Fr. Laisney supports Fr. Robinson and The Big Bang
Apr 29, 2019 15:53:44 GMT
Post by Admin on Apr 29, 2019 15:53:44 GMT
A review written by Fr. François Laisney and published on The Angelus Press website in support of Fr. Paul Robinson's book, The Realist's Guide to Religion and Science:
Most useful book to avoid "catholic fundamentalism", and be faithful to the Fathers of the Church
Fr François Laisney, Apr 2019
I read the whole book, and truly consider its contribution to the defense of the Faith very important in our modern world.
St Augustine very explicitly says that the "DAYS" in Gen. I are NOT as the days of which we are used to ("non tamen talem [diem] qualem hic novimus"), marked by sunset and sunrise... for the very simple reason that the sun was created on the 4th day. Read "de Genesis ad litteram", 5:2.4
In the Scriptures, the word "day" is often used for periods of time (see Heb. 4:7). There is nothing against Faith to consider that the six days of creation are six periods of time, put in parallel with the week for many spiritual reasons. Anyone knowing Scriptures would know the parallel between the seven days in Gen. I and the chapters 1-2 of St John's Gospel; also the parallel between the waters vivified by the Spirit of life in Gen. 1:2 and the waters of baptism.
Note that Father Robinson does not support evolution. The big-bang theory, which Father shows as compatible with the faith, should rather be put in parallel with the growth of a baby in the womb: it starts very small (the primeval atom / the first cell) and unfolds in a most marvellous way, yet perfectly PLANNED by the Divine Intelligence. Both unfolding manifest in a beautiful way the Wisdom and the omnipotence of God as the Author of Nature. And that is much better than the notion of God as a fairy with a wand making all things on the spot as we see it today: this is imagination, and not theology.
An excellent argument in opposition to Fr. Laisney's singling out St. Augustine to defend this preposterous, modernist book, previously cited here on The Catacombs, from The Kolbe Center, entitled, “'Scoffers Will Arise in the Last Days': A Reply to Fr. Paul Robinson, FSSPX" [Emphasis - The Catacombs]:
The Ecumenical Councils of Trent and Vatican I defined that when all of the Church Fathers agree on any interpretation of Scripture that pertains to a doctrine of faith or morals that is the truth and we must believe it. Unfortunately, progressive creationists have forgotten or overlooked one of the fundamental tenets of the traditional Catholic doctrine of creation which was believed and taught by all of the Church Fathers in their interpretation of Genesis 1-3. St. Thomas in the Summa Theologica calls this doctrine “the first perfection of the universe,” which he defines as “the completeness of the universe at its first founding” and which is what, according to the Angelic Doctor, is “ascribed to the seventh day.”
All of the Fathers without exception held that God created all of the different kinds of corporeal creatures for man in six days or an instant much less than ten thousand years ago and that when He had finished creating Adam, body and soul, and Eve from Adam’s side, He stopped creating new kinds of creatures, at which point all of the different kinds of creatures, angelic and corporeal, each one perfect according to its nature, existed together with man and for man, in perfect harmony, at the same time, in a world that was completely free not only from human death, but from deformity, disease, man-harming natural disasters or any kind of disorder in nature, all of which “natural evils” only came into the world because of the Original Sin of Adam.
Indeed, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church held that the natural order in which we live and which the Fathers and Doctors sometimes refer to as the order of Providence only began to operate with relative autonomy after the work of creation was finished on the sixth day of creation. Hence, summing up the teaching of all of the Church Fathers, St. John Chrysostom writes:
All of the Fathers without exception held that God created all of the different kinds of corporeal creatures for man in six days or an instant much less than ten thousand years ago and that when He had finished creating Adam, body and soul, and Eve from Adam’s side, He stopped creating new kinds of creatures, at which point all of the different kinds of creatures, angelic and corporeal, each one perfect according to its nature, existed together with man and for man, in perfect harmony, at the same time, in a world that was completely free not only from human death, but from deformity, disease, man-harming natural disasters or any kind of disorder in nature, all of which “natural evils” only came into the world because of the Original Sin of Adam.
Indeed, the Fathers and Doctors of the Church held that the natural order in which we live and which the Fathers and Doctors sometimes refer to as the order of Providence only began to operate with relative autonomy after the work of creation was finished on the sixth day of creation. Hence, summing up the teaching of all of the Church Fathers, St. John Chrysostom writes:
When the Scripture here says: “God rested from all his works,” it thereby instructs us that on the Seventh Day He ceased to create and to bring out of nonexistence into existence; but when Christ says: “My Father worketh hitherto, and I work,” it thereby indicates to us His uninterrupted Providence, and it calls “work” the preservation of what exists, the giving to it of continuance (of existence) and the governance of it at all times.[8]
In another article by the same Kolbe Center, they make the following arguments, in an article entitled,"Creationism, Pope John Paul II, and the Case Against Theistic Evolution":
The most conclusive evidence that the word “day” in Genesis 1 is to be interpreted literally as a 24-hour period is confirmed by the consistent use of the phrase “and there was evening and morning,” which appears in each of the days of Creation (cf., Genesis 1:5, 8, 13, 19, 23, 31). The use of “evening and morning” in Scripture shows that it always refers to the sequence of darkness and light comprising a single period of a day, a 24 hour period. Outside of Genesis, there are only eight appearances of “evening and morning” in Scripture (cf., Ex 16:8-13; 27:21; 29:39; Lv 24:3; Nm 9:21; Dan 8:26). [Emphasis- The Catacombs]
Further in the same article, the following important point is made about how the Catholic Church has condemned the idea that Creation was an evolutionary process:
... evolutionary theory had been virtually silenced by the Church, as was the case in 1860 when the Council of Cologne condemned the idea of human evolution in very straightforward words:
In this statement the Church teaches that man, as defined by the Church, was definitely not the product of an evolutionary process. The Church defines man as a person with a physical body and an eternal soul. This would mean that both man’s physical body and his eternal soul are not the product of evolution. ...
Ten years later, Vatican Council I in 1870, laid out this infallible dogmatic statement, along with an accompanying anathema, saying:
Vatican I adds new strictures that were not in previous conciliar statements. Not only is man in view, but Vatican I specifies that “the world and all the things which are contained in it” are the product of ex nihilo creation.
Moreover, notice the words, “their whole substance,” the first time the Church had specified this phrase. The requirement that things be made “out of nothing” is one thing, but in “their whole substance” makes it very difficult for anyone to advance the theory of evolution, for unless evolution can show that it’s upward processes result in fulfilling Vatican I’s criterion, then its efforts are futile.
Vatican I does not say “the parts of their substance have been produced by God from nothing,” or “the inner workings of progressive development,” but it says specifically “their whole substance has been produced by God from nothing.” The sequence is: Nothing => Whole Substance, which doesn’t leave too much room for anything else to occur.
This is especially significant since Vatican I specifies that, along with the corporal creatures, the “spiritual” creatures were made out of nothing in their whole substance. “Spiritual” must refer to the angels. No one has ever argued that the angels came into existence by an evolutionary process. The [C]hurch has always taught that the angels were created out of nothing, instantaneously, in their whole being. That being the case, we are on safe ground in concluding that Vatican I was not simply interested in combating the idea of materialism (that is, the Greek concept that things came into being from pre-existing matter) but of promoting the idea that God created his creatures whole and complete, both spiritual and corporal. In essence, if instantaneous wholeness applies to the spiritual realm, it must also apply to the physical realm, otherwise Vatican I would be creating a contradiction in terms.
Pope Leo XIII, in his 1880 encyclical Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae, stated this about Creation:
Notice that [Pope] Leo makes mention of the “sixth day of creation” when God created Adam from the dust. It seems that [Pope] Leo is not viewing the sixth day as representing millions of years, since evolution would require the existence of primates between the dust and Adam. Leo makes no such provision. His interpretation of Genesis seems clear that the dust was instantaneously fashioned into the first man. (Ibid)
“Our first parents were formed immediately by God. Therefore we declare that…those who…assert…man…emerged from spontaneous continuous change of imperfect nature to the more perfect, is clearly opposed to Sacred Scripture and to the Faith.”
In this statement the Church teaches that man, as defined by the Church, was definitely not the product of an evolutionary process. The Church defines man as a person with a physical body and an eternal soul. This would mean that both man’s physical body and his eternal soul are not the product of evolution. ...
Ten years later, Vatican Council I in 1870, laid out this infallible dogmatic statement, along with an accompanying anathema, saying:
“If anyone does not confess that the world and all things which are contained in it, both spiritual and material, as regards their whole substance, have been produced by God from nothing, let him be anathema.”
Moreover, notice the words, “their whole substance,” the first time the Church had specified this phrase. The requirement that things be made “out of nothing” is one thing, but in “their whole substance” makes it very difficult for anyone to advance the theory of evolution, for unless evolution can show that it’s upward processes result in fulfilling Vatican I’s criterion, then its efforts are futile.
Vatican I does not say “the parts of their substance have been produced by God from nothing,” or “the inner workings of progressive development,” but it says specifically “their whole substance has been produced by God from nothing.” The sequence is: Nothing => Whole Substance, which doesn’t leave too much room for anything else to occur.
This is especially significant since Vatican I specifies that, along with the corporal creatures, the “spiritual” creatures were made out of nothing in their whole substance. “Spiritual” must refer to the angels. No one has ever argued that the angels came into existence by an evolutionary process. The [C]hurch has always taught that the angels were created out of nothing, instantaneously, in their whole being. That being the case, we are on safe ground in concluding that Vatican I was not simply interested in combating the idea of materialism (that is, the Greek concept that things came into being from pre-existing matter) but of promoting the idea that God created his creatures whole and complete, both spiritual and corporal. In essence, if instantaneous wholeness applies to the spiritual realm, it must also apply to the physical realm, otherwise Vatican I would be creating a contradiction in terms.
Pope Leo XIII, in his 1880 encyclical Arcanum Divinae Sapientiae, stated this about Creation:
“We record what is to all known, and cannot be doubted by any, that God, on the sixth day of creation, having made man from the slime of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, gave him a companion, whom He miraculously took from the side of Adam when he was locked in sleep.”
And in discussing the Fathers of the Church, the Kolbe Center in this same article, summarizes and quotes the Fathers in complete agreement with each other about the literal time frame of Creation as expressed in Genesis:
The Fathers who wrote about Creation taught that God made the universe ex nihilo, out of nothing, in six literal days, although they sometimes differed on its details.
[St.] Thomas and the Medievals also agree, Thomas going to great lengths to affirm a six day Creation (Sent. 12, q. 1, art 2, ad 8). ...But of significant importance is the following: Of the Fathers who commented on Genesis 1, the majority specify that they understand the “day” as a 24-hour period, many even using the very phrase “twenty-four hours.” Those who do not use “twenty-four hours” refer to the Creation days as a fraction of a week, or some other literal designation which cannot be misconstrued as a long or indefinite period of time. ...
[St.] Thomas and the Medievals also agree, Thomas going to great lengths to affirm a six day Creation (Sent. 12, q. 1, art 2, ad 8). ...But of significant importance is the following: Of the Fathers who commented on Genesis 1, the majority specify that they understand the “day” as a 24-hour period, many even using the very phrase “twenty-four hours.” Those who do not use “twenty-four hours” refer to the Creation days as a fraction of a week, or some other literal designation which cannot be misconstrued as a long or indefinite period of time. ...
Observe how close and specific the interpretation of the Fathers is on Genesis 1:
Basil (329-379): “Thus were created the evening and the morning. Scripture means the space of a day and a night…If it therefore says ‘one day,’ it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that they contain. Now twenty-four hours fills up the space of one day – we mean of a day and of a night” (Hexameron 2, 8).
Gregory of Nyssa (335-394): Gregory confirms the views of Basil on the details of the Creation in the following passage: “Before I begin, let me testify that there is nothing contradictory in what the saintly Basil wrote about the creation of the world since no further explanation is needed. They should suffice and alone take second place to the divinely inspired Testament. Let anyone who hearkens to our attempts through a leisurely reading be not dismayed if they agree with our words. We do not propose a dogma which gives occasion for calumny; rather, we wish to express only our own insights so that what we offer does not detract from the following instruction. Thus let no one demand from me questions which seem to fall in line with common opinion, either from holy Scripture or explained by our teacher. My task is not to fathom those matters before us which appear contradictory; rather, permit me to employ my own resources to understand the text’s objective. With God’s help we can fathom what the text means which follows a certain defined order regarding creation. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ [Gen 1.1], and the rest which pertains to the cosmogenesis which the six days encompass.” (Hexaemeron, PG 44:68-69, translated by Richard McCambly).
Eustathius (270-337), Bishop of Antioch, called Basil’s commentary on Genesis 1 an “overall great commentary” (PG 18, 705-707).
Ambrose (340-397): “But Scripture established a law of twenty-four hours, including both day and night, should be given the name of day only, as if one were to say the length of one day is twenty-four hours in extent.” (Hexameron 1:37, FC 42:42).
“In the beginning of time, therefore God created heaven and earth. Time proceeds from this world, not before the world. And the day is a division of time, not its beginning.” (Hexameron 1:20, FC 42:19).
“But now we seem to have reached the end of our discourse, since the 6th day is completed and the sum total of the work has been concluded.” (Hexameron 6:75, FC 42:282).
Victorinus (c 355-361): “The Creation of the World: In the beginning God made the light, and divided it in the exact measure of twelve hours by day and by night, for this reason, doubtless, that day might bring over the night as an occasion of rest for men’s labours; that, again, day might overcome, and thus that labour might be refreshed with this alternate change of rest, and that repose again might be tempered by the exercise of day. “On the fourth day He made two lights in the heaven, the greater and the lesser, that the one might rule over the day, the other over the night… (cf. (NPNF1, vol. 7, pp. 341-343).”
Ephrem the Syrian (306-373): “‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,’ that is, the substance of the heavens and the substance of the earth. So let no one think that there is anything allegorical in the works of the six days. No one can rightly say that the things that pertain to these days were symbolic.” (Commentary on Genesis,1:1, FC 91:74)
Theophilus (c 185): “Of this six days’ work no man can give a worthy explanation and description of all its parts…on account of the exceeding greatness and riches of the wisdom of God which there is in the six days’ work above narrated” (Autolycus 2,12).
Irenaeus, (140-202): “For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded…For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year” (Against Heresies 5, 28, 3).
Among the Fathers, several of them show the same chronology in their eschatological view: that, prophetically speaking, a day equates to one thousand years. Regardless whether the Fathers’ view of a six-millennium span for the world is correct, the only important fact for our purposes is that the ‘day = 1000 years’ schema confirms the Fathers’ belief that a day in Genesis 1 is less than one thousand years, and more specifically, that the day is precisely 24-hours. In other words, these Fathers did not believe that a day of Genesis was 1000 years. Their formula is certainly not 1000 years in Genesis 1 = 1000 years of the earth’s longevity; rather, a single day of 24 hours in Genesis = 1000 years of the earth’s longevity.
Lactantius (250-317): “God completed the world and this admirable work of nature in the space of six days, as is contained in the secrets of Holy Scripture, and consecrated the seventh day…For there are seven days, by the revolutions of which in order the circles of years are made up…Therefore, since all the works of God were completed in six days, the world must continue in its present state through six ages, that is, six thousand years…For the great day of God is limited by a circle of a thousand years, as the prophet shows, who says, ‘In Thy sight, O Lord, a thousand years are as one day.” …And as God labored during those six days in creating such great works, so His religion and truth must labor during these six thousand years… (Institutes 7, 14).
Here we notice how Lactantius, as other Fathers, believes in a six thousand year time-span for the existence of the present heaven and earth. In order to arrive at this calculation, Lactantius must first understand the days of Genesis as twenty-four hour periods, which can then, by application of the “prophets” words, be an analogical prediction to the time of the demise of the Creation.
Methodius (c 311): For you seem to me, O Theophila, to have discussed those words of the Scripture amply and clearly, and to have set them forth as they are without mistake. For it is a dangerous thing wholly to despise the literal meaning, as has been said, and especially of Genesis, where the unchangeable decrees of God for the constitution of the universe are set forth, in agreement with which, even until now, the world is perfectly ordered, most beautifully in accordance with a perfect rule, until the Lawgiver Himself having re-arranged it, wishing to order it anew, shall break up the first laws of nature by a fresh disposition. But, since it is not fitting to leave the demonstration of the argument unexamined – and, so to speak, half-lame – come let us, as it were completing our pair, bring forth the analogical sense, looking more deeply into the Scripture; for Paul is not to be despised when he passed over the literal meaning, and showed that the word extended to Christ and the Church. (Banquet of the Ten Virgins, Discourse III, Ch 2).
Clement of Alexandria (150-216): One can get a clearer picture of how literally Clement interprets Scriptural numbers in Book 1, Ch. 21 of the Stromata. There he enumerates a long series of chronological data. For our purposes, Clement specifies the length of time from Adam to Noah’s Flood to the very day: “From Adam to the deluge are comprised two thousand one hundred and forty-eight years, four days” (ANF, Vol. 2, p. 332).
This would necessarily mean that Clement would have considered the first day of the above enumeration as beginning on the sixth day of creation, which would mean that the seventh day would be the second day, and so on.
Epiphanius (315-403): “Adam, who was fashioned from the earth on the sixth day and received breath, became a living being (for he was not, as some suppose, begun on the fifth day, and completed on the sixth; those who say have the wrong idea), and was simple and innocent, without any other name.” (Panarion 1:1, translated by Phillip R. Amidon).
Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386): “In six days God made the world…The sun, however resplendent with bright beams, yet was made to give light to man, yea, all living creatures were formed to serve us: herbs and trees were created for our enjoyment…The sun was formed by a mere command, but man by God’s hands” (Catechetical Lectures 12, 5).
“…but the earth is from the waters: and before the whole six days’ formation of the things that were made, the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water. The water was the beginning of the world…” (Catechetical Lectures, 3, 5).
Hippolytus (160-235): “But it was right to speak not of the ‘first day,’ but of ‘one day,’ in order that by saying ‘one,’ he might show that it returns on its orbit, and, while it remains one, makes up the week….On the first day God made what He made out of nothing.” (Genesis 1:5, 1:6; ANF, vol. 5, p. 163).
Hippolytus also critiques the Greek philosophers for allegorizing the days of Genesis. He writes:
“When, therefore, Moses has spoken of ‘the six days in which God made heaven and earth’…Simon, in a manner already specified, giving these and other passages of Scripture a different application from the one intended by the holy writers, deifies himself. When, therefore, the followers of Simon affirm that there are three days begotten before sun and moon, they speak enigmatically…”(Refutation of All Heresies, Book VI, Ch IX).
Hippolytus, as did some of the other Fathers who believed that the world would end in 6,000 years, shows his belief in a literal six days of creation by equating them with the 6,000 years. He writes: “Since, then, in six days God made all things, it follows that 6,000 years must be fulfilled.”
Chrysostom (344-407): “Acknowledging that God could have created the world ‘in a single day, nay in a single moment,’ he chose ‘a sort of succession and established things by parts’…so that, accurately interpreted by that blessed prophet Moses, we do not fall in with those who are guided by human reasonings” (PG, Homily 3, col 35).
Athanasius (295-373): “For 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; thus too has the race made after God’s Image come to be, namely men; for though Adam was formed out of earth, yet in him was involved the succession of the whole race” (Discourse Against the Arians, Discourse II, 48; NPNF2, vol. 4, pp. 374-375).
Notice that Athanasius specifies that on the day the stars were made they were not made separately; rather, “in one day and by the same command, they were all called into being…” The same, of course, would be true on the fifth day when, as Athanasius says, “the quadrupeds, and of birds, and fishes, and cattle…” were made. By the words, “same command” Athanasius is not saying that the stars and animals were created together, but that each category of creation was made in one day by a specific command on that day. This is confirmed also in II, 49 as he says, “for it was not first one and then another, but all at once were constituted after their kinds.” “Kinds” refers to the specific creatures being made, as Athanasius goes on to say in the remainder of the context. “We begin the holy fast on the fifth day…and adding to it according to the number of those six holy and great days, which are the symbol of the creation of the world, let us rest and cease from fasting on the tenth day of the same…on the holy sabbath of the week” (Easter Letter, 10). (Ibid)
Basil (329-379): “Thus were created the evening and the morning. Scripture means the space of a day and a night…If it therefore says ‘one day,’ it is from a wish to determine the measure of day and night, and to combine the time that they contain. Now twenty-four hours fills up the space of one day – we mean of a day and of a night” (Hexameron 2, 8).
Gregory of Nyssa (335-394): Gregory confirms the views of Basil on the details of the Creation in the following passage: “Before I begin, let me testify that there is nothing contradictory in what the saintly Basil wrote about the creation of the world since no further explanation is needed. They should suffice and alone take second place to the divinely inspired Testament. Let anyone who hearkens to our attempts through a leisurely reading be not dismayed if they agree with our words. We do not propose a dogma which gives occasion for calumny; rather, we wish to express only our own insights so that what we offer does not detract from the following instruction. Thus let no one demand from me questions which seem to fall in line with common opinion, either from holy Scripture or explained by our teacher. My task is not to fathom those matters before us which appear contradictory; rather, permit me to employ my own resources to understand the text’s objective. With God’s help we can fathom what the text means which follows a certain defined order regarding creation. ‘In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth’ [Gen 1.1], and the rest which pertains to the cosmogenesis which the six days encompass.” (Hexaemeron, PG 44:68-69, translated by Richard McCambly).
Eustathius (270-337), Bishop of Antioch, called Basil’s commentary on Genesis 1 an “overall great commentary” (PG 18, 705-707).
Ambrose (340-397): “But Scripture established a law of twenty-four hours, including both day and night, should be given the name of day only, as if one were to say the length of one day is twenty-four hours in extent.” (Hexameron 1:37, FC 42:42).
“In the beginning of time, therefore God created heaven and earth. Time proceeds from this world, not before the world. And the day is a division of time, not its beginning.” (Hexameron 1:20, FC 42:19).
“But now we seem to have reached the end of our discourse, since the 6th day is completed and the sum total of the work has been concluded.” (Hexameron 6:75, FC 42:282).
Victorinus (c 355-361): “The Creation of the World: In the beginning God made the light, and divided it in the exact measure of twelve hours by day and by night, for this reason, doubtless, that day might bring over the night as an occasion of rest for men’s labours; that, again, day might overcome, and thus that labour might be refreshed with this alternate change of rest, and that repose again might be tempered by the exercise of day. “On the fourth day He made two lights in the heaven, the greater and the lesser, that the one might rule over the day, the other over the night… (cf. (NPNF1, vol. 7, pp. 341-343).”
Ephrem the Syrian (306-373): “‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,’ that is, the substance of the heavens and the substance of the earth. So let no one think that there is anything allegorical in the works of the six days. No one can rightly say that the things that pertain to these days were symbolic.” (Commentary on Genesis,1:1, FC 91:74)
Theophilus (c 185): “Of this six days’ work no man can give a worthy explanation and description of all its parts…on account of the exceeding greatness and riches of the wisdom of God which there is in the six days’ work above narrated” (Autolycus 2,12).
Irenaeus, (140-202): “For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded…For the day of the Lord is as a thousand years; and in six days created things were completed: it is evident, therefore, that they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year” (Against Heresies 5, 28, 3).
Among the Fathers, several of them show the same chronology in their eschatological view: that, prophetically speaking, a day equates to one thousand years. Regardless whether the Fathers’ view of a six-millennium span for the world is correct, the only important fact for our purposes is that the ‘day = 1000 years’ schema confirms the Fathers’ belief that a day in Genesis 1 is less than one thousand years, and more specifically, that the day is precisely 24-hours. In other words, these Fathers did not believe that a day of Genesis was 1000 years. Their formula is certainly not 1000 years in Genesis 1 = 1000 years of the earth’s longevity; rather, a single day of 24 hours in Genesis = 1000 years of the earth’s longevity.
Lactantius (250-317): “God completed the world and this admirable work of nature in the space of six days, as is contained in the secrets of Holy Scripture, and consecrated the seventh day…For there are seven days, by the revolutions of which in order the circles of years are made up…Therefore, since all the works of God were completed in six days, the world must continue in its present state through six ages, that is, six thousand years…For the great day of God is limited by a circle of a thousand years, as the prophet shows, who says, ‘In Thy sight, O Lord, a thousand years are as one day.” …And as God labored during those six days in creating such great works, so His religion and truth must labor during these six thousand years… (Institutes 7, 14).
Here we notice how Lactantius, as other Fathers, believes in a six thousand year time-span for the existence of the present heaven and earth. In order to arrive at this calculation, Lactantius must first understand the days of Genesis as twenty-four hour periods, which can then, by application of the “prophets” words, be an analogical prediction to the time of the demise of the Creation.
Methodius (c 311): For you seem to me, O Theophila, to have discussed those words of the Scripture amply and clearly, and to have set them forth as they are without mistake. For it is a dangerous thing wholly to despise the literal meaning, as has been said, and especially of Genesis, where the unchangeable decrees of God for the constitution of the universe are set forth, in agreement with which, even until now, the world is perfectly ordered, most beautifully in accordance with a perfect rule, until the Lawgiver Himself having re-arranged it, wishing to order it anew, shall break up the first laws of nature by a fresh disposition. But, since it is not fitting to leave the demonstration of the argument unexamined – and, so to speak, half-lame – come let us, as it were completing our pair, bring forth the analogical sense, looking more deeply into the Scripture; for Paul is not to be despised when he passed over the literal meaning, and showed that the word extended to Christ and the Church. (Banquet of the Ten Virgins, Discourse III, Ch 2).
Clement of Alexandria (150-216): One can get a clearer picture of how literally Clement interprets Scriptural numbers in Book 1, Ch. 21 of the Stromata. There he enumerates a long series of chronological data. For our purposes, Clement specifies the length of time from Adam to Noah’s Flood to the very day: “From Adam to the deluge are comprised two thousand one hundred and forty-eight years, four days” (ANF, Vol. 2, p. 332).
This would necessarily mean that Clement would have considered the first day of the above enumeration as beginning on the sixth day of creation, which would mean that the seventh day would be the second day, and so on.
Epiphanius (315-403): “Adam, who was fashioned from the earth on the sixth day and received breath, became a living being (for he was not, as some suppose, begun on the fifth day, and completed on the sixth; those who say have the wrong idea), and was simple and innocent, without any other name.” (Panarion 1:1, translated by Phillip R. Amidon).
Cyril of Jerusalem (315-386): “In six days God made the world…The sun, however resplendent with bright beams, yet was made to give light to man, yea, all living creatures were formed to serve us: herbs and trees were created for our enjoyment…The sun was formed by a mere command, but man by God’s hands” (Catechetical Lectures 12, 5).
“…but the earth is from the waters: and before the whole six days’ formation of the things that were made, the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water. The water was the beginning of the world…” (Catechetical Lectures, 3, 5).
Hippolytus (160-235): “But it was right to speak not of the ‘first day,’ but of ‘one day,’ in order that by saying ‘one,’ he might show that it returns on its orbit, and, while it remains one, makes up the week….On the first day God made what He made out of nothing.” (Genesis 1:5, 1:6; ANF, vol. 5, p. 163).
Hippolytus also critiques the Greek philosophers for allegorizing the days of Genesis. He writes:
“When, therefore, Moses has spoken of ‘the six days in which God made heaven and earth’…Simon, in a manner already specified, giving these and other passages of Scripture a different application from the one intended by the holy writers, deifies himself. When, therefore, the followers of Simon affirm that there are three days begotten before sun and moon, they speak enigmatically…”(Refutation of All Heresies, Book VI, Ch IX).
Hippolytus, as did some of the other Fathers who believed that the world would end in 6,000 years, shows his belief in a literal six days of creation by equating them with the 6,000 years. He writes: “Since, then, in six days God made all things, it follows that 6,000 years must be fulfilled.”
Chrysostom (344-407): “Acknowledging that God could have created the world ‘in a single day, nay in a single moment,’ he chose ‘a sort of succession and established things by parts’…so that, accurately interpreted by that blessed prophet Moses, we do not fall in with those who are guided by human reasonings” (PG, Homily 3, col 35).
Athanasius (295-373): “For 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; thus too has the race made after God’s Image come to be, namely men; for though Adam was formed out of earth, yet in him was involved the succession of the whole race” (Discourse Against the Arians, Discourse II, 48; NPNF2, vol. 4, pp. 374-375).
Notice that Athanasius specifies that on the day the stars were made they were not made separately; rather, “in one day and by the same command, they were all called into being…” The same, of course, would be true on the fifth day when, as Athanasius says, “the quadrupeds, and of birds, and fishes, and cattle…” were made. By the words, “same command” Athanasius is not saying that the stars and animals were created together, but that each category of creation was made in one day by a specific command on that day. This is confirmed also in II, 49 as he says, “for it was not first one and then another, but all at once were constituted after their kinds.” “Kinds” refers to the specific creatures being made, as Athanasius goes on to say in the remainder of the context. “We begin the holy fast on the fifth day…and adding to it according to the number of those six holy and great days, which are the symbol of the creation of the world, let us rest and cease from fasting on the tenth day of the same…on the holy sabbath of the week” (Easter Letter, 10). (Ibid)
Let us pray for these new conciliar SSPX priests. These priests who know better and yet who now trample over the Sacred Word of God in Holy Scripture. Let us pray that they return to the wisdom of their founder, Archbishop Lefebvre.
Here are some words again by the Kolbe Center, quoting Archbishop Lefebvre (taken primarily from "Open Letter to Confused Catholics") about such modernist, as Frs. Robinson and Laisney now show themselves to be, calling them what they are, Catholic Liberals:
Lefebvre writes:
...
Lefebvre also spoke about how the liberals disregarded the tradition and philosophy of historic Catholicism:
The Catholic liberals have undoubtedly established a revolutionary situation. Here is what we read in the book written by one of them, Monsignor Prelot a senator for the Doubs region of France. “We had struggled for a century and a half to bring our opinions to prevail within the Church and had not succeeded. Finally, there came Vatican II and we triumphed. From then on the propositions and principles of liberal catholicism have been definitively and officially accepted by Holy Church.”
Lefebvre also spoke about how the liberals disregarded the tradition and philosophy of historic Catholicism:
In this respect, the Modernists have got what they wanted and more. In what passes for seminaries, they teach anthropology, psychoanalysis and Marx in place of St. Thomas Aquinas. The principles of Thomist philosophy are rejected in favour of vague systems which themselves recognise their inability to explain the economy of the Universe, putting forward as they do the philosophy of the absurd. One latter-day revolutionary, a muddle-headed priest much heeded by intellectuals, who put sex at the heart of everything, was bold enough to declare at public meetings: “The scientific hypotheses of the ancients were pure nonsense and it is on such nonsense that St Thomas and Origen based their systems.” Immediately afterwards, he fell into the absurdity of defining life as “an evolutionary chain of biologically inexplicable facts.” How can he know that, if it is inexplicable? How, I would add, can a priest discard the only real explanation, which is God? But what is Tradition?….Tradition does not consist of the customs inherited from the past and preserved out of loyalty to the past even where there are no clear reasons for them. Tradition is defined as the Deposit of Faith transmitted by the Magisterium down through the centuries. This deposit is what has been given to us by Revelation; that is to say, the Word of God entrusted to the Apostles and transmitted unfailingly by their successors.
But now they want to get everyone inquiring, searching, as if we had not been given the Creed, or as if Our Lord had not come to bring us the Truth once and for all. What do they claim to discover with all this enquiry?
Catholics upon whom they would impose these “questionings,” after having made them “abandon their certainties,” should remember this: the deposit of Revelation concluded at the death of the last Apostle. It is finished and it cannot be touched until the end of time. Revelation is irreformable. The First Vatican Council restated this explicitly:
The argument that is pressed upon the terrorised faithful is this: “You are clinging to the past, you are being nostalgic; live in your own time!” Some are abashed and do not know what to reply. Nevertheless, the answer is easy: In this there is no past or present or future. Truth belongs to all times, it is eternal.
In order to break down Tradition they confront it with Holy Scripture, after the manner of the [liberal] Protestants, with the assertion the Gospel is the only book that counts. But Tradition came before the Gospel!
All the Dogmatic Councils have given us the exact expression of Tradition, the exact expression of what the Apostles taught. Tradition is irreformable. One can never change the decrees of the Council of Trent, because they are infallible, written and published by an official act of the Church, unlike those of Vatican II, which pronouncements are not infallible because the popes did not wish to commit their infallibility. Therefore nobody can say to you, “You are clinging to the past, you have stayed with the Council of Trent.” For the Council of Trent is not the past! Tradition is clothed with a timeless character, adapted to all times and all places.
The liberal Catholic is two-sided; he is in a state of continual contradiction. He would like to remain a Catholic but he is possessed by a desire to please the world.
Do not let yourself be taken in, dear readers, by the term “traditionalist” which they would have people understand in a bad sense. In a way, it is a pleonasm because I cannot see who can be a Catholic without being a traditionalist. (Ibid) [Emphasis - The Catacombs]
But now they want to get everyone inquiring, searching, as if we had not been given the Creed, or as if Our Lord had not come to bring us the Truth once and for all. What do they claim to discover with all this enquiry?
Catholics upon whom they would impose these “questionings,” after having made them “abandon their certainties,” should remember this: the deposit of Revelation concluded at the death of the last Apostle. It is finished and it cannot be touched until the end of time. Revelation is irreformable. The First Vatican Council restated this explicitly:
“for the doctrine of faith which God has revealed has not been proposed, like a philosophical invention, to be perfected by human ingenuity; but has been delivered as a divine deposit to the Spouse of Christ (the Church) to be faithfully kept and infallibly declared….We cannot bring anything new into this field, we cannot add a single dogma, but only express those that exist ever more clearly, more beautifully and more loftily.”
The argument that is pressed upon the terrorised faithful is this: “You are clinging to the past, you are being nostalgic; live in your own time!” Some are abashed and do not know what to reply. Nevertheless, the answer is easy: In this there is no past or present or future. Truth belongs to all times, it is eternal.
In order to break down Tradition they confront it with Holy Scripture, after the manner of the [liberal] Protestants, with the assertion the Gospel is the only book that counts. But Tradition came before the Gospel!
All the Dogmatic Councils have given us the exact expression of Tradition, the exact expression of what the Apostles taught. Tradition is irreformable. One can never change the decrees of the Council of Trent, because they are infallible, written and published by an official act of the Church, unlike those of Vatican II, which pronouncements are not infallible because the popes did not wish to commit their infallibility. Therefore nobody can say to you, “You are clinging to the past, you have stayed with the Council of Trent.” For the Council of Trent is not the past! Tradition is clothed with a timeless character, adapted to all times and all places.
The liberal Catholic is two-sided; he is in a state of continual contradiction. He would like to remain a Catholic but he is possessed by a desire to please the world.
Do not let yourself be taken in, dear readers, by the term “traditionalist” which they would have people understand in a bad sense. In a way, it is a pleonasm because I cannot see who can be a Catholic without being a traditionalist. (Ibid) [Emphasis - The Catacombs]