NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 377 



The most permanent contribution of Bede to scientific thought in 

 this field was his revival of the view that the firmament is made of ice ; 

 and he supported this from the w T ords in the twenty-sixth chapter of 

 Job, " He bindeth up the waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is 

 not rent under them." 



About the beginning of the ninth century appeared the third in 

 that triumvirate of churchmen who were the oracles of sacred science 

 throughout the early middle ages Rabanus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda 

 and Archbishop of Mayence. Starting, like all his predecessors, from 

 the first chapter of Genesis, borrowing here and there from the ancient 

 philosophers, and excluding everything that could conflict with the 

 letter of Scripture, he follows, in his work upon the universe, his two 

 predecessors, Isidore and Bede, developing especially Bede's theory 

 that the firmament is strong enough to hold up the " waters above the 

 heavens," because it was made of ice. * 



For centuries the authority of these three great teachers was un- 

 questioned, and in countless manuals and catechisms their doctrine 

 was translated and diluted for the common mind, f But, about the 

 second quarter of the twelfth century, a priest, Honorius of Autun, pro- 

 duced several treatises which show that thought on this subject had 

 made some little progress. He explained the rain rationally, and mainly 

 in the modern manner ; with the thunder he is less successful, but in- 

 sists that the thunderbolt " is not stone, as some assert." His thinking 

 is vigorous and independent. J Had theorists such as he been many, 

 a new science could have been rapidly evolved, but the theological 

 current was too strong. 



The strength of this current which overwhelmed the thought of 

 Honorius is seen again in the work of the Dominican monk, John of 

 San Geminiano, who in the thirteenth century gave forth his " Summa 

 de Exemplis " for the use of preachers in his order. Of its thousand 

 pages, over two hundred are devoted to illustrations drawn from the 

 heavens and the elements. A characteristic specimen is his explana- 

 tion of the Psalmist's phrase, "The arrows of the thunder." These, 

 he tells us, are forged out of a dry vapor rising from the earth and 

 kindled by the heat of the upper air, which then, coming into contact 

 with a cloud just turning into rain, " is conglutinated like flour into 

 dough," but, being too hot to be extinguished, its particles become 



* See Rabanus Maurus, " Comment, in Genesim " and " De Universe- " (Migne, " Patr. 

 Lat.," cvii, cxi). 



f For a charmingly naive example of these primers, see the little Anglo-Saxon manual 

 of astronomy, sometimes attributed to ^Elfric. It is in the vernacular, but is translated 

 in Wright's " Popular Treatises on Science during the Middle Ages." Eede is, of course, 

 its chief source. 



% See Honorius Augustodunensis, " De imagine mundi," and " Hexsemeron " (Migne, 

 " Patr. Lat.," clxxii). The " De philosophia mundi," the most rational of all, is, 

 however, believed by modern scholars to be unjustly ascribed to him. See note 

 above. 



