Defense of literal reading of creation

So the longer I hold you here, the longer I withdraw you from evils. What I have said is enough for a fair-minded judge—unless he looks not at the wealth of creation but at the weakness of my own ability, and at what is sufficient for the joy of those who have gathered. The earth welcomed you with its own plants; the sea with its fish; the air with its birds. The dry land is ready to display in return things equal in honor to these. But let this be the measure of the morning feast, so that excessive fullness does not make you dull for the enjoyment of the evening. May he who filled all things with his creation, and who left in all things clear reminders of his own wonders for us, fill your hearts with all spiritual joy, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power, forever and ever. Amen.

HOMILY 9: On Land Animals

How did the morning table of words appear to you? For my part, it occurred to me to compare my own efforts to the hospitality of some poor host who, eager to be thought a fine entertainer, wearies his guests by the lack of costlier dishes, piling his meager provisions lavishly on the table—so that his ambition turns into a reproach for tastelessness. Something like that is true of us too, unless you say otherwise. But whatever it may be, you must not despise it. For the people of that time did not reject Elisha as a poor host, even though he entertained his friends with wild vegetables.

I know the rules of allegory—not because I discovered them myself, but because I have encountered the labors of others. Those who do not accept the ordinary meanings of what is written say that water is not water but some other nature, and they interpret plant and fish according to their own fancy, and they explain the origin of reptiles and wild beasts by twisting them into their own private notions—just as dream interpreters make their explanations of what appears in sleep-visions fit their own purpose. But when I hear grass, I understand grass, and plant, and fish, and wild beast, and cattle—I take everything just as it is said. For I am not ashamed of the gospel (Romans 1:16).

Nor is it because those who have written about the world have said many things about the shapes of the earth—whether the earth is a sphere, or a cylinder, or like a disk, and whether it is turned equally on all sides, or is winnowing-fan-shaped and hollow in the middle (for the writers about the world have been carried into all these notions, each one demolishing the others)—I will not for that reason be led to call our world-making less honorable, just because Moses, the servant of God, said nothing about shapes, nor said that the earth's circumference is one hundred eighty thousand stadia, nor measured how far its shadow extends through the air when the sun moves beneath the earth, nor how this shadow, when it reaches the moon, produces eclipses. Since he passed over in silence the things that are of no use to us, shall I for this reason consider the oracles of the Spirit less honorable than the wisdom that has been made foolish (1 Corinthians 1:20)? Or rather, shall I glorify him who did not occupy our minds with vain things, but arranged for everything to be written for the building up and perfecting of our souls? Some people, it seems to me, have not understood this, and with certain derivations and figurative interpretations they have attempted to attach a certain dignity from their own thinking to what is written.