and of outline, first took form;
and from the first pictures, whatever they may have been, arose the
first ideas of grace, unity, and the discordant concords made by the
play of lights and shadows? Thus the first model from which the first
image of man arose was a lump of earth, and not without reason, for
the Divine Architect of time and of nature, being all perfection,
wished to demonstrate, in the imperfection of His materials, what
could be done to improve them, just as good sculptors and painters
are in the habit of doing, when, by adding additional touches and
removing blemishes, they bring their imperfect sketches to such a
state of completion and of perfection as they desire. God also
endowed man with a bright flesh colour, and the same shades may be
drawn from the earth, which supplies materials to counterfeit
everything which occurs in painting. It is indeed true that it is
impossible to feel absolutely certain as to what steps men took for
the imitation of the beautiful works of Nature in these arts before
the flood, although it appears, most probable that even then they
practised all manner of painting and sculpture; for Bel, son of the
proud Nimrod, about 200 years after the flood, had a statue made,
from which idolatry afterwards arose; and his celebrated
daughter-in-law, Semiramis, queen of Babylon, in the building of that
city, introduced among the ornaments there coloured representations
from life of divers kinds of animals, as well as of herself and of
her husband Ninus, with the bronze statues of her father, her
mother-in-law, and her great-grandmother, as Diodorus relates,
calling them Jove, Juno, and Ops--Greek names, which did not then
exist. It was, perhaps, from these statues that the Chaldeans learned
to make the images of their gods. It is recorded in Genesis how 150
years later, when Rachel was fleeing from Mesopotamia with her
husband Jacob, she stole the idols of her father Laban. Nor were the
Chaldeans singular in making statues, for the Egyptians also had
theirs, devoting great pains to those arts, as is shown by the
marvellous tomb of that king of remote antiquity, Osimandyas,
described at length by Diodorus, and, as the severe command of Moses
proves, when, on leaving Egypt, he gave orders that no images should
be made to God, upon pain of death. Moses also, after having ascended
the Mount, and having found a golden calf manufactured and adored by
his people, was greatly troubled at seei