4. The serpent appears and overthrows this Eden.
5. Fire falls from heaven and destroys a large part of the human race.
6. A remnant take refuge in a cave.
7. Man is driven out of the Edenic land, and a blazing sword, a
conflagration, waves between him and Paradise, between Niflheim and
Muspelheim.
What next?
We return now to the first chapter of this dislocated text:
Verse 2. "And the earth _was without form, and void_."
That is to say, chaos had come in the train of the comet. Otherwise,
how can we understand how God, as stated in the preceding verse, has
just made the heavens
{p. 330}
and the earth? How could his work have been so imperfect?
"_And darkness was upon the face of the deep_."
This is the primeval night referred to in all the legends; the long
age of darkness upon the earth.
"And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters."
The word for _spirit_, in Hebrew, as in Latin, originally meant
_wind_; and this passage might be rendered, "a mighty wind swept the
face of the waters." This wind represents, I take it, the great
cyclones of the Drift Age.
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