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 HEXAEMERON

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HEXAEMERON

that move upon the earth, and wherein there is life, that they may have to feed upon. And it was so done. 31: And God saw all the things that he had made, and they were very good. And the evening and morning were the sixth day. C. Day of Rest. — Chapter ii, verse 1 : So the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the furniture of them. 2: And on the seventh day God ended his work which he had made: and he rested on the seventh day from all his work which he had done. 3: And he blessed the seventh day, and sanctified it: because in it he had rested from all his work which God created and made.

The work of division separates between light and darkness, between the waters above and the waters below, between the seas and the dry land ; the work of adornment covers the earth with vegetation, beauti- fies the firmament with heavenly bodies, fills the waters with fishes, the air with birds, and the conti- nents with animal life. The third day and the sixth are distinguished by a double work, while each of the other four days has only one production assigned to it. Including the account of what is calleil the First Creation, God intervenes nine distinct times: (1) He creates matter; (2) He produces light; (3) He develops the firmament (the atmosphere); (4) He raises the continents; (5) He produces vegetation; (6) He causes the heavenly bodies to be visible; (7) He pro- duces aquatic and bird life; (8) He calls into being the land animals; (9) finally, He creates man and makes him ruler of the earth. Hence the suspicion arises that the division of God's creative acts into sLx days is really a schematism employed to inculcate the importance and the sanctity of the seventh day. A trace of schematism may also be detected in the grouping of the Hexaemeron into the works of division and the works of adornment, in the division of things immovable (first three days) and things that move (.second three days), and even in the separate accounts of each day. These latter begin with the respective Divine edict, add in the second place the description of its fulfilment, and end with the Divine approval of the work. On each of the first three days the Creator gives a name to His new production, and He imparts His special blessing at the end of each of the last two days.

il. Source op the Hexaemeron. — The critics no longer ask whether the Biblical cosmogony taught by the Hexaemeron can be reconciled with the results of natural science, but whence the cosmogonic ideas expressed in the Old Testament have been derived. Prescinding from minor variations, the various views as to the source of the Hexaemeron may be reduced to four: (1) The Hel^rews borrowed their ideas from others; (2) the Hebrew cosmogony is an independent development of a primitive Semitic myth; (3) the Biblical cosmogony is the resultant of two elements: Divine inspiration and Hebrew folk-lore; (4) the Hexaemeron is derived from Divine Revelation.

(1) Babylonian Source. — Professor J. P. Arendzen has treated of the various cosmogonic ideas of the principal ancient and modern nations in the article Cosmogony (Vol. IV, pp. 405 sqq.). For our present purpose it suffices to keep in mind a summary of the Babylonian traditions. The Babylonian account carries us back to a period prior to the existence of any god. The universe begins with a double, purely material, principle, Apsu and Tiamtu, male and female, probably personifying the mass of salt and sweet water, mixed into one. From these sprang first Lah- mu and Lahamu, more probably the personifications of dawn and twilight than the monsters and demons with which popular mythology identified them, .^.fter a long interval Ansar and Kisar were produced, the personified ideas of the above and the below, or of heaven and earth in their most general acceptation. Another long interval intervened, and then Anu, Bel,

and Ea (the sky, the earth, and the water) sprang forth. Then Ea and his consort Dauke gave birth to Belos or Marduk, the sun-god.

After this the differentiation of the watery All is seriously threatened. Tiamtu creates a set of mon- sters which endeavour to bring back the original chaos. Who were these monsters? Nightly darkness obscur- ing and enveloping all nature in the primeval shroud; black mists and vapours of fantastic shape, reuniting at times the waters of heaven and earth; continued rains threatening to deluge the earth and again to convert the celestial and terrestrial waters into the one vast original ocean; the crashing thunder and the fierce tornado, too, were among the offspring and the abetters of Tiamtu in her bitter warfare against the established order. Ansar, the lord of the compre- hensive heavens, attempted in vain to overcome these foes; Ea, the deity of the earthly waters, availed stLU less. Finally, Marduk, the rising sun, is sent. A fearful storm ensues, a battle between Marduk and Tiamtu; but the god of the rising sun dispels the darkness, lifts the vapours in masses on high, subdues the tempest, reopens the space between heaven and earth. According to the personifying ideas of the Babylonian records, Marduk slays Tiamtu, establishes the superiority of Ansar, clea\-es Tiamtu in twain, and with one half overshadows the heavens. Then he measures the watery abyss opposite the heavens and founds an edifice like Ishara, which he had tuiilt as heaven, and lets Anu, Bel, and Ea occupy their dwell- ings. Then he embellishes the heavens, prepares places for the great gods, makes the stars, sets the Zodiac, founds a place for Niliiru, fixes the poles, opens the gates provided with locks on either side, causes the moon to shine forth and establishes its laws. The remainder of the Bal>ylonian taljlet-series, as first known, is fragmentary, narrating only the creation of plants (possibly) aiid animals. Any reference to man it may have contained is broken off. But Bero- sus, priest of Bel, supplies this deficiency. Bel com- manded one of the gods to remove his (Bel's) head and mix the earth with the thence-flowing blood, and to form men and beasts capable of enduring the light. The more recently recovered additional fragments of the Babylonian Creation Epos agree with Berosus. "Let me gather my blood", says Marduk, "and let me [take my] bone, let me set up man".

We do not here consider the question of some re- mote connexion between the Babylonian creation story and the Hexaemeron — which is of course possi- ble. But we ask: can the Baliy Ionian story claim to be the source of the Biljlical account? Their difference in form is striking, though not fully de- cisive. The Babylonian story knows nothing of a division into days, whereas a division into six days forms the whole framework of the Hebrew account. Again, the Babylonian presentation amplifies the plain narrative of creation with the account of the choice and of the deeds of a demiurgus; it is highly figurative and anthropomorphic to the highest degree. The Hexaemeron, on the contrary, is the sober re- cital, in simple yet stately prose, of the impressive teaching concerning the development of the ordered universe from chaos. This literary excellence of the Hebrew account might be due to the special capabil- ity of the inspired wTiter; if no other considerations prevented it, the Hebrew wTiter might be thought to have borrowed his material from the Babylonian cos- mogony. But the discrepancy of ideas between the profane and the inspired writer prevents such an assumption. The cuneiform record goes back to a time when the gods did not exist: the Hebrew account places God before all creation. The Babylonian cos- mogony knows nothing about the production of the original chaotic matter; the Hebrew writer derives even the primeval matter from the action of God. There is no idea of any creative action in the Babylo-