ON ACCOUNTS OP THE CREATION. 253 



Other versions found iu Phoenicia and Chaldea, which have come from the 

 some primeval stock. 



Rev. F. B. Proctor, M.A. — I wish to ask a question of Mr. Boscawen. 

 He has identified " E.uach " with the word Wisdom. 



Mr. W. St. C. Boscawen. — Yes. 



Kev. F. B. Proctor, M.A. — Yon are, I presume, aAvare tliat that is not 

 the usual acceptation ? 



Mr. W. St. C. Boscawen. — I know that the word is rendered differently. 



Eev. F. B. Proctor, M.A. — Wisdom is identified rather with the ex- 

 pression " God spake," than with the Spirit ; and that I think accords with 

 the idea of the cosmic egg, which is only another way of reading that first 

 chapter of Genesis, in which we are told that the Spirit of God brooded over 

 chaos and hatched, as it were, the life which followed. Is it not the case that 

 the Wisdom spoken of in Proverbs, and all through the Bible, is identified with 

 the Word, and with the incarnate God Himself ? There is another question 

 which occurs to me in reference to what appears on page 238. We 

 clergymen, I suppose, look at these things a little diflerently from others ; 

 but we are open to conviction. On the same page of the paper, I think the 

 author has fallen into a great mistake. Speaking of immortality, he says, 

 — " The Jews in Egypt must have been familiar with the conception. 

 The trial scene of the departed soul before Osiris met their eyes on 

 a thousand tombs, and was wrapped up in a thousand papyrus rolls, 

 but accompanied everywhere by grotesque, repulsive, and ever hideous 

 symbols. No wonder that Moses was silent about a doctrine thus saturated, 

 to his mind, with polytheistic errors." Now, we have always understood from 

 the Pentateuch, and from Genesis in particular, that the idea of immortality, 

 or a future life, was kept in the background. It was not the plan of Moses 

 to develope the idea of immortality. The doctrine existed but as a germ, 

 which went on increasing until we come to our Lord's time. I merely call 

 attention to this as a slip, and do not wish to be too critical. There is 

 another point I would refer to. On page 243, speaking of Brahman, 

 the author says, — " As milk curdles, as water becomes snow and ice, 

 Brahman congeals into matter." When sonfe one asked, " What is 

 matter ? " the answer, given in French, was, " L'esprit congel^." It is 

 singular to see the same thing thus stated with reference to Brahman. 



Mr. W. St. C. Boscawen. — It is curious to find, in one of the books, 

 the idea of future life in the under world, or the grave, or sheol, most fully 

 developed — that book being generally admitted to be the oldest of all, the 

 book of Job. 



Eev. F. B. Proctor, M.A. — But that is disputed. 



Mr. W. St. C. Boscawen. — I have shown, in a book I have published, 

 that the words are, in many cases, word for word with those we find in the 

 Assyrian inscriptions. 



Eev. F. B. Proctor, M.A. — I only spoke of the idea as an undeveloped 

 one. 



