A consequence of great importance issued from the decision of the Pelagian controversy.  The book of Genesis had been made the basis of Christianity.  If, in a theological point of view, to its account of the sin in the garden of Eden, and the transgression and punishment of Adam, so much weight had been attached, it also in a philosophical point of view became the grand authority of Patristic science.  Astronomy, geology, geography, anthropology, chronology, and indeed all the various departments of human knowledge, were made to conform to it.

St. Augustine.  As the doctrines of St. Augustine have had the effect of thus placing theology in antagonism with science, it may be interesting to examine briefly some of the more purely philosophical views of that great man.  For this purpose, we may appropriately select portions of his study of the first chapter of Genesis, as contained in the eleventh, twelfth, and thirteenth books of his “Confessions.”

These consist of philosophical discussions, largely interspersed with rhapsodies.  He prays that God will give him to understand the Scriptures, and will open their meaning to him; he declares that in them there is nothing superfluous, but that the words have a manifold meaning.

The face of creation testifies that there has been a Creator; but at once arises the question, “How and when did he make heaven and earth?  They could not have been made in heaven and earth, the world could not have been made in the world, nor could they have been made when there was nothing to make them of.”  The solution of this fundamental inquiry St. Augustine finds in saying, “Thou spakest, and they were made.”

But the difficulty does not end here.  St. Augustine goes on to remark that the syllables thus uttered by God came forth in succession, and there must have been some created thing to express the words.  This created thing must, therefore, have existed before heaven and earth, and yet there could have been no corporeal thing before heaven and earth.  It must have been a creature, because the words passed away and came to an end but we know that “the word of the Lord endureth forever.”

Moreover, it is plain that the words thus spoken could not have been spoken successively, but simultaneously, else there would have been time and change—­ succession in its nature implying time; whereas there was then nothing but eternity and immortality.  God knows and says eternally what takes place in time.

Criticism of st. Augustine.  St. Augustine then defines, not without much mysticism, what is meant by the opening words of Genesis:  “In the beginning.”  He is guided to his conclusion by another scriptural passage:  “How wonderful are thy works, O Lord! in wisdom hast thou made them all.”  This “wisdom” is “the beginning,” and in that beginning the Lord created the heaven and the earth.