The first typical battle-field to which I would refer is that of
Geography--the simplest elementary doctrine of the earth's shape and
surface.
Among the legacies of thought left by the ancient world to the modern,
were certain ideas of the rotundity of the earth. These ideas were
vague; they were mixed with absurdities; but they were _germ ideas_,
and, after the barbarian storm which ushered in the modern world had
begun to clear away, these germ ideas began to bud and bloom in the
minds of a few thinking men, and these men hazarded the suggestion that
the earth is round--is a globe.[1]
The greatest and most earnest men of the time took fright at once. To
them, the idea of the earth's rotundity seemed fraught with dangers to
Scripture: by which, of course, they meant _their interpretation_ of
Scripture.
Among the first who took up arms against the new thinkers was Eusebius.
He endeavored to turn off these ideas by bringing science into
contempt, and by making the innovators understand that he and the
fathers of the Church despised all such inquiries. Speaking of the
innovations in physical science, he said: "It is not through ignorance
of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their useless
labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our souls to
better things."[2]
Lactantius asserted the ideas of those studying astronomy to be "mad
and senseless."[3]
But the attempt to "flank" the little phalanx of thinkers did not
succeed, of course. Even such men as Lactantius and Eusebius cannot
pooh-pooh down a new scientific idea. The little band of thinkers went
on, and the doctrine of the rotundity of the earth naturally led to the
consideration of the tenants of the earth's surface, and another germ
idea was warmed into life--the idea of the existence of the antipodes,
the idea of the existence of countries and men on the hemisphere
opposite to ours.[4]
At this the war-spirit waxed hot. Those great and good men determined
to fight. To all of them such doctrines seemed dangerous; to most of
them they seemed damnable. St. Basil and St. Ambrose[5] were tolerant
enough to allow that a man might be saved who believed the earth to be
round, and inhabited on its opposite sides; but the great majority of
the Fathers of the Church utterly denied the possibility of salvation
to such misbelievers.
Lactantius asks: "... 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?... But if you inquire from those who defend
these marvelous fictions, why all things do not fall into that lower
part of the heaven, they reply that such is the nature of things, that
heavy bodies are borne toward the middle, like the spokes of a wheel;
while light bodies, such as clouds, smoke, and fire, tend from the
centre toward the heavens on all sides. Now, I am at loss what to say
of those who, when they have once erred, steadily persevere in their
folly, and defend one vain thing by another."
St. Augustine seems inclined to yield a little in regard to the
rotundity of the earth, but he fights the idea that men exist on the
other side of the earth, saying that "Scripture speaks of no such
descendants of Adam."
But this did not avail to check the idea. What may be called the flank
movement, as represented by Eusebius, had failed. The direct battle
given by Lactantius, Augustine, and others, had failed; in the sixth
century, therefore, the opponents of the new ideas built a great
fortress and retired into that. It was well built and well braced. It
was nothing less than a complete theory of the world, based upon the
literal interpretation of texts of Scripture, and its author was Cosmas
Indicopleustes.[6]
According to Cosmas, the earth is a parallelogram, flat, and surrounded
by four great seas. At the outer edges of these seas rise immense walls
closing in the whole structure. These walls support the vault of the
heavens, whose edges are cemented to the walls; walls and vault shut
in the earth and all the heavenly bodies. The whole of this theologic,
scientific fortress was built most carefully, and, as was then thought,
most scripturally.
Starting with the expression, _Το ἁγιον κοσμικὁν_, applied in the
ninth chapter of Hebrews to the tabernacle in the desert, he insists,
with other interpreters of his time, that it gives a key to the whole
construction of the world. The universe is, therefore, made on the
plan of the Jewish Tabernacle--box-like and oblong.
Coming to details, he quotes those grand 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,"[7] and the passage in Job, which speaks of the "pillars
of heaven."[8] He turns all that splendid and precious poetry into a
prosaic statement, and gathers therefrom, as he thinks, treasures for
science.
This vast box is then 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, where 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,"[9]
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,"[10] casts that outburst of poetry into his crucible
with the other texts, and, after subjecting them to sundry peculiar
processes, 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,"[11] and establishes a doctrine
regarding the regulation of the rain, which is afterward supplemented
by the doctrine that the angels not only push and pull the heavenly
bodies, to light the earth, but also open and close the windows of
heaven to water it.
To find the character of the surface of the earth, Cosmas studies the
table of shew-bread in the Tabernacle. The dimensions of that table
prove to him that the earth is flat and twice as long as broad; the
four corners of the table symbolize the four seasons. 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 great pit at night,
and was pulled out in the morning. Nothing can be more touching in
its simplicity than Cosmas's closing of his great argument. He bursts
forth in raptures, declaring that Moses, the prophets, evangelists, and
apostles, agree to the truth of his doctrine.[12]
Such was the fortress built against human science in the sixth
century, by Cosmas; and it stood. The innovators attacked it in vain.
The greatest minds in the Church devoted themselves to buttressing it
with new texts, and throwing out new outworks of theologic reasoning.
It stood firm for two hundred years, when a bishop--Virgilius of
Salzburg--asserts his belief in the existence of the antipodes.
It happened that there then stood in Germany, in the 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 labors he was a
worthy successor to the apostles; his genius for Christian work made
him, unwillingly, Primate of Germany; his devotion afterward led him,
willingly, to martyrdom. There sat, too, at that time, on the papal
throne, a great Christian statesman--Pope Zachary. Boniface immediately
declares against the revival of such a terrible heresy as the existence
of the antipodes. He declares that it amounts to the declaration that
there are men on the earth beyond the reach of the means of salvation;
he attacks Virgilius; he calls on Zachary for aid; effective measures
are taken, and we hear no more of Virgilius or his doctrine.
Six hundred years pass away, and in the fourteenth century two men
publicly assert the doctrine. The first of these, Peter of Abano,
escapes punishment by natural death; the second, known as Cecco
d'Ascoli, a man of seventy years, is burned alive. Nor was that all
the punishment: that great painter, Orcagna, whose terrible works you
may see on the walls of the Campo Santa at Pisa, immortalized Cecco by
representing him in the flames of hell.[13]
Still the idea lived and moved, and a hundred years later we find the
theologian Tostatus protesting against the doctrine of the antipodes
as "unsafe." He has invented a new missile--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." This is just before the time of Columbus.
Columbus is the next warrior. The world has heard of his battles:
how the Bishop of Ceuta worsted him in Portugal; how at the Junta of
Salamanca the theologians overwhelmed him with quotations from the
Psalms, from St. Paul, and from St. Augustine.[14] And even after
Columbus was triumphant, and after his voyage had greatly strengthened
the theory of the earth's sphericity, the Church, by its highest
authority, was again solemnly committed to the theory of the earth's
flatness. In 1493 Pope Alexander VI. issues a bull laying down a line
of demarkation upon the earth as a flat disk; this line was drawn from
north to south, west of the Azores and Canary Islands; and the Pope, in
the plenitude of his knowledge and powers, declared that all lands
discovered east of this line should belong to the Portuguese, and all
discovered west of it should belong to the Spaniards. This was hailed
as an exercise of divinely illuminated power in the Church; but in
a few years difficulties arose. The Portuguese claimed Brazil, and,
of course, had no difficulty in showing that it could be reached by
sailing to the east of the line, provided the sailing were sufficiently
long-continued. The bull of Pope Alexander quietly passed into the
catalogue of ludicrous errors.[15]
But in 1519 Science gains a crushing victory. Magalhaens makes his
famous voyages. He proves the earth to be round, for his great
expedition circumnavigates it; he proves the doctrine of the antipodes,
for he sees the men of the antipodes;[16] but even this does not end
the war. Many earnest and good 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 other 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, perfectly, then and then only this war of twelve centuries
ended.[17]
And now, what was the result of this war? The efforts of Eusebius and
Lactantius to deaden scientific thought; the efforts of Augustine to
combat it; the efforts of Cosmas to stop it by dogmatism; the efforts
of Boniface, and Zachary, and others to stop it by force, conscientious
as they all were, had resulted in what? Simply in forcing into many
noble minds this most unfortunate conviction, that Science and Religion
are enemies; simply in driving away from religion hosts of the best
men in all those centuries. The result was wholly bad. No optimism can
change that verdict.
On the other hand, what was gained by the warriors of science for
religion? Simply, a far more ennobling conception of the world, and a
far truer conception of Him who made and who sustains it.
Which is the more consistent with a great, true religion--the
cosmography of Cosmas, or that of Isaac Newton? Which presents the
nobler food for religious thought--the diatribes of Lactantius, or the
astronomical discourses of Thomas Chalmers?