a general burning of a city, or other considerable place.
But the word is more ordinarily restrained to that grand period, or
catastrophe of our world, wherein the face of nature is expected to be
changed by a deluge of fire, as it was anciently by that of water. The
ancient Chaldeans, Pythagoreans, Platonists, Epicureans, Stoics, Celts,
and Etrurians, appear to have had a notion of the conflagration; though
whence they should derive it, unless from the sacred books, it is
difficult to conceive; except, perhaps, from the Phenicians, who
themselves had it from the Jews. The Celts, whose opinions resembled
those of the eastern nations, held, that after the burning of the world,
a new period of existence would commence. The ancient Etrurians, or
Tuscans, also concurred with other western and northern nations of
Celtic origin, as well as with the Stoics, in asserting the entire
renovation of nature after a long period, or great year, when a similar
succession of events would again take place. The cosmogony of an ancient
Etrurian, preserved by Suidas, limits the duration of the universe to a
period of twelve thousand years; six thousand of which passed in the
production of the visible world, before the formation of man. The Stoics
also maintained that the world is liable to destruction from the
prevalence of moisture or of drought; the former producing a universal
inundation, and the latter, a universal conflagration. “These,” they
say, “succeed each other in nature, as regularly as winter and summer.”
The doctrine of conflagration is a natural consequence of the general
system of Stoicism; for, since, according to this system, the whole
process of nature is carried on in a necessary series of causes and
effects, when that operative fire, which at first, bursting from chaos,
gave form to all things, and which has since pervaded and animated all
nature, shall have consumed its nutriment; that is, when the vapours,
which are the food of the celestial fires, shall be exhausted, a
deficiency of moisture must produce a universal conflagration. This
grand revolution in nature is, after the doctrine of the Stoics, thus
elegantly described by Ovid:--
“_Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur, affore tempus
Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia cœli
Ardeat; et mundi moles operosa laboret._”
METAMOR. lib. i, 256.
or, as Dryden has translated the passage,--
“Rememb’ring in the fates a time when fire
Should to the battlements of heaven aspire;
When all his blazing worlds above should burn,
And all the inferior globe to cinders turn.”
Seneca, speaking of the same event, says expressly, “_Tempus advenerit
quo sidera sideribus incurrent, et omni flagrante materia uno igne,
quicquid nunc ex deposito lucet, ardebit_;” that is, “the time will come
when the world will be consumed, that it may be again renewed; when the
powers of nature will be turned against herself, when stars will rush
upon stars, and the whole material world, which now appears resplendent
with beauty and harmony, will be destroyed in one general
conflagration.” In this grand catastrophe of nature, all animated
beings, (excepting the Universal Intelligence,) men, heroes, demons, and
gods, shall perish together. Seneca, the tragedian, who was of the same
school with the philosopher, writes to the same purpose:--
“_Cœli regia concidens
Certos atque obitus trahet:
Atque omnes pariter deos
Perdet mors aliqua, et chaos._”
“The mighty palace of the sky
In ruin fall’n is doomed to lie;
And all the gods, its wreck beneath,
Shall sink in chaos and in death.”
The Pythagoreans also maintained the dogma of conflagration. To this
purpose Hippasus, of Metapontum, taught that the universe is finite, is
always changing, and undergoes a periodical conflagration. Philolaus,
who flourished in the time of Plato, maintained that the world is liable
to destruction both by fire and water. Mention of the conflagration is
also several times made in the books of the Sibyls, Sophocles, Lucan,
&c. Dr. Burnet, after F. Tachard and others, relates that the Siamese
believe that the earth will at last be parched up with heat, the
mountains melted down, and the earth’s whole surface reduced to a level,
and then consumed with fire. And the Bramins of Siam do not only hold
that the world shall be destroyed by fire, but also that a new earth
shall be made out of the cinders of the old. The sacred Scriptures
announce this general destruction of the world by fire in a variety of
passages.
2. Various are the sentiments of authors on the subject of the
conflagration; the cause whence it is to arise, and the effects it is to
produce. Divines ordinarily account for it metaphysically; and will have
it take its rise from a miracle, as a fire from heaven. Philosophers
contend for its being produced from natural causes; and will have it
effected according to the laws of mechanics: some think an eruption of a
central fire sufficient for the purpose; and add, that this may be
occasioned several ways; namely, either by having its intensity
increased, (which, again, may be effected either by being driven into
less space by the encroachments of the superficial cold, or by an
increase of the inflammability of the fuel whereon it is fed,) or by
having the resistance of imprisoning earth weakened; which may happen
either from the diminution of its matter, by the consumption of its
central parts, or by weakening the cohesion of the constituent parts of
the mass, by the excess or the defect of moisture. Others look for the
cause of the conflagration in the atmosphere; and suppose that some of
the meteors there engendered in unusual quantities, and exploded with
unusual vehemence, from the concurrency of various circumstances, may be
made to effect it, without seeking any farther. The astrologers account
for it from a conjunction of all the planets in the sign Cancer; “as the
deluge,” say they, “was occasioned by their conjunction in Capricorn.”
This was an opinion adopted by the ancient Chaldeans. Lastly: others
have recourse to a still more effectual and flaming machine; and
conclude the world is to undergo its conflagration from the near
approach of a comet, in its return from the sun. It is most natural to
conclude, that, as the Scriptures represent the catastrophe as the work
of a moment, no gradually operating natural cause will be employed to
effect it, but that He who spake and the world was created, will again
destroy it by the same word of his power; setting loose at once the
all-devouring element of fire to absorb all others. Beyond this, all is
conjecture.
CONFUSION OF TONGUES is a memorable event, which happened in the one
hundred and first year, according to the Hebrew chronology, after the
flood, B. C. 2247, at the overthrow of Babel; and which was
providentially brought about, in order to facilitate the dispersion of
mankind, and the population of the earth. Until this period, there had
been one common language, which formed a bond of union, that prevented
the separation of mankind into distinct nations.
2. There has been a considerable difference of opinion as to the nature
of this confusion, and the manner in which it was effected. Some learned
men, prepossessed with the notion that all the different idioms now in
the world did at first arise from one original language, to which they
may be reduced, and that the variety among them is no more than must
naturally have happened in a long course of time by the mere separation
of the builders of Babel, have maintained, that there were no new
languages formed at the confusion; but that this event was accomplished
by creating a misunderstanding and variance among the builders, without
any immediate influence on their language. But this opinion, advanced by
Le Clerc, &c, seems to be directly contrary to the obvious meaning of
the word שפה, _lip_, used by the sacred historian; which, in other parts
of Scripture signifies _speech_, Psalm lxxxi, 5; Isaiah xxviii, 11;
xxxiii, 19; Ezekiel iii, 5. It has been justly remarked, that unanimity
of sentiment, and identity of language, are particularly distinguished
from each other, in the history: “The people is one, and they have all
one language,” Gen. xi, 6. It has been also suggested, that if
disagreement in opinion and counsel were the whole that was intended, it
would have had a contrary effect; they would not have desisted from
their project, but strenuously have maintained their respective
opinions, till the greater number of them had compelled the minority
either to fly or to submit. Others have imagined, that this was brought
about by a temporary confusion of their speech, or rather of their
apprehensions, causing them, while they continued together and spoke the
same language, to understand the words differently: Scaliger is of this
opinion. Others again account for this event, by the privation of all
language, and by supposing that mankind were under a necessity of
associating together, and of imposing new names on things by common
consent. Another opinion ascribes the confusion to such an indistinct
remembrance of the original language which they spoke before, as made
them speak it very differently; so that by the various inflections,
terminations, and pronunciations of divers dialects, they could no more
understand one another, than they who understand Latin can understand
those who speak French, Italian, or Spanish, though all these languages
arise out of it. This opinion is adopted by Casaubon, and by Bishop
Patrick in his Commentary, and is certainly much more probable than
either of the former: and Mr. Shuckford maintains, that the confusion
arose from small beginnings, by the invention of new words in either of
the three families of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, which might contribute to
separate them from one another; and that in each family new differences
of speech might gradually arise, so that each of these families went on
to divide and subdivide among themselves. Others, again, as Mr. Joseph
Mede and Dr. Wotton, &c, not satisfied with either of the foregoing
methods of accounting for the diversity of languages among mankind, have
recourse to an extraordinary interposition of divine power, by which new
languages were framed and communicated to different families by a
supernatural infusion or inspiration; which languages have been the
roots and originals from which the several dialects that are, or have
been, or will be, spoken, as long as this earth shall last, have arisen,
and to which they may with ease be reduced.
3. It is, however, unnecessary to suppose, that the primitive language
was completely obliterated, and entire new modes of speech at once
introduced. It was quite sufficient, if such changes only were effected,
as to render the speech of different companies or different tribes
unintelligible to one another, that their mutual coöperation in the mad
attempt in which they had all engaged might be no longer practicable.
The radical stem of the first language might therefore remain in all,
though new dialects were formed, bearing among themselves a similar
relation with what we find in the languages of modern Europe, derived
from the same parent stem, whether Gothic, Latin, or Sclavonian. In the
midst of these changes, it is reasonable to suppose that the primitive
language itself, unaltered, would still be preserved in some one at
least of the tribes or families of the human race. Now in none of these
was the transmission so likely to have taken place, as among that branch
of the descendants of Shem, from which the patriarch Abraham proceeded.
Upon these grounds, therefore, we may probably conclude, that the
language spoken by Abraham, and by him transmitted to his posterity, was
in fact the primitive language, modified indeed and extended in the
course of time, but still retaining its essential parts far more
completely than any other of the languages of men. If these conclusions
are well founded, they warrant the inference, that, in the ancient
Hebrew, there are still to be found the traces of the original speech.
Whether this ancient Hebrew more nearly resembled the Chaldean, the
Syrian, or what is now termed the Hebrew, it is unnecessary here to
inquire; these languages, it has never been denied, were originally and
radically the same, though, from subsequent modifications, they appear
to have assumed somewhat different aspects.
But the word is more ordinarily restrained to that grand period, or
catastrophe of our world, wherein the face of nature is expected to be
changed by a deluge of fire, as it was anciently by that of water. The
ancient Chaldeans, Pythagoreans, Platonists, Epicureans, Stoics, Celts,
and Etrurians, appear to have had a notion of the conflagration; though
whence they should derive it, unless from the sacred books, it is
difficult to conceive; except, perhaps, from the Phenicians, who
themselves had it from the Jews. The Celts, whose opinions resembled
those of the eastern nations, held, that after the burning of the world,
a new period of existence would commence. The ancient Etrurians, or
Tuscans, also concurred with other western and northern nations of
Celtic origin, as well as with the Stoics, in asserting the entire
renovation of nature after a long period, or great year, when a similar
succession of events would again take place. The cosmogony of an ancient
Etrurian, preserved by Suidas, limits the duration of the universe to a
period of twelve thousand years; six thousand of which passed in the
production of the visible world, before the formation of man. The Stoics
also maintained that the world is liable to destruction from the
prevalence of moisture or of drought; the former producing a universal
inundation, and the latter, a universal conflagration. “These,” they
say, “succeed each other in nature, as regularly as winter and summer.”
The doctrine of conflagration is a natural consequence of the general
system of Stoicism; for, since, according to this system, the whole
process of nature is carried on in a necessary series of causes and
effects, when that operative fire, which at first, bursting from chaos,
gave form to all things, and which has since pervaded and animated all
nature, shall have consumed its nutriment; that is, when the vapours,
which are the food of the celestial fires, shall be exhausted, a
deficiency of moisture must produce a universal conflagration. This
grand revolution in nature is, after the doctrine of the Stoics, thus
elegantly described by Ovid:--
“_Esse quoque in fatis reminiscitur, affore tempus
Quo mare, quo tellus, correptaque regia cœli
Ardeat; et mundi moles operosa laboret._”
METAMOR. lib. i, 256.
or, as Dryden has translated the passage,--
“Rememb’ring in the fates a time when fire
Should to the battlements of heaven aspire;
When all his blazing worlds above should burn,
And all the inferior globe to cinders turn.”
Seneca, speaking of the same event, says expressly, “_Tempus advenerit
quo sidera sideribus incurrent, et omni flagrante materia uno igne,
quicquid nunc ex deposito lucet, ardebit_;” that is, “the time will come
when the world will be consumed, that it may be again renewed; when the
powers of nature will be turned against herself, when stars will rush
upon stars, and the whole material world, which now appears resplendent
with beauty and harmony, will be destroyed in one general
conflagration.” In this grand catastrophe of nature, all animated
beings, (excepting the Universal Intelligence,) men, heroes, demons, and
gods, shall perish together. Seneca, the tragedian, who was of the same
school with the philosopher, writes to the same purpose:--
“_Cœli regia concidens
Certos atque obitus trahet:
Atque omnes pariter deos
Perdet mors aliqua, et chaos._”
“The mighty palace of the sky
In ruin fall’n is doomed to lie;
And all the gods, its wreck beneath,
Shall sink in chaos and in death.”
The Pythagoreans also maintained the dogma of conflagration. To this
purpose Hippasus, of Metapontum, taught that the universe is finite, is
always changing, and undergoes a periodical conflagration. Philolaus,
who flourished in the time of Plato, maintained that the world is liable
to destruction both by fire and water. Mention of the conflagration is
also several times made in the books of the Sibyls, Sophocles, Lucan,
&c. Dr. Burnet, after F. Tachard and others, relates that the Siamese
believe that the earth will at last be parched up with heat, the
mountains melted down, and the earth’s whole surface reduced to a level,
and then consumed with fire. And the Bramins of Siam do not only hold
that the world shall be destroyed by fire, but also that a new earth
shall be made out of the cinders of the old. The sacred Scriptures
announce this general destruction of the world by fire in a variety of
passages.
2. Various are the sentiments of authors on the subject of the
conflagration; the cause whence it is to arise, and the effects it is to
produce. Divines ordinarily account for it metaphysically; and will have
it take its rise from a miracle, as a fire from heaven. Philosophers
contend for its being produced from natural causes; and will have it
effected according to the laws of mechanics: some think an eruption of a
central fire sufficient for the purpose; and add, that this may be
occasioned several ways; namely, either by having its intensity
increased, (which, again, may be effected either by being driven into
less space by the encroachments of the superficial cold, or by an
increase of the inflammability of the fuel whereon it is fed,) or by
having the resistance of imprisoning earth weakened; which may happen
either from the diminution of its matter, by the consumption of its
central parts, or by weakening the cohesion of the constituent parts of
the mass, by the excess or the defect of moisture. Others look for the
cause of the conflagration in the atmosphere; and suppose that some of
the meteors there engendered in unusual quantities, and exploded with
unusual vehemence, from the concurrency of various circumstances, may be
made to effect it, without seeking any farther. The astrologers account
for it from a conjunction of all the planets in the sign Cancer; “as the
deluge,” say they, “was occasioned by their conjunction in Capricorn.”
This was an opinion adopted by the ancient Chaldeans. Lastly: others
have recourse to a still more effectual and flaming machine; and
conclude the world is to undergo its conflagration from the near
approach of a comet, in its return from the sun. It is most natural to
conclude, that, as the Scriptures represent the catastrophe as the work
of a moment, no gradually operating natural cause will be employed to
effect it, but that He who spake and the world was created, will again
destroy it by the same word of his power; setting loose at once the
all-devouring element of fire to absorb all others. Beyond this, all is
conjecture.
CONFUSION OF TONGUES is a memorable event, which happened in the one
hundred and first year, according to the Hebrew chronology, after the
flood, B. C. 2247, at the overthrow of Babel; and which was
providentially brought about, in order to facilitate the dispersion of
mankind, and the population of the earth. Until this period, there had
been one common language, which formed a bond of union, that prevented
the separation of mankind into distinct nations.
2. There has been a considerable difference of opinion as to the nature
of this confusion, and the manner in which it was effected. Some learned
men, prepossessed with the notion that all the different idioms now in
the world did at first arise from one original language, to which they
may be reduced, and that the variety among them is no more than must
naturally have happened in a long course of time by the mere separation
of the builders of Babel, have maintained, that there were no new
languages formed at the confusion; but that this event was accomplished
by creating a misunderstanding and variance among the builders, without
any immediate influence on their language. But this opinion, advanced by
Le Clerc, &c, seems to be directly contrary to the obvious meaning of
the word שפה, _lip_, used by the sacred historian; which, in other parts
of Scripture signifies _speech_, Psalm lxxxi, 5; Isaiah xxviii, 11;
xxxiii, 19; Ezekiel iii, 5. It has been justly remarked, that unanimity
of sentiment, and identity of language, are particularly distinguished
from each other, in the history: “The people is one, and they have all
one language,” Gen. xi, 6. It has been also suggested, that if
disagreement in opinion and counsel were the whole that was intended, it
would have had a contrary effect; they would not have desisted from
their project, but strenuously have maintained their respective
opinions, till the greater number of them had compelled the minority
either to fly or to submit. Others have imagined, that this was brought
about by a temporary confusion of their speech, or rather of their
apprehensions, causing them, while they continued together and spoke the
same language, to understand the words differently: Scaliger is of this
opinion. Others again account for this event, by the privation of all
language, and by supposing that mankind were under a necessity of
associating together, and of imposing new names on things by common
consent. Another opinion ascribes the confusion to such an indistinct
remembrance of the original language which they spoke before, as made
them speak it very differently; so that by the various inflections,
terminations, and pronunciations of divers dialects, they could no more
understand one another, than they who understand Latin can understand
those who speak French, Italian, or Spanish, though all these languages
arise out of it. This opinion is adopted by Casaubon, and by Bishop
Patrick in his Commentary, and is certainly much more probable than
either of the former: and Mr. Shuckford maintains, that the confusion
arose from small beginnings, by the invention of new words in either of
the three families of Shem, Ham, and Japhet, which might contribute to
separate them from one another; and that in each family new differences
of speech might gradually arise, so that each of these families went on
to divide and subdivide among themselves. Others, again, as Mr. Joseph
Mede and Dr. Wotton, &c, not satisfied with either of the foregoing
methods of accounting for the diversity of languages among mankind, have
recourse to an extraordinary interposition of divine power, by which new
languages were framed and communicated to different families by a
supernatural infusion or inspiration; which languages have been the
roots and originals from which the several dialects that are, or have
been, or will be, spoken, as long as this earth shall last, have arisen,
and to which they may with ease be reduced.
3. It is, however, unnecessary to suppose, that the primitive language
was completely obliterated, and entire new modes of speech at once
introduced. It was quite sufficient, if such changes only were effected,
as to render the speech of different companies or different tribes
unintelligible to one another, that their mutual coöperation in the mad
attempt in which they had all engaged might be no longer practicable.
The radical stem of the first language might therefore remain in all,
though new dialects were formed, bearing among themselves a similar
relation with what we find in the languages of modern Europe, derived
from the same parent stem, whether Gothic, Latin, or Sclavonian. In the
midst of these changes, it is reasonable to suppose that the primitive
language itself, unaltered, would still be preserved in some one at
least of the tribes or families of the human race. Now in none of these
was the transmission so likely to have taken place, as among that branch
of the descendants of Shem, from which the patriarch Abraham proceeded.
Upon these grounds, therefore, we may probably conclude, that the
language spoken by Abraham, and by him transmitted to his posterity, was
in fact the primitive language, modified indeed and extended in the
course of time, but still retaining its essential parts far more
completely than any other of the languages of men. If these conclusions
are well founded, they warrant the inference, that, in the ancient
Hebrew, there are still to be found the traces of the original speech.
Whether this ancient Hebrew more nearly resembled the Chaldean, the
Syrian, or what is now termed the Hebrew, it is unnecessary here to
inquire; these languages, it has never been denied, were originally and
radically the same, though, from subsequent modifications, they appear
to have assumed somewhat different aspects.