De Genesi ad Litteram
Eduardo G. Moros (moros_eg@castor.wustl.edu)
Tue, 21 Oct 1997 12:42:22 -0600............"It often happens that even a non-Christian knows a thing or two
about the earth, the sky, the various elements of the world, about the
movements and revolution of the stars and even their size and distance, about
the anticipated eclipses of the sun and moon, about the nature of the animals,
shrubs, rocks, and the like, and maintains this knowledge with sure reason and
experience. It is then offensive and ruinous, something to be avoided at all
cost, for a nonbeliever to hear a Christian talking about these things as
though with Christians writings as his source, and yet so nonsensically and
with such obvious error that the nonbeliever can hardly keep from laughing.
The trouble is not so much that the erring fellow is laughed at but that our
authors are believed by outsiders to have held those same opinions and so are
despised and rejected as untutored men...... How are they going to believe our
books concerning.... the kingdom of heaven when they think that they are full
of fallacious writings about things they know from experience and sure
calculation? There is no telling how much harm these rash and presumptuous
people bring upon their prudent brethren when they begin to be caught and
argued down by those who are not bound by the authority of our Scriptures, and
when they then try to defend their flippant, rash, and obviously erroneous
statements by quoting a shower of words from those same Sacred Scriptures,
even from memory those passages which think will support their case........."
Augustine (354-430), De Genesi ad Litteram 1:19. The Literal Meaning of
Genesis, Translated by Tr. J.H. Taylor, Westminster, Md., Newman Press, 1982.
This is my evidence that fundamentalism is not a new thing .........................