Some Pagan Traditions of a Like Catastrophe

APPENDIX XXI (Reference: p. 13)

It is not without significance that people of other cultures whose thinking does not seem to have been influenced by the teaching of Missionaries, have traditions of a catastrophe which overtook the first creation. Not unnaturally, such stories tell of people in this former world, for it is always difficult to conceive of an earth totally devoid of any population. It requires a certain sophistication to conceive a world prior to this one, uninhabited by man.
Thus the Arabians have a strange belief that there were once 40 kings who ruled over a creation prior to Adam, and that they were called "Solimans" (after Solomon, who to them seemed to be the ideal of what a monarch ought to be). They say that their history was recounted by the "Bird of Ages", whom they called the Simorg and who had served them all. Their statues, monstrous pre-adamite forms, were supposed to exist in the mountains of Kaf.¹⁴²
In one of his books, Prof. Franz Cumont remarks that according to the Mithraic teachings: ¹⁴³ "The demoniac confederates of the King of Hell once ascended to the assault of Heaven and attempted to dethrone the successor of Kronos. But, shattered like the Greek giants by the ruler of the gods, these rebel monsters were hurled backwards into the abyss from which they had arisen. They made their escape, however, from that place and wandered about on the face of the earth, there to spread misery and to corrupt the hearts of men, who, in order to ward off the evils that menaced them were obliged to appease them by offering expiatory sacrifices". There is a Far Eastern tradition in which some further details are provided. Prof. Rawlinson, in one of his Bampton Lectures gave one extract as follows: ¹⁴⁴

"The Chinese traditions are said to be less clear and decisive than the Babylonian. They speak of a 'first heaven' and an age of innocence when 'the whole creation enjoyed a state of happiness'. Then everything was beautiful and everything was good: all things were perfect in their kind. Whereunto succeeded a second heaven (his emphasis) introduced by a great convulsion, in which the pillars of heaven were broken, the earth shook to its foundations, the heavens sank lower towards the north, the sun, moon, and stars changed their motions, the earth fell apart and the waters enclosed within its bosom burst forth with violence and overflowed."

The Egyptians believed that the earth had suffered more than on destruction and renewal, and certainly the Babylonian traditions held strongly to at least one serious destruction and reconstitution quite apart from their recollections of the great Flood of Noah's time.¹⁴⁵
Even as we today have found the advantage of animating stories for children, so the early Babylonians turned inanimate forces into spiritual beings, and set much of the early geological history of the earth, as they conceived it, in the form of a titanic struggle between giant forces in personal guise. The great catastrophe of Gen. 1. 2 in time became one of the most popular themes of Cuneiform literature.
In a paper titled, "Genesis and Pagan Cosmogonies", Dr. Edward McCrady has given an excellent and concise statement of the matter. He remarks: ¹⁴⁶

"It is generally conceded that the Dragon, as a personification of the Evil Spirit, is more or less identified with the destructive and rebellious forces of Nature, especially as they bring chaos and suffering to mankind in floods, storms, etc. But it is only in connection with such stories as that of Bel and the Dragon, that we begin to catch a glimpse of the ORIGIN of the original myth: and only again as we compare this Chaldeo-Assyrian legend with the first chapter of Genesis that we begin to realize that this Dragon is but a personification of the watery abyss or chaos mentioned in Genesis. Bel, or Bel-Merodach is a personification of the sun which appearing on the fourth day 'breaks through the watery abyss that envelopes the earth, piercing and tearing asunder the Dragon of the abyss with his glittering sword', and eventually after a long struggle bringing order and law out of chaos. Then we begin to see the explanation of the whole. Similarly, we may see little significance in the Egyptian picture of Kneph sailing in a boat over the water, and breathing life into its tumultuous depths: or the Phoenician legend of Colpias and his wife Bau - or Bahu, effecting a like organization of the waste of primeval matter: until we remember that Kneph signifies wind, air, living breath, or spirit. And Colpias likewise means 'wind', while Bahu is evidently the Phoenician form of the Hebrew 'bohu', the waste of waters.
"With this discovery, however, it immediately dawns upon us that these legends must obviously refer to the statement of Genesis that 'The Spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters. And God said, Let there be Light; and there was Light'.
"A further careful study of the succession of male and female divinities of the Chaldeo-Assyrian Theogony, Lachmu and Lachamu; An-Sar and Ki-Sar, will also bring to light the fact that they are, respectively, personifications of the Light with his consort Darkness; of the Sky or Heavenly Waters, and the earth waters (divided by the 'expanse'), and occur exactly in order of their appearance in the narrative of Genesis; while the divinities Anos (or Anu), Ilinos (or Enlil), and Aos (or Ea), which follow next, and which are universally identified with the heavens, the earth and the sea, are obviously personifications of these physical phenomena, which as Genesis records, were separated from one another as the next step in the creative process; while as the hero of the next succeeding generation appears, Bel Merodach, easily identified as the sun now appearing for the first time together with the moon and the stars, we have the completion of the fourth day. And these events are still further reflected in the Chaldean myth of the birth of Sin (the Moon), Adar (Saturn), Merodach (Jupiter), Nergal (Mars), Nebo (Mercury), and all the rest of them. The order of the appearance of the corresponding physical phenomena given in Genesis the Theogony (the 'toledoth of the gods'), of the Chaldeans is simultaneously a cosmogony based on the cosmogony of Genesis."

Subsequently, Dr. McCrady remarks:

"Indeed, the echoes of this primal revelation, transformed and corrupted as we have thus explained, are to be found in nearly all the mythologies, cosmogonies, and theogonies of paganism. For besides the Chaldean, Assyrian, Phoenician and other narratives, we find them in Greek, and Latin literature also."

In conclusion the author points out what must have occurred to all who study these things in this light, that not only do we find in this the origin of the idea that the world began with a chaos, an idea which found its way almost inevitably into our translations because of the power of habits of thought, but we also find the root of much polytheism and idol worship, for they have exactly done what Paul in his epistle to the Romans reveals, changing "the truth of God into a lie, worshipping and serving the created things more than the Creator, who is blessed forever" (Rom. 1. 25).
There is, therefore, from the very earliest times, a continuity of tradition that at some remote time in the past, great spiritual powers came under the judgment of God and brought about a disruption of the Cosmos, the record of which is surely reflected in Gen. 1. 1 and 1. 2.
This continuity of tradition from the earliest times to the beginning of the last century is a strong confirmation of the view advocated in this volume. It is a strong confirmation because the individuals who supported it were in an excellent position to know what the original text could mean and at the same time they were quite uninfluenced by modern geological theory and were not, therefore, biased in this respect.

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