aa5874

I will not allow you to make these baseless unsupported assertions. I need documented information not just your imagination to show that the authorities of the Medieval Church happily supported that the Earth was a sphere.

There is documented records to show that the Creation story in Genesis, the fixed-flat earth, was accepted as literal even up to the 17th century by authorities of the Church.

Excerpts of a letter from Bellarmine to Father Foscarini, April 4 1615

..."Now if your Reverence will read, not merely the Fathers, but modern commentators on Genesis, The Psalms, Ecclesiastes and Joshua, you will discover that All agree in interpreting them literally...."

See http://www.law.umkc.edu/faculty/proj...ellarmine.html

What do you have to support your claims? I need documented facts, not people's opinion.

Antipope Innocent II

Oh dear.

I would have thought that, long before this, you would have had the sense to crack open a few relevant books on medieval science and educated yourself just a little. If you had done so you would have slunk away from this thread in shame about three or four days ago.

As I’ve pointed out several times, all the medieval writers on geography, astronomy and cosmology say the Earth is a sphere. All of them. Martianus Capella, Bede, John Scottus Eriugena, Raban Maur, Giles of Rome, Roger Bacon, John Sacrobosco, Jean Buridan, Nicolas Oresme and everyone else. The writers of treatises on the operation of the astrolabe, manuals for the operation of the equatorium, monks writing about the calculation of the calendar, authors of travelers tales, sermon writers, romance writers – they all say the Earth is a sphere.

I’ve asked you several times to explain how, if the Church taught the Earth was flat and that this teaching was one of the reasons for the trial of Galileo (along with the movement of the Earth), then why were none of these writers hounded by the Inquisition? Where are the Church condemnations of them? Why was Bede made a saint, for Christ’s sake?!

You think these people are figments of my “imagination”?! You think, if they weren’t, that the Church didn’t happily accept what they were saying?! Then explain how Sacrobosco’s work – entitled, in case you missed it last time, “On the SPHERE of the World” - was the standard medieval text on astronomy in medieval universities from the Thirteenth Century onwards, used by all undergraduates in their studies of the Seven Liberal Arts. Can you explain this? Can you explain why the Venerable Bede’s De Temporum Ratione – the standard work on the calculation of the calendar and the determination of the date of Easter used by just about every priest on the European continent from the Eighth Century onwards - began with a chapter explaining how the spherical Earth affected the length of days. Can you explain this?

It’s about time you did explain these things. In fact, it’s about time you educated yourself on the most elementary basics of this subject and stopped posting wildly ridiculous nonsense that you clearly don’t even understand.

Go find an edition of Sacrobosco’s book. Or Bede’s. Then come back and admit you’ve been dead wrong for about 20 posts now.

Here, let me help you. Here is Sacrobosco in that book that was used by virtually every undergraduate in Europe from the Thirteenth Century onwards:

THE EARTH A SPHERE. -- That the earth, too, is round is shown thus. The signs and stars do not rise and set the same for all men everywhere but rise and set sooner for those in the east than for those in the west; and of this there is no other cause than the bulge of the earth. Moreover, celestial phenomena evidence that they rise sooner for Orientals than for westerners. For one and the same eclipse of the moon which appears to us in the first hour of the night appears to Orientals about the third hour of the night, which proves that they had night and sunset before we did, of which setting the bulge of the earth is the cause.

FURTHER PROOFS OF THIS. -- That the earth also has a bulge from north to south and vice versa is shown thus: To those living toward the north, certain stars are always visible, namely, those near the North Pole, while others which are near the South Pole are always concealed from them. If, then, anyone should proceed from the north southward, he might go so far that the stars which formerly were always visible to him now would tend toward their setting. And the farther south he went, the more they would be moved toward their setting. Again, that same man now could see stars which formerly had always been hidden from him. And the reverse would happen to anyone going from the south northward. The cause of this is simply the bulge of the earth. Again, if the earth were flat from east to west, the stars would rise as soon for westerners as for Orientals. which is false. Also, if the earth were flat from north to south and vice versa, the stars which were always visible to anyone would continue to be so wherever he went, which is false. But it seems flat to human sight because it is so extensive.

SURFACE OF THE SEA SPHERICAL. -- That the water has a bulge and is approximately round is shown thus: Let a signal be set up on the seacoast and a ship leave port and sail away so far that the eye of a person standing at the foot of the mast can no longer discern the signal. Yet if the ship is stopped, the eye of the same person, if he has climbed to the top of the mast, will see the signal clearly. Yet the eye of a person at the bottom of the mast ought to see the signal better than he who is at the top, as is shown by drawing straight lines from both to the signal. And there is no other explanation of this thing than the bulge of the water. For all other impediments are excluded, such as clouds and rising vapors.

Would you like that humble pie served with a side salad of bitter herbs? :wave:

Jehanne

I am an ex-Catholic, so yes, I know what "dogma" means! The current Church, as well as the Medieval Church, (but, especially the latter) appealed endlessly to the New Testament authors, the pre-Nicene fathers, the Nicene fathers, Popes, and Church Councils to determine what was (and wasn't) dogma.

They didn't, and if you read my posts, carefully, it will be clear to you that nowhere I have made that claim! Rather, what I have said is that both views, during the Middle Ages, were acceptable, that of a flat earth and that of a round one.

Antipope Innocent II

Yet you've never supported that with any evidence of the acceptability of the flat Earth view - no references by medieval writers to such a view and no references by medieval writers to how the view was acceptable. (Cosmas is irrelevant to a discussion of Catholic Europe).

So what are you basing this assertion on? At best you might just be able to argue that there was nothing religious stopping someone from promulgating a flat Earth view, in theory. Apart from the science, of course.

But that's a rather weird definition of "acceptable", considering no-one did advance such a view anyway.

Jehanne

You are confusing "the Church" with the Church's theologians. The Magisterium of the Church was, for the thousand years of the Middle Ages, silent on the question of the geometry of the Earth. It was likely that most Popes' regarded the matter as being a theological opinion. The writings of any theologian do not have any Magisterial authority, unless a Pope and/or Church Council declares such to be so. All the theologians of the Middle Ages recognized this fact explicitly!!

Jehanne

The Medieval Church based their theology on this:

http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/ancie...ins-canon.html

In particular, this:

(3) Now in the Catholic Church itself we take the greatest care to hold that which has been believed everywhere, always and by all. That is truly and properly 'Catholic,' as is shown by the very force and meaning of the word, which comprehends everything almost universally. We shall hold to this rule if we follow universality [i.e. oecumenicity], antiquity, and consent. We shall follow universality if we acknowledge that one Faith to be true which the whole Church throughout the world confesses; antiquity if we in no wise depart from those interpretations which it is clear that our ancestors and fathers proclaimed; consent, if in antiquity itself we keep following the definitions and opinions of all, or certainly nearly all, bishops and doctors alike.

Note the date: 434

Antipope Innocent II

I'm doing nothing of the sort.

Because it wasn't a question with any theological signficance. I would have thought that was bleeding obvious by now.

And where are you plucking this pronouncement from? You're basing this on what, exactly? Other than your imagination. IN the absence of any actual evidence to support your claim that "both" a flat and a round Earth model was acceptable, you've been forced to simply make things up. "Most likely"? Says who? Based on what? Wishful thinking doesn't cut it.

They also recognised that the shape of the Earth was about as theologically significant as the colour of grass.

Hammer it through your head, please - there is zero evidence that any one held the belief that the Earth was flat in the Middle Ages. In any way. Even in some kind of vague "theoretically acceptable" way. No-one.

No-one.

Got it yet?

Jehanne

The fact that some pre-Nicene fathers had taught a flat-earth means that it was completely orthodox for a Catholic in the high Middle Ages to hold such a view. The lack of "unanimous consent" among the Nicene fathers is why a "flat-earth" doctrine never reached the level of theological dogma, unlike geocentricism. See the difference, now?

aa5874

A complete useless response, you have not dealt with the issue at hand, The Medieval Church.

You claimed that the Medieval Church happily supported the spherical earth, and now have completely side-stepped the issue.

I have researched the names you have provided, and I find no documented record that any of these persons at any time was teaching and propagating within the Church that the Earth is spherical and the the Creation story in Genesis should not be taken literally. Some of these names are not even affiliated to the Church whatsoever.

Copernicus and Galileo probably were members of or affiliated with the Church, but they could not teach nor propagate any hypotheses contrary to the scriptures within the Church. You seem not to understand between a personal position and the position of the Medieval Church.

You have failed to contradict the letter from Bellamine to Father Foscarini of April 4, 1615, that up to the 17th century, the Creation story in Genesis, the fixed-flat earth story, was considered as literal by All Church Fathers, which must be the official position of the Church.

Toto

aa

The Letter

Please quote the precise language you rely on. I see:

Nothing about the shape of the earth.