servant of God, as he is looked upon in the Biblethey are of far less importance than the sun and moon;1 from his point of view, they exist only in order to illumine the dark nights with their sparkling light, to delight man with their nocturnal shining, to guide wanderers and sailors, to be objects for the intelligence of astronomers, and last, though not least, in order that man, when he contemplates them,whether simply gazing at the nocturnal starry splendour of the skies, or wandering in spirit hand and hand with science through the vast spaces of the heavens, and measuring the paths of the stars,-should, through the contemplation of their wonders, acknowledge and adore the greatness and wisdom of the Master who has created and who sustains them all.

Palestine occupies a very humble position amongst the countries in the physical description of the earth, and Bethlehem occupies a still humbler one among the towns; but in the history of religion, Palestine is more important than America, and Bethlehem than London. Whatever places may be assigned to the earth, sun, moon, and other stars, in a system of astronomy, no other could have been given to them in the first chapter of the Bible than was given by Moses.

The second objection brought forward by Strauss is connected with this first point; he thinks it is wrong to suppose that "five whole days should have been spent on the creation and development of the earth,

1 As S. Chrysostom says, "The sun and moon are called the two great lights, not with reference to their size, but with reference to their efficacy and power; for although other stars may be larger than the moon, yet the moon produces more effect on the earth, and to our senses she appears to be larger." S. Thomas Aquinas, i. q. 70, a. 1, ad 5.

while one single day was sufficient for the creation of the sun besides all the fixed stars, planets, and moons. To this it may be answered that the account of the fourth day of the Hexæmeron need not be supposed to refer to the creation of the sun and the stars, and we need not therefore assume that the stars were only created or formed on the fourth day. The Hexameron, as a geogony and not a cosmogony, is no way concerned with the creation of the stars; it simply describes the creation of the earth, and therefore in the account of the fourth day it is not said when and how the stars were created, but only that on this day they were brought into their present relation to the earth, or rather that the earth was brought into its present relation to them. Genesis does not say that the stars first began to exist on the fourth day,-it does not say when they began to exist at all,—but only that they began to exist for the earth on the fourth day, and that on this day began the relation between the earth and the stars, in consequence of which the stars are lights and signs for the earth. If a gradual and slow formation of the stars took place, it may have been already accomplished before the creation of the earth, or it may have taken place simultaneously with the development of the earth during the first three days; Moses had no need to speak of it, the stars could only be mentioned in his geogony when their relation to the earth was regulated and fixed, or when the development of the earth had progressed so far that it was incorporated as a single member of the stellar system.1

"In the description of the work of the fourth day, the sun and moon and also the stars are spoken of only in their relation to the earth, and are

But here another chronological difficulty seems to arise. Supposing that, according to the most recent calculations, light travels about 42,000 geographical miles a second, astronomers tell us that the nearest fixed star would have been visible on the earth only after three and a half years, the polar star after thirty, and stars of the twelfth magnitude only after 4000 years, and that therefore the stars of the milky way and of the nebulæ must have been created many myriad and even million years before their light could

in nowise considered as they are in themselves. It is therefore a non sequitur to insist that the sun and moon as well as all the fixed stars were really created, that is, called into being from nothing, only on the fourth day, after the earth had been fully formed as a heavenly body. The record does not tell us what these heavenly bodies are in themselves, neither does it say when and how they were created to be what they are in themselves. No doubt the work of the fourth day is introduced like all the others by the creative and God said, Let there be,' but we are in addition told what is the purpose of the stars that shine on the earth, viz. to give light. All that the words of the record require is that they should not have fulfilled that purpose before, but only then for the first time; for this relation of the stars to the earth, which only then began, which was only then regulated and fixed, is just as much an act and a result of creative activity as the regulation of the relation between light and darkness, between land and sea. Thus it is said quite rightly, 'God set them in the firmament (Rakiah) of the heaven ;' for as Rakiah means the heaven over the earth, which was only created on the second day, the stars, even if they existed before the second day, could not be considered as standing in the Rakiah, but could only take their place in this sky when they began to have some relation to the earth. The explanation of 'God made' the sun, moon, and stars in ver. 16 is just as easy and unstrained, for He then first fitted them for the earth, and they then first began to exist for the earth. But this does not in any way exclude the supposition that, as they are in themselves, they were created much earlier. It therefore remains uncertain whether the sun, moon, and stars were first created after the earth, or whether they existed in a completely formed condition before the creation of the earth, but were then first connected with the earth; or lastly, whether they were formed coincidently with the earth, and in stages so similar that on the fourth day for the first time both they and the earth were in a condition to assume and thenceforth to preserve the ordained relations to each other." Kurtz, Bibel und Astronomie, p. 101; similarly Vosen, Das Christenthum, p. 749.

have reached the earth. And yet not only are they visible to us, but so far as human memory reaches they always have been visible.1

Kurtz objects that it is by no means certain that the ray of light, whose velocity is no doubt in the ether of our planetary system limited to 42,000 miles in a whole second, is confined to this snail's pace everywhere in space; but this carries no weight. We must admit the assertions of astronomers that there are stars whose light, according to the laws of nature, would take thousands of years to reach us. But this only throws difficulties in the way of those theologians who hold the literal theory of the six days, and they could always say with an English man of science :? The distinct light of the sun, and each of the fixed stars, was cast to its utmost limit the very instant they were called into existence. Light moves progressively from those luminous bodies to which it is attached, but it moves and radiates only in the track which the first rays which emanated from the hand of the Creator had marked out to those that were to follow." In other words, God may have created the stars in such a manner that even the farthest were at once connected with the earth through their rays of

Pfaff, Schöpfungsgeschichte, p. 146. Kurtz, p. 307. Cf. Mädler, p. 653: "W. Herschel estimated the time which light would take to travel from the farthest nebula which was just visible through his telescope at two millions of years. His contemporaries thought the computation too bold, but it is not difficult to show that it is considerably under the reality." Mädler's calculations showed that light would take eighty millions of years to travel from the nebula to the earth, the minimum would be thirty-two millions; the first computation would make the distance, expressed in miles, reach a number of twenty-one figures.

2 C. B. Geology, etc., p. iii.; cf. Wagner, Gesch. der Urwelt, i. § 12.

light, while for the later diffusion of light those laws were given which astronomy has discovered by observation.

However, as I have said, it is only those theologians who hold the literal theory of the six days who are obliged to take refuge in this somewhat hazardous assumption.1 According to the more liberal theory of the six days, there is time enough for the rays of light from the farthest stars to reach the earth before the creation of man, whatever astronomers may decide as to the measure of the velocity of light and the mode of its diffusion.

Even if the scientific hypothesis be correct, according to which the stars were formed by the gradual cooling and thickening of a gaseous matter, a cosmic vapour,2 -as we know, it is often supposed that such star matter still exists in space in the shape of the socalled nebulæ, -and if the stars have really undergone a process of formation lasting many thousand years, yet this would not afford any difficulty to the exegete, provided he does not hold the literal theory of the six days.

1 Pianciani, Cosmogonia, p. 119, quotes with reference to this assumption the following passage from Suarez (de op. sex, d. 1. 2, c. 7): Opera miraculosa vel extraordinaria absque necessitate vel sufficienti testimonio audienda non sunt.

* C. Pfaff, Die neuesten Forschungen, p. 17. For some objections to this hypothesis, see Ulrici, Gott und die Natur, p. 344.

3 After Lord Rosse and others had succeeded in ascertaining by means of powerful telescopes that many of the so-called nebulæ are masses of stars crowded together, Humboldt (Kosmos, iii. 48) and Mädler (Ges. Naturw. iii. 649, 652) thought it probable that all the nebula were in reality groups of stars. But according to more recent investigations by means of the spectrum analysis, it appears that many nebulæ really consist of coherent gaseous matter, which is not yet divided into separate masses. Pfaff, Schöpfungsgeschichte, 2nd ed. pp. 185, 188. Le Soleil in Etudes religieuses, N. S. t. 13 (1867), 404.