As a reformed Christian, I hold to SOLA SCRIPTURA, which is the idea that the Bible is the highest (and only infallible) authority for matters of faith and practice. The words of the Bible were inspired by the Holy Spirit, so they cannot fail to be true. My highest appeal in all matters will always be to the text of the Bible itself.

But is there some value in seeing what the church always believed about a topic? Of course. My authority structure is

1. The Bible
2. Reformed Creeds/Confessions
3. Elders/Shepherds in my local body of believers
4. Historic church fathers

Why are the historical fathers so low on the list? There’s some debate about who counts as a church father, and there’s some debate about which side of the sad schisms a church father might represent. Regardless, the reason why it’s worthwhile to see what the church has historically believed on a topic could help us find aberrations and cult-like teachings from trendy revisions. In my lifetime, I’ve seen several trendy ideas (Pentacostalism, faith healing, dispensationalism, prosperity gospel…) burn through Christendom, like a wildfire. Most of the time, they are short-lived and burn out quickly because there’s no root or truth to them. Sometimes, they cling like Texas-heated road tar…sticky and difficult to get rid of. So, there is every reason to see what has been the historic Christian position on topics of interest. Most theological heresies were dealt with early on and have been recorded in the confessions and the creeds. I expect old earthism will be a road-tar type of false teaching that becomes very difficult to cleanse from Christianity due to its strong ties to scientism, which has the appearance of authority even though it changes its position with nearly every new discovery.

My first step in researching this topic was to let Grok AI do a quick search across the internet. I asked “What was the dominant Christian position prior to 1800 on why there is animal death and natural evil in the world today?” You can click that link and get the same results as I did:

Obviously, this is a 30,000 foot view, and does not address specific writings of specific authors. But we get the idea that in general, Christians prior to the writings of Darwin fully accepted the Biblical account that there was no death or suffering in the world until after Adam had sinned. NOTE: Any bold, italics or underline is my own addition. Let’s look at a few individual men, who are generally recognized as church fathers:

• Irenaeus of Lyons (c.130-202 AD): In his “Against Heresies”, Irenaeus argued that death was not part of the original creation, and that sin brought both physical and spiritual death to all of creation. The curse of sin introduced corruption and mortality into creation, and that the promises mentioned in Isa 11 would restore the harmony of animals to their pre-fall state.
• Tertullian (c. 160-220 AD): In “Against Marcion”, Tertullian emphasizes that the Creator is good, and his creation was absent of death and corruption which entered creation through human sin. He describes death as an “intruder“. He understands Romans 8:19-21 to teach that futility and subjection to corruption for ALL of creation is due to the fall into sin. In “On the Resurrection of the Flesh” Tertullian describes the peace and harmony of animals in the future to be a renewal of the harmony that was once known before the fall.
• Theophilus of Antioch (c. 168 AD): In his work “ad Autolycus” Theophilus says “And the animals are named wild beasts, from their being hunted, not as if they had been made evil or venomous from the first—for nothing was made evil by God, but all things good, yea, very good,—but the sin in which man was concerned brought evil upon them …. When, therefore, man again shall have made his way back to his natural condition, and no longer does evil, those also shall be restored to their original gentleness.”
• Athanasius (C. 296-373 AD): In “On the Incarnation” he emphasizes that the state of the creation today (death and corruption) was brought by human sin. Though animals are not specifically mentioned, the context of his broader theology and the deduction that animals are included within creation leaves little room to doubt that he understood that the fall into sin was the corrupting force that invaded God’s once-very-good creation
• Augustine (354-430 AD): In “The City of God” Augustine says that death, including animal death, was not part of God’s original creation. It was an intruder into the creation that before sin was very good. In “On the Literal Meaning of Genesis” he says further that the predatory behaviors and mortality of animals started after human sin. Before sin the original creation was free from violence, corruption, and predation
• Basil the Great (c. 330-379 AD): I’ll spend the most time on Basil of Caesarea. It was just recently that I was challenged by an internet personality to research to see whether Basil the Great taught (as the Bible says) that there was no death among animals prior to the fall. Basil is known mostly for his 9 Homilies, the Hexaemeron, which means “The Six Days of Creation”. Clearly, Basil agreed with the authors of scripture that Genesis was history of the works of God in creation. In Homily 5 Basil writes: “But then (pre-fall) the rose was without thorns; since then (post-fall) the thorn has been added to its beauty, to make us feel that sorrow is very near to pleasure, and to remind us of our sin, which condemned the earth to produce thorns and caltrops.” Basil understood from the text of scripture that creation was changed after the fall. As Genesis 3 teaches, there were no thorns in creation prior to the fall. This is a serious problem for those, who deny YEC since fossil thorns have been found in layers that they think were formed millions of years prior to the sin of Adam. More relevant to this discussion, in his work:
  • “On the Origin of Humanity” Homily 2 section 6 Basil says: “God did not say: “I have given you the fishes for food, I have given you the cattle, the reptiles, the quadrupeds.” It is not for this that He created, says the Scripture. In fact, the first legislation allowed the use of fruits, for we were still judged worthy of Paradise…To you, to the wild animals and the birds, says the Scripture, fruits, vegetation and herbs (are given) … We see, however, many wild animals which do not eat fruits. what fruit does the panther accept to nourish itself? What fruit can the lion satisfy himself with? Nevertheless, these beings, submitting to the law of natures, were nourished by fruits…after the Flood, knowing that men were wasteful, allowed them the use of all foods; “eat all that in the same was as edible plants”. By this allowance, the other animals also received the liberty to eat them…Since then (post-flood) the lion is a carnivore, since then also vultures watch for carrion. For the vultures were not yet looking over the earth at the very moment (creation week) when the animals were born; in fact, nothing of what had received designation or existence had yet died so that the vultures might eat them. Nature had not yet divided, for it was all in its freshness…the beasts, for their part, did not yet tear their prey, for they were not carnivores … But all followed the way of the swans, and all grazed on the grass of the meadow.” You can see from Basil’s writings that he was in agreement with the scriptures when he taught that there was no animal death prior to the fall. No carnivory behavior. No scavenging because there were no dead animals…no corruption. Sidebar: to learn how I was able to get the information from “On the Origin of Humanity” and the screenshots of the source material, see *** below
    • In his Homily on Fasting, Basil argued that the original diet of both humans and animals was limited ONLY to fruits, herbs, and plants.
• Gregory of Nyssa (c. 335-395 AD): In “On the Making of Man” Gregory says that the fall into sin introduced corruption and death not only humanity but also the created order, which includes animals
• I could find NO church fathers who explicitly taught that there was human or animal death prior to the fall

When Did Christians Begin To Believe That Animals Died Before Sin?

The first Christian of note to write and teach definitively that animals died before the fall was George Frederick Wright in his 1906 book “Scientific Confirmations of Old Testament History”. In that book he tried to bring the Bible into concordance with the modern academic paradigm. Sadly, in order to do so, he had to deny the Bible’s account of a global flood, which is the biblical explanation for the geologic layers. But at the time when Wright was writing, historic Christianity was under deep attack from the modern academic paradigm, which has come to be known as “the science”, even though it has little to do with actual science. Today, the view that Wright espoused has metastasized throughout Christendom. What was considered historic Christianity for 1900 years has been dismissed by modern mainstream thought as a cult.

So instead of Basil being an old earther, the evidence confirms that Saint Basil the Great was an outspoken advocate of young earth creation as were all of the church fathers because it’s just what the Bible says. Old earth creationism is a trendy fad that is brand new to Christendom first appearing about 1800 years after the Creator Himself walked the Earth. No church father held to a billions of years old earth. Until Darwin in 1859, nearly every Christian held to what we would today call young earth creation.

You might wonder: “What about the Roman Catholics? Today they believe evolution. What has been their traditional view of Genesis 1-11?” I’m glad you asked. The Roman Catholic Church for 1800 years accepted the strict young earth creation view, but today that branch of Christianity has almost completely capitulated to Darwin. Sadly, the RCC has capitulated to many other false teachings and worldliness as well.

You might also wonder: “What about the Eastern Orthodox Church? What has been their traditional view of Genesis 1-11?” In general, the EOC was pliable on the length of days, but they held strongly to the Genesis chronogenealogies on the age of the Earth. They have also accepted God’s revelation of a historical global flood in judgment for sin, and that death, disease, suffering, and corruption were a result of the sin of mankind. Sin affected all of creation as the Bible clearly teaches. Here is a book from one of their teachers

So all three principle branches of Christendom held to the truth of God’s word as authoritative until the modern paradigm stole the “throne” of magisterium from the Bible.

The Gospel of Jesus is: The Creator made a very good creation that was free of the curses for sin. But because of the universal effects of the curse of sin over all of creation, Jesus took on the human form as a descendant of Adam, was born of a virgin in accordance with scripture, and lived a perfect life by keeping the whole law. After He was crucified for the sins of those, who would repent, He defeated death by rising again and is seated at the right hand of the Father. Those, who repent and put their faith in Him will have abundant life

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In my research for this blog post, I searched using the usual tools available to me on if Basil taught that animals died before the fall: Grok, Google, Brave search…Grok answered my question with the quotes that I used above, but the attribution was to the Hexaemeron by Basil. There are several links to English translations of the Hexaemeron, but the quotes did not appear in any of the text of the Hexaemeron itself. I kept digging and digging for any writings that show that Basil taught that animals died before the fall, because I had been ASSURED by The_Blind_Guide that Basil taught death before sin. A link from oldbelieving.wordpress.com attributed the quote to Basil’s work “On the Origin of Humanity”. There is NOT an English translation of Basil’s “On the Origin of Humanity” readily available on the internet…as far as I can find. My next step lead me to archive.org…the Internet Archive. I created a free account and began to search for the writings of Basil. There were all kinds of writings, duplicates, and writings ABOUT Basil. Filtering the Media search to “Text” and Author search results to “Basil, Saint, Bishop of Caesarea” there were 36 results. Still no “On the Origin of Humanity”…except there was something called “Sur l’originè de l’homme”. Looks kinda Frenchy for the origin of hominids (humans). I checked it out and found that it was the French translation of the original Greek in which Basil wrote his works. I speak neither French nor Greek. It’s all Greek to me. But being the intrepid ApoloJedi that I am, I started working my way through the text with Google Translate. Homily 2 chapter 6 yielded the pot of gold. Basil cannot be considered anything other than a young earth creationist based on his own words as shown above. I did find all of this information from creation.com as well, but I know that scoffers and the Christians, who have been deceived by old earthism, refuse to listen to the scientists from creation organizations. Source materials are harder for them to ignore. Having completed my research, I began to imagine what it must have been like to be an investigator from as late as 1990. To get the information, that today I was able to get from my desk during my lunch break, might have taken months or years of deep investigative work and collaborations with multiple people. Technology has been a wonderful tool for searching and learning