The Arian Witness

"In the beginning God created the Heavens and the Earth." Such was the short but pithy declaration pf Moses at the very commencement of the Bible. The simplicity of the declaration is only equalled by its sublimity, and yet neither the one nor the other can transcend its authoritative truthfulness. No faltering here, no question or disputation, no faint-hearted hesitation to betray any scruple or fconscious weakness— no ambiguity for the cover of a lurking uneasy suspicion in the mind, no apologetic appeal to logic or metaphysics. It is, on the contrary, a clear declaration, in full confidence of its truth, and of its immediate.acceptance by all classes of mankind. Indeed it* simplicity is such that an untutored child can understand it, and yet its sublimity transcends the heights of science, and the dialectics of logic. The philosopher and ripe scholar can only admire it, but, (as far as facts can justify an induction) he could not from ^ia own resources teach it as an indisputable truth. This does not, however, detract from the truth implied in the declaration, for its truthfulness must commend itself to all minds that are not traitors to human nature. And it is to human nature that the declaration is addressed. The fact only confirms the Apostolic dogma, that " through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that things which are seen were not made of things that do appear."^

It may be asked who ever denied such a truth — who ever doubted that *' in the beginning God created the heavens and the earth?" It may be all very well to ask such a question, now that the world has for ages been educated to it — but look to the disputations of philosophers in ancient times. What a circuitous path was trodden by those who found or accepted that truth, if they ever found and accepted it. And how many never found it at all! How many could never comprehend the very idea of a Creation, the production of things which are seen, out of nothing.

A declaration like the above no other writer has been able to excogitate from his own resoiuves. I^one, untaught of Moses, has been able to describe the act of creation, discriminating, as above, between the Creator, Himself eternal and uncreate, and the creature made by Him — and, at the same time, recording the fact as an independent act of God, — an actual production of all things out of nothing, a real universe called into existence from a state of nonentity. This view of Creation involves three ideas: (I) A God, perfect in Himself, eternal and uncreate, as the only Agent of the creation; {2} A real universe^ including all existent substances, as the object created;

(3) A act of creation oui of nothing — with no preexifitent materials.

The Arian family could not come up to this con. caption. Some of them had no idea of one Eternal and all-petfect Supreme Intelligence and Power. They &ncied that there were two independent prin* ciples, one being the representative of Good, the other of Evil. To neither, therefore, could they attribute the creation of the whole Universe. Moreover, sach as those two principles were, they were themselves reputed as created beings, bom as brothers of one ''Zervam akaran," or causeless Time.

Others, again, believing in a plurality of gods, held that they were themselves creatures, bom of Heaven and Earth. And there were also those who conceived that the gods were originally but men and mortals, though they afterwards attained to Heaven, immortality, and godhead, by virtue of their works. None of these ideas could consist with the notion involved in the work of Creation such as Moses represented.

The duality of Principles was maintained by the followers of the Zend Avesta, and was also acknowledged by the Rig Veda. The theory of the production of gods irom Heaven and Earth was especially inculcated in the writings of Greek poets, and also generally sanctioned by the Rig Veda. That the gods were originally but men and mortals is repeatedly taught in the Vedaa.

The dualism of the Zend Avesta is so well known that it does not require much comment. " Ormuzd" and " Ahriman" are familiar terms in the literary

-world. Tlio former is properly " Ahura Mazda.'? " The meaning oi Ahur (Sanscrit Asur) is Lord {Khtt^ ■da) and the meaning of Mazd is wise {ddnd)."^ " Ariinan" is " Anghro-Mainyus" or the Evil Spirit. We have had occasion to refer to both. The Farsees endeavour to allegorize this dualism — but they ' cannot by Bucb a device cast away the second and save the first. If the statement be an allegory, both must share the same iate, and then in the result a blank alone will be left.

But. without entering into discussion on debated questions, we shall confine ourselves to acknowledged facts. ' The Yendidad itself expressly attributes ' to Ahura Mazda but a moiety of the Creation by admit* ting many things as self-created. Thus i..

"Prais^ thou, 0 Zar&tliustFa, tbe eelf-oreat«d firmament, the infinito time, the air, which works on high.

I praise the heaven, iha aelf-created firmament, the never.endiug time, the air which works above.'"

The Zend notion of creative agency is also difi'er: ent from the Mosaic idea. It was limited to the act of arranging, estahlishingj and directing what was already pre-existing in some form. Thus the word fot " O Creator," is datar, equivalent to the Sanscrit fltm dhatar. " Self-created," again, is Kha-dhatahe, or selfestablished. And the phrase, " created by Mazda," is Mazd-dhato. The idea is not that of a creation of something out of nothing.

In justice to the Zenda Avesta, we must, however, acknowledge here, that, despite the worship of Fire, it has holdly and uncompromisingly resisted idolatry, and disavowed polytheism. It falls short of Moses, but contrasts favourably with other Ariau systems oa this cardinal point. Ahura Mazda represents a divine unity which the Rig Veda cannot produce. Indra and Varuna alternately act in that capacity, but it is not natural to either, and both have since been degraded to inferior positions by the descendants of the authors of the Vedas.

The Rig Veda, as we have said, sanctions the dualism of the ATesta, and, we may add, its limited idea of creative agency too. We may refer to a passage already cited (i. 24. 9,14) where Varuna as " Asura pracheta" (Zendice, Akura Mazda) is represented as opposed to " Nir-riti," or ike principle unrighteousness, interpreted by S^yana Pdpa-devatd,* or the sin-deity* He also appears in viii. 42, las "Asura viswaveda'" (Zendice, Ahura Mazda, the all-knowing Ahura) and, in both hymns, his creative agency is limited to the fixing of the Sun in the bottomless sky, the directing of his path, the establishment of the heavens, and setting of limits to the Earth — the objects themselves being supposed to have been pre-existent.

But while seconding in this manner the teaching of the Zend Avesta on the questions before us, the Vedas say, with reference to their own gods, that they were originally but men and mortals, but had attained, by virtue of the sacrificial ceremony, diligently performed, to immortality and divinity in heavenly regions. " The gods were formerly mortals. As soon as they accomplished the Sanvatsara {by certain ceremonial rites) they became immortals." *' By means of Sacrifice the gods got to heaven." And they are constantly addressed as men and heroes.^

The Vedas were therefore incompetent for such a declaration of Creation as Moses made.

The Greek ideal was similar to the Yedic. It commenced with Chaos, which appears like the selfcreated firmament of the Avesta, to have been self* produced. Out of it proceeded the spacious and hroad Earth, and " the earth first produced the starry Heaven equal to herself" And, by the combination of the two, was generated (after many other beings) " the wily Saturn, the fiercest among the ofispring" of heaven and earth. And he was the parent of the

Indra ia called TTH mott excellent amor^ men in E. V. iv. 22. 3, Asffias are called irti in i. 3, 2.

father of goda and men.^ Here again we see plainly that there could be no room for such a view of the Creation as that of MoseB.

It is curious that the Rig Veda also contains this Greek ideal of the generation of gods from heaven and earth. There is no consolidated narrative, nor any complete statement on the subject, such as Hesiod has given, but the fact is assumed, and the Heavens and Earth (or Rodaai) are frequently described as " parents of the gods," (Bevaputre) and in some passages as " parents of the gods and ancient mothers of Sacrifice."* Sdyana was evidently fnuch bewildered by such an idea, and, although generally interpreting the phrase (Devaputre) as a Bahuvrihi compound, meaning, as Rosen has in one place rendered it, '* quorum filii dii sunt," whose sons the gods are, yet the Brahmin interpreter often endeavoured to reduce the gods into men — as ministers or officers of the Sacrifice.

Ovid, whose notion of the Creation was in one important point borrowed from Hesiod, had, however, given utterance to something like a thelstic idea on the establishment of order and harmony following the discord involved in ** chaos," But this we shall consider further afterwards. On the question of the original creation of matter and material, he is as silent as Hesiod, looking upon Chaos as a self-produced or self-existing discordant mass.

• On the question of the creation of the substance or material of Hearen and Earth, the Arian records can give no other testimony in confirmation of the Mosaic idea than by their evident failure to reach it. Like a defendant's confession of judgment, they practically acknowledge their shortcomings, and sustain the Psalmist's observation — " In Jewry is God known^ His Name is great in Israel."

The Mosaic idea of God, as the original Creator o£ the Universe, without the assistance of any pre-esisfw ing materials, appears to hare been unknown, or if it was suggested anywhere by report or tradition, to have been misunderstood, in communities which had constructed systems of faith, laid on other foundation than the Word of God. This may appear strange and singular, but it was nevertheless only too true, eapeeially in the ancient world.

. After declaring that the Universe had a beginning, and that God created the heavens and the earth out of nothing, Moses goes on to state how, and in what order of succession, arose the present arrangement of the world, the scene of man's probation, in which we are especially interested. With the ages that were past to human nature, it was no object of the sacred record to interfere. Their story was left to be told by theic own subterranean remains, for the special study of persons competent to unravel the liieroglyphios of Nature. It was not the inspired historian's vocation to record them. He proceeds to tell us only those things which we might not otherwise have been able to discover from natural sources.

" And the earth was without form, and void: and darkness wo» upon the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God moTed upon the face of the waters." Gen. i. 2.

In these two or three concise sentences is described the state of our globe, (previous to the arrangement of the present order of things) on some catastrophe which had overtaken it immediately preceding. And this concise description receives remarkable corroboration from the speculations of all civUized nations, Arian and un-Arian, of Europe and of Asia, who have left any records on the subject. Whatever their sources of information may have been, and whatever mutual discordances and contradictions there may have existed inter se, they have all borne testimony to the record of Moses, which indeed appears to represent the only points in which they are almost all at one. Our professed object is to exhibit the Arian testimony of Asia. We shall keep within the scope of our self-chosen subject, with perhaps an occasional glance at peculiarly striking passages out of that scope.

In the verse above cited five things are noticed as among the ruins of a preceding world: (1) the state of the earth, ".without form and void;" the original Hebrew words being " tohu va bohu"; (2), the existtence of darkness; (3), the existence of a " deep" (Tehom); (4), the existence of waters; (5), some divine operation indicated by the word " moving" in the authorized English Version, which, however, does not represent the original term " merahephet" so correctly as the word in Milton's Epic, " brooding on the vast abyss."

This state of things, antecedeat to the present creation, which Hesiod designated by the word *' chaos," is strongly corroborated by the Brahminieal Scriptures How, and on what data, the Indo- Arians formed their conception of that state of things, it is difficult to say with any confidence. We have, however, seen that from the very position of their original settlement, and their rambles still more to the West, as appears from a colony they left under the designation of Hayap^da, they had good opportunities of knowing and hearing what was popularly known or talked about in Palestine. But whatever might have been their sources of information, Vedic writers have described the condition of our globe, before the existing arrangement was formed, very much in the same way as Moses. The five pre-existing things noticed by the Hebrew prophet are also noticed by them. They are wanting in the simplicity, confidence, and authoritativeness which could only be expected from an inspired writer, making statements under divine instruction. But they have Hevertheless borne remarkable testimony to the facts contained in the second verse we have eked from Genesis. They had pondered them in their minds, and recorded their mature reflections, though in the midst of a great deal that is falteringly speculative. In truth, what they have written with any confidence may be regarded as a paraphrase or commentary on the above text — with many puerile superadditions, and conjectures, indeed, but as far as the fundamental facts are concerned, they are precisely the same as those which Moses had so neatly summarized.

In the 10th Mandala of the Rig Veda, Hymn 129, reference is made to the state of the world previous to the creation, and the Mantras have been thus translated by Dr. Muir: "There was then neither nonentity nor entity; there was no atmosphere, nor sky beyond it. What covered (all?) where was the receptacle of each thing? was it water, the deep abyss? Death was not then, nor immortality; there was no distinction of day and night. That One breathed calmly with svadhd (nature); there was nothing different from It (that One) or beyond it. Darkness there was; originally enveloped in darkness, this universe was undistinguishable water; the empty [mass] which was concealed by a husk ^or by nothingness] was produced, single, by the power of austerity (or heat). Desire first arose in It, which was the first germ of mind. This the wise, seeking in their heart, have discovered by the intellect to be the bond between non-entity and entity. The ray which shot across these things — was it above, or was it below? There were productive energies, and mighty powers; Nature ('sicadhAJ beneath, and Energy {prayati) above. Who knows, who here can declare, whence has sprung this creation? The gods are subsequent to its formation; who then knows whether any one created it or not. He who in the t heaven is its ruler, He knows or He does not know.'" (Dr. Muir's Translaium—Sanscrit Texts, Vol. iv, p. 4.)

There is here a great deal of speculation, a great want of con6denc8, even as regards the existence of an Omnipotent and All-knowing Author and Framer of the Universe. The wise, who sought in their hearts, conld not, by their intellect, determine whether any one created, or framed, this universe or not. It is strange that in this respect, the Rig Veda betrays greater uncertainty in the independent mental musings

The translation of thia hyran we have given above from Dr. If uir's book is excellent. It is as &itliful as it is accurate and dispaeaionate. Ihe only amendment we migbt be disposed to sabmit is in the last line. The ^ord Adhyaksha literally means a iv^eroitor, and although Bupervision is generally associated with directing and ruling, yet, for ought we know to tLe contrary, the hymnist may Lave intended it in the sense in which Kapila and hia followers, in a later age, uaed it as synonymous with a simple tHkahi or witnesB.

of its Rishis, than when, after the faehion of the Zend Areata, it described the creation, or rather arrangement of the universe, by Varuna under the title of the wise or all-knowing Aiura (Zendice, Ahura Mazda). The independent speculations of the Rishis were so far inferior to the Zend Avesta in respect of theistio knowledge. Although an existing principle as" adhyaksha," or superintendent, is acknowledged, it is no more than the atheistic Sankhyas themselves allowed, but as to his creative agency, whether He or any one created the visible world or not, the Kishis could not tell. They could not even say that the " supervisor" himself was in possession of the secret. " He knows, or He does not know!"

The assertion of the existence of " Desire" or rather Love (k4ma) in that unformed state of things is curiously similar to Hesiod's declaration of "Ep« as existent with " Chaos." Assuming, after Professor Max-Miiller, that the above hymn was not a later speculation of philosophy, but unable to join in his enthusiastic laudation of it, we are compelled to recognize germs, which afterwards, assisted by Buddhism, grew up into the Sankhya system of Kapila, in which a Furusha was acknowledged as " adhyaksha," but he was denied any hand in the creation or arrangement of the universe.

It is satisfactory, however, to notice that the description of the unformed state itself is a strong corroboration of Moses. The hymn gives us tuchhen-Ahkuapihitam for the tohu va hohu of Genesis. " Tuchhenabhu," if read rapidly will sound very much like ** to- hu-va-bohu" — having regard to the peculiar and varying sound of chk. The last two syllables of the Sanscrit will certainly echo the Hebrew bohu. And the meaning is almost alike. The Hebrew is rendered " unformed and void." The Sanscrit is " an empty (mass) covered with a husk," or a quasi nothing. The hymnist's description of that mass is exquisite — " neither nou-entity nor entity." Not " non-entity," because there were the material elements present — nor " entity," because nothing was yet formed. And the things which Moses recognized in that state are all mentioned in the above Hymn. *' Darkness there was." *' This universe was undistinguishable water." " The abyss," or deep^ identified with the water, was also allowed. '£\ie productive " energy above" and " Nature beneath," in the Veda, were an apt representation of the Spirit moving upon the /ace of the wafers. Here then we find the elementary existences mentioned by Moses all confirmed in the Hymn. And it is in this confirmation that the best part of the hymn consists. As to the rest, we can only admire it as a candid recognition of the short-comings of human nature, and a confession of the apostolical adage, the world by wisdom knev not God. We cannot, however, absolutely admire this ignorance or scepticism on the very foundation of all religion. There cannot be any religion in man unless it had for its basis the relation of the creature to the Creator. But when a philosopher doubts whether there was any creation at all, or whether any supreme Intelligence himself created it, and again, whether He knew any thing on the subject, we cannot recognize in it anything to laud or adoiire. We can only exclaim with the apostle: " Where is the wise? where is the scribe? where is the disputer of this world? Hath not God made foolish the wisdom of this world?""

We do not mean to say that the Rig Veda is tinged throughout with sceptical notions like the above on the very foundation of all religion. We gladly acknowledge purer sentiments on the opposite aide: "He

who is our father (or cherisher) and generator, who as disposer knows all sites and worlds, who is the one assigner of names to the gods, to him have all other worlds recourse as the solution and end of all questions (and doubts)."^

We have seen that the Rig Veda X. 129 confirms the Mosaic statement of darkness, water, and productive power on the face of the waters, in the unformed state of the earth. The same is frequently referred to, not only in other places of that Veda itself, but in other Vedas and post-Vedic Scriptures. We shall cite a few passages from Dr. Muir's book. R. V. X.

121. 7. " Wten the great waters pervaded the universe, containing an embryo, and generating fire, thence arose the one spirit (osm) of the gods," p. 15.

The commentator on the above, citing a verse from the Satapatha Brahman, says: " * This (universe) was

in the beginning waters, only water,' and also containing an embryo distinguished as the golden eoibryi) {Hiranyagarhha)" p. 15.

The Atharva Veda, 2. 6 " In the beginning, the waters, immortal and versed in the sacred ceremonies, protected (covered?) the universe, containing an embryo; over these divine waters was the god,'" &c." p. 16.

This ia a cIosq approximation to " the Spirit of God moving over the face of the waters."

Manu says: '* This universe was enveloped in darkness, unperceived, undistinguishable, undiscoverablo,

unknowable, as it were entirely sunk in sleep,.. He

The Mahdbharata says:" " This (Universe) having been without light, without luminaries, covered on all sides with darkness, there became a great egg, the indestructible seed of the creation." I. 29.

The Arian records in all this bear indisputable testimony to their own short-comings in missing the cardinal point in Cosmogony — the creation of all things out of nothing, and thereby virtually confess the superiority of the Mosaic conception. And at the same time they confirm the Biblical description of the unformed state of our globe previous to the ■ existing arrangement of the earth. Darkness, waters, and the deep, with the Spirit moving or brooding over the face of the waters, are all acknowledged.

It is not our intention to say much on other Arian records than those of Asia, but on this subject we are induced to say a few words on Ovid's description of it. The Romans had doubtless derived the word and idea of " Chaos" from Heslod, but while the Greek poet said that " first of all Chaos became, or came into existence, {egeneto)," before the production of Earth ■ or Heaven, Ovid maintained, that, " In the beginning, Ocean, Earth, and, what covered everything, Heaven, were but one face of Nature, in the whole world, which they called Chaos."" This approached nearer, than the Greek account, to the Mosaic description of the wreck of the world before the present formation. In Hesiod, again, the development of Chaos to a state of order was apparently without any divine agency, and before the production of the gods, while Ovid distinctly recognized a divine Framerof the Universe, co-operating with Nature, though He was to him an unknoum God, he himself not being able to say which god it was." The Mosaic idea of an independent and all-Perfect God creating, by the fiat of His own

UauB erat toto Naturae vultuB in orbe,

Quem dixere Gbaos; " Banc Deue et mdioi litem Natura diremit.

Sic nbi depOBitnm, quisquis fuit ille Deorum, Oongeriem secuit,

word, the whole universe out of nothing, and without any external help, la not reached by any writer whether Greek or Roman, Iranian or Indo-Arian. But Ovid is so far better than Hesiod that he distinctly confessed a divine Framer, as " mundi melioris origo," which the former did not. Later Greeks did, however, make the same acknowledgment, and the Roman poet was doubtless aware of it, and improved himself by it.

Ovid's cosmogony was an improvement on Hesiod's, in the same sense in which the later followers of Kapila and Kanada had improved on their original masters by introducing a God, as co-operator with the pre-existing matter, in whatever form, conceived by the founders of their respective schools. The founders themselves held the sufficiency of Praknta or Atoms for the purposes of the Creation. Their followers in a later age ascribed the arrangement of the existing matter to a divine agency, and so far these were not essentially unlike Ovid.

Ovid's account is on one important point peculiarly corroborative of Moses. While the Rig Veda confirms the Mosaic order of creation by describing " light as the first production,'"* Ovid speaks of man as the last creation, and, referring to the irrational creatures, previous to the appearance of man, he says: " But an animated being, holier than these, and more capable of high culture, and one who could exercise dominion over the rest, was still wanting. Accordingly man was produced."" Such a description beautifully harmonizes with Moses, and must have been based on the tradition or report which had reached the poet of the account in Genesis: "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness; and let them have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over the cattle, and over all the earth, and over every creeping thing that creepeth upon the earth.""*

Ovid, however, falls short of Moses in his description of the agency to which the human race owed its original. He gives utterance to an uncertain sound, and casts doubts on the subject. He does not know whether it was the very " Deus," he had before mentioned, " the Framer of all things, and the Author of the reformed world, that made man from a divine energy,"" or whether (Prometheus) the son of Japetus, formed him into an image of the gods, who ruled over all things, out of some celestial material which the earth, but lately reclaimed from a

" SanctiuB his animal, mentisqne capciciaa altae Deerat adhuc, et quod dotuinari in cetera posset. Natus homo est;

" Sire hunc divino semine feoit

nie opifex rerum, mundi melioris origo: Sire recens tellos, seductaque naper ab alto ^there, cognati retinebat semina coeli, Quam satis Japeto, mlztam fluvialibae nndii', Fisit in efBgiem modetantum onncta Deorum.

state of Chaos, and separated from the lofty ether, still retained in itself.

Notwithstanding this uncertainty, the statement substantially confirms the Mosaic narrative: "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.'"^ It is a curious corroboration of sacred history, inasmuch as it is neither a translation nor a paraphrase, but a record of primitive tradition, in which are found only such necessary distortions as are always incident in such cases, and which, for all that, place the substantial facts upon a firmer basis.

Perhaps Ovid's account was a figurative narrative. That which was doubtfully declared may have been intended for a description of the origin and progress of human society, the former from the direct hand of God, the latter by the cultivation ofthe arts, of which Prometheus and the stolen fire were held as 4ypes.

Thus we see that Arian writings substantially confirm the sacred history of the creation. They are all conspicuous by their failure to reach the Mosaic conception of a Perfect God, creating the worlds, in the beginning, out of nothing: and some of them differ, both from Mosea and from the rest of themselves, by denying or doubtingthe agency of God in reclaiming the world from Chaos. But in other respects they all confirm the Mosaic account, more or less, on the pre-existent elements which constituted the unformed state of the world.

There are two more points on which the Vedas propound ideas curiously corresponding to the Biblical history. Referring to the formation of the world from its unformed and void state, the Psalms declare that " By the word of the Lord were the heavens made: and all the host of them by the breath of his mouth." " He spake the word, and they were made; he commanded and they were created.'" The Vedas represent a way of calling things into existence from their chaotic state which is strikingly similar to the above.

"While they were performing austerity,' a golden egg came into existence. Being produced, it then became a year.... From it in a year a man (puruska) came into existence, who wasPrajdpati....In a year he desired to speak. He uttered '* bhuh," which became this earth; bkuvak, which became this firmament; and svah, which became that sky.** Muir's Sanscrit Texts ^c, Vol. iv, p. 22.

Sankar&charia, the great commentator of the Sariraka Sutras of the Uttara mim&nsa, or the Vedant, cites various passages to prove the fact of a creation % utterance of words. Thus: " They show that the

Creation was preceded by utterance of words. For the Veda says: By the word " ete," Prajapati created the gods. By the word " asrigram" he created men. By the word " indava" he created the

pitris. By tte words "tirah pavitram" he made the planets. By the word " asava" he created the hymna. By the word " visvani" he made eulogies. By the word, " abhi saubhagi" he made the other creatures."**

In all this we see an unmistakeable reflection of the Biblical truth, however faint and somewhat distorted. The Vedic words, above cited, are found in a group forming the first mantra of Hymn ix. 62 of the Rig Veda. Their meanings, however, have no obvious or apparent connection with the objects, alleged to have been created by their utterance.""

The other point has reference to the passage " And the Lord God formed man of the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul."

Ths Satapatka Brakmana furnishes a similar idea, though somewhat tinged with pantheism. Indra is identified with the vital breath that is in the midst of man, and he is said to have " kindled these breaths.""*

Before concluding this Chapter on the Creation, we cannot help adverting to an Assyrian Calendar, noticed by Mr. George Smith, which, though not an Arian record, is far too important to be omitted here. Mr. Smith says: "In the year 1869, I discovered ciilizedbv Google among other things a curious religious calendar of the Assyrians, in which every mouth is divided into four weeks, and the seventh days, or ' Sabbaths,' are marked out as days on which no work should be undertaken." {Assyrian Discoveries, p. 13.) The division of time into weeks of seven days has prevailed elsewhere, but, that the seventh was to be observed as a day of rest, is a testimony to the truth of the Mosaic record, as strong as it is curious.