Christians had been wrestling with the numerous weaknesses and problems in the Genesis story ever since the beginnings of Christianity. And these flaws and improbabilities in Genesis were ridiculed by prominent pagan polemicists like Celsus, Porphyry and others. So naturally many Christian thinkers and theologians for their part defended the Genesis story. Cosmas Indicopleustes, one of the most well travelled Christians of the 6th Century – the early Byzantine period – was one of those who commented on several of the obvious flaws and defects in the narrative and defended the literal meaning of Genesis story on several key points.
In his written work, Cosmas writes on several interesting issues.
- Firstly that the Earth has to be flat according to Genesis and the rest of the bible and not spherical as the Greek thinkers speculated. And he criticises the pagans heavily for this point of view.
- Secondly why an all-powerful God took six days no less to create the earth rather than wishing it into existence in an instant . What possible reason could there be for God to spend so much time in the process.
- Thirdly why did God fail to kill Adam as he very specifically threatened to do should he eat from the tree of knowledge of good and evil. Instead he ejected him from the garden which could be interpreted as either a lesser or a greater sentence depending on your point of view. The salient point being God changing his mind or at the very best making an empty threat.
- Fourthly why was God so apprehensive about Adam and Eve eating from the tree of life anyway after they had eaten from the tree of good and evil? Apprehensive enough to eject them summarily from the garden of Eden in case they tried to eat that fruit as well.
- And lastly why was Eve created after Adam? Eve in fact was made very much as an afterthought unlike the animals which were created all in an instant – both male and female? Surely God should have created Eve at the same time as Adam – just like other forms of life – and as a sign of equality.
Who was Cosmas?
So firstly who was Cosmas? Well he was a Christian merchant who in his earlier life travelled extensively across much of the middle east and then much further going as far as Ethiopia, Eritrea, Yemen and the Indian Ocean as well. In fact he sailed as far as India and even to Sri Lanka or Ceylon in some of his travels leaving short accounts of his journeys to these places in his book. The moniker he earned – Indicopleustes – means ‘voyager to India’ indicating perhaps the respect his travels were given by people of that time. So arguably one of the great travellers of that period, but in later years Cosmas became a monk and elected to stay in the sinai area of Egypt where he wrote his book. And that book was called Christian topography where he argues his case against pagan thought, philosophy and ideas amongst many other things. It’s an interesting book being written in that particular period of great change. In one of the recent translations, the editor describes the unique age Cosmas was living in quite a memorable way …
He Cosmasmay thus not inaptly be compared to a two-headed Janus, with one face turned to the light of departing day, and the other to the shadows of the coming night.
He was referring to the rapid approach of the dark ages with the Western Roman Empire having disappeared. Culture, philosophy and civilisation in general was already declining in large parts of Western Europe. But there was still some fading light of Hellenic and pagan free thinking around in what was left of Greco-Roman culture of the mediterranean of that time – a period thats called late antiquity. This was the age just before the arrival of Islam on the scene and that classical culture would be finally extinguished as the Mediterranean basin was carved up by Christianity and an expanding Islam.
The earth is flat!
Cosmas as mentioned was a strong critic of the pagans and paganism which was still surviving tenuously during his time and he pretty much dismissed the works of the great Greek thinkers of old.
Among the famous philosophers who flourished among the pagans, which of them, Socrates, or Pythagoras, or Plato, or Aristotle, or any other, was held worthy to foretell or announce any thing of such advantage to the world as the resurrection of the dead, and the free gift to men of the Kingdom of Heaven, which cannot be shaken? For they can announce nothing except only that, by means of calculations and secular learning, they declare when eclipses of the sun and the moon will occur, whereby, even if they predict them truly—-as in fact they do—-no benefit will accrue to the world, but rather the evil of pride;
His biggest criticism of the pagans was their belief in a spherical earth. Cosmas like other Christians believed in a flat earth with heaven being above the firmament of the sky as consistent with the various verses in the bible. Cosmas himself was under the impression that the universe was like a box with the earth as the lower layer and heaven as the upper layer and vertical sides supporting heaven around the edges of the earth. Now the earth being a sphere was a direct challenge to the biblical two layer model and therefore he spends the biggest portion of his writings ridiculing the idea – almost seeing it as his mission to debunk this way of thinking. Hellenic learning and science was still seen as a threat it seems which had to be vigorously countered in his opinion. And he busied himself with finding proof from the bible for this belief while criticising the pagan ideas.
Aristotle from the circularity of the earth’s shadow in eclipses inferred the rotundity of the earth…
For the famous sphere of the pagans does not harmonize at all with what Christian doctrine proclaims; but is adapted rather for those who hope neither for a resurrection of the dead nor for another state after it, but assert that the whole world is in an endless process of generation and corruption.
And he certainly thought the idea of the earth being a sphere was pretty easy to debunk citing many points in his book.
…For should any one choose to examine closely the Pagan theories he will find them to be entirely fictitious, fabulous sophistries, and to be utterly impossible.
…they the pagansdin our ears, and vomit out fictions and fables.
Cosmas’ was essentially targeting the Christians who though believing in Christianity still had a healthy respect for Hellenic science and thinking. And he treated these people almost as counterfeit Christians – certainly believers but who were not yet fully committed to Christian dogma and who preferred Greek science instead. And he warned Christians to avoid being contaminated by pagan Greek thinking and instead rely on the bible for information regarding the universe. And he was certainly right in this regard for the two ideas were entirely different. The pagans, he said, believed in a universe infinitely old, and that was always changing and corruptible. They didn’t believe in the resurrection of humans rather that the physical body too was corruptive and destined to return to atoms. Instead many believed in the transmigration of the soul. And so pagan belief was entirely incompatible with Christianity.
Edward Gibbon would use Cosmas as a source when writing the Decline and fall of the Roman Empire and valued his information regarding his travels . But he had little time for Cosmas’s religious belief in a flat earth.
…the nonsense of the Monk was, nevertheless, mingled with the practical knowledge of the traveller.
…he wrote summing up his feelings on the monk
Why six days?
I’ll be covering his objections to a spherical earth in much more detail in another article. In this post we’ll take a look into his views specifically on the Genesis narrative and – rather than questioning the entire foundations of the narrative – we’ll take the Genesis story at face value. In other words we’ll assume creatures like angels and talking snakes, that a Christian paradise called Eden with its various trees of knowledge and of life all exist or existed.
So let’s take a look at the first issue. How Cosmas tries to tackle the over-lengthy time of six days that the Genesis story describes as God taking for the formation of the earth.
Perhaps again some one will ask: Why did he make the whole creation not in one, or two, or three, or four, or five, but in six days?
Well Cosmas has a rather surprising explanation for the six days. He speculates this was actually done for the benefit of the angels. These supernatural creatures had to be clearly shown what was happening otherwise the angels would have been confused as to how everything came into being if it had happened in an instant.
…the angels are rational and mutable, one day would not have sufficed for their instruction if the whole had been produced in one day, for they would certainly have thought that things had been confusedly brought into existence like so many phantasms and been produced in disorder. But God Almighty having set apart one day for each single work, in due order formed the universe in parts, that it might be discriminated and thus better understood by the angels.
So Cosmas is arguing that the creation process was deliberately slowed down so the angels with their limited understanding and intelligence could fully comprehend what was happening and how creation occurred. And it was for this reason that God made the heaven and earth first, then light, then the firmament, the plants and animals , fish and fowl in a particular order.
On this account therefore he made the whole world by parts in the six days for the discrimination and instruction of the angels, who from their acute intelligence were able each day to discriminate each separate part of the work and the Maker thereof.
And that would also, according to Cosmas, explain why God is apparently written as talking to himself during the creation of the universe. There are various verses in Genesis 1 where he is declaring out aloud ‘Let there be light’ or ‘Let there be firmament’ etc. In fact in Genesis 1:22 he even talks to the animals telling them to be fruitful and multiply. This talking out loud was really to drum in what was happening into the minds of the angels who were watching and listening to him as the earth was being made, over and above what he was showing them. If they weren’t being instructed, Cosmas wrote, then there would be no need for God to speak the words. The problem with his arguments on this issue are that Cosmas sees God as a fairly limited creature not able to manage to do things in an instant for one reason or another. Not only that but the angels he has created are shown as being pretty dimwitted. Surely watching creation being done instantly wasn’t beyond their understanding.
If he is showing the angels the stages of creation and the angels are watching as its taking place then surely barking out commands is also entirely unnecessary as they can plainly see what is happening before them. And declaring ‘let there be light’ or ‘let there be firmament’ certainly isn’t adding much value or extra information to the proceedings. But the bigger question that comes immediately to mind is why God is unable simply to infuse this knowledge into the minds of the angels without having to physically go through this elaborate show by taking things step by step. And perhaps just as importantly it still doesn’t explain why six whole days were necessary, surely this process – if it had to be done in stages for some reason – could have been completed in a few minutes or say an hour or two. Were the angels so deficient in intellect that to recognise and understand what was happening each step had to be done slowly and on a separate day?
Commenting further on the issue of the stages of creation, Cosmas explains that the humblest of creatures were created first with the pinnacle of God’s creation – man himself – created last. So grass, herbs, fruit trees etc came first followed by fish and fowl, then cattle followed by creeping thing and then finally beasts of the earth. And only after all this was man created. Why this particular order had to be necessary, he doesn’t explain, but as with Christians in general, he had a firm belief in man being in the image of God, and the only creature to be sentient – that man was a special creation therefore and naturally above all other forms of life in value. And that the creation was in essence designed especially for him, especially heaven in the afterlife.
Man alone, of all the animals on the earth, being rational and destined for heaven, received from the Creator a figure in congruity with such a destiny. For he is a biped, being destined to fly away and walk in heaven. In figure he is erect, as if he were ready and destined to ascend on high.
Why didn’t god kill Adam?
Another issue Cosmas comments on is why God didn’t kill Adam after he ate from the tree – when he specifically and very explicitly threatened Adam with death in his instructions. But in the event he didn’t carry out the death sentence when he found Adam had eaten the fruit. So at worst God told a lie and never planned to kill him anyway or at the very best it was an empty threat. But surely God is truth and could not lie. And if we assume it was an empty threat then why make the threat in the first place knowing he would never carry it out. Cosmas explains this fairly half-heartedly in my opinion by arguing that God was being frank but he decided to let Adam off the hook by merely chastising him.
…when he did transgress did not immediately visit him with death in accordance with the threatening, but was long-suffering towards him, and having disciplined him by means of the law, and cast him out of Paradise, and permitted him to live to a good old age before he died, God showed great forbearance and kindness towards man, particularly in having provided him with clothing, and in that he did not in wrath inflict death upon human nature, but instructed man in prudence and wisdom, and made sin hateful to him, and righteousness the object of his desires.
Now this is an obviously unsatisfactory answer. Firstly it doesn’t answer the issue of the empty threat. Cosmas explains it away as God being tolerant of Adam’s faults. However casting someone out of a perfect paradise and only providing the barest minimum – some clothing of animal skin – can hardly be called tolerant. Whichever way you look at it, it was a punishment but importantly not the punishment that had been promised.
He also suggested God allowed him to live to a good age before he died so in one way he he did keep his promise to kill him but he simply delayed the execution of the punishment. Cosmas puts this down to God ‘instructing man in prudence and wisdom’. But banning him from eating the fruit seems a pretty strange and roundabout way to begin the instruction of man – assuming he needed any guidance in the first place. And of course its at variance with Genesis Chp. 3 where its clearly written that God ejected Adam because he was anxious about Adam eating the fruit of the tree of life:
22 And the LORD God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life, and eat, and live for ever:
23 Therefore the LORD God sent him forth from the garden of Eden, to till the ground from whence he was taken.
24 So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.
But in order to answer this particular problem Cosmas seems to just kick the can further down the road. To explain God ejecting Adam and Eve from Eden before they had the opportunity to eat from the tree of life, this was, Cosmas writes, to ensure man would keep hankering for immortality which he would in due course receive in heaven. But to give immortality to man earlier than necessary would divorce him from love and aiming for perfection. So immortality would be a reward for good behaviour. Cosmas therefore gives the casting out of Adam and Eve from paradise as positive a spin as possible – that it was for his own good in the end.
Eve, the inferior partner
Finally – and perhaps most interestingly – how does Cosmas deal with the issue of why Eve wasn’t created at the same time as Adam. She was created from Adam’s rib almost as an after-thought. And she in general is treated much more shabbily than Adam in the story.
For example in Genesis 2 she is called a helpmeet which literally means ‘a helpful partner’ or a help suitable for him. In other words her function is largely as a companion rather than being a human on par in dignity and worth with Adam.
Gen 2:20 And Adam gave names to all cattle, and to the fowl of the air, and to every beast of the field; but for Adam there was not found an help meet for him.
Eve is also made from the rib of Adam rather than from the same process used to make Adam – that of God breathing through Adam’s nostrils. The Genesis account gives no reason for this different and much inferior form of creation.
Gen 2:21 And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam, and he slept: and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22 And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman, and brought her unto the man.
Thirdly God tells Adam not to eat from the tree before he creates Eve and then signally fails to tell Eve this instruction. Again no reason is given for them both not getting the instruction.
Gen 2:16 And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the garden thou mayest freely eat:
17 But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
She is also shown as weaker-willed being specifically targeted by the snake who doesn’t address Adam. And of course she is shown as tempting Adam in turn. But importantly she is given much more of a curse than Adam who also ate the apple being told she will give birth to children in pain and that ‘he (meaning Adam) will rule over her. Meaning she is effectively inferior to Adam. There’s no equity of sexes in Genesis 3. So all in all she gets a much worse deal than Adam even though she was created as a helpmate for him. Cosmas poses the question himself.
Some one again may perhaps propose a question and say: Why was it that, while all the irrational animals were created by God, male and female at the same time, man alone was not created with the female, but remained quite solitary until the female was made later on?
And his explanation for this is a variation of the answer given for the creation of the earth in six days. But in this case the beneficiary is Adam. So just like the angels had to be shown the stages of creation for them to appreciate how creation was done and for them to look up to their maker and his power, so in this case Adam had to be shown the power of God as well, in the creation of one thing or another. Now since Adam was created the very last of all things he didn’t have the benefit of seeing some or all of creation being carried out. For all he knew God had not created a single thing. So the creation of Eve from his rib would give him a show of God’s power just like the angels were shown creation taking place.
… it was necessary that man who had been created by God possessed of reason, and as the bond uniting all the creation, should himself be taught to know the Creator of all; but since, as he was not the first but the last of all to be produced, he could neither from the things made before him, nor from himself know God, it was God’s pleasure to produce the female not along with him, but afterwards out of him, that he might thereby know that he who had taken out from him a being like himself was his Creator.
Strangely enough Cosmas in comparing Eve’s creation with the angels seems to miss an important point., He writes…
As then the angels had been created rational, and from the works produced in the six days had been taught to know him who was the cause of them, so of necessity man also was taught through the female, and learned that God was the Maker both of himself and of the universe; but especially as he had beforehand heard God say: Let us make a helpmeet for him.
But what he misses is that while the angels were shown creation in stages, Adam was actually put to sleep by God and therefore never gets to see the act of creation of Eve so these two things can hardly be compared and he therefore invalidates his own point. And of course his explanation being the same as the one for creation being shown to angels has the same flaws. Why can’t Adam simply be infused with the knowledge that God is his creator rather than shown Eve’s creation?
And as for Eve being created in a much humbler way – being created from Adam’s rib – Cosmas tries to give this action a positive spin. He argues that this was done so Adam and Eve would have some sort of kinship, Eve being created from Adam and therefore of his flesh.
God moreover made the woman from the man’s side, because the two sides bind the whole body close together; for he neither made her from the front of man lest the woman should exalt herself above him, nor from his back parts that he might not exalt himself above the woman; but from his side, as being in her nature his equal,
Here he is wrong of course as the ribs extend all round the body and therefore form the front, side and back of a human so this argument seems to be entirely nonsensical. Cosmas also writes that God put Adam into a trance when he took out the rib – so that he wouldn’t feel any pain But that after waking up would afterwards appreciate what God had done in making a companion for him out of his own body rather than conjuring up Eve out of nothing. This explanation still doesn’t address the way Eve is shown as very much inferior however. For the attention in Genesis chapter 2 is all on Adam being shown God’s power with poor Eve not getting much of a say or even being present rather than Eve being given the same status as Adam. And of course Cosmas doesn’t use the same logic for Eve as he does for Adam. Why isn’t God showing Eve in turn his power by creating something from her and so on. Surely Eve should appreciate her maker as well.
Summing up
So there you have it. Some of the thinking that Cosmas puts forward to justify the weaknesses in the Genesis creation story. As with the other early Christian theologians he did believe in taking the story literally and therefore it required the above explanations. I’m not sure his arguments particularly stand up if we consider God to be omniscient and all seeing, all knowing. Rather the god of the Bible – always shown as anthropomorphic and limited in nature and intellect – comes across as being rather at the mercy of events and reacting to them as and when they happen rather than being in charge and control of events and destiny. And Cosmas’ reasons especially for Eve being treated as an afterthought are particularly weak.
