Early Church Fathers' quotes used to defend a young earth
The following quotes were sentby a fine Catholic guy who holds to the young earth theory. They are quotes by the Early Fathers that he feels point to their belief and assertion of a young earth.
Just as He said of the earth only: Let it bring forth, and there appeared a great variety of flowers, herbs, and seeds, and all occurred by His word alone, so here also He said: Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures, and let birds fly above the earth across the firmament of the heavens - and instantly there were so many kinds of crawling things, such a variety of birds, that one cannot number them in words' (7:3, p.52) Genesis is not a work of human wisdom, it is knowledge which comes directly from God (cf Genesis, Creation and Early Man, Fr Seraphim Rose [Orthodox monk] 1934 - 82)......................... St. John Chrysostom - Commentary on Genesis
No one should think that the Creation of Six Days is an allegory; it is likewise impermissible to say that what seems, according to the account, to have been created in six days, was created in a single instant, and likewise that certain names presented in this account either signify nothing, or signify something else. On the contrary, we must know that just as the heaven and the earth which were created in the beginning are actually the heaven and earth and not something else understood under the names of heaven and earth, so also everything else that is spoken of as being created and brought into order after the creation of heaven and earth is not empty names, but the very essence of the created natures corresponds to the force of these names (1, p. 282).
......................... St. Ephraim the Syrian - Commentary on Genesis I
...when I hear grass I think of grass, and in the same manner I understand everything as it is said, a plant a fish, a wild animal, and an ox. Indeed, I am not ashamed of the Gospel (Rom. 1:16) ...(Some) have attempted by false arguments and allegorical interpretations to bestow on the Scripture a dignity of their own imagining. But theirs is the attitude of one who considers himself wiser than the revelations of the Spirit and introduces his own ideas in pretence of an explanation. Therefore, let it be understood as it has been written (9:1, pp. 135-36). ......................... St. Basil the Great � Hexaemeron
'All water was in eager haste to fulfill the command of its Creator, and the great and ineffable power of God immediately produced an efficacious and active life in creatures of which one would not even be able to enumerate the species, as soon as the capacity for propagating living creatures came to the waters through His command' (St. Basil, Hexaemeron 7:1, p.105) ......................... St Basil, on the Third Day of God's creation
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 twelve hours each (Commentary on Genesis 1, p. 287). ......................... Regarding the First Day of creation - St. Ephraim
God...formed all things through His Word, and fashioned and made all things which exist out of that which did not exist (1,22,1) 'God, taking soil from the earth, made man. And surely it is much more difficult and more incredible that from non-existent bones and nerves and veins and the rest of the human system, He makes him to exist, and in fact raises him up as an animated and rational living being, than that He restores again that which had been made ...' (5,3,2,)
......................... St. Irenaeus - Against Heresies
By a statement addressed to the intellect, and not without perfect doctrinal reasoning, the prophet exhorts all the celestial powers to give praise. He avoids the first error of human ignorance, according to which the present state of the world assembles itself together by fortuitous and tumultuous circumstances and was thus established in order from disorder...[The prophet] excludes every ignorant error, when he says For the Lord spoke and they were made ; He commanded and they were created (Ps. 148 :5)
......................... St. Hilary of Poitiers - Commentaries on the Psalms
This man (Moses), who is made equal to the angels, being considered worthy of the sight of God face to face, reports to us things which he heard from God (1:1, p. 4). ......................... St. Basil - Hexaemeron
What does it mean that first there is heaven, and then earth, first the roof and then the foundation? God is not subject to natural necessity; He is not subject to the laws of art. The will of God is the creator and artificer of nature and of art and of everything existing (Eight Homilies on Genesis 1:3, pp. 731-32). ......................... St. John Chrysostom
'God said, Let us make man according to our image and according to our likeness (1:26). It is clear from this that man was not formed by the conjunction of the body with some pre-existing type. For if the earth, at a command, brought forth the other animals endowed with life, how much more certain it is that the dust which God took from the earth received vital energy from the will and operation of God' (Fragment 1) ......................... St. Peter of Alexandria - The soul
As to the separate stars or the great lights, not this appeared first, and that second, but in one day and by the same command, they were all called into being. And such was the original formation of the quadrupeds, and of birds, and fishes, and cattle and plants�No one creature was made before another, but all things originate subsisted at once together upon one and the same command
......................... St. Athanasius the Great - Four Discourses against the Arians
When you hear that God planted Paradise in Eden in the East, understand the word planted befittingly of God : that is, that He commanded; but concerning the words that follow, believe precisely that Paradise was created and in that very place where the Scripture has assigned it (13:3, p. 106). ......................... St. John Chrysostom - Homilies on Genesis
Let no one inquire of what materials God made those so great and wonderful works ; for He made all things out of nothing... (2,8 {al. 9},8 ......................... Lactantius - The Divine Institutions
...one is already exalted in his mind to that which preceded the composition (making) of the world, when there was no creature, nor heaven, nor earth, nor angels, nothing of that which was brought into being, and to how God, solely by His good will, suddenly brought everything from non-being into being, and everything stood before Him in perfection (Homily 37, p. 180).......................... St. Isaac the Syrian - Ascetical Homilies
In regard, then, to this resurrection of the dead, my beloved, I will instruct you as well as I can. For from the beginning God created Adam. From the dust He shaped Him and raised him up. And if, when Adam did not exist, He made him from nothing, how much easier will it now be for Him to raise him up ; for he has been sown like a seed in the earth (8,6) ......................... Aphraates the Persian Sage - Treatises
Today God goes over to the waters and shows us that from them, by His word and command, there proceeded animate creatures ...What mind, tell me, can understand this miracle? (Homilies on Genesis 7:3, p.52). ......................... St. Chrysostom speaks of the fifth day of creation:
At this command the waters immediately poured forth their offspring. The rivers were in labor. The lakes produced their quota of life. The sea itself began to bear all manner of reptiles...We are unable to record the multiplicity of the names of all those species which by Divine command were brought to life in a moment of time. At the same instant substantial form and the principle of life were drought brought into existence...The whale, as well as the frog, came into existence at the same time by the same creative power (5:1, 2, pp. 160-62) He (Moses) did not look forward to a late and leisurely creation of the word out of a concourse of atoms (1:2, pp. 5, 7). And fittingly (Moses) added: He created, lest it be thought there was a delay in creation. Furthermore, men would see also how incomparable the Creator was Who completed such a work in the briefest moment of His creative act, so much so that the effect of His will anticipated the perception of time (Ibid., 1:5, p.8). The Church Fathers were unanimous in asserting God creates immediately and instantaneously, that it is His word which produces all things and is not the property of the waters or earth to bring forth life. Speaking about the Sixth Day St Basil states: 'When He said: Let it bring forth, (the earth) did not produce what was stored up in it, but He Who gave the command also bestowed upon it the power to bring forth. Neither did the earth, when it heard Let it bring forth vegetation and the fruit trees, produce plants which it had hidden in it; nor did it send up to the surface the palm or the oak or the cypress which had been hidden somewhere down below its womb. On the contrary, it is the Divine Word that is the origen of all things made. Let the earth bring forth; not let it put forth, let it acquire what it does not have, since God is enduing it with the power of active force' ( Hexaemeran 8:1, p.117) 'God orders the firstlings of each kind to be brought forth...'(Hexaemeron7:2, p.107) ......................... St. Ambrose of Milan - Hexaemeron
Someone may, perhaps, ask this: Why does the Scripture reduce to a command of the Creator that tendency to flow downward which belong naturally to water ...If water has this tendency by nature, the command ordering the waters to be gathered together into one place would be superfluous ...To this enquiry we say this, that you recognised very well the movements of the water after the command of the Lord, both that it is unsteady and unstable and that it is borne naturally down slopes and into hollows; but how it had any power previous to that, before the motion was engendered in it from this command, you yourself neither know nor have you heard it from one who knew. Reflect that the voice of God makes nature, and the command given at that time to creation provided the future course of action for the creatures (4:2, pp. 56-57). ......................... According to St. Basil the Great in his Haexameron
Let us see now what we are taught by the blessed Moses, who speaks not of himself but by the inspiration of the grace of the Spirit (14:2, p. 110). All the other prophets spoke either of what was to occur after a long time or what was about to happen then; but he, the blessed (Moses), who lived many generations after (the creation of the world), was vouchsafed by the guidance of the right hand of the Most High to utter what had been done by the Lord before his own birth. It is for this reason that he begins to speak thus: In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth, as if calling out to us all with a loud voice: it is not by the instruction of men that I say this; He who called them (heaven and earth) out of nothing into being-it is He Who has roused my tongue to relate of them. And therefore I entreat you, let us pay heed to these words as if we heard not Moses but the very Lord of the universe Who speaks through the tongue of Moses, and let us tale leave for good of our own opinions (2:2, p. 9). With great gratitude let us accept what is related (by Moses), not stepping out of our own limitations, and not testing what is above us as the enemies of the truth did when, wishing to comprehend everything with their minds, they did not realise that human nature cannot comprehend the creation of God (ibid). ......................... St. John Chrysostom - Homilies on Genesis
...knowledge (spiritual) bestowed by Divine power is called supra-natural ; it is unfathomable and is higher than knowledge (perceptions of the visible); contemplation of this knowledge comes to the soul not from matter, which is outside it... It manifests and reveals itself in the innermost depths of the soul itself, immaterially, suddenly, spontaneously, and unexpectedly, since, according to the words of Christ, the Kingdom of God is within you (Luke 17:21) (Early Fathers from the Philokalia p. 196).
......................... St. Isaac the Syrian
Moses spoke to God the Most High, not in a vision nor in dreams, but mouth to mouth (Numbers 12:6-8). Plainly and clearly, not by figures nor by riddles, there was bestowed on him the gift of the Divine presence ...For, if he had already accepted from God what he should say concerning the liberation of the people, how much more should you accept what He should say concerning heaven? Therefore, not in the persuasive words of wisdom, not in philosophical fallacies, but in the demonstration of the Spirit and power (1 Cor. 2:4) he has ventured to say as if he were of the Divine work: In the beginning God created heaven and earth (1:2, pp. 6-7).
......................... St Ambrose - Hexaemeron