History Of The Warfare Of Science With Theology In Christendom

by Andrew Dickson White

  Then comes the third stage: advanced theologians endeavour to compromise on the idea that Adam was "given verbal roots and a mental power."

  Finally, in our time, we have them accepting the theory that language is the result of an evolutionary process in obedience to laws more or less clearly ascertained. Babel thus takes its place quietly among the sacred myths.

  As to the origin of writing, we have the more eminent theologians at first insisting that God taught Adam to write; next we find them gradually retreating from this position, but insisting that writing was taught to the world by Noah. After the retreat from this position, we find them insisting that it was Moses whom God taught to write. But scientific modes of thought still progressed, and we next have influential theologians agreeing that writing was a Mosaic invention; this is followed by another theological retreat to the position that writing was a post-Mosaic invention. Finally, all the positions are relinquished, save by some few skirmishers who appear now and then upon the horizon, making attempts to defend some subtle method of "reconciling" the Babel myth with modern science.

  Just after the middle of the nineteenth century the last stage of theological defence was evidently reached--the same which is seen in the history of almost every science after it has successfully fought its way through the theological period--the declaration which we have already seen foreshadowed by Wiseman, that the scientific discoveries in question are nothing new, but have really always been known and held by the Church, and that they simply substantiate the position taken by the Church. This new contention, which always betokens the last gasp of theological resistance to science, was now echoed from land to land. In 1856 it was given forth by a divine of the Anglican Church, Archdeacon Pratt, of Calcutta. He gives a long list of eminent philologists who had done most to destroy the old supernatural view of language, reads into their utterances his own wishes, and then exclaims, "So singularly do their labours confirm the literal truth of Scripture."

  Two years later this contention was echoed from the American Presbyterian Church, and Dr. B. W. Dwight, having stigmatized as "infidels" those who had not incorporated into their science the literal acceptance of Hebrew legend, declared that "chronology, ethnography, and etymology have all been tortured in vain to make them contradict the Mosaic account of the early history of man." Twelve years later this was re-echoed from England. The Rev. Dr. Baylee, Principal of the College of St. Aidan's, declared, "With regard to the varieties of human language, the account of the confusion of tongues is receiving daily confirmation by all the recent discoveries in comparative philology." So, too, in the same year (1870), in the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland, Dr. John Eadie, Professor of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, declared, "Comparative philology has established the miracle of Babel."

  A skill in theology and casuistry so exquisite as to contrive such assertions, and a faith so robust as to accept them, certainly leave nothing to be desired. But how baseless these contentions are is shown, first, by the simple history of the attitude of the Church toward this question; and, secondly, by the fact that comparative philology now reveals beyond a doubt that not only is Hebrew not the original or oldest language upon earth, but that it is not even the oldest form in the Semitic group to which it belongs. To use the words of one of the most eminent modern authorities, "It is now generally recognised that in grammatical structure the Arabic preserves much more of the original forms than either the Hebrew or Aramaic."

  History, ethnology, and philology now combine inexorably to place the account of the confusion of tongues and the dispersion of races at Babel among the myths; but their work has not been merely destructive: more and more strong are the grounds for belief in an evolution of language.

  A very complete acceptance of the scientific doctrines has been made by Archdeacon Farrar, Canon of Westminster. With a boldness which in an earlier period might have cost him dear, and which merits praise even now for its courage, he says: "For all reasoners except that portion of the clergy who in all ages have been found among the bitterest enemies of scientific discovery, these considerations have been conclusive. But, strange to say, here, as in so many other instances, this self-styled orthodoxy--more orthodox than the Bible itself--directly contradicts the very Scriptures which it professes to explain, and by sheer misrepresentation succeeds in producing a needless and deplorable collision between the statements of Scripture and those other mighty and certain truths which have been revealed to science and humanity as their glory and reward."

  Still another acknowledgment was made in America through the instrumentality of a divine of the Methodist Episcopal Church, whom the present generation at least will hold in honour not only for his scholarship but for his patriotism in the darkest hour of his country's need--John McClintock. In the article on Language, in the Biblical Cyclopaedia, edited by him and the Rev. Dr. Strong, which appeared in 1873, the whole sacred theory is given up, and the scientific view accepted.[421]

  [421] For Kayser, see his work, Ueber die Ursprache, oder uber eine Behauptung Mosis, dass alle Sprachen der Welt von einer einzigen der Noahhischen abstammen, Erlangen, 1840; see especially pp. 5, 80, 95, 112. For Wiseman, see his Lectures on the Connection between Science and Revealed Religion, London, 1836. For examples typical of very many in this field, see the works of Pratt, 1856; Dwight, 1858; Jamieson, 1868. For citation from Cumming, see his Great Tribulation, London, 1859, p. 4; see also his Things Hard to be Understood, London, 1861, p. 48. For an admirable summary of the work of the great modern philologists, and a most careful estimate of the conclusions reached, see Prof. Whitney's article on Philology in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. A copy of Mr. Atkinson's book is in the Harvard College Library, it having been presented by the Trustees of the Public Library of Victoria. For Galloway, see his Philosophy of the Creation, Edinburgh and London, 1885, pp. 21, 238, 239, 446. For citation from Baylee, see his Verbal Inspiration the True Characteristic of God's Holy Word, London, 1870, p. 14 and elsewhere. For Archdeacon Pratt, see his Scripture and Science not at Variance, London, 1856, p. 55. For the citation from Dr. Eadie, see his Biblical Cyclopaedia, London, 1870, p. 53. For Dr. Dwight, see The New-Englander, vol. xvi, p. 465. For the theological article referred to as giving up the sacred theory, see the Cyclopaedia of Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, prepared by Rev. John McClintock, D. D., and James Strong, New York, 1873, vol. v, p. 233. For Arabic as an earlier Semitic development than Hebrew, as well as for much other valuable information on the questions recently raised, see article Hebrew, by W. R. Smith, in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. For quotation from Canon Farrar, see his language and Languages, London, 1878, pp. 6,7.

  It may, indeed, be now fairly said that the thinking leaders of theology have come to accept the conclusions of science regarding the origin of language, as against the old explanations by myth and legend. The result has been a blessing both to science and to religion. No harm has been done to religion; what has been done is to release it from the clog of theories which thinking men saw could no longer be maintained. No matter what has become of the naming of the animals by Adam, of the origin of the name Babel, of the fear of the Almighty lest men might climb up into his realm above the firmament, and of the confusion of tongues and the dispersion of nations; the essentials of Christianity, as taught by its blessed Founder, have simply been freed, by Comparative Philology, from one more great incubus, and have therefore been left to work with more power upon the hearts and minds of mankind.

  Nor has any harm been done to the Bible. On the contrary, this divine revelation through science has made it all the more precious to us. In these myths and legends caught from earlier civilizations we see an evolution of the most important religious and moral truths for our race. Myth, legend, and parable seem, in obedience to a divine law, the necessary setting for these truths, as they are successively evolved, ever in higher and higher forms. What matters it, then, that we have come to know that the accounts of Creation, t
he Fall, the Deluge, and much else in our sacred books, were remembrances of lore obtained from the Chaldeans? What matters it that the beautiful story of Joseph is found to be in part derived from an Egyptian romance, of which the hieroglyphs may still be seen? What matters it that the story of David and Goliath is poetry; and that Samson, like so many men of strength in other religions, is probably a sun-myth? What matters it that the inculcation of high duty in the childhood of the world is embodied in such quaint stories as those of Jonah and Balaam? The more we realize these facts, the richer becomes that great body of literature brought together within the covers of the Bible. What matters it that those who incorporated the Creation lore of Babylonia and other Oriental nations into the sacred books of the Hebrews, mixed it with their own conceptions and deductions? What matters it that Darwin changed the whole aspect of our Creation myths; that Lyell and his compeers placed the Hebrew story of Creation and of the Deluge of Noah among legends; that Copernicus put an end to the standing still of the sun for Joshua; that Halley, in promulgating his law of comets, put an end to the doctrine of "signs and wonders"; that Pinel, in showing that all insanity is physical disease, relegated to the realm of mythology the witch of Endor and all stories of demoniacal possession; that the Rev. Dr. Schaff, and a multitude of recent Christian travellers in Palestine, have put into the realm of legend the story of Lot's wife transformed into a pillar of salt; that the anthropologists, by showing how man has risen everywhere from low and brutal beginnings, have destroyed the whole theological theory of "the fall of man"? Our great body of sacred literature is thereby only made more and more valuable to us: more and more we see how long and patiently the forces in the universe which make for righteousness have been acting in and upon mankind through the only agencies fitted for such work in the earliest ages of the world--through myth, legend, parable, and poem.

  Chapter XVIII. From The Dead Sea Legends To Comparative Mythology,

  I. The Growth Of Explanatory Transformation Myths.

  A few years since, Maxime Du Camp, an eminent member of the French Academy, travelling from the Red Sea to the Nile through the Desert of Kosseir, came to a barren slope covered with boulders, rounded and glossy.

  His Mohammedan camel-driver accounted for them on this wise:

  "Many years ago Hadji Abdul-Aziz, a sheik of the dervishes, was travelling on foot through this desert: it was summer: the sun was hot and the dust stifling; thirst parched his lips, fatigue weighed down his back, sweat dropped from his forehead, when looking up he saw--on this very spot--a garden beautifully green, full of fruit, and, in the midst of it, the gardener.

  "`O fellow-man,' cried Hadji Abdul-Aziz, `in the name of Allah, clement and merciful, give me a melon and I will give you my prayers.'"

  The gardener answered: `I care not for your prayers; give me money, and I will give you fruit.'

  "`But,' said the dervish, `I am a beggar; I have never had money; I am thirsty and weary, and one of your melons is all that I need.'

  "`No,' said the gardener; `go to the Nile and quench your thirst.'

  "Thereupon the dervish, lifting his eyes toward heaven, made this prayer: `O Allah, thou who in the midst of the desert didst make the fountain of Zem-Zem spring forth to satisfy the thirst of Ismail, father of the faithful: wilt thou suffer one of thy creatures to perish thus of thirst and fatigue? '

  "And it came to pass that, hardly had the dervish spoken, when an abundant dew descended upon him, quenching his thirst and refreshing him even to the marrow of his bones.

  "Now at the sight of this miracle the gardener knew that the dervish was a holy man, beloved of Allah, and straightway offered him a melon.

  "`Not so,' answered Hadji Abdul-Aziz; `keep what thou hast, thou wicked man. May thy melons become as hard as thy heart, and thy field as barren as thy soul!'

  "And straightway it came to pass that the melons were changed into these blocks of stone, and the grass into this sand, and never since has anything grown thereon."

  In this story, and in myriads like it, we have a survival of that early conception of the universe in which so many of the leading moral and religious truths of the great sacred books of the world are imbedded.

  All ancient sacred lore abounds in such mythical explanations of remarkable appearances in nature, and these are most frequently prompted by mountains, rocks, and boulders seemingly misplaced.

  In India we have such typical examples among the Brahmans as the mountain-peak which Durgu threw at Parvati; and among the Buddhists the stone which Devadatti hurled at Buddha.

  In Greece the Athenian, rejoicing in his belief that Athena guarded her chosen people, found it hard to understand why the great rock Lycabettus should be just too far from the Acropolis to be of use as an outwork; but a myth was developed which explained all. According to this, Athena had intended to make Lycabettus a defence for the Athenians, and she was bringing it through the air from Pallene for that very purpose; but, unfortunately, a raven met her and informed her of the wonderful birth of Erichthonius, which so surprised the goddess that she dropped the rock where it now stands.

  So, too, a peculiar rock at Aegina was accounted for by a long and circumstantial legend to the effect that Peleus threw it at Phocas.

  A similar mode of explaining such objects is seen in the mythologies of northern Europe. In Scandinavia we constantly find rocks which tradition accounts for by declaring that they were hurled by the old gods at each other, or at the early Christian churches.

  In Teutonic lands, as a rule, wherever a strange rock or stone is found, there will be found a myth or a legend, heathen or Christian, to account for it.

  So, too, in Celtic countries: typical of this mode of thought in Brittany and in Ireland is the popular belief that such features in the landscape were dropped by the devil or by fairies.

  Even at a much later period such myths have grown and bloomed. Marco Polo gives a long and circumstantial legend of a mountain in Asia Minor which, not long before his visit, was removed by a Christian who, having "faith as a grain of mustard seed," and remembering the Saviour's promise, transferred the mountain to its present place by prayer, "at which marvel many Saracens became Christians."[422]

  [422] For Maxime Du Camp, see Le Nil: Egypte et Nubie, Paris, 1877, chapter v. For India, see Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums, vol. iii, p. 366; also Coleman, Mythology of the Hindus, p. 90. For Greece, as to the Lycabettus myth, see Leake, Topography of Athens, vol. i, sec. 3; also Burnouf, La Legende Athenienne, p. 152. For the rock at Aegina, see Charton, vol. i, p. 310. For Scandanavia, see Thorpe, Northern Antiquities, passim. For Teutonic countries, see Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie; Panzer, Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie, vol. ii; Zingerle, Sagen aus Tyrol, pp. 111 et seq., 488, 504, 543; and especially J. B. Friedrich, Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur, pp. 116 et seq. For Celtic examples I am indebted to that learned and genial scholar, Prof. J. P. Mahaffy, of Trinity College, Dublin. See also story of the devil dropping a rock when forced by the archangel Michael to aid him in building Mont Saint-Michel on the west coast of France, in Sebillot's Traditions de la Haute Bretagne, vol. i, p. 22; also multitudes of other examples in the same work. For Marco Polo, see in Grynaeus, p. 337; also Charton, Voyageurs anciens et modernes, tome ii, pp. 274 et seq., where the legend is given in full.

  Similar mythical explanations are also found, in all the older religions of the world, for curiously marked meteoric stones, fossils, and the like.

  Typical examples are found in the imprint of Buddha's feet on stones in Siam and Ceylon; in the imprint of the body of Moses, which down to the middle of the last century was shown near Mount Sinai; in the imprint of Poseidon's trident on the Acropolis at Athens; in the imprint of the hands or feet of Christ on stones in France, Italy, and Palestine; in the imprint of the Virgin's tears on stones at Jerusalem; in the imprint of the feet of Abraham at Jerusalem and of Mohammed on a stone in the Mosque of Khait Bey at Cairo; in the imprint of the fingers of giants on stones in the Scandinavian Pen
insula, in north Germany, and in western France; in the imprint of the devil's thighs on a rock in Brittany, and of his claws on stones which he threw at churches in Cologne and Saint-Pol-de-Leon; in the imprint of the shoulder of the devil's grand mother on the "elbow-stone" at the Mohriner see; in the imprint of St. Otho's feet on a stone formerly preserved in the castle church at Stettin; in the imprint of the little finger of Christ and the head of Satan at Ehrenberg; and in the imprint of the feet of St. Agatha at Catania, in Sicily. To account for these appearances and myriads of others, long and interesting legends were developed, and out of this mass we may take one or two as typical.

  One of the most beautiful was evolved at Rome. On the border of the medieval city stands the church of "Domine quo vadis"; it was erected in honour of a stone, which is still preserved, bearing a mark resembling a human footprint--perhaps the bed of a fossil.

  Out of this a pious legend grew as naturally as a wild rose in a prairie. According to this story, in one of the first great persecutions the heart of St. Peter failed him, and he attempted to flee from the city: arriving outside the walls he was suddenly confronted by the Master, whereupon Peter in amazement asked, "Lord, whither goest thou?" (Domine quo vadis?); to which the Master answered, "To Rome, to be crucified again." The apostle, thus rebuked, returned to martyrdom; the Master vanished, but left, as a perpetual memorial, his footprint in the solid rock.

  Another legend accounts for a curious mark in a stone at Jerusalem. According to this, St. Thomas, after the ascension of the Lord, was again troubled with doubts, whereupon the Virgin Mother threw down her girdle, which left its imprint upon the rock, and thus converted the doubter fully and finally.

  And still another example is seen at the very opposite extreme of Europe, in the legend of the priestess of Hertha in the island of Rugen. She had been unfaithful to her vows, and the gods furnished a proof of her guilt by causing her and her child to sink into the rock on which she stood.[423]