12. GENESIS: 2a) The First, Second and Third Days of Creation (1981)

Father Seraphim Rose of the St. Herman of Alaska Orthodox Christian Monastery in Plotina, California. This is the second lecture which Father Seraphim gave at the Orthodox pilgrimage in August of nineteen eighty one. After an initial question as to why one ought to study the whole question of creation, Father Seraphim begins to hand down the patristic interpretation of the six days of creation. Why shouldn't we just be concerned to save our souls instead of thinking?

the world gonna be like the end or the beginning. Isn't it safer just to occupy ourselves with saying our prayers and not thinking about these big subjects? Or you might get into trouble. Carl Sagan might come and fight with you. Isn't it safer just to say your prayers if we got her faces like that?

Why think about these immortal things? We have to think about our salvation for So your your faith is based on how you believe your love and and how if you believe in God and created everything, it that's part of your faith. If someone refutes that revolution or something like that and you don't know anything about it, then your faith is going to just move instantly.

how the fathers uh teach you know, what they teach about the faith or about creation and how we spirit. And you hear this thing about evolution. Well then you'll you'll you'll dodge your faith. And then your salvation will be down to your In fact we've read in this Father George Carlcio's servant several times he mentions the subject. He's talking to young people and he says your uh your elders tell you you all came from monkeys, therefore

You are just an animal. And that can be a very powerful thing. Science proves we're just animals, therefore let's go out and blow up a church. So that there's a direct relation between how you behave and how you believe about the origins of church. That's right, to give an account of the state which is in you. That's right. Well, and this book happens to be a part of the scriptures, and the scriptures are for our salvation. Because God made it that way. We're supposed to know.

the meaning of the scriptures. And we know from all these commentaries the Holy Fathers made, the fact they talked about this subject in church, all these commentaries were sermons given in church. Book of Genesis is read during Great Lent and all weekdays. And his great followers' commentaries were following St. John Chrysostom, St. Basil the Great, St. Ambrose of Milan.

St. Ephraim, no, St. Ephraim wrote I think just as uh literary, not sermons. But most of them wrote uh book simply taken down in shorthand by people who were in church listening to these sermons. And therefore I was the reading of these texts was considered a part of everyday life of people who went to church. We've somewhat lost that idea nowadays, and it becomes a very mysterious realm somehow, the realm of Genesis or the Apocalypse are sort of scared of the Always we're talking about.

And of course there's a big point that our Christianity is a religion which tells us about what we're going to be doing in eternal life. It has to prepare us for something eternal, not this world. And if we think only about this world, our horizon is very limited, and we don't know what's after death, where we came from, where we

The purpose of life, and we talk about the beginning of things or the end of things, find out what our whole life is about. And therefore, uh, this is uh Close part of the Christian worldview. Any other questions before we start? We're going to discuss today. We have only basically three days to do all this in. It's a very big subject. We've tried to discuss today the six days of creation.

Tomorrow the creation of man, which is a very complex theological subject. And the next day, paradise, and the fall of man, the original state of man, the fall of man.

We'll have today the six days of creation. What we're going to read is what one can call a model. In science, they have things called models. discussed yesterday the remember about the stars, the Ptolemaic model that the earth is the center of the universe. All the stars go around the earth, the planets go around the earth and they have to have make some kind of because they move at a different speed than the stars around the earth.

Observed. We had to have theories about how they went back and forth and formed figure eights and all kinds of like right now you can see in the heavens it was the last six months. Saturn and Jupiter then in the sky together. If you were observing you can see that first one would go like this and then they would go backwards, and then Saturn becomes more faint, Jupiter becomes more bright. And you can explain that because they're in different phases of their orbit.

both going around the sun, from our point of view, they seem to get closer together when actually they're simply from our view, looking out towards where they are in their orbit, they're doing that. They're actual motions, they're simply going around the sun. Or Venus every year, like right now Venus has become once more an evening star low on the horizon. A few months ago it was a morning star. It's the only in the morning before the sun rises.

And the the model, the Ptolemaic model, which said that everything goes around the earth, was found to be lacking because it didn't explain the facts as well as the Copernican Copernicus said if we interpret the planets as going around the sun and the star and the the earth also is going around the sun, that all these motions make sense. They're mathematically very simple to explain.

Eventually that was accepted. It seems to be true because you can send rocket ships to get quite close to Saturn and you don't miss that. Astonishingly close and accurate. Obviously it's true, this theory seems to be true. that all the planets do indeed go around the sun, even though according to our observation, everything goes around the Earth.

So it's very important what kind of models you have of things. And we're going to read study today the model, the patristic model of the six days of creation, how they viewed these six days. We will not be guessing how long the days were, although by the time we come to the end, we'll have a pretty good idea. Not the number of hours or years, but how the fathers viewed their length. Many fundamentalists, Protestant fundamentalists, think that their literal interpretation of Genesis is lost.

aren't precisely 24 hours long. Other people think that unless you make these days millions or billions of years long, that you are in dis you're not in accord with modern science. And I think we can say that both of these views are either exaggerated or missed the mark. It is not that the days could not be twenty-four hours long.

If God so willed. In fact, one or two fathers, like Saint Ephraim Assyrian, he even talks about the fact that days are twenty four hours long. But most of the fathers we're reading do not say anything at all about the subject. It is not a subject of controversy. And the very idea projecting back to that those days are present days. It's a little too world. It doesn't it doesn't require

Because now we have a definite idea we're living in a fallen world. We have 24 hours between the time when the sun gets back to the same place in the heavens. And these days are very limited. Those days when these tremendous things happen, they're very unlimited compared to our days. Therefore there's not much point in discussing how many hours they have.

Blessed Augustine in the City of God, he says a very accurate thing, I think. He says, quote, What kind of days these were is very difficult for us to conceive. Which we'll see and discuss what happened there. Or even completely impossible. And all the more impossible is it for us to speak about it. Therefore we won't define how long they are.

But if we do not need to define the six days of creation as twenty-four hours long, it is also quite impossible to regard them as millions or billions of years long, that is, to force them into an evolutionary time scale.

The events of the six days don't fit into the evolutionary picture whatsoever. We'll see shortly. A few examples here of how this does not fit into a scientific view. In Genesis, the first living things are grasses and trees upon the dry ground, dry land. Not microorganisms in the sea as evolutionary theory, evolutionary cosmogony, theory about the origins of things, as it teaches.

These land plants exist for a whole day, and if the days are billions of years, it means they exist for billions of years before the sun appears, which of course is totally inconceivable in any kind of naturalistic view of the creation. Since, according to any evolutionary view, the sun comes before the plants and before the earth.

Any reasonably objective observer would have to conclude that the six days of creation, if they are a true account and not simply a product of arbitrary fancy or Babylonian creation myths, simply do not fit into the evolutionary framework. And therefore there's no need to make them billions of years long. We'll see as we go on how the description of these days by the Holy Fathers makes this particular interpretation that they are billions of years long quite impossible.

evolution is talking about something quite different from the six days of creation. And in fact, no scientific theory can tell us about those six days. This is a very important point that you should keep in mind. The function of science, as we know it, is to explain, sometimes with more success, sometimes with less success.

And as we said yesterday, we should always be aware that science, at any particular time, ours included, is always full of mistakes, wrong theories, which later on are changed. He tries to explain the changes of this world based on projections of natural processes which can be observed today. But the big thing you must be aware of is that the six days of creation are not a natural process. They are what came before there were any natural processes whatsoever.

They are the work of God. By very definition, they are miraculous. You see the Holy Fathers emphasize this point. And they do not fit into any natural laws which govern the world which we see now. Once the world is created, then these natural laws begin to operate. Before the world is created, before these great uh parts of it are created in the six days, these natural laws are not operating.

So if we can know what happened in those six days, it is not by scientific projections or speculations, but only, as we said yesterday, by the revelation of God. In this respect, modern scientists or philosophers are no better off than the ancient philosophers who discussed the origin of the cosmos.

The writers of the commentaries we're going to be reading on Genesis emphasize this point. For example, St. John Chrysostom says in his homilies in Genesis. Quote, what does it mean that first there is heaven and then earth? First the roof and then the foundation? God is not subject to natural necessity. He is not subject to the laws of art. The will of God is the creator and artificer of nature and of art and of everything existing.

Speaking of the fifth day of creation, the same St. John Chrysostom says... Today God goes over to the waters and shows us that from them by his word and command there proceeded animate creatures. What mind tell me can understand this miracle? St. Basil, in his work on the six days, the hexemon, says, concerning the third day, that on this day when the

Dry land became visible. There was no natural necessity for water to flow downward, because this is the law of our world. But on the third day there was as yet no such law until God's command came. He says, quote, Someone may perhaps ask this, why does the scripture reduce to a command of the Creator, that tendency to flow downward which belongs naturally to what? If water has this tendency by nature, the command ordering the waters to be gathered together into one place would be superfluous.

To this inquiry we say this, that you recognize very well the movements of the water after the command of God, but that it is unsteady and unstable, and that it is borne naturally down slopes and into hollows. This is what you see now. But how had it any power previous to that before the motion was placed in it from this command? You yourself neither know nor have you heard it from one who knew.

Reflect that it is the voice of God that makes nature, and the command given at that time to creation provided the future course of action for the creatures. Undoubtedly this is one of the chief sources of the conflict between philosophical or scientific theory and religious revelation. During the six days, nature itself was being made. Our present knowledge of natural laws cannot possibly tell us how these laws themselves came into being.

The subject of the ultimate beginnings of everything is outside the sphere of science. When the scientist enters this realm, he is only guessing and speculating, just like the ancient cosmologist. St. Basil writes, Quote, We are proposing to examine the structure of the world and to contemplate the whole universe, not from the wisdom of the world, but from what God taught his servant when he spoke to him in person and without witness.

If we can humble ourselves enough to know that we can actually know rather little about the details of the creation of the six days, we will have a better chance of understanding what we can about Genesis. And the Holy Fathers, as we said yesterday, are the key we have to understand this.

Now some general remarks about these six days. First, one Orthodox person has said very nicely that our aim in studying these six days is not to measure them. But to know what happened in them. That is, they are measured not quantitatively, according to how long they were, but theologically, according to what happened. These are these six days in Genesis are a statement about six immense creative acts which produced the whole universe as we know it.

Secondly, by their very nature, as you see, the events of these days are miracles and are not subject to the laws of nature that now govern the world. So we cannot project backwards from present experience and say what happened in those six days. And thirdly, point, which is very much emphasized by the Holy Fathers. The creative acts of God in the six days are instantaneous and sudden.

Thus Saints Ephraim the Syrian, who was one of the few who talked about the days being twenty-four hours long, he said that even though the days are twenty-four hours long, the acts of God are not twenty-four hours long. He said, quote in chapter one of his commentary in Genesis, Although both the light and the clouds were created in the twinkling of an eye, still both the day and the night of the first day continued for twelve hours each.

God creates in an instant. The days are twenty-four hours long, according to his interpretation. St. Basil the Great likewise emphasizes this fact that the creation is instantaneous. He says concerning the third day. Quote At this saying all the dense woods appeared, all the trees shot up, likewise all the shrubs were immediately thick with leaf and bushes. And the so called garland plants all came into existence in a moment of time, although they were not previously upon the earth.

Let the earth bring forth. This brief command was immediately mighty nature, and an elaborate system which brought to perfection more swiftly than our thought the countless properties of plants. Again St. Ambrose of Milan, right? But when Moses says so abruptly, in the beginning God created He intends to express the incomprehensible speed of the work.

And he had in mind the cosmological speculations of the ancient Greeks when he said these words. Moses did not look forward to a late and leisurely creation of the world out of a concourse of atoms. This God creates, He makes the word instantaneously, what He says is fact. We'll discuss this one more when we discuss the six days individually. He further says his same father, Ambrose, and the first time. Fittingly Moses added he created, lest it be thought there was a delay in creation.

Furthermore, men would see also how incomparable the Creator was, who completed such a great work in the briefest moment of his creative action, so much so that the effect of his will anticipated the perception of time. San Athanasius the Great, another great fourth century father, one of the great fighters against Arianism, was president of the First Ecumenical Council.

When he in a treatise of his against the Arians and he was arguing that Christ The Arians were teaching that Christ was the beginning of all things, and therefore he was part of creation, and not the creator. He sets forth, as San Athanasius sets forth his understanding that in the six days of creation, everything that happened in those days happened in an instant before.

As to the separate stars or the great lights, not this one appeared first, and that one second, but in one day and by the same command they were all called into being. And such was the original formation of the quadrupeds and of birds and fishes and cattle and plants. No one creature was made before another, but all things originate, subsisted at once together upon one and the same command.

repeat it over and over again in the writings of Holy Fathers, which is only another way of saying that this original creation is a miraculous thing. It comes from God.

But the question naturally arises, why six days? Why couldn't God have made everything in one instant? Finish with that. St. Ephraim the Syrian says fairly that it is impermissible to say that what seems, according to the account of Genesis, to have been created in the course of six days, was created in a single instant. And all the fathers had the same thing. Must emphasize that these

Events happened in six periods, six days and not in one instant, even though each particular creative act is instantaneous. St. Gregory the theologian writes One of his homilies. Quote To the days of creation is added a certain firstness, secondness, thirdness, and so on, the seventh day of rest from work.

And by these days is divided all that is created, being brought into order by unutterable laws, but not produced in an instant by the almighty word, for whom to think or to speak means already to perform the deed. If man appeared in the world last, honored by the handiwork and image of God, this is not in the least surprising, since for him as for a king the royal dwelling had to be prepared, and only then was the king to be led in accompanied by all creatures.

St. John Chrysostom in his commentary in Genesis says, quote, The almighty right hand of God in his limitless wisdom would have had no difficulty in creating everything in a single day. And what do I say in a single day? In a single instinct? But since he created everything that exists not for his own benefit, because he needs nothing, being all sufficient unto himself, on the contrary, he created everything in his love of mankind and goodness.

And so he creates in parts and offers us by the mouth of the Blessed Prophet a clear teaching of what it's created, so that we, having found out about this in detail, would not fall under the influence of those who are drawn away by human reasoning. And why you will say was man created afterwards if he surpassed all these creatures? For a good reason, when a king intends to enter a city, his arms bearers and others must go ahead, so that the king might enter chambers already prepared.

Precisely thus did God now, intending to place as it were a king and master over everything earthly, at first arrange all this adornment, and only then did he create the master, man. St. Gregory of Nyssa likewise repeats the same teaching that man as a king appeared only after his dominion had been prepared for him.

But he has also another mystical interpretation of the sequence of the six days, which some people think means that he believed in evolution. Therefore, let us see what he says and see what it actually means. Quote Scripture informs us that the deity proceeded by a sort of graduated and ordered advance to the creation of man.

After the foundations of the universe were laid, as the history records, man did not appear on the earth at once, but the creation of the animals preceded him, and the plants preceded them. Thereby scripture shows that the vital forces blended with the world of matter according to a gradation. First, it infuses itself into insensate matter. And in continuation of this advanced into the sentient world, and then ascended to intelligent and rational beings.

The creation of man is related as coming last, as of one who took up into himself every single form of life, both that of plants and that which is seen in animals. His nourishment and growth he derives from vegetable life. For even in vegetables such processes are to be seen when food is being drawn in by their roots and given off in fruit and leaves.

His sentient organization he derives from the animal creation, but his faculty of thought and reason is incommunicable and is a peculiar gift in our nature. It is not possible for this reasoning faculty to exist in the life of the body without existing by means of sensation.

And since sensation is already found in the brute creation, necessarily, as it were, by reason of this one condition, our soul has contact with the other things which are knit up with it. And these are all those phenomena within us which we call passions. It says further, if Scripture tells us that man was made last after every animus thing.

Moses is doing nothing else than declaring to us the doctrine of the soul, considering that what is perfect comes last, according to a certain necessary sequence in the order of the world. Thus we may suppose that nature makes an ascent as it were by steps. I mean the various properties of life in the lower to the perfect form. Well here we find phrases are sent by steps from the

the perfect form. Of course a person who believes in evolution will be upon that and say, aha, if you believe the the way that uh modern speculative scientists believe it. But actually to read into this evolution is too much because we know from His other writings he believes that the creation was instantaneous. He says, for example, in his treatise on the making of man, which we'll read especially tomorrow.

Quote every hillside and slope and hollow were crowned with young grass on the third day, and with the very proudest of the trees just risen from the ground, yet shot up at once into their perfect beauty. The creation is, so to speak, made offhand by the divine power, existing at once on his command. So what he's saying is not that man descends from the lower creation, because then you have to say that man also comes from the vegetable. That's not what scientists believe. He's saying that man

being part of the earth is also a part of the whole life of the earth. And the earth is arranged in a certain gradation, begins with minerals which are inanimate, proceeds to trees and vegetables which are animate and of a certain motion of taking in food, which we also have, and then there's animals which are more like us and in fact we'll see later on. Sin Basil especially uses the animals as an image of our passion.

very important point in the creation of man. And therefore man is related, is kin to the whole of creation. But that doesn't mean he descends from the whole of creation. That's an entirely separate theory which no Holy Father ever talked about. And you will see below what St. Gregory actually thought about a very important point. mixing of natures, which the Holy Fathers are very much against.

Now one day by one day day by day let us look at these six days. First day. First word in this book. First words are in the beginning. This means of course that the book is about the very first things in the world. But there's also a mystical significance to these words in the beginning. St. Ambrose says the following Quote A beginning in a mystical sense is denoted by I am the first and the last, the beginning and the end.

In truth, he who is the beginning of all things by virtue of his divinity is also the end. Therefore in this beginning, that is in Christ, God created heaven and earth, because all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing that was made. Saint John's epistle John's Gospel one three. The succeeding acts of creation begin with the words and God said. St. Basil asks the meaning of this and answers it for us.

Quote, let us inquire how God speaks. Is it in our manner? Does he manifest his hidden thought by striking the air with the articulate movement of the voice? Surely it is fantastic to say that God needs such a roundabout way for the manifestation of his thought. Or is it more is it not more in conformity with true religion to say that the divine will joined with the first impulse of his intelligence is the word of God that is Christ?

The scripture delineates him in detail, so that it may show that God wished to create the creation not only to be accomplished, but also to be brought to this birth through some co workers. It could have related everything fully as it began. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. Then he created light. Next he created the furnace. That's not what it says in general.

But now introducing God as commanding and speaking, it indicates silently him to whom he gives the command and to whom he speaks. This way of speaking has been wisely and skillfully employed so as to rouse our mind to an inquiry of the person to whom the words are directed. Therefore we see that God, the Father, speaks, and Christ, the Son of God, creates.

It's a very important concept. We'll see later on. The creation of man specifically says they took counsel together. Saint Paul also teaches the same thing that God created all things by Jesus Christ, Ephesians three nine. And by him Christ were all things created, that are in heaven and that are in earth visible and invisible, whether they be thrones or dominions or principalities or powers, all things were created by him and for him.

John as we sin says, In the beginning was the Word, and all things were made through him, and without him was made nothing but was made. Thus in traditional Orthodox iconography, the creation, we see not the image, which probably all of you know, of Michelangelo in the Sistine Chapel, the old man, God the Father, touching Adam.

That's not correct. It's supposed to be Jesus Christ. It's the icons of earth. In fact, we'll I'll show you one later on tomorrow. The icon of the creation shows Christ creating man. Because Christ is the creator. God gives the word and Christ creates And the Holy Spirit participates in the work, as we see already in the first chapter, because he is hovering over the waters.

Senep from the Syrian writes about this passage: He was fitting for the Holy Spirit to hover as a proof that in creative power he is equal to the Father and the Son. For the Father uttered, the Son created, and it was fitting for the Spirit also to offer his work, and this he did by hovering, thereby clearly showing that all was brought into being and accomplished by the Holy Trinity.

From the very beginning, we see that the creation of the world is by a holy trinity, three persons. We'll see later on in the text of Genesis much more clearly.

The next verse says, God created, as in the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form and void. The Greek text Septuagint says the word was the world was the earth was invisible and unfinished. St. Basil says about this quote. How is it if both the heavens and the earth were of equal honor, that the heavens were brought to perfection, and the earth is still imperfect and unfinished?

Or in short, what was the lack of preparation of the earth? Why is it called unfinished, void? And for what reason was it invisible? Surely the perfect condition of the earth consists in its state of abundance. The budding of all sorts of plants, the putting forth of the lofty trees, both fruitful and barren, the freshness and fragrance of flowers, and whatever things appeared on earth a little later by the command of God to adorn their mother.

Since as yet there was nothing of this, the scripture reasonably spoke of it as incomplete. We might say the same also about the heavens, that they were not yet brought to perfection themselves, nor had they received their proper adornment, since they were not yet lighted around by the moon or the sun, nor crowned by the choirs of the stars, for these things had not yet been made.

Therefore you will not err from the truth if you say that the heavens also were incomplete, that is on this first day of creation. St. Andrews speaks of the first day of creation as the foundation of the world. Quote.

The good architect lays the foundation first, and afterwards when the foundation has been laid, he plots the various parts of the building, one after the other, and then adds to it the ornamentation. Why did not God grant to the elements at the same time as they arose their appropriate adornments, as if he at the moment of creation were unable to cause the heavens immediately to gleam with studded stars and the earth to be closed with flowers and fruit? That could very well have happened.

Yet Scripture points out that things were first created and afterwards put in order, lest it be supposed that they were not actually created, and that they had no beginning. what the pagans of his time were saying, just as if the nature of things had been, as it were, generated from the beginning and did not appear to be something added afterwards.

And St. Ephraim says, quote, He said this desiring to show that emptiness preceded the natures of things. There was then only the earth and there was nothing beside it. Verse two says, And darkness was upon the face of the deep. So already we see that there are waters. The deep means the ocean. The waters of the deep are created together with the earth and completely submerge the earth. This is the cause of its unfinished appearance.

The fathers assumed that there was a certain light created with the heavens, since the heavens are the region of light. But if so, the clouds covering the earth prevented its reaching the earth. Then Ephraim writes, quote, If everything created, whether its creation is mentioned or not, was created in six days, then the clouds were created on the first day, for everything had to be created in six days.

This is another indication by the way which we'll also see later on when we talk about the seventh day, that there's a difference between the six days of creation and whatever creation we speak of God doing after that. His continuous creation. The fathers, St. Ambrose in particular, state that when we read here darkness, we are not to think of an allegory, that this means demon.

The creation of the heaven and earth refers to the creation of this heaven and earth here and The fall of Satan is not discussed. It's an entirely different subject. We'll see at the end of the six days what the fathers say about the creation of the angels and the fall of Satan. This creation of the heaven and earth refers first of all to the creation of this world.

And the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the waters. This is where we see the activity of the third person, the Trinity, and the creation. St. Ambrose writes about this, quote There was still to come the plenitude of the operation in the Spirit, as it is written, By the word of the Lord the heavens were established, and all the power of them by the Spirit of His mouth. Psalm thirty-two.

The Spirit fittingly moved over the earth, destined to bear fruit, because by the aid of the Spirit it held the seeds of new birth which were to germinate according to the words of the prophet. Send forth thy spirit, and they shall be created, and thou shalt renew the face of the earth. Psalm one hundred three. St. Ephraim gives us a very homely image of the activity of the spirit on this first day, comparing it to a bird, a mother bird. Quote.

The spirit warmed the waters and made them fertile and capable of birth, like a bird when it sits with its outstretched wings on its eggs, and by its warmth gives them warmth and produces fertility in them. This same Holy Spirit represented for us then an image of holy baptism, in which by his moving over the waters he gives birth to the children of God.

The Holy Spirit, although it's not mentioned elsewhere in Genesis in the six days of creation, also participated in the other days of creation. For example, in the scripture, Job says, speaks of the divine spirit which made me. Job 33, 4. And God said, Let there be light, and there was light. Saint Andrews writes about this quote God is the author of light, and the place and cause of darkness is the world.

But the good author uttered the word light, so that he might reveal the world by infusing brightness therein, and thus make its aspect beautiful. Suddenly the air became bright and darkness shrank in terror from the brilliance of the novel brightness.

The brilliance of the light which suddenly permeated the whole universe, overwhelmed the darkness, and as it were plunged it into the abyss. Senet from the Syrian As all the Holy Fathers says that this light has nothing to do with the sun, which was not yet existing. Quote The light which appeared on earth was like either a bright cloud or a rising sun, or the pillar which illumined the Hebrew people in the desert.

In any case, the light could not disperse the darkness that embraced everything if it had not extended everywhere, either its substance or its rays like the rising sun. The original light was shed everywhere and was not enclosed in a single definite place like the sun.

It dispersed the darkness without having any movement. Its whole movement consisted in its appearance and disappearance. After its sudden disappearance there came the dominion of night, and with its appearance this dominion ended. Thus the light produced also the three following days.

It aided the conception in bringing forth of everything that the earth was to produce on the third day. As for the sun, when it was established in the firmament, it was to bring to maturity what had already been produced with the age with the aid of the original light. And God saw that the light was good. God calls each stage of his work good, seeing his perfect and unspoiled nature, and as Saint Ambrose teaches, looking forward to the perfection of the whole work.

God as judge of the whole work, foreseeing what is going to happen as something completed, commends that part of his work which is still in its initial stages, being already aware of its termination. He praises each individual part as befitting what is to come. And God separated the light from the darkness. God called the light day and the darkness he called night. St. Basil says about this.

God separated the light from the darkness, that is, God made their natures incapable of mixing and in opposition one to the other. For he divided and separated them with a very great distinction between them. And God called the light day and the darkness night. Now, in our times, after the creation of the sun, it is day when the air is illuminated by the sun shining on the hemisphere above the earth, and night is the darkness of the earth when the sun is hitting.

Yet it was not at that time according to the movement of the sun, but it was when first created that first created light was diffused and again drawn in according to the measure ordained by God, that day came and night succeeded. And there was evening and there was morning one day.

St. Basil says about this. Evening evening is a common boundary line of day and night, and morning is the part of night bordering on day. In order therefore to give the prerogative of prior generation to the day, Moses mentioned first the limit of the day and then that of the night, as night followed the day. The condition in the world before the creation of light was not night, but darkness. That which was opposed to the day was named night, therefore it received its name later than the days.

And why did he say one and not first? It is one day instead of the first day. It is more consistent for him who intends to introduce a second and a third and a fourth day to call the one which begins the series first, but he said one because he was defining the measure of day and night. the very beginning is the beginning of time. This day is one day or day one. This is the beginning of the cycle of seven days, each with its day and night, which continues after our own days.

There are rationalist commentators who see in the seven days and the fact that evening comes before morning merely a projection backwards of later Jewish customs. But this is totally out of harmony with the patristic way of viewing these things. Therefore people who talk like this are unable to answer the question Where and why do the Jews derive these customs?

In the patristic view, the revealed text can and does give the literal origins of the world and the reasons for the Jewish customs. That is they had evening and then morning because that's the way it was in the beginning. They have seven days in the week because that's the way God made it. This, incidentally, is our Christian view because the Vespers begins the new day. Evening comes first, and then the morning.

Thus we come to the end of day one, the first day of creation. It has established the measure of time for all succeeding ages before because before it there was no time. Time begins with it. And in another sense, which is very important also, it is a day unlike those that followed. St. Ephraim says about this quote.

According to the testimony of Scripture, heaven, earth, fire, air, and the waters were created out of nothing, while the light which was created on the first day, and everything else that was created after it, were created out of what existed before. For when Moses speaks of what was created out of nothing, he uses the word created Hebrew bara. God created the heavens and the earth.

And although it is not written that fire, the waters, and the air were created, it is likewise not said that they were produced from what existed earlier, and therefore they also are out of nothing, just as heaven and earth are out of nothing. But when God begins to create out of what already existed, the scripture uses an expression like this God said let there be light and the rest.

And if it is said God created the great sea monsters, before this the following is said that the waters bring forth swarms of living creatures. Therefore only the above named Five kinds of creations were created out of nothing, while everything else was created out of what had already been created out of nothing on the first day.

End of course. It shows that God created the matter of the world in the first day, and after that by miraculous actions brought forth all the pre uh individual creations. St. Nephra mentions five creations, this is simply a way of organizing it. Scientific view, we would say now there's hundred or two hundred elements. What do you mean in ancient times they understood these five elements, the earth, air, fire, water?

And what's the which one? Earth, air, ether. Ether. This was the way they sort of interpreted the fi organized the all the things that are. So it simply means all the things that are, the elements of everything else were created on the first day. One might speculate, if one wanted to, where the actual matter came for all the animals that were created and the stars and so forth after the first day.

Was this simply a transformation of the matter created on the first day, or was it actually new matter? But that's rather a waste of energy because It doesn't say in the sacred scriptures and there's no point in guessing. The basic truth is that the basic structure of creation was made on the first day, the heaven and the earth. And the next five days there are fantastic events happened, but they aren't. It was the bringing of heaven and earth into creation out of nothing in the beginning.

This very idea of creation out of nothing is a very basic one, one of the fundamental things we have to understand about genes. Which is very different from all pagan speculation. And speculations of the Greeks. In the philosophy of Plato and other Greek thought, there is some kind of fashion or god called the demiurge who forms the world out of already existing math.

Which, since it existed eternally, is also some kind of a god. But Genesis describes the beginning as an absolute beginning for the whole world, not its development of something which already existed. there was nothing. And when God began to create, everything came into being. The speculations of modern thinkers who try to trace the world back to some ultimately simple matter which develops by itself are just like these ancient speculations of the Greeks.

There's only one other question on the first day, and that is where do the angels come from since they aren't mentioned.

St. Vaz will teach us about this. In fact, there did exist something, as it seems, even before this world, which our mind can attain by contemplation, but which has been left uninvestigated because it is not adapted to those who are beginners and as yet infants in understanding. This was a certain condition older than the verse of the world and proper to the powers above this world, a condition beyond time, everlasting, without beginning or end.

In it the creator and producer of all things perfected the works of his art, a spiritual light befitting the blessedness of those who love the Lord, rational and invisible creatures, his angels.

And the whole orderly arrangement of spiritual creatures which surpass our understanding, and of which it is impossible even to discover the names, these fill completely the essence of the invisible world. And St. Ambrose says For the angels' dominations and powers, although they began to exist at some time, were already in existence when the world was created.

For all things were created, things visible and things invisible, as Saint Paul says, whether thrones or dominations or principalities or powers, all things have been created through and unto him. And Job says Text of Job thirty eight seven in the Septuagint text says When God speaks to Job out of the whirlwind, When the stars were made all my angels praised me with a loud voice. No, we'll see. Adam was tempted by Satan.

And therefore we know that even before that time, the battle in heaven which is described in the Apocalypse Chapter and also by our Lord, when he saw Satan fall as lightning from heaven, this had already occurred. And the angels, the fallen angels, were already falter.

Well we'll stop there for a little while. Are there any questions about living up to the first day? Father Seraphim now considers the second day of creation. Second day is the creation of the firmament. Genesis 1, verses 6 to 8. And God said, Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it separate the waters from the waters.

And God made the firmament, and separated the waters which were under the firmament from the waters which were above the firmament. And it was so and God called the firmament Heaven and there was evening and there was morning a second day. This passage some five People who criticize scriptures say this obviously means that Moses believed in some kind of a crystal sphere which had water rolling around on top of it. But that doesn't really happen at all.

The word firmament in Genesis has two shades of meaning. One is quite specific and one is general. In the general meaning, the firmament is simply the sky or the heavens. For example, in Genesis 1.14, the stars are called lights in the firmament of the heavens. And in Genesis 1.20, it said that birds fly across the firmament of the heavens.

If we were talking today we wouldn't use that phrase since we don't the word firma doesn't mean much to us, especially when it refers to something in the sky. So we would just say the birds fly across the sky or across the heavens. But there's nothing here that says that the stars are embedded in crystal spheres or anything of the s there's a second meaning, a scientific meaning of the firmament. And this St. Basil talks about And his hexamen. Quote.

Since both a second name and a function peculiar to the second heaven was recorded, this is a different one from that recorded in the beginning, one of a more solid nature and furnishing a special service for the universe. We believe that this word has been assigned for a certain firm nature which is capable of supporting the fluid and unstable water.

And surely we need not believe, because it seems to have had its origin, according to the general understanding from water, that it is like either frozen water or some translucent stone, almost like the air in transparency.

No, we do not compare the firmament to any of these things. Truly it is peculiar to a childish and simple intellect to hold such notions about the heavens. We have been taught by the Scripture to permit our mind to invent no fantasy beyond the knowledge that has been granted to it. Not of firm and solid nature, which has weight and resistance, it is not this that the word firmament means. In that case the earth would more legitimately be considered deserving of such a name.

But because the nature of the substances lying above is light and rare and imperceptible, he called this a firmament in comparison with those very light substances which are incapable of perception by the senses. Now imagine some place which tends to separate the moisture.

and lets the rare and filtered part pass through into the higher regions, but lets the coarse and earthly part drop below, so that by the gradual reduction of the liquids, from the beginning to the end the same mild temperature may be preserved. Very interesting idea.

Because it seems to indicate the firmament is simply an atmospheric condition which existed in the first created world, which divided the lighter liquids, the clouds, from the the heavier kind. We do not see this in the world today. We seem to have just the clouds go in the sky, come down in the form of rain or snow. And there's no particular distinction between lighter moisture and heavier moisture.

But it's interesting that Saint Basil says that the function of the ferment was to preserve a mild temperature over the whole earth. And so happens we know it's a so called greenhouse effect, which we know in prehistoric times, because tropical plants and animals have been found quite far north. Which means that in previous times there was a much more Mm-hmm.

In fact, the second chapter of Genesis, we are told that before the creation of man, Genesis 2, 5, the Lord had not caused it to rain upon the earth, but there went up a mist from the earth and watered the whole face of the ground. In other words, the creation of the earth in that second day, and before the creation of man in the sixth day, was a place different from the world we know now.

a place which had a universally moderate temperature, plentiful in moisture, which did not even need to come down in the form of rain. Constantly watered an abundant vegetation after the third day, which is, this vegetation was all that was intended to do for the food of man. And where did this situation come to an end?

Tomorrow or the day after tomorrow we will look at the consequences of the fall of man. But there are indications that the earth even before, even after the fall of man, preserves some of the characteristics of the earliest earth. Here is something which will be perhaps a little bit speculative, but it's an interesting thing to think about. And it brings in some of the facts which are discussed in the first three chapters of Genesis.

When at the time of Noah it is described what happened, it says when the waters came down. All the fountains of the great deep burst forth, and the windows of the heavens were opened, and rain fell on the earth forty days and forty nights. In other words, there were amounts of moisture let loose upon the earth which were not like an ordinary rain. They came both from under the earth and from above because the windows of the heavens were open.

The ordinary rains we know today could not cause the whole earth to be covered by water. So this is something of a great cosmic catastrophe you can say. The firmament which is an atmospheric condition that preserved a permanent reserve permanent reservoir of water in the air, evidently in the form of clouds like the planet Venus now has, since we cannot see the surface of Venus. In fact, it's all coming by cloud.

This firmament, evidently, in the time of Noah, was broken and entered the continent upon the earth. And this is why you might think. That Noel was given a special sign that God would not be teaching. Catastrophe. He was given the sign of the rainbow. How could the rainbow be a sign when supposedly the rainbow had been existing all these centuries before?

Evidently the rainbow then appeared for the first time, and the reason why the rainbow could appear for the first time was because the sun now begins to shine directly upon the sun.

Before that time, apparently the water above the firmaments were like a cloud covering the earth, and giving a greenhouse effect to the earth. And keeping the direct rays of the sun from touching the earth, that is hitting the moisture in the air which is what causes the rainbow. So when there are any kind of clouds there can be no rainbow.

It's interesting that some scientists recently have speculated, I don't know what the factual basis of this is. But one scientist has even written a whole book on this, and I can't give the title right now to look it up, stating that according to his ideas He has proof here in some indication that about five thousand years ago the amount of cosmic radiation striking the Earth

The sun sharply increased. And that would also be true if this cloud covering had been dissipated and the direct rays of the sun came through after that time. We also know that before In the race of mankind up until the time of Noah, a very extraordinary thing happens. All the patriarchs of the Old Test Old Testament up to then are said to live for tremendous numbers of years. Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years. But all the early patriarchs lived nine hundred years, seven hundred years.

The solution was nine hundred and sixty years. And nowadays people say, Oh, it's an exaggeration, it's a mistake, it's a silly. But every single one lived like that. And the shortest ones was four hundred, five hundred years. And only after Noah Here they have to watch six hundred years altogether. Three two or three hundred before the flood.

And after him all of a sudden the age of man begins to decrease. The next generation I think is two hundred years and already two generations after Noah, everybody does eighty, ninety years. It's like we do now. Why? Of course we can only guess, but all the holy fathers say that it's true. Adam lived nine hundred and thirty years. That's all he stood. This is the way God revealed it. And that the world before even before Noah was quite a different place. The world before Adam even more.

But the world even up to the time of Noah, and before that time man was not allowed to eat meat, was also see. So man was living by vegetables, and in fact the creatures, the animals of the earth were blessed only to eat vegetables until the time of Noah. strange stuff. In other words, that whole early earth was a totally different kind of place.

It's inconceivable man could live nine hundred years, but under those totally different conditions, who knows what might be? Because God created the world in the beginning, totally new and fresh, and according to a totally different way of life than what we know now.

A few questions and answers followed. Now Father Seraphim presents the interpretation of the third day of creation. The third day, Genesis one, nine to thirteen. And God said, Let the waters unto the heavens be gathered together into one place, and let the dry land appear. And it was so. God called the dry land earth, and the waters that were gathered together he called seas, and God saw that it was good.

On each day of creation there is a new law given by God, and whatever he says on that day then becomes the law of creation for the rest of time. From the first day we have the succession of night and day. From the third day the waters begin removal. Thus, and Basil says, the element of water was ordered to flow, and it never grows weary when urged on unceasingly by this command. But we might be tempted, thinking in scientific terms, to speculate how this all happened. How did the season?

How did the dry land appear? How did the seas go into their places? Did the water flow into underground reservoirs? Did the land rise up with a sudden earthquakes or something of that sort? But the scripture says nothing about this, and therefore the Holy Father is also savior. St. Andrews, right? What he actually has done, which I have not learned from the clear testimony of Scripture, I pass over as a mystery.

Lest perchance that stir up other questions starting even from this point. Nevertheless, I maintain in accordance with the scriptures that God can extend the low lying regions in the open plains, as he has said, I will go before thee and make level the mountains. Isaiah forty five two. And St. Gregory of Nietzsche says, concerning in general this question about the how of creation, how God did it.

Quote As for the question how any single thing came into existence, we must banish it altogether from our discussion. Even in the case of things which are quite within the grasp of our understanding and which we have a sensible perception, it would be impossible for the speculative reason to grasp the how of the production of the phenomena, so much so that even inspired and saintly men have deemed such questions insolvent.

For example, the apostle says Through faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the Word of God, so that things which are seen are not made of things which do appear.

While the apostle affirms that it is an object of his faith, that it was by the will of God that the world itself and all which is therein was framed, he has, on the other hand, left out of the investigation the how of this framing. Let us, following the example of the apostle, leave the question of the how in each created world.

not meddling with it at all, but merely observing incidentally that the movement of God's will becomes at any moment that he pleases the fact, and the intention becomes at once realized in nature. Therefore the Holy Father say very little about things like that, how the dry land appeared, how the seas went into their places. The dry land appeared at the command of God, and the Holy Fathers say this was not by some merely natural process.

Saint Anders writes, it was provided that the earth would to all appearance have been dry by the hand of God, rather than by the sun, for the earth actually became dry before the sun was created. Therefore David also distinguished the sea from the land, referring to the Lord God, for the sea is his and he made it, and his hands made the dry land. The same thing we mentioned before, that the six days are a miraculous work of God and not something that can be explained by natural processes.

Passage in the same third day of creation, God said, Let the earth put forth veg vegetation. Plants yielding seed and fruit trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind, upon the earth. And it was so. The earth brought forth vegetation, plants yielding seed according to their own kinds, and trees bearing fruit in which is their seed, each according to its kind. And God saw that it was good, and there was evening and there was morning a third day.

The seas, the land rises up into dry land, miraculously, and the plants sprout forth onto dry land. These the creation of plants and trees on the third day, the Holy Fathers say once more is a miracle. St. Basil says, quote, Let the earth bring forth herbs.

And the briefest moment of time, the earth, beginning with germination, in order that it might keep the laws of the creator, passing through every form of increase, immediately brought the shoots to perfection. The meadows were deep with the abundant grass, the fertile plains rippling with standing crops,

Presented the picture of a swelling sea with its moving heads of grain, and every herb and every kind of vegetable and whatever shrubs and legumes there were, rose from the earth at that time in all profusion. And the fruit tree, he said, that bears fruit, containing seed of its own kind and of its own likeness on the earth.

At this saying all the dense woods appeared, all the trees shot up, those which are wont to rise to the greatest height, the firs, cedars, cypresses, and pines, likewise all the shrubs were immediately thick with leaf and bushes. And the so called garland plants, the rose bushes, myrtles, and laurels all came into existence in a moment of time, although they were not previously upon the earth, each run with its own peculiar nature.

Ephraim the Syrian says, more specifically, the herbs at the time of their creation were the productions of a single instant, but in appearance they appeared the productions of months. Likewise the trees at the time of their creation The productions of a single day, but in their perfection and fruits which weighed down the branches they appeared the production of years. And Saint Gregory of Nisa, who by the way is a very mystical father.

emphasizes that what was created by God was not merely seeds or a potentiality for growth, but the actual creations which we know. And the seeds come from the plants which were first created. We learn from scripture and the account of the first creation that first the earth brought forth the green herb, and that then from this plant seed was yielded, from which when it was shed on the ground the same form of the original plant again sprang up.

In the beginning we see it was not an ear rising from a grain or seed, but a grain coming from an ear, and after that the ear grows around the grain. And all the fathers also emphasized that all this happened before the Son was created. John Saint John Chrysostin writes Moses shows you that everything was accomplished before the creation of the sun, so that you might ascribe the ripening of the fruits not to the sun, but to the creator of the universe.

And Saint Basil says the adornment of the earth is older than the sun, that those who have been misled may cease worshipping the sun as the origin of light. And St. Ambrose says, Before the light of the sun shall appear, let the green herb be born, let its light be prior to that of the sun, let the earth germinate before it receives the fostering care of the sun, lest there be an occasion for human error to grow. Let everyone be informed that the son is not the author of education.

How can the sun give the faculty of life to growing plants when these have already been brought forth by the life-giving creative power of God before the sun entered into such a life as this? The sun is younger than the green shoot, younger than the green plant. Of course this shows a quite different view than we're accustomed to hearing. But we'll go to the end of this model and then discuss some of the questions we might arise.

Race here each according to its kind occurs again on the fifth day of creation and the study of there.

Father Seraphim's lecture on the first, the second, and the third days of creation ends here. The patristic interpretation of the fourth, fifth, and sixth days is presented on another tape.