1.2. GEOGRAPHY.
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.'"
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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."
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.
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.