Potoooooooo

but what exactly did he think about the origins of the earth and the life on it? :huh:

Potoooooooo

Ok , I looked through those quotes. It seem like there was nothing but a small amount of vague speculation.Is that all they engaged in regarding the origins of life on earth?. :huh:

Potoooooooo

here is the link to my original question http://iidb.infidels.org/vbb/showthread.php?t=188974

Lógos Sokratikós

Really?

That's Sanctus Augustinus "Young Earth Creationist" Hipponensis calling the Hellenics "mandacious" (i.e. "liars") for believing the Earth was older than the literal reading of Genesis suggests. http://www.catholic.com/library/Crea...nd_Genesis.asp

The bible, successfully leading people into error. Now why would and all-powerful and loving God do a thing like that..?

general_koffi

At one stage they must have. Don't forget how old the Catholic Church is.

I doubt that Darwin would have been the watershed moment, though. I don't know whether they stopped believing it literally before or after him, but I'm guessing it would have been some time afterwards.

William

Mod note:

Since this thread regards varying interpretations of the Bible throughout history, I think it may be a better fit over in BC&H.

WishboneDawn

Might have been. These weren't natural philosophers, these were men of the church writing. I suspect they probably thought the Genesis story described what generally happened but many didn't think it was strictly literal. An interesting question to research anyhow.

WishboneDawn

To peg him as a YEC isn't right. You're attempting to draw a conclusion about that based on a superficial similarity. I'm sort of straying from the OP here but there's a distinction to be made.

A YEC is someone who doggedly follows that belief despite all evidence to the contrary. Augustine accepted the the bible's authority in the matter but in the context of a world where that was hardly unusual, Christian or not. What was there to contradict it? Where was the radiometric dating and fossil record? Science as we know it didn't even exist. Even those pagans were only insisting the history of man was, "many thousands of years". And they didn't have any authoritative text to cite. Sloppy fellows. His conclusion was reasonable for the time.

What really makes him different from the YEC crowd?

That is not a statement any modern literalist would have anything to do with. It's says that Augustine thinks very differently from a YEC and if he were around today, he likely wouldn't have a literal take (such as his was) of Genesis.

Lógos Sokratikós

Tomayto, tomahto, WishboneDawn. Sure there are differences, as in the XXIst century it's the most ridiculous thing to be a YEC after all science has discovered, but St Gus still believed the same 6000 year thing that defines YEC. He didn't have to go into all the trouble of going against the impressive system of turn of the XXIst c science, all he had to do is call disbelievers "liars", which makes him a fool and not so "reasonable chap", as you call him. More like an ignorant snake-oil salesman calling everybody else a liar.

Roger Pearse

No. As I think other posters have indicated, the extreme literalism of US protestants in the early 20th century was a reaction to a now dead liberalism which sought to rubbish the bible and deny that it was true in any important respect, often by exploiting the refusal of earlier Christian writers to define just how scripture was inspired. This need to define produced the defensive reaction of refusing to accept any interpretation other than that the bible was written as if it had been composed in a US university as a history text some 20 years earlier. However these events did not take place in the UK, for instance, and certainly are no guide to the Fathers.

I am by no means an expert on the history of biblical exegesis, so others will correct me if I am wrong on points of detail. But here is what comes off the top of my head.

The background to this question is the way in which the synagogue treated the Old Testament, once the Septuagint had come into existence in Alexandria. As I understand it, a tendency to interpret it allegorically, at least in part or sometimes, arose at that time.

The Fathers inherit this twin view of the OT, naturally enough. An allegorical interpretation of the Old Testament is particularly associated with the exegetical school of Alexandria, and with Origen in particular. Origen even went so far as to assert that some portions of scripture have no literal meaning; only an allegorical one (this, I think, is in De principiis).

Likewise Eusebius of Caesarea (where Origen ended up), in book 1 of the Chronicle, asserts that the garden of Eden is an allegory of the unfallen human race.

On the other hand the school of Antioch tended to favour a more literal and rationalistic exegesis. The disagreement between these schools runs down to the end of the patristic period in the east, and even takes on political implications from the 5th century.

So the Fathers did not feel obliged particularly to take one view or another on this issue, while still affirming the truth of scripture and the divine origin of the bible.

Someone mentioned Augustine, and he occurred to me also. He wrote three commentaries on Genesis, using different approaches:

• De Genesi ad Litteram libri duodecim (12 books on Genesis, literally)
• De Genesi ad Litteram imperfectus liber (1 book, unfinished, on Genesis)
• De Genesi contra Manichaeos libri duo (2 books on Genesis against the Manichaeans)

In book 1, ch.18 of his Retractions he says that he wrote the 2 books against the Manichaeans (discussed in ch. 10) using the allegorical sense.

He then had a go at a version using a literal interpretation, but had to stop because he ran into difficulties (this is the unfinished book).

I was unable to find any reference in there to the third work, tho.

Incidentally if ever a work needed to be online in English, it is the Retractions. The lack of this seems to be a problem to me. An English translation does exist, but we'll all be in our graves long before that will come out of copyright. It doesn't seem to be that long a work.

I hope this helps.

All the best,

Roger Pearse