False – you should read Fr. Mariano Artigas’ excellent book Negotiating Darwin: The Vatican Confronts Evolution, 1877-1902. There was no Church campaign against evolution.
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Irenaeus, (140-202): "For in as many days as this world was made, in so many thousand years shall it be concluded… in six days created things were completed…” (
Against Heresies 5, 28, 3).
Clement of Alexandria (150-216): “From Adam to the deluge are comprised two thousand one hundred and forty-eight years, four days” (ANF, Vol. 2, p. 332).
Clement of Alexandria (150-216): “…but the earth is from the waters: and before the whole six days’ formation of the things that were made, the Spirit of God moved upon the face of the water. The water was the beginning of the world…” (
Catechetical Lectures, 3, 5).
Hippolytus (160-235): “But it was right to speak not of the ‘first day,’ but of ‘one day,’ in order that by saying ‘one,’ he might show that it returns on its orbit, and, while it remains one, makes up the week…On the first day God made what He made out of nothing.” (Genesis 1:5, 1:6; ANF, vol. 5, p. 163).
Hippolytus (160-235): "When, therefore, Moses has spoken of ‘the six days in which God made heaven and earth’…Simon, in a manner already specified, giving these and other passages of Scripture a different application from the one intended by the holy writers, defies himself.”
Refutation of All Heresies, Book VI, Ch IX).
Theophilus (c. 185): “Of this six days’ work no man can give a worthy explanation and description of all its parts…on account of the exceeding greatness and riches of the wisdom of God which there is in the six days’ work above narrated” (
Autolycus 2,12).
Theophilus (c. 185): “God…made the existent out of the non-existent.” (
Autolycus 2,4).
Theophilus (c. 185): “On the fourth day the luminaries came into existence. Since God has foreknowledge, he understood the nonsense of the foolish philosophers who were going to say that the things produced on earth came from the stars, so that they might set God aside. In order therefore that the truth might be demonstrated, plants and seeds came into existence before the stars. For what comes into existence later cannot cause what is prior to it.”
Theophilus, 2.15.
Theophilus (c. 185): “…the world is created and is providentially governed by the God who made everything. And the whole period of time and the years can be demonstrated to those who wish to learn the truth…The total number of years from the creation of the world is 5,695.”
Theophilus, 3.25, 28.
Theophilus (c. 185): “If some period has escaped our notice, says 50 and 100 or even 200 years, at any rate it is not myriads, or thousands or years as it was for Plato…and the rest of those who wrote falsehoods. It may be that we do not know the exact total of all the years simply because the additional months and days are not recorded in the sacred books.”
Theophilus, 3.29.
Origen (c. 200): “the Mosaic account of the creation, which teaches that the world is not yet ten thousand years old, but very much under that.”
Origen, Against Celsus, 1.19.
Lactantius (250-317): “God completed the world and this admirable work of nature in the space of six days, as is contained in the secrets of Holy Scripture, and consecrated the seventh day…For there are seven days, by the revolutions of which in order the circles of years are made up…Therefore, since all the works of God were completed in six days, the world must continue in its present state through six ages, that is, six thousand years…For the great day of God is limited by a circle of a thousand years, as the prophet shows, who says, ‘In Thy sight, O Lord, a thousand years are as one day.” …And as God labored during those six days in creating such great works, so His religion and truth must labor during these six thousand years… (
Institutes 7,14).
Victorinus (c. 280): “God produced the entire mass for the adornment of his majesty in six days. On the seventh day, he consecrated it with a blessing” (
On the Creation of the World).
Ephrem the Syrian (306-373): “‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth,’ that is, the substance of the heavens and the substance of the earth. So let no one think that there is anything allegorical in the works of the six days. No one can rightly say that the things that pertain to these days were symbolic.” (
Commentary on Genesis,1:1, FC 91:74)
Methodius (c. 311): “For you seem to me, O Theophila, to have discussed those words of the Scripture amply and clearly, and to have set them forth as they are without mistake. For it is a dangerous thing wholly to despise the literal meaning, as has been said, and especially of Genesis, where the unchangeable decrees of God for the constitution of the universe are set forth, in agreement with which, even until now, the world is perfectly ordered, most beautifully in accordance with a perfect rule, until the Lawgiver Himself having re-arranged it, wishing to order it anew, shall break up the first laws of nature by a fresh disposition. But, since it is not fitting to leave the demonstration of the argument unexamined – and, so to speak, half-lame – come let us, as it were completing our pair, bring forth the analogical sense, looking more deeply into the Scripture; for Paul is not to be despised when he passed over the literal meaning, and showed that the word extended to Christ and the Church.” (
Banquet of the Ten Virgins, Discourse III, Ch 2).
