IT was an ancient Tradition among the Heathen, that the World was created out of a Chaos.
First of all the ancient Greek Poet Hesiod, who may contend for Antiquity with Homer himself, makes mention of it in his Theogonia, not far from the beginning, in these words. […]. First of all there was a Chaos. And a few Verses after, speaking of the immediate Production or Off-spring of the Chaos, he saith, […]. From Chaos proceeded Hell, and Night [or Darkness] which seems to have its foundation or occasion from the second Verse of the first Chapter of Genesis; And the Earth was without form and void; and darkness was upon the face of the deep. Of this testimony of Hesiod, Lactantius takes notice, and censures it, in the first Book of his Institutions […] Hesiodus non à Deo conditore, sumens exordium, sed à Chao, quod est rudis inordinat á que materiae confusae congeries. Hesiod not taking his beginning from God the Creator of all things, but from the Chaos, which is a rude and inordinate heap of confused matter. And so Ovid describes it in the beginning of his Metamorphosis; Quem dixere Chaos, rudis indigestáque moles, Nec quicquam nisi pondus iners congestáque eôdem Non bene junctarum discordia semina rerum.
That is, One face had Nature, which they Chaos nam’d An undigested lump, a barren load, Where jarring Seeds of things ill joyn’d aboad. Others of the Ancients have also made mention of the Chaos, as Aristophanes in Avibus. […], &c. And Lucan in the beginning of his first Book Antiquum repetent iterum Chaos omnia, &c. Of the formation of all the Parts of the World out of this Chaos, Ovid in the place fore-quoted, gives us a full and particular description: and Euripides before him a brief one, […], […], &c. The Heaven and Earth were at first of one form; but after they were separated, the Earth brought forth Trees, Birds, Beasts, Fishes and Mankind.
The like account also the ancient Philosopher Anaxagoras gives of the Creation of the World, beginning his Philosophy thus, […]: that is, All things (at first) were together, or mingled and confused, then Mind supervening disposed them in a beautiful order.
That which I chiefly dislike in this Opinion of theirs is, that they make no mention of the Creation of this Chaos, but seem to look upon it as self-existent and improduced.
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