The early church drew its teachings on the origin and development of life from two sources--the Book of Genesis, and the philosophies of Plato and Aristotle. The early Christian Fathers, or at least the more prominent of them, were very broad-minded in their interpretations of the “revelations” of the Bible. In the fourth century, Gregory of Nyassa began a natural interpretation of Genesis that was completed in that century, and the one following, by Augustine. Despite the plain statements of the direct, or “special” creation of all living things, to be found in Genesis, Augustine promulgated a very different doctrine. He believed that all development took place according to powers incorporated in matter by the Creator. Even the body of man himself fitted into this plan, and was therefore a product of divinely originated, but naturally accomplished development. Thus Augustine, as Moore says, “distinctly rejected Special Creation in favor of a doctrine which, without any violence to language, we may call a theory of Evolution.” It is particularly interesting to note, in these days when prominent men go about denouncing the doctrine of organic evolution as foul, repulsive, and contrary to the will of God, that the early churchmen were not troubled by such narrowness. Augustine not only gave up the orthodox statement of special creation; he modified the conception of time. To him the “days” of Genesis did not mean days of astronomy; they meant long and indeterminable periods of time. And it is particularly interesting to find him rebuking those who, ignorant of the principles underlying nature, seek to explain things according to the letter of the scriptures. “It is very disgraceful and mischievous,” says he, “that a Christian speaking of such matters as being according to the Christian Scriptures should be heard by an unbeliever talking such nonsense that the unbeliever, perceiving him to be as wide from the mark as east from west, can hardly restrain himself from laughing.” Augustine was followed by some of the later church authorities, most notably Thomas Aquinas, who lived in the latter part of the thirteenth century. He did not add to the evolution idea, but rather expounded the ideas of Augustine. His importance was due to his high rank as a church authority, not to any ideas which he produced.