NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 453 



in the thirteenth century, another of the mediaeval Church au- 

 thorities, Caesar of Heisterbach, declared, "As the heart in the 

 midst of the body, so is Jerusalem situated in the midst of our in- 

 habited earth " ; " so it was that Christ was crucified at the center 

 of the earth." Dante accepted this view of Jerusalem as a cer- 

 tainty and wedded it to immortal verse. 



Ezekiel's statement thus became the standard of orthodoxy to 

 early map-makers. The map of the world at Hereford Cathedral, 

 the maps of Andrea Bianco, Marino Sanuto, and a multitude of 

 others fixed this view in men's minds, and doubtless helped dur- 

 ing many generations to discourage any scientific statements tend- 

 ing to unbalance this geographical center supposed to be revealed 

 in Scripture.* 



Nor did mediaeval thinkers rest with this conception. In ac- 

 cordance with the dominant view that physical truth must be 

 sought by theological reasoning, the idea was evolved that not 

 only the site of the cross on Calvary marked the geographical 

 center of the world, but that on this very spot had stood the tree 

 which bore the forbidden fruit in Eden. Thus was geography 

 made to reconcile all parts of the great theologic plan. This 

 doctrine was hailed with joy by multitudes ; and we find in the 

 works of mediaeval pilgrims to Palestine, again and again, evi- 



* For the beliefs of various nations of antiquity that the earth's center was in their most 

 sacred place, see citations from Maspero, Charton, Sayce, and others in Lethaby, Architecture, 

 Mysticism, and Myth, chap. iv. As to the Greeks, we have typical statements in the Eumeni- 

 des of ^Eschylus, where the stone on the altar at Delphi is repeatedly called " the earth's 

 navel " which is precisely the expression used regarding Jerusalem in the Septuagint 

 translation of Ezekiel (see note below). The proof texts on which the mediaeval geogra- 

 phers mainly relied as to the form of the earth were Ezekiel, v, 5, and xxxviii, 12. The 

 progress of geographical knowledge evidently caused them to be softened down somewhat 

 in our King James's version ; but the first of them reads, in the Vulgate, " Ista est Hierx- 

 salem, in medio gentium posui earn et in circuilu ejus terrce "/ and the second reads, in the 

 Vulgate, " in medio terrce," and in the Septuagint, i-rrl rbv b^<\>a.Khv tt}s yrjs. That the 

 literal center of the earth was understood, see proof in St. Jerome, Commentar. in Ezekiel, 

 lib. ii ; and for general proof, see Leopardi, Saggio sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi, pp. 

 207, 208. For Rabanus Maurus, see his De Universo, lib. xii, cap. 4, in Migne, tome cxi, p. 

 339. For Hugh of St. Victor, see his De Situ Terrarum, cap. ii. For Dante's belief, see 

 Inferno, canto xxxiv, 112-115: 



" E se' or sotto l'emisperio giunto, 



Ch' e opposito a quel che la gran secca 

 Coverchia, e sotto il cui colmo consunto 

 Fu l'uom che nacque e visse senza pecca." 



For orthodox geography in the middle ages, see Wright's Essays on Archaeology, vol. ii, 

 chapter on the map of the world in Hereford Cathedral ; also the rude maps in Cardinal 

 d'Ailly's Ymago Mundi ; also copy of maps of Marino Sanuto and others in Peschel, Erdkunde, 

 p. 210; also Miinster, Fac Simile dell' Atlante de Andrea Bianco, Venezia, 1869. And for 

 discussions of the whole subject, see Santarem, vol. ii, p. 295, vol. iii, pp. 71, 183, 184, 

 and elsewhere. For a brief summary with citations, see Eicken, Geschichte, etc., pp. 

 622, 623. 



