The rivers, the infinite sea which swells and foams,
The sparklings stars, and the immense sky over all."
Further, he tells of the birth of chaos and night, without saying how it occurred:
"First the earth gave birth to the starry sky, its equal,
Able to entirely cover it..."
After revealing that the sky was the son of the earth, he adds that the latter, married to the sky, gave birth to the seas, then
"Koeos, Krios, Hyperion, Japet... "
and also Theia, Rheia, Themis and Mnemosyne. He adds Phoebus to this list, 'golden-crowned', as he calls him, then Tethys. In his opinion, the last of all these children was Kronos. On top of this he piles up a complete hotchpotch of whimsical and incoherent stories.
Perhaps Julian will claim that Hesiod has made up all these fairy-tales as a poet does: in fact maybe he blushes at the fables of Hesiod! But then why did these take some of it from the hierophant Moses, who composed a clear and accurate work, based on real facts? In fact he affirmed that God created the sky and the earth, the sun and the moon, the stars, light, animals which fly and those which swim, various brute beasts, the splendour of vegetation, edible fruit and the grass of the meadows.
26. See how the text of Moses very wisely cuts short the error which the ancients fell into: don't they name the heavens Zeus, the earth Demeter, the sun Apollo, and the moon 'the noisy goddess with the rod of gold', i.e. Artemis? In a word, allotting according to their imagination a share of glory to each creature of God, they adored these creatures as divinities.
However the description made by Moses of the creation of the world was clear, easily comprehensible, without anything lacking in its great exactitude. And that's what we're going to have to show. "In the beginning," he writes, "God created the heavens and the earth." So he denies that matter shared with God the time before the beginning, eternity; or that it was uncreated, as some say. He doesn't present something that didn't exist at one time as coinciding with and coexistant with the eternal; he doesn't confuse the temporary, something which was brought into existence with difficulty, with that which is from time immemorial; something that changes to something which is always itself; nor something which is corruptible with that which is incorruptible! On the contrary, he makes creation happen in a moment, the principle that refers to things brought into existence, because starting from nothing it was brought to be what it is according to the divine will. What he certainly does not say, is that matter existed already, had already been invented, and that God limited himself to being its director and workman, giving form to what was amorphous, and only imposing on matter different qualities, dimensions and volumes. On the contrary he says that, thanks to a secret and unutterable power, in the beginning God brought into being what was not and did not exist in any way whatever!
27. As for the way in which he made creation happen, we do not have the means to say. I affirm that it is beyond any way of expression known to us: how indeed could what exceeds understanding be explained? In my opinion, the approach imagined by the supreme Being and the way that leads to an understanding of his enterprise will be always as inaccessible to our human condition as we are by nature lower than this Being himself. When Moses said, "In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth", understand that he condenses and summarizes in some way all the details in a single word, when he describes the genesis of all creation. Then, he attempts to say somehow how this creation was put in order and how all the things created were assigned the role in life which they have.
Moses also states that that God created through the all-powerful Word: in fact his creator-Word of the universe is God himself and proceeds from God by nature. "God said," Moses continues, "Let there be a firmament!" and this firmament instantaneously becomes real by the operation of the Word, and God gives it the name of 'heaven'. "God said: Let the dry land appear!" and the waters gather in a single body. God said moreover: 'Let the sun be!' and it was; and so for the moon, the stars, the day, the terrestrial and aquatic animals, and the birds. But by nature the elements themselves cannot draw from their own resources the possibility of escaping corruption, on the contrary, they need the hand of He that maintains them in good condition: this is the sense of the words of Moses: "the breath of God was moving over the waters." Indeed the breath of God vivifies anything, because He is life also by nature, as He proceeds from the life of the Father; everything needs Him, and there is no other means for anything to obtain existence in order to be what it is.
28. So contemplate, as I have just said, the firmament firmly established by the Word and the firm ground emerging after the gathering of the waters in a single body; contemplate the green earth full of grass and trees, and the vital forces included in them which makes possible for them to conceal their transitory nature with the virtue of eternity, to last and remain; see the luminaries of the firmament, created by God only for the purpose of lighting what is on earth, to mark the moments of time, the days, the years! Moses adds that the earth accepted the order to give rise to the brute animals, the Creator on his side distributing to each its form, size and conditions of existence.
And when everything in the world had finally been created, when nothing for lacking to supply the needs of man, then, and only then, did the Creator begin to think of the way in which He was going to realise man himself. Because the creation of man, unlike the other creative acts, could not be improvised. The supreme being, in the conception of some and actually, is just grandeur and perfection -- some even say that it is the loss of any spirit, any language, any admiration: however He decided to form the animal in His own image, as much as could be made. Also, having every reason to ensure that this, which must be in His image and resemblance, namely man, did not appear weak, contemptible or different enough from the other animals, He chose to create him only after serious reflection.
29. However, it will be said without inaccuracy, that nothing could escape the divine spirit, since He knows everything indeed before it is born; why then did God reflect, even though He knew in advance the nature of man? The incomparable Moses, as I said, affirms that it was in conformity with the divine economy that man was to some extent honoured by the deliberation of the Creator; he shows that his creation was not done quite simply, might one say, not just like any other: everything happens as if God had taken a particular care of this action. The expression is undoubtedly forced --- but I grant that it appears quite sensible; we affirm that the man is most important of the animals, and was made to resemble He that created him.
The irresistible will of God brought into existence the whole of creation: it is not difficult, I think, to convince ourselves of this, even if we only read what Julian's Masters of Superstition wrote. All of them believed that it was right to think and say that everything was somehow created by God, spiritual realities or physical realities, invisible things or visible things. They were unanimous in confessing that everything is in the hands of the King and Lord of the universe; Plato even ascribes these words to him:
"Gods of the gods, works of which I am the Creator and the Father..."
[ Extract from the Timaeus ; see ch. 33 below ].
But we have already quoted the Greeks on this point, and I want to avoid repetition. I will however mention the words of Hermes Trismegistus in his book To Asclepius .
30. This says: "Osiris exclaimed: Then, O very great Good Genius, how did all the earth appear? And the great Good Genius answered: According to a preconceived plan and, as I said, by draining; the body of water received from the Lord the order to draw itself together, the whole earth appeared, muddy and shaken by tremors; the sun then began to shine, spreading its heat without pause, and made the earth dry, which stood within water, surrounded by water." Another passage reads: "the Creator and Lord of the universe shouted: Let the earth be, let a firmament appear! and all at once the earth was, the first element of creation. " So much for the earth; about the sun Hermes speaks as follows: "Osiris said: Thrice great Good Genius, from where did this large sun appear? and the other answered: Osiris, do you wish us to relate the birth of the sun, the way in which it appeared? It appeared by the providence of the supreme Master! The creation of the sun by the supreme Master was done by the operation of his holy and creative Word."
In a similar way, Hermes writes in book I of his Detailed Commentary to Tat : "the Lord of the universe shouted at once by his holy, spiritual and creative Word: Let the sun be! and, at the very moment he said it, the fire which proceeds from an ascended nature --- I understand by this, the unmixed fire, the brightest, most effective and fertile that may be --- was attracted to Nature thanks to the breath which animated it, and was gathered by his care towards the high parts, far from water."
31. Everything was created on the orders of God and by the operation of the creative Word: that, man must think, and it is in conformity with the truth to say it. But how, and by what means it was so, God alone knows!
God distributes to each thing created this or that type of being according to His good pleasure. He determines the mode of existence of each. To be convinced of this, it is only necessary to listen to Moses: "Let there be a firmament! and it was so", and again: "Let the waters gather in one place and let the dry ground appear!" Such formulas determine the exact nature of each thing which is brought into being.
However, once again, Hermes Trismegistus the Greek raises the subject; he puts into his work God saying to the creatures: