Antipope Innocent II

We recently had a long thread on the subject here. The short answer is that there were about two Medieval writers who thought the Earth was flat and they were both Greeks and were unknown in Medieval Europe. In the West the idea that the Earth was a sphere was utterly commonplace.

Though as you can see from that thread, there are some who don't like the historical facts get in the way of their bigotry about Christianity. Me - I'm an atheist who likes history as it actually was, not as someone with a weirdly anti-Christian agenda would like to pretend it was.

But hey, maybe this Amedeo guy has some amazing new evidence about this belief in a flat earth in the Middle Ages that every historian on the planet has somehow missed. I can't wait to hear his remarkable analysis of what happened at Salamanca that will back up what he said about Columbus.

He'd better present this evidence quickly though, because right now his credibility isn't exactly sky high. And it's sinking further by the hour.

Hurry up Amedeo.

Chili

The only reason why earth was said to be flat is because heaven is round. This has nothing to do with the shape of the earth but with the world werein we live, which is our own world, and that is very flat to even this very day.

It is based on Gen. 1:1 where the heavens were created in the plural and earth in the singular to say that our life on earth spans only one generation while our life in heaven spans many generations. In this context both heaven and earth are opposites that exist in our own mind with earth being that which is retained in our conscious mind and heaven that which is retained in our subconscious mind.

Some evidence here is that in our conscious mind we are 'blank slaters' while in our subsconscuious mind we are 'incarnations' of previous generations for up to one thousand years with a diminishing recall to our more distant past to make it round indeed.

So do you want the Church deny its own purpose to accomodate a common flat earther?

Oh yes, and the dark ages were dark untill sufficient knowledge was created in heaven to light up our life on earth. Th'is true, after all, that illumination must come from our own storehouse of richess that is retained in the Thousand Year Reign that we have as our very own, and thus wherein we are either a lamb of our God or a bastard from hell.

Oops, sry, I did not mean to add weight to the word bastard.

Chili

Just to prove that the light of common day is an illusion. Sun rays are still converted into light by the conscious mind where they are a reflection of the celestial light whence illumination comes by day and by night (Rev.22:5 is very clear on this). All that is required for the sun to stop is a bad hair day for some while for others the end of the world has been reached.

The reason why the sun is said to be moving is that in heaven we are the centre of the universe as God in the image of man.

Amedeo

Dear Virginia-American,
you have been misguided by people who do not read very accurately: I never stated or thought that the Scholastic Theologians of the High Middles Ages had an issue about the earth being flat or round.

For a comprehensive view of what I wrote, please read [in case you should care] my posts, that is,

# 184, 191, 221, 223, 229, 246, 249, 250, 252, 254, 257.

My remarks about the flat earth were made in # 252:

To repeat:

AQUINAS SIDED WITH ARISTOTLE ON THE ISSUE OF THE FLATNESS OR ROUNDNESS OF THE EARTH. This issue had existed in ancient times, and it was philosophers that developed the theory of the round earth. As far as the High Middle Ages is concerned, I was not discussing it, but I could have added that practically all the theologians held that the earth was round, against the popular view, based on the Bible, that the earth is flat.

As far as I know, in the High M.A., the issue did NOT arise at all, because, unlike the theory of heliocentrism, nobody stirred up a THEOLOGICAL conflict between those who believed in the flat earth and those who learned from the ancient that the earth is round. As I stated, the "scholars" did not developed any earth-view of their own.
In this connection, I also remarked that the [ancient] issue of the earth's shape was empirically resolved by Columbus's navigation and, I could have added, by the later circumnavigation of the globe by Magellan (whose crew was largely Italian, including Pigafetta, who wrote the account of the voyage, while Magellan died before completing the trip).
Incidentally I noted that the issue at Salamanca was not about the shape of the earth. (Columbus followed the geography of the Tuscan Toscanelli, but probably some unkowing non-Italian invented the rumor that Columbus was the man who invented the theory of the round earth. But then, somebody invented also the rumor that Columbus was Greek or Jewish or Spanish, while Spain, Portugal, France, and England hired only Italian marineers to lead explorations of the land Columbus reached. Many people are simply not familiar with the Italian maritime republics and the investigative spirit of the early Renaissance.)

The high Middle Ages scholars were never engaged in the pursuit of geographical or, to be sure, cosmographic, investigations, for they did not see the inconsistency of the geocentrism they dogmatically held, and the geo-globalism which they learned from the ancients and floated in their unconcerned minds. So, I will make a few remarks of my own about this issue (the issue of inconsistency I just created):

Suppose the sun is at the center of the cosmic sphere and that the earth is flat (that is, a squat cylinder). These two propositions are incoherent, because, in order to account for the annual cycle of the seasons, the earth would have to revolve around the sun. But if the earth is flat, then there is a problem with the accounting for night and day, unless the earth spins vertically (relatively to the plane of revolution). Now, according to the popular physics whereby the apple that a hand holds falls when the hand is turned upside down, the lose contents on the earth would fall off when the earth spins. Argument: since such fallings do not occur, the earth does not spin vertically. Hence no account for the diurnal cycle of day and night. Hence, it is impossible that there is a flat earth that revolves around the sun.

Heliocentrism precludes the flat earth or necessitates geo-globalism. The reverse is also true: If the earth is round, then the sun must be at the center. But since heliocentrism is heretical, geo-globalism should have been shunned, too.

We can see the same, if we start with the hypothesis that the earth is round, that it stands still at the center of the cosmic sphere, and that the sun revolves around the earth [as the scholastics maintained]. As the sun revolves in its annual cycle, the seasons are accounted for. In order to account for night and day, either the earth has to spin [which was dogmatically denied], or the daily orbit of the sun [the ecliptic] has to shift daily. So, imagine an horizontal plane with a great circle. If the sun is at point A, this is the azimuth or noon-position of the sun relatively to a point on earth, E. Noon at the opposite point on earth (E') is 12 hours away: the sun went down from A, rose at the opposite side of the earth, and reached A' [above E']. But the sun cannot keep on repeating the same orbit, since it has to go about 365 noons around the earth. In fact we see, from a city on earth, that the sun does not rise at the same spot on the horizon every day. Unfortunately, in the course of a year, the displacements of sunrises is over a small arc of the round horizon, NOT all over the circumference. [To put it differently, which is not clearer, the position of the noon-sun, relatively to a city on earth, does nor shift 360 degrees during the year -- only a few degrees.] It is not the case that 365 [or for that matter, 360] different ecliptics or epi-cycles occur. So, it is not the case that the sun revolves around a stationary earth (whether it is round or cylindrical -- if we neglect other considerations of illuminations of the surface of the earth at any noon).

Whether the earth is cylindrical or spherical never became an issue for the theologians; what became an issue was whether the earth was stationary or not, for denying that the earth is stationary implied admitting that the sun is stationary -- which was heretical. As the theologians were not concerned with navigation, they could not care less about the shape of the earth. (According to Toscanelli calculations -- based on the putting together of bits and pieces of information and his own extrapolations, the earth is somewhat pear-shaped and smaller in size than it actually is -- which made Columbus trip feasible, until he found out differently when he was on the high seas. Fortunately, he encountered land, which he believed to be the Cathay or China he was looking for, or perhaps the Indies and Japan, which a big long island in the Caribeans resembled.)

Antipope Innocent II

Nice backpedalling there Amedeo - you should give Cirque du Soleil a call.

While you're madly backpedalling, you might want to explain how the "whole Middle Ages was split between the Biblical view of the flat earth with its four corners .... and the philosophical view". How could the period be "split" on an issue that wasn't an issue?

Then you need to back up your claim that "the learned Dominican monks of Salamanca" thought Columbus' ships were going to "fall off the Earth". Some evidence or preferably a quote from a primary source to that effect would be good.

Ray Moscow

Antipope, could you explain how the biblical view of a flat earth was regarded (or perhaps just ignored) in that period?

Obviously the Greeks knew better, but the Bible writers did not, and one might think that the Bible had some influence on church opinion on the subject.

Ray

Chili

Mythmakers are omniscient. They are God to the same extent that the mansion they occupy allows them to flaunt their stuff.

Doug Shaver

Probably the same way modern inerrantists regard it, by just denying that the Bible says the earth is flat.

Clivedurdle

There is a problem here. Archimedes et al proved mathematically and geometricaly that the earth is a sphere. I do not therefore understand your reference to Columbus and empiricism. As stated, the circumference of the earth had been accurately calculated by going down two wells at noon and checking the angle of the sun. Why this is thought to be philosophy and not empirical is beyond me!

The observation of a circular shadow on the moon is empirical evidence!

aupmanyav

I read at one time an article on this subject, the time was that of the Mughal emperor Akbar. As I remember, I realized that the dark ages were not very dark, and I would have had problems doing what they were doing at that time.