Taught by the issue of that dispute, when the question of the age of the world presented itself for consideration, the Church did not exhibit the active resistance she had displayed on the former occasion.

For, though her traditions were again put in jeopardy, they were not, in her judgment, so vitally assailed.

To dethrone the Earth from her dominating position was, so the spiritual authorities declared, to undermine the very foundation of revealed truth; but discussions respecting the date of creation might within certain limits be permitted.

Those limits were, however, very quickly overpassed, and thus the controversy became as dangerous as the former one had been.
It was not possible to adopt the advice given by Plato in his "Timaeus," when treating of this subject--the origin of the universe: "It is proper that both I who speak and you who judge should remember that we are but men, and therefore, receiving the probable mythological tradition, it is meet that we inquire no further into it." Since the time of St.
Augustine the Scriptures had been made the great and final authority in all matters of science, and theologians had deduced from them schemes of chronology and cosmogony which had proved to be stumbling-blocks to the advance of real knowledge.
It is not necessary for us to do more than to allude to some of the leading features of these schemes; their peculiarities will be easily discerned with sufficient clearness.

Thus, from the six days of creation and the Sabbath-day of rest, since we are told that a day is with the Lord as a thousand years, it was inferred that the duration of the world will be through six thousand years of suffering, and an additional thousand, a millennium of rest.