This is my paper on the patristic understanding of Genesis. I did the best I could, given the four page limit of the assignment:
In our modern age, the Holy Bible has lost its place as the moral guide for society. What once taught individuals how to treat their neighbor is now understood as little more than a collection of quaint stories for an ancient, primitive people. One can trace the distrust of divine revelation to Charles Darwin, whose Origin of the Species cast doubt on the first book of the Bible, and by extension, all Scripture. Granted, many questioned the Bible before the Origin was published. But as Richard Dawkins pointed out, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist, by providing a scientific language to explain away the design we observe all around us. What Darwin failed to appreciate is that, in discarding the traditional understanding of Genesis, we lose the knowledge of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. This knowledge is revealed by God and in God, since He was the only one present at the beginning of all things.
The book of Genesis is part of the Scriptures, which have been handed to us for the salvation of soul and body. Given the relationship which Scripture and salvation share, it is no less important to understand the meaning of Genesis than any other book of the Bible. One cannot have a double standard, allegorizing the text of Genesis while interpreting the rest of Scripture as it is written, because the Bible as a whole speaks of Genesis as history, as does the Church from Pentecost to the present. Our understanding of Scripture should come from the church fathers, those priests and theologians who were closest in proximity and time to the authors of Scripture. If anyone can teach us what the Church has taught from the beginning, it is St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephraim the Syrian, St. Basil the Great, and the other fathers whove passed down to us the proper meaning of Gods Word. Otherwise, its all up for grabs, and we can treat divine revelation as an ala carte, taking what we find palatable while discarding what we find unappetizing.
The church fathers in their consensus unequivocally regard Genesis as a historical account. The Genesis commentaries we have from the fathers were their sermons in church, since they understood its proper interpretation as important for salvation. While some disagreed as to the length of each creation day, they nonetheless all testified to the general accuracy of Genesis, interpreting the text as it is written. They did not practice such hyper-literalism as to anthropomorphize God in such passages where Hes said to have spoken or to have walked in the Garden. Such passages are interpreted in a God-befitting manner, while everything else is understood with the simplicity of the heart. As St. Ephraim the Syrian wrote in the Commentary on Genesis:
"No one should think that the Creation of Six Days is an allegory; it is likewise impermissible to say what seems, according to the account, to have been created in six days, was created in a single instant, and likewise that certain names presented in this account signify nothing, or signify something else."
Likewise, St. Basil the Great in his Hexaemeron wrote:
"Those who do not admit the common meaning of the Scriptures say that water is not water, but some other nature, and they explain a plant and a fish according to their opinion Some have attempted by false arguments and allegorical interpretations to bestow on the Scripture a dignity of their own imagining. But theirs is the attitude of one who considers himself wiser than the revelations of the Spirit and introduces his own ideas in pretense of an explanation. Therefore, let it be understood as it has been written."
An honest assessment of church history leads one to conclude that as long as theres been a book of Genesis to be read, its been read as it is written. This leaves open the question of why the patristic understanding of Genesis is important, why we should even care about the meaning of Genesis in the first place. This question is answered by St. John Chrysostom, who teaches that, just as St. John the Evangelist prophesized the end of time, Moses is our prophet for the beginning of time:
"All the other prophets spoke either of what was to occur after a long time or of what was about to happen then; but he the blessed (Moses), who lived many generations after (the creation of the world), was vouchsafed by the guidance of the right hand of the Most High to utter what had been done by God before his own birth. It is for this reason that he begins to speak thus: In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, as if calling out to us all with a loud voice: it is not by the instruction of men that I say this; He Who called them (heaven and earth) out of non-being into being - it is He Who has roused my tongue to relate of them. And therefore I entreat you, let us heed to these words as if we heard not Moses but the very Lord of the universe Who speaks through the tongue of Moses, and let us take leave for good of our own opinions."
In this passage, the Golden Mouth tells us that since God was the only eye witness to the actual events, we are to trust His testimony over our fallible opinions.
To accept that Genesis is reliable and true, we must assent to whatever impact it should have on our personal conduct. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights. Our rights are inalienable because, as created in the image of God, we share in the dignity which God has afforded us. As human beings, we have God-given free will, but not the right to abuse it for the injury of others. To harm my neighbor would be an insult to the God who created him, and I would be held accountable for this misdeed.
However, if the evolutionary standpoint were correct, and we were produced by a long series of biochemical accidents, there would be no reason to regard my neighbor as having the same rights that I want for myself. For what dignity is there in a chance combination of molecules, descended from animals instead of our Heavenly Father? And in a godless universe, who stands as the ultimate Judge for those who take advantage of the weak and vulnerable? Friedrick Nietzsche was honest about Darwins implications for the world - If survival of the fittest is axiomatic for all life, the strong must triumph over the weak by any means necessary, irrespective of the pain this may cause.
From Genesis, we learn there is a moral standard to which all persons are held accountable. And since the fall of Adam, all humans have fallen short of this standard. It is important, for several reasons, that we regard Adam and Eve as historic persons. For being our first parents, Adam and Eve are recognized by the Church as saints, and since Christ leads the Church to all truth, there cannot be fictitious saints. Furthermore, the fall of Adam answers the moral dilemma of how an all-powerful, all-loving God could allow suffering and evil in this world.
Man was created uncorrupt, in a state of paradise with God. By forsaking the command of God, man inherited suffering and death, and through Christ, death has been conquered for all. However, if death is the natural condition of man, why would God become incarnate to restore our humanity? Why would church fathers teach that, through sanctification, one returns to the state of Adam before his fall? And how do we reconcile Gods goodness with a created world where suffering has ruled from the beginning? Any attempt to allegorize Genesis leaves these important questions unanswered and unanswerable.
In Genesis, we learn that man is created in the image of God, and that humans are punished for having fallen short of His image. St. Peter wrote that Gods past judgments show what awaits those who reject Him here and now: judgment and wrath. Those who deny that God banished Adam from paradise, and flooded the earth to purge it of wickedness, do so at their own peril. Where we are going, if we are to perpetuate the sin which Adam brought into this world, is to suffering and death, even the second death, the lake of fire. Those who repent to Christ, who is the lover of mankind, will, like our father Noah, be saved from guaranteed destruction, and reign with Him in paradise restored. Amen.
In our modern age, the Holy Bible has lost its place as the moral guide for society. What once taught individuals how to treat their neighbor is now understood as little more than a collection of quaint stories for an ancient, primitive people. One can trace the distrust of divine revelation to Charles Darwin, whose Origin of the Species cast doubt on the first book of the Bible, and by extension, all Scripture. Granted, many questioned the Bible before the Origin was published. But as Richard Dawkins pointed out, Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist, by providing a scientific language to explain away the design we observe all around us. What Darwin failed to appreciate is that, in discarding the traditional understanding of Genesis, we lose the knowledge of who we are, where we came from, and where we are going. This knowledge is revealed by God and in God, since He was the only one present at the beginning of all things.
The book of Genesis is part of the Scriptures, which have been handed to us for the salvation of soul and body. Given the relationship which Scripture and salvation share, it is no less important to understand the meaning of Genesis than any other book of the Bible. One cannot have a double standard, allegorizing the text of Genesis while interpreting the rest of Scripture as it is written, because the Bible as a whole speaks of Genesis as history, as does the Church from Pentecost to the present. Our understanding of Scripture should come from the church fathers, those priests and theologians who were closest in proximity and time to the authors of Scripture. If anyone can teach us what the Church has taught from the beginning, it is St. John Chrysostom, St. Ephraim the Syrian, St. Basil the Great, and the other fathers whove passed down to us the proper meaning of Gods Word. Otherwise, its all up for grabs, and we can treat divine revelation as an ala carte, taking what we find palatable while discarding what we find unappetizing.
The church fathers in their consensus unequivocally regard Genesis as a historical account. The Genesis commentaries we have from the fathers were their sermons in church, since they understood its proper interpretation as important for salvation. While some disagreed as to the length of each creation day, they nonetheless all testified to the general accuracy of Genesis, interpreting the text as it is written. They did not practice such hyper-literalism as to anthropomorphize God in such passages where Hes said to have spoken or to have walked in the Garden. Such passages are interpreted in a God-befitting manner, while everything else is understood with the simplicity of the heart. As St. Ephraim the Syrian wrote in the Commentary on Genesis:
"No one should think that the Creation of Six Days is an allegory; it is likewise impermissible to say what seems, according to the account, to have been created in six days, was created in a single instant, and likewise that certain names presented in this account signify nothing, or signify something else."
Likewise, St. Basil the Great in his Hexaemeron wrote:
"Those who do not admit the common meaning of the Scriptures say that water is not water, but some other nature, and they explain a plant and a fish according to their opinion Some have attempted by false arguments and allegorical interpretations to bestow on the Scripture a dignity of their own imagining. But theirs is the attitude of one who considers himself wiser than the revelations of the Spirit and introduces his own ideas in pretense of an explanation. Therefore, let it be understood as it has been written."
An honest assessment of church history leads one to conclude that as long as theres been a book of Genesis to be read, its been read as it is written. This leaves open the question of why the patristic understanding of Genesis is important, why we should even care about the meaning of Genesis in the first place. This question is answered by St. John Chrysostom, who teaches that, just as St. John the Evangelist prophesized the end of time, Moses is our prophet for the beginning of time:
"All the other prophets spoke either of what was to occur after a long time or of what was about to happen then; but he the blessed (Moses), who lived many generations after (the creation of the world), was vouchsafed by the guidance of the right hand of the Most High to utter what had been done by God before his own birth. It is for this reason that he begins to speak thus: In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth, as if calling out to us all with a loud voice: it is not by the instruction of men that I say this; He Who called them (heaven and earth) out of non-being into being - it is He Who has roused my tongue to relate of them. And therefore I entreat you, let us heed to these words as if we heard not Moses but the very Lord of the universe Who speaks through the tongue of Moses, and let us take leave for good of our own opinions."
In this passage, the Golden Mouth tells us that since God was the only eye witness to the actual events, we are to trust His testimony over our fallible opinions.
To accept that Genesis is reliable and true, we must assent to whatever impact it should have on our personal conduct. In the Declaration of Independence, Thomas Jefferson proclaimed that all men are created equal with certain inalienable rights. Our rights are inalienable because, as created in the image of God, we share in the dignity which God has afforded us. As human beings, we have God-given free will, but not the right to abuse it for the injury of others. To harm my neighbor would be an insult to the God who created him, and I would be held accountable for this misdeed.
However, if the evolutionary standpoint were correct, and we were produced by a long series of biochemical accidents, there would be no reason to regard my neighbor as having the same rights that I want for myself. For what dignity is there in a chance combination of molecules, descended from animals instead of our Heavenly Father? And in a godless universe, who stands as the ultimate Judge for those who take advantage of the weak and vulnerable? Friedrick Nietzsche was honest about Darwins implications for the world - If survival of the fittest is axiomatic for all life, the strong must triumph over the weak by any means necessary, irrespective of the pain this may cause.
From Genesis, we learn there is a moral standard to which all persons are held accountable. And since the fall of Adam, all humans have fallen short of this standard. It is important, for several reasons, that we regard Adam and Eve as historic persons. For being our first parents, Adam and Eve are recognized by the Church as saints, and since Christ leads the Church to all truth, there cannot be fictitious saints. Furthermore, the fall of Adam answers the moral dilemma of how an all-powerful, all-loving God could allow suffering and evil in this world.
Man was created uncorrupt, in a state of paradise with God. By forsaking the command of God, man inherited suffering and death, and through Christ, death has been conquered for all. However, if death is the natural condition of man, why would God become incarnate to restore our humanity? Why would church fathers teach that, through sanctification, one returns to the state of Adam before his fall? And how do we reconcile Gods goodness with a created world where suffering has ruled from the beginning? Any attempt to allegorize Genesis leaves these important questions unanswered and unanswerable.
In Genesis, we learn that man is created in the image of God, and that humans are punished for having fallen short of His image. St. Peter wrote that Gods past judgments show what awaits those who reject Him here and now: judgment and wrath. Those who deny that God banished Adam from paradise, and flooded the earth to purge it of wickedness, do so at their own peril. Where we are going, if we are to perpetuate the sin which Adam brought into this world, is to suffering and death, even the second death, the lake of fire. Those who repent to Christ, who is the lover of mankind, will, like our father Noah, be saved from guaranteed destruction, and reign with Him in paradise restored. Amen.
