ST. AUGUSTINE ON THE MOSAIC DAYS.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume IV, Issue 209, 6 April 1877, Page 15

ST. AUGUSTINE ON THE MOSAIC DAYS.

The question of the " Six Days Creation/ and of Mr. Huxley's lecture on Miltonic theories of the creation is treated in the Notre Dame Scholastic.

" Mr. Huxley tests the Miltonic view of the Mosaic history of creation, but in disproving Milton's view we reiterate that he does not by any means disprove the history of the creation as given by Moses. For example, there are a great many theologians and fathers of the Church who do not accept the view of Milton at all. The view of Milton concerning the six natural days of creation cannot be the view of Moses, for these days may be understood — and so they are by a great many fathers of the Church— as long periods, long enough to allow those formations on the earth's crust. This, however, is not our view of creation ; we would rather accept another. The days spoken of in Genesis cannot be taken as natural days (the Miltonic view of them), nor are they to be taken as extremely long periods. Moses did not enumerate the appearance of the different created beings, in their natural succession, but according to the four elements of the ancients— i.e., first light, then air, then water, and lastly earth ; so Moses cannot mean any fixed period of time by the expression of days. St. Augustine already manifested the difficulty of explaining the meaning of the word day. He says : "Of what kind these days are, is very difficult, nay impossible, to conceive, and how much more for us to explain: "Quis dies, cujusmodi sint, aut per difficile nobis, aut etiam impossible est cogitare, quanto magis dicere. (De Civ. Dei, xi. ; c. 6.) But it was clear to him that we cannot understand by this term natural days, for, he says, we see that these days now have an evening, in that the sun sets, and a morning, in that the sun rises ; but those three fiist days of creation are not determined by the sun, of whom it is said that he appeared but on the fourth day. " Videmus quippe istos dies notos non habere vesperain nisi de solis occasu, nee mane nisi de solis ortu : illorurn autem priores tres dies sine sole peracti simt gui quarto die factus refertur (Ibid., xi. ; c. 7).