Gregg Allison, Ph.D.: Historical Theology: Ch.12-Creation, 254ff.

Divine Creation in the Early Church

 

Shepherd of Hermas: “The God of hosts…by his invisible and mighty power and by his great wisdom created the world, and by his glorious purpose clothed his creatin with beauty, and by his mighty word fixed the haven and set the earth’s foundation upon the water.” ANF, 2;20.

 

Tatian: “Matter is not, like God, without beginning, nor, as having no beginning, is of equal power with God; rather, it is begotten, and not produced by any other being, but brought into existence by the Framer of all things alone.” Address to the Greeks, 5, ANF, 2:67.

 

Theophilus of Antioch (Θεόφιλος ὁ Ἀντιοχεύς): “If God is uncreated and matter is uncreated, God is no longer, according to the Platonists’ own thinking, the Creator of all things, nor, so far as their opinions hold, is the monarchy [the idea of God as the one and only first principle] established. And what great thing it is if God made the world out of existing materials? For even a human artist, when he gets material from someone, makes of it whatever he please. But, the power of God is manifested in this, that out of things that are not, he makes whatever he pleases.” 2.4, ANF, 2:95.

 

Origen: “The immediate Creator, and, as it were, very maker of the world was the Word, the Son of God; while the Father of the Word, by commanding his own Son—the Word—to create the world, is the primary Creator.” Against Celsus, 6.60, in ANF, 4:601.

 

Justin Martyr: “…created and arranged all things by him…” Second Apology, 6, ANF, 1:190.

 

Irenaeus: “…the Creator, who made those things by himself, that is, through His Word and His Wisdom.” Against Heresies, 2.30.9, ANF, 1.406.

 

Irenaeus: “That there is nothing either above him or after him, and that he created all things not influenced by anyone but according to his own free will. He is the only God, the only Lord, the only Creator, the only Father. He alone contains all things, and he himself commanded all things into existence.” 2.1.1, ANF, 1:359.

 

Irenaeus re: emanations the Demiurge: “Not one of them [emanations] is God. For every one will be defective, because each possesses only a small part when compared with the rest. Thus the title Omnipotent will be reduced to nothing.” Against Heresies, 2.1.5, ANF, 1:360.

 

Irenaeus: God “himself called into being the substance of creation, when previously it had no existence.” Against Heresies, 2.10.4, ANF, 1:370.

 

Irenaeus: “God made heaven and earth, and the things which are in them, in six days…in so many thousand years it shall 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, tha they will come to an end at the sixth thousand year [mark].” Against Heresies, 5.28.3l ANF, 1:557.

 

Clement of Alexandria: creation was the “sheer exercise of free will…” Exhortation to the Heathen, 4, ANF, 2:189-190.

 

Tertullian: “…even if the Scripture has not expressly declared that all things were made out of nothing—just as it abstains from saying that they were formed out of matter—there was no such pressing [urgent] need for expressly indicating the creation of all things out of nothing, as there was o their creation out of matter, if that had been their origin.” Against Hermogenes, 21, ANF, 3:489.

 

Lanctantius: “It cannot even be said that God made the world or his own sake, since he can exist without the world, as he did before it was made. And God made himself does not make us of all those things that are contained in it, and which are produced. It is evident, therefore, that the world was constructed for the sake of living being, since living beings enjoy those things of which it consists.” The Divine Institutes, 7.4, ANF, 7:198.

 

Amphilochius, Christology, soteriology and creation: “A man is altogether irreligious and a stranger to the truth if he does not say that Christ the Savior is also the Maker of all things.” Fragment 16, in Pelikan, 1:204-5.

 

Basil the Great: “Scripture means the space of a day and a night. Why does Scripture say “one day” and not “the first day”? Before speaking to us of the second, the third, and the fourth days, would it not have been more natural to call that one “the first” that began the series? But if it says “one day,” it is due to a wish to determine the measure of day and night and to combine the time that they contain. Now twenty-four hours fill up the space of one day—we mean, of a day and a night. It is as though it said: twenty-four hours measure the space of a day, or that, in reality a day is the time that the heavens starting from one point take to return there.” The Hexaemeron, Homily 2.8, in NPNF, 8:64.

 

Augustine’s interpretation of days in Genesis 1: “Morning returns when the creature [angel] returns to the praise and love of the Creator. When it does so in the knowledge of itself, that is the fist day. When the knowledge of the firmament, which is the name given to the sky between the waters above and those beneath, that is the second day. When in the knowledge of the earth, and the sea, and all things that grow out of the earth, that is the third day. When in the knowledge of the greater and less luminaries [lights] and all the stars, that is the fourth day. When in the knowledge of all animals that swim in the waters and that fly I the air, that is the fifth day. When in the knowledge of all animals that live on the earth, and of man himself, that is the sixth day.” City of God, 11.7, in NPNF, 2:209.