patristic commentary on genesis

Not a firm and solid nature, which has weight and resistance, it is not this that the word “firmament” means.

And God made the beasts of the earth according to their kinds and the cattle according to their kinds, and everything that creeps upon the ground according to its kind. What power the Highest Artist God has, to produce from this small part (a rib) the composition of so many members, make so many organs of sense, and form a whole, perfect, and complete being.

With this act of creation, all is ready for the appearance of man, who is to be lord over it all. And rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights” (Gen. 7:11-12). Man as an abettor of hybrid barrenness is responsible for this. Thus, “the element of water was ordered to flow, and it never grows weary when urged on unceasingly by this command.”. And there was evening and there was morning, a fifth day. You're listening to a sample of the Audible audio edition. St. Ephraim gives us a homey image of the activity of the Spirit on the First Day: [The Holy Spirit] warmed the waters and made them fertile and capable of birth, like a bird when it sits with its outstretched wings on its eggs and by its warmth gives them warmth and produces fertility in them. Some Fathers think they are included in the creation of “heaven”; others are not so specific, but know that they were also created “in the beginning.”. The idea that “one single nature runs through all beings,” of course, lies at the heart of the theory of universal evolution. St. The succeeding acts of creation begin with the words: “And God said.” St. Genesis 2:1-3 Thus the heavens and the earth were finished, and all the host of them. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average.

God calls each stage of His work “good,” seeing its perfect and unspoiled nature and, as, This First Day of creation (no matter how “long” one may guess it to be) is the, Thus we have come to the end of “Day One,” the First Day of creation. Surely, it is fantastic to say that God needs such a roundabout way for the manifestation of His thoughts. Just as the distinction of species is related to the distinction between good and evil, so is the confusion of species related to moral relativity. A strange parallel to the modern theory of universal evolution may be seen in the ancient pagan teaching of the transmigration of souls (reincarnation). Here we see the activity of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity in die creation. Genesis 1:20-23 And God said, Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens.

Here we see the activity of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity in die creation.

Reviewed in the United States on August 13, 2018. 1 John. There can be no doubt whatever that the Holy Fathers understood, clearly and unanimously, that on these three days God created all the kinds of creatures that we know today. Original Sin: A False Dichotomy, Original Sin in Eastern Orthodox Confessions and Catechisms, Amazing Grace of the Council of Orange (529 AD), Four Resources in the Study of the Revealed God, Clement on Distinguishing Truth and Heresy, Chrysostom on Substitutionary Atonement (III), Chrysostom on Substitutionary Atonement (II), Origen on Justification by Christ through Faith, Fr Thomas Hopko on God’s Wrath and Expiation of Sin, Cyril of Jerusalem on Substitutionary Atonement, Cyril of Alexandria on Substitutionary Atonement, Chrysostom on the Perfection of Scripture, Justin Martyr and Eusebius on Substitutionary Atonement, Faith and Works According to Clement of Rome, Leo the Great on the Abiding Validity of the Law. The adornment of the earth is older than the sun, that those who have been misled may cease worshipping the sun as the origin of life. by Fr.Seraphim Rose [source] 1. Evidently the rainbow then appeared for the first time. Now, we compare the firmament to none of these things. To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number. Therefore, the Son of Man sowed one and the devil sowed the other. For, day and night are earlier than the generation of the luminaries. Allert provides a judicious and much-needed defense against making the early Fathers conform to various conservative versions of interpreting Scripture. While the Apostle affirms that it is an object of his faith that it was by the will of God that the world itself and all which is therein was framed,… he has on the other hand left out of the investigation the “how” of this framing…. To say that one and the same soul, on account of a particular environment of body, is at one time a rational and intellectual soul, and that then it is caverned along with the reptiles, or herds with the birds, or is a beast of burden, or a carnivorous one, or swims in the deep; or even drops down to an insensate thing, so as to strike out roots or become a complete tree, producing buds on branches, and from those buds a flower, or a thorn, or a fruit edible or noxious – to say this, is nothing short of making all things the same and believing that one single nature runs through all beings; that there is a connection between them which blends and confuses hopelessly all the marks by which one could be distinguished from another. Do the writings of the church fathers support a literalist interpretation of Genesis 1? 21:23). What, then, is the specific “scientific” meaning of the “firmament” in this text? Commentary on Genesis (Fathers of the Church Patristic Series) Hardcover – April 20, 2016 by Didymus The Blind (Author), Robert Hill (Translator) 5.0 out of 5 stars 1 rating “Let the earth bring forth”; not, let it put forth what it has, but, let it acquire what it does not have, since God is enduing it with the power of active force. Those rationalist commentators who see in the “seven days” and the fact that “evening” precedes “morning” merely a projection backwards of later Jewish customs show themselves totally out of harmony with the Patristic way of viewing these things, and they are therefore unable to answer the question: where and why did the Jews derive these customs? God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. Tell me now, if thou hast knowledge, who set the measures of it, if thou knowest? But surely, it might be asked, the creations of God must make sense from the “natural” point of view also. I was reading a patristic commentary on Genesis 1 when I came across this: Close. St. Paul teaches the same thing: “God … created all things by Jesus Christ” (Eph. A beginning in a mystical sense is denoted by the statement: The succeeding acts of creation begin with the words: “. This book is about the very first things in the world. The world, then, while perfect and fully formed, was still “new.” St. Gregory the Theologian emphasizes that when God wished to create Adam of the dust, “the Word, having taken a part of the newly created earth, with His immortal hands formed my image.” St. Ephraim the Syrian teaches: Just as the trees, the grasses, the animals, birds and man were at the same time both old and young: old in the appearance of their members and structures, young in the time of their creation; so also the moon was at the same time both old and young: young because it was just created, old because it was full as on the fifteenth day. Although both the light and the clouds were created in the twinkling of an eye, still both the day and the night of the first day continued for 12 hours each. The Holy Fathers are unanimous in emphasizing the miraculous nature of the creation of the Third Day. Truly, it is peculiar to a childish and simple intellect to hold such notions about the heavens….

At this command the waters immediately poured forth their offspring. It was fitting that the beginning of the year be the beginning of generation. After viewing product detail pages, look here to find an easy way to navigate back to pages you are interested in. But such a sun would expend its energy many times more rapidly than our present sun does. It also analyzes reviews to verify trustworthiness. The original species of liv-mg creatures is reproduced for future ages by successive generations of its kind. There's a problem loading this menu right now. Might they actually have something to teach us about listening carefully to Scripture as we wrestle with the great axial questions of our own day? The blessed Moses, instructed by the Spirit of God, teaches us with such detail … so that we might clearly know both the order and the way of the creation of each thing. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed, according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind.

(30)  “Also, to every beast of the earth, to every bird of the air, and to everything that creeps on the earth, in which there is life, I have given every green herb for food”; and it was so. On each Day of creation a command is given that becomes the law of nature for all time thereafter. 313398) wielded a masterful knowledge of Scripture, philosophy, and previous biblical interpretation, earning the esteem of his contemporaries Athanasius, Antony of Egypt, Jerome, Rufinus, and Palladius, as well as of … Search this site. There is only one more question for us to ask concerning the First Day: where does the creation of the world of angels fit into it? For, these things had not yet been made. In the pine cone nature seems to express an image of itself; it preserves its peculiar properties which it received from that Divine and celestial command, and it repeats in the succession and order of the years its generation until the end of time is fulfilled. Or didst thou take clay of the ground, and form a living creature, and set it with the power of speech upon the earth? “He created the sun on the Fourth Day so that you might not think that it produces the day.”. St. Ambrose makes a special emphasis on this point: Look first upon the firmament of heaven which was made before the sun; look first upon the earth which began to be visible and was already formed before the sun put in its appearance; look at the plants of the earth which preceded in time the light of the sun. (On the Orthodox Faith, II, 30). It is written more for those who are "in the know," that is, those who (1) have a working knowledge of the patristics, and (2) who are familiar with the program and purpose of Biologos. The heavens and the earth had come first; after them, light had been created, day and night separated, and in turn, the firmament and dry land revealed. Here, as in the creation of all living things, God creates the first of each kind: God orders the firstlings of each kind to be brought forth, seeds, as it were, for nature; and their numbers are controlled by successive progeny, whenever they must increase and become numerous (St. St. Ambrose writes: There was still to come the plenitude of the operation in the Spirit, as it is written: “By the Word of the Lord the heavens were established and all the power of them by the Spirit of His mouth” (Ps. St. Ambrose specifically rejects the opinion that the “darkness” here refers allegorically to powers of evil.

In truth, He Who is the beginning of all things by virtue of His Divinity is also the end…. And it is sensible to look to the Fathers as a check against our modern biases. (Against Eunomius, I, 34), That which reasons, and is mortal, and is capable of thought and knowledge, is called man equally in the case of Adam and of Abel, and this name of the nature is not altered either by the fact that Abel passed into existence by generation, or by the fact that Adam did so without generation. We might say the same also about the heavens; that they were not yet brought to perfection themselves, nor had they received their proper adornment, since they were not yet lighted around by the moon nor the sun, nor crowned by the choirs of the stars. St. Ambrose writes: What He actually has done, which I have not learned from the clear testimony of Scripture, I pass over as a mystery, lest, perchance, that stir up other questions starting even from this point. What, then, is the specific “scientific” meaning of the “firmament” in this text? Genesis describes the.

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