I. THE FORM OF THE EARTH.
Among various rude tribes we find survivals of a primitive idea
that the earth is a flat table or disk, ceiled, domed, or
canopied by the sky, and that the sky rests upon the mountains as
pillars. Such a belief is entirely natural; it conforms to the
appearance of things, and hence at a very early period entered
into various theologies.
In the civilizations of Chaldea and Egypt it was very fully
developed. The Assyrian inscriptions deciphered in these latter
years represent the god Marduk as in the beginning creating the
heavens and the earth: the earth rests upon the waters; within
it is the realm of the dead; above it is spread "the
firmament"--a solid dome coming down to the horizon on all sides
and resting upon foundations laid in the "great waters" which
extend around the earth.
On the east and west sides of this domed firmament are doors,
through which the sun enters in the morning and departs at night;
above it extends another ocean, which goes down to the ocean
surrounding the earth at the horizon on all sides, and which is
supported and kept away from the earth by the firmament. Above
the firmament and the upper ocean which it supports is the
interior of heaven.
The Egyptians considered the earth as a table, flat and oblong,
the sky being its ceiling--a huge "firmament" of metal. At the
four corners of the earth were the pillars supporting this
firmament, and on this solid sky were the "waters above the
heavens." They believed that, when chaos was taking form, one of
the gods by main force raised the waters on high and spread them
out over the firmament; that on the under side of this solid
vault, or ceiling, or firmament, the stars were suspended to
light the earth, and that the rains were caused by the letting
down of the waters through its windows. This idea and others
connected with it seem to have taken strong hold of the Egyptian
priestly caste, entering into their theology and sacred science:
ceilings of great temples, with stars, constellations, planets,
and signs of the zodiac figured upon them, remain to-day as
striking evidences of this.
In Persia we have theories of geography based upon similar
conceptions and embalmed in sacred texts.
From these and doubtless from earlier sources common to them all
came geographical legacies to the Hebrews. Various passages in
their sacred books, many of them noble in conception and
beautiful in form, regarding "the foundation of the earth upon
the waters," "the fountains of the great deep," "the compass upon
the face of the depth," the "firmament," the "corners of the
earth," the "pillars of heaven," the "waters above the
firmament," the "windows of heaven," and "doors of heaven," point
us back to both these ancient springs of thought.[25]
[25] For survivals of the early idea, among the Eskimos, of the
sky as supported by mountains, and, among sundry Pacific
islanders, of the sky as a firmament or vault of stone, see
Tylor, Early History of Mankind, second edition, London, 1870,
chap. xi; Spencer, Sociology, vol. i, chap vii, also Andrew Lang,
La Mythologie, Paris, 1886, pp. 68-73. For the Babylonian
theories, see George Smith's Chaldean Genesis, and especially the
German translation by Delitzsch, Leipsic, 1876; also, Jensen, Die
Kosmogonien der Babylonier, Strasburg, 1890; see especially in
the appendices, pp. 9 and 10, a drawing representing the whole
Babylonian scheme so closely followed in the Hebrew book Genesis.
See also Lukas, Die Grundbegriffe in den Kosmogonien der alten
Volker, Leipsic, 1893, for a most thorough summing up of the
whole subject, with texts showing the development of Hebrew out
of Chaldean and Egyptian conceptions, pp. 44, etc.; also pp. 127
et seq. For the early view in India and Persia, see citations
from the Vedas and the Zend-Avesta in Lethaby, Architecture,
Mysticism, and Myth, chap. i. For the Egyptian view, see
Champollion; also Lenormant, Histoire Ancienne, Maspero, and
others. As to the figures of the heavens upon the ceilings of
Egyptian temples, see Maspero, Archeologie Egyptienne, Paris,
1890; and for engravings of them, see Lepsius, Denkmaler, vol. i,
Bl. 41, and vol. ix, Abth. iv, Bl. 35; also the Description de
l'Egypte, published by order of Napoleon, tome ii, Pl. 14; also
Prisse d'Avennes, Art Egyptien, Atlas, tome i, Pl. 35; and
especially for a survival at the Temple of Denderah, see Denon,
Voyage en Egypte, Planches 129, 130. For the Egyptian idea of
"pillars of heaven," as alluded to on the stele of victory of
Thotmes III,in the Cairo Museum, see Ebers, Uarda, vol. ii,p.
175, note, Leipsic, 1877. For a similar Babylonian belief, see
Sayce's Herodotus, Appendix, p. 403. For the belief of Hebrew
scriptural writers in a solid "firmament," see especially Job,
xxxviii, 18; also Smith's Bible Dictionary. For engravings
showing the earth and heaven above it as conceived by Egyptians
and Chaldeans, with "pillars of heaven" and "firmament," see
Maspero and Sayce, Dawn of Civilization, London, 1894, pp. 17 and
543.
But, as civilization was developed, there were evolved,
especially among the Greeks, ideas of the earth's sphericity.
The Pythagoreans, Plato, and Aristotle especially cherished them.
These ideas were vague, they were mixed with absurdities, but
they were germ ideas, and even amid the luxuriant growth of
theology in the early Christian Church these germs began
struggling into life in the minds of a few thinking men, and
these men renewed the suggestion that the earth is a globe.[26]
[26] The agency of the Pythagoreans in first spreading the
doctrine of the earth's sphericity is generally acknowledged, but
the first full and clear utterance of it to the world was by
Aristotle. Very fruitful, too, was the statement of the new
theory given by Plato in the Timaeus; see Jowett's translation,
62, c. Also the Phaedo, pp.449 et seq. See also Grote on
Plato's doctrine on the sphericity of the earth; also Sir G. C.
Lewis's Astronomy of the Ancients, London, 1862, chap. iii,
section i, and note. Cicero's mention of the antipodes, and his
reference to the passage in the Timaeus, are even more remarkable
than the latter, in that they much more clearly foreshadow the
modern doctrine. See his Academic Questions, ii; also Tusc.
Quest., i and v, 24. For a very full summary of the views of the
ancients on the sphericity of the earth, see Kretschmer, Die
physische Erkunde im christlichen Mittelalter, Wien, 1889, pp. 35
et seq.; also Eiken, Geschichte der mittelalterlichen
Weltanschauung, Stuttgart, 1887, Dritter Theil, chap. vi. For
citations and summaries, see Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences,
vol. i, p. 189, and St. Martin, Hist. de la Geog., Paris, 1873,
p. 96; also Leopardi, Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli
antichi, Firenze, 1851, chap. xii, pp. 184 et seq.
A few of the larger-minded fathers of the Church, influenced
possibly by Pythagorean traditions, but certainly by Aristotle
and Plato, were willing to accept this view, but the majority of
them took fright at once. To them it seemed fraught with dangers
to Scripture, by which, of course, they meant their
interpretation of Scripture. Among the first who took up arms
against it was Eusebius. In view of the New Testament texts
indicating the immediately approaching, end of the world, he
endeavoured to turn off this idea by bringing scientific studies
into contempt. Speaking of investigators, he said, "It is not
through ignorance of the things admired by them, but through
contempt of their useless labour, that we think little of these
matters, turning our souls to better things." Basil of Caesarea
declared it "a matter of no interest to us whether the earth is a
sphere or a cylinder or a disk, or concave in the middle like a
fan." Lactantius referred to the ideas of those studying
astronomy as "bad and senseless," and opposed the doctrine of the
earth's sphericity both from Scripture and reason. St. John
Chrysostom also exerted his influence against this scientific
belief; and Ephraem Syrus, the greatest man of the old Syrian
Church, widely known as the "lute of the Holy Ghost," opposed it
no less earnestly.
But the strictly biblical men of science, such eminent fathers
and bishops as Theophilus of Antioch in the second century, and
Clement of Alexandria in the third, with others in centuries
following, were not content with merely opposing what they
stigmatized as an old heathen theory; they drew from their
Bibles a new Christian theory, to which one Church authority
added one idea and another, until it was fully developed. Taking
the survival of various early traditions, given in the seventh
verse of the first chapter of Genesis, they insisted on the clear
declarations of Scripture that the earth was, at creation, arched
over with a solid vault, "a firmament," and to this they added
the passages from Isaiah and the Psalms, in which it declared
that the heavens are stretched out "like a curtain," and again
"like a tent to dwell in." The universe, then, is like a house:
the earth is its ground floor, the firmament its ceiling, under
which the Almighty hangs out the sun to rule the day and the moon
and stars to rule the night. This ceiling is also the floor of
the apartment above, and in this is a cistern, shaped, as one of
the authorities says, "like a bathing-tank," and containing "the
waters which are above the firmament." These waters are let down
upon the earth by the Almighty and his angels through the
"windows of heaven." As to the movement of the sun, there was a
citation of various passages in Genesis, mixed with metaphysics
in various proportions, and this was thought to give ample proofs
from the Bible that the earth could not be a sphere.[27]
[27] For Eusebius, see the Proep. Ev., xv, 61. For Basil, see
the Hexaemeron, Hom. ix. For Lactantius, see his Inst. Div.,
lib. iii, cap. 3; also citations in Whewell, Hist. Induct.
Sciences, London, 1857, vol. i, p. 194, and in St. Martin,
Histoire de la Geographie, pp. 216, 217. For the views of St.
John Chrysostom, Ephraem Syrus, and other great churchmen, see
Kretschmer as above, chap i.
In the sixth century this development culminated in what was
nothing less than a complete and detailed system of the universe,
claiming to be based upon Scripture, its author being the
Egyptian monk Cosmas Indicopleustes. Egypt was a great
treasure-house of theologic thought to various religions of
antiquity, and Cosmas appears to have urged upon the early Church
this Egyptian idea of the construction of the world, just as
another Egyptian ecclesiastic, Athanasius, urged upon the Church
the Egyptian idea of a triune deity ruling the world. According
to Cosmas, the earth is a parallelogram, flat, and surrounded by
four seas. It is four hundred days' journey long and two hundred
broad. At the outer edges of these four seas arise massive walls
closing in the whole structure and supporting the firmament or
vault of the heavens, whose edges are cemented to the walls.
These walls inclose the earth and all the heavenly bodies.
The whole of this theologico-scientific structure was built most
carefully and, as was then thought, most scripturally. Starting
with the expression applied in the ninth chapter of Hebrews to
the tabernacle in the desert, Cosmas insists, with other
interpreters of his time, that it gives the key to the whole
construction of the world. The universe is, therefore, made on
the plan of the Jewish tabernacle--boxlike and oblong. Going
into details, he quotes the sublime words of Isaiah: "It is He
that sitteth upon the circle of the earth;...that stretcheth out
the heavens like a curtain, and spreadeth them out like a tent to
dwell in"; and the passage in Job which speaks of the "pillars of
heaven." He works all this into his system, and reveals, as he
thinks, treasures of science.
This vast box is divided into two compartments, one above the
other. In the first of these, men live and stars move; and it
extends up to the first solid vault, or firmament, above which
live the angels, a main part of whose business it is to push and
pull the sun and planets to and fro. Next, he takes the text,
"Let there be a firmament in the midst of the waters, and let it
divide the waters from the waters," and other texts from Genesis;
to these he adds the text from the Psalms, "Praise him, ye heaven
of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens" then casts
all, and these growths of thought into his crucible together,
finally brings out the theory that over this first vault is a
vast cistern containing "the waters." He then takes the
expression in Genesis regarding the "windows of heaven" and
establishes a doctrine regarding the regulation of the rain, to
the effect that the angels not only push and pull the heavenly
bodies to light the earth, but also open and close the heavenly
windows to water it.
To understand the surface of the earth, Cosmas, following the
methods of interpretation which Origen and other early fathers of
the Church had established, studies the table of shew-bread in
the Jewish tabernacle. The surface of this table proves to him
that the earth is flat, and its dimensions prove that the earth
is twice as long as broad; its four corners symbolize the four
seasons; the twelve loaves of bread, the twelve months; the
hollow about the table proves that the ocean surrounds the earth.
To account for the movement of the sun, Cosmas suggests that at
the north of the earth is a great mountain, and that at night the
sun is carried behind this; but some of the commentators
ventured to express a doubt here: they thought that the sun was
pushed into a pit at night and pulled out in the morning.
Nothing can be more touching in its simplicity than Cosmas's
summing up of his great argument, He declares, "We say therefore
with Isaiah that the heaven embracing the universe is a vault,
with Job that it is joined to the earth, and with Moses that the
length of the earth is greater than its breadth." The treatise
closes with rapturous assertions that not only Moses and the
prophets, but also angels and apostles, agree to the truth of his
doctrine, and that at the last day God will condemn all who do
not accept it.
Although this theory was drawn from Scripture, it was also, as we
have seen, the result of an evolution of theological thought
begun long before the scriptural texts on which it rested were
written. It was not at all strange that Cosmas, Egyptian as he
was, should have received this old Nile-born doctrine, as we see
it indicated to-day in the structure of Egyptian temples, and
that he should have developed it by the aid of the Jewish
Scriptures; but the theological world knew nothing of this more
remote evolution from pagan germs; it was received as virtually
inspired, and was soon regarded as a fortress of scriptural
truth. Some of the foremost men in the Church devoted themselves
to buttressing it with new texts and throwing about it new
outworks of theological reasoning; the great body of the
faithful considered it a direct gift from the Almighty. Even in
the later centuries of the Middle Ages John of San Geminiano made
a desperate attempt to save it. Like Cosmas, he takes the Jewish
tabernacle as his starting-point, and shows how all the newer
ideas can be reconciled with the biblical accounts of its shape,
dimensions, and furniture.[28]
[28] For a notice of the views of Cosmas in connection with those
of Lactantius, Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, and others, see
Schoell, Histoire de la Litterature Grecque, vol. vii, p. 37.
The main scriptural passages referred to are as follows: (1)
Isaiah xi, 22; (2) Genesis i, 6; (3) Genesis vii, 11; (4) Exodus
xxiv, 10; (5) Job xxvi, 11, and xxxvii, 18 (6) Psalm cxlviii, 4,
and civ, 9; (7) Ezekiel i, 22-26. For Cosmas's theory, see
Montfaucon, Collectio Nova Patrum, Paris, 1706, vol. ii, p.188;
also pp. 298, 299. The text is illustrated with engravings
showing walls and solid vault (firmament), with the whole
apparatus of "fountains of the great deep," "windows of heaven,"
angels, and the mountain behind which the sun is drawn. For
reduction of one of them, see Peschel, Gesschichte der Erdkunds,
p. 98; also article Maps, in Knight's Dictionary of Mechanics,
New York, 1875. For curious drawings showing Cosmas's scheme in
a different way from that given by Montfaucon, see extracts from a
Vatican codex of the ninth century in Garucci, Storia de l'Arte
Christiana, vol. iii, pp. 70 et seq. For a good discussion of
Cosmas's ideas, see Santarem, Hist. de la Cosmographie, vol. ii,
pp. 8 et seq., and for a very thorough discussion of its details,
Kretschmer, as above. For still another theory, very droll, and
thought out on similar principles, see Mungo Park, cited in De
Morgan, Paradoxes, p. 309. For Cosmas's joyful summing up, see
Montfaucon, Collectio Nova Patrum, vol. ii, p. 255. For the
curious survival in the thirteenth century of the old idea of the
"waters above the heavens," see the story in Gervase of Tilbury,
how in his time some people coming out of church in England found
an anchor let down by a rope out of the heavens, how there came
voices from sailors above trying to loose the anchor, and,
finally, how a sailor came down the rope, who, on reaching the
earth, died as if drowned in water. See Gervase of Tilbury, Otia
Imperialia, edit. Liebrecht, Hanover, 1856, Prima Decisio, cap.
xiii. The work was written about 1211. For John of San
Germiniano, see his Summa de Exemplis, lib. ix, cap. 43. For the
Egyptian Trinitarian views, see Sharpe, History of Egypt, vol. i,
pp. 94, 102.
From this old conception of the universe as a sort of house, with
heaven as its upper story and the earth as its ground floor,
flowed important theological ideas into heathen, Jewish, and
Christian mythologies. Common to them all are legends regarding
attempts of mortals to invade the upper apartment from the lower.
Of such are the Greek legends of the Aloidae, who sought to reach
heaven by piling up mountains, and were cast down; the Chaldean
and Hebrew legends of the wicked who at Babel sought to build "a
tower whose top may reach heaven," which Jehovah went down from
heaven to see, and which he brought to naught by the "confusion
of tongues"; the Hindu legend of the tree which sought to grow
into heaven and which Brahma blasted; and the Mexican legend of
the giants who sought to reach heaven by building the Pyramid of
Cholula, and who were overthrown by fire from above.
Myths having this geographical idea as their germ developed in
luxuriance through thousands of years. Ascensions to heaven and
descents from it, "translations," "assumptions," "annunciations,"
mortals "caught up" into it and returning, angels flying between
it and the earth, thunderbolts hurled down from it, mighty winds
issuing from its corners, voices speaking from the upper floor to
men on the lower, temporary openings of the floor of heaven to
reveal the blessedness of the good, "signs and wonders" hung out
from it to warn the wicked, interventions of every kind--from the
heathen gods coming down on every sort of errand, and Jehovah
coming down to walk in Eden in the cool of the day, to St. Mark
swooping down into the market-place of Venice to break the
shackles of a slave--all these are but features in a vast
evolution of myths arising largely from this geographical germ.
Nor did this evolution end here. Naturally, in this view of
things, if heaven was a loft, hell was a cellar; and if there
were ascensions into one, there were descents into the other.
Hell being so near, interferences by its occupants with the
dwellers of the earth just above were constant, and form a vast
chapter in medieval literature. Dante made this conception of
the location of hell still more vivid, and we find some forms of
it serious barriers to geographical investigation. Many a bold
navigator, who was quite ready to brave pirates and tempests,
trembled at the thought of tumbling with his ship into one of the
openings into hell which a widespread belief placed in the
Atlantic at some unknown distance from Europe. This terror among
sailors was one of the main obstacles in the great voyage of
Columbus. In a medieval text-book, giving science the form of a
dialogue, occur the following question and answer: "Why is the
sun so red in the evening?" "Because he looketh down upon hell."
But the ancient germ of scientific truth in geography--the idea
of the earth's sphericity--still lived. Although the great
majority of the early fathers of the Church, and especially
Lactantius, had sought to crush it beneath the utterances
attributed to Isaiah, David, and St. Paul, the better opinion of
Eudoxus and Aristotle could not be forgotten. Clement of
Alexandria and Origen had even supported it. Ambrose and
Augustine had tolerated it, and, after Cosmas had held sway a
hundred years, it received new life from a great churchman of
southern Europe, Isidore of Seville, who, however fettered by the
dominant theology in many other things, braved it in this. In
the eighth century a similar declaration was made in the north of
Europe by another great Church authority, Bede. Against the new
life thus given to the old truth, the sacred theory struggled
long and vigorously but in vain. Eminent authorities in later
ages, like Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, Dante, and
Vincent of Beauvais, felt obliged to accept the doctrine of the
earth's sphericity, and as we approach the modern period we find
its truth acknowledged by the vast majority of thinking men. The
Reformation did not at first yield fully to this better theory.
Luther, Melanchthon, and Calvin were very strict in their
adherence to the exact letter of Scripture. Even Zwingli, broad
as his views generally were, was closely bound down in this
matter, and held to the opinion of the fathers that a great
firmament, or floor, separated the heavens from the earth; that
above it were the waters and angels, and below it the earth and
man.
The main scope given to independent thought on this general
subject among the Reformers was in a few minor speculations
regarding the universe which encompassed Eden, the exact
character of the conversation of the serpent with Eve, and the
like.
In the times immediately following the Reformation matters were
even worse. The interpretations of Scripture by Luther and
Calvin became as sacred to their followers as the Scripture
itself. When Calixt ventured, in interpreting the Psalms, to
question the accepted belief that "the waters above the heavens"
were contained in a vast receptacle upheld by a solid vault, he
was bitterly denounced as heretical.
In the latter part of the sixteenth century Musaeus interpreted
the accounts in Genesis to mean that first God made the heavens
for the roof or vault, and left it there on high swinging until
three days later he put the earth under it. But the new
scientific thought as to the earth's form had gained the day.
The most sturdy believers were obliged to adjust their, biblical
theories to it as best they could.[29]
[29] For a discussion of the geographical views of Isidore and
Bede, see Santarem, Cosmographie, vol i, pp. 22-24. For the
gradual acceptance of the idea of the earth's sphericity after
the eighth century, see Kretschmer, pp. 51 et seq., where
citations from a multitude of authors are given. For the views
of the Reformers, see Zockler, vol. i, pp. 679 and 693. For
Calixt, Musaeus, and others, ibid., pp. 673-677 and 761.
II. THE DELINEATION OF THE EARTH.
Every great people of antiquity, as a rule, regarded its own
central city or most holy place as necessarily the centre of the
earth.
The Chaldeans held that their "holy house of the gods" was the
centre. The Egyptians sketched the world under the form of a
human figure, in which Egypt was the heart, and the centre of it
Thebes. For the Assyrians, it was Babylon; for the Hindus, it
was Mount Meru; for the Greeks, so far as the civilized world was
concerned, Olympus or the temple at Delphi; for the modern
Mohammedans, it is Mecca and its sacred stone; the Chinese, to
this day, speak of their empire as the "middle kingdom." It was
in accordance, then, with a simple tendency of human thought that
the Jews believed the centre of the world to be Jerusalem.
The book of Ezekiel speaks of Jerusalem as in the middle of the
earth, and all other parts of the world as set around the holy
city. Throughout the "ages of faith" this was very generally
accepted as a direct revelation from the Almighty regarding the
earth's form. St. Jerome, the greatest authority of the early
Church upon the Bible, declared, on the strength of this
utterance of the prophet, that Jerusalem could be nowhere but at
the earth's centre; in the ninth century Archbishop Rabanus
Maurus reiterated the same argument; in the eleventh century
Hugh of St. Victor gave to the doctrine another scriptural
demonstration; and Pope Urban, in his great sermon at Clermont
urging the Franks to the crusade, declared, "Jerusalem is the
middle point of the earth"; in the thirteenth century an
ecclesiastical writer much in vogue, the monk Caesarius of
Heisterbach, declared, "As the heart in the midst of the body, so
is Jerusalem situated in the midst of our inhabited earth,"--"so
it was that Christ was crucified at the centre of the earth."
Dante accepted this view of Jerusalem as a certainty, wedding it
to immortal verse; and in the pious book of travels ascribed to
Sir John Mandeville, so widely read in the Middle Ages, it is
declared that Jerusalem is at the centre of the world, and that a
spear standing erect at the Holy Sepulchre casts no shadow at the
equinox.
Ezekiel's statement thus became the standard of orthodoxy to
early map-makers. The map of the world at Hereford Cathedral,
the maps of Andrea Bianco, Marino Sanuto, and a multitude of
others fixed this view in men's minds, and doubtless discouraged
during many generations any scientific statements tending to
unbalance this geographical centre revealed in Scripture.[30]
[30] For beliefs of various nations of antiquity that the earth's
center was in their most sacred place, see citations from
Maspero, Charton, Sayce, and others in Lethaby, Architecture,
Mysticism, and Myth, chap. iv. As to the Greeks, we have typical
statements in the Eumenides of Aeschylus, where the stone in the
altar at Delphi is repeatedly called "the earth's navel"--which
is precisely the expression used regarding Jerusalem in the
Septuagint translation of Ezekiel (see below). The proof texts
on which the mediaeval geographers mainly relied as to the form
of the earth were Ezekiel v, 5, and xxxviii, 12. The progress of
geographical knowledge evidently caused them to be softened down
somewhat in our King James's version; but the first of them
reads, in the Vulgate, "Ista est Hierusalem, in medio gentium
posui eam et in circuitu ejus terrae"; and the second reads, in
the Vulgate, "in medio terrae," and in the Septuagint, .
That the literal centre of the earth was understood, see proof in
St. Jerome, Commentat. in Ezekiel, lib. ii; and for general
proof, see Leopardi, Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli
antichi, pp. 207, 208. For Rabanus Maurus, see his De Universo,
lib. xii, cap. 4, in Migne, tome cxi, p. 339. For Hugh of St.
Victor, se his De Situ Terrarum, cap. ii. For Dante's belief,
see Inferno, canto xxxiv, 112-115:
"E se' or sotto l'emisperio giunto,
Ch' e opposito a quel che la gran secca
Coverchia, e sotto il cui colmo consunto
Fu l'uom che nacque e visse senza pecca."
For orthodox geography in the Middle Ages, see Wright's Essays on
Archaeology, vol. ii, chapter on the map of the world in Hereford
Cathedral; also the rude maps in Cardinal d'Ailly's Ymago Mundi;
also copies of maps of Marino Sanuto and others in Peschel,
Erdkunde, p. 210; also Munster, Fac Simile dell' Atlante di
Andrea Bianco, Venezia, 1869. And for discussions of the whole
subject, see Satarem, vol. ii, p. 295, vol. iii, pp. 71, 183,
184, and elsewhere. For a brief summary with citations, see
Eiken, Geschichte, etc., pp. 622, 623.
Nor did medieval thinkers rest with this conception. In
accordance with the dominant view that physical truth must be
sought by theological reasoning, the doctrine was evolved that
not only the site of the cross on Calvary marked the geographical
centre of the world, but that on this very spot had stood the
tree which bore the forbidden fruit in Eden. Thus was geography
made to reconcile all parts of the great theologic plan. This
doctrine was hailed with joy by multitudes; and we find in the
works of medieval pilgrims to Palestine, again and again,
evidence that this had become precious truth to them, both in
theology and geography. Even as late as 1664 the eminent French
priest Eugene Roger, in his published travels in Palestine, dwelt
upon the thirty-eighth chapter of Ezekiel, coupled with a text
from Isaiah, to prove that the exact centre of the earth is a
spot marked on the pavement of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre,
and that on this spot once stood the tree which bore the
forbidden fruit and the cross of Christ.[31]
[31] For the site of the cross on Calvary, as the point where
stood "the tree of the knowledge of good and evil" in Eden, at
the centre of the earth, see various Eastern travellers cited in
Tobler; but especially the travels of Bishop Arculf in the Holy
Land, in Wright's Early Travels in Palestine, p. 8; also Travels
of Saewulf, ibid, p. 38; also Sir John Mandeville, ibid., pp.
166, 167. For Roger, see his La Terre Saincte, Paris, 1664, pp.
89-217, etc.; see also Quaresmio, Terrae Sanctae Elucidatio,
1639, for similar view; and, for one narrative in which the idea
was developed into an amazing mass of pious myths, see Pilgrimage
of the Russian Abbot Daniel, edited by Sir C. W. Wilson, London,
1885, p. 14. (The passage deserves to be quoted as an example of
myth-making; it is as follows: "At the time of our Lord's
crucifixion, when he gave up the ghost on the cross, the veil of
the temple was rent, and the rock above Adam's skull opened, and
the blood and water which flowed from Christ's side ran down
through the fissure upon the skull, thus washing away the sins of
men.")
Nor was this the only misconception which forced its way from our
sacred writings into medieval map-making: two others were almost
as marked. First of these was the vague terror inspired by Gog
and Magog. Few passages in the Old Testament are more sublime
than the denunciation of these great enemies by Ezekiel; and the
well-known statement in the Apocalypse fastened the Hebrew
feeling regarding them with a new meaning into the mind of the
early Church: hence it was that the medieval map-makers took
great pains to delineate these monsters and their habitations on
the maps. For centuries no map was considered orthodox which did
not show them.
The second conception was derived from the mention in our sacred
books of the "four winds." Hence came a vivid belief in their
real existence, and their delineation on the maps, generally as
colossal heads with distended cheeks, blowing vigorously toward
Jerusalem.
After these conceptions had mainly disappeared we find here and
there evidences of the difficulty men found in giving up the
scriptural idea of direct personal interference by agents of
Heaven in the ordinary phenomena of Nature: thus, in a noted map
of the sixteenth century representing the earth as a sphere,
there is at each pole a crank, with an angel laboriously turning
the earth by means of it; and, in another map, the hand of the
Almighty, thrust forth from the clouds, holds the earth suspended
by a rope and spins it with his thumb and fingers. Even as late
as the middle of the seventeenth century Heylin, the most
authoritative English geographer of the time, shows a like
tendency to mix science and theology. He warps each to help the
other, as follows: "Water, making but one globe with the earth,
is yet higher than it. This appears, first, because it is a body
not so heavy; secondly, it is observed by sailors that their
ships move faster to the shore than from it, whereof no reason
can be given but the height of the water above the land;
thirdly, to such as stand on the shore the sea seems to swell
into the form of a round hill till it puts a bound upon our
sight. Now that the sea, hovering thus over and above the earth,
doth not overwhelm it, can be ascribed only to his Providence who
`hath made the waters to stand on an heap that they turn not
again to cover the earth.'"[32]
[32] For Gog and Magog, see Ezekiel xxxviii and xxxix, and Rev.
xx, 8; and for the general subject, Toy, Judaism and
Christianity, Boston, 1891, pp. 373, 374. For maps showing these
two great terrors, and for geographical discussion regarding
them, see Lelewel, Geog. du Moyen Age, Bruxelles, 1850, Atlas;
also Ruge, Gesch. des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, Berlin, 1881,
pp. 78, 79; also Peschel's Abhandlungen, pp.28-35, and Gesch. der
Erdkunde, p. 210. For representations on maps of the "Four
Winds," see Charton, Voyageurs, tome ii, p. 11; also Ruge, as
above, pp. 324, 325; also for a curious mixture of the scriptural
winds issuing from the bags of Aeolus, see a map of the twelfth
century in Leon Gautier, La Chevalerie, p. 153; and for maps
showing additional winds, see various editions of Ptolemy. For a
map with angels turning the earth by means of cranks at the
poles, see Grynaeus, Novus Orbis, Basileae, 1537. For the globe
kept spinning by the Almighty, see J. Hondius's map, 1589; and
for Heylin, his first folio, 1652, p. 27.
III. THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH.
Even while the doctrine of the sphericity of the earth was
undecided, another question had been suggested which theologians
finally came to consider of far greater importance. The doctrine
of the sphericity of the earth naturally led to thought regarding
its inhabitants, and another ancient germ was warmed into
life--the idea of antipodes: of human beings on the earth's
opposite sides.
In the Greek and Roman world this idea had found supporters and
opponents, Cicero and Pliny being among the former, and Epicurus,
Lucretius, and Plutarch among the latter. Thus the problem came
into the early Church unsolved.
Among the first churchmen to take it up was, in the East, St.
Gregory Nazianzen, who showed that to sail beyond Gibraltar was
impossible; and, in the West, Lactantius, who asked: "Is there
any one so senseless as to believe that there are men whose
footsteps are higher than their heads?. . . that the crops and
trees grow downward?. . . that the rains and snow and hail
fall upward toward the earth?. . . I am at a loss what to say
of those who, when they have once erred, steadily persevere in
their folly and defend one vain thing by another."
In all this contention by Gregory and Lactantius there was
nothing to be especially regretted, for, whatever their motive,
they simply supported their inherited belief on grounds of
natural law and probability.
Unfortunately, the discussion was not long allowed to rest on
these scientific and philosophical grounds; other Christian
thinkers followed, who in their ardour adduced texts of
Scripture, and soon the question had become theological;
hostility to the belief in antipodes became dogmatic. The
universal Church was arrayed against it, and in front of the vast
phalanx stood, to a man, the fathers.
To all of them this idea seemed dangerous; to most of them it
seemed damnable. St. Basil and St. Ambrose were tolerant
enough to allow that a man might be saved who thought the earth
inhabited on its opposite sides; but the great majority of the
fathers doubted the possibility of salvation to such
misbelievers. The great champion of the orthodox view was St.
Augustine. Though he seemed inclined to yield a little in regard
to the sphericity of the earth, he fought the idea that men exist
on the other side of it, saying that "Scripture speaks of no such
descendants of Adam," he insists that men could not be allowed
by the Almighty to live there, since if they did they could not
see Christ at His second coming descending through the air. But
his most cogent appeal, one which we find echoed from theologian
to theologian during a thousand years afterward, is to the
nineteenth Psalm, and to its confirmation in the Epistle to the
Romans; to the words, "Their line is gone out through all the
earth, and their words to the end of the world." He dwells with
great force on the fact that St. Paul based one of his most
powerful arguments upon this declaration regarding the preachers
of the gospel, and that he declared even more explicitly that
"Verily, their sound went into all the earth, and their words
unto the ends of the world." Thenceforth we find it constantly
declared that, as those preachers did not go to the antipodes, no
antipodes can exist; and hence that the supporters of this
geographical doctrine "give the lie direct to King David and to
St. Paul, and therefore to the Holy Ghost." Thus the great
Bishop of Hippo taught the whole world for over a thousand years
that, as there was no preaching of the gospel on the opposite
side of the earth, there could be no human beings there.
The great authority of Augustine, and the cogency of his
scriptural argument, held the Church firmly against the doctrine
of the antipodes; all schools of interpretation were now
agreed--the followers of the allegorical tendencies of
Alexandria, the strictly literal exegetes of Syria, the more
eclectic theologians of the West. For over a thousand years it
was held in the Church, "always, everywhere, and by all," that
there could not be human beings on the opposite sides of the
earth, even if the earth had opposite sides; and, when attacked
by gainsayers, the great mass of true believers, from the fourth
century to the fifteenth, simply used that opiate which had so
soothing an effect on John Henry Newman in the nineteenth
century--securus judicat orbis terrarum.
Yet gainsayers still appeared. That the doctrine of the
antipodes continued to have life, is shown by the fact that in
the sixth century Procopius of Gaza attacks it with a tremendous
argument. He declares that, if there be men on the other side of
the earth, Christ must have gone there and suffered a second time
to save them; and, therefore, that there must have been there, as
necessary preliminaries to his coming, a duplicate Eden, Adam,
serpent, and deluge.
Cosmas Indicopleustes also attacked the doctrine with especial
bitterness, citing a passage from St. Luke to prove that
antipodes are theologically impossible.
At the end of the sixth century came a man from whom much might
be expected--St. Isidore of Seville. He had pondered over
ancient thought in science, and, as we have seen, had dared
proclaim his belief in the sphericity of the earth; but with that
he stopped. As to the antipodes, the authority of the Psalmist,
St. Paul, and St. Augustine silences him; he shuns the whole
question as unlawful, subjects reason to faith, and declares that
men can not and ought not to exist on opposite sides of the
earth.[33]
[33]For the opinions of Basil, Ambrose, and others, see Lecky,
History of Rationalism in Europe, New York, 1872, vol. i, p. 279.
Also Letronne, in Revue des Deux Mondes, March, 1834. For
Lactantius, see citations already given. For St. Augustine's
opinion, see the De Civitate Dei, xvi, 9, where this great father
of the church shows that the antipodes "nulla ratione credendum
est." For the unanimity of the fathers against the antipodes,
see Zockler, vol. 1, p. 127. For a very naive summary, see
Joseph Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies, Grimston's
translation, republished by the Hakluyt Soc., chaps. vii and
viii; also citations in Buckle's Posthumous Works, vol. ii, p.
645. For Procopius of Gaza, see Kretschmer, p. 55. See also, on
the general subject, Peschel, Geschichte der Erdkunde, pp. 96-97.
For Isidore, see citations already given. To understand the
embarrassment caused by these utterances of the fathers to
scientific men of a later period, see letter of Agricola to
Joachim Vadianus in 1514. Agricola asks Vadianus to give his
views regarding the antipodes, saying that he himself does not
know what to do, between the fathers on the one side and the
learned men of modern times on the other. On the other hand, for
the embarrassment caused to the Church by this mistaken zeal of
the fathers, see Kepler's references and Fromund's replies; also
De Morgan, Paradoxes, p. 58. Kepler appears to have taken great
delight in throwing the views of Lactantius into the teeth of his
adversaries.
Under such pressure this scientific truth seems to have
disappeared for nearly two hundred years; but by the eighth
century the sphericity of the earth had come to be generally
accepted among the leaders of thought, and now the doctrine of
the antipodes was again asserted by a bishop, Virgil of Salzburg.
There then stood in Germany, in those first years of the eighth
century, one of the greatest and noblest of men--St. Boniface.
His learning was of the best then known. In labours he was a
worthy successor of the apostles; his genius for Christian work
made him unwillingly primate of Germany; his devotion to duty
led him willingly to martyrdom. There sat, too, at that time, on
the papal throne a great Christian statesman--Pope Zachary.
Boniface immediately declared against the revival of such a
heresy as the doctrine of the antipodes; he stigmatized it as an
assertion that there are men beyond the reach of the appointed
means of salvation; he attacked Virgil, and called on Pope
Zachary for aid.
The Pope, as the infallible teacher of Christendom, made a strong
response. He cited passages from the book of Job and the Wisdom
of Solomon against the doctrine of the antipodes; he declared it
"perverse, iniquitous, and against Virgil's own soul," and
indicated a purpose of driving him from his bishopric. Whether
this purpose was carried out or not, the old theological view, by
virtue of the Pope's divinely ordered and protected "inerrancy,"
was re-established, and the doctrine that the earth has
inhabitants on but one of its sides became more than ever
orthodox, and precious in the mind of the Church.[34]
[34] For Virgil of Salzburg, see Neander's History of the
Christian Church, Torrey's translation, vol. iii, p. 63; also
Herzog, Real-Encyklopadie, etc., recent edition by Prof. Hauck,
s. v. Virgilius; also Kretschmer, pp. 56-58; also Whewell, vol.
i, p. 197; also De Morgan, Budget of Paradoxes, pp. 24-26. For
very full notes as to pagan and Christian advocates of the
doctrine of the sphericity of the earth and of the antipodes, and
for extract from Zachary's letter, see Migne, Patrologia, vol.
vi, p. 426, and vol. xli, p. 487. For St. Boniface's part, see
Bonifacii Epistolae, ed. Giles, i, 173. Berger de Xivrey,
Traditions Teratologiques, pp. 186-188, makes a curious attempt
to show that Pope Zachary denounced the wrong man; that the real
offender was a Roman poet--in the sixth book of the Aeneid and
the first book of the Georgics.
This decision seems to have been regarded as final, and five
centuries later the great encyclopedist of the Middle Ages,
Vincent of Beauvais, though he accepts the sphericity of the
earth, treats the doctrine of the antipodes as disproved, because
contrary to Scripture. Yet the doctrine still lived. Just as it
had been previously revived by William of Conches and then laid
to rest, so now it is somewhat timidly brought out in the
thirteenth century by no less a personage than Albert the Great,
the most noted man of science in that time. But his utterances
are perhaps purposely obscure. Again it disappears beneath the
theological wave, and a hundred years later Nicolas d'Oresme,
geographer of the King of France, a light of science, is forced
to yield to the clear teaching of the Scripture as cited by St.
Augustine.
Nor was this the worst. In Italy, at the beginning of the
fourteenth century, the Church thought it necessary to deal with
questions of this sort by rack and fagot. In 1316 Peter of
Abano, famous as a physician, having promulgated this with other
obnoxious doctrines in science, only escaped the Inquisition by
death; and in 1327 Cecco d'Ascoli, noted as an astronomer, was
for this and other results of thought, which brought him under
suspicion of sorcery, driven from his professorship at Bologna
and burned alive at Florence. Nor was this all his punishment:
Orcagna, whose terrible frescoes still exist on the walls of the
Campo Santo at Pisa, immortalized Cecco by representing him in
the flames of hell.[35]
[35] For Vincent of Beauvais and the antipode, see his Speculum
Naturale, Book VII, with citations from St. Augustine, De
Civitate Dei, cap. xvi. For Albert the Great's doctrine
regarding the antipodes, compare Kretschmer, as above, with
Eicken, Geschichte, etc., p. 621. Kretschmer finds that Albert
supports the doctrine, and Eicken finds that he denies it--a fair
proof that Albert was not inclined to state his views with
dangerous clearness. For D'Oresme, see Santerem, Histoire de la
Cosmographie, vol. i, p. 142. For Peter of Abano, or Apono, as
he is often called, see Tiraboschi, also Guinguene, vol. ii, p.
293; also Naude, Histoire des Grands Hommes soupconnes de Magie.
For Cecco d'Ascoli, see Montucla, Histoire de Mathematiques, i,
528; also Daunou, Etudes Historiques, vol. vi, p. 320; also
Kretschmer, p. 59. Concerning Orcagna's representation of Cecco
in the flames of hell, see Renan, Averroes et l'Averroisme,
Paris, 1867, p. 328.
Years rolled on, and there came in the fifteenth century one from
whom the world had a right to expect much. Pierre d'Ailly, by
force of thought and study, had risen to be Provost of the
College of St. Die in Lorraine; his ability had made that little
village a centre of scientific thought for all Europe, and
finally made him Archbishop of Cambray and a cardinal. Toward
the end of the fifteenth century was printed what Cardinal
d'Ailly had written long before as a summing up of his best
thought and research--the collection of essays known as the Ymago
Mundi. It gives us one of the most striking examples in history
of a great man in theological fetters. As he approaches this
question he states it with such clearness that we expect to hear
him assert the truth; but there stands the argument of St.
Augustine; there, too, stand the biblical texts on which it is
founded--the text from the Psalms and the explicit declaration of
St. Paul to the Romans, "Their sound went into all the earth, and
their words unto the ends of the world." D'Ailly attempts to
reason, but he is overawed, and gives to the world virtually
nothing.
Still, the doctrine of the antipodes lived and moved: so much so
that the eminent Spanish theologian Tostatus, even as late as the
age of Columbus, felt called upon to protest against it as
"unsafe." He had shaped the old missile of St. Augustine into
the following syllogism: "The apostles were commanded to go into
all the world and to preach the gospel to every creature; they
did not go to any such part of the world as the antipodes; they
did not preach to any creatures there: ergo, no antipodes
exist."
The warfare of Columbus the world knows well: how the Bishop of
Ceuta worsted him in Portugal; how sundry wise men of Spain
confronted him with the usual quotations from the Psalms, from
St. Paul, and from St. Augustine; how, even after he was
triumphant, and after his voyage had greatly strengthened the
theory of the earth's sphericity, with which the theory of the
antipodes was so closely connected, the Church by its highest
authority solemnly stumbled and persisted in going astray. In
1493 Pope Alexander VI, having been appealed to as an umpire
between the claims of Spain and Portugal to the newly discovered
parts of the earth, issued a bull laying down upon the earth's
surface a line of demarcation between the two powers. This line
was drawn from north to south a hundred leagues west of the
Azores; and the Pope in the plenitude of his knowledge declared
that all lands discovered east of this line should belong to the
Portuguese, and all west of it should belong to the Spaniards.
This was hailed as an exercise of divinely illuminated power by
the Church; but difficulties arose, and in 1506 another attempt
was made by Pope Julius II to draw the line three hundred and
seventy leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. This, again, was
supposed to bring divine wisdom to settle the question; but,
shortly, overwhelming difficulties arose; for the Portuguese
claimed Brazil, and, of course, had no difficulty in showing that
they could reach it by sailing to the east of the line, provided
they sailed long enough. The lines laid down by Popes Alexander
and Julius may still be found upon the maps of the period, but
their bulls have quietly passed into the catalogue of ludicrous
errors.
Yet the theological barriers to this geographical truth yielded
but slowly. Plain as it had become to scholars, they hesitated
to declare it to the world at large. Eleven hundred years had
passed since St. Augustine had proved its antagonism to
Scripture, when Gregory Reysch gave forth his famous
encyclopaedia, the Margarita Philosophica. Edition after edition
was issued, and everywhere appeared in it the orthodox
statements; but they were evidently strained to the breaking
point; for while, in treating of the antipodes, Reysch refers
respectfully to St. Augustine as objecting to the scientific
doctrine, he is careful not to cite Scripture against it, and not
less careful to suggest geographical reasoning in favour of it.
But in 1519 science gains a crushing victory. Magellan makes his
famous voyage. He proves the earth to be round, for his
expedition circumnavigates it; he proves the doctrine of the
antipodes, for his shipmates see the peoples of the antipodes.
Yet even this does not end the war. Many conscientious men
oppose the doctrine for two hundred years longer. Then the
French astronomers make their measurements of degrees in
equatorial and polar regions, and add to their proofs that of the
lengthened pendulum. When this was done, when the deductions of
science were seen to be established by the simple test of
measurement, beautifully and perfectly, and when a long line of
trustworthy explorers, including devoted missionaries, had sent
home accounts of the antipodes, then, and then only, this war of
twelve centuries ended.
Such was the main result of this long war; but there were other
results not so fortunate. The efforts of Eusebius, Basil, and
Lactantius to deaden scientific thought; the efforts of
Augustine to combat it; the efforts of Cosmas to crush it by
dogmatism; the efforts of Boniface and Zachary to crush it by
force, conscientious as they all were, had resulted simply in
impressing upon many leading minds the conviction that science
and religion are enemies.
On the other hand, what was gained by the warriors of science for
religion? Certainly a far more worthy conception of the world,
and a far more ennobling conception of that power which pervades
and directs it. Which is more consistent with a great religion,
the cosmography of Cosmas or that of Isaac Newton? Which
presents a nobler field for religious thought, the diatribes of
Lactantius or the calm statements of Humboldt?[36]
[36] For D'Ailly's acceptance of St. Augustine's argument, see
the Ymago Mundi, cap. vii. For Tostatus, see Zockler, vol. i,
pp. 467, 468. He based his opposition on Romans x, 18. For
Columbus, see Winsor, Fiske, and Adams; also Humboldt, Histoire
de la Geographie du Nouveau Continent. For the bull of Alexander
VI, see Daunou, Etudes Historiques, vol. ii, p. 417; also
Peschel, Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, Book II, chap. iv. The text
of the bull is given with an English translation in Arber's
reprint of The First Three English Books on America, etc.,
Birmingham, 1885, pp. 201-204; also especially Peschel, Die
Theilung der Erde unter Papst Alexander VI and Julius II,
Leipsic, 1871, pp. 14 et seq. For remarks on the power under
which the line was drawn by Alexander VI, see Mamiani, Del Papato
nei Tre Ultimi Secoli, p. 170. For maps showing lines of
division, see Kohl, Die beiden altesten General-Karten von
Amerika, Weimar, 1860, where maps of 1527 and 1529 are
reproduced; also Mercator, Atlas, tenth edition, Amsterdam, 1628,
pp. 70, 71. For latest discussion on The Demarcation Line of
Alexander VI, see E. G. Bourne in Yale Review, May, 1892. For the
Margarita Philosophica, see the editions of 1503, 1509, 1517,
lib. vii, cap. 48. For the effect of Magellan's voyages, and the
reluctance to yield to proof, see Henri Martin, Histoire de
France, vol. xiv, p. 395; St. Martin's Histoire de la Geographie,
p. 369; Peschel, Geschichte des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen,
concluding chapters; and for an admirable summary, Draper, Hist.
Int. Devel. of Europe, pp. 451-453; also an interesting passage
in Sir Thomas Brown's Vulgar and Common Errors, Book I, chap. vi;
also a striking passage in Acosta, chap. ii. For general
statement as to supplementary proof by measurement of degrees and
by pendulum, see Somerville, Phys. Geog., chap. i, par. 6, note;
also Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. ii, p. 736, and vol. v, pp. 16, 32;
also Montucla, iv, 138. As to the effect of travel, see Acosta's
history above cited. The good missionary says, in Grimston's
quaint translation, "Whatsoever Lactantius saith, wee that live
now at Peru, and inhabite that parte of the worlde which is
opposite to Asia and theire Antipodes, finde not ourselves to bee
hanging in the aire, our heades downward and our feete on high."
IV. THE SIZE OF THE EARTH.
But at an early period another subject in geography had stirred
the minds of thinking men--THE EARTH'S SIZE. Various ancient
investigators had by different methods reached measurements more
or less near the truth; these methods were continued into the
Middle Ages, supplemented by new thought, and among the more
striking results were those obtained by Roger Bacon and Gerbert,
afterward Pope Sylvester II. They handed down to after-time the
torch of knowledge, but, as their reward among their
contemporaries, they fell under the charge of sorcery.
Far more consonant with the theological spirit of the Middle Ages
was a solution of the problem from Scripture, and this solution
deserves to be given as an example of a very curious theological
error, chancing to result in the establishment of a great truth.
The second book of Esdras, which among Protestants is placed in
the Apocrypha, was held by many of the foremost men of the
ancient Church as fully inspired: though Jerome looked with
suspicion on this book, it was regarded as prophetic by Clement
of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Ambrose, and the Church acquiesced
in that view. In the Eastern Church it held an especially high
place, and in the Western Church, before the Reformation, was
generally considered by the most eminent authorities to be part
of the sacred canon. In the sixth chapter of this book there is
a summary of the works of creation, and in it occur the following
verses:
"Upon the third day thou didst command that the waters should be
gathered in the seventh part of the earth; six parts hast thou
dried up and kept them to the intent that of these some, being
planted of God and tilled, might serve thee."
"Upon the fifth day thou saidst unto the seventh part where the
waters were gathered, that it should bring forth living
creatures, fowls and fishes, and so it came to pass."
These statements were reiterated in other verses, and were
naturally considered as of controlling authority.
Among the scholars who pondered on this as on all things likely
to increase knowledge was Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly. As we have
seen, this great man, while he denied the existence of the
antipodes, as St. Augustine had done, believed firmly in the
sphericity of the earth, and, interpreting these statements of
the book of Esdras in connection with this belief, he held that,
as only one seventh of the earth's surface was covered by water,
the ocean between the west coast of Europe and the east coast of
Asia could not be very wide. Knowing, as he thought, the extent
of the land upon the globe, he felt that in view of this divinely
authorized statement the globe must be much smaller, and the land
of "Zipango," reached by Marco Polo, on the extreme east coast of
Asia, much nearer than had been generally believed.
On this point he laid stress in his great work, the Ymago Mundi,
and an edition of it having been published in the days when
Columbus was thinking most closely upon the problem of a westward
voyage, it naturally exercised much influence upon his
reasonings. Among the treasures of the library at Seville, there
is nothing more interesting than a copy of this work annotated by
Columbus himself: from this very copy it was that Columbus
obtained confirmation of his belief that the passage across the
ocean to Marco Polo's land of Zipango in Asia was short. But for
this error, based upon a text supposed to be inspired, it is
unlikely that Columbus could have secured the necessary support
for his voyage. It is a curious fact that this single
theological error thus promoted a series of voyages which
completely destroyed not only this but every other conception of
geography based upon the sacred writings.[37]
[37] For this error, so fruitful in discovery, see D'Ailly, Ymago
Mundi; the passage referred to is fol. 12 verso. For the passage
from Esdras, see chap. vi, verses 42, 47, 50, and 52; see also
Zockler, Geschichte der Beziehungen zwischen Theologie und
Naturweissenschaft, vol. i, p. 461. For one of the best recent
statements, see Ruge, Gesch. des Zeitalters der Entdeckungen,
Berlin, 1882, pp. 221 et seq. For a letter of Columbus
acknowledging his indebtedness to this mistake in Esdras, see
Navarrete, Viajes y Descubrimientos, Madrid, 1825, tome i, pp.
242, 264; also Humboldt, Hist. de la Geographie du Nouveau
Continent, vol. i, pp. 68, 69.
V. THE CHARACTER OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE.
It would be hardly just to dismiss the struggle for geographical
truth without referring to one passage more in the history of the
Protestant Church, for it shows clearly the difficulties in the
way of the simplest statement of geographical truth which
conflicted with the words of the sacred books.
In the year 1553 Michael Servetus was on trial for his life at
Geneva on the charge of Arianism. Servetus had rendered many
services to scientific truth, and one of these was an edition of
Ptolemy's Geography, in which Judea was spoken of, not as "a
land flowing with milk and honey," but, in strict accordance with
the truth, as, in the main, meagre, barren, and inhospitable. In
his trial this simple statement of geographical fact was used
against him by his arch-enemy John Calvin with fearful power. In
vain did Servetus plead that he had simply drawn the words from a
previous edition of Ptolemy; in vain did he declare that this
statement was a simple geographical truth of which there were
ample proofs: it was answered that such language "necessarily
inculpated Moses, and grievously outraged the Holy Ghost."[38]
[38] For Servetus's geographical offense, see Rilliet, Relation
du Proces criminel contre Michel Servet d'apres les Documents
originaux, Geneva, 1844, pp. 42,43; also Willis, Servetus and
Calvin, London, 1877, p. 325. The passage condemned is in the
Ptolemy of 1535, fol. 41. It was discreetly retrenched in a
reprint of the same edition.
In summing up the action of the Church upon geography, we must
say, then, that the dogmas developed in strict adherence to
Scripture and the conceptions held in the Church during many
centuries "always, every where, and by all," were, on the whole,
steadily hostile to truth; but it is only just to make a
distinction here between the religious and the theological
spirit. To the religious spirit are largely due several of the
noblest among the great voyages of discovery. A deep longing to
extend the realms of Christianity influenced the minds of Prince
John of Portugal, in his great series of efforts along the
African coast; of Vasco da Gama, in his circumnavigation of the
Cape of Good Hope; of Magellan, in his voyage around the world;
and doubtless found a place among the more worldly motives of
Columbus.[39]
[39] As to the earlier mixture in the motives of Columbus, it may
be well to compare with the earlier biographies the recent ones
by Dr. Winsor and President Adams.
Thus, in this field, from the supremacy accorded to theology, we
find resulting that tendency to dogmatism which has shown itself
in all ages the deadly foe not only of scientific inquiry but of
the higher religious spirit itself, while from the love of truth
for truth's sake, which has been the inspiration of all fruitful
work in science, nothing but advantage has ever resulted to
religion.
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