448 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



pr elation 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 endeavored 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 labor, that we think little of these matters, turning our 

 souls to better things." Basil of Csesarea 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 Script- 

 ure and reason. St. John Chrysostom also exerted his influence 

 against this scientific belief ; and Ephrem 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, 

 Clement of Alexandria in the third, and others in centuries follow- 

 ing, 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 sur- 

 vival of various early traditions, given in the seventh verse of the 

 first chapter of Genesis, they dwelt on the scriptural declaration 

 that the earth was, at creation, arched over with a solid vault, " a 

 firmament," and to this they added the passage from Isaiah in 

 which it is 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 move- 

 ment of the sun, there was a citation of various passages in Gen- 

 esis, 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.* 



* For Eusebius, see the Prcep. Ev., xv, 61. For Basil, see the Hexameron, Horn, ix, 

 cited in Peschel, Erdkunde, p. 96, note. For Lactantius, see his Inst. Div., lib. iii, cap. 3 ; 

 also, citations in Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences, London, 185*7, vol. i, p. 194, and in St. 

 Martin, Histoire de la Geographie, pp. 216, 217. For the views of St. John Chrysostom 

 Eph. Syrus, and other great churchmen, see Kretschmer as above, chap. i. 



