature is that it has almost abso- lutely no chronology; so all who have written on ancient India np to the Mohammedan invasion in the- eleventh century are reduced to conjectures more or less risky." "India," he continues, "has no history, or rather it possesses no chronology; historical facts abound, but they have no dates, so that it is by con- fronting them with events in the history of other peoples who had relations with it that it is possible to determine in an approximate manner the time when the persons existed or the events took place." ' The utter impossibility of constructing anything like the chronological history of India from the ma- terials supplied has been fully acknowledged by one who was singularly well qualified to express an opinion on the question. I refer to the distinguished scholar and Orientalist, M. Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire. Writing in the Journal des Savants 2 in reference to the subject we are now considering, he declares that everywhere in the world of India, except in Ceylon, "history is avec le Judaisme ct le Christianisme was the fruit of thirty- five years of research under exceptionally favorable cir- cumstances. It was specially approved conronni' by the French Academy, and may be regarded as the ablest and most reliable exposition of the subject which has yet ap- peared. 1 For a thoughtful discussion of this topic, as well as for an interesting notice of Mgr. Laouenan's book, see an article in the Catholic World, vol. Iviii. No. 347, by the accomplished bishop of Vincennes, the Right Rev. Francis Silas Chatard, D. D. 2 March, 1866, pp. 164, 165. 196 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. entirely absent, or, if it tries to show itself, it is so dis- figured that it is absolutely unrecognizable. Who in the legends of the epic poems, the Brahinanas, the Puranas is able to discover an historical tradition ? Is it possible, even according to the most liberal sys- tem of interpretation, to extract therefrom anything precise, anything real ? The most important events of Brahmanic society are obscured by an impenetrable darkness which time intensifies instead of diminishing. In spite of all our erudition, so powerful and so sure, we must despair of resuscitating that past which was annihilated by the very ones who were its chief actors. India has not willed to awake from her dreams; we cannot historically call her from her tomb." A careful study, therefore, of the astronomy, the lit- erature, and what there is of the history of the Hin- dus leads us to the same conclusion at which the learned Cardinal Wiseman arrived more than half a century ago. In his admirable lecture's on TJie Con- nection between Science and Revealed Religion which, notwithstanding the remarkable strides science has made since 1835, when the lectures were delivered, is still, in many respects, a standard work on the topics treated this scholarly prince of the Church summa- rizes in one sentence all that may be said on the sub- ject of the antiquity of the Hindus when he says: "Instead of the six thousand years before Alexander attributed by some writers on the credit of Arrian, or the millions deduced from the fables of the Brahmans, we have, as Jones and others have conjectured, the age of Abraham as the earliest historical epoch of an organ- ized community in India." l 1 Op. cit., vol. ii. p. 37. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 197 ANTIQUITY OF THE CHINESE. The boasted antiquity of the Chinese fares no better in the hands of modern historical criticism. As in the case of the Hindus, national pride and ambition im- pelled the Chinese to claim an extravagant remoteness of time for their origin and for the beginnings of their history. It is the boast of the Chinese that theirs is the oldest nation on the globe, and, if we are to credit their annalists, the history of the Celestial Empire stretches back to the venerable antiquity of three million two hundred and seventy-six thousand years before the Christian era. Like the Hindus, the Chi- nese tell us that in the earliest times their country was governed by celestial rulers or demigods, and their his- torians gravely give us long lists of kings and dynas- ties whose reigns extend over tens of thousands and hundreds of thousands of years. When, howe'ver, we come to sift truth from fable, and determine how much of historical fact there is in their fanciful mythological creations, we find that the epoch to be assigned to the commencement of sober history is very recent indeed. We are indebted to the Jesuit missionaries for the first reliable data bearing on the history of China. The learned chronologist, Father Gaubil, as the result of calculations based on certain eclipses mentioned in Chinese annals, is disposed to regard the date when the emperor Yao ascended the throne as the first event that can be fixed with any degree of accuracy. Ac- cording to the computations of this able Sinalogue, the date in question is to be assigned to the year 2357 B. C. 198 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. Father Gaubil's chronological views were endorsed by many competent critics, but a number of eminent scholars who have made a careful study of the many difficulties involved in determining any of the remote dates of Chinese records think that the earliest date of authentic history belongs to a period far more recent. The oldest of the classical books of China is the Chou-King, by the celebrated philosopher Confucius, which is alleged to give the history of the country between 2357 and 627 B. c. ; but even those who are favorable to the great antiquity of the Celestial Empire are forced to admit that the Chou-King does not afford us a means of establishing a system of chronology for the long period of time which it embraces. If there is no satisfactory evidence for the great antiquity of China, so often claimed for it in the native records, there is still less in the annals of any of the ancient nations of the world with which China may reasonably be supposed, if so ancient as she pre- tends to be, to have been in communication. Trms, Chabas has shown that the monuments of ancient Egypt include no mention of the Celestial Empire, although there are references made to all other then known peoples. Klaproth, who devoted special study to the subject of Chinese history, denies the existence of historical certainty in the annals of China prior to the year 782 B.C. "pretty nearly the era of the foundation of Rome, when Hebrew literature was already on the decline." In this view he is followed by Lassen, who does not hesitate to declare that the Chinese have no authentic history before the beginning of the eighth century before the Christian era. As a matter of con- THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 199 jecture he fixes the first dynasty of the Celestial Empire, that of Hia, at a period not antedating the year 2205 B. c. At all events, whatever may be the antiquity of the Chinese as a race and it does not appear that we shall ever have more light on the subject than we possess at present we can heartily subscribe to the opinion of the erudite Abbe Vigouroux, who con- fidently affirms that there is nothing in Chinese chro- nology which proves that China as a nation dates back to the time of Noah, and that we have in the chronol- ogy of the Septiiagint all the time required for the development of its history. EGYPT AND HER MONUMENTS. A special interest has always centred in Egypt for the reason that generations before India and China were known the land of the Nile was regarded as the cradle of civilization. As far back as we can penetrate into her dim and distant history we find her in full possession of that religion and of those arts and mon- uments which, from the earliest times, have ever remained the enigma of travellers and scholars. We know nothing of the infancy of her strange people. From the most remote ages they appear to us in full maturity and in all the splendor of their marvellous powers. Long anterior to the Hebrew Exodus, before Abra- ham visited the land of the Pharaohs, Egypt was old and the seat of a government that had endured through many and powerful dynasties. Centuries before "the Father of the Faithful " had left Ur of the Chaldees 200 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. the pyramids of Gizeh, looking down upon the broad valley of the Nile to the east and the great Libyan desert to the west, stood as monuments that were then the evidence and the pride of a great nation, as they were the wonder and the inspiration of Napoleon and his warriors; and this at a period so long subsequent that nothing remained to attest the pristine glory of two of the nation's greatest capitals, both within sight of Cheops and his companions, but a mutilated sphinx where Memphis once stood, and a solitary obelisk on the site of Heliopolis. Our knowledge of Egyptian chronology is derived from three different sources : from Greek travellers who visited the land of the Nile; from the historian Manetho, an Egyptian priest, born about 300 B. c., who wrote in Greek a history of his country under the reign of Ptolemy Philadelphus; and from various original monuments, papyri, and inscriptions, the most important of which have been brought to light during the present century. Relying on information obtained from the priests of Heliopolis, Solon and Herodotus attributed to Egypt a very high antiquity. According to the former, the Egyptian monarchy stretched back full nine thousand years, while according to the latter the earliest annals of the Egyptian kings dated from an epoch more than two thousand years earlier. Historians, however, have given little credence to the opinions of the Greeks re- garding the age of Egypt as a nation, and hence we may dismiss what they have to say on the subject without further comment. Manetho' s history, unfortunately, has been lost, and all of it that has come down to us are the lists of kings THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 2OI and dynasties as preserved in the works of Julius Afri- canns, Eusebius, and Syncelhis. Like the Indian and Chinese authors, Manetho gives as the first rulers of his country long dynasties of gods and heroes. The reign of the gods, according to him, lasted no less than thirteen thousand nine hundred years far from the hundreds of thousands and millions of years claimed for the reigns of their gods by the Chinese and Hindu writers, but a long period in comparison with the time allowed to the reign of the kings of whom we have authentic records. Rejecting as mythical the reigns of gods and demi- gods, the majority of critics are disposed to regard as historic the thirty dynasties of Manetho, which begin with Menes, the first ruler of Egypt, and end with Nectanebo II. In his scheme of chronology the Egyptian historian purposes giving not only the num- ber of dynasties, but also the greater part of the names of the kings belonging to them, together with the duration of their reigns and the order of their succession. But an objection to Manetho's lists is that he enu- merates all the dynasties as if they were successive, whereas it is well known by all students of Egyptian history that several of the dynasties were contempo- raneous. Again, he never speaks of two rulers being associated on the throne, when we know, from incon- testable evidence, that in several instances two kings occupied the throne at the same time. A notable case in point is that afforded by the joint reign of Seti I. and his famous son often called the Napoleon of ancient Egypt Rameses II. A third objection is that he frequently exaggerates the length of time dur- 2O2 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. ing which his monarchs bore sway. For this reason critics generally are of the opinion that the lists of Manetho require the control and support of other and more authentic sources of information. These are sup- plied by various papyri, inscriptions, and monuments. Undoubtedly the most important as well as the most authentic chronological record yet discovered is the celebrated Turin papyrus. It gives a list of those who ruled from the time of the gods and heroes to the epoch of the Hyksos, or shepherd kings. Of the greatest value so far as it goes, it unfortunately exists only in tattered fragments and lacks complete- ness. For this reason Brugsch, in his History of Egypt under the Pharaohs, says of it: u As the case stands at present, no mortal man possesses the means of removing the difficulties which are inseparable from the attempt to restore the original list of kings from the fragments of the Turin papyrus. Far too many of the most necessary elements are wanting to fill up the lactmfE." Besides the Turin papyrus we have the tables of Abydos, Sakkarah, and Karnak, and others of less importance, all of which have been discovered in various parts of the Nile Valley within the past few decades. They exhibit the cartouches of a large num- ber of the rulers of Egypt, as well as their order of succession, and, in spite of certain omissions and dis- crepancies, are invaluable to the student of Egyptian history and chronology. 1 But, important as are the records just mentioned, they do not by any means enable us to construct a 1 Cf. Lenormant's Histoire ancienne de I' Orient, tome ii. pp. 37 et seq. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 203 system of chronology that can be considered even approximately correct. They tell us, indeed, how long each king reigned and how long each Apis lived, but they do not inform us as to the connection of the reign of any one sovereign with that of the ruler who preceded or followed him of the time that elapsed between one Apis and the next in succession. Nei- ther do they give us any direct information regarding the time during which a sovereign was alone on the throne and when he had a coadjutor. It is certain that there was a number of simultaneous dynasties, but just how many there were is still a matter of great diversity of opinion. According to Lenormant, there were but two; according to Brugsch, five; Leiblein and Bunsen admit seven; while Poole and Wilkinson extend the number to twelve. "The greatest obstacle in the way of establishing a regular Egyptian chronology," says the accomplished Egyptologist, Mariette, "is the fact that the Egyp- tians themselves had no chronology." And they had no chronolgy because they had no era. Hence, as Mariette well observes: "Whatever be the apparent precision of our computations, modern science will always fail in any attempt to restore that which the Egyptians never possessed." 1 According to M. de Rouge, the first event to which a certain date can be assigned is the expulsion, in the year 665 B. c., of the Ethiopians by Psammatik I. of the twenty-sixth dynasty. 2 In this opinion Mariette, 1 Aperfu de I Histoire de V Egypt, p, 66. ' l Cf. Felix Robiou, a disciple of De Rouge 1 , in his scholarly article, "Chronologic de 1' Egypt," in the Dictionnairc apolo- gctiqrie de la Foi catholique, par 1' Abbe J. B. Jaugey. 204 15II5LE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. Brugsch, and others fully concur. There are nume- rous documents belonging to this period which put the matter beyond doubt. Besides, Egypt was then in constant communication with Greece, so that we have information from the writers of the latter, as well as from the monuments of the former nation, of events that occurred during this period in the land of the Pharaohs. Astronomical calculations based on the heliacal ris- ing of Sothis Sirius enable us, with some degree of exactness, to carry back the chronology of Egypt to the year 1322 before the Christian era. 1 There are some historians who incline to the belief that we can go back still farther to the eighteenth or nineteenth century B. c., about the time of the expulsion of the Hyksos. Beyond this all is conjecture, and we enter into the region of what De Rouge has designated "uncertain chronology." Authorities and monuments are vague and conflicting. In numerous cases it is impossible to decide whether certain dynasties were successive or contemporary; whether they bore rule over the whole of the Nile Valley; or whether, as in certain undoubted instances, their authority was limited to only a small portion of the Delta. It is these lacuna, imperfections, and contradictions in all existing records that render so difficult the con- struction of a system of chronology, and that have given rise to so many and such diverse estimates regarding the age of Egypt as a nation. Wilkinson assigns the date at which Menes, the first 1 See La Monde et V Homme primitif selon la Bible, par Mgr. Meignan, pp. 333 et seq. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 205 monarch of the first dynasty, ascended the throne, to the year 2691 B. c. , while Stewart Poole fixes on the year 2717 B. c. as the date of this event. Bunsen makes the figure 3051 or 3623; L,epsius, 3852; Lie- blein, 3893; Pessl, 3917; Chabas, 4000; Lauth, 4157; Brugsch, 4455; Lenormant and Mariette, 5004; Unger, 5613; and Bockh, 5702. This, as Rawlinson well ob- serves, " is as if the best authorities upon Roman his- tory were to tell us, some of them, that the republic was founded in B. c. 508, and others in B. c. 3508." How long the Egyptians were in the valley of the Nile before Menes ascended the throne is, if anything, a still more vexed question. Prof. Owen claims seven thousand years as the time that has elapsed since the origin of primitive Egyptian civilization. Others de- mand ten thousand and fifteen thousand years, while Baron Bunsen puts the figure at twenty thousand years. With such conflicting data before us, furnished by those who are most competent to pronounce judgment in the premises, it were unwise for us to attempt to untie the Gordian knot. One of the latest authorities on the subject, the learned Egyptologist, M. Felix Robiou, says in reference to the question: "We do not know, even approximately, the duration of the history of the Pharaohs; but the least improbable conjecture, one which cannot be far from the truth, is that it commenced in the fourth millennium before the Christian era, possibly in the first part of this millennium." 2 The Abbe Vigouroux is disposed to accept a still higher figure, and to admit that the 1 See History of Ancient Egypt, chap. xii. 2 Dictionnaire apologi'tique de la Foi catholique, loc. cit. 206 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. reign of Menes dates from a period 5000 years B. c. But even granting this figure to be correct, he insists that "Genesis, properly understood, allows Egyptol- ogists full liberty to attribute to Egypt any antiquity that a just study of its monuments may demand." l How long the descendants of Noah had been estab- lished in the valley of the Nile before the time of Menes is a question on which the monuments of Egypt throw no light whatever. It may have been but a few, and again it may have been several, centuries. But, whatever time may have elapsed between the advent of the Noachidae and the accession of Menes to the throne, we can. rest quite assured that when we shall have full information on the subject, Egyptian chronology on the one hand and biblical chronology on the other will be found to be in perfect harmony. CUNEIFORM INSCRIPTIONS OF WESTERN ASIA. During the past fifty years much valuable informa- tion regarding the antiquity and early history of our race has been gleaned from investigations which have been conducted and discoveries which have been made in various parts of Western Asia, and notably in the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates. Prior to this period our knowledge of the language and literature, as well as of the history, of Chaldea, Assyria, and Babylonia was as limited as was that which we had of Egypt before the famous discoveries of Champollion, Young, and Rosellini. It is true that Berosus, a priest of Belus at Babylon, had about 250 B. c. written in Greek a history of Bab- 1 Revue des Questions scientifiques, October, 1886, p. 400. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 207 ylonia, but of it nothing is now extant except a few fragments preserved in the writings of Apollodo- rus, Polyhistor, Eusebius, Syncellus, and some of the early Greek Fathers. Enough, however, is known of his chronology to convince us that it is no more deserving of credence than that of Manetho. Both cater to the vanity of their countrymen by assigning a fabulous antiquity to their respective nations and by making their earliest rulers gods and heroes. But, whereas Manetho is satisfied with an antiquity of thirty thousand years for his country up to the time of Alexander the Great, Berosus carries the history of Babylonia back to a period antedating the Christian era by over four hundred and sixty-eight thousand years. According to this annalist, there were ten kings before the Flood, whose aggregate reigns had a duration of four hundred and thirty-two thousand years. It is no wonder, then, that even the old Greeks and Romans, addicted as they were to myths and fables, felt themselves called upon to reject such pretensions as absurd. 1 But although the first part of the lists of Berosus, like the first part of Manetho' s lists, is mythical, the latter portions of his chronological scheme, like that of the Egyptian historian, is substantially correct, at least so far as concerns the time demanded for the various dynasties and rulers mentioned. According to Rawlinson, the earliest historical date of Berosus is 1 Cicero in his work De Divinatione, in referring to the Chaldeans, says of them : " Condemnemus hos aut stultitise aut vanitatis aut impudentise, qui CCCCLXX millia annorum ut ipsi dicunt monumentis comprehensa continent et mentiri judicemus." 2O8 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. about 2458 B. c., considerably more remote than the earliest authentic date of Egyptian history. It is, however, from the inscriptions on tablets, cyl- inders, and other monuments that have been discov- ered where once stood the flourishing cities of Assur, Sippara, Erech, Accad, and those famous capitals of the ancient world, Nineveh and Babylon, not to speak of numerous other localities in Western Asia, that we derive our most accurate knowledge regarding the antiquity as well as the history of the peoples who in ages long past constituted the great kingdoms of Chaldea, Babylonia, and Assyria. And here we meet with new triumphs of erudition and genius that remind us of the wonderful achieve- ments that have rendered the name of Champollion immortal. For centuries past specimens of wedge- writing, or nail-like inscriptions, found among the ruins of various cities of the Orient, had attracted the attention of scholars and travellers, but until a few decades ago the meaning of these strange figures was involved in even greater mystery than that which enveloped the hieroglyphics of the temples and obe- lisks of the land of the Pharaohs. To the wandering Arab they were the work of the genii, while to the European they were often but the expression of the fantasy of some architect who wished to show in how many different ways he could combine these nail-like forms. ! In 1765, during his journeyings in the East, Karsten Niebuhr, the father of the illustrious historian, copied some of the inscriptions at Persepolis, and offered sev- 1 Cf. Vigouroux's La Bible et les Decouvertes modernes, tome i. pp. 34 et seq. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 309 eral theories regarding them which subsequent inves- tigators have confirmed. Scholars in various parts of Europe now became interested in cuneiform writing, but all attempts to decipher it were fruitless. A Champollion was required for the task, but he ap- peared not. A genius like his is vouchsafed to the world only at rare intervals. In 1802, Grotefend succeeded in making out the names of Darius and Xerxes, and thus supplied a key for the reading of the cuneiform characters, as Cham- pollion at a later date discovered the key to the Egyp- tian hieroglyphics by deciphering the names of Ptolemy and Cleopatra on the now-famous Rosetta Stone. But Grotefend's work was far from being as thorough as Champollion's.' While the former was able to read but a few names he never accomplished more the latter was fortunate enough, unaided and alone, to decipher not only the writing of ancient Egypt, but also to resuscitate its grammar and language as well. A third of a century elapsed before anything further was done. At the end of this period Burnouf in France and Lassen in Germany, independently and almost simultaneously, announced the discovery of the alpha- bet of the trilingual inscriptions of Persepolis. This was a giant step forward, and contributed materially toward the solution of a problem on which, for a long time, some of the keenest intellects of Europe had been engaged. The next great advance made was the publication, in 1857, in the Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, by Sir Henry Rawlinson, of the Babylonian text of the trilingual inscription of Darius on the rock of Behistun. This rock often, and justly so, called the 14 210 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. Rosetta Stone of Assyriology, had on it inscriptions in three different languages, ancient Persian and Medic and Babylonian or Assyrian. As soon as the Babylo- nian text was deciphered by the brilliant English colonel a key was supplied for the interpretation of the thousands of unilingual inscriptions found everywhere along the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates. These conquests of genius, added to Botta's discov- ery, a few years before, of the ruins of Nineveh, which for nearly twenty-five centuries was so effectually buried under the earth that even its site was unknown, spurred on antiquaries and explorers to new achievements, and a long succession of triumphs was the result. Botta had unearthed the palace of Sargon and discovered a large number of tablets and inscriptions of the utmost value. Layard, Loftus, Place, Oppert, George Smith, Hormuzd Rassam, and others followed him and ex- humed monuments and palaces which were bewilder- ing in their number, extent, and magnificence. ' THE OLDEST LIBRARY IN THE WORLD. But by far the most important discovery, the one in which we are at present most interested, and the one which, more than all the others combined, contributed to put Assyriology on a firm and permanent basis, one which has proved of untold value to biblical students, was the discovery by Layard in 1850 of the celebrated library of Assurbanipal. This library was one of many that formerly existed 1 Cf. Rawlinson's Seven Great Monarchies, Assyria, chap vi., and Lenormant's Histoire ancienne de F Orient, tome iv. chap. iv. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 211 in all the large cities of Chaldea and Assyria, but the only one that so far has been discovered, and, it may be, the only one that has been preserved. 1 The Assyrians had neither papyrus, like the Egyptians, nor parch- ment, like the Greeks and Romans, nor paper, such as we possess. Their books were composed of tablets of clay coctiles laterculi, Pliny calls them a fortunate circumstance, indeed, as they would doubtless have otherwise been destroyed long centuries ago. As it is, we have a great portion of them, and many of them in a good state of preservation. Assurbanipal the Sardanapalus of the Greeks, the grand monarque of Assyria, the patron of art, science, and literature had in his library, besides works on history, astronomy, astrology, theology, politics, geog- raphy, and other branches of knowledge, a valuable collection of syllabaries, grammars, and dictionaries, which the Assyrians themselves had used in learning the significance of the symbols and in mastering the difficulties of their written language. By means of the contents of this library undoubtedly the oldest in the world which Providence at an opportune moment placed in the hands of the scholars of Europe, Assyri- ologists were able to lift all that was left of the veil that still obscured the secrets of the mysterious wedge- writing of Western Asia. In the words of Maspero: 2 " In less than thirty years a world of languages and of 'The noted German writer, Scholz, speaks of it as " eine Bibliothek aus dem 9 Jahrhunderte v. Chr., und z,war Alles im Original." Cf. The Higher Criticism and the Monuments, chap, ii., by A. H. Sayce. 2 Histoire ancienne des Peuples de V Orient, quatrieme edition, 1886, Appendice, p. 712. 212 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. peoples, before unknown, was discovered; thirty cen- turies of history were brought from the tomb to the full light of day." To realize fully the extent of this wonderful find, it is sufficient to state that the number of tablets esti- mated to have existed originally in the royal library of Nineveh was not less than ten thousand. Accord- ing to Mr. Birch, there were in 1872 about twenty thousand fragments of these tablets in the British Mu- seum, not to speak of the countless fragments in other museums and in the possession of private individuals in various parts of the world. It has been computed that before the destruction of the library these books of baked clay would have made full five hundred printed quarto volumes of five hundred pages each. The books of this wonderful library, relating to the manners and customs, the religion, science, and governments, of the ancient peoples who inhabited the lands watered by the Tigris and the Euphrates, are interesting and valuable, but the tablets bearing astronomical records are, for our present purpose, far more important. Thanks to the computations and tabular statements of the old Chaldean astronomers, we are now able to fix the dates of many historical facts of Babylonian history as far back as the sixth century B. c. with almost mathematical precision. CHALDEAN ASTRONOMY AND ASSYRIAN CHRO- NOLOGY. It had long been known that the origin of astron- omy could be traced to Mesopotamia, and that the Chaldeans were the first astronomers. But beyond this THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 213 general fact all was fancy and conjecture. Few or no details were known or available. About all that could be said on the subject was included in the following poetical paragraph of Lalande's Astronomic, which was published more than a hundred years ago : "The inhabitants of the vast plains of Sennaar, where was built the city of Babylon, were, accord- ing to many savants, the oldest astronomers and the first of all observers; at least their observations are the oldest which have come down to us. Everything concurred to direct their attention toward the heavens. The care of their flocks was their principal occupation. But the heat of the day made them select the night for their labors and their journeyings, so that the spec- tacle of the heavenly bodies forced itself, as it were, on their attention in spite of themselves." Within the last few years, however, a great ad- vance has been made in our knowledge respecting the beginnings of the science of astronomy, and our information regarding the early work and methods of the first of the world's star-gazers is comparatively complete. The learned palseographists and mathe- maticians Fathers Strassmaier and Epping of the So- ciety of Jesus, as the result of a careful decipherment of some of the cuneiform inscriptions found in the library of Assurbanipal, and of a series of long and complicated calculations that only astronomers can fully appreciate, have demonstrated conclusively that as far back as the sixth century before our era the astronomers of Babylonia had. a very accurate know- ledge of the science of the stars, and that they made observations of the eclipses of the sun and moon, of the oppositions and conjunctions of the planets and of 214 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. some of the stars, with a degree of accuracy that is simply marvellous. More than this, they had a cal- endar remarkable for its exactness, and a collection of tables based on observations and calculations that approximated in many respects to our modern ephem- eris. 1 But remote as is the past to which the tablets of the Chaldean astronomers convey back the chronolo- gist, there is reason to believe that new discoveries will supply still other dates of a much greater antiquity. The study of Chaldean astronomy from cuneiform in- scriptions is but in its infancy, and yet it has already disclosed a number of facts of which not even the most sanguine Assyriologist ever dreamed. One of these facts and it is of paramount importance is that the Assyrians (and the same may be said of the Chaldeans and Babylonians) had a chronological sense something which, as we have seen, was entirely wanting to the ancient Hindus, Chinese, and Egyp- tians. This fact, if no other, should inspire more confidence in the chronological records of Assyria, Chaldea, and Babylonia than we are warranted in feeling in those of any of the other ancient peoples the Orient. The Assyrians, unlike the Egyptians and Chinese, did not reckon time by the years during which their 1 See "Astronomic a Baby lone," by the Rev. J. D. Lucas, S. J., Revue des Questions scientifiques, October, 1890, and April, 1891. Also, by the same writer, " Ephemerides planetaires des Chal- deens," in the same Revue for January, 1892. Consult likewise " Astronomisches aus Babylon oder das Wissen der Chaldaer iiber den gestirnten Himmel," by Fathers Strassmaier and Epping, S. J., published in 1889 as a supplement to the Stim- men aus Maria Laach. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 215 kings held the sceptre, but rather by the names of eponym officials, called limmu, who, like the archons at Athens and the consuls of Rome, gave their names to the years during which they held office. By means of eponym canons or lists, some of which have been preserved, we are able to assign with comparative certainty the dates of events that occurred at very remote periods of Assyrian history. Thus, from inscriptions at hand we know that the institution of the Hmmu dates as far back as the four- teenth century B. c., and there are valid reasons for believing that it existed long prior to this epoch. Other inscriptions that Assyriologists seem disposed to credit carry us back to the year 2274 before our era, while the celebrated tablet of Nabonidos, about which so much has been written, gives us a date nearly fifteen centuries more remote. This remarkable monument, now preserved in the British Museum, seems to fix the date of the reign of Sargon I., the father of Narsam- Sin, at about thirty-eight centuries before the Chris- tian era a date much earlier than was formerly at- tributed to this sovereign. 1 1 Lenormant, Histoire ancienne de V Orient, tome v. p. 79, in referring to this tablet, observes: "Sicette indication est ex- acte, comme rien ne s'y oppose, Narsam-Sin regnait vers 3750 et Sargon, son pere, vers 3800 avant J. C. ; c'est la plus ancienne date certaine de 1'histoire." Mr. Sayce, the distinguished Eng- lish Assyriologist, hesitates about accepting this date as reliable. Certain statues found by M. de Sarzec at Tel-loh are, we are assured, to be referred to even an earlier date than the tablet of Nabonidos. According to the inscriptions which these statues bear, they have been supposed to date back as far as 4000 or 4500 years B. c. The eminent French Assyriologist, M. Heuzey, however, contends that they belong to a more recent period. 2l6 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. According to the testimony of other monuments, quite a number of kings occupied the throne during the time that intervened between the reign of Sargon I. and the Deluge of Noah. This, contrary to the generally received opinion, would place the Flood at a period 4000 years B. c. at least, and possibly at a date much earlier. Certain inscriptions from the library of Assurbanipal relating to the Deluge, and deciphered by Mr. George Smith, 1 led Sir Henry Rawlinson, than whom no one is more competent to express an opinion on the subject, to ascribe to the great cataclysm so ) graphically described in Genesis a date preceding our I era by six or seven thousand years. Whatever of truth there may be in Rawlinson's esti- mate, it seems certain that Assyriologists are able to carry back the history of our race to a more remote period than can possibly, with any show of reason, be claimed for it by the chronologies of India, China, or Egypt. And it appears quite reasonable that this should be so. Central Asia, if not Mesopotamia, ac- cording to tradition and science, was most likely the birthplace of the human species, and hence it seems probable that the people who inhabited the valleys of the Tigris and the Euphrates should have a greater antiquity than those who lived in the land of the Nile or in regions more distant from the first home of the race. If, therefore, it should be proven that Egypt had a civilization antedating the Christian era by five thousand years or more, as many suppose, we should be quite warranted in claiming for the ancient peoples of Mesopotamia a civilization several centuries older, 1 Cf. Les Premieres Civilizations, par Francois Lenormant, tome ii., "Le Deluge et I'fipopee babylonienne." THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. and thus fixing the beginnings of its history some- where near unto six millennia before the time of Christ. / Linguistics and ethnology tell the same story as his- tory and astronomy. They demand a greater antiquity for mankind than biblical scholars have hitherto been disposed to concede. 1 Like history and astronomy, they seem to fix the dispersion of the sons of Noah at about five or six thousand years before Christ a much longer period than is indicated by any of the versions of the Bible as usually interpreted. Adding this time to the two thousand years that are ordinarily supposed to have elapsed between the creation of Adam and the Deluge, and the nineteen centuries that date from the coming of Christ, we have for the age of the human race a period that covers nearly ten thousand years. It cannot be urged that these figures are too liberal. On the contrary, the estimate is rather conservative. There are many, as we have seen and I have men- tioned but a few of those who have studied the ques- tion who insist on it that history and astronomy, as well as linguistics and ethnology, teach us that man has been on the earth fifteen or twenty thousand years, if not more. But even these figures, high as they are, are small in comparison with those furnished us by geology and prehistoric archaeology. How reconcile these dates and figures with scriptural chronology ? Are not the Bible and science hopelessly 1 Cf. Mgr. de Harlez in La Controverse, 1881, pp. 577, 578 ; also the admirable criticism, by the learned Father Van den Gheyn, S. J., of the Origines ariacc? of Karl Penka, in the Revue des Questions scientifiques, p. 605, April, 1884. 21 8 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. at variance in regard to the antiquity of man, and have we not here at least an instance of that irreconcilable conflict we hear so much of between the certain results of modern scientific research and the inspired record ? I do not think so. On the contrary, I am firmly con- vinced that a careful and unprejudiced study of the question of man's antiquity will issue in proving, as has been so often done heretofore in other matters, that the Bible and science are at one regarding the question now under discussion, and will eventually render the same testimony. Before, however, attempting to demonstrate the truth of this proposition, I shall take up certain objections that are deemed more formidable than any which have yet been urged, and which, during the past third of a century especially, have attracted an attention and assumed an importance that render all other difficulties comparatively insignificant. The objections referred to are presented in the names of geology and that newer science, prehistoric archaeology. The examination of these objections and the discussion of this, the most interesting portion of our thesis, I reserve for the fol- lowing chapters. CHAPTER II. THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN ACCORDING TO GEOLOGY AND CLIMATOLOGY. PRIMITIVE MAN. r I ^HE ancient peoples of the Orient, as we saw in -L the last chapter, were one in asserting for them- selves a venerable antiquity. Not content with tens of thousands, many of them demanded hundreds of thousands of years as the period of time covered by their annals. They were likewise a unit in claiming descent from gods and demigods and in attributing godhead to all of their earlier rulers. Many, if not all of them, were firm believers in a golden age, an age of justice and happiness, which distinguished the first era of the world's history from all subsequent periods, and placed the beginnings of humanity on a much higher -plane than our race has since been able to attain. " Then," says Hesiod, in his Works and Days, "without chagrin or disquiet, exempt from labor and sorrow, men lived like gods. Infirmity, the companion of old age, was unknown. Enjoying, even in advanced years, the pleasures of youth, death to them was but as a sweet sleep. A fruitful earth furnished spontane- ously the most delicious fruits, and the abundance thereof removed all occasion of envy. The peaceful and voluntary occupation which they found in pro- 219 220 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. viding for their daily needs removed the tedium of leisure and the weariness entailed by idleness." ' The golden age, in which we may see a faint recol- lection of the Garden of Eden, was followed, in the order given, by the ages of silver, brass, bronze, and iron. The last was the worst of all, and was marked by sorrow and suffering and misery ills which in the earlier ages were unknown. Modern science also, especially geology and prehis- toric archaeology, makes great demands on time, as well as on our faith, in its teachings regarding the age of the human species. But in marked contrast with the tenets of the ancients concerning the origin and primitive condition of mankind are the views enter- tained on the same subjects by the majority of our modern scientists and "advanced thinkers." Instead of ages of gold, silver, brass, bronze, and iron, which were supposed to characterize, in the order named, the beginnings of humanity, prehistoric archaeology tells us we must substitute ages of stone, bronze, and iron. According to the sages of antiquity and they gave but a dim reflection of the biblical teachings on the subject the earliest inhabitants of the earth were a more perfect race of men than the world has since known. But they fell from their high estate and degenerated into degraded sons of once noble sires. Modern scientists hold an opposite view. The history of humanity, they tell us, is not one of degeneration, but one of development; not one of descent from a higher plane, but one of ascent from a lower; not one that makes mankind of noble lineage, as we have long been wont to believe, but one that .declares the species 1 Cf. Ovid's Metamorphoses, lib. i. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 221 to have had a far humbler and a more ignoble begin- ning. We are not of " Adam, the goodliest man of men since born, His sons ;" but the descendants of some speechless pithecanthrope alalus, Hackel calls it or some tailless, narrow- nosed ape that lived and disappeared untold aeons be- fore the advent of the traditional ancestor of our race. If we are to credit geologists and archaeologists, the time which has elapsed since the appearance of the first man on earth is a very variable quantity, for no two persons have yet been able to agree upon the pre- cise number of years to be assigned as the age of the species. L,e Conte, in concluding his discussion of the an- tiquity of the human race, says: u We have, as yet, no certain knowledge of man's time on earth. It may be one hundred thousand years or it may be only ten thousand years, but more probably the former than the latter." * M. Mortillet, one of the founders and chief representatives of the new science of prehistoric archaeology, is more positive in his statements. "Man," he says, "appeared in Europe at the com- mencement of the Quaternary age, at least two hun- dred and thirty or two hundred and forty thousand years ago." 2 These figures are nearly the same as those given by Lyell and Lubbock, who estimated the age of the human race to be about a quarter of a mil- . lion years. Buchner, although less definite, is not less positive, about the great antiquity of man. He regards it as 1 Elements of Geology, p. 570. 3 Le Prehistorique, p. 628. 222 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. perfectly certain " that the known historical period is a mere nothing, in point of time, when compared with the periods during which our race has actually inhab- ited the earth." l According to A. Laugel, whom Biichner quotes with approval, modern science has thrown back "the origin of man to a period so dis- tant that in comparison with it our written history appears like a passing moment in a series of centuries which the mind is unable to grasp." HACKEL AND MONISM. But it was reserved for the notorious professor of Jena, Ernst Hackel, to settle for once and for all any doubts that the Darwinian school of science might still entertain regarding the antiquity and ori- gin of the human race. In his History of Creation, after referring to the researches of some of his com- peers, he declares that "the numerous and interesting discoveries presented to us by these extensive investiga- tors of late years on the primeval history of the human race place the important fact, long since probable for many other reasons, beyond a doubt, that the human race, as such, has existed for more than twenty thou- sand years. But it is also probable that more than a hundred thousand years, perhaps many hundred thou- sand years, have elapsed since its first appearance." 2 The professor, however, is not satisfied with this simple but vague statement. As if guilty of some great blunder in underrating the antiquity of man, 1 Man in the Past, Present, and Futtire, p. 43, English trans- lation. 2 Vol. ii. p. 298. THE AGE OF -THE HUMAN RACE. 223 he hastens to correct himself. He remembers that he is the hierophant of Monism, and that, according to the theory of Evolution, of which he has always been an ardent champion, there never was, properly speak- ing, a first man. The countless transformations, ex- tending through long geological eras, which resulted in giving to one or several animals whose environment was specially favorable the distinguishing characteris- tics of the human species were so insensible that it is impossible not only to fix the date of the apparition of man, but also equally impossible to predicate of any given individual that it was the first representa- tive of humanity in its last stage of development. He therefore tells us, unambiguously, that the evo- lution of our race from the lower forms of animal life "took place so slowly that we can in no wise speak of the first man." "Now," he continues, "whether we reckon the period during which the human race, as such, has existed and diffused itself over the earth as twenty thousand, a hundred thousand, or many hundred thousands of years, the lapse of time is in any case immensely small in comparison with the inconceiv- able length of time which was requisite for the gradual development of the long chain of human ancestors." And the professor is good enough not to leave his readers in ignorance regarding the genealogy of man and the processes which obtained in his development from the lower forms of animal life. All is clear to him, and he is desirous of giving others the benefit of at least the reflected light of his brilliant intellect. He exhibits a genealogical tree of twenty-two parent- 224 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. forms which, he assures us, "maybe regarded, with more or less certainty, as the animal ancestors of the human race, and which must be looked upon as, in a sense, the most important stages of evolution in the long evolutionary series from the one-celled organisms up to man." But he would not have us infer that the twenty-two types he gives us afford the complete pedigree of the human species. Far from it. He is very explicit in stating that "the number of species or, more accurately, form-stages which are distin- guished as 'species' must, in the human ancestral line, in the course of many millions of years, have amounted to many thousands, the number of genera to many hundreds." The original ancestor of our species, according to Hackel's teaching, was a simple moneron, a small particle of structureless protoplasm, a creature of prim- itive slime or plasson. This moneron, which actually stands "on the very boundary between organic and inorganic natural bodies," Hack el is frank enough to tell us, is like that "most remarkable of all monera," the Bathybius H he is the father ? Neither the Abbe Bourgeois nor the THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 309 Abbe Delaunay saw in this hypothesis anything con- trary to the Catholic dogma. It is something that does not come within the purview of Scripture which deals only with the Adamic species and which does not in the least militate against any of the truths pro- posed by the Church for our acceptance. The Abbe Fabre d'Envieu and the Abbe Valroger, a distinguished member of the French Oratory, did not hesitate to advance as a conjectural hypothesis the existence of a race of rational beings Preadatnites l distinct from our own, as a means of meeting the difficulty raised by the alleged discovery of Tertiary man. 2 But their theory was not needed, for Tertiary man, as we have seen, is a chimcera, and the concurrent testimony of the ablest geologists and archaeologists of the day- relegates his existence to the limbo of exploded hy- potheses and fantastical speculations. 3 SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION. To resume. The evidence we have examined re- garding the age of our race proves one thing, and 1 It is scarce!} 7 necessary to observe that the Preadatnites of Valroger and his confreres do not come under the category of the Preadamites of La Peyrere, whose doctrines in this matter were condemned by the Church. The theory of La Peyrere in a modified form was advocated by the late Prof. Winchell in his voluminous work, Preadamites. ' l The hypothesis was favorably commented on by the elo- quent Pere Monsabre in his Conferences de Notre Dame, pp. 68, 69. 3 See two letters of the Abbe Delaunay, the learned and zeal- ous collaborator of the Abb6 Bourgeois, on the flints of Thenay and their bearing on Tertiary man, in the appendix to vol. iii. of Vigouroux's Les Livres Saints et la Critique rationalistc. 3IO BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. proves it most conclusively, and that is, that the ques- tion we have been discussing is far from being defin- o o itively answered either by Scripture or science, and according to present indications it seems improbable that we shall ever have a certain answer regarding this much-controverted topic. The testimony of astronomy does not, as such, make either for or against the bibli- cal chronology, because astronomy as a science was not cultivated until some thousands of years after the ad- vent of man on the earth. The testimony of history, and especially the history which takes us back farthest the history of Egypt, Assyria, Chaldea, and Baby- lonia admirably corroborates the testimony of the Bible concerning the antiquity of man. The sciences of linguistics, ethnology, and physiology have dis- covered nothing which is incompatible with the ac- ceptance of the chronology of Scripture as understood by our most competent apologists. The statements of geology and prehistoric archaeology are so vague and conflicting and extravagant that nothing definite can be gathered from them beyond the apparently indis- putable fact that the age of our species is greater than the advocates of the Hebrew and Samaritan texts of the Bible have been wont to admit. It may, however, be asserted positively that no certain geologic or archaeologic evidence so far adduced is irreconcilable with a chronology which we are warranted in deduc- ing from the known facts and genealogical records of the Book of books.' Until other and more conclusive evidence is forthcoming, the chronology of the Sep- tuagint, as read in the light of modern Catholic exe- gesis, is abundantly competent to meet all the real difficulties regarding the antiquity of man which THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 311 have been proclaimed to the world with such pomp and circumstance by geologists and archaeologists during the past few decades. The late Abbe Moigno, who made an exhaustive study of 'all the evidence bearing on the question, gives it as his opinion that "the- exact date of the creation of man, of his first appearance on the earth, remains entirely uncertain or unknown, but that there would be some rashness in carrying it back beyond eight thousand years." 1 Canon Hamard, one of the most eminent archaeol- ogists of France, says in reference to this subject "that it is necessary to adopt the chronology of the Septuagint, as affording us notably more time, we are convinced, but we fail to see any reason for carrying this chronology beyond the eight or ten thousand years which it accords us as a maximum." 2 Father Hewit, C. S. P., writes: "Thus far, we have not seen any plausible reason to put back the begin- nings of the human race to an earlier period than 10,000 years B. C. We are firmly convinced that a concurrence of proofs from all branches of science bearing on the subject, scriptural exegesis included, requires the admission of a date for the creation of the human species at least ten or twenty centuries earlier than the vulgar era of 4004 B. c. 3 1 Splendeurs de la Foi, tome ii. p. 612. * Les Science et V Apologetique chretienne, p. 31. Cf. the arti- cle by the same writer on "Adam," in the Dictionnaire de la Bible, public par F. Vigrmroux, fascicule i., as also his articles on L 1 Antiquite de I Homme, published in 1886-87 i" I a Contro- verse et le Contemporain. 2 The Catholic World, January, 1885, p. 451. 312 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. Abbe Vigouroux, who, although conservative, never flinches before a difficulty, says: "We main- tain, it is true, that the progress of the civilizations which flourished in Egypt and Chaldea from the times of the most ancient kings whose names are known to us, as well as the discoveries of geologists and palaeontologists, demand a longer time than the chronology of the Septuagint allows us; but here all calculation becomes impossible, and we can but say to the archaeologists and savants, Establish by irrefraga- ble proofs the antiquity of man and of the people of the earlier ages, and the Bible will not contradict it. Does it not give us to understand that it leaves these questions to the discussion of men, provided they keep within the bounds of sound criticism, when it declares through Ecclesiasticus, Arenani maris et phtvicB guttas et dies sceculi, qnis dinumeravit? 1 "Who hath numbered the sand of the sea and the S, drops of rain and the days of the world ?' ' As to myself, I incline to a liberal but legitimate interpretation of the version of the Septuagint, and am disposed to attribute to man an antiquity of about ten thousand years. It may be a little more or it may be a little less. Certain it is that there is not as yet a single known fact which necessitates an extension o / of this period. Future research may indeed raise the figure to twelve or fifteen thousand, or even to twenty thousand, years, but, judging from the evidence now available, and bearing in mind the disposition of many of our most eminent scientists to shorten rather 1 Reimc dcs Questions scientifiqncs, October, 1886, p. 407. Cf. Manuel biblique, tome i. p. 568, and Les Livres Saints et la Critique rationaliste, vol. iii. p. 547. THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 313 than prolong the age of our species, it seems more likely that the general consensus of chronologists will ultimately fix on a number which shall be below rather than above ten thousand years as the nearest approxi- mation to the age of our race. 1 1 Nearl}' a year after the preceding paragraph was written I was gratified to find that both Mgr. d'Hulst and M. le Mar- quis de Nadaillac entertain similar views to my own in respect to the age of the human race. Mgr. d'Hulst, the distin- guished rector of the Catholic University of Paris and the eloquent preacher of Notre Dame, in his admirable bro- chure, La Question bibliqiie, is disposed to put the antiquity of man at about ten thousand years. In a learned paper in Le Correspondant for Nov. 10 and 25, 1893, the Marquis de Na- daillac, who is recognized as one of the ablest archaeologists of Europe, sums up the evidence for the age of our species as fol- lows : " II est impossible de ne pas etre frappe de la concor- dance des calculs geologiques avec les donn^es que nous avons empruntees a 1'histoire et a 1'archeologie. Appuyes sur des faits indeniables, sur tous ceux actuelleinent connus, nous repe- terons que la limite extreme qui Ton peut assigner a 1'human- ite", depuis la creation, ne saurait guere depasser 10,000 ans." Views essentially identical are expressed by Padre Mir, S. J., in his erudite work, La Creadon, and by Cardinal Gonzales in La Biblia y la Ciencia. In closing his thoughtful chapter on the antiquity of man, his Eminence thus observes: " En todo caso, lo que aqui no debe perderse de vista, y lo que en realidad representa el pensamiento cristiano con relacion a este pro- blema, es que ni la Biblia ni la Iglesia enseiian nada concrete y fijo acerca del tiempo transcurrido desde Adam hasta nosotros, y que, por consiguiente, hoy por hoy la ciencia, por este lado, tiene el camino expedite para entregarse & sus investigaciones propias, formular hipotesis, }', sobre todo, acumular hechos y datos que puedan conducirla d la solucion definitiva del pro- blema. Entretanto, es prudencia, no solo cristiana, sino cien- tifica, suspender el juicio en cosa tan dudosa, de conformidad con el conseje de vSan Augustin : Servata semper moderatione pit? gravitatis, nihil credere de re obscura temere debemus." 314 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. The question, in reality, is one which is to be settled by history rather than by natural science, whatever geologists and archaeologists may say to the contrary. It is precisely in questions like this that history, to use the happy expression of Cicero, is not only the mintia vetitstatis "the messenger of antiquity" but also the lux veritatis "the torch of truth " without which we must for ever hopelessly grope in darkness. Science may adduce facts regarding the age of our race, but history, and history alone, must be their chief and, ofttimes, their sole interpreter. Thus far, the conclusions of authentic history and the teachings of Holy Writ respecting the age of the human race are so marvellously concordant that they may be considered as giving testimony which is identical. Aside from certain apparent discrepancies, resulting from lack of information or misinterpretation of fact, there has never been any serious conflict be- tween the two; there is no conflict now, and I am firmly convinced there will be none in the future, because, from the Catholic point of view, a conflict is from the very nature of the case impossible. And I make this declaration, not in the spirit of special pleading, not because I love science less and the Bible more, not because I assume that there is or can be an attitude of hostility on the part of science I do not mean theory toward religion; not because I ignore facts or minimize logical deductions from facts ob- served, but because I am as firmly convinced as I can be of anything that God is the Lord of science, that science is the handmaid of religion, that the two, speaking of the same Author, although in different tongues, must voice the same testimony, and that this THE AGE OF THE HUMAN RACE. 3 I 5 testimony must be not only unequivocally true, but also unequivocally one. I fear not facts I have been searching for them all my life but experience has led me to distrust theories which are prematurely formulated. I welcome now all facts, as I always have welcomed them, bearing on the age of our race, and I am certain that in the long run, when all the necessary facts are reported and co-ordinated, the results will be as harmonious as a certain school would now have us believe they are discordant. We could not have a more striking illustration of the vagaries to which the unguided human intellect is subject than is afforded by the vacillating and extravagant notions it has entertained regarding the antiquity of man. It has been willing to believe everything as possible, and to accept the most man- ifest absurdities as tenable. For more than a genera- tion past we have been asked to accept as veritable science what was obviously nothing more than a tis- sue of arrogant and threadbare conceits a reflection of individual fancy and not a mirror of the facts of nature. Like the spectre of the Brocken, the science of many of our "advanced thinkers" is but an empty shadow of their own mind's throwing a magnified, intangible, evanescent phantom projected on a back- ground of cloud and mist. The theories are, indeed, made plausible to an unsuspecting public, because they are presented with all the enchantments of per- suasive speech. For their authors, truth to tell, often possess what St. Augustine characterizes as the illccc- brtc suaviloquentia what Renan happily designates as n tic cert nine habilite dans V art a* amcncr Ics diqnctis dcs mots, ct des idccs ; but all this is but a specious 316 BIBLE, SCIENCE, AND FAITH. cloak for uncertainty and ignorance. The inductions from false premises which we are bidden to regard as the last word of science are frequently as hypothetical as the chim&ra bombinans in racno of the mediaeval metaphysicians. But such is the vogue of much that passes under the name of modern science, not in any one particular part of the earth, but the world over from Copenhagen to Lisbon, "a Gadibus usque Auroram et Gangen." We must, however, regard it as one of the manifesta- tions of the Zeitgeist of our generation. For, be it known, the Zeitgeist is a capricious being and more changeable than Proteus. It knows how to satisfy its votaries, who, like the Athenians and the strangers whom St. Paul addressed on the Areopagus, "employed themselves in nothing else but either in telling or in hearing some new thing." l But recent events and revelations in every department of science seem to betoken a speedy return to a more serious and a more conservative regime. The fin-de-siecle, dilettante man of science is fast losing the prestige he once had, and scientists generally, who have long been travelling in an orbit of great eccentricity, are rapidly returning to perihelion to the centre of light and truth where flames for all earnest seekers after knowledge the light of science and wisdom. 1 Acts of the Apostles xvii. 21. THE LIBRARY UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Santa Barbara THIS BOOK IS OLE ON THE LAST DATE STAMPED BELOW. MAY 2 2 8 IHJN11 5 31 RETURNED JUN8 198B 100M 1 1/86 Series 9482