many contradictions and uncertainties, intelligent men had by this time
accepted
That the earth was a round globe of land and water was a fact that, after
many contradictions and uncertainties, intelligent men had by this time
accepted. A conscious knowledge of the world as a whole had been a part
of human thought for many hundreds of years; and the sphericity of the
earth had been a theory in the sixth century before Christ. In the
fourth century Aristotle had watched the stars and eclipses; in the third
century Eratosthenes had measured a degree of latitude, and measured it
wrong;–[Not so very wrong. D.W.]–in the second century the
philosopher Crates had constructed a rude sort of globe, on which were
marked the known kingdoms of the earth, and some also unknown. With the
coming of the Christian era the theory of the roundness of the earth
began to be denied; and as knowledge and learning became gathered into
the hands of the Church they lost something of their clarity and
singleness, and began to be used arbitrarily as evidence for or against
other and less material theories. St. Chrysostom opposed the theory of
the earth”s roundness; St. Isidore taught it; and so also did St.
Augustine, as we might expect from a man of his wisdom who lived so long
in a monastery that looked out to sea from a high point, and who wrote
the words “Ubi magnitudo, ibi veritas”. In the sixth century of the
Christian era Bishop Cosmas gave much thought to this matter of a round
world, and found a new argument which to his mind (poor Cosmas!) disposed
of it very clearly; for he argued that, if the world were round, the
people dwelling at the antipodes could not see Christ at His coming, and
that therefore the earth was not round. But Bede, in the eighth century,
established it finally as a part of human knowledge that the earth and
all the heavenly bodies were spheres, and after that the fact was not
again seriously disputed.
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