These are not the mere fancies of St. Augustine. This was the doctrine of the ablest Christian fathers—of Irenæus, Origen, Basil, and Gregory of Nazianzen. Nay more, it was the doctrine of many of the doctors of the old Jewish Church. In more recent times we find Calmet, Burnet, Stillingfleet, Henry More, Lord Bacon, Poole, and others, presenting similar views; and this long before Geology existed as a science, and irrespective of any supposed collision with physical induction. Their opinions and interpretations were therefore no shift for the avoidance of difficulties, but conclusions reached independently on sound principles of Biblical exegesis.
Disregarding the chronology of Archbishop Usher printed in the margin of our Bible, and the division into chapters and verses made by Hugh de St. Cher—both modern inventions which are no part of the sacred record—and purging our minds of those prepossessions which are incident to an uncritical faith, we can now contemplate the Symbolical Hymn of Creation in its simple and original form, as a record of the self-manifestation of God, given in such order and under such conditions that it shall be apprehensible and interpretable by the finite mind.
1. Creation was a gradual process. God did not create a perfect universe at once, but built it up slowly, step by step. A consistent interpretation of the record forbids us to regard "the Creative Week" as a literal week composed of days of twenty-four hours each. Creation is the work of God, and surely the Divine action can not have been conditioned by time-measures which did not exist before, but were consequent upon the act of God. The great cyclical changes in nature produced by the creative Word are the only measures of time. Therefore the "days" of the Creative Week are new appearances, new manifestations, new developments in the creative purpose of God.
The first morning is the appearance of luminosity in the aeriform fluid, or nebulous vapor, whatever science may finally determine that to have been. The Hebrew מַיִם (mayim), from the root ים, which denotes tumultuous, tremulous, or undulatory movement, is used of the waters of the ocean, of the waters above the firmament, of vapor and clouds, because of their susceptibility of tremulous, undulatory motion. The first distinct creative formation was heat, or invisible molecular motion, resulting from "the Spirit of God brooding upon the face of the abyss;" and this heat reveals itself in the phenomena of light.[198] How closely the ideas of light and heat were united in the Hebrew mind is shown by the same word being used for both, with merely a slight difference in pronunciation, אוֹר (ōr) and אוּר (ūr).
The second morning is the appearance of an expanse in the midst of the vapors, dividing the vapors which were below the expanse from the vapors which were above the expanse. The Hebrew רֳקִיֹעַ (rakai), from רֳקַע (to stretch, to spread out), means properly an extension, an expanse. This is the translation adopted by Benisch, Kalisch, Delitzsch, Keil, and Lange. After heat and light, the next creative formation is an atmosphere, with its auroral light and a cloudy canopy.
The third morning is the appearance of land and seas, and the sprouting forth of vegetation, at first in its lowest forms—perhaps as marine plants. The Hebrew אֶרֶץ (eretz) has two significations, "earth" and "land." Whenever it is used in a restricted sense, and especially wherever it is contrasted with "water," the most appropriate rendering is "land." The third creative formation is gross, ponderable matter, whether aggregated by molecular attraction, or compounded by elective affinity, or selected and organized by vital force.
The fourth morning is the appearance of luminaries or light-bearers in the expanse of heaven, which are now "set," or, more correctly, "appointed to give light upon the earth," and to be time-measures in the future world-history. The Hebrew word employed in ver. 14 (מְארֹת), which is unfortunately rendered "lights" in the Authorized Version, is a different word from the "light" (אוֹר) of vers. 3-5. מְארֹת (meoroth) strictly means "light-bearers," or bodies giving light. This distinction is carefully observed in the LXX., DeWette, Benisch, Kalisch, Tuch, Knobel, Delitzsch, and Keil.[199] The fourth creative formation was the establishment of such cosmical conditions or relations as should enable the heavenly bodies to fulfill their light-giving function to the earth. What those conditions were we may not be able to say. The dense clouds and ceaseless showers of the "Age of Rain," which had shut out the light of the heavenly bodies for a geological age, had now passed away, the atmosphere becomes fitted for the transmission of light, and the sun, moon, and stars are visible from the earth. The conditions for a rapid development of vegetable life now exist, and this is regarded as pre-eminently "the Age of Plant-growth."
The fifth morning is the appearance of animal life—life moving in the waters and soaring in the air, marine animals, aquatic reptiles, and birds.
The sixth morning is the appearance of a higher order of animal life, mammals, chiefly designed for the use of a still higher being—for Man, whose appearance is the noontide splendor of the sixth day.
The seventh morning is the commencement of the Sabbath of God, which is devoted to the moral and religious instruction of humanity—the New Creation of the moral world.