In the two accounts imperfectly fused together in Genesis, and also in the account of which we have indications in the book of Job and in the Proverbs, there, is presented, often with the greatest sublimity, the same early conception of the Creator and of the creation--the conception, so natural in the childhood of civilization, of a Creator who is an enlarged human being working literally with his own hands, and of a creation which is "the work of his fingers." To supplement this view there was developed the belief in this Creator as one who, having ...

"from his ample palm Launched forth the rolling planets into space." sits on high, enthroned "upon the circle of the heavens," perpetually controlling and directing them.
From this idea of creation was evolved in time a somewhat nobler view.
Ancient thinkers, and especially, as is now found, in Egypt, suggested that the main agency in creation was not the hands and fingers of the Creator, but his VOICE.

Hence was mingled with the earlier, cruder belief regarding the origin of the earth and heavenly bodies by the Almighty the more impressive idea that "he spake and they were made"-- that they were brought into existence by his WORD.( 1) (1) Among the many mediaeval representations of the creation of the universe, I especially recall from personal observation those sculptured above the portals of the cathedrals of Freiburg and Upsala, the paintings on the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa, and most striking of all, the mosaics of the Cathedral of Monreale and those in the Capella Palatina at Palermo.

Among peculiarities showing the simplicity of the earlier conception the representation of the response of the Almighty on the seventh day is very striking.

He is shown as seated in almost the exact attitude of the "Weary Mercury" of classic sculpture--bent, and with a very marked expression of fatigue upon his countenance and in the whole disposition of his body.
The Monreale mosaics are pictured in the great work of Gravina, and in the Pisa frescoes in Didron's Iconographie, Paris, 1843, p.598.