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Flat Earth - The Early Church

Flat Earth - The Early Church: Encyclopedia II - Flat Earth - The Early Church

There is evidence that the round Earth was accepted by many Christians. For example, Emperor Theodosius II of the Byzantine Empire placed the globus cruciger (which depicts the Earth as round) on his coins. However, the antipodes (thought to be separated from the Mediterranean world by the uncrossable torrid clime) were difficult to reconcile with the Christian view of a unified human race descended from one couple and redeemed by a single Christ. Consequently, some of the Church Fathers questioned their existence and even the roundne ...

Flat Earth: Encyclopedia II - Flat Earth - The Early Church

Flat Earth - The Early Church

However, the antipodes (thought to be separated from the Mediterranean world by the uncrossable torrid clime) were difficult to reconcile with the Christian view of a unified human race descended from one couple and redeemed by a single Christ. Consequently, some of the Church Fathers questioned their existence and even the roundness of the Earth. Saint Augustine (354-430) wrote:

"Those who affirm [a belief in antipodes] do not claim to possess any actual information; they merely conjecture that, since the Earth is suspended within the concavity of the heavens, and there is as much room on the one side of it as on the other, therefore the part which is beneath cannot be void of human inhabitants. They fail to notice that, even should it be believed or demonstrated that the world is round or spherical in form, it does not follow that the part of the Earth opposite to us is not completely covered with water, or that any conjectured dry land there should be inhabited by men. For Scripture, which confirms the truth of its historical statements by the accomplishment of its prophecies, teaches not falsehood; and it is too absurd to say that some men might have set sail from this side and, traversing the immense expanse of ocean, have propagated there a race of human beings descended from that one first man." (De Civitate Dei, 16.9)

Augustine denied the antipodes, not the round Earth. However, the phrase "even should it be believed or demonstrated that the world is round" suggests that he was skeptical of the round Earth, and perhaps even that many others were as well.

A few authors directly opposed the round Earth. Lactantius (245–325) called it "folly" because people on a sphere would fall down. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem (315–386) saw Earth as a firmament floating on water. Saint John Chrysostom (344–408) saw a spherical Earth as contradictory to scripture. Severian, Bishop of Gabala (d. 408) and Diodorus of Tarsus (d. 394) argued for a flat Earth. Cosmas Indicopleustes (547) called Earth "a parallelogram, flat, and surrounded by four seas" in his Christian Topography, where the Covenant Ark was meant to represent the whole universe.

At least one writer, Basil of Caesarea (329–379), believed the matter to be theologically irrelevant. (Hexaemeron 9:1)

Several of these writers are not thought to have been influential in the Middle Ages due to a scarcity of references to their work in mediaeval writings. Different historians have argued either for very high (e.g. Andrew Dickson White) or very low (e.g. Jeffrey Russell) influence.