CRATES (lipcirns) is mentioned, 2 Maccab. iv. 29, as the governor of the Cyprians (rdv 6r2 7/271 Kurptcov), and as left by Sostrates eparch of the Acropolis in his place, when summoned before Antiochus Epiphanes.—t.
CREATION—the origin of the material world, and of the life with which it has been adorned— has been aptly termed the mystery of myste ries.' The exercise of infinite power by an infinite Being must of necessity transcend all human thought and experience ; and, apart from revela tion, we can only know that some power has been exercised by our witnessing the effect produced. Much, nevertheless, concerning the wondrous works of the creation can be reached by the mind of man. The steps by which the formation of this planet, the stage of our existence, was built up from its chaotic foundations—the order in which life, in its various forms, has been poured out upon it, and the laws which have regulated the execution of the mighty work, are items of knowledge to which the human intellect may ,be guided by the lights of physical science and inductive philosophy; but the Bible alone furnishes us with the information that the Almighty was the designer and architect of the fair fabric, the creator of its various inhabitants ; and that he has been present with, and sustaining, his work in all its stages from the beginning. It is plain, therefore, that in the study of the vast subject of the works of the creation, the man of science can no more reject or overlook the teach ings of Scripture, when it is proved to be a divinely inspired revelation, than the religionist can ignore the facts of science, when they have been established by faithworthy evidence ; and yet, the errors which have operated most prejudicially to the development of truth, have arisen from the un natural hostility which has existed between the two classes of inquirers—those who have been seeking it in His Word, and those who have been seeking it in His works. In this article we shall endeavour to shew, not only that there is no variance between the testimonies of these two labourers in the cause of truth, but that, while, on the one hand, the Mosaic narrative of the creation has been authenti cated to be of divine origin by the discoveries of the philosopher, so, on the other, the teachings of that revelation have furnished the philosopher with truths, regarding the origin of life, that science is powerless to supply.
It is a fact of vast moment, and of interest the most profound, that the book of Genesis, the most ancient written record that is known to be in exist ence, opens with a history or detail of all that is pre-eminently ancient in the world, using that term in its largest sense. It reaches back through the unmeasured space of time to the beginning,' when the heaven and the earth were called into being by the word of the Creator ; and after recording in concise and simple language a progressive furnish ing of our planet with light, and its various forms of life, the work of the Almighty is crowned with the creation of man, made in his own image, en dowed with intelligence, reason, and responsibility, the ordained head and master of all the creatures with which he was surrounded. With the excep tion of some rude and traditional fables of heathen writers of antiquity, we have no reason to suppose that any other record of the order and manner of the creation was known to, or suggested by, any of the human race until a comparatively recent period, though the materials for such a record were everywhere to be found, and no person of com mon observation could fail to perceive that the re mains of innumerable organisms, both animal and vegetable, which had lived and died on our planet, were to be discovered in the rocks and stones which compose its crust. But all was silent in this vast cemetery of bygone generations of life ; and those valuable testimonies of pre-Adamite existences remained an undigested and apparently chaotic mass, until the persevering industry and patient research of the geologists of these latter days re duced confusion to system and order, and pre sented to view a consistent and intelligible record of the various phases which the globe has pre sented, and the successive races of animals and plants with which it has been adorned, from the beginning to the human era.