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Now let us study the Patristic model of the Six Days of Creation. We will not occupy ourselves with trying to guess \u201chow long\u201d these \u201cdays\u201d were. Many fundamentalists think their literal interpretation of Genesis is lost if these \u201cdays\u201d are not accepted as 24 hours long; and many others who want to reconcile Genesis with the modem theory of evolution think their hopes rest upon accepting these \u201cdays\u201d as millions or billions of years long so they will accord with the supposed findings of geology. I think we can safely say that both of these views miss the mark.<\/p>\n
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It is not that these days could not have been 24 hours long, if God so willed; one or two Fathers (St. Ephraim the Syrian, for example) even state precisely that they were 24 hours long. But most Fathers do not say anything at all on the subject: it was not a subject of debate in their times, and it seems not to have occurred to them to insist on projecting the time scale of our fallen world back to the stupendous and miraculous events of those Six Days. Blessed Augustine, I think, sums up well the Patristic attitude when he says: \u201cWhat kind of days these were is very difficult for us to conceive, or even completely impossible; and all the more impossible is it for us to speak of this.\u201d [1]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n But if we do not need to define the Six Days of Creation as 24 hours long, it is quite impossible for us to regard them as millions or billions of years long\u2014that is, to force them into an evolutionary time scale. The events of the Six Days simply do not fit into the evolutionary picture at all. In Genesis the first living things are grasses and trees upon the dry land, not micro-organisms in the sea, as the evolutionary theory would have it; these land plants exist for a whole day (billions of years?) before the sun was created, while in any evolutionary conception the sun precedes the earth itself. Any reasonably objective observer would have to conclude that the Six Days of Creation, if they are a true account and not a product of arbitrary fancy or speculation, simply do not fit into the evolutionary framework, and therefore there is no need to make them billions of years long. We will see below also how the description of these Days by the Holy Fathers makes this interpretation quite impossible. Evolutionary theory is obviously talking about something other than the Six Days of Creation.<\/p>\n And in actual fact, no<\/em> scientific theory can tell us about those Six Days. Science tries to explain (sometimes with more and sometimes with less success) the changes of this world, based on projections of natural processes which can be observed today. But the Six Days of Creation are not a natural process; they are what came before all the world\u2019s natural processes began to work. They are Gods work; by very definition they are miraculous and do not fit into the natural laws which govern the world we see now. If we can know what happened in those Six Days at all, it is not by scientific projections or speculations, but only by God\u2019s revelation. In this respect, modern scientists are no better off than the ancient creators of cosmic speculations and myths. The writers of commentaries on Genesis emphasize this point. St. John Chrysostom writes:<\/p>\n 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 [2]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nSpeaking of the Fifth Day of Creation, the same Father says:<\/p>\n Today God goes over to the waters and shows us that from them, by His word and command, there proceeded animate creatures\u2026 What mind, tell me, can understand this miracle [3]<\/sup><\/a>?<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nSt. Basil teaches in the Hexaemeron<\/em> that in the Third Day there was no natural necessity for waters to flow downward; this is a law of our own world, but then there was as yet no law, until God\u2019s command came:<\/p>\n Someone may, perhaps, ask this: Why does the Scripture reduce to a command of the Creator that tendency to flow downward which belongs 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\u2026 To this inquiry we say this, that you recognized 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]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nUndoubtedly, here is one of the chief sources of the conflict between scientific theory and religious revelation. During the Six Days nature itself was being made<\/em>; our present knowledge of natural laws cannot possibly tell us how these laws themselves were made. The very subject of ultimate origins, of beginnings, of the Genesis of all things\u2014is outside the sphere of science. When a scientist enters this realm, he guesses and speculates like any ancient cosmologist; and this not only distracts him from his serious work of studying the natural processes of this world,\u2014it also makes him a competitor of religious revelation, which is the only possible source of our real knowledge of the beginning of things, just as it is our only source of knowledge of the final end of all things. St. Basil writes:<\/p>\n We are proposing to examine the structure of the world and to contemplate the whole universe, not from the wisdom of the world, but from what God taught His servant when He spoke to him in person and without riddles [5]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nIf we can humble ourselves enough to know that we can actually know rather little about the details of the Creation of the Six Days, we will have a better chance of understanding what we can about Genesis. The Holy Fathers, and not scientific or cosmological speculations, are our key to understanding the text.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n What, then, can we say of these Six Days?<\/p>\n First<\/strong>: One Orthodox person reflecting on the Six Days very nicely expressed our aim in studying them: we should measure them, not quantitatively, but theologically. The important thing about them is not how long they were, but what happened in them. They are the statement of six immense creative acts of God<\/em> which produced the universe as we know it. In a moment we will look at these six acts in detail.<\/p>\n Second<\/strong>: As we have seen, by their very nature the events of these days are miraculous, are not subject to the laws of nature that now govern the world, and we cannot understand them by projections from our present experience.<\/p>\n Third<\/strong>: a point very much emphasized by the Holy Fathers who have written on Genesis: the creative acts of God in the Six Days are sudden, instantaneous.<\/p>\n St. Ephraim the Syrian, who understands the days of Creation to be 24 hours long, emphasizes that the creative acts of God in these days do not require 24 hours, but only an instant. Thus, concerning the first day he writes:<\/p>\n 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 [6]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nSt. Basil the Great likewise emphasizes at various points of his commentary on the Six Days the instantaneous nature of God\u2019s creation. On the Third Day of Creation, he writes.<\/p>\n At this saying all the dense woods appeared; all the trees shot up\u2026 Likewise, all the shrubs were immediately thick with leaf and bushy; and the so-called garland plants\u2026 all came into existence in a moment of time, although they were not previously upon the earth [7]<\/sup><\/a>. \u201cLet the earth bring forth.\u201d This brief command was immediately mighty nature and an elaborate system which brought to perfection more swiftly than our thought the countless properties of plants [8]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nSt. Ambrose writes that when Moses says so abruptly \u201cIn the beginning God created,\u201d he intends to \u201cexpress the incomprehensible speed of the work.\u201d And, having the cosmological speculations of the Greeks in mind, he writes words that apply equally well to the speculations of our own times:<\/p>\n He (Moses) did not look forward to a late and leisurely creation of the world out of a concourse of atoms [9]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nSt. Ambrose says further:<\/p>\n And fittingly (Moses) added: \u201cHe created,\u201d lest it be thought there was a delay in creation. Furthermore, men would see also how incomparable the Creator was Who completed such a great work in the briefest moment of His creative act, so much so that the effect of His will anticipated the perception of time [10]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nSt. Athanasius the Great, in arguing against the Arian teaching that Christ is the \u201cbeginning\u201d of all things and thus like the creation, sets forth as his understanding of the Six Days of Creation that all things in each of these days were created simultaneously<\/em>:<\/p>\n 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\u2026 No one creature was made before another, but all things originate subsisted at once together upon one and the same command [11]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n <\/p>\n We have already quoted St. Ephraim the Syrian, who states that \u201cit is likewise impermissible to say that what seems, according to the account (of Genesis), to have been created in the course of six days, was created in a single instant.\u201d The Holy Fathers are quite insistent in their faithfulness to the text of Genesis: when the text says \u201cday,\u201d they find it impermissible to understand some indefinitely long epoch, since God\u2019s creative acts are instantaneous; but they also find it impermissible to interpret these Six Days as merely some literary device to express a totally instantaneous creation. Although each creative act is instantaneous, the whole creation consists of an orderly sequence of these creative acts.<\/p>\n St. Gregory the Theologian writes:<\/p>\n To the days (of creation) is added a certain firstness, secondness, thirdness, and so on to the seventh day of rest from works, and by these days is divided all that is created, being brought into order by unutterable laws, but not produced in an instant, by the Almighty Word, for Whom to think or to speak means already to perform the deed. If man appeared in the world last, honored by the handiwork and image of God, this is not in the least surprising; since for him, as for a king, the royal dwelling had to be prepared and only then was the king to be led in, accompanied by all creatures [12]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nIn the same vein St. John Chrysostom writes:<\/p>\n The Almighty right hand of God and His limitless wisdom would have had no difficulty in creating everything in a single day. And what do I say, in a single day?\u2014in an instant. But since He created everything that exists not for His own benefit, because He needs nothing, being All-sufficient unto Himself, on the contrary He created everything in His love of mankind and goodness, and so He creates in parts and offers us by the mouth of the blessed Prophet a clear teaching of what is created so that we, having found out about this in detail, would not fall under the influence of those who are drawn away by human reasonings\u2026 And why, you will say, was man created afterwards, if he surpassed all these creatures? For a good reason. When a king intends to enter a city, his armsbearers and others must go ahead, so that the king might enter chambers already prepared for him. Precisely thus did God now, intending to place as it were a king and master over everything earthly, at first arrange all this adornment, and only then did He create the master [man] [13]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nSt. Gregory of Nyssa repeats this same teaching that man, as king, appeared only after his dominion had been prepared for him; but he also has another, more mystical interpretation of the sequence of the Six Days which some have tried to interpret as an expression of the theory of evolution. Let us therefore look closely at this teaching. He writes:<\/p>\n Scripture informs us that the Deity proceeded by a sort of graduated and ordered advance to the creation of man. After the foundations of the universe were laid, as the history records, man did not appear on the earth at once; but the creation of the brutes preceded him, and the plants preceded them. Thereby Scripture shows that the vital forces blended with the world of matter according to a gradation; first, it infused itself into insensate nature; and in continuation of this advanced into the sentient world; and then ascended to intelligent and rational beings.\u00a0.\u00a0. The creation of man is related as coming last, as of one who took up into himself every single form of life, both that of plants and that which is seen in brutes. His nourishment and growth he derives from vegetable life; for even in vegetables such processes are to be seen when aliment is being drawn in by their roots and given off in fruit and leaves. His sentient organization he derives from the brute creation. But his faculty of thought and reason is incommunicable, and is a peculiar gift in our nature faculty to exist in the life of the body without existing by means of sensations, and since sensation is already found subsisting in the brute creation, necessarily, as it were, by reason of this one condition, our soul has touch with the other things which are knit up with it; and these are all those phenomena within us that we call \u201cpassions\u201d. [14]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n At the end of another description in a different book, St. Gregory concludes:<\/p>\n If, therefore. Scripture tells us that man was made last, after every animate thing, the lawgiver [Moses] is doing nothing else than declaring to us the doctrine of the soul, considering that what is perfect comes last, according to a certain necessary sequence in the order of things.\u00a0.\u00a0. Thus we may suppose that nature makes an ascent as it were by steps\u2014I mean the various properties of life\u2014from the lower to the perfect form [15]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nThis is one of the very few passages in the writings of the Holy Fathers which believers in the evolutionary cosmogony find sympathetic to their views. It speaks of an \u201cascent by steps\u2026 from the lower to the perfect form,\u201d and states that man somehow \u201cpartakes\u201d in the life of the lower creation. But the evolutionary theory of origins requires much more than these general views, which no one will dispute. The theory of evolution requires that man be shown to be a descendant<\/em> of the lower creation, to have \u201cevolved\u201d out of it. In a later lecture we will look closely at what the Fathers say of man\u2019s origin. Here we will only say that St. Gregory not only says nothing whatever that indicates he believed such a view, but other of his own views contradict it. Thus, he agrees with the rest of the Fathers who have written on Genesis that God\u2019s creation is instantaneous; in this same treatise he says that:<\/p>\n every hillside and slope and hollow were crowned with young grass, and with the varied produce of the trees, just risen from the ground, yet shot up at once into their perfect beauty [16]<\/sup><\/a>,<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nand that \u201cthe creation is, so to say, made offhand by the Divine power, existing at once on His command\u201d. [17]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n Further, St. Gregory states specifically that the one reason human nature has contact with the lower creation is because it shares the same sentient nature; it comes, indeed, from the same earth the lower creatures also sprang from. It is a totally arbitrary addition to the Saint\u2019s meaning to insist that this means man \u201cdescended\u201d from the brute creation; in this case, indeed, it would be required also that he (and the brutes) descended from the vegetable creation, since he has something of their nature also within himself. But evolutionary theory teaches, not that animals \u201cevolved\u201d from plants, but that the two kingdoms are separate and parallel branches from a common primitive ancestor.<\/p>\n St. Gregory\u2019s \u201cascent by steps,\u201d therefore, does not at all show the chronological descent of man from plants and animals, but only shows his kinship with the lower creation through sharing the nutritive and sentient nature which all earthborn creatures have, to the degree God has given it to them. He is describing, not the history of man, but his nature.<\/p>\n We will see more specifically below what St. Gregory actually thought about the \u201cmixing of natures\u201d which is implied in the evolutionary theory.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n Let us turn now to the text of Genesis and see briefly what God brought into being during the Six Days of Creation:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1:1<\/strong> In the beginning<\/em>.\u00a0.\u00a0. This book is about the very first things in the world. But there can also be a mystical significance to the words, as St. Ambrose teaches:<\/p>\n A beginning in a mystical sense is denoted by the statement: I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end [18]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em>.\u00a0.\u00a0. In truth, He Who is the beginning of all things by virtue of His Divinity is also the end.\u00a0.\u00a0. Therefore, in this beginning, that is, in Christ, God created heaven and earth, because all things were made through Him and without Him Was made nothing that was made [19]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a> [20]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nThe succeeding acts of creation begin: \u201cAnd God said.\u201d St. Basil asks the meaning of this, and answers it for us:<\/p>\n Let us inquire how God speaks. Is it in our manner?… Does He manifest His hidden thought by striking the air with the articulate movement of the voice? Surely, it is fantastic to say that God needs such a roundabout way for the manifestation of His thoughts. Or, is it not more in conformity with true religion to say that the Divine will joined with the first impulse of His intelligence is the Word of God?\u00a0 [i.e., Christ]. The Scripture delineates Him in detail in order that it may show that God wished the creation not only to be accomplished, but also to be brought to this birth through some co-worker. It could have related everything fully as it began, \u201cIn the beginning God created the heavens and the earth,\u201d then \u201cHe created light,\u201d next, \u201cHe\u00a0 created the firmament,\u201d But now, introducing God as commanding\u00a0 and speaking, it indicates silently Him to Whom He gives the command and to Whom He speaks…. This way of speaking has been wisely and skillfully employed so as to rouse our mind to an inquiry of the Person to Whom the words are directed [21]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nAnd so we see that Christ is the Creator, as is also stated by St. John the Evangelist: In the beginning was the Word\u2026 all things were made through Him and without Him was made nothing that was made [22]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em>. St. Paul teaches the same thing: God\u2026 created all things by Jesus Christ [23]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em>; by Him <\/em>(Christ) were all things created, that art in heaven, and that art in earth, visible and invisible, whether they were thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers; all things were created by Him and for Him [24]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n Thus, in traditional Orthodox iconography of the creation we see not Michelangelo\u2019s old man (the Father) creating Adam (as in the fresco in the Sistine Chapel<\/a>), but Christ (see illustration \u2013 Icon from Sucevi\u021ba Monastery, Moldavia, Romania, sixteenth century). Of course, it is the Trinity as a whole that creates: the Father commands, the Son creates, and in a moment we will see the Spirit participating in this work, as he \u201cmoves\u201d or \u201chovers\u201d over the waters. Of this St. Ephraim the Syrian writes:<\/p>\n It was fitting for the Holy Spirit to hover as a proof that in creative power He is equal to the Father and the Son. For the Father uttered, the Son created, and it was fitting for the Spirit also to offer His work. And this He did by hovering, thereby clearly showing that all was brought into being and accomplished by the Trinity [25]<\/sup><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n1:1-2<\/strong> God created the heavens and the earth. And the earth was without form and void<\/em> (Septuagint: invisible and unfinished<\/em>).<\/p>\n St. Basil asks:<\/p>\n How is it, if both the heavens and the earth were of equal honor, that the heavens were brought to perfection and the earth is still imperfect and unfinished? Or, in short, what was the lack of preparation of the earth? And for what reason was it invisible? Surely, the perfect condition of the earth consists in its state of abundance: the budding of all sorts of plants, the putting forth of the lofty trees both fruitful and barren, the freshness and fragrance of flowers, and whatever things appeared on earth a little later by the command of God to adorn their mother. Since as yet there was nothing of this, the Scripture reasonably spoke of it as incomplete. 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. For, these things had not yet been made. Therefore, you will not err from the truth if you say that the heavens also were incomplete [26]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nSt. Ambrose speaks of chis work of the First Day as the \u201cfoundation\u201d of the world:<\/p>\n The good architect lays the foundation first, and afterwards, when the foundation has been laid, plots the various parts of the building, one after the other, and then adds thereto the ornamentation\u2026 Why did not God\u2026 grant to the elements at the same time as they arose their appropriate adornments, as if He, at the moment of creation, were unable to cause the heavens immediately to gleam with studded stars and the earth to be clothed with flowers and fruit? That could very well have happened. Yet Scripture points out that things were first created and afterwards put in order, lest it be supposed that they were nor actually created and that they had no beginning, just as if the nature of things had been, as it were, generated from the beginning and did not appear to be something added afterwards [27]<\/sup><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nSt. Ephraim says:<\/p>\n He said this desiring to show that emptiness preceded the natures (of things).\u00a0.\u00a0. There was then only the earth, and there was nothing beside it [28]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n1:2<\/strong> And darkness was upon the face of the deep<\/em>.<\/p>\n The waters of the \u201cdeep\u201d were created together with the earth and completely submerged the earth. This is the cause of its unfinished appearance. The Fathers assume there was a certain light created with the heavens, since the heavens are the region of light; but if so the clouds covering the earth prevented its reaching the earth. St. Ephraim writes:<\/p>\n If everything created (whether its creation is mentioned or not) was created in six days, then the clouds were created on the first day\u2026 For everything had to be created in six days [29]<\/sup><\/a>.\u00a0<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n(This is another indication, incidentally, that the work of the Six Days is distinct from the continuous creative work of God after that, and that we cannot understand it by projecting back from our present experience.)<\/p>\n St. Ambrose specifically rejects the opinion that the \u201cdarkness\u201d here refers allegorically to powers of evil [30]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n 1:2<\/strong> And the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters.<\/em><\/p>\n Here we see the activity of the Third Person of the Holy Trinity in the creation. St. Ambrose writes:<\/p>\n There was still to come the plenitude of the operation in the Spirit, as it is written: \u201cBy the Word of the Lord the heavens were established and all the power of them by the Spirit of His mouth [31]<\/sup><\/a>\u201d \u2026The Spirit fittingly moved over the earth, destined to bear fruit, because by the aid of the Spirit it held the seeds of new birth which were to germinate according to the words of the Prophet: \u201cSend forth Thy Spirit and they shall be created and Thou shalt renew the face of the earth [32]<\/sup><\/a>\u201d. [33]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n St. Ephraim gives us a homely image of the activity of the Spirit on the First Day: The Holy Spirit<\/p>\n 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. This same Holy Spirit represented for us then an image of Holy Baptism, in which by His moving over the waters He gives birth to the children of God [34]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nThe Holy Spirit also participated in the other days of Creation, for Job speaks of \u201cthe Divine Spirit which made me\u201d. [35]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n 1:3<\/strong> And God said, Let there be light; and there was light<\/em>.<\/p>\n St. Ambrose writes:<\/p>\n God is the author of light, and the place and cause of darkness is the world. But the good Author uttered the word \u201clight\u201d so that He might reveal the world by infusing brightness therein and thus make its aspect beautiful. Suddenly, then, the air became bright and darkness shrank in terror from the brilliance of the novel brightness. The brilliance of the light which suddenly permeated the whole universe overwhelmed the darkness and, as it were, plunged it into the abyss [36]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n St. Ephraim, in harmony with the other Fathers, tells us clearly that this light had nothing to do with the sun, which was created only on the Fourth Day:<\/p>\n The light which appeared on earth was like either a bright cloud, or a rising sun, or the pillar that illumined the Hebrew people in the desert. In any case, the light could not disperse the darkness that embraced everything if it had not extended everywhere either its substance or its rays, like the rising sun. The original light was shed everywhere and was not enclosed in a single definite place; it dispersed the darkness without having any movement; its whole movement consisted in its appearance and disappearance; after its sudden disappearance there came the dominion of night, and with its appearance this dominion ended. Thus the light produced also the three following days.\u00a0.\u00a0. It aided the conception and bringing forth of everything chat the earth was to produce on the third day; as for the sun, when it was established in the firmament, it was to bring to maturity what had already been produced with the aid of the original light [37]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n1:4<\/strong> And God saw that the light was good<\/em>.<\/p>\n God calls each stage of His work \u201cgood.\u201d seeing its perfect and unspoiled nature and, as St. Ambrose teaches, looking forward to the perfection of the whole work:<\/p>\n God, as judge of the whole work, foreseeing what is going to happen as something completed, commends that part of His work which is still in its initial stages, being already cognizant of its termination\u2026 He praises each individual part as befitting what is to come[38]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n 1:4-5<\/strong> And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.<\/em>\u00a0 <\/em><\/p>\n St. Basil comments on this passage:<\/p>\n \u00a0\u201cGod separated the light from the darkness.\u201d That is, God made their natures incapable of mixing and in opposition, one to the other. For, He divided and separated them with a very great distinction between them. \u201cAnd God called the light Day and the darkness Night.\u201d Now, henceforth, after the creation of the sun, it is day when the air is illuminated by the sun shining on the hemisphere above the earth, and night is the darkness of the earth when the sun is hidden. Yet, it was not at that time according to solar motion, but it was when that first created light was diffused and again drawn in according to the measure ordained by God, that day came and night succeeded [39]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\n1:5<\/strong> And then was evening and there was morning, one day.<\/em><\/p>\n St. Basil continues:<\/p>\n Evening, then, is a common boundary line of day and night; and similarly, morning is the part of night bordering on day. In order, therefore, to give the prerogative of prior generation to the day, Moses mentioned first the limit of the day and then that of the night, as night followed the day. The condition in the world before the creation of light was not night, but darkness; that which was opposed to the day was named night; wherefore it received its name later than the day did\u2026 Why did he say \u201cone\u201d and not \u201cfirst\u201d? It is more consistent for him who intends to introduce a second and a third and a fourth day, to call the one which begins the series \u201cfirst.\u201d But he said \u201cone\u201d because he was defining the measure of day and night [40]<\/sup><\/a>. <\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nThis first \u201cday\u201d of creation (no matter how \u201clong\u201d one may guess it to be) is the beginning of the cycle of seven days (each with its \u201cday\u201d and \u201cnight\u201d) which continues up to our own days. Those rationalist commentators who see in the \u201cseven days\u201d and the fact that \u201cevening\u201d precedes \u201cmorning\u201d 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? In the Patristic view, the revealed text can and does give the literal origins<\/em> of the world and the reasons for the Jewish customs (which are now Christian-for our church day also begins with Vespers, the evening service).<\/p>\n Thus we have come to the end of \u201cDay One,\u201d the first Day of creation. It has established the measure of time for all succeeding ages (because \u201cbefore\u201d it there was no time; time begins with it). And in another sense also it is a day unlike those that follow it, as St. Ephraim explains:<\/p>\n Thus, according to the testimony of Scripture, heaven, earth, fire, air, and the waters were created out of nothing; while the light which was created on the first day and everything else that was created after it were created out of what existed before. For when Moses speaks of what was created out of nothing he uses the word \u201ccreated\u201d (Hebrew: bara<\/em>): God created the heavens and the earth<\/em>. And although it is not written that fire, the waters and the air were created, it is likewise not said that they were produced from what existed earlier. And therefore they also are out of nothing, just as heaven and earth are out of nothing. But when God begins to create out of what already existed, the Scripture uses an expression like this: God said, let there be light<\/em>, and the rest. And if it is said: God created the great sea monsters<\/em>, before this the following is said: Let the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures<\/em>. Therefore, only the above-named five kinds of creations were created out of nothing, while everything else was created out of what had already been created out of nothing [41]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nThe \u201cfive creations\u201d that St. Ephraim mentions are the \u201cfour elements\u201d out of which, according to the definition of ancient science, everything on each consists, in addition to \u201cheaven.\u201d One does not have to accept this particular way of analyzing the creation to see that there is indeed something \u201cfundamental\u201d about the First Day of Creation: it contains the beginnings of everything that is to come after. One might speculate as to where the actual matter came from for the living creatures, the heavenly bodies, and other creations of the next five days: was it newly created out of nothing, or was it really only a transformation of pre-existing matter? But this would be a profitless exercise that would not, in any case, contradict the truth that the basic structure and matter of creation was made on the First Day; the work of the next five days is less \u201cradical\u201d than that of the first day-it is rather a \u201cshaping\u201d than a \u201ccreation\u201d in the strict sense.<\/p>\n The very idea of \u201ccreation out of nothing\u201d or \u201cfrom non-being\u201d sharply distinguishes the Genesis account from that of all pagan myths and speculations about creation. In the latter it is some kind of \u201cdemiurge\u201d or \u201cfashioner-god\u201d who forms the world out of already existing matter-which, as the Holy Fathers say, thus is a kind of \u201cgod\u201d also. Genesis describes the absolute<\/em> beginning of the whole world, not its development from something already existing; even the creations of the following five days, as we shall see, although they come out of the matter which has already been created, are something radically new which cannot be understood as a mere development of the first-created matter. The speculations of modern thinkers who try to trace the world back to some ultimately simple matter which develops by itself can be seen to be akin to the ancient pagan speculations; the radicalness of the Genesis explanation is beyond them both-precisely because it comes from God\u2019s revelation and not the guesses and projections of men.<\/p>\n The Christian who understands the absoluteness of God\u2019s creative work in the Six Days views the present creation with different eyes than does someone who views it as a gradual development or \u201cevolution\u201d from primordial matter (whether the latter is understood as created by God or as self-existing). In the latter view, the world is seen to be \u201cnaturally\u201d what it is, and one can trace it back co ever simpler forms, each of which can be understood \u201cnaturally\u201d; but in the former view, the view of Genesis, one is placed before the two radical poles of existence: that which now is, and the absolute nothingness from which it came, suddenly and by God\u2019s will alone.<\/p>\n 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? Moses describes the creation only of the visible world; when was the invisible world of spiritual beings created? Some Fathers think they are included in the creation of \u201cheaven\u201d; others are not so specific, but know that they were also created \u201cin the beginning.\u201d St. Basil teaches:<\/p>\n In fact there did exist something, as it seems, even before this world, which our mind can attain by contemplation, but which has been left uninvestigated because it is not adapted to those who are beginners and as yet infants in understanding. This was a certain condition older than the birth of the world and proper to the supramundane powers, one beyond time, everlasting, without beginning or end. In it the Creator and Producer of all things perfected the works of His art, a spiritual light befitting the blessedness of chose who love the Lord, rational and invisible natures, and the whole orderly arrangement of spiritual creatures which surpass our understanding and of which it is impossible even to discover the names. These fill completely the essence of the invisible world [42]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p><\/blockquote><\/div>\nSimilarly, St. Ambrose writes:<\/p>\n The Angels, Dominations, and Powers, although they began to exist at some time, were already in existence when the world was created. For all things \u201cwere created, things visible and things invisible, whether Thrones or Dominations or Principalities or Powers. All things,\u201d we are told, \u201chave been created through and unto Him[43]<\/sup><\/a>\u201d[44]<\/sup><\/a>.<\/p>\n Indeed, God said to Job: When the stars were made, all My angels praised Me with a loud voice[45]<\/strong><\/sup><\/a><\/em>. We will see on the Sixth Day how Adam was tempted by satan, and therefore we know that the battle of the proud angels in heaven, as described in the Apocalypse[46]<\/sup><\/a> has already been fought before then, and satan has already \u201cfallen like lightning\u201d.[47]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n 1:6-8<\/strong> And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters. And God made the firmament and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so. And God called the firmament Heaven. And there was evening and there was morning, a second day.<\/em><\/p>\n Some have tried to find in this passage an \u201cunscientific\u201d view of the heavens, as though Moses believed in a kind of hard crystal dome in which the stars are embedded and above which there is a fictitious store of water. But there is nothing so fantastic to be found in this text.<\/p>\n The word \u201cfirmament\u201d seems to have two shades of meaning in Genesis, one quite specific and \u201cscientific,\u201d the other general. In its general meaning the firmament is more or less synonymous with \u201cheaven\u201d or \u201csky\u201d: the stars are called \u201clights in the firmament of the heavens\u201d [48]<\/sup><\/a>, and the birds fly \u201cacross the firmament of the heavens\u201d [49]<\/sup><\/a>. We who have lost the specific meaning of \u201cfirmament\u201d would omit it in such descriptions and say that stars and birds are both to be seen in the \u201cheavens.\u201d The idea that the stars are embedded in crystal spheres is a speculation of ancient pagan thought and does not have to be projected into the inspired text of Genesis.<\/p>\n What, then, is the specific \u201cscientific\u201d meaning of the \u201cfirmament\u201d in this text? St. Basil teaches that, even though it is also called \u201cheaven,\u201d it is not synonymous with the \u201cheaven\u201d mentioned at the beginning of Genesis.<\/p>\n2. General Remarks about the Six Days<\/h3>\n
3. Why Six Days?<\/h3>\n
Chapter Three: The Six Days
\n(Day by Day)
\n(Genesis 1:1-25; 2:1-3)<\/h2>\n1. The First Day (Genesis 1:1-5)<\/h3>\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/hesychia.eu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/Creation-Icon.jpg\"){kind=icon}
<\/strong><\/p>\n2. The Second Day (Genesis 1:6-8)<\/h3>\n