The reader will remember that in Chapter IV. an explanation was given of the “day” and “night” of Brahma. The former represents a certain period of cosmical activity, the latter an equal one of cosmical repose. In the one, worlds are being evolved, and passing through their allotted four ages of existence; in the latter the “inbreathing” of Brahma reverses the tendency of the natural forces; everything visible becomes gradually dispersed; chaos comes; and a long night of repose reinvigorates the cosmos for its next term of evolution. In the morning of one

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of these “days” the formative processes are gradually reaching their climax of activity; in the evening imperceptibly diminishing the same until the pralaya arrives, and with it “night.” One such morning and evening do, in fact, constitute a cosmic day; and it was a “day of Brahma” that the kabalistic author of Genesis had in mind each time when he said: “And the evening and the morning were the first (or fifth or sixth, or any other) day.” Six days of gradual evolution, one of repose, and then — evening! Since the first appearance of man on our earth there has been an eternal Sabbath or rest for the Demiurge.

The cosmogonical speculations of the first six chapters of Genesis are shown in the races of “sons of God,” “giants,” etc., of chapter vi. Properly speaking, the story of the formation of our earth, or “creation,” as it is very improperly called, begins with the rescue of Noah from the deluge. The Chaldeo-Babylonian tablets recently translated by George Smith leave no doubt of that in the minds of those who read the inscriptions esoterically. Ishtar, the great goddess, speaks in column iii. of the destruction of the sixth world and the appearance of the seventh, thus:

Six days and nights the wind, deluge, and storm overwhelmed.

“On the seventh day, in its course was calmed the storm, and all the deluge,

“which had destroyed like an earthquake,

“quieted. The sea he caused to dry, and the wind and deluge ended. . . .

“I perceived the shore at the boundary of the sea. . . .

“to the country of Nizir went the ship (argha, or the moon).

“the mountain of Nizir stopped the ship. . . .

“the first day, and the second day, the mountain of Nizir the same.

“the fifth and the sixth, the mountain of Nizir the same.

“on the seventh day, in the course of it

“I sent forth a dove, and it left. The dove went and turned, and . . . the raven went . . . and did          not return.

“I built an altar on the peak of the mountain.

“by seven herbs I cut, at the bottom of them I placed reeds, pines, and simgar. . . .

“the gods like flies over the sacrifice gathered.”from of old also the great God in his course.

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“the great brightness (the sun) of Anu had created. When the glory of those gods the charm round my neck would not repel,” etc.

All this has a purely astronomical, magical, and esoteric relation. One who reads these tablets will recognize at a glance the biblical account; and judge, at the same time, how disfigured is the great Babylonian poem by euhemeric personages — degraded from their exalted positions of gods into simple patriarchs. Space prevents our entering fully into this biblical travesty of the Chaldean allegories. We shall therefore but remind the reader that by the confession of the most unwilling witnesses — such as Lenormant, first the inventor and then champion of the Akkadians — the Chaldeo-Babylonian triad placed under Ilon, the unrevealed deity, is composed of Anu, Nuah, and Bel. Anu is the primordial chaos, the god time and world at once, [[chromos]] and [[Kosmos]], the uncreated matter issued from the one and fundamental principle of all things. As to Nuah, he is, according to the same Orientalist:

“. . . the intelligence, we will willingly say the verbum, which animates and fecundates matter, which penetrates the universe, directs and makes it live; and at the same time Nuah is the king of the humid principle; the Spirit moving on the waters.

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