Do you think that the theologians of the Orthodox tradition were served everything on a plate, that everything that was revealed to them was spelled out literally, word by word, to them? I don't claim to know, but I wasn't aware even that the Scripture was thought of that way.
well lets see what the Fathers themselves have to say about the clarity of the creation accounts:
St. Ambrose,
[FONT="]Hexameron 1.6[/FONT][FONT="]
Wherefore, he tore himself away from pleasure and, shunning all the excitement of the royal palace, retired to a secluded spot in Ethiopia. There, removed from all other cares, he gave himself wholly to divine contemplation, in order that he might behold the glory of God face to face. This is in accord with the testimony of Scripture, that ‘there arose no greater prophet in Israel like unto Moses, whom the Lord knew face to face.’ He spoke to God the highest, not in a vision nor in dreams, but mouth to mouth. Plainly and clearly, not by figures or riddles, there was bestowed on him the gift of the divine presence. [/FONT]
Ibid. 1.7
[FONT="]For, if [Moses] had already accepted from God what he should say concerning the liberation of the people, how much more should you accept what He should say concerning heaven? Therefore, ‘not in the persuasive words of wisdom,’ not in philosophical fallacies, ‘but in the demonstration of the Spirit and power,’ he has ventured to say as if he were a witness of the divine work: ‘In the beginning God created heaven and earth.’ He did not look forward to a late and leisurely creation of the world out of a concourse of atoms . . . He did not hold, as the philosophers teach, that a stronger conjunction of atoms furnished the cause of their continuing duration. He pointed out that those who give such tiny and unsubstantial first principles to heaven and earth were just weaving a web like a spider’s . . . No wonder that they know not their Ruler who know not their God, by whom all things are ruled and governed. Let us follow him who knew both the Author and the Ruler, and let us not be led astray by vain opinions.[/FONT]
[FONT="]St. Basil, [/FONT][FONT="]Hexameron, 1.1[/FONT][FONT="]
[/FONT][FONT="]If the weakness of our intelligence does not allow us to penetrate the depth of the thoughts of the writer, yet we will be involuntarily drawn to give faith to his words by the force of his authority. Now it is Moses who composed this history . . . who disdained the pomp of royalty, and, to share the humble conditions of his compatriots, preferred to be persecuted with the people of God . . . Moses, finally, who, at the age of eighty, saw God, as far as it is possible for man to see Him . . . according to the testimony of God Himself, ‘If there is a prophet among you, I the Lord make Myself known to him in a vision, and I speak to him in a dream. Not so with My servant Moses; . . . he is faithful in all My house, I speak with him face to face, even plainly and not in dark sayings’ (Num. 12:6-8)[/FONT]
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St. John Chrysostom, Commentary on Genesis 7:3
[/FONT]The blessed Moses, instructed by the Spirit of God, teaches us with such detail ... so that we might clearly know both the order and the way of the creation of each thing. If God had not been concerned for our salvation and had not guided the tongue of the Prophet, it would have been sufficient to say that God created the heaven, and the earth, and the sea, and living creatures, without indicating either the order of the days or what was created earlier and what later.... But he distinguishes so clearly both the order of creation and the number of days, and instructs us about everything with great condescension, in order that we, coming to know the whole truth, would no longer heed the false teachings of those who speak of everything according to their own reasonings, but might comprehend the unutterable power of our Creator.
[FONT="]St. John of[/FONT][FONT="]
Kronstadt,
My Life in Christ [/FONT]
[FONT="] "The Holy Scriptures speak more truly and more clearly of the world than the world itself or the arrangement of the earthly strata; the scriptures of nature within it, being dead and voiceless, cannot express anything definite. "Where wast thou when I laid the foundations of the earth?" Were you with God when He created the universe? "Who hath directed the Spirit of the Lord, or being His counseller, hath taught Him?" And yet you geologists boast that you have understood the mind of the Lord, in the arrangement of strata, and maintained it in spite of Holy Writ! You believe more in the dead letters of the earthly strata, in the soulless earth, than in the Divinely-inspired words of the great prophet Moses, who saw God."[/FONT]
St. Justin Martyr, Dialogue with Trypho, Chapter VII
They are called prophets. These alone both saw and announced the truth to men, neither reverencing nor fearing any man, not influenced by a desire for glory, but speaking those things alone which they saw and which they heard, being filled with the Holy Spirit. Their writings are still extant, and he who has read them is very much helped in his knowledge of the beginning and end of things, and of those matters which the philosopher ought to know, provided he has believed them. For they did not use demonstration in their treatises, seeing that they were witnesses to the truth above all demonstration, and worthy of belief; and those events which have happened, and those which are happening, compel you to assent to the utterances made by them, although, indeed, they were entitled to credit on account of the miracles which they performed, since they both glorified the Creator, the God and Father of all things, and proclaimed His Son, the Christ [sent] by Him
[FONT="]St. Symeon the New Theologian[/FONT][FONT="], Ethical Discourses 1.1[/FONT]
[FONT="]God did not, as some people think, just give Paradise to our ancestors at the beginning, nor did He make only Paradise incorruptible. No! Instead, He did much more. Before Paradise He made the whole earth, the one which we inhabit, and everything in it. Nor that alone, but He also in five days brought the heavens and all they contain into being. On the sixth day He made Adam and established him as lord and king of all the visible creation. Neither Eve nor Paradise were yet created, but the whole world had been brought into being by God as one thing, as a kind of paradise, at once incorruptible yet material and perceptible. It was this world, as we said, which was given to Adam and to his descendants for their enjoyment. Does this seem strange to you? It should not. Pay attention to our argument, and it will show you clearly how this is so from the holy Scripture. It is written there: “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void.” Next, the remaining creative works of God are given in exact detail, and then, after “there was evening and morning the fifth day, “ Scripture adds: “Then God said, “Let us make man after our image, in our likeness . . . male and female He created them [1:26-27]. Male and female, it says, not as though Eve had already come into being, but instead as she was still in Adam’s side, co-existing with him.[/FONT]
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St. Theophilus of Antioch, To Autolycus [/FONT]II.XVIII
But as to what relates to the creation of man, his own creation cannot be explained by man, though it is a succinct account of it which holy Scripture gives.
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and here's what St. Gregory the Theologian has to say about St. Basil's Hexameron work:
[FONT="]Oration 43, Funeral Oration for St. Basil, [/FONT][FONT="]Chapter 67[/FONT]
[FONT="]I will only say this of him. Whenever I handle his Hexaemeron, and take its words on my lips, I am brought into the presence of the Creator, and understand the words of creation, and admire the Creator more than before, using my teacher as my only means of sight.[/FONT]
