ABSTRACT
The question of creation or cosmogony was central to Christians from very early on. This becomes clear from the fact that early Christian thinkers devote considerable space in their works in addressing this question. In connecting the two questions, a cosmological and an ontological one, Christians continue the tradition of the Timaeus, a very influential text in antiquity and also the one on which Philo of Alexandria based his explanation of the cosmogony in Genesis. Justin Martyr presents what he takes to be the Christian received doctrine, but his account on cosmogony bears the mark of his own philosophical mind. Justin maintains that God created everything out of his goodness and from unformed matter, which he transformed. With Irenaeus and Tertullian, the question of cosmogony and how God is related to it becomes most central issue in Christian thought. Clement of Alexandria does not articulate a detailed theory of matter either, but he does offer a more articulate theory about creation.
