NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 449 



In the sixth century this development of theory 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 treas- 

 ure-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 triune idea of the gods 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 theologic-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 interpret- 

 ers 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 box-like 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, treas- 

 ures 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 these growths of thought into his crucible together, and 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 studies the 

 table of show-bread in the Jewish tabernacle. The surface of this 



VOL. XLI. 34 



