202 Transactions of tue American Institute. 



earth naturally led to consideration of the tenants of the earth's sur- 

 face, and another old germ idea was warmed into life — the idea of 

 the existence of Antipodes. At this the war commenced in bitter 

 earnest. Those great and good men determined to fight. To all of 

 them such doctrines seemed dangerous, to most of them they seemed 

 damnable. Basil and Ambrose were tolerant enough to allow that 

 a man might be saved who believed the earth to be round, and 

 inhabited on its opposite sides ; but the great majority of the 

 Fathers of the Church utterly denied the possibility of salvation 

 to such misbelievers. Lactantius asks : " Is it possible that men 

 can be so absurd as to believe that the crops and trees on 

 the other side of the earth hang downward, and that men there have 

 their feet higher than their heads? Do you ask how they defend 

 these monstrosities ; how things do not fall away from the earth on 

 that side? They reply that the nature of things is such that heavy- 

 bodies tend toward the center, like the spokes of a wheel ; while 

 light bodies, such as clouds, smoke and fire tend from the center 

 toward the heavens on all sides. Now I am really at a loss what to 

 say of those who, when they have once gone wrong, steadily perse- 

 vere in their folly, and defend one absurd opinion by another." 

 Augustin seems inclined to yield a little regarding the rotundity of 

 the earth ; but fights the idea that men exist on the other side of the 

 earth, because, as he says, Scripture speaks of no such descendants of 

 Adam. But this did not avail to check the idea. What might be 

 called the flank movement, as represented by Eusebius, had failed. 

 The direct battle given by Lactantius, Augustine and others had 

 failed ; in the sixth century, therefore, the opponents of the new ideas 

 built a great fortress and retired into that. It was well built and 

 well braced. It was nothing less than a great complete theory of the 

 world, based upon the literal interpretation of texts of Scripture, and 

 its architect was Cosmas. According to Cosraas the earth is a paral- 

 lelogram, flat, and surrounded by four great seas. At the outer 

 edges of these seas rise immense walls closing in the whole structure. 

 These walls support the vault of the heavens, whose edges are 

 cemented to the walls. Walls and vault shut in the. earth and all 

 the heavenly bodies. The whole of this theologic, scientific fortress 

 was built most carefully, and was then thouglit, most scripturally. 

 Starting with the expression applied, in the ninth chapter of Hebrews, 

 to the tabernacle in the desert, he insists, with other interpreters of 

 his time, that the oriiijinal Greek words mean, " madelike the world." 



