It’s interesting to note that, in this passage at least, Augustine bases his reticence on insisting on a literal six-day creation based on the fact that it would be an embarrassment! In our day, where too many Christians (especially Evangelicals) are in “play up to the world” mode, one would think that this argument would be in vogue, but we don’t see it explicitly put that way very much.
As noted in my post Why Evangelicals Don’t Read Philo Judaeus, at least some of classical antiquity had been teed up to the idea that the creation was completed in more than six twenty-four hour days (and back then the hours weren’t even fixed!) Moreover Augustine’s idea of “literal” was typically Patristic in that it included the allegorical, analogical or typological meaning, something I’ve discussed elsewhere on this blog.
Positive Infinity 