Against you is St Augustine, who thought that creation was instantaneous and hence was not a six day literalist. There is a long history of discussion within the church about how Genesis is to be interpreted.
rossum
one swallow does NOT a summer make.
You put one example forward as a ‘long history of discussion within the church about how Genesis is to be interpreted’
No where did Augustine believe in anything other than God creating things.
No evidence has been put forward to suggest a Church Father believed in apes being given souls
However in the interests of discussion let us examine some opinions, of opinions. Some claim that Augustine viewed Genesis’ account of creation as less than a literal event.
“Though creation has been widely discussed, the length of the six days of creation, as held throughout the ages of church history, was generally agreed: they were ordinary or sidereal days. There were few exceptions to this: Clement, Origin and Augustine being the main ones. Clement and Origin, of course, followed an allegorical method of interpretation and denied the historicity of much of the Bible. Augustine’s statements, on the other hand, are unclear but it seems that he believed that God actually created the world all at once (i.e., in an instant of time, the six days being repetitions of the one day of creation) but related the story of a six-day creation to us to accommodate our limited understanding. To be sure, there is much in the Bible that is difficult (if not impossible) for our finite minds to grasp, but in this case one must wonder how a six-day account would be any easier to comprehend than an instantaneous creation. In any case, the non-literal views of the days of creation were uncommon and not highly regarded”
rcus.org/main/pub_days_of_creation.asp
Despite this “Augustine maintained that transformation from one kind of creature into another was impossible and that the earth was created around 5500 B.C.”
Fr Seraphim Rose, (2000) “Genesis Creation and Early Man: The Orthodox Christian Vision”, (Saint Herman of Alaska Brotherhood; Platina, CA), p79.
Irenaeus (Bishop of Lyons c.177-200) says “…in the first Adam we offended God by not performing his command; in the second Adam we have been reconciled, becoming ‘obedient unto death’.” Adversus Haereses v.xvi.3
“Fellowship with God is light and life…separation from God is death.” Ibid v.xxvii.2
Right down to our own day…
“A knowledge of the beginning and end of all things is essential for us to understand the purpose of our existence here on this earth, and what lies beyond it” Fr.Seraphim Rose’s commentary on St. Symeon The New Theologian’s “The First-Created Man.”
They are talking about an historical person, a real Adam.
It goes beyond this too, to the implications of evolutionary theory…
“If you believe that man came up from savagery, you will interpret all past history in those terms. But according to Orthodoxy, man fell from Paradise. In evolutionary philosophy there is no room for a supernatural state of Adam. Thos who want to keep both Christianity and evolutionism, therefore, are forced to stick an artificial Paradise onto an ape-like creature. These are obviously two different systems which cannot be mixed.”
Fr. Seraphim Rose, "Genesis, Creation and Early Ma: The Orthodox Christian Vision, pp324-5
“The most important question which is raised for Orthodox theology by the modern theory of evolution is the nature of man, and in particular the nature of the first-created man Adam.” (Ibid, p46)
