Sir 18:1

“Scripture narrates the story of how the God who finished all his work in six days is the same one who it says elsewhere, and without any contradiction, that "he created everything at the same time." Consequently, he who created all things at the same time simultaneously also simultaneously created these six or seven days, or, rather, this one day repeating the day six or seven times. What need was there to enumerate these six days in such a precise and ordered way? Surely it was necessary for those who cannot arrive at a comprehension that "God created everything at the same time," that Scripture accompanied them more slowly, step by step, to the final goal of the story to which it was leading them.”

“All things, although God could have made them in an instant, He nevertheless preferred to make them through a succession of times: partly for the sake of a distinct and clear representation of power, wisdom, and goodness; partly for the sake of a fitting correspondence of days or times and works; and partly also so that, just as in the first creation of the world there were to be made the seminal principles of works yet to be done, so also there would be made prefigurations of future times. If, however, it were said in another manner, that all things were made simultaneously, then all these seven days are referred to angelic contemplation. Nevertheless, the first manner of speaking is more consonant with Scripture and with the authorities of the Saints, both those who preceded and also those who followed the blessed Augustine.”

“Thus is to be understood that which is said: "He who lives forever created all things simultaneously": not because He created them in a chaos of every kind of confusion, as the poets imagined, since He brought forth this threefold nature, the highest in the highest place, the middle in the middle, and the lowest in the lowest: nor indeed into a being of every kind of distinction, since heaven was perfect, and the earth unformed, and the middle nature, as it were holding a middle position, had not yet been brought to perfect distinction.”