Jeniffer electronic book

With the coming in of Christian theology this tendency toward a yet
truer theory of evolution was mainly stopped, but the old crude
view remained, and as a typical example of it we may note the
opinion of St. Basil the Great in the fourth century. Discussing
the work of creation, he declares that, at the command of God,
"the waters were gifted with productive power"; "from slime and
muddy places frogs, flies, and gnats came into being"; and he
finally declares that the same voice which gave this energy and
quality of productiveness to earth and water shall be similarly
efficacious until the end of the world. St. Gregory of Nyssa held
a similar view.
This idea of these great fathers of the Eastern Church took even
stronger hold on the great father of the Western Church. For St.
Augustine, so fettered usually by the letter of the sacred text,
broke from his own famous doctrine as to the acceptance of
Scripture and spurned the generally received belief of a creative
process like that by which a toymaker brings into existence a box
of playthings.


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