45 o THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



table proves to liiin that the earth is flat, and its dimensions prove 

 that the earth is twice as long as broad ; its four corners sym- 

 bolize the four seasons ; the twelve loaves of bread, the twelve 

 months ; the hollow about the table proves that the ocean sur- 

 rounds the earth. To account for the movement of the sun, Cos- 

 mas 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 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 there- 

 fore with Isaiah that the form of the heaven that embraces the 

 universe is that of 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 con- 

 demn all who do not accept it. 



Although this theory was universally considered as drawn 

 from Scripture, it was really, as we have seen, the result of an 

 evolution of theological thought begun long before the texts on 

 which it nominally 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 its more remote pagan evolution ; it was received as 

 virtually inspired, and was soon regarded as a fortress of script- 

 ural 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.* 



* For a notice of the views of Cosmas in connection with those of Lactantius, Augus- 

 tine, St. John Chrysostom, and others, see Schoell, Histoire de la Litterature Grecque, vol. 

 vii, p. 3*7. The main scriptural passages referred to are as follows : (1) Isaiah xl, 22 ; (2) 

 Genesis i, 6 ; (3) Genesis vii, 11 ; (4) Exodus xxiv, 10 ; (5) Job xxvi, 11, and xxxvii, 18 ; (6) 

 Psalm cxlviii, 4, and civ, 9 ; (7) Ezekiel i, 22-26. For Cosmas's theory see Montfaucon, 

 Collectio Nova Patrum, Paris, 1706, vol. ii, p. 188 ; also pp. 298, 299. The text is illus- 

 trated with engravings showing walls and solid vault (firmament), with the whole apparatus 

 of " fountains of the great deep," " windows of heaven," angels, and the mountain behind 

 which the sun is drawn. For reduction of one of them see Peschel, Geschichte der Erd- 

 kunde, p. 98 ; also article " Maps," in Knight's Dictionary of Mechanics, New York, 1875. 

 For a good discussion of Cosmas's ideas, see Santarem, Hist, de la Cosmographie, vol. ii, pp. 

 8 el seq., and for a very thorough discussion of its details, Kretschmer, as above. For 

 still another theory, very droll, and thought out on similar principles, see Mungo Park, 

 cited in De Morgan, Paradoxes, 309. For Cosmas's joyful summing up, see Montfaucon) 



