{"id":15067,"date":"2022-02-22T16:35:07","date_gmt":"2022-02-22T21:35:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/?p=15067"},"modified":"2022-02-24T09:28:41","modified_gmt":"2022-02-24T14:28:41","slug":"the-creation-of-adams-body-in-the-apostolic-fathers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kolbecenter.org\/the-creation-of-adams-body-in-the-apostolic-fathers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Creation of Adam\u2019s Body in the Apostolic Fathers"},"content":{"rendered":"
What follows is a chapter from an upcoming publication of the Kolbe Center: Thou art Dust: Recovering the Catholic Doctrine of the Origin of Adam\u2019s Body. <\/em>In this book, the author will conduct a theological investigation into the revealed truth and Catholic doctrine about the origin of the body of Adam. This doctrine, or \u201cthesis,\u201d is that the body of Adam was formed immediately (that is, directly) by God from the mud[1]<\/sup><\/a> of the earth.<\/strong> This means that the efficient cause of Adam\u2019s body is God alone, and the material cause is earthy dust (mixed with water, as the Tradition unanimously explains). This article examines the teaching of the earliest Church Fathers on this doctrine, this thesis; other chapters will deal with later Fathers and Theologians, with the teaching of the Magisterium, and with Sacred Scripture itself. That this is unanimously taught in the Church\u2019s tradition as the proper understanding of Genesis 2 and the creation of Adam\u2019s body shows, following the teaching of the first Vatican Council (see Dei Filius<\/em>, ch. 3), that this \u201cthesis\u201d is a matter of Catholic dogma; it is infallible. For more information, see the author\u2019s talks on this subject, available on Sensus Fidelium<\/em>.[2]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n \n\t\t The Apostolic Fathers are those saints and authors who lived within the first two centuries or so of the Church. Several of them, such as Sts. Clement and Polycarp, knew the Apostles personally, while others knew those who themselves had known them. Simple and forceful in style, they provide us a valuable testimony to the Faith as preached in the nascent Church. The early Apologists, such as St. Justin Martyr, St. Iren\u00e6us, and Tertullian\u2014the latter of whom we\u2019ll take up with the Latin Fathers\u2014do as well. These dealt with opponents of the Faith, whether pagan, Jewish, or heretical, and often in a more philosophical manner. The early errors they combatted are important, since we see many of them resurfaced today in a more developed and sophisticated mode, which makes the work of the Apologists additionally valuable.[3]<\/sup><\/a> When we examine the teachings of these apostolic witnesses to the Faith on the subject of Adam\u2019s body, we find a remarkably clear and consistent exposition of our thesis against a host of ancient errors.<\/p>\n \n\t\t St. Clement, the fourth pope after Sts. Peter, Linus, and Cletus, provides the first patristic testimony in support of our thesis. He is identified by several Fathers as that Clement mentioned in Philippians 4:3, but while this is the more common opinion it is not certain.[4]<\/sup><\/a> His first Epistle to the Corinthians<\/em>, the only work of his recognized as genuine, was widely read with high authority, even being included in the Biblical canon of some early communities (though never universally accepted as such).[5]<\/sup><\/a> Though most authors have dated the letter to around AD 95, recent scholars have put its composition as early as AD 70.[6]<\/sup><\/a> The former date would place the letter during his pontificate, thus making it a magisterial document, and the text does <\/em>begin marking the author as not merely Clement but \u201cthe Church of God which sojourns at Rome,\u201d[7]<\/sup><\/a> but for our purpose I will treat it merely as an ordinary document from the apostolic Fathers, albeit one of great and widely-recognized authority.<\/p>\n In the first place, Pope St. Clement confirms the efficient cause of man in describing how God \u201cby His infinitely great power\u201d created the heavens, and performed all the works of the six days, until lasty, he says, \u201cwith His holy and undefiled hands [God] formed man, the most excellent [of His creatures].\u201d[8]<\/sup><\/a> Second, he confirms man\u2019s material cause. Having already begun to speak about the body, he says:<\/p>\n Let us consider, then, brethren, of what matter we were made<\/strong>,\u2014who and what manner of beings we came into the world, as it were out of a sepulchre, and from utter darkness [cf. Ps 138:15] . He who made us and fashioned us<\/strong>, having prepared His bountiful gifts for us before we were born, introduced us into His world. Since, therefore, we receive all these things from Him, we ought for everything to give Him thanks; to whom be glory for ever and ever. Amen.[9]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n He is therefore going to consider the matter from which man\u2019s body was made, declaring simultaneously the maker to be God, using the language of Job and Psalm 118. What immediately follows is an elegant blending of, and thus interpretation of, several passages from Job:<\/p>\n Foolish and inconsiderate men, who have neither wisdom nor instruction, mock and deride us, being eager to exalt themselves in their own conceits. For what can a mortal man do? or what strength is there in one made out of the dust<\/strong>? [\u2026] The heaven is not clean in His sight (Job 15:15): how much less they that dwell in houses of clay, of which also we ourselves were made<\/strong>! (cf. Job 4:19\u201321)[10]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Clement here uses two words to describe \u201cof what matter we were made\u201d: first, \u03b3\u03b7\u03b3\u03b5\u03bd\u03ae\u03c2 (g\u0113gen\u0113s<\/em>, Lt. terrigen\u00e6<\/em>) literally \u201cearth-born\u201d\u2014the same word as in LXX Psalm 48:3\u2014not \u201cdust\u201d as it is loosely translated here. Second, following Job, he calls man\u2019s body\u2014that of both \u201cfoolish men\u201d and \u201cwe ourselves\u201d\u2014an \u03bf\u1f30\u03ba\u03af\u03b1 \u03c0\u03b7\u03bb\u03af\u03bd\u03b1\u03c2 (oikia p\u0113linas<\/em>, Lt. domus lutea<\/em>), a \u201chouse of clay.\u201d His purpose in saying these things\u2014which he describes a few sentences later as \u201cbeing manifest to us\u201d[11]<\/sup><\/a>\u2014is to exhort the Corinthians to humility and from thence to more moral behavior.<\/p>\n We see, then, from one of the earliest genuine Patristic texts\u2014by a man who not only likely knew the Apostles personally (and was perhaps ordained by St. Peter), but who occupied a place of great authority in the early Church (whether or not his letter is properly a magisterial document)\u2014a clear confirmation of both aspects of our thesis: man was made directly by God, as it were by His \u201chands,\u201d and the matter from which his body was made was mud or clay, so that man can rightly be called \u201cearth-born.\u201d While this is a strong start to a long chain of consensus, later authors will grow increasingly articulate and detailed in their unanimous interpretation of this doctrine.<\/p>\n \n\t\t The Recognitions <\/em>and Homilies<\/em> are two versions of the same work, long attributed to St. Clement of Rome, though generally recognized now to be products of the 4th century (possibly by an Arian).[12]<\/sup><\/a> Still, they are important for what they say on the making of man\u2019s body, since they are often referenced by later authors as authoritative. Broadly they take the form of a first-person narrative of Clement\u2019s conversion and interactions with St. Peter and others, in which is couched long and elaborate doctrinal and philosophical discussions. In Book VIII of the Recognitions<\/em>, one of Peter\u2019s disciples, Nicetas, has a long argument with an old man (chapters 8\u201334). After having made an interesting defense of creation and providence against various Greek theories of the origin of the universe\u2014such as the vacuous notion that the world was made \u201cby the gradual concurrence of atoms,\u201d which \u201cthings are done by [the power of] nature\u201d[13]<\/sup><\/a>\u2014he has a lengthy speech about the substance of man and how wonderfully he reflects the wisdom and providence of God; he begins by saying:<\/p>\n But let us come now, if you please, to our own substance, that is, the substance of man, who is a small world, a microcosm,<\/em> in the great world; and let us consider with what reason it is compounded: and from this especially you will understand the wisdom of the Creator. For although man consists of different substances, one mortal and the other immortal, yet, by the skilful [sic<\/em>] contrivance of the Creator, their diversity does not prevent their union, and that although the substances be diverse and alien the one from the other. For the one is taken from the earth and formed by the Creator,<\/strong> but the other is given from immortal substances.[14]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n He then proceeds to go through the structure of man\u2019s body and his parts, concluding his proof of a divine origin for man and the whole of creation, as opposed to mere fate, thus:<\/p>\n But if we see the members in man arranged with such method, that in all the rest there is seen to be similarity of form, and a difference only in those in which their use requires a difference, and we neither see anything superfluous nor anything wanting in man, nor in woman anything deficient or in excess, who will not, from all these things, acknowledge the operation of reason, and the wisdom of the Creator?[15]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The very construction and ordering of the human body, then, is a witness to the wisdom of God in creating it; other Fathers take up this theme as well. Elsewhere, this author speaks more on the matter of man\u2019s body. Writing about the \u201cancient serpent,\u201d he says:<\/p>\n For he, for his wickedness, was condemned from the beginning to eat dust, for that he caused to be again resolved into dust him who had been taken from the dust.[16]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n As we saw above in comparing Genesis 2 and 3, the earth from which man is made is the same as that which he must till and that into which he must return. Here the same parallel is expressed, adding now that the serpent is condemned to eat the same. This puts a whole new light on St. Peter\u2019s warning that the ancient serpent, as a roaring lion, goeth about seeking whom he may devour<\/em> (1Pt 5:8).<\/p>\n In the Homilies<\/em>, the author gives testament to God\u2019s power over matter, saying: \u201cYea, even man, who is dust, He changed by the inbreathing of His breath into flesh, and changed him back again into dust.\u201d[17]<\/sup><\/a> The author also has St. Peter saying that<\/p>\n as they who honour the clay image of a king have paid honour to the king himself, whose shape the clay happens to have, so the whole creation with joy serves man, who is made from earth<\/strong>, looking to the honour thus paid to God.[18]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The theme, then, of Pseudo-Clement\u2019s belief in man\u2019s origin is that man is made to honor and glorify God, displaying His power and wisdom in the manner and result of his formation.<\/p>\n \n\t\t St. Ignatius, while very important for patristic scholars, does not seem to have much to say on this topic. He does call Adam \u201cthe father of our race\u201d in the longer version of his letter to the Trallians.[19]<\/a> There is also a spurious letter to Hero the deacon, included with Ignatius\u2019 letters in the Ante-Nicene Fathers<\/em>, in which the author says the following, commenting on 1 Corinthians 11:11:<\/p>\n \u201cNeither is the man without the woman, nor the woman without the man,\u201d except in the case of those who were first formed. For the body of Adam was made out of the four elements, and that of Eve out of the side of Adam.[20]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This idea that the body of Adam included not merely earth but the other three \u201celements\u201d of water, air, and fire, gets taken up again by St. Thomas, which I will address in that place; for now it is sufficient to state that this does not contradict our thesis, but merely elaborates it.<\/p>\n \n\t\t The author of this ancient epistle has little to say. It is interesting, though, that despite the fact that \u201cthe epistle is characterized by the use of exaggerated allegory,\u201d[21]<\/sup><\/a> the author makes this argument: \u201cFor man is earth [ges<\/em>] in a suffering state, for the formation of Adam was from the face of the earth.\u201d[22]<\/sup><\/a> He bases his allegorical interpretation of the promised land [ges<\/em>] on the truth of Adam\u2019s formation from the earth, showing simultaneously that an allegorical interpretation (even in so early an interpreter) does not necessitate a lack of literal understanding but presupposes it, and that the matter from which Adam was taken was indeed earth, specifically that which is found on its \u201cface\u201d or surface (\u03c0\u03c1\u03cc\u03c3\u03c9\u03c0\u03bf\u03bd, pros\u014dpon<\/em>): the dust.<\/p>\n \n\t\t St. Justin, the Platonist philosopher turned Catholic apologist, in defending the existence and divinity of the Son against Trypho the Jew, employs God\u2019s reference to Adam as one of Us<\/em> in Genesis 3 in this manner:<\/p>\n I do not consider that teaching true which is asserted by what you call a heretical sect of your religion, nor can the proponents of that heresy prove that He spoke those words [Gn 3:22] to angels, or that the human body was the result of the angel\u2019s work.[23]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is significant in that St. Justin is rejecting the idea that angels were an efficient cause of Adam\u2019s body. Previously he had affirmed that \u201cAdam [was] the result of God\u2019s creative act,\u201d[24]<\/sup><\/a> though perhaps a better translation would be that he is \u201cthe form [plasma<\/em>] which God formed [eplasen<\/em>],\u201d[25]<\/sup><\/a> as this captures the Greek\u2019s implicit reference to the matter upon which God acted. Thus he believes man to be the work of God alone. He is explicit about man\u2019s material cause in a fragment of his lost work on the Resurrection:<\/p>\n we must now speak with respect to those who think meanly of the flesh, and say that it is not worthy of the resurrection nor of the heavenly economy, because, first, its substance is earth; <\/strong>and besides, because it is full of all wickedness, so that it forces the soul to sin along with it. But these persons seem to be ignorant of the whole work of God, both of the genesis and formation of man at the first<\/strong>, and why the things in the world were made. For does not the word say, \u201cLet Us make man in our image, and after our likeness?\u201d3<\/sup> What kind of man? Manifestly He means fleshly man. For the word says, \u201cAnd God took dust of the earth, and made man.\u201d <\/strong>It is evident, therefore, that man made in the image of God was of flesh.[26]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n In addition to affirming that the \u201csubstance\u201d of the body \u201cis earth,\u201d thus verifying our thesis, St. Justin here connects the descriptions of man\u2019s creation in Genesis 1 and 2 to assert that the image of God, to which man was made, is in the flesh. While the later theological tradition would teach otherwise, namely that the image of God is principally in man\u2019s rational soul, there is a note of truth to this assertion in that, as many icons and some mystics have expressed, Adam was in appearance very similar to Christ, the first Adam being made to the image of the second.[27]<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n In another fragment of the same work, he implies that Adam\u2019s creation from the earth is a matter of faith by calling it a testament to the omnipotence of God, saying:<\/p>\n much more ought we, who hold the right, excellent, and true faith, to believe in our God, since also we have proofs [of His power], first in the creation of the first man, for he was made from the earth by God.<\/strong>[28]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n\t\t We also have a spurious work, long attributed to St. Justin but probably from a fourth century author, the Exhortation to the Greeks<\/em>. The author there shows how many pagan sources were cognizant of the nature of man\u2019s origin; he believed that Plato, for example, had (mis)read the books of Moses while in Egypt, and drawn from them much of his philosophy. He cites in this regard a few passages from Homer\u2019s Illiad<\/em>:<\/p>\n Moses first mentions the name of man. Later, after describing the creation of many other beings, he returns to man and describes his creation in these words, \u2018And God made man, taking dust from the earth.<\/strong>\u2019 [Gn 2:7] Plato was deceived into believing that the man who was first named [by Moses] existed before the man whose creation was later described, and that the creation of the man formed of the earth<\/strong> was according to the pre-existent form. Even Homer, after having read that ancient and divine history which states: \u2018Dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return,<\/strong>\u2019 [Gn 3:19] and realizing that man was formed from the soil<\/strong>, calls the corpse of Hector dumb clay<\/strong>. In censuring Achilles for dragging the dead body of Hector, he wrote somewhere: On the dumb clay he cast indignity, Blinded with rage <\/em>[Iliad <\/em>24]. In another passage, he describes how Menelaus addressed these words to his warriors who were reluctant to accept Hector\u2019s challenge to single combat: May you all return to earth<\/strong> and water<\/strong><\/em> [Iliad<\/em> 7.99]. Thus, in his anger, he wished them to return to their ancient and original formation from the earth<\/strong>. Both Homer and Plato expressed these opinions in their own writings, after they had learned them in Egypt from the ancient books of history.[29]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Here we begin to see what will become increasingly explicit as Catholic doctrine continues its development: the matter from which Adam was formed was not merely dust, but a mixture of earthen dust and water which formed clay, or mud. The fact that the Tradition so consistently and unanimously explains it as such, or at least implicitly teaches it by referring to the matter of man\u2019s body as mud or clay, shows that such is the interpretation which the Church herself gives to the words of Sacred Scripture, and is therefore infallible. Whether Pseudo-Justin is correct about Homer and Plato reading Genesis in Egypt ultimately makes no difference to the weight of the Church\u2019s doctrine.<\/p>\n A little later the author also references the Sibylline Oracle, stating:<\/p>\n If you are in doubt and find it hard to believe our doctrine of the creation of man<\/strong>, at least listen to those whom, up to this time, you have considered worthy of belief; realize that your own oracle, when requested by someone to utter a hymn in honor of Almighty God, spoke these words in the middle of the hymn: \u2018Who formed the first man and called him Adam.<\/strong>\u2019 [cf. Sibylline Oracles<\/em> 1.26[30]<\/sup><\/a>] Many persons whom we know still keep this hymn at hand to convince those who refuse to believe this truth which is attested to by everyone.<\/strong>[31]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n The author here indicates both that Adam\u2019s formation by God is a matter of \u201cdoctrine,\u201d or rather of faith <\/em>(the Greek there is piste\u014ds<\/em>), and that this truth of faith \u201cis attested to by everyone.\u201d This is another critical point which will become increasingly manifest as we move through the Fathers: there appears to have been an early consensus regarding the doctrine of the first man\u2019s creation\u2014both as to efficient and material causes, though those terms would only be introduced to describe this truth much later\u2014which was recognized and articulated by the Fathers. If this is so, then we have more than sufficient reason to declare a consensus of the Fathers on this doctrine, which they evidently believe is in fact a doctrine of the faith<\/em>, a revealed truth. On the other hand, we have the reason why the Magisterium hasn\u2019t had much to say explicitly on this subject (although we will examine what it has <\/em>taught, to great effect, in Part 6), since it had no need\u2014a doctrine is generally only clarified when it is attacked, and given not only the profound consensus among Christians but even the recognition of this truth by pagans, there was no cause for the Magisterium to definitively teach from what matter and in what manner God made man\u2014except in one important yet overlooked instance.<\/p>\n As for the knowledge among the pagans of man\u2019s earthy origin, this is not incompatible with said doctrine being a matter of faith. The material object of faith is that which God has revealed. Now while God has at sundry times and in divers manners, spoke in times past to the fathers by the prophets, <\/em>and last of all, in these days, hath spoken to us by his Son <\/em>(Hb 1:1\u20132), we have to remember that the His first revelation was not to Moses or Abraham, but to Adam himself. For we read of God speaking to Adam individually in Gn 2:16\u201317 and to both Adam and Eve in Gn 1:28\u201329, as well as after the Fall in chapter 3. It was here that God revealed to our first father, among other things, the nature of his body, saying: dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return<\/em> (Gn 3:19), which he could not otherwise have known with supernatural certitude.<\/p>\n Now it is indubitable that Adam would have passed this revelation down at least orally to his progeny, which doctrine would then have been preserved through the Deluge by Noah. But with the confusion of tongues at Babel, the nascent nations now began to fall little by little from the purity of the truth, their minds being increasingly darkened by sin, and the revelation handed down being corrupted by human fancy. Only among the children of Israel was the truth preserved, being defined, as it were, by Moses, and preserved in the inspired books authored by him. It is not surprising, then, that some remnant of the original revelation to Adam\u2014and the antediluvian history passed down with it\u2014remained among the Gentiles. Pseudo-Justin here uses the Greek sources of Plato, Homer, and the Sybil; some scholastic authors also cite regarding Adam\u2019s formation Ovid\u2019s Metamorphoses<\/em>,[32]<\/sup><\/a> Hesiod\u2019s Theogony<\/em>,[33]<\/sup><\/a> and others.[34]<\/sup><\/a> But one of the most striking examples comes from the Miao, the traditional inhabitants of inland China. In a religious poem recited by memory at funerals and weddings, passed down by oral tradition, this tribe records with astonishing accuracy the history of the human race from Creation to their own establishment, including:<\/p>\n On the earth He [God] created a man from the dirt.<\/strong> Of the man thus created, a woman He formed. <\/strong>Then the Patriarch Dirt<\/strong> [\u2026] pondered the ways of the Deity, God. The Patriarch Dirt begat Patriarch Se-the [Seth]. The Patriarch Se-Teh begat a son Lusu [Mathusala?]. And Lusu had Gehlo and he begat Lama [Lamech]. The Patriarch Lama begat the man Nuah [Noah].[35]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n Such an amazing record from a people far from Christian influence, amidst all the similar remnants in other cultures, rather than diminishing the quality of our thesis as an article of faith, should rather confirm our faith in the initial revelation of this doctrine to Adam, the traces of which revelation remained even to the time of Christ as a preparation for the preaching of the Gospel. This reality is recognized and taken advantage of even by St. Paul, when in Athens he quotes the Stoic poet Aratus as a proof for the One Creator God: And <\/em>[God] hath made of one, all mankind <\/em>\u2026 For in him we live and move and are: as some also of your own poets said: For we are also his offspring <\/em>(Ac 17:26\u201328).<\/p>\n On a practical note, since this doctrine that man was created by God from the mud of the earth was revealed to our first father and passed down to all nations, confirmed by Moses, restored by Christ, and promulgated universally by the Church, the nations have no excuse for doubting and denying this foundational truth, except that malicious men, denying divine revelation and the patrimony of human history, have labored for several centuries to expunge it from our collective memory.<\/p>\n \n\t\t St. Theophilius has only one extant work, a collection of three pieces To Autolycus<\/em> forming an apology for the faith. We have already seen how he in book two considers the first chapters of Genesis as historical, quoting almost the whole of chapters one through three with the epithet: \u201cSuch is the account given by holy Scripture of the history of man and of Paradise.\u201d[36]<\/sup><\/a> This he does specifically to refute the pagan creation mythologies and cosmogonies with their resultant errors, juxtaposing them with those \u201cmen of God, [\u2026] prophets, being inspired and made wise by God, [\u2026] through which wisdom they uttered both what regarded the creation of the world and all other things.\u201d[37]<\/sup><\/a> When he comes to the work of the sixth day, the creation of man, he begins thus:<\/p>\n 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.[38]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This initial comment is important, as the holy bishop underscores the necessity of revelation in order to understand the creation of man; it is only from Sacred Scripture, that is, by faith<\/em>, that we know the true account of \u201cwhat relates to the creation of man;\u201d by his own powers man cannot explain it. He continues:<\/p>\n For when God said, \u201cLet Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness,\u201d He first intimates the dignity of man. For God having made all things by His Word, and having reckoned them all mere bye-works, reckons the creation of man to be the only work worthy of His own hands.[39]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n This is the reason for man\u2019s being made, as the Scriptures elsewhere speak, by God\u2019s hands<\/em>: because he is the crowning work of creation, that for which the rest of the material universe was made, and that which is made after God\u2019s own image. Hence it is necessary (a necessity of fittingness[40]<\/sup><\/a>) that God made man immediately, directly, \u201cwith His own hands,\u201d because this is the only appropriate manner of creation for the creature made to God\u2019s image and likeness<\/em>.<\/p>\n After thus explaining the text of Genesis 1, St. Theophilus proceeds to that of Genesis 2, saying:<\/p>\n But that the creation of man might be made plain, so that there should not seem to be an insoluble problem existing among men, since God had said, \u201cLet Us make man;\u201d and since His creation was not yet plainly related, Scripture teaches us, saying: \u201cAnd a fountain went up out of the earth, and watered the face of the whole earth; and God made man of the dust of the earth, and breathed into his face the breath of life, and man became a living soul [Gn 2:6\u20137].\u201d[41]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n He sees the text of Genesis 2 being merely a further explanation of what was summarily narrated in chapter one, as all the other Fathers teach. He says that the purpose of the recapitulation is that \u201cthe creation of man might be made plain,\u201d that is, made known. That he then records Genesis 2:6\u20137 as having \u201cplainly related,\u201d that is, revealed<\/em> (\u03c6\u03b1\u03bd\u03b5\u03c1\u03cc\u03c9, phanero\u014d<\/em>) man\u2019s creation, shows us (as does the rest of his text) that he intends to take the words of Sacred Scripture in their plain and historical sense, as they stand. We have, then, the revealed truth that <\/em>man was created, as well as how, by Whom, and from what matter. St. Theophilus considers the text of Scripture to be so clear and authoritative as to refute the errors of the Greeks merely by its presentation.<\/p>\n \n\t\t St. Iren\u00e6us gives us the first significant exposition of some of the most important teaching regarding the origin of man in his work Against the Heresies<\/em>. He first describes the Gnostics\u2019 mythologized and erroneous interpretation of Genesis:<\/p>\n he (the Demiurge) also created the earthy [part of] man, not taking him from this dry earth, but from an invisible substance consisting of fusible and fluid matter, and then afterwards, as they define the process, breathed into him the animal part of his nature.[42]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n According to the heretics, then, the Demiurge created only the animal part of man\u2019s nature\u2014he was not yet a spiritual being. Iren\u00e6us continues by describing how, according to them, the mother of the Demiurge, Achamoth,<\/p>\n took advantage of [the Demiurge\u2019s] ignorance to deposit it (her production [the spiritual part of man\u2019s nature]) in him without his knowledge, in order that, being by his instrumentality infused into that animal soul proceeding from himself, and being thus carried as in a womb in this material body, while it gradually increased in strength, might in course of time become fitted for the reception of perfect rationality<\/strong>. Thus it came to pass, then, according to them, that, without any knowledge on the part of the Demiurge, the man formed by his inspiration was at the same time, through an unspeakable providence, rendered a spiritual man by the simultaneous inspiration received from Sophia. \u2026 This, then, is the kind of man whom they conceive of: he has his animal soul from the Demiurge, his body from the earth, his fleshy part from matter,[43]<\/sup><\/a> and his spiritual man from the mother Achamoth.[44]<\/sup><\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n So man received, according to the Gnostics, the spiritual and rational part of his nature only \u201cgradually\u2026 in the course of time,\u201d while the animal and fleshy parts had been created prior. I cannot help but notice a similarity between this doctrine, this heresy<\/em>, and evolutionism, the latter of which is forced to admit something like that man\u2019s rational soul somehow gradually emerged from the development and increasing complexity of matter\u2014or that God just slapped the rational soul on some advanced primate. While the similarity is not exact,[45]<\/sup><\/a> we can see the beginnings of a thread of error that will gradually develop, as it were, into the scientistic heresies of today.<\/p>\n St. Iren\u00e6us begins to refute this error shortly thereafter; in showing how many of their so-called deities are actually just different names for the Word Who was made flesh, he says that \u201cflesh is that which was of old formed for Adam by God out of the dust, and it is this that John has declared the Word of God became.\u201dIntroduction<\/h2>\n
Pope St. Clement of Rome (r. 88\u201399)<\/h2>\n
Pseudo-Clement<\/h2>\n
St. Ignatius of Antioch (ca. 35\u2013108)<\/h2>\n
The Epistle of Barnabas (ca. 130)<\/h2>\n
St. Justin Martyr (ca. 100\u2013165)<\/h2>\n
Pseudo\u2013Justin and ancient Pagan testimonies<\/h2>\n
St. Theophilus of Antioch (d. ca. 185 or 191)<\/h2>\n
St. Iren\u00e6us of Lyons (ca. 140\u2013202)<\/h2>\n