University of Virginia Library

II

“Hear, O ye mountains, the Lord's controversy!”
(Micah 6:2). For many years a controversy continued
among Jewish and Christian Fathers which had to do
with the appearance of the earth at the time of crea-
tion. Involved in this was the question, whether moun-
tains had been original or whether they had arisen
later, and, if so, for what cause. Insofar as most of us
have ever considered the matter we have probably
taken for granted that the world appearing after the
Creation-scene in Genesis was in configuration basi-
cally like the world we know, with heights and depths
and seas. If we again turn to literature as a guide to
attitudes of the seventeenth century, we find that
Milton in Paradise Lost (VII, 282-87) followed the
convention many then subconsciously accepted:

This, however, is not the implication of Marvell in
“Upon Appleton House,” (stanza lxxxvi):
John Donne in The First Anniversary (lines 284-301)
is even more specific on the fact that the world has
lost its original form:

The most conventional theory arising from Genesis
is, then, that when the original earth emerged from
chaos it was in general the world we know, with
mountains and depths. However, among classical as
well as Jewish and Christian Fathers, there was an-
other tradition, that the earth had once been smoothly
rounded, a “Mundane Egg,” as it was sometimes called.
Mountains had appeared at some later time and were
considered blemishes on the fair face of Nature, be-
cause they were evidences of the sin of man. One
theory that seems to have been peculiar to Jewish
legend was that they arose as a result of the sin of
Cain. More pervasive than this, and common to Chris-
tians and Jews, was a belief that the various distor-
tions of the earth resulted from sins of Adam and Eve.
As the poet Henry Vaughan said in “Corruption,”
man drew “the Curse upon the world, and Crackt the
whole frame with his fall.” According to the Midrash
Rabbah (1512), “three entered for judgment, yet four
came out guilty. Adam and Eve and the serpent
entered for judgment, whereas the earth was punished
with them.” A chief problem here is the interpretation
of the word “earth,” ambiguous in other languages as
in English. In Christian theology, part of the trouble
went back to a mistranslation of a phrase in the Vulgate
(Genesis 3:17), as “maledicta terra in opere tuo,” rather
than “maledicta humus propter te.” The Jerome read-
ing became the accepted interpretation of most Roman
Catholics both before and after the Douay edition. If
the curse was merely upon the humus, or soil, so that
Adam was forced to earn his living by the sweat of
his brow, the topography of the world was not neces-
sarily altered, but if the curse of God extended from
man to terra, Nature was cursed and earth may have
changed as much as man.

In spite of arguments pro and con on this matter,
there was widespread agreement among Jewish and

Christian Fathers that a later catastrophe, sent because
of the continual sinning for two millennia on the part
of man, must have had a profound effect upon external
Nature. A majority of those who considered that the
original earth must have been round and smooth
attributed the emergence of mountains to Noah's
Flood. Biblical exegetes have always used negative as
well as positive evidence, and many stressed the fact
that a mountain is not mentioned in Genesis until the
ark landed on Ararat, and also that, though Moses
described the four rivers, he did not mention moun-
tains. Even those theologians who held that mountains
had been original with the creation of the world agreed
with the Augustinian theory that the Flood must have
had a profound effect upon the configuration of earth,
causing mountains to be higher and more jagged than
had been the original hills. So the debate continued
during the Middle Ages well into the Renaissance, the
theory of mountain-origin sometimes primary, some-
times involved with other issues.

On the question of mountain-origin and the place
of hills in the scheme of things, the two greatest Refor-
mation thinkers stood opposed. Their dual attitudes
were in part a result of psychological factors (as indeed
may have been true of various of their predecessors)
since Calvin spent many years among Swiss mountains,
while Luther was a lowlander whose one journey over
mountains filled him with terror. Calvin would never
agree that Nature was other than beautiful. He did
not believe that God had cursed the earth. Ugliness
read into her was the result of man's lapsed condition.
Nature, created by God, was beautiful; Calvin's belief
that original Nature included mountains is shown by
his map of Paradise in the Geneva Bible (1560). With
Augustine he acknowledged that some of the original
earth had been damaged by the Flood, yet beauty
remained even though the wilfully blinded eyes of man
could not behold it.

So far as such matters were concerned, Luther's
theology was consistently pessimistic. In his commen-
tary on Genesis he went further than most predecessors
in his gloom. Adam and Eve, Cain and multitudes of
men had sinned before God sent the Flood to wipe
out most of mankind. Luther specifically mentioned
the emergence of diluvian mountains where fields and
fruitful plains had once flourished. Since the Deluge,
man has continued to sin; in the not too distant future
Luther anticipated the destruction of all mankind and
the death of the world. Following in general Augus-
tine's conception of the seven ages of man, Luther
insisted that the world would not complete its sixth
age. He dated the end of the world as approximately
1560. “The last day is already breaking.... The world
will perish shortly.” The earth, in itself innocent, has
been forced to bear man's curse. The world degenerates
and grows worse every day. Luther's is an intensely
pessimistic picture.