74 THEOLOGIANS AND NATURAL PHILOSOPHERS. 



there were invisible all things simultaneously which 

 w^ere in time to grow into the tree, so the world 

 itself is to be thought of, when God simultaneously 

 created all things, as having at the same time in 

 itself all things that were made in it and with it, 

 when the day itself was created : not only the 

 heaven with the sun and moon and stars, and so 

 forth, but also those things w^hich the water and 

 the earth produced potentialiter atque causaliter ; 

 before that, in due time, and after long delays, they 

 grew up in such manner as they are now known to 

 us in those works of God which He is working even 

 to the present hour." ^ 



With Augustine the progress of comment upon\ 

 the interpretation of Genesis came nearly to an 1 

 end. As Giittler observes, men in the cloisters and"^ 

 other centres of culture turned to medicine and 

 ethics ; yet, even in this dark period, an occasional 

 friend of the gradual-creation idea appeared. Such 

 was John Scotus Erigena (800- ), who simply 

 borrowed from Aristotle and Augustine : " From 

 the Uncreated Creating Principles go forth created 

 and self-created beings under the embracing causes 

 primordiales. These causce are equivalent to the 

 Greek ' ideas,' that is the kinds, the eternal forms 

 and unchangeable grounds of reason upon which 

 the world is regulated. Under the influence of the 

 third person of the Godhead, the potentialities of 

 matter are developed, out of which creatures take 

 their origin. In a retrogressive circle, all things 



