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Thereader has now before him a general outline of Geological theory, together with some familiar illustrations of the evidence by which it is supported. We shall not attempt to enforce this evidence by any remarks of our own. Indeed it is of a kind that can derive but little aid from the arts of logic or rhetoric. It needs but to be fairly understood, and if it does notaltogether compel our assent, it begets at least a presumption so strong as to leave little room for doubt or hesitation.
Nobody, so far as we know, has ever hesitated to believe that the Round Towers of Ireland are the work of human hands. And yet if some incredulous skeptic were to raise the cry against this common opinion, were to argue that it is a mere hypothesis, and call for proof, we should be embarrassed how to answer him. We could only say that these monuments have all the characteristic marks of man’s handiwork; and that buildings of this kind have never been known to come into existence except through the agency of Man. But should our vexatious skeptic contend that they were possibly produced by a freak of Nature; or that they were built in the beginning by the Creator of the World, who certainly might have made them had He been so minded, we should think him very unreasonable, and probably not feel much disposed to prolong the discussion. In like manner the theory of Geology which we are defending, cannot be established by a rigid demonstration; but we believe there is not one man of sense and judgment, who, being fully master of the evidence on which it rests, hesitates to accept that theory, at least in its more general outlines. No doubt many able and eminent men are to be found arrayed against Geology; but it would be easy to show from their writings that they have never thoroughly examined the facts about which they talk so flippantly, and which they often set aside so lightly.
For ourselves, therefore, we frankly avow that while we attach but little importance to the mere conjectures and speculations of Geological writers; while we look with doubt and suspicion on many plausible theories commonly enough adopted at the present day; and while we consider that the discoveries of modern times, wonderful though they are, have given rise to far more problems thanthey are yet able to solve; yet we do fully assent to those general principles which we have been attempting to develop and to illustrate in this Volume. Absolutely metaphysical certainty we have not; but we have a firm and rational conviction. We feel quite satisfied that the great Creator of the Universe did not bring suddenly into existence the withered remains and broken fragments of animals which had never lived; that He did not stamp upon the massive rocks, buried in the profound recesses of the earth, the impress of a luxuriant vegetation which had never flourished; that He did not, in short, create under millions of forms, the delusive appearances of things which had never been, and scatter them through this world of ours in wild profusion, well knowing that after many centuries they would come to light to bewilder human reason, and to lead it into error. This conclusion, of course, we are prepared to abandon if it should be found to clash with any certain truth or with any demonstrated fact. But, in the mean lime, it seems to us as well grounded and as fairly established as the conclusions we are accustomed to accept without hesitation in the matter of other sciences, and in the common business of life.
It is argued, however, that Geological theory is, in fact, at variance with the very highest order of truth; with that truth which comes to us on the authority of God Himself. The Bible tells us that the world first came into existence about six or eight thousand years ago: Geology, on the contrary, tells us that six or eight thousand years are but as yesterday in the history of the revolutions through which our Globe has passed. This is the argument to which we are now about to address ourselves; and it well deserves our best attention, not only from its intrinsic importance, but also from the interesting nature of the discussion to which it has given rise.
In the first place, we fully admit that the extremeAntiquity of the Earth is a necessary consequence of our theory. Setting out from the present stage of the world’s existence, Geology carries us back from epoch to epoch, through a long succession of ages, each extending over many thousand years, until the mind is lost in the seeming infinity of the past. It may be asked, perhaps, in what way Geology can testify to the great length of each successive period in the history of the Globe. A familiar example will furnish the most convenient reply to such a question.
Let the reader call to mind what we have already explained about the origin and formation of Coal; and then let him examine the structure of the Carboniferous Rocks. In the great Coal-fields of Wales, for instance, he will find, in a depth of 12,000 feet, from fifty to a hundred distinct beds of coals, spread out one above another, with intervening strata of clay several feet thick. Now each one of these beds represents an ancient forest which must have grown up and flourished and decayed; or else an immense and varied mass of Drift-wood, transported from a distance by the action of moving water, and deposited near the mouth of some great river. In either case a considerable lapse of time would have been necessary for such an accumulation of vegetable matter as would furnish the elements even of a single seam of Coal. And, when that period came to an end, only one little stage in the long series had been accomplished: one stratum of a few feet had been laid down in that great Formation which was to reach at length a height of more than two miles. A new condition of things then ensued. This layer of vegetable matter, sunk below the waters, was gradually covered over with a thick deposit of clay, which, in course of time, was to emerge, and become dry land, and give birth to a second forest, destined in its turn to wither and decay. Or, at least, when the stratum of clay had been deposited, it was to be overlaid, in some way or another, with a second layer of vegetable matter sufficientfor the production of a second bed of coal. And so this process must have gone on, doubtless with many and long interruptions, for a hundred times in succession.
Then it must be remembered that the Coal-bearing strata represent but one of many periods, and that not the longest in the Geological Calendar. Before the age of the Coal, England was for centuries at the bottom of the sea, while the Old Red Sandstone was slowly spread out over its existing surface. And after the age of the Coal, England was again submerged, and gigantic Ichthyosaurs with their companions of the deep, sported in the waters that rolled over her plains and covered the tops of her mountains; and, when they had run their course, left their remains buried in the clays of Oxfordshire and Warwickshire and Dorsetshire.
Furthermore, the beds in which these monstrous reptiles are entombed were overlaid by a stratum of calcareous ooze, now forming a solid mass of Chalk Rock, often a thousand feet in thickness. This Chalk, as we have seen, is nothing else than a vast accumulation of shells, so minute that millions of them would fit together on the blade of a small pen-knife, and hundreds of millions are carried about by every carpenter in his waistcoat pocket. How many generations of animalcules it took to pile up such an immense thickness of rock, by the action of their vital powers, and how many ages were consumed in the process it is beyond the reach of science to calculate, almost beyond the power of imagination to conceive. And yet the Chalk itself was followed by the various Formations of the Tertiary Age; while the last of these is separated by the Drift and Boulder Clay from the superficial deposits which correspond with the period of history, and which go by the name of Recent.
This topic has been illustrated in a lively and striking manner by Professor Huxley, in a Lecture delivered not long ago before the working-men of Norwich. “At Cromer,”he says, “one of the most charming spots on the coast of Norfolk, you will see the Boulder Clay forming a vast mass, which lies upon the Chalk, and must consequently have come into existence after it. Huge boulders of chalk are, in fact, included in the clay, and have evidently been brought to the position they now occupy by the same agency as that which has planted blocks of syenite from Norway side by side with them.
“The Chalk, then, is certainly older than the Boulder Clay. If you ask how much, I will again take you no further than the same spot upon your own coasts for evidence. I have spoken of the Boulder Clay and Drift as resting upon the Chalk. That is not strictly true. Interposed between the Chalk and the Drift is a comparatively insignificant layer, containing vegetable matter. But that layer tells a wonderful history. It is full of stumps of trees standing as they grew. Fir-trees are there with their cones, and hazel-bushes with their nuts; there stand the stools of oak and yew trees, beeches and alders. Hence this stratum is appropriately called the Forest-bed.
“It is obvious that the Chalk must have been upheaved and converted into dry land before the timber trees could grow upon it. As the trunks of some of these trees are from two to three feet in diameter, it is no less clear that the dry land thus formed remained in the same condition for long ages. And not only do the remains of stately oaks and well-grown firs testify to the duration of this condition of things, but additional evidence to the same effect is afforded by the abundant remains of elephants, rhinoceroses, hippopotamuses, and other great wild beasts, which it has yielded to the zealous search of such men as the Reverend Mr. Gunn.
“When you look at such a collection as he has formed, and bethink you that these elephantine bones did veritably carry their owners about, and these great grinders crunchin the dark woods of which the Forest-bed is now the only trace, it is impossible not to feel that they are as good evidence of the lapse of time as the annual rings of the tree-stumps.
“Thus there is a writing upon the wall of cliffs at Cromer, and whoso runs may read it. It tells us with an authority which cannot be impeached, that the ancient bed of the Chalk sea was raised up and remained dry land until it was covered with forest, stocked with the great game whose spoils have rejoiced your Geologists. How long it remained in that condition cannot be said; but the ‘whirligig of time brought its revenges’ in those days as in these. That dry land, with the bones and teeth of generations of long-lived elephants hidden away among the gnarled roots and dry leaves of its ancient trees, sank gradually to the bottom of the icy sea, which covered it with huge masses of Drift and Boulder Clay. Sea-beasts, such as the walrus, now restricted to the extreme north, paddled about where birds had twittered among the topmost twigs of the fir-trees. How long this state of things endured we know not, but at length it came to an end. The upheaved glacial mud hardened into the soil of modern Norfolk. Forests grew once more, the wolf and the beaver replaced the reindeer and the elephant; and at length what we called the history of England, dawned.
“Thus evidence which cannot be rebutted, and which need not be strengthened, though, if time permitted, I might indefinitely increase its quantity, compels you to believe that the Earth from the time of the Chalk to the present day, has been the theatre of a series of changes as vast in their amount as they were slow in their progress. The area on which we stand has been first sea and then land for at least four alternations, and has remained in each of these conditions for a period of great length.
“Nor have these wonderful metamorphoses of the seainto land, and of land into sea, been confined to one corner of England. During the Chalk Period not one of the present great physical features of the Globe was in existence. Our great mountain ranges, Pyrenees, Alps, Himalayas, Andes, have all been upheaved since the Chalk was deposited, and the Cretaceous sea flowed over the sites of Sinai and Ararat.
“All this is certain, because rocks of Cretaceous or still later date have shared in the elevatory movements which gave rise to these mountain chains, and may be found perched up, in some cases, many thousand feet high upon their flanks. And evidence of equal cogency demonstrates that, though in Norfolk the Forest-bed rests directly upon the Chalk, yet it does so, not because the period at which the forest grew immediately followed that at which the Chalk was formed, but because an immense lapse of time, represented elsewhere by thousands of feet of rock, is not indicated at Cromer.
“I must ask you to believe that there is no less conclusive proof that a still more prolonged succession of similar changes occurred before the Chalk was deposited. Nor have we any reason to think that the first term in the series of these changes is known. The oldest sea-beds preserved to us are sands and mud and pebbles, the wear and tear of rocks which were formed in still older oceans.”105
It is needless to pursue this subject further, or to seek for other illustrations. We may reject Geology if we will: but if we put any faith even in its main principles, we must believe that the Crust of the Earth has passed through an indefinite series of revolutions, during which the Stratified Rocks were slowly built up by the action of natural causes. And it would be utterly ridiculous to suppose that the history of these revolutions can be compressed into the narrow compass of six thousand years.
Turning now to the other side of the question, we maintain that this extreme Antiquity of the Earth, which we have learned from Geology, is perfectly consistent with the historical narrative of the Bible. The Bible, indeed, does fix the Chronology of the Human Race at a comparatively recent period; but as for the Chronology of the World itself, the Bible simply tells us that, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.” For all that appears to the contrary, this Earth of ours may have been in existence for millions of years before man was introduced upon the scene; and during that time may have been peopled with those countless tribes of plants and animals which play so important a part in the records of Geology. This view, which is not only fully tolerated by the Church, but now largely supported by her Divines and Commentators, we hope to bring home clearly to our readers in the following pages; and thus to satisfy them that, as regards the Antiquity of the Earth, the discoveries of Geology can offer no prejudice to our religious belief.
At the outset it is of some importance to understand clearly the nature of that system of Chronology which is gathered from the Bible. Nowhere in the Sacred Text is the age of the human race explicitly set forth. But various data are found scattered here and there through the historical narrative, which afford us sufficient materials to compute the years that elapsed from the Creation of Adam to the Birth of Christ. Unfortunately, however, these data are in some respects obscure, and in some respects uncertain. And thus it has come to pass that many different systems of Chronology have come into vogue, even amongst those who profess to be guided entirely by the authority of the Bible.
The whole period may be conveniently divided into two parts;—from the Creation of Adam to the Call of Abraham; and from the call of Abraham to the Birth of Christ. Asregards the latter interval, the difference of opinion between Chronologists is not very substantial; the length of the period may be roughly set down at about 2,000 years. But in the computation of the former interval a very wide difference prevails, arising from a diversity of reading in the earliest versions of the Pentateuch.
The materials for the computation are derived from two genealogical lists, one extending from Adam to Noah,106the other from Noah to Abraham.107In these lists we have not only the direct line of descent from father to son, extending through the whole period in question, but, moreover, we have the age of each individual member of the genealogy at the time when the next in succession was born. As, for example:—“Adam liveda hundred and thirty years, and begot a sonto his own image and likeness, and called his name Seth. And the days of Adam, after he had begot Seth, were eight hundred years: and he begot sons and daughters. And all the time that Adam lived came to nine hundred and thirty years, and he died. Seth also liveda hundred and five years, and begot Enos. And Seth lived, after he begot Enos, eight hundred and seven years, and begot sons and daughters. And all the days of Seth were nine hundred and twelve years, and he died. And Enos livedninety years, and begot Cainan:”108and so on. Now it is plain, according to this statement, that from the Creation of Adam to the birth of Seth was a hundred and thirty years; to the birth of Enos, a hundred and thirty, more a hundred and five years; to the birth of Cainan, a hundred and thirty, more a hundred and five, more ninety years. And in this way, following the genealogies of the Book of Genesis, we may easily compute the time from the Creation of Adam to the Birth of Abraham. Adding seventy-five years to this period, we reach the epoch known as the Call of Abraham; for we are told that “Abrahamwas seventy and five years old when he went forth from Haran.”109
Now every one knows that when a long catalogue of names and numbers is copied and recopied from age to age, errors are very likely to creep in and be perpetuated. And so it has been in the present case. The three earliest versions of the Pentateuch are the Hebrew, the Samaritan, and the Septuagint: and between these three versions there is a very great discrepancy with regard to the figures in question; so great, indeed, as to make up, on the whole, a difference of 1500 years, or more, in the age of the human race. In the table that appears on the following page, for which we are mainly indebted to the work of a modern writer,110this diversity of reading is set forth in a very simple and intelligible form.
It is plain that of these three different versions, one only can represent the true age of the human race when Abraham went forth, at the command of God, from his country and his kindred and his father’s house, to go into the land of Canaan: and at this distance of time, it is impossible to determine with anything like certainty, which of the three has the greatest claim on our acceptance. The Church has not pronounced upon the subject; and the question is freely discussed among Biblical scholars. But the details of this controversy have little to do with our present argument. Enough it is for us to know that, from the Creation of Adam to the Birth of Christ, cannot have been more than six thousand years at the highest computation, nor much less than four thousand at the lowest. Adding 1869 years of the Christian Era, the present age of the Human Race according to the data of the Bible would seem to lie between six and eight thousand years.
The Bible, then, does determine, though with some vagueness and uncertainty, the age of the Human Race. We have now to consider whether, in fixing the age of the Human Race, it fixes likewise the age of the World itself. For this purpose we must turn our attention to the first chapter of Genesis, in which is briefly set forth the origin and early history of our Globe from the Creation of the Heavens and the Earth in the beginning to the Creation of Man at the close of the Sixth Day. If it should appear that these two events were comprised within a very narrow limit of time, as is not unfrequently supposed, then indeed the age of the world must agree pretty nearly with the age of the Human Race. But if on the other hand, between these two events the Sacred Record allows us to suppose an interval of indefinite length, then it plainly follows that the age of the Human Race, as set forth in the Bible Genealogies, can afford no evidence against the Antiquity of the Earth. The question is thus brought within very narrow limits. We have simply to take up the First Chapter of Genesis, and inquire whether or no it is there conveyed that the Creation of Man, which is described toward the close of the chapter, followed after the lapse of only a few days upon the Creation of the Heavens and the Earth, which is recorded in the first verse.
For many centuries this question received but little attention from the readers of the Bible. It was commonly assumed that, as the various events of the Creation are traced out in rapid succession by the Inspired Writer, and strung together into one continuous narrative, so did they follow one another, in reality, with a corresponding rapidity, and in the same unbroken continuity. The progress of Physical Science had not yet shown any necessity for supposing a lengthened period of time to have elapsed between the Creation of the World and the Creation of Man: nor was there anything in the narrative itself to suggest such anidea. Thus it was generally taken for granted, almost without discussion, that when God had created the Heavens and the Earth in the beginning, Heat onceset about the work of arranging and furnishing the universe, and fitting it up for the use of man; that He distributed this work over a period of six ordinary days, and at the close of the sixth day, introduced our First Parents upon the scene: and that, therefore, the beginning of the Human Race was but six days later than the beginning of the World.
These notions about the history of the Creation continued to prevail almost down to our own time. It is to be observed, however, that they were not founded on a close and scientific examination of the Sacred Text. The hypothesis of a long and eventful state of existence prior to the Creation of Man may be said rather to have been overlooked, than to have been rejected, by our Commentators. There was no good reasons for entertaining such a speculation, and so they said nothing about it. But now that the world is ringing with the wonderful discoveries of Geology, which seem to point more and more clearly every day to the extreme Antiquity of the Earth, it becomes an imperative duty to examine once again with all diligence and care the Inspired narrative of the Creation, and to consider well the relation in which it stands with this new dogma of Physical Science.
We are not the first to enter upon the inquiry. Already it has engaged the attention and stimulated the industry of Theological writers for more than half a century. Many eminent men, distinguished alike for their extensive acquirements and for their religious zeal, have protested warmly against the opinion of Geologists, concerning the Antiquity of the Earth, as one that cannot be reconciled with the historical accuracy of the Bible. But, on the other hand, there are writers no less illustrious, and no less sincerely attached to the cause of religion, who contend that there is nothing inthe Sacred Text to exclude the supposition of a long and indefinite interval—an interval if necessary of many millions of years—between the first creation of matter and the creation of man. Thirty years ago this opinion was defended by Cardinal Wiseman with great learning, and with great felicity of illustration, in his famous Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion. The eminent Roman Jesuit, Father Perrone, has followed the same line of argument in his Prælectiones Theologicæ, which, as every one knows, has long since become a classic work in schools of Theology. It has been yet more fully discussed, and supported by more elaborate reasoning, in a work entitled Cosmogonia Naturale Comparata col Genesi, lately published in Rome at the press of the Civiltà Cattolica, by another distinguished Jesuit, John Baptist Pianciani. Amongst Protestant writers, too, this view of the Mosaic narrative has found no inconsiderable number of able advocates. It is defended by Doctor Buckland, the eminent Geologist, in his celebrated Bridgewater Treatise, by Doctor Chalmers in his Evidences of the Christian Revelation, by Doctor Pye Smith in his dissertations on Geology and Scripture, by the eloquent and original Hugh Miller in his interesting work on the Testimony of the Rocks; and by a host of others scarcely less distinguished than these.
But these learned writers are not altogether of one accord as to the precise point in the First Chapter of Genesis, at which we may suppose a long interval of time to have intervened. Some, with Doctor Buckland, Doctor Pye Smith, and Doctor Chalmers, consider that this interval may best be introduced between the beginning of all time, when God created the Heavens and the Earth, and the beginning of the First Day, when He set about preparing the world as a dwelling-place for man. Sacred Scripture, they say, simply records these two events, (1) that “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth,” and (2) that, at somesubsequent time, “God said: Let there be light: and light was made.” But Sacred Scripture does not tell us what length of time elapsed between these two great acts of Divine Omnipotence. For aught we know from Revelation, it may have been but a single day, or it may have been a million of years. Others again, as for instance Pianciani, prefer to suppose that each one of the Six Days may have been itself a period of indefinite, nay of almost inconceivable duration. So that, between the beginning of the world and the creation of man six great ages of the Earth’s history may have rolled by, each one distinguished by a new manifestation of God’s power, and the introduction of new forms of life. These writers even fancy that they can discover a close analogy between the successive acts of creation recorded in Genesis, and the gradual development of organic life exhibited in the great Epochs of Geology.
To us it seems that either one or the other of these two systems, or both together, may be fairly admitted without any undue violence to the text of the Inspired narrative: and this, we would observe in passing, is the opinion to which Cardinal Wiseman appears to have inclined, thirty years ago, in his Lectures on the Connection between Science and Religion. We maintain, then, in the first place, that there is nothing in the Mosaic narrative, when carefully examined, at variance with the hypothesis of an indefinite interval between the creation of the world and the work of the Six Days. And, in the second place, we contend that it is quite consistent with the usage of Sacred Scripture to explain these Days of Creation as long periods of time.
It may appear, perhaps, to some of our readers that this is dangerous ground on which we are about to venture. They may have been accustomed all their lives to view the history of Creation through the medium of those notions that commonly prevailed before the discoveries of Geology:and from the influence of long association they may have come, in the end, to regard their own interpretation with scarcely less veneration than the Inspired Text itself. Such persons will naturally be disposed to look upon our undertaking with disfavor and suspicion. They will think us guilty of irreverence toward Holy Scripture when we seek to modify our views about its meaning, in deference to the conclusions of Physical Science; and they may be tempted even to charge us with putting the idle interpretations of men into the balance against the Inspired Word of God.
To this line of objection we would answer, that we cannot be guilty of irreverence to the Holy Scripture, when we are only striving, with due submission to the authority of the Church, to discover the true meaning of an obscure and difficult passage, on which the Church has pronounced no definite judgment. Nor can we be said to make light of the Word of God, when we are but attempting to defend its unerring veracity from the assaults of infidel writers. Furthermore we would add, that, if it is a dangerous thing to modify the received interpretation of certain parts of Scripture, when the progress of science enables us to see physical phenomena under a new light, it is a far more dangerous thing to persist in imputing to Scripture a doctrine that, in a very short time, may be proved to be false, beyond the possibility of contradiction.
These sentiments are not altogether our own. They have come to us, in great part, from an illustrious Doctor of the Church; and we are glad, at this early stage of our discussion, to be able to shelter our humble efforts under the authority of his venerable name. It is now more than fourteen centuries and a half since Saint Augustine set about the literal interpretation of Genesis, which he accomplished in a Treatise of twelve books. Toward the close of the first book he expatiates at some length on the difficulty of his undertaking, and on the variety of diverse interpretations,which prevailed even in his time. From this he takes occasion to warn his readers that, “if we find anything in Divine Scripture that may be variously explained without any injury to faith, we should not rush headlong by positive assertion either to one opinion or the other; lest, if perchance the opinion we have adopted should afterward turn out to be false, our faith should fall with it; and we should be found contending, not so much for the doctrine of the Sacred Scriptures as for our own; endeavoring to make our doctrine to be that of the Scriptures, instead of taking the doctrine of the Scriptures to be ours.”113And a little further on he again exposes the imprudence of such a proceeding, in words that cannot but be considered peculiarly applicable to our present subject:—
“It often happens 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 according 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 mischief 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 findone 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 these 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 unquestionable evidence? And, indeed, it were not easy to tell what trouble and sorrow some rash and presumptuous men bring upon their prudent brethren, who, when they are charged with a perverse and false opinion 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.”114
And many ages after, Saint Thomas, the great luminary of the schools, appeals to this wise admonition of Saint Augustine, and applies it to the circumstances of his own times. Writing about the work of the Second Day, he says that “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 Inspired Word of God to the derision of unbelievers, and shut them out from the way of salvation.”115
Under the sanction of two such illustrious Saints andDoctors we need not hesitate to proceed in our attempt to reconcile the Inspired narrative of the Creation with the doctrine of the Antiquity of the Earth, as set forth by the advocates of Geology. Let it be remembered, however, that we do not undertake to prove the extreme Antiquity of the Earth from the language of Scripture; but simply to show that the language of Scripture leaves the Antiquity of the Earth an open question. The Geologist holds that this Globe of ours has been in existence for hundreds of thousands, perhaps for millions of years; and our object is to show that, while maintaining this opinion, he may, nevertheless, accept the historical truth of the Bible narrative.
As before explained, two points arise for discussion: first, can we suppose an interval of indefinite length to have elapsed between the Creation of the World, and the work of the Six Days? and secondly, is it lawful to explain these Days in the sense of long periods? We shall take these two questions in succession, dealing with each upon its own merits; and if we fail to enforce conviction, we hope, at least, to vindicate our right to toleration.
The heavens and the earth were created before the first Mosaic day—Objection from Exodus, xx. 9-11—Answer—Interpretation of the author supported by the best commentators—Confirmed by the Hebrew text—The early fathers commonly held the existence of created matter prior to the work of the Six Days—Saint Basil, Saint Chrysostom, Saint Ambrose, Venerable Bede—The most eminent doctors in the schools concurred in this opinion—Peter Lombard, Hugh of Saint Victor, Saint Thomas—Also commentators and theologians—Perrerius, Petavius—Distinguished names on the other side, A Lapide, Tostatus, Saint Augustine—The opinion is at least not at variance with the voice of tradition—This period of created existence may have been of indefinite length—And the earth may have been furnished then as now with countless tribes of plants and animals—Objections to this hypothesis proposed and explained.
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Theopening verses of the Mosaic history may be rendered thus literally from the Hebrew Text:—
(1) “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.
(2) “And the Earth was waste and empty; and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
(3) “And God said, Let there be light; and there was light.
(4) “And God saw the light that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.
(5) “And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening was, and the morning was, the first day.”
Now it appears to us that the great event with which this narrative begins, the creation of the Heavens and the Earth, is not represented as a part of the work that was accomplished within the Six Days. It is not said thaton the first dayGod created the Heavens and the Earth, butin the beginning. Besides, the Sacred writer, uniformly throughout the chapter, employs one and the same peculiar phrase to introduce the work of each successive day. In describing the operations of God on the second day, he begins: “And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters:” on the third day, “And God said, Let the waters that are under the Heavens be gathered together into one place:” on the fourth, “And God said, Let there be lights in the firmament of the Heavens to divide the day from the night:” on the fifth, “And God said, Let the waters bring forth the creeping thing having life:” on the sixth, “And God said, Let the earth bring forth the living creature after its kind.” Hence, when we meet this same phrase for the first time in the third verse, “And God said, Let there be light,” we may reasonably suppose that the work of the first day began with the decree which is set forth in these words. If so it plainly follows that we may allow the existence of created matter before that particular epoch of time which, in the language of Moses, is styled the First Day: for, before the creation of light, the Heavens and the Earth were already in existence, and the Earth was waste and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.
An objection is sometimes raised from the words of God in the promulgation of the third commandment:—“Sixdays shalt thou labor and do all thy work. But the seventh day is the sabbath of the Lord thy God; thou shalt do no work on it.... Forin six days the Lord made the Heavens and the Earthand the sea, and all that is in them, and resteth the seventh day.”116It is argued that the creation of the Heavens and the Earth is here set forth as a part of the work accomplished within the Six Days; which is directly against our opinion. This difficulty would be simply insurmountable, if it could be proved that the text refers to thatfirst act of creationby which the Heavens and the Earth were brought into existence out of nothing. We think, however, that the phrase may fairly be understood to mean, in six days the Lordfashionedthe Heavens and the Earth; that is to say, gave to them that form and shape and outward character which they now possess. In this sense the words would apply, not to the first act of creation out of nothing, but rather to that subsequent series of operations by which the Earth was fitted up and furnished for the use of man.
And this interpretation is supported by the authority of our best Commentators. Perrerius formally discusses the point, and maintains that God may truly be said to have made the Heavens and the Earth in Six Days, although the Heavens and the Earth, as far as regards their substantial matter, had been created before the First Day: for it was only within the Six Days that they were adorned and completed and perfected. Tostatus is not less explicit. In this passage, he says, the wordmadeis very properly employed; for the Heavens and the Earth which are here referred to, and the other things that are included under this general designation, were allmade from matter already existing, but this matter itself was notmade, it wascreated. Petavius also adopts this view in his remarks upon the fourth verse of the second chapter of Genesis.117
We may add that this mode of explaining the passage receives no small support from the Hebrew text. When it is said, in the first chapter of Genesis, that “In the beginning Godcreatedthe Heavens and the Earth,” the word used by the Sacred writer isברא(Bara), which strictly means to create out of nothing; whereas, in describing the operations of the Six Days, he commonly uses the wordעשה(Hasah), which means toformandfashion, or to produce something out of pre-existing materials.118Now, in the text of Exodus we find the wordעשה(Hasah), tofashionorproduce, and not the wordברא(Bara), tocreate. We do not want to insist very rigorously upon this distinction between the two wordsברא(Bara) andעשה(Hasah)), nor would we deny that they are sometimes interchanged as regards their meaning. We think they are related to one another pretty nearly as the corresponding words tocreateand tomakein English, and we know that the distinction between these two words is not always strictly observed. Thus, we sometimes say that Godmadethe world, meaning that he brought it forth from nothing, and we speak of thecreationof peers; and Shakspeare says:—
“Now is the time of help; your eye in ScotlandWouldcreatesoldiers, make our women fightTo doff their dire distresses.”—Macbeth, Act iv., Sc. iii.
“Now is the time of help; your eye in ScotlandWouldcreatesoldiers, make our women fightTo doff their dire distresses.”—Macbeth, Act iv., Sc. iii.
“Now is the time of help; your eye in ScotlandWouldcreatesoldiers, make our women fightTo doff their dire distresses.”—Macbeth, Act iv., Sc. iii.
Nevertheless, when we compare two such passages as these:—“In the beginning Godcreatedthe Heavens and the Earth,” and “In Six Days the Lordmadethe Heavens and the Earth and the sea, and all that in them is,” we think the studied contrast of expression is a fair ground for supposing that, while the one refers to the Divine decree by which matter was first brought into existence out of nothing, the other may be understood of those subsequent operations by which it received its present form and shape.
We see no difficulty, then, as far as the Sacred Text is concerned, in supposing a condition of created existence prior to the period of the Six Days. But since this opinion is the foundation on which our whole argument rests, we should wish to show, moreover, even at the risk of being tedious, that it has been put forward and defended by the most eminent writers in every age of the Church. Amongst the early Fathers, Saint Basil reasons after this manner when commenting upon the passage, “There was evening and there was morning the first day:”—“The evening is the common term of day and night; and, in like manner, the morning is the point of union between night and day. Wherefore, in order to signify that to the day belonged the prerogative of being the first begotten, the sacred writer first commemorates the close of day, and afterward the close of night; implying thereby thatthe day was followed by the night. As to the condition of the worldbefore the formation of light, that is not called Night, but simply Darkness; whereas that period which is distinguished from day and opposed to it, is called night.”119This great Doctor, therefore, teaches that the First Day began with a period of light which is called day, and ended with a period of darkness which is called night; and he recognizes a previous state of existence which was no part of the First Day. So, too, Saint Chrysostom, in his third Homily upon Genesis, lays down that the Earth was first created a rude and shapeless mass, without form or ornament; thatafterwardlight was made, and that,with the creation of light, the First Day began.120
In the Western Church, Saint Ambrose adopts the same line of interpretation. He sets forth that God first created the world, in the beginning; and afterward during the Six Days furnished and adorned it; just as a skilful workman first lays the foundation of a building, and afterwardraises the superstructure, and superadds the ornament. And elsewhere, he says that, when the voice of God went forth, “Let light be made,” in the same moment the First Day began. It follows, therefore, that the world existed before the beginning of the First Day. In another place he gives a new turn to the same idea, telling us that in the beginning God made the world; and with the world, time began. But not with time did the First Day begin: for the First Day is not the beginning of time, it is rather an epoch of time.121
Passing on to the middle ages, we find our view supported by the authority of Venerable Bede, in several parts of his writings. His notion is that, during the Six Days, God formed and fashioned the world out of shapeless matter; but, before the Six Days began, He had made this shapeless matter itself out of nothing. “Two things,” he says, “did God make before all days, the angelical nature, and shapeless matter.” And again, he dresses up this opinion in the form of a dialogue:—“Disciple.Tell me the order in which things were made throughout the Six Days?Master.First, in the very beginning of created existence, were made heaven and earth, the angels, air, and water.Disciple.Continue the order of creation?Master. In the beginning of the First Daylight was made; on the second was made the firmament,” etc.122Nothing can be more plain than the distinction here set up between the beginning of all time, when the Heavens and the Earth were made, and the beginning of the First Day, when light was made.
And when we come to still more recent times, we find this interpretation was taken up and defended by the great masters in the schools of Theology. Peter Lombard, the famous Magister Sententiarum, referring to the first verse of Genesis, says that “in the beginning God createdHeaven, which means the Angels, and the Earth, which means confused and unshapely matter, the same that is called Chaos by the Greeks;and this was before any day.” Not less clearly speaks out Hugh of Saint Victor, who for his profound and varied erudition, was called the second Augustine. In explaining the history of the Six Days, he says: “The first of the Divine operations was the creation of light. But the light was not then created from nothing, it was formed from pre-existing matter. This was the work that was accomplished on the First Day: but the material of this work had been createdbefore the First Day. Directly with the light the day began; for before the light it was neither night or day, though time already existed.”123
Later still, St. Thomas himself clearly leans to this view when he says: “It is better to maintain that the creation was before any day.” And Perrerius, the most learned, perhaps, of all our commentators on Genesis, argues with us that the world was created before the production of light, and before the commencement of the First Day. Nay, he adds that he cannot tell how long that primeval state of existence may have endured before the Six Days began; nor does he think it can be known except by a special revelation. Petavius, too, is with us. He does not indeed accept our interpretation of the first verse. When it is said, “In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth,” he holds that these words do not describe any one particular act of God, but represent, as it were in a brief summary, the whole work of creation. Thus we are informed, at the outset, that the Heavens and the Earth as we see them now are the work of God; and afterward, the various parts that make up this great whole are described, and the order in which they were accomplished is set forth. According to Petavius, then, the creation of the Heavens and the Earth, recorded in the first verse, was not a distinctact from the operations of the Six Days, but rather includes them all. Nevertheless, he maintains, as we do, that the earth, at least, and water, were in existence before the creation of light; and that, therefore, some period of time must have elapsed before the beginning of the Six Days. Furthermore, he says in the same spirit as Perrerius, that it is beyond our power to conjecture how long that period may have lasted.124
Our opinion, then, is not open, in the slightest degree, to the imputation of novelty or singularity. On the contrary, it would seem rather to reflect the prevailing tradition of the Church. We think it right, however, to add that there are great names against us. A Lapide, for instance, who considers that the Heavens and the Earth were created at the beginning of the First Day.125And Tostatus, who incidentally notices our view, and contents himself with saying that it is unreasonable. For himself he seems to waver between two opinions. He thinks the primeval darkness, described in the second verse, may have been the night belonging to the First Day; and that during that night, which probably lasted about twelve hours, we may suppose the Heavens and the Earth to have been created. Or else, he says, we may allow that the First Day of the Mosaic narrative began with the creation of light; but in that case we must hold that the Heavens and the Earth were created at the same time with light.126
Saint Augustine, too, we must reluctantly give up; or, at least, we must be content to regard him as neutral. If he is not a decided opponent, he is certainly not a consistent advocate, of our opinion. No doubt he is often quoted in its favor; and it would be easy to select passages from his works which seem to enforce it in the plainest terms. As for example: “In the beginning, O my God,beforeany day, Thou didst make the Heavens and the Earth.”127But, in truth, this opinion is utterly irreconcilable with the well known and very singular teaching of Saint Augustine concerning the creation of the world. He held that all the great works recounted in the first chapter of Genesis were, in fact, accomplished in a single instant. There was no real succession, according to him, in the order of time, between the production of the Heavens and the Earth, of light and the firmament, of the sun, moon, and stars, of plants, trees, and animals. In one and the same instant of time all these came into existence together. As to the description given by Moses, it is accommodated to the capacity of a rude people; and the succession there set forth is intended only to exhibit the several parts of a great whole, in the manner best suited to the conceptions of human intelligence.128
This view of the creation is repeated again and again by Saint Augustine in his numerous works upon Genesis, and illustrated in diverse ways, so as to leave no doubt that he held it deliberately and persistently. With regard to such passages as that quoted above, in which he says that God created the Heavens and the Earthbefore any day, it may be maintained that Saint Augustine was not always consistent with himself, and that he held different opinions at different times; or even that he put forward opposite opinions at the same time, not setting them forth as true, but only as possible and legitimate.129
We think, however, that his consistency, in this case at least, can be defended, and that he has himself sufficientlyexplained in what sense he wished these passages to be understood. He tells us that we must distinguish two kinds of succession: succession in the order of time, and succession in the order of our conceptions. Thus, for example, in the order of time there is no succession between the sound of the voice in singing and the musical note that is sung: the sound is, in fact, the note, and the note is the sound. But in the order of our conceptions we first apprehend a thing according to its substance, and then according to its qualities. We first conceive the sound itself, as a sound, and then we conceive it as having that peculiar quality which makes it a musical note. Such as this is the succession Saint Augustine seems to admit in the order of the creation. He tells us, no doubt, that God first created shapeless matter, and afterward gave to it form and beauty: and certainly this statement, if standing alone, would, according to the ordinary use of language, imply a real succession in the order of time. But then, a little further on, he expressly repudiates the idea of a succession in point of time, and says that the priority he ascribes to shapeless matter is only a priority in the order of our conceptions. We must first conceive matter to exist before we can conceive it to have this or that particular form; and the Inspired Writer follows the order of our conceptions, in order to adapt his narrative to the mental feebleness of our present condition.130
With the truth or falsehood of these views we are not concerned just now. We have dwelt upon them rather from an honest desire of showing that Saint Augustine is not so clearly on our side in this question, as might be supposed from some isolated passages of his writings. He says indeed that the world was created before light, and before the beginning of the First Day; but then again hetells us that this is only a way of speaking, and that, in reality, all things were created together.
But although these high authorities—A Lapide, Tostatus, Saint Augustine—and some others less illustrious than these, are unfavorable to our interpretation, we think it is supported by a preponderance of the best interpreters, both in ancient and modern times. At all events, with such an array of venerable names as we have been able to bring forward in its behalf,—and they are but a few chosen out of many,—no one can deny that we are fairly entitled to hold it without any note of censure, without any suspicion of Theological error. Setting out, then, from this point, that there was a state of created existence prior to the Six Days of the Mosaic history, the question naturally arises, how long did that state of existence endure? Was it for an hour? a day? a week? a month? a century? a million of years? We cannot tell. To these questions the Sacred Text gives no reply. It simply records that in the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth, and that, at some subsequent epoch of time, His decree again went forth, Let there be light, and light there was. One thing, however, is plain, that, if this period existed at all, it might just as well have lasted a hundred millions of years as a hundred seconds. It would be folly to attempt to measure the succession of God’s acts, when he does please to produce effects in succession, according to our petty standards of time. “One day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”131
And it is not a little remarkable that, long before the discoveries of Geology had suggested any necessity for allowing the lapse of many ages between the first creation of the world and the creation of man, the sagacity of our commentators led them to observe that the duration of this interval is left undefined in the Sacred Record. “Howlong that interval may have lasted,” says Petavius, “it is absolutely impossible to conjecture.” And Perrerius, as we have seen, declared that it could not be known except by a special revelation. And five centuries earlier, at the very dawn of Scholastic Theology, Hugh of Saint Victor raised the same question, and expressed his opinion that it could not be solved from Scripture. Citing the passage, In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth, he says, “From these words it is plain that in the beginning of time, or rather with time itself, the original matter of all things came into existence. But how long it remained in this confused and unshapely condition the Scripture clearly does not tell us.”132
We may go further still. If we are at liberty to admit an interval of indefinite length between the creation of the world and the work of the Six Days, there is certainly nothing which forbids us to suppose that, during this period, the earth should have undergone many revolutions, and have been peopled by countless tribes of plants and animals, which, as age rolled on after age, came into existence, and died out, and were succeeded by new creations. We cannot, perhaps, see the use of all this, nor can we penetrate the motives the Great Creator might have had in bringing into existence such a boundless profusion of organic life. Granted: but then we have studied the Sacred Text to little purpose if we have not yet realized the solemn truth that, to our poor and feeble intellects, His judgments are incomprehensible, and his ways unsearchable. Did He not set His stars in the remotest regions of space, far beyond the reach of unaided human vision, and did they not shine there for ages, though man could see them not? And for ages, too, did not the wild flowers spring up, and bloom, and decay, in many a fair and favored spot of this beautiful Earth, where there was none toadmire their splendor, none to inhale their sweetness? Then again, look at that marvellous kingdom of minute animalcules, in number almost infinite, which only within the last few years the microscope has revealed to our wondering eyes. They swarm around us in the air, in the earth, in the water. Millions of them would fit in the hollow of your hand; many hundreds might swim side by side, without crowding, through the eye of a cambric needle. And they too, we can hardly doubt, must have flourished for centuries in countless myriads, unseen and unknown by man. It is impossible for us, in our present imperfect state, to understand the motives of an All-wise Creator in this profuse expenditure of his goodness, this lavish display of His power. How then can we presume to say that He may not have good reasons, though inscrutable to us, for peopling this Earth with many tribes of plants and animals, through a long cycle of ages, before it pleased Him to fit it up for the habitation of man? “Who is he among men that can know the counsel of God? or who can find out His designs? For the judgments of mortal men are hesitating, and uncertain are our thoughts. For the corruptible body is a load upon the soul, and the earthly dwelling presseth down the mind that museth upon many things. And hardly do we guess aright at things that are upon earth: and with labor do we find the things that are before us. But the things that are in heaven who shall search out?”133
We have heard it sometimes objected that plants and animals could not have existed without light; and that light was not created until the beginning of the First Mosaic Day. Many curious and interesting facts are adduced in support of this argument. For example, we are reminded that certain Fossil animals belonging to the earliestGeological Periods, are shown by the clearest evidence, to have had eyes constructed on the same optical principles, and accommodated to the same optical conditions, as the eyes of those animals that have flourished on the Earth during the period of history: and such eyes, it is contended, plainly import the existence of light. The answer to this objection may be stated in a very few words. We freely admit that the hypothesis we have been defending would be of little use to account for Geological phenomena, if it did not include the existence of light, during that Period of indefinite duration which we suppose to have elapsed between the first creation of the world and the work of the Six Days. But in truth there is no difficulty in supposing that, during such an interval, light may have prevailed upon the earth, and air, and all the other conditions of organic life, pretty much as they do at the present day. Afterward, at the close of the period, when, perhaps, ages innumerable had rolled by, this planet of ours would have appeared in that condition which is described in the second verse of Genesis: “And the earth was waste and empty, and darkness was upon the face of the deep.” Then the command of God would have gone forth, “Let there be light:” and at once the darkness would have been dispelled, a new era of existence would have commenced, and the Earth would forthwith have been set in order and furnished, in a special manner, for the habitation of man.
Even as regards the Sun, Moon, and Stars, they too may have existed before the work of the Six Days began. We read, no doubt, that on the Fourth Day, God said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night:” and a little farther on it is added that “God made two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night; and the stars.” But then it must be remembered that some of our bestCommentators, without any reference to Geology, have taught that, before this command was given, the heavenly bodies were already in existence for three days, and were already discharging the office of dividing day and night. They explain the passage by saying that the Sun, Moon, and Stars, are represented as having been made on the Fourth Day, not because they were then produced for the first time out of nothing, but because the vapors by which they had been obscured were, on that Day, dissipated, and they began to shine visibly in the Firmament of Heaven. If this line of interpretation is admissible, and it seems to us not unreasonable, then we are certainly at liberty to hold, consistently with the Mosaic narrative, that the Heavenly bodies may have been created with the Heavens and the Earth in the beginning of all time; and that on the Fourth Day they were made manifest in the Firmament to rule over the day and the night, and to regulate the course of the years and the seasons.134
Again it is urged against our hypothesis that Moses could not have passed over in complete silence such a long and eventful era in the history of the world. Certainly not, we admit, if he professed to write a complete history of the Earth and all its revolutions. But this was not his purpose. Every book, whether sacred or profane, must be examined and interpreted according to the end for which it was designed. Now the end and scope of the Book of Genesis was not to instruct mankind about the movements of the heavenly bodies, or the physical changes of the Earth’s surface, or the laws which govern the material universe. It was, first of all, to impress on the minds of the Jewish people that this world of ours is the work of one only God, distinct from all creatures, and Himself theCreator of sun, moon, and stars, and of every other object which pagan nations were wont to worship: and in the next place, to set forth, briefly and simply, the story of God’s dealings with man in the first ages of the human race. Whatever we may hold, therefore, about the revolutions and changes of the Earth’s surface previous to the work of the Six Days, it is plain that the history of these phenomena did not appertain to the object which the Sacred writer had in view. Consequently he cannot be said, by the omission of these events, to lead his readers into error; he simply allows them to remain in ignorance. What it was his purpose to tell, he tells truly: what did not belong to his purpose, he passes by in silence.
But it is further argued that this long interval of time we have been contending for, is incompatible with the use of the copulative conjunction, by which the several clauses of the narrative are connected together. The Sacred text runs thus:—“In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth.Andthe Earth was waste and empty: and darkness was upon the face of the deep; and the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.AndGod said, Let there be light; and there was light.” Is it possible, we are asked, to admit a period of indefinite length between events thus closely linked together? Our answer is that, according to the idiom of the Hebrew language, the conjunctionוְorוָ(veorva), which is here employed, while it serves to connect together the clauses of a narrative, does not of necessity imply the immediate succession of the events recorded. The very wide and indefinite signification which belongs to this little particle is well known to all who are familiar with the Hebrew text. It is sometimes copulative, sometimes adversative, sometimes disjunctive, sometimes causal. Very frequently it is used simply for thepurpose ofcontinuing the discourse;135and this we believe is the true force of the word in the passage under discussion.
An example very much to the point occurs in the Book of Numbers, twentieth chapter and first verse:—“Andthe children of Israel, the whole congregation came into the desert of Sin.” Here the narrative opens with the connecting particleויבואו בני ישראל כל העדה—:ו. And yet the reader will find, if he carefully examine the passage, that the event thus introduced by the sacred writer was separated by a period of eight-and-thirty years from those which had been related in the preceding chapter. This conjunction, therefore, does not exclude an interval of eight-and-thirty years between the events which it links together in history. And that being so, there is no good reason for supposing that it should, of necessity, exclude an interval of indefinite length.
The Weakness of this objection may be made even more strikingly manifest by an inspection of the opening words in the first chapter of Ezechiel:—ריהי בשלשים שנה. So little did the notion prevail that the conjunction ו (ve) could be used only to connect together events closely associated in point of time, that here it actuallybeginsthe narrative, and is, in fact, the first word of the whole book. In the Douay version the passage is not inaptly rendered after this manner: “Now it came to pass in the thirtieth year, in the fourth month, on the fifth day of the month, when I was in the midst of the captives by the River Chobar, the heavens were opened, and I saw the visions of God.”
We have now brought to a conclusion the first part of our inquiry. We have endeavored to show that there isnothing in Scripture or Tradition which forbids us to admit a long interval of time between the Creation of the world and the work of the Six Days. It remains to examine what was the nature of these Six Days themselves. Were they, as Saint Augustine maintained, one single indivisible instant of time? or were they days of twenty-four hours, as is more commonly supposed? or were they simply periods of time of which the duration is left wholly undetermined in the Sacred Text?