NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 579 



Under such pressure this scientific truth seems to have disap- 

 peared for nearly two hundred years, but by the eighth century 

 the sphericity of the earth had come to be generally accepted 

 among the leaders of thought, and now the doctrine of the an- 

 tipodes was again asserted by a bishop, Virgil of Salzburg. 



There then stood in Germany, in those first years of the eighth 

 century, one of the greatest and noblest of men St. Boniface. 

 His learning was of the best then known. In labors he was a 

 worthy successor of the apostles ; his genius for Christian work 

 made him unwillingly primate of Germany ; his devotion to duty 

 led him willingly to martyrdom. There sat too, at that time, on 

 the papal throne a great Christian statesman Pope Zachary. 

 Boniface immediately declared against the revival of such a her- 

 esy as the doctrine of the antipodes ; he stigmatized it as an asser- 

 tion that there are men beyond the reach of the appointed means 

 of salvation ; he attacked Virgil, and called on Pope Zachary 

 for aid. 



The Pope, as the infallible teacher of Christendom, makes a 

 strong response. He cites passages from the book of Job and the 

 Wisdom of Solomon against the doctrine of the antipodes ; he 

 declares it " perverse, iniquitous, and against Virgil's own soul," 

 and indicates a purpose of driving him from his bishopric. 

 Whether this purpose was carried out or not, the old theological 

 view, by virtue of the Pope's divinely ordered and protected " in- 

 errancy," was re-established, and the doctrine that the earth has 

 inhabitants on but one of its sides became more than ever ortho- 

 dox, and, in the mind of the Church, necessary to salvation.* 



This decision seems to have been regarded as final, and two 

 centuries later the great encyclopedist of the middle ages, Vin- 



antipodes " nulla ratione credendum est." Also citations in Buckle's Posthumous Works, 

 vol. ii, p. 645. For Procopius of Gaza see Kretschiner, p. 55. See also, on the general 

 subject, Peschel, Geschichte der Erdkunde, pp. 96, 9*7. For Isidore, see citations already 

 given. To understand the embarrassment caused by these utterances of the fathers to 

 scientific men of a later period, see Letter of Agricola to Joachimus Vadianus in 1514. 

 Agricola asks Vadianus to give his views regarding the antipodes, saying that he himself 

 does not know what to do, between the fathers on the one side and the learned men of 

 modern times on the other. On the other hand, for the embarrassment caused to the 

 Church by this mistaken zeal of the fathers, see Kepler's references and Fromund's replies ; 

 also De Morgan, Paradoxes, p. 58. Kepler appears to have taken great delight in throwing 

 the views of Lactantius into the teeth of his adversaries. 



* For Virgil of Salzburg, see Neander's History of the Christian Church, Torrey's trans- 

 lation, vol. iii, p. 63. Also Herzog, Real Encyclopaedic, etc., recent edition by Prof. Hauck, 

 in verb. Virgilius. Also Kretschmer. See Whewell, i, p. 197 ; but for best choice of authori- 

 ties and for most careful winnowing out of conclusions, see De Morgan, pp. 2426. For 

 very full notes as to pagan and Christian advocates of the doctrine of the sphericity of the 

 earth and of the antipodes, and for extract from Zachary's letter, see Migne, Patrologia, 

 vol. vi, p. 426, and vol. xli, p. 48*7. For St. Boniface's part, see Bonifacii Epistoke, ed. 

 Giles, i, 1T3. 



