For Egyptian views regarding creation, and especially for the transition from the idea of creation by the hands and fingers of the Creator to creation by his VOICE and his "word," see Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of Civilization, pp.

145-146.
Among the early fathers of the Church this general view of creation became fundamental; they impressed upon Christendom more and more strongly the belief that the universe was created in a perfectly literal sense by the hands or voice of God.

Here and there sundry theologians of larger mind attempted to give a more spiritual view regarding some parts of the creative work, and of these were St.Gregory of Nyssa and St.
Augustine.

Ready as they were to accept the literal text of Scripture, they revolted against the conception of an actual creation of the universe by the hands and fingers of a Supreme Being, and in this they were followed by Bede and a few others; but the more material conceptions prevailed, and we find these taking shape not only in the sculptures and mosaics and stained glass of cathedrals, and in the illuminations of missals and psalters, but later, at the close of the Middle Ages, in the pictured Bibles and in general literature.
Into the Anglo-Saxon mind this ancient material conception of the creation was riveted by two poets whose works appealed especially to the deeper religious feelings.

In the seventh century Caedmon paraphrased the account given in Genesis, bringing out this material conception in the most literal form; and a thousand years later Milton developed out of the various statements in the Old Testament, mingled with a theology regarding "the creative Word" which had been drawn from the New, his description of the creation by the second person in the Trinity, than which nothing could be more literal and material: "He took the golden compasses, prepared In God's eternal store, to circumscribe This universe and all created things.
One foot he centred, and the other turned Round through the vast profundity obscure, And said, 'Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds: This be thy just circumference, O world!'"(2) (2) For Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, and the general subject of the development of an evolution theory among the Greeks, see the excellent work by Dr.Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin, pp.33 and following; for Caedmon, see any edition--I have used Bouterwek's, Gutersloh, 1854; for Milton, see Paradise Lost, book vii, lines 225-231.
So much for the orthodox view of the MANNER of creation.
The next point developed in this theologic evolution had reference to the MATTER of which the universe was made, and it was decided by an overwhelming majority that no material substance existed before the creation of the material universe--that "God created everything out of nothing." Some venturesome thinkers, basing their reasoning upon the first verses of Genesis, hinted at a different view--namely, that the mass, "without form and void," existed before the universe; but this doctrine was soon swept out of sight.