Evolution and an Orthodox Patristic understanding of Genesis

[Cyprian]

To Eve our mother a man gave birth, who himself had had no birth. How much more should Eve's daughter be believed to have borne a Child without a man! The virgin earth, she bare that Adam that was head over the earth! The Virgin bare today the Adam that was Head over the Heavens. --St Ephraim the Syrian, Hymn I on the Nativity of Christ

But they who make "Unbegotten" and "Begotten" natures of equivocal gods would perhaps make Adam and Seth differ in nature, since the former was not born of flesh (for he was created), but the latter was born of Adam and Eve. --St. Gregory the Theologian, Oration XXXIX

She was not made of the same earth with which he was formed, in order that we might realize that the physical nature of both man and woman is identical and that there was one source for the propagation of the human race. For that reason, neither was man created together with a woman, nor were two men and two women created at the beginning, but first a man and after that a woman. --St. Ambrose, On Paradise

But if there are any who suppose that, because he did not get it from a man’s seed, he received a different body, this in no way makes it unlike our bodies. Since we agree that it was born of Mary, it was like ours. Mary was not different from our bodies-for Adam was not from a man’s seed either, but was formed from earth! --St. Epiphanius of Salamis, Panarion Book III

For how could I now possibly prove that a man was made of the dust, without any parents, and a wife formed for him out of his own side? And yet faith takes on trust what the eye no longer discovers. --St. Augustine, On Original Sin

But when it came to man, the earth did not bring forth man. One father was made for us; not even two, father and mother: one father, I say, was made for us, not even two, father and mother; but out of the one father came the one mother; the one father came from none, but was made by God, and the one mother came out of him. --St. Augustine, Sermon XL

For man is created in justice, but born in sin. Adam was the first to be created, but Cain the first to be born. --St. Gregory the Great, Morals on Job, Book IV

We have an analogy in Adam, who was not begotten (for God Himself moulded him), and Seth, who was begotten (for he is Adam's son), and Eve, who proceeded out of Adam's rib (for she was not begotten). These do not differ from each other in nature, for they are human beings: but they differ in the mode of coming into existence --St. John of Damascus, Exact Exposition of the Orthodox Faith, Book I

Dost thou accept Adam to have been molded out of clay and produced without natural birth, dost thou accept Eve to be the offspring not of intercourse but of a rib, yet being unable to ascribe these things to natural law? For the successive multiplication and birth of men, keeping as it does a different order of procession, does not permit us to believe the procreation of those to have been the work of nature, nor, on the other hand, contrary to nature. --St. Photius the Great, Homily IX

Just as He made the woman from the man’s side, as we said above, just so He borrows flesh from Adam’s daughter, Mary the Theotokos and ever-Virgin, and, having adopted it, is born without seed like the first man. --St. Symeon the New Theologian, First Ethical Discourse

Rather, he should turn his gaze upon the power of the Almighty God, Who created the whole world from nothing, and Who needed no parents-old or young-for the creation of the first man, Adam. --St. Nikolai Velimirovic, Prologue of Ohrid, September 23

[Pravoslavnik]

Cyprian,

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   Who am I to disagree with these Holy Fathers?  I will defer to their interpretation of the sacred scriptures regarding God's creation of Adam by means other than natural conception.  For, as the Apostle Peter told us, "The scriptures are not subject to mere private interpretation," but to the interpretation of the holy ones of God.

[Cyprian]

Whence then is the substance of the first-formed (man)? From the Will and the Wisdom of God, and from the virgin earth. For God had not sent rain, the Scripture says, upon the earth, before man was made; and there was no man to till the earth. From this, then, whilst it was still virgin, God took dust of the earth and formed the man, the beginning of mankind --St Irenaeus, Demonstration of the Apostolic Preaching

And as the protoplast himself Adam, had his substance from untilled and as yet virgin soil ("for God had not yet sent rain, and man had not tilled the ground", and was formed by the hand of God, that is, by the Word of God, for "all things were made by Him," and the Lord took dust from the earth and formed man; so did He who is the Word, recapitulating Adam in Himself, rightly receive a birth, enabling Him to gather up Adam [into Himself], from Mary, who was as yet a virgin. If, then, the first Adam had a man for his father, and was born of human seed, it were reasonable to say that the second Adam was begotten of Joseph. But if the former was taken from the dust, and God was his Maker, it was incumbent that the latter also, making a recapitulation in Himself, should be formed as man by God, to have an analogy with the former as respects His origin. --St Irenaeus, Against Heresies Book III

for elsewhere, too, the prophet predicts the fruit of this "tree," saying "The earth hath given her blessings,"--of course that virgin-earth, not yet irrigated with rains, nor fertilized by showers, out of which man was of yore first formed, out of which now Christ through the flesh has been born of a virgin --Tertullian, An Answer To The Jews

He Himself is with thee who is the Lord of sanctification, the Father of purity, the Author of incorruption, and the Bestower of liberty, the Curator of salvation, and the Steward and Provider of the true peace, who out of the virgin earth made man, and out of man's side formed Eve in addition. --St Gregory the Wonder-Worker, First Homily Annunciation to the Holy Virgin Mary

To Eve our mother a man gave birth, who himself had had no birth. How much more should Eve's daughter be believed to have borne a Child without a man! The virgin earth, she bare that Adam that was head over the earth! The Virgin bare today the Adam that was Head over the Heavens. --St Ephraim the Syrian, Hymn I on the Nativity of Christ

After this the prophet says: the remnant of Adamah, by which he signifies the virgin earth from which the body of Adam was made. --St. Basil the Great, Commentary on Isaiah

He who first molded Adam out of virgin earth, today remolds man from thy virginal blood; because, having woven the fleshy garment of the Word, thou hast covered up the nakedness of the first-formed. --St. Photius the Great, Homily V

So it was needful that a mother should be prepared down below for the Creator, for the re-creation of shattered humanity, and she a virgin, in order that, just as the first man had been formed of virgin earth, so the re-creation, too, should be carried out through a virgin womb --St. Photius the Great, Homily IX

Just as Adam had been created by the Word of God from the unworked and virgin earth, so also the Word of God created flesh for Himself from a virgin womb when the Son of God became the new Adam so as to correct the fall into sin of the first Adam. --St. John Maximovitch

[Cyprian]

For God made not death: neither hath he pleasure in the destruction of the living. For he created all things, that they might have their being: and the generations of the world were healthful; and there is no poison of destruction in them, nor the kingdom of death upon the earth --Wisdom 1:13-14

Hence, as God had ordained, all kinds of living creatures were quickly produced from the earth. In compliance with a fixed law they all succeed each other from age to age according to their aspect and kind. The lion generates a lion; the tiger, a tiger; the ox, an ox; the swan, a swan; and the eagle, an eagle. What was once enjoined became in nature a habit for all time. Hence the earth has not ceased to offer the homage of her service. The original species of living creatures is reproduced for future ages by successive generations of its kind --St. Ambrose, Hexaemeron, Homily IX

Do you wonder that there is a resurrection from the condition of infancy and old age to that of mature manhood, seeing that a perfect man was made out of the slime of the earth without having gone through successive stages of growth? --St. Jerome, To Pammachius Against John of Jerusalem

Then God made us human beings to put us into paradise to replace the first order of angels. And God created one man and one woman. Just as we mix flour and water and make a loaf of bread, so did God take earth and mixed it and made a man. He breathed upon him and gave him an angelic, immortal soul. There was no woman in the world. And God took from man a rib which he owed and created woman. --St. Kosmas Aitolos, Fifth Teaching

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. --St. John of Kronstadt, My Life In Christ

[Cyprian]

ST. EPIPHANIUS OF SALAMIS

PANARION

SECTION V
AGAINST THE MANICHAEANS -- SECT 66

55,4 Neither do souls migrate from body to body; no body is formed in any living thing without the intercourse of female with male and male with female. Now, is this how the soul has come to be, climaxing the scum's tragic piece with the union of two bodies? And people who even think such things are very strange.

55,5 But not to plow up things that deserve respect, I am content just to give a glimpse of the subject, as though from a distance. I shall pass on from such a degrading idea; all suppositions of this sort are outrageous. (6) For if there is a migration of souls from body to body, and someone who was once a man later < becomes> a dog, why isn't a dog born from a man or an ox? Why isn't a bird? If, indeed, some monster happens to be born during the immensely long course of history, this is for a sign. (7) Even nature knows its own boundaries. It does not change a man's nature and make him, contrary to nature, into something else. Nor does it change the nature of any beast; the like is born of its like. (8) And if a different kind of body is never born from a body, how much more does a human soul not migrate into a different body?

55,9 And why is the body changed, does he say? So that, if it did not have the knowledge of the truth while it was in a man, it will be born in a dog or horse and be disciplined, return to a human body knowing the truth, (10) and be taken up into the moon's orb, now that it has come to knowledge. It is a surprise to see that the soul was ignorant when it was born in a man although men have schools, grammarians, sophists, innumerable trades, and speech, hearing, and reason-but it came to knowledge when it was born in a pig! This shows that, if anything, Mani's promise of knowledge is for pigs, because of his imposture and impiety.

SECTION VI
AGAINST ANOMOEANS -- SECT 76

26,5 But what you say is silliness, Aetius, you treader on <the heights>, who get your ideas of God from syllogisms and out of your own logic-chopping head. For to the God who made all things from nothing and can do everything perfect at once, who needs no further benefaction and who governs these things by his decree, you are assigning the name of an essence that is subject to growth, <and> a Word in need of extra divinity, and are not even putting <him> on a level with his creatures. (6) For he made them perfectly at the beginning, and decreed by a wise ordinance that the further things that would spring from them would have no need to acquire anything. Those are the things in which successive generations have been born and will be born--heaven, for example, the earth, water, air, the sun, the moon, the stars, and creatures which have been born from the waters--up to man himself. (7) God did not make heaven imperfect, or the earth in any way imperfect. He made the earth perfect and heaven perfect, though it was "invisible and chaos" because of the order he was to impose on it. But he made water and the original light at the same time, making all things through the true Light, the uncreated and life-giving. (8) But then he made the things that have grown from the earth, and the firmament before that-not half-finished, but he made all things in their perfection. For <he says>, "Let the earth put forth herbiage of pasture, sowing seed in its likeness upon the earth, and fruit-bearing trees whose seed is in them in their likeness upon the earth."

26,9 And you see that the things God had made full grown needed no additional endowment at the moment of their creation; they were "adult," as it were, and perfect at once, by God's decree. /b But the things which were bestowed on man to be his subjects and were with him in germ for him to rule, were not entrusted to him full grown. For man always knew the Benefactor who bestows being on all, but who is over all, and who provides each created thing's benefactions for the sustenance of those who are of service to him.

26,11 God gave man the earth with the potential for growth, laying it out before him like a floor, as it were, and entrusting it to him as a womb, so that man could borrow the seeds produced by the plants which God had made perfect, and which were sown in the earth with spontaneous wisdom as a tree can do, [and the seeds] of other produce-borrow them from the mature plants in bits as small as a pebble (12) and sow this produce, and await what would be given for their increase <by> the perfect God. The crops man sowed would thus be increased from without, and man would not be unaware of the Provider of the bounty, think himself the creator, and be deprived of the truth.

26,13 For even though Noah planted a vineyard, scripture does not call him planter; he "was made an husbandman." There is a difference between God who bestows the original gifts on things that are to be, and man to whom God's husbandry is entrusted. The one is meant to tend the gifts needed for growth to maturity, but the other to provide the maturity, by his gift of his creatures and of things that grow to maturity. (14) And so with beasts and birds; so with domestic animals, reptiles and sea creatures. In the beginning they were all made full grown by the God who commanded it, but by the will of his wisdom they now need a gift [from him in order to grow]. This is intended for the benefit of man who rules on earth, so that <he> will recognize the God above all, the Provider of the seed-bearing plants and the gift of their growth, as God and Lord.

26,15 For this reason God has left the heavenly bodies, which are not sown by human hands and which neither beget nor are begotten, in a full grown state. For they-the sun, moon and stars, for example-did not spur the human mind on to treachery and the pride of vainglory. (16) Not even the moon alters its appearance because it is born, wanes or waxes, but to mark and usher in the seasons, which God has regulated by the luminaries. (17) If God made corporeal things full grown at the outset when he chose, although they cause other things to decay, and they themselves decay, why should he beget the One he has begotten of himself-One [begotten] of one, the true God who is forever with the true God by generation-in need of any benefaction?

[ChristosVoskrese]

The Holy Fathers believed in Creation, and so do I.

Anyway Pravo, why do you want us to believe in evolution so much? Why are you pushing the subject? Anyone would think that you have an agenda to convert us to evolutionism.

[Pravoslavnik]

It is not for me to contradict the Holy Fathers, as I have said, and I will not do so. My assertions, from the beginning of my involvement in this discussion, have been that there is a sense in which the findings of modern science must be fully consistent with the revealed truths of the Church and the scriptures, since truth is an intercalated whole. If something is true, it must, of necessity, be consistent with other aspects of truth.

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 One of the points I have made is that, from the perspective of cosmic time, events which took millions of years on earth may indeed appear virtually instantaneous--e.g., from the perspective of the point at which the cosmos originated with the Big Bang.  Also, it goes without saying that all life on earth, ultimately, came from the elements of the earth.  So, there is a sense in which God could very "quickly" create the various species of the earth within a particular genus through the observed processes of evolution.  However, Cyprian has cited extensive Patristic evidence to support the concept that Adam was created by God through means other than natural human procreation.  This I must accept on faith.