The Temple of the Muses

that God through His Word brought forth all things out of nothing. The Pagan The text uses "Heidensche," referring to non-Christian classical Greeks and Romans. Poets, deprived of that heavenly Light, and unable to comprehend how something could have come forth out of nothing, imagined that matter was eternal. They envisioned a confused and disordered mass, within which the principles of all bodies were enclosed, and which, gradually disentangling itself, finally brought the Universe into view. Yet what they relate to us of the Chaos, or the Creation of the world, is so far from providing any light on this matter that it rather reveals to us how confused their ideas were, and how greatly they have deformed and falsified the history of the Creation. One must nonetheless be amazed by certain beams of light which shine through the midst of the fictions under which they have, as it were, buried the truth. Simply compare the beginning and the continuation of the Book of Genesis The Dutch "Boek der Scheppinge" refers to the first book of the Bible. with what the Pagan Poets tell us of the Chaos, the Creation, and what followed it, and you will very easily be able to discover therein the venerable ² remnants of a shadowed tradition, mixed with the fictions of a lawless imagination.

The difficulties which arise in the making of this first Scene have not, however, deprived the Creator Referring to the artist or "inventor" of the specific illustration being described. of his desire for the work. Applying himself less to the rules of a sound Philosophy than to bringing something to light which could delight the eyes and the imagination, he has given free rein to his spirit; and he has, with much judgment, made use of what the Poets provided him and what best suited his design. He depicts, outside the clouds which make up the border of this Scene, very widely extended darknesses; and in the clouds themselves a wondrous mixture of water, fire, earth, smoke, winds, the signs of the Zodiac, and many other stars; and he has applied himself to overturning the entire order, so that he might give us some idea of the confusion that then took place in the Universe. There one sees the ³ Waterman The constellation Aquarius. pouring out his jug upon the ⁴ Lion The constellation Leo.; the ⁵ Archer The constellation Sagittarius. shooting his arrows at the ⁶ Twins The constellation Gemini.; the ⁷ Capricorn The constellation Steinbok.

R E M A R K S.

...thrust the times forward, and calls them back to itself again. There
is nothing that it does not gradually consume and see end. It
has the form of a snake, whose scales always glisten with equal
strength, and which, continually curving back upon itself,
eats its own tail, thus ending where it begins. This describes the Ouroboros, an ancient symbol of eternity and the cyclical nature of time.
Nature, always equally beautiful despite her age, sits as
the gatekeeper of this Cave at its entrance. The souls, which
fly about her, hang upon all her limbs. Here one sees a
venerable Gray-beard writing the unchangeable and lasting
laws of the number of the Stars, of their
movements and stillness, according to which all things that
are in the world are constantly born and
perish again.

2. THE REMNANTS etc.] This will appear even clearer if one considers that Hesiod An early Greek poet, author of "Theogony.", the Inventor of this fictionalized system of Creation, did nothing other than copy Sanchoniathon. This Phoenician writer, who is believed to have lived in the time of Gideon A judge of Israel from the Old Testament., wrote a work on the ancient Philosophy and the Annals of the Phoenicians. Philo of Byblos translated him into Greek, and we have some remaining fragments of this Translation in Porphyry, in his book On Abstinence from Animal Food, and in Eusebius in his Gospel Preparation. Sanchoniathon relates that he consulted with a Priest of the God Jao, or Jehovah, named Jerombal, and Bochart Samuel Bochart, a 17th-century scholar of biblical geography and animals. believes this is Jerubbaal or Gideon. Although the system of the Phoenician writer bears little resemblance to the purity of such an origin, one can nonetheless perceive in it that he must have drawn some light from the Jews. The Holy Scripture tells us that the darkness was upon the deep: Sanchoniathon expresses himself in almost the same terms. In the beginning, he says, darkness and night covered all things. In the beginning there was a spirit of dark air... an evening gloom. original: "Initio fuit aëris tenebrosi spiritus... caligo vespertina." It is also noted that the Gre-

ks, who have the habit of making persons out of all things, when they found the word Ereb in the History of Sanchoniathon—which means the darkness of the night—made a person of it and said that the Night was his daughter. The author is referring to Erebus, the primordial deity of darkness in Greek mythology. These and other remarks which could be brought forward show us that the Greeks borrowed many matters which they tell us of the Creation from the Phoenicians, and that these, as well as the Egyptians, borrowed what they knew of it—and had so extremely deformed—from the Jews.

3. THE WATERMAN.] This is the sign of January, and if one is to believe the Poets, that famous Ganymede, who was abducted by Jupiter to be elevated to a Cupbearer of the Gods. But Hegesianax has said, according to the account of Hyginus, that it was Deucalion.

4. THE LION.] The sign of July, otherwise called the Nemean Lion, which was killed by Hercules and placed among the Constellations by Juno's command. Near the tail of the Lion is the Hair of Berenice The constellation Coma Berenices., about which Callimachus wrote a poem, which was translated by Catullus and is to be found in his works.

5. THE ARCHER.] The sign of November, otherwise the Centaur Chiron; and according to the saying of some others, Crotus the Son of Eupheme, the nurse of the Muses. The Tragic poet Sositheus says that he inhabited Mount Helicon. He made his work of the hunt, and after his death was changed into a Constellation at the request of the Muses.

6. THE TWINS.] The sign of the Month of May; that is, Castor and Pollux, who received from Neptune the power over the shipwrecked. Others, however, maintain that it is Hercules and Apollo, and others that it is Triptolemus and Jason.

7. THE CAPRICORN.] The sign of December. Its form, which is that of a Buck or a Goat, has given occasion...