Chapter XXVII.--Account of the Creation.
"In the beginning, [546] when God had made the heaven and the earth, [547] as one house, the shadow which was cast by the mundane bodies involved in darkness those things which were enclosed in it. But when the will of God had introduced light, that darkness which had been caused by the shadows of bodies was straightway dispelled: then at length light is appointed for the day, darkness for the night. And now the water which was within the world, in the middle space of that first heaven and earth, congealed as if with frost, and solid as crystal, is distended, and the middle spaces of the heaven and earth are separated as by a firmament of this sort; and that firmament the Creator called heaven, so called by the name of that previously made: and so He divided into two portions that fabric of the universe, although it was but one house. The reason of the division was this, that the upper portion might afford a dwelling-place to angels, and the lower to men. After this, the place of the sea and the chaos which had been made received that portion of the water which remained below, by order of the eternal Will; and these flowing down to the sunk and hollow places, the dry land appeared; and the gatherings of the waters were made seas. And after this the earth, which had appeared, produced various species of herbs and shrubs. It gave forth fountains also, and rivers, not only in the plains, but on the mountains. And so all things were prepared, that men who were to dwell in it might have it in their power to use all these things according to their will, that is, either for good or evil."
[546] [Hilgenfeld regards chaps. 27-72 as part of the Jewish-Christian document called Kerygma Petri, of which an outline is given in book iii. 75. This he thinks was of Roman origin. Certainly these chapters bear many marks of an earlier origin than most of the pseudo-Clementine literature. Much of the matter is not found elsewhere in this literature: the tone of the discourse is much superior; the instruction represented as given to Clement, is quite well adapted to his needs as a heathen inquirer; the views presented are not so extravagant as much that occurs in the Homilies; the attempt to adjust the statements to the New-Testament narrative is skilfully made, and there is not lacking a great vraisemblance. It may not be improper to add, that the impressions first given in regard to this passage were made upon the writer of this note quite independently of Hilgenfeld's theory; some of them committed to writing without a thought of maintaining that theory.--R.]
[547] Gen. i. 1.
Chapter XXVIII.--Account of the Creation Continued.
"After this He adorns that visible heaven with stars. He places in it also the sun and the moon, that the day might enjoy the light of the one, the night that of the other; and that at the same time they might be for an indication of things past, present, and future. For they were made for signs of seasons and of days, which, although they are seen indeed by all, are understood only by the learned and intelligent. And when, after this, He had ordered living creatures to be produced from the earth and the waters, He made Paradise, which also He named a place of delights. But after all these things He made man, on whose account He had prepared all things, whose internal species [548] is older, and for whose sake all things that are were made, given up to his service, and assigned to the uses of his habitation."
[548] That is, his soul, according to the doctrine of the pre-existence of souls.
Chapter XXIX.--The Giants: the Flood.
"All things therefore being completed which are in heaven, and in earth, and in the waters, and the human race also having multiplied, in the eighth generation, righteous men, who had lived the life of angels, being allured by the beauty of women, fell into promiscuous and illicit connections with these; [549] and thenceforth acting in all things without discretion, and disorderly, they changed the state of human affairs and the divinely prescribed order of life, so that either by persuasion or force they compelled all men to sin against God their Creator. In the ninth generation are born the giants, so called from of old, [550] not dragon-footed, as the fables of the Greeks relate, but men of immense bodies, whose bones, of enormous size, are still shown in some places for confirmation. But against these the righteous providence of God brought a flood upon the world, that the earth might be purified from their pollution, and every place might be turned into a sea by the destruction of the wicked. Yet there was then found one righteous man, by name Noah, who, being delivered in an ark with his three sons and their wives, became the colonizer of the world after the subsiding of the waters, with those animals and seeds which he had shut up with him."
[549] Gen. vi. 2. [Compare with this chapter Homily VIII. 12-17, where there are many more fanciful details.--R]
[550] The writer here translates the words of the Septuagint, of hoi gigantes hoi ap' aionos hoi anthropoi hoi onomastoi, illi qui a seculo nominantur. We have given the translation of our authorized version. It is likely, however, that the writer believed the name to imply that they lived to a great age, as is maintained by Diodorus quoted by Suicer on the word, or he may have traced the word to ge.