Protestant.(7)

(7) For strange representations of the Creator and of the creation by
one, two, or three persons of the Trinity, see Didron, Iconographie
Chretienne, pp. 35, 178, 224, 483, 567-580, and elsewhere; also Detzel
as already cited. The most naive of all survivals of the mediaeval idea
of creation which the present writer has ever seen was exhibited in
1894 on the banner of one of the guilds at the celebration of the
four-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Munich Cathedral.
Jesus of Nazareth, as a beautiful boy and with a nimbus encircling his
head, was shown turning and shaping the globe on a lathe, which he keeps
in motion with his foot. The emblems of the Passion are about him,
God the Father looking approvingly upon him from a cloud, and the dove
hovering between the two. The date upon the banner was 1727.

But to these discussions was added yet another, which, beginning in the
early days of the Church, was handed down the ages until it had died out
among the theologians of our own time.

In the first of the biblical accounts light is created and the
distinction between day and night thereby made on the first day,
while the sun and moon are not created until the fourth day. Masses of
profound theological and pseudo-scientific reasoning have been developed
to account for this--masses so great that for ages they have obscured
the simple fact that the original text is a precious revelation to us of
one of the most ancient of recorded beliefs--the belief that light and
darkness are entities independent of the heavenly bodies, and that the
sun, moon, and stars exist not merely to increase light but to "divide
the day from the night, to be for signs and for seasons, and for days
and for years," and "to rule the day and the night."

Of this belief we find survivals among the early fathers, and especially
in St. Ambrose. In his work on creation he tells us: "We must remember
that the light of day is one thing and the light of the sun, moon,
and stars another--the sun by his rays appearing to add lustre to
the daylight. For before sunrise the day dawns, but is not in full
refulgence, for the sun adds still further to its splendour." This
idea became one of the "treasures of sacred knowledge committed to the
Church," and was faithfully received by the Middle Ages. The medieval
mysteries and miracle plays give curious evidences of this: In a
performance of the creation, when God separates light