260 On the Cosmogony of Moses; 
are presently told by Menu that each day comprehended a long 
succession of ages. In the Etruscan Cosmogony, which bears a 
still more striking analogy to the Hebrew, and on which your 
correspondent has forgotten to make any remark, the duration 
of each period is expressly mentioned to have been a chiliad, or 
a thousand years. Ifthe Hindoos and Etruscans derived these 
records from the same source whence Moses obtained his account, 
which I think almost certain, the conclusion | have drawn seems 
to be scarcely avoidable. 
I now proceed to “ the other and more weighty oljection— 
that it does not appear that the Hebrew people ever understood 
the six days of the creation” in any other sense than the literal 
one. And here I would beg leave to ask Mr. F. E——s how 
we are to interpret the passage in which it is said that God 
created man after his own image. Are we to understand by a 
metaphor, that man was created an intellectual and moral being; 
or must we receive the expressions literally, as we have reason 
to believe the Hebrew people did, who are supposed on good 
grounds to have been anthropomorphites? Ifso, I presume we 
must also give a literal interpretation to such phrases as ‘ Jt 
repented God,” “ God rested on the seventh day,” &c. &e. 
And if we succeed in establishing all, these points, we shall at 
length bring the theology of Moses much more nearly on a leyel 
with that of Hesiod than it has been supposed to be. If, how- 
eyer, as I suppose it will be conceded, these expressions demand 
a figurative explanation, though the Hebrew people, at least the 
vulgar, understcod them literally; I am at liberty to assume the 
same latitude with respect to the days of the creation. While 
adverting to the prevalent notions of the Hebrews on this sub- 
ject, it is somewhat surprising that Mr. F. E s did not think 
it worth while to take notice of the opinions of the two most 
learned antiquaries of that nation, viz. Josephus and Philo, 
whom I cited in my last paper, and who expressly affirm that 
the account of the six days’ work is metaphorical. Philo parti-, 
cularly says, * It is a piece of rustic simplicity to understand it 
literally.” 
Lastly; Mr. F. E s says that I have effected the coinci- 
dences which I call upon him to admire between the Cosmogony 
and the Epochs of Nature, by transferring the creation of zodphytes 
and testacea from the fifth ‘day to the third; whereas, according 
to the sense in which the twentieth and two following verses in - 
the first chapter of Genesis ‘have hitherto been generally under- 
stood, all the inhabitants of the waters were called into ex- 
istence on the fifth day.” It is of little importance in what 
sense these passages have been generally understood by careless 
readers, if the expressions they contain will not bear the con- 
struction 
