Abstract
Pre-modern insights about the cosmos do not typically have much credibility in the academy, and yet historians are aware that the atomic theory is ancient. Several other modern theories of physics also have ancient precedents, and they may offer US valuable and intellectually attractive insights about the doctrine of Creation and for dealing with our present ecological challenges. The insights of Augustine and Dionysius of Alexandria, two ancient North African thinkers, are, I suggest, particularly pertinent. Of course Augustine’s reflections on creation and nature have received much attention, most recently from Rowan Williams, E. P. Meijering, Richard Sorabji, and Jaroslav Pelikan. But these scholars do not engage this Church Father in dialogue with modem physics and ecological concerns. Likewise, though there has been relatively little attention given to Dionysius, I suggest in this article that there is in fact much to glean from study of his work.