a son into the world, and yet retains all the evidences of virginity." These two gospels were, nevertheless, subsequently rejected as apocryphal, although on this point, they were conformable to the opinion adopted by the church: the scaffolding was removed after the building was completed.

What is added by Jeschu-"I entered by the crown of the head"-was likewise the opinion held by the church. The Breviary of the Maronites represents the Word of the Father as having entered by the ear of the blessed woman. St. Augustin, and pope Felix say expressly, that the virgin became pregnant through the ear. St. Ephrem says the same in a hymn, and Voisin his translator observes, that the idea came originally from Gregory of Neocesarea, surnamed Thaumaturgos. Agobart relates, that in his time the church sang in the time of public service-" The word entered through the ear of the virgin, and came out at the golden gate." Eutychius speaks also of Elian, who attended at the council of Nice, and who said that the Word entered by the ear of the virgin, and came out in the way of child-birth. This Elian was a rural bishop, whose name occurs in Selden's published Arabic List of Fathers who attended the council of Nice.

It is well known that the jesuit Sanchez gravely discussed the question whether the virgin Mary contributed seminally in the incarnation of Christ, and that, like other divines before him, he concluded in the affirmative. But these extravagancies of a prurient and depraved imagination should be classed with the opinion of Aretin, who introduces the holy spirit on this occasion effecting his purpose under the figure of a dove; as mythology describes Jupiter to have succeeded with Leda in the form of a swan, or as the most eminent authors of the church-St. Austin, Athenagoras, Tertullian, St. Clement of Alexandria, St. Cyprian, Lactantius, St. Ambrose, and others believed, after Philo and Josephus, the historian, who were Jews, that

*Asseman, Bibl. Orient. vol. i. p. 91.
+ Chap. viii. Of Psalmody.

angels had associated with the daughters of men, and engaged in sexual connection with them. St. Augustin* goes so far as to charge the Manicheans with teaching, as a part of their religious persuasion, that beautiful young persons appeared in a state of nature before the princes of darkness, or evil angels, and deprived them of the vital substance which that father calls the nature of God. Herodius+ is still more explicit, and says that the divine majesty escaped through the productive organs of demons.

It is true that all these fathers believed angels to be corporeal. But, after the works of Plato had established the idea of their spirituality, the ancient opinion of a corporeal union between angels and women was explained by the supposition, that the same angel who, in a woman's form, had received the embraces of a man, in turn held communication with a woman, in the character of a man. Divines, by the terms incubus and succubus, designate the different parts thus performed by angels. Those who are curious on the subject of these offensive and revolting reveries may see further details in "Various Readings of the Book of Genesis," by Otho Gualter; "Magical Disquisitions," by Delvis, and the "Discourses on Witchcraft," by Henry Boguet.

SECTION II.

No genealogy, even although reprinted in Moreri, approaches that of Mahomet or Mohammed, the son of Abdallah, the son of Abd'all Montaleb, the son of Ashem; which Mohammed was, in his younger days, groom of the widow Cadisha, then her factor, then her husband, then a prophet of God, then condemned to be hanged, then conqueror and king of Arabia; and who finally died an enviable death, satiated with glory and with love.

The German barons do not trace back their origin

* Book xx. against Faustus, 44.

† Chap. xviii. Of Faith.

Tertullian against Prax. chap. vii.

beyond Witikind; and our modern French marquisses can scarcely, any of them, show deeds and patents of an earlier date than Charlemagne. But the race of Mahomet, or Mohammed, which still subsists, has always exhibited a genealogical tree, of which the trunk is Adam, and of which the branches reach from Ishmael down to the nobility and gentry who at the present day bear the high title of cousins of Mahomet.

There is no difficulty about this genealogy, no dispute among the learned, no false calculations to be rectified, no contradictions to palliate, no impossibilities to be made possible.

Your pride cavils against the authenticity of these titles. You tell me that you are descended from Adam as well as the greatest prophet, if Adam was the common father of our race; but that this same Adam was never known by any person, not even by the ancient Arabs themselves; that the name has never been cited except in the books of the Jews; and that, consequently, you take the liberty of writing down false against the high and noble claims of Mahomet or Mohammed.

You add that, in any case, if there has been a first man, whatever his name might be, you are a descendant from him as decidedly as Cadisha's illustrious groom; and that, if there has been no first man, if the human race always existed, as so many of the learned pretend, then you are clearly a gentleman from all eternity.

: In answer to this you are told, that you are a plebeian (roturier) from all eternity, unless you can produce a regular and complete set of parchments.

You reply that men are equal; that one race cannot be more ancient than another; that parchments, with bits of wax dangling to them, are a recent invention; that there is no reason that compels you to yield to the family of Mahomet, or to that of Confucius, or to that of the emperors of Japan, or to the royal secretaries of the grand college. Nor can I oppose your opinion by arguments, physical, metaphysical, or moral. You think yourself equal to the dairo of Japan,

VOL. III.

2 B

and I entirely agree with you. All that I would advise you is, that if ever you meet with him, you take good care to be the strongest.

GENESIS.

THE sacred writer having conformed himself to the idea generally received, and being indeed obliged not to deviate from them, as without such condescension to the weakness and ignorance of those whom he addressed, he would not have been understood, it only remains for us to make some observations on the natural philosophy prevailing in those early periods; for, with respect to theology, we reverence it, we believe in it, and never either dispute or discuss it.

"In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth."

Thus has the original passage been translated, but the translation is not correct. There is no one, however slightly informed upon the subject, who is not aware that the real meaning of the words is, "In the beginning the gods made (firent or fit) the heaven and the earth." This reading, moreover, perfectly corresponds with the ancient idea of the Phenicians, who imagined that, in reducing the chaos (chautereb) into order, God employed the agency of inferior deities.

The Phenicians had been long a powerful people, having a theogony of their own, before the Hebrews became possessed of a few cantons of land near their territory. It is extremely natural to suppose that, when the Hebrews had at length formed a small establishment near Phenicia, they began to acquire its language. At that time their writers might, and probably did, borrow the ancient philosophy of their masters. Such is the regular march of the human mind.

At the time in which Moses is supposed to have lived, were the Phenician philosophers sufficiently enlightened to regard the earth as a mere point in comparison with the infinite multitude of orbs placed by God in the immensity of space, commonly called

heaven? The idea so very ancient, and at the same time so utterly false, that heaven was made for earth, almost always prevailed in the minds of the great mass of the people. It would certainly be just as correct and judi cious for any person to suppose, if told that God created all the mountains and a single grain of sand, that the mountains were created for that grain of sand. It is scarcely possible that the Phenicians, who were such excellent navigators, should not have had some good astronomers; but the old prejudices generally prevailed, and those old prejudices were very properly spared and indulged by the author of the book of Genesis, who wrote to instruct men in the ways of God, and not in natural philosophy.

"The earth was without form (tohu bohu) and void; darkness rested upon the face of the deep, and the spirit of God moved upon the surface of the waters."

Tohu bohu means precisely chaos, disorder. It is one of those imitative words which are to be found in all languages; as, for example, in the French we have sens, dessus, dessous, tintamarre, trictrac, tonnerre, bombe. The earth was not as yet formed in its present state: the matter existed, but the divine power had not yet arranged it. The spirit of God means literally the breath, the wind, which agitated the waters. The same idea occurs in the Fragments of the Phenician author Sanconiathon, The Phenicians, like every other people, believed matter to be eternal, There is not a single author of antiquity who ever represented something to have been produced from nothing. Even throughout the whole Bible, no passage is to be found in which matter is said to have been created out of nothing. Not, however, that we mean to controvert the truth of such creation. It was, nevertheless, a truth not known by the carnal Jews.

On the question of the 'eternity of the world, mankind have been always divided, but never on that of the eternity of matter. From nothing, nothing can proceed, nor into nothing can aught existent return.

De nihilo nihilum, et in nihilum nil posse gigni reverti.

PERSIUS, Sat. iii.