266 
33. Concerning the formation of man, both John Malala 
and Suidas relate the following : — “ Orpheus has asserted that 
f man w r as formed by God out of the earth, and endued with a 
reasonable soul/ in the same way as Moses has revealed.” 
34. Aristophanes, in his comedy of The Birds, thus records 
the Cosmogony of Orpheus, and, though undoubtedly satirical, 
it must afford some satisfaction to certain speculators in the 
present day respecting the origin of men and things. 
First was Chaos and Night, and black Erebus and vast Tartarus ; 
And there was neither Earth, nor Air, nor Heaven : but in the boundless 
bosom of Erebus 
Night, with her black wings, first produced an aerial egg, 
From which at the completed time sprang forth all-delightful Love, 
Glittering with golden wings upon his back, like the swift whirlwinds ; 
But embracing the dark-winged Chaos in the vast Tartarus, 
He begat our race The Birds, and first brought us to light. 
The race of the Immortals was not, till Love mingled all things together, 
But when the elements were mixed one with another, Heaven was pro- 
duced and Oceau, 
And Earth, and the imperishable race of all the blessed gods ! 
35. The cosmogony of the Greeks, as found in the Pythago- 
rean* Fragments, is thus explained by Timseus the Locrian : — 
“ The causes of all things are two — Intellect and Necessity. Of 
these the first is of the nature of good, and is called God, — the 
principle of such things as are most excellent. Before Heaven 
was made, there existed in reality Idea and Matter, and God the 
Creator of the better nature ; and since order is more worthy than 
disorder, God in His goodness, seeing that Matter was continu- 
ally changing, resolved to reduce it to order. Therefore He 
made this world out of all the Matter, and constituted it the 
boundary of Nature, comprising all things within itself, one 
only-begotten, perfect with a soul and intellect ; for such is 
* What are called the “ Pythagorean Fragments” are not the writings of 
Pythagoras himself, but the doctrines believed to have been held by him, as 
reported by Timseus the Locrian, Plato, and others. Although there is an 
extant work written in the Doric dialect bearing the name of Tinncus, who 
is said to have been a teacher of Plato, its genuineness is doubtful, and is in 
all probability nothing more than an abridgment of Plato’s Dialogue in the 
Timazus. There is no doubt, however, that the Greek philosophers had far 
better conceptions of Deity and matter than what certain dogmas to be found 
in their writings seem to convey, or than what many sceptics of the present 
age appear to have. Thus Athenagoras, a Christian philosopher of the 
second century, points out that “ Philolaus, when he says all things are 
included in God as in a stronghold, teaches that lie is one, and that He 
is superior to matter. And I ’Into says, ‘ To find out the Maker and Father 
of this universe is difficult, and when found it is impossible to declare Him 
to all,’ conceiving of one uncreated and Eternal (rod.” (Plea for tin 
Christians, ch. vi.) 
