The Flat Earth Myth? It's true that Columbus and most Church Fathers were not flat earthers, but don't start cheering just yet…

The map (to the right) displays how Columbus and some other fifteenth century Italians imagined the earthʼs geography looked, click here for more info. Columbus died, still thinking he had reached islands near India. We will discuss Columbus (along with the influence theology had on Medieval map making, and myth-making) again at the end of this blog entry but for now itʼs enough to note that Columbus was no flat earther.

But long before Columbus (and even before the Church Fathers), writings and imagery from the ancient Near East demonstrated that ancient Egyptians, Mesopotamians and Hebrews agreed the earth was flat and stationary. Even the authors of inter-testamental works like Daniel and Enoch (written between the time of the “Old Testament” and the “New Testament”) assumed the earth was flat. Even the authors of the New Testament, in the first century, employed ideas and phrases appropriate to the flatness of the earth, and also appropriate to a three-tier cosmos with Godʼs heaven above, earth below and “sheol/hades/tartarus” lying “under” the earth—all such Greek terms being translated in the New Testament with the Germanic word, “hell” (see “The Cosmology of the Bible,” a chapter in The Christian Delusion, click here, and see “Is Flat Earth Biblical Cosmology merely an Infidelʼs Delusion?” click here).

Furthermore, the idea of the sun, moon, and stars, having waters set firmly above them was discussed by early rabbis as well as Church Fathers, and medieval Christians, in fact right up till Martin Lutherʼs day at the dawn of the Reformation in the fifteenth century. See this pic from Lutherʼs Bible:

Only after the invention of the telescope did enough data pour in such that ancient ideas and words of Scripture no longer determined how the cosmos was viewed (with some modern day Christians still in denial, from geocentrists to young-earth creationists, click here. While other Evangelicals are striving to get their brethren to understand the ancient Near Eastern background of Genesis 1, click here, here, and here.

Returning to the question of what the Church fathers believed, the majority were not flat earthers but sought a concordance between the Bible and the notion of a spherical earth as found in the Hellenstic world, the same world that the Church Fathers wished to evangelize. Though a few did reject the “pagan” notion of a spherical earth, click here for more info.

One Christian in particular, writing under the pseudonymn, “Cosmas Indicopleustes,” who lived toward the end of the reign of the Christian Emperor Justinian in the sixth century, attacked the pagan “spherical earth” view and defended instead the view that the earth was flat, based on the idea in the Letter to the Hebrews that the earth was like Godʼs tabernacle in the Old Testament in which God dwelt. His book was called Christian Topography, click here. Ironically, modern day Evangelical Christian scholars (including inerrantists like John Walton, and G. K. Beale, as well as apologists like N. T. Wright) agree that the setting up of the cosmos according to Genesis chapter 1 should be interpreted as the building and consecration of a “temple” for God to dwell in—which resembles the view of Cosmas, i.e., that the cosmos was shaped like the “tabernacle” used by Moses in the wilderness, a “tabernacle” being a sort of movable “temple.” [see ENDNOTE #1] So these modern day Evangelicals view Genesis 1 as a story about the creation of the cosmos based on the motif of “temple mythology.” Cosmas would probably be annoyed at the rejection of his literal interpretation, yet also pleased to at least hear that his tabernacle/temple idea has withstood the test of time and even been applied to the first chapter of the Bible.

Even as late as the eighth century at least one medieval Christian wrote a book that depicted the earth in flat terms, attributing his work not to himself in the eighth century but to an author before Cosmasʼ own day. The book was titled, The Cosmography of Aethicus Ister, click here for a description.

And even though most Church Fathers accommodated themselves to the prevalent Hellenistic idea of a spherical earth, note that a major Church Father like Augustine denied that human beings lived on the other side of that sphere.

Saint Augustine (354-430 CE):

But as to the fable that there are Antipodes, that is to say, men on the opposite side of the earth, where the sun rises when it sets to us, men who walk with their feet opposite ours that is on no ground credible. And, indeed, it is not affirmed that this has been learned by historical knowledge, but by scientific conjecture, on the ground that the earth is suspended within the concavity of the sky, and that it has as much room on the one side of it as on the other: hence they say that the part that is beneath must also be inhabited. But they do not remark that, although it be supposed or scientifically demonstrated that the world is of a round and spherical form, yet it does not follow that the other side of the earth is bare of water; nor even, though it be bare, does it immediately follow that it is peopled.

Since these people would have to be descended from Adam, they would have had to travel to the other side of the Earth at some point; Augustine continues:

It is too absurd to say, that some men might have taken ship and traversed the whole wide ocean, and crossed from this side of the world to the other, and that thus even the inhabitants of that distant region are descended from that one first man.

Flat earthism underwent a bit of a revival in the early 1900s when some Christians in both Britain and the U.S. cited Scripture in its support and defended it in the face of what they called the “evils of modern astronomy.” British supporters of a flat earth challenged spherical earth scientists to public debates, and the flat earthers were said to have won over their audiences. In the 1920s in the U.S. Wilbur Glenn Voliva built one of the most powerful radio transmitting stations in his day, and broadcast his flat earth views widely from the city of Zion, Illinois, a Christian religious community that upheld the flat earth view.

According to Robert J. Schadewald, who was researching a book on the history of Flat Earth movements before he died in 2000, there are still flat earthers today:

[The late] Charles Johnson, a twentieth century Flat Earther and editor of The Flat Earth News, was sort of a wacky character, but he was not really representative of flat earthers in general. The half dozen or so other flat earthers Iʼve spoken or corresponded with have included a successful Boston trial lawyer, a priest who belongs to a society devoted to the preservation and translation of ancient Coptic manuscripts, a retired financial officer from a major metropolitan school system (he thoughtfully corrected an error in Greek grammar I had copied from a flat earth source), and a young man who intended to translate an eighth century flat earth treatise by Aethicus of Istria from Latin into English. Not exactly a bunch of semiliterates!

Schadewald added:

The Antiochene Fathers of the early Christian Church more or less invented the historical-critical method of exegesis popular among modern fundamentalists within the Reformed tradition. (Not surprisingly, *every* Antiochene Father whose views on the subject I have been able to discern was a flat earther!) So I think it is a bit strong to suggest that this method doesnʼt have ‘anything to do with the history of Scriptural interpretation.’ It may have been moribund for a long time, but it has ancient roots. [Emails dated 8/10/99 and 8/5/99 respectively from the late Robert Schadewald, author of numerous articles on “flat earthism,” and author of the unpublished work, The Plane Truth: A History of Flat Earth Science.]

For some articles by Schadewald that touch upon the history of nineteenth and twentieth century flat earth groups click here.

Not only do the flat earthers whom Schadewald met attest to that beliefʼs presence in the year 2000, but some twenty first century flat earthers appear to have set up a serious web forum, click here.

T-shirt sold at TheFlatEarthSociety.Org

Geo-centrism is yet another view that has never died out among believers in the Bible who cite Scriptures in support of their belief. Early Church Fathers were geocentrists, as well as the Fathers of Protestantism, Luther and Calvin (click here). Today there are still geocentrists among some orthodox Jewish educational institutions (click here). Geocentrism is also promoted by some Catholics and Protestants, who held a joint conference recently, attempting to augment their Bible-based belief in geocentrism with “scientific arguments,” click here.

A T-O type map, from 1300 (Hereford Cathedral, England) with Jerusalem at center, east toward the top, Europe at bottom left and Africa on the right.

Columbus & Ptolemyʼs Geography

Columbusʼ fifteenth century view of the size of the earth was based on Ptolemyʼs second century Geography book. Ptolemy calculated that a degree was 50 miles (not 70 as we know today), which gave him an earth with a circumference of only 18,000 miles. Ptolemy also stretched Asia eastward for 180 degrees (not 130 degrees as we know today). Therefore, Columbus, taking the word of a book composed thirteen hundred years before he was born, thought India was far closer than it really was.

Why was Ptolemyʼs Geography still considered relatively accurate thirteen hundred years after its first publication? Europe had become Christian. Expanding knowledge of the physical world was deemed to be of relatively less importance than theological notions concerning the world, especially the “world to come.” In fact there was no English word for “geography” until the 16th Century.

A classical T-O Map, but this one is from a printing press, not hand drawn like the one above, and far from being the earliest. It dates to 1472.

At any rate, Columbus appears to have used a version of Ptolemyʼs smaller size of the earth along with a belief that less sea probably existed and more land (per II Esdras, see below). So when he did reach land he remained convinced he had discovered islands off the coast of India. Columbus also noted the existence of fresh waters from what we know today as the Orinoco river which implied a great river and a vast continent. Christian geographers said that such could not exist south of the equator. So, he decided that he had found the location of Paradise. Columbus grew increasingly religious in his later years and wrote, A Book of Prophecies (1505), in which passages from the Bible were used to place his achievements as an explorer in the context of Christian eschatology.

Other Peculiar Notions About Geography That Were Held During the Middles Ages

1. The Insignificant Ocean—A passage found in the Catholic Bible (and in early Protestant Bibles that used to include the Apocrypha), implied that the earth was mostly land rather than sea. The “Ocean,” was believed to be a body of water that surrounded the earthʼs three major continents (Europe, Asia, Africa) in a circular fashion, but not as expansive as the continents themselves. The verse in question was this one:

   Upon the third day [of creation] thou didst command that the waters should be gathered in the seventh part of the earth: six pats hast thou dried up, and kept them, to the intent that of these some being planted of God and tilled might serve thee. [II Esdras 6:42, II Esdras is an ancient Apocryphal work included in Catholic Bibles, but also included in early Protestant Bibles, even the first edition of the King James Bible]

   The verse implied that six sevenths of the world must be land, so the ocean was believed to be far smaller than we know it to be today. The “Ocean” simply meant a circle of water that surrounded the three major continents of the world, with Jerusalem in the center. While beyond the “Ocean” lay Paradise.

2. Early Medieval maps, driven by theological rather than geographical concerns, often pictured Asia at the top [east was at the top] and Europe and Africa beneath Asia, one on the right, the other on the left, all three continents being encircled by the “Ocean,” with a “T”-shaped body of water dividing the three continents. The upright trunk of the “T” was the Mediterranean Sea, the right cross bar of the “T” being the Nile river, and the left cross bar of the “T” being the Danube river (or some other major European river).

3. It was also commonly believed that the three known continents, Europe, Asia, and Africa, constituted the entire world, and that each continent was occupied primarily by the descendants of one of the three sons of Noah after they left the ark, and/or after the dividing of the world after the tower of Babel incident, with Jerusalem lying at the “center of the world.”

4. In short, Medieval map makers came up with ways to design maps that supported Christian theological beliefs. Different portions of the Bible provided added opportunities for creative cartography.

   At the top of the T maps, also called T-O maps, geographers placed the Garden of Eden. (Keep in mind the top was Asia, the east.) Typically surrounded by a mountain range or a high wall, outside of which was a wasteland filled with wild beasts. Popular tales told of monks who traveled to locate Eden.

   Saint Brendan (484-578), an Irish monk, apparently believed Eden was in the Atlantic. He reportedly sailed west and found a beautiful island paradise. “St. Brendanʼs Island” remained on maps until at least 1759, even though it was never found by anyone else.

   The books of Ezekial in the Old Testament and Revelation in the New Testament both warned of “Gog and Magog,” so they were added to maps. Usually located in the extreme north (per Ezekielʼs description). Roger Bacon urged the study of geography to prepare for an invasion from Gog and Magog.

   In the twelfth century during the Crusades, Europe sought allies in the Holy Land. Prester John was said to be a priest-king who had defeated the Muslims in his kingdom. Allegedly descended from the same race as “the Three Wise Men” (who traveled far to deliver gifts to the baby Jesus), Prester John was also allegedly a pious Christian, military genius, and an enormously wealthy ruler. About 1165, a letter appeared from Prester John to the Byzantine emperor of Rome and the King of France allegedly promising to help them to take back Jerusalem from the Muslims. “Prester Johnʼs Letter” was extremely popular and widely published. It included mention of such things as: “birds called griffins who can easily carry an ox or a horse into their nest to feed their young.” “Horned men who have but one eye in front and three or four in the back.” Bowmen “who from the waist up are men, but whose lower part is that of a horse.” For years, mapmakers continued to attempt to locate Prester Johnʼs kingdom.

   A Catalan Atlas from 1375, made for King of Aragon by Abraham Cresques, a Jew on Majorca, was created by combining empirical geographical knowledge gained from ships of trade with theologically based ideas. Jerusalem was still near the center of the earthʼs geography, Gog and Magog still present.

   The cartographerʼs greatest act of self-control was to leave parts of the earth blank. A difficult act of self-control indeed, as eons of cosmological speculation and mythmaking—from the time of the ancient Near East till today—demonstrates.

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Endnotes

#1 Some Bible scholars argue that the story of a “tabernacle” in the “wilderness” might also be a myth retrojected back into the Moses story, based on the later building of the temple in Jerusalem.

Does the Bible “Teach” Geocentrism?

Geocentrism remains a minority opinion but a lively one among some creationist Christians. See poster below advertising one of their conferences, a joint affair, featuring both Catholic and Protestant speakers:

Geocentrists remain hopeful even in this heliocentric age because as Gerardus Bouw (Ph.D. in astronomy, president of the Association for Biblical Astronomy and the countryʼs leading proponent of geocentrism) puts it:

“As long as people have some faith in Scripture, thereʼs a future for it.

“I would not be a geocentrist if it were not for the Scriptures.

“The only way we can know for certain whether or not geocentricity is true would be to leave the universe, take a look around outside the universe, and then come back in to tell us what is really happening in that larger scope. Since God is infinitely greater than the universe, and so extends beyond the universe, what God says must present the ultimate case … God, in His Word, consistently teaches geocentricity.”

Compare Bouwʼs words above with these:

“The only way we can determine the true age of the earth is for God to tell us what it is. And since He has told us, very plainly, in the Holy Scriptures that it is several thousand years in age, and no more, that ought to settle all basic questions of terrestrial chronology.” [Henry Morris, founder of the Institute of Creation Research]

Bouw converted to geocentrism only after meeting Walter Van der Kamp and studying Scripture further. Van der Kamp came to creationism relatively late in life and had not gotten far in his research when something began to trouble him about the relationship of creationism to heliocentrism: If Genesis 1 clearly states that God created the sun and the moon on the fourth day in order to rule an already existing day and night on an already existing earth, when did the earth begin to move, and how did we ever get the idea that it was the earthʼs rotation toward and away from the sun that caused day and night, rather than the light that God so dramatically created in Genesis 1:3? Besides, would God really have created a planet, set it into orbit around nothing, then four days later placed a random minor star at the center of that orbit? Obviously, something didnʼt add up. Unless geocentrism was true.

Robert Sungenis, another geocentrist, has an interesting past. He was raised Catholic but became an Evangelical Christian, graduated from a pro-inerrantist Reformed Christian seminary (Westminster Theological Seminary), and later returned to Catholicism before becoming a geocentrist.

Both Bouw and Sungenis admit that some of their fiercest critics are fellow creationist Christians who “want to downplay” geocentrism as much as possible.

For instance, the creationist organization, Answers in Genesis, dismisses geocentrism with several arguments including the observation that “the question of the earthʼs physical position is less important than the spiritual reality of Godʼs love for his people.” But isnʼt that similar to the way Theistic Evolutionist Christians dismiss creationism? i.e., with the observation that “the question of whether humans were created directly from the dust of the earth or not is less important than the spiritual reality of Godʼs love for his people.” Bouw points out that Answers in Genesis is not being consistent, “You canʼt say that one part of the Bible is more credible than another part simply because you feel uncomfortable with what it says.”

Bouw adds that quite a few creationists are closet geocentrists, “including some bigwigs.”

What does the Bible say? Bouw points out that it speaks with divine assurance of the earthʼs “foundations” and that God “has established the world, it shall not be moved.” Bouw asks heliocentric Christians whether they can honestly interpret such speech as Godʼs way of communicating “the relative stability of the earthʼs orbit as it follows its circuit through the heavens?”

He points out that to heliocentrists the earth remains incessantly in motion—rotating daily—revolving annually—and over longer periods of time the tilt of its axis wobbles in a small circle. Heliocentrists are forced to admit that the Scriptures never praise God for exerting His vast power to keep the earth in constant motion, but only praise Him “for establishing the world so that it can not be moved.” What does that imply about Godʼs inability to inspire human writers with true cosmic knowledge concerning creation? If all the Bibleʼs passages that assume geocentrism and daily solar movements and God directing the annual ups and downs of the constellations as they cross the horizon are all untrue—and God is NOT exerting His power to hold the earth still, and the sun is NOT moving daily across the sky, NOR is God “directing” the seasonal movements of the constellations higher or lower above the earthʼs horizons, then what about the truth of Genesis 1-11? How can Young-Earth creationists claim the authority of “Godʼs plain speech” for how THEY interpret what God uses His powers for, but geocentrists must abandon theirs?

The Scriptural Basis for a Geocentric and or Flat Earth Cosmology

Non-Canonical Religious Texts That Agree With Scriptural Ones in Assuming the Truth of a Geocentric Cosmology

The Fathers of the Christian Church Were Geocentrists

The Fathers of the Protestant Reformation Were Geocentrists:

People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This man wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.
—Martin Luther, Table Talk

The Illustration Of The Cosmos On The Right Appeared In Lutherʼs Translation Of The Bible.

“Scripture simply says that the moon, the sun, and the stars were placed in the firmament of the heaven, below and above which heaven are the waters … We Christians must be different . . . in the way we think about the causes of things. And if some are beyond our comprehension like those before us concerning the waters above the heavens, we must believe them rather than wickedly deny them or presumptuously interpret them in conformity with our understanding.”
—Martin Luther, Lutherʼs Works. Vol. 1. Lectures on Genesis, ed. Janoslaw Pelikan, Concordia Pub. House, St. Louis, Missouri, 1958, pp. 30, 42, 43.

The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the [stars] nor the sun revolves…Now, it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious. It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in it.
—Melanchthon, famous Protestant Reformer and dear friend of Luther who helped carry on his legacy.

Those who assert that ‘the earth moves and turns’…[are] motivated by ‘a spirit of bitterness, contradiction, and faultfinding;’ possessed by the devil, they aimed ‘to pervert the order of nature.’
—John Calvin, sermon no. 8 on 1st Corinthians, 677, cited in John Calvin: A Sixteenth Century Portrait by William J. Bouwsma (Oxford Univ. Press, 1988), A. 72

The heavens revolve daily, and, immense as is their fabric, and inconceivable the rapidity of their revolutions, we experience no concussion — no disturbance in the harmony of their motion. The sun, though varying its course every diurnal revolution, returns annually to the same point. The planets, in all their wandering, maintain their respective positions. How could the earth hang suspended in the air were it not upheld by Godʼs hand? (Job 26:7) By what means could it [the earth] maintain itself unmoved, while the heavens above are in constant rapid motion, did not its Divine Maker fix and establish it? Accordingly the particle, ape, denoting emphasis, is introduced — YEA, he hath established it.
—John Calvin, Commentary on the Book of Psalms, Psalm 93, verse 1, trans., James Anderson (Eerdmanʼs, 1949), Vol. 4, p. 7

Bouw also mentions that in the modern cosmos there is no true “up” or “down.” The earth is not higher or lower than anything else in the cosmos, including the stars which “the Jews were tempted to worship” because they imagined them as being above them and divine. The earth is merely one cosmic wanderer among others, neither above nor below “the stars.” Only in a geocentric cosmos is there a firmly established sense of “up and down,” speaking of which, Bouw also introduces an argument based on the relationship between Godʼs throne in heaven and His footstool below. At the very least one can see how the metaphor of a divinely established throne with an unmoved footstool might have appealed to ancient geocentric [and/or flat earth] biblical writers. Bouw writes:

“Isaiah 66:1 and Acts 7:49 both state, ‘Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool: where is the house that ye build unto me? and where is the place of my rest? [i.e., the Temple]’

“It is usual for thrones and footstools to be at rest relative to each another. As Professor James Hanson has put it: ‘Footstools are not footstools if they are moving.’”

“Compare Lamentations 2:1: ‘How hath the Lord covered the daughter of Zion with a cloud in his anger, and cast down from heaven unto the earth the beauty of Israel, and remembered not his footstool in the day of his anger!’”

“From I Chronicles 28:2,7 Psalm 99:5 and Psalm 132:7 we know that ‘his footstool’ is the Temple upon which ‘the LORD looks down, and beholds from heaven’ (Lamentations 3:50 and 51). This is not heliocentric talk. Godʼs footstool has not moved. It is right where he left it. The Temple mount, Mount Moriah, is still under his throne as it was at the time of Isaacʼs sacrifice (Genesis 22), at Davidʼs purchase of the threshing floor (II Samuel 24:18-25), at the destruction of the Temple (Lamentations, Jeremiah 52), and at the millennial return (Ezekiel 40-48).”

Geocentrists also also focus on verses in which the sun is commanded not to move. Job 9:7 says, God “commands the sun, and it does not rise.” This can not be a case of the sun merely “appearing” not to rise, because it is the sun to which God addresses His command. Itʼs true that this line is spoken by Job, who, as a man, may be mistaken, but Bouw believes this passage is a prophetic reference to an incident known as Joshuaʼs long day. Joshua 10 recounts a day in which, according to inspired Scripture, Joshua commanded the sun not to move, instead of the earth, and, “the sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down about a whole day.” An obvious rejoinder by a heliocentrist is that if God had inspired the words, “God commanded the earth to stand still,” and, “the earth stood still,” no reader until the 16th century would have understood him. But Bouw labels this as the central heresy of the church—the heresy that the Creator of earth, sun and cosmos was incapable of inspiring human beings to say what He actually commands, moves and does. The God of the cosmos, creator of language, could not have somehow inspired His people to speak of the “circuit of the earth” instead of the “circuit of the sun?”

To quote Bouw:

“Both the anthropocentric theory of inspiration and the phenomenological-language theory are forms of accommodation where God is said to accommodate his wording to the understanding of the common man. Though that may sound good on the surface, accommodation still maintains that God goes along with the accepted story even though he really does not believe it.”

God leaves his followers with the job of continually revising the meaning of Scripture over the centuries in reaction to advances in scientific knowledge such that a rejection (in the 1600s) of geocentric biblical astronomy was only the beginning. It was followed (in the late 1700-early 1800s) by the rejection of a worldwide Flood and rejection of a young-earth. Which was followed by the rejection (in the mid-to-late 1800s) of the special creation of Adam and Eve from the dust of the earth.

Given the capitulation to heliocentrism, says Bouw, the demise of special creation was inevitable. “By the time evolution comes around, well, you gave in on the geocentric thing: Scripture doesnʼt teach how the heavens go, it teaches how to go to heaven. Fine, evolution is like that too, it has nothing to do with how to get to heaven, so thereʼs no contradiction.” Geocentrists view their work as a necessary component of creationism.

Additional Similarities Between Creationists And Geocentrists

[SOURCE: Man in the Middle: An Exclusive Cut Excerpt from Rapture Ready! by Daniel Radosh]

“Having spent a considerable amount of time talking with creationists, I recognized fundamental similarities between their approach and that of the geocentrists: the emphasis on casting doubt on established theories rather than developing their own testable hypotheses; the claim that all theyʼre asking for is an open debate. And Sungenis also echoed creationists’ assertions that they donʼt deny fossil evidence but merely interpret it in a different way. ‘We also have to backtrack on the experiments that were done that were interpreted in the heliocentric framework and ask if they can be interpreted in the geocentric framework,’ he said. ‘And we find that that is the case. That is exactly the case. All the experiments have been done for us already, its just a matter now of showing the world that those very experiments donʼt prove for modern science what they are said to prove.’”

“Another similarity between creationism and geocentrism is that when a typical scientific ignoramus — such as myself — encounters an expert in the field, he will quickly find himself drowning in a swamp of what sure sounds like science. At one point, Bouw sought to dismiss a common objection to geocentrism, which is that if the entire universe is revolving around the earth, the stars would have to be traveling faster than the speed of light in order to complete the rotations observed each day. ‘There are a couple of ways to object to that,’ Bouw explained. ‘First of all, relativity does not deal with rotation, so rotation can be beyond the speed of light. But even if thatʼs not the case — even if you just strictly take the view that all you have is gravitational rotation — because E=mc2, when you use the formula for gravity, you have to replace the m by E/c2, and so then the centrifugal energy — the energy used as the centrifugal force, the kinetic energy there — and even the potential energy — are big enough that they increase the tension so much that the speed of light changes locally. The speed of light is dependent on the strength of the gravitational field: the stronger the field, the faster it goes. And so if the universe is being held together by gravity, out beyond even twenty billion light years or so, itʼs still going to hang together. The gravitational tension is going to be huge, the speed of light is going to be tremendous — much larger, actually, than the speed of rotation — but the physics does work that way.”

“Does it? You tell me.”

“In Walter van der Kampʼs memoir there is a point when he asks himself if by clinging to geocentrism, he isnʼt merely repeating the error of ancient Christians who believed the earth was flat. And then he seems to wonder if that even was an error.”

“One should not so quickly deride these old-time pillars of staunch orthodoxy who predicted and feared that accepting the heathenish Ptolemaic sphericity in the long run would lead to the negation of Godʼs message altogether. It was Jerusalem contra Athens, revelation against human reasoning. In A.D. 748, Saint Boniface, apostle to the Germans, complained that a certain abbot, Vergilius, held the heresy of the existence of antipodes; and many of us, had we been there, might well have sided with the formerʼs literalism against the latterʼs liberalism.”

“Are there still flat-earthers? The Flat Earth Society, an organization whose name is synonymous with delusion, died in 2001 along with its final president Charles K. Johnson, although it has recently been revived with unclear earnestness. The society, founded in 1956, grew out of a movement that began in England in the mid-19th century. Like geocentrism, flat-earthism was as much a religious belief as a scientific one. Members of the Flat Earth Society — there were reportedly a few hundred in 1980 — believed in the plain language of scripture. Didnʼt God say he had “stretched out the earth” (Psalm 136:6) and could “take hold of the ends of the earth, that the wicked might be shaken out of it” (Job 38:13)? Even photographs of the planet from space — alleged photographs — could not sway them from Godʼs word.”

The late Robert Schadewald, while not an exponent of a “flat earth,” wrote several articles on its advocates, past and present, unfortunately he was not able to finish his magnum opus, a book titled, The Plane Truth: A History of Flat Earth Science. But he sent me [Ed Babinski] a couple emails in 1999 to let me know that flat earthism was not quite extinct. Robert said, “Charles Johnson of the Flat Earth Society is sort of a wacky character, but he is not really representative of flat earthers in general. The half dozen or so other flat earthers Iʼve spoken or corresponded with have included a successful Boston trial lawyer, a priest who belongs to a society devoted to the preservation and translation of ancient Coptic manuscripts, a retired financial officer from a major metropolitan school system (he thoughtfully corrected an error in Greek grammar I had copied from a flat earth source), and a young man who intended to translate an 8th century flat earth treatise by Aethicus of Istria from Latin into English. Not exactly a bunch of semiliterates!” He added, “The Antiochene Fathers of the early Christian Church more or less invented the historical-critical method of exegesis popular among modern fundamentalists within the Reformed tradition. Not surprisingly, *every* Antiochene Father whose views on the subject I have been able to discern was a flat earther! So I think it is a bit strong to suggest that this method doesnʼt have ‘anything to do with the history of Scriptural interpretation.’ It may have been moribund for a long time, but it has ancient roots.” [SOURCE: Emails dated 8/10/99 and 8/5/99 respectively from Robert J. Schadewald] See also The Flat Earth Bible by Robert J. Schadewald

Which reminds me, Evangelical theologian Ben Witherington wrote this in Bible Review in 2003:

“In the late 1960s, my car broke down in the mountains of North Carolina, and I had to hitchhike… I was picked up by an elderly couple driving an ancient Plymouth. After a little conversation, I discovered they were ‘Flat-Eathers,’ by which I mean they did not believe the world was round.

“Honest.”

“I pressed them on this and asked, ‘Why not?’”

“The elderly manʼs response was, ‘It says in the Book of Revelation that the angels will stand on the four corners of the earth. The earth couldnʼt have four corners if it was round.’”
[SOURCE: Ben Witherington III, “Asking the Right Question: To Get the Most Out of the New Testament, You Need to Know What Kind of Book Youʼre Reading,” Bible Review (April, 2003) p. 10.]

The 1920ʼs Scope Trial journalist, H. L. Mencken, ran into some flat earthers in Tennessee and they showed him a signed petition they were planning to deliver to their state congressmen to get their sacred flat earth beliefs acknowledged in public school classrooms.

Today many top notch Evangelical OT scholars have given up on attempting to squeeze history out of Genesis 1, or even out of Genesis 1-11. See the BIOLOGOS website.

What does Gerardus Bouw have to say about verses in the Bible that appear to assume a flat earth?

“I investigated it, yes,” he said. “I donʼt see that the scriptures teach a flat earth… But I have no problem defending a flat earth if I have to. Because itʼs a theoretical construct. I can defend a spherical earth too. Just pick your geometry, thatʼs all.”

To End This Blog Entry With The Question With Which It Began, “Does The Bible ‘Teach’ Geocentrism?”

Thereʼs no simple yes or no answer to such a question if only because geocentrism was so much taken for granted at that time that it could be treated as a given, a universal assumption, and thus there was no need to “teach” it. The same could be said about “flat-earth-ism” pre-600 BCE in the Near East.

Which leaves open the question of what other “assumptions” the Hebrew writers of the Bible took for granted concerning kingship, laws, gods, religious beliefs and rites? How can one know they are “true” assumptions or whether they need to be reinterpreted based on later knowledge, like the geocentric passages in the Bible? This also raises the question of whether the Scriptures can indeed “interpret themselves?” Can they?

Heliocentrism & Talk of E.T.s before Copernicus & Galileo? The Case of Nicholas of Kues (1401—1464) AKA Nicolaus Cusanus AKA Nicholas of Cusa

Heliocentrism before Copernicus & Galileo?

Nicholas of Cusa does not appear to have propounded a new system of the cosmos so much as speculated on metaphysical paradoxes of rest and motion in relation to God. His musings brought him to a point of docta ignorantia [learned ignorance] such that he argued in favor of the earth “moving,” but added that “the world and its motion and shape cannot be apprehended [itʼs a mystery we canʼt know, feel, perceive],” and of which only God can apprehend, since He is the “center and circumference of all things.”-ETB

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Did Nicholas of Cusa Proclaim the Earthʼs Daily Rotation and Annual Movement Around the Sun?

Of the “triple motion of the earth” which Heller and Gerland credited Nicholas of Cusa with devising, there was no clear mention in the De docta ignorantia [On Learned Ignorance]. Indeed, it is not contained in any of Cusaʼs works, but is briefly suggested in a note which he made upon one of the blank leaves of an astronomical, or rather, astrological manuscript that he purchased at Niirnberg in September, I444. This brief note was printed in I847 by Clemens in a footnote to his book on Giordano Bruno and Nicholas of Cusa, where it occupies barely a page. It is this humble jotting which has been elevated by the unbalanced and fantastic judgment of subsequent writers into an astronomical system marking the cleavage between the Ptolemaic and Copernican views and the beginning of modern astronomy.

Lynn Thorndike, “Nicholas of Cusa and the Triple Motion of the Earth,” pp. 133-141 of Science and Thought in the Fifteenth Century (New York: Columbia University Press, 1929). Thorndike also discusses Nicholasʼs “variable views” about the universe.

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What Controversy Did Nicholas of Cusaʼs Works Raise?

[hint: more theological than astronomical]

Nicholas of Cusaʼs speculative work proved controversial when the Heidelberg theologian Johann Wenck attacked On Learned Ignorance in his On Unknown Learning (De ignota litteratura, 1442-43). According to Wenck, Nicholasʼ teaching that opposites coincide within God overthrows Aristotleʼs principle of noncontradiction and leads to heresy: Distinctions disappear between the Trinitarian persons and between God and creation, and the “individuality of Christʼs humanity” is destroyed.

Nicholas of Cusa replied with, Defense of Learned Ignorance (Apologia doctae ignorantiae, 1449), saying that Wenck wrote as a partisan of the Council of Basel [boo, hiss] which Wenck continued to defend while Nicholas had turned to the papal cause. [Touche! Nicholasʼ public career boosting the papacyʼs influence and power began at the Council of Basel in 1421 which opened under the presidency of Nicholasʼ former teacher, Giuliano Cesarini. Nicholasʼ main efforts at the council were for the reform of the calendar and for the unity, political and religious, of all Christendom. In 1437 the orthodox minority sent Nicholas to pope Eugene IV, whom he strongly supported. The pope entrusted Nicholas with a mission to Constantinople, where, in the course of two months, besides discovering Greek manuscripts of St. Basil and St. John Damascene, he gained over for the Council of Florence, the emperor, and, the patriarch of Constantinople, and twenty-eight archbishops! After reporting his successful results, Nicholas was made a papal legate to support the cause of pope Eugene IV, which he continued to do at the Diets of Mainz (1441), Frankfort (1442), Nuremberg (1444), again of Frankfort (1446), and even at the court of Charles VII of France, with such force that Æneas Sylvius called Nicholas “the Hercules of the Eugenians.” So in 1446 in recognition of his work as a papal envoy, the pope nominated Nicholas cardinal, which was bestowed ceremoniously on him in 1448, a year before Nicholas replied to Wenckʼs accusations of “heresy.” So Nicholas appears to have had less to fear than most that the Inquisition might find his mystical thoughts “heretical,” for there was little doubt concerning Nicholasʼ Herculean labors for the papacy, nor the fact the his friend with pope Eugene IV.]

Concerning the rest of Nicholasʼ response to Wenck, Nicholas pointed out that Wenck remained comitted to “the Aristotelian sect” and therefore failed to recognize that because noncontradiction moves among “finite” oppositions and contrasts, it is inadequate for seeing Godʼs “infinite” simplicity. The latter vision requires the coincidence of opposites and an “unknowing” ascent to divine unity. On these issues Nicholas appealed to the authority of “Pseudo-Dionysius” [a Catholic mystic], and with obvious pride cited his own copy of Ambrogio Traversariʼs new translation of the Dionysian writings. Nicholas thus shifted the context for the dispute from Wenckʼs academic Aristotelianism to Dionysiusʼ mystical theology.

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Was it Heresy in Nicholas Cusaʼs Day to Believe in a Plurality of Inhabited Worlds?

The vast majority of theologians argued against such a view, though in the thirteenth century St. Bonaventure had already contended that God could make a hundred worlds if He wished. He could suspend Aristotelian physics (i.e., the argument that two Earths would come together) and create one in a place which is beyond the fixed stars.

And only three years after Bonaventureʼs death (died 1274), the bishop of Paris, Etienne Tempier, in 1277 issued a condemnation of doctrines that seemed to limit Godʼs power. Proposition 34 condemned the view “that the First Cause [God] cannot make many worlds.” This opened the door to speculation about other worlds, and though thirteenth and fourteenth century thinkers like Buridan, Oresme and Ockham ended up opposing the idea of a plurality of inhabited worlds, their analyses pointed to the problematic character of some of the arguments that Aristotle and Aquinas had brought against the idea. Then in the fifteenth century came Nicholas of Cusa (tireless advocate of the papacy and friend of the very same pope who nominated his for cardinalhood) who not only argued in favor of a plurality of worlds (based on the plentitude of God), but also the existence of life on the moon and sun!

Nicholas spoke of the earth as but one “inhabited star” among an infinite number of other “inhabited stars,” the word “star” being understood in a broad fashion, as any bright light in the sky, which also included the moon and the sun.

See the following quotations from “On Learned Ignorance”:

[Neither can we rightly claim to know] that men, animals and vegetables on earth are proportionally less noble [than] the inhabitants in the region of the sun and of the other stars. For although God is the center and circumference of all stellar regions and although natures of different nobility proceed from Him and inhabit each region (lest so many places in the heavens and on the stars be empty and lest only the earth—presumably among the lesser things—be inhabited), nevertheless with regard to the intellectual natures a nobler and more perfect nature cannot, it seems, be given (even if there are inhabitants of another kind on other stars) than the intellectual nature which dwells both here on earth and in its own region. For man does not desire a different nature but only to be perfected in his own nature…

We surmise that in the solar region there are inhabitants which are more solar, brilliant, illustrious, and intellectual—being even more spiritlike than [those] on the moon, where [the inhabitants] are more moonlike, and than [those] on the earth, [where they are] more material and more solidified. Thus, [we surmise], these intellectual solar natures are mostly in a state of actuality and scarcely in a state of potentiality; but the terrestrial [natures] are mostly in potentiality and scarcely in actuality; lunar [natures] fluctuate between [solar and terrestrial natures]. We believe this on the basis of the fiery influence of the sun and on the basis of the watery and aerial influence of the moon and the weighty material influence of the earth.

In like manner, we surmise that none of the other regions of the stars are empty of inhabitants—as if there were as many particular mondial parts of the one universe as there are stars, of which there is no number. Resultantly, the one universal world is contracted—in a threefold way and in terms of its own fourfold descending progression—in so many particular [parts] that they are without number except to Him who created all things in a [definite] number.

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The Year Before Nicholas of Cusa Died Further Speculations Arose

French theologian William Vorilong (d. 1463), after giving reasons for believing that God could create another inhabited world, added the following:

If it be inquired whether men exist on that world, and whether they have sinned as Adam sinned, I answer no, for they would not exist in sin and did not spring from Adam… As to the question whether Christ by dying on this earth could redeem the inhabitants of another world, I answer that he is able to do this even if the worlds were infinite, but it would not be fitting for Him to go unto another world that he must die again. (McColley and Miller 1937, 388)

It is a curious fact that the person who in the period after the Middle Ages did more than any other to open the door to extraterrestrials was a canon in a Polish cathedral whose passion was mathematics and who never in his published writing mentioned the question of life elsewhere in the universe. What this isolated sixteenth-century figure did was to publish in 1543 a book advocating the heliocentric theory. This was Nicholas Copernicus (1473–1543), who thereby changed our earth into a planet and inevitably, if gradually, transformed stars into other suns, which many later authors assumed are surrounded by inhabited planets.

Although no evidence indicates that Copernicus recognized the ramifications that his hypothesis would have for belief in extraterrestrial intelligences, others soon saw such implications. As early as 1550, the Lutheran reformer Philip Melanchthon (1497–1560) warned against the Copernican cosmology and the idea that Christ’s incarnation and redemption could have occurred on another planet:

[T]he Son of God is One; our master Jesus Christ was born, died, and resurrected in this world. Nor does he manifest Himself elsewhere, nor elsewhere has He died or resurrected. Therefore it must not be imagined that Christ died and was resurrected more often, nor must it be thought that in any other world without the knowledge of the Son of God, that men would be restored to eternal life. (Dick 1982, 89)

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What Nicholas of Cusa was Not

Nicholas was not Copernicus, Tycho, Galileo, nor Kepler when it came to propounding how the “earth moved,” he simply suggested “it moved,” but added his view was one of “learned ignorance.” Neither did he claim observational evidence as to the superiority of helio-centrism over geo-centrism, nor attempt to justify anything he wrote via reinterpreting various Scriptural passages. Neither did any of his writings call into question the doctrine of the transubstantiation of bread and wine during the celebration of the Lordʼs supper as did some of Brunoʼs writings (even some of Galileoʼs writings on the nature of light made the Inquisition nervous concerning its implications for the doctrine of transubstantiation). In fact, Nicholas titled the treatise in which he toys with his favorite paradoxes, “On Informed [or Learned] Ignorance,” repeating throughout that God knows whatʼs what, and everything humans know is but an imperfect circle compared with what God knows. Nicholasʼ work is mystical and even a bit Erasmian in tone. [Erasmus wrote a bit after Nicholasʼ day and took aim at the churchʼs excesses of behavior and theology in “In Praise of Folly,” employing a type of “Learned Ignorance” similar to what Nicholas wrote about. Erasmus proved you could get away with a helluva lot of scandalous jabs if you know “how” to express yourself.] Consequently, Nicholas does not appear on the Inquisitionʼs radar. He was in fact a high ranking churchman, having risen as high as cardinal, and his musings on “the world (=cosmos)” were metaphysical, mystical, relatively brief and scattered in his works, nor as highly published and publicized as those of Copernicus, Bruno, Galileo, etc. But he was still an interesting thinker in his own right.-ETB

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Cusa on Learned [or Informed] Ignorance [and why perfect circles are limited to the divine-ETB]

Even he who is most greedy for knowledge can achieve no greater perfection than to be thoroughly aware of his own ignorance in his particular field. The more be known, the more aware he will be of his ignorance. It is for that reason that I have taken the trouble to write a little about informed ignorance… The finite mind cannot attain to the full truth about things through similarity… What is itself not true can no more measure the truth than what is not a circle can measure a circle; whose being is indivisible. Hence reason, which is not the truth, can never grasp the truth so exactly that it could not be grasped infinitely more accurately. Reason stands in the same relation to truth as the polygon to the circle; the more sides a polygon has, the more it resembles a circle, yet even when the number of sides grows infinite, the polygon never becomes equal to a circle, unless it becomes a circle in its true nature… The real nature of what exists, which constitutes its truth, is therefore never entirely attainable. It has been sought by all the philosophers, but never really found. The further we penetrate into informed ignorance, the closer we come to the truth itself… It is no less false that the center of the world is within the earth than that it is outside the earth; nor does the earth or any other sphere even have a center. For, since the center is equidistant from the circumference and since there cannot exist a sphere or a circle so completely true that a truer one could not be posited, it is obvious that there cannot be posited a center (which is so true and precise) that a still truer and more precise center could not be posited. Precise equidistance to different things cannot be found except in the case of God, because God alone is Infinite Equality. Therefore, he who is the center of the world, viz., the Blessed God, is also the center of the earth, of all spheres, and of all things in the world. Likewise, he is the infinite circumference of all things.

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So what was Cusa’s insight, exactly?

Cusa had been sent by the Pope to negotiate a reconciliation between the Greek Church and the Roman Church. On the return sea-voyage, his ship was heading home from Greece when he realized that if he couldn’t see the shore, he wouldn’t have any idea the ship was moving; instead, he would perceive the ship as sitting still in the water. He also realized that if he were not a passenger but, rather, someone standing on the shoreline watching the ship, he would, from his vantage point on land, perceive the ship as moving. Two perspectives (the one on the ship, the other on land) led to two experiences of movement.

In his theological work, On Learned Ignorance, Cusa wrote that the centers “by which we orient ourselves are fictions, created by us” to reflect the standpoint of the observer. Multiple centers of perspective, he realized, were not only possible but equally valid. Applying this insight to the universe, he argued that a person standing on Mars or on the moon was just as likely as an earthling to consider his or her piece of rock to be the center of the cosmos. Cusa concluded that the universe “will have its center everywhere and its circumference nowhere, so to speak; for God, who is everywhere and nowhere, is its circumference and center.”

One should note that Cusa takes his metaphysical musings on cosmic relativism far enough to suggest, “… if someone were on the sun, the brightness which is visible to us would not be visible [to him],”

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Excerpts From An English Trans. Of Nicholas Of Cusaʼs De Docta Ignorantia [On Learned Ignorance]

Chapter Ten: The Spirit of All Things

Therefore, it is not the case that any motion is unqualifiedly maximum motion, for this latter coincides with rest. Therefore, no motion is absolute, since absolute motion is rest and is God.

[Nicholas, above, equates maximum motion with rest. Nicholas seems to be musing about metaphysical paradoxes, and the limits of human apprehension.-ETB]

Chapter Eleven: Corollaries regarding motion.

… the cosmos does not have a [fixed] circumference. For if it had a [fixed] center, it would also have a [fixed] circumference; and hence it would have its own beginning and end within itself, and it would be bounded in relation to something else, and beyond the cosmos there would be both something else and space (locus). But all these [consequences] are false. Therefore, since it is not possible for the world to be enclosed between a physical center and [a physical] circumference, the world—of which God is the center and the circumference—is not understood. And although the cosmos is not infinite, it cannot be conceived as finite, because it lacks boundaries within which it is enclosed.

[Nicholas, above, says the cosmos “is not infinite,” yet also “cannot be conceived as finite?”-ETB]

Therefore, the earth, which cannot be the center, cannot be devoid of all motion. Indeed, it is even necessary that the earth be moved in such way that it could be moved infinitely less.

[Iʼm not sure I grasp that either.-ETB]

Therefore, just as the earth is not the center of the cosmos, so the sphere of fixed stars is not its circumference… Moreover, it is no less false that the center of the cosmos is within the earth than that it is outside the earth; nor does the earth or any other sphere even have a center. For since the center is a point equidistant from the circumference and since there cannot exist a sphere or a circle so completely true that a truer one could not be posited, it is obvious that there cannot be posited a center [which is so true and precise] that a still truer and more precise center could not be posited.

[“It is no less false that the center of the cosmos is within the earth than that it is outside the earth? No sphere or center is so completely true that a truer one could not be posited?”-ETB]

Precise equidistance to different things cannot be found except in the case of God, because God alone is Infinite Equality.

[Even modern day geo-centrists claim that truth only exists in the case of God who is able to view the cosmos from “outside” and hence is the only One who knows where the true center lay.-ETB.]

Therefore, He who is the center of the world, viz., the Blessed God, is also the center of the earth, of all spheres, and of all things in the world. Likewise, He is the infinite circumference of all things…

From these [foregoing considerations] it is evident that the earth is moved.

Now, from the motion of a comet, we learn that the elements of air and of fire are moved; furthermore, [we observe] that the moon [is moved] less from east to west than Mercury or Venus or the sun, and so on progressively. Therefore, the earth is moved even less than all [these] others; but, nevertheless, being a star, it does not describe a minimum circle around a center or a pole.

Hence, although the earth—as star—is nearer to the central pole, nevertheless it is moved and, in its motion, does not describe a minimum circle, as was indicated.

[So, the earth is “near the central pole,” and “does not even describe a minimum circle” as do the stars that appear to circle round the Pole Star each night, so is he here saying that the earth moves the least of all the heavenly bodies?-ETB]

Rather (though the matter appears to us to be otherwise), neither the sun nor the moon nor the earth nor any sphere can by its motion describe a true circle, since none of these are moved about a fixed [point]. Moreover, it is not the case that there can be posited a circle so true that a still truer one cannot be posited. And it is never the case that at two different times [a star or a sphere] is moved in precisely equal ways or that [on these two occasions its motion] describes equal approximate-circles—even if the matter does not seem this way to us.

[Confusing enough?-ETB]

Therefore, if with regard to what has now been said you want truly to understand something about the motion of the universe, you must merge the center and the poles, aiding yourself as best you can by your imagination.

[That helps.-ETB]

For example, if someone were on the earth but beneath the north pole [of the heavens] and someone else were at the north pole [of the heavens], then just as to the one on the earth it would appear that the pole is at the zenith, so to the one at the pole it would appear that the center is at the zenith. And just as antipodes have the sky above, as do we, so to those [persons] who are at either pole [of the heavens] the earth would appear to be at the zenith. And at whichever [of these] anyone would be, he would believe himself to be at the center. Therefore, merge these different imaginative pictures so that the center is the zenith and vice versa.

Thereupon you will see—through the intellect, to which only learned ignorance is of help—that the world and its motion and shape cannot be apprehended. For [the world] will appear as a wheel in a wheel and a sphere in a sphere—having its center and circumference nowhere, as was stated.

[Above, we read Nicholasʼ point of “learned ignorance” that states “the world and its motion and shape cannot be apprehended.”-ETB]

Chapter Twelve: The conditions of the earth.

The ancients did not attain unto the points already made, for they lacked learned ignorance. It has already become evident to us that the earth is indeed moved, even though we do not perceive this to be the case. For we apprehend motion only through a certain comparison with something fixed. For example, if someone did not know that a body of water was flowing and did not see the shore while he was on a ship in the middle of the water, how would he recognize that the ship was being moved? And because of the fact that it would always seem to each person (whether he were on the earth, the sun, or another star) that he was at the “immovable” center, so to speak, and that all other things were moved: assuredly, it would always be the case that if he were on the sun, he would fix a set of poles in relation to himself; if on the earth, another set; on the moon, another; on Mars, another; and so on. Hence, the cosmic-machine will have its center everywhere and its circumference nowhere, so to speak; for God, who is everywhere and nowhere, is its circumference and center.

Moreover, the earth is not spherical, as some have said; yet, it tends toward sphericity, for the shape of the cosmos is contracted in the cosmosʼs parts, just as is [the cosmosʼs] motion. Now, when an infinite line is considered as contracted in such way that, as contracted, it cannot be more perfect and more capable, it is [seen to be] circular; for in a circle the beginning coincides with the end. Therefore, the most nearly perfect motion is circular; and the most nearly perfect corporeal shape is therefore spherical. Hence, for the sake of the perfection, the entire motion of the part is oriented toward the whole. For example, heavy things [are moved] toward the earth and light things upwards; earth [is moved] toward earth, water toward water, air toward air, fire toward fire. And the motion of the whole tends toward circular motion as best it can, and all shape [tends toward] spherical shape—as we experience with regard to the parts of animals, to trees, and to the sky. Hence, one motion is more circular and more perfect than another. Similarly, shapes, too, are different.

Therefore, the shape of the earth is noble and spherical, and the motion of the earth is circular; but there could be a more perfect [shape or motion]. And because in the world there is no maximum or minimum with regard to perfections, motions, and shapes (as is evident from what was just said), it is not true that the earth is the lowliest and the lowest. For although [the earth] seems more central with respect to the cosmos, it is also for this same reason nearer to the pole, as was said.

[Ancient metaphysical assumptions above.-ETB]

Moreover, [the earthʼs] blackness is not evidence of its lowliness. For if someone were on the sun, the brightness which is visible to us would not be visible [to him].

[Because his eyes would be burned out of his skull. Kidding. Iʼm just pointing out that Nicholas is now defending his musings concerning relativism in ways we wouldnʼt consider today, not with modern astronomical knowledge of the sun, stars and planets.-ETB]

For when the body of the sun is considered, [it is seen to] have a certain more central “earth,” as it were, and a certain “fiery and circumferential” brightness, as it were, and in its middle a “watery cloud and brighter air,” so to speak-just as our earth [has] its own elements. Hence, if someone were outside the region of fire, then through the medium of the fire our earth, which is on the circumference of [this] region, would appear to be a bright star—just as to us, who are on the circumference of the region of the sun, the sun appears to be very bright.

Now, the moon does not appear to be so bright, perhaps because we are within its circumference and are facing the more central parts—i.e., are in the moonʼs “watery region,” so to speak.

[So, the moon would appear much brigher, even as bright as the sun, if were not “within its circumference?” See my comment above. Like Nicholasʼ other musings these have been proven inaccurate.-ETB]

Hence, its light is not visible [to us], although the moon does have its own light, which is visible to those who are at the most outward points of its circumference;

[Nicholas agrees “the moon does have its own light.” Galileo got into trouble after examining the moonʼs surface with his telescope and suggesting otherwise.-ETB]

…but only the light of the reflection of the sun is visible to us. On this account, too, the moonʼs heat—which it no doubt produces as a result of its motion and in greater degree on the circumference, where the motion is greater—is not communicated to us, unlike what happens with regard to the sun. Hence, our earth seems to be situated between the region of the sun and the region of the moon; and through the medium of the sun and the moon it partakes of the influence of other stars which—because of the fact that we are outside their regions—we do not see. For we see only the regions of those stars which gleam.

Therefore, the earth is a noble star which has a light and a heat and an influence that are distinct and different from [that of ] all other stars, just as each star differs from each other star with respect to its light, its nature, and its influence. And each star communicates its light and influence to the others… Blessed God created all things in such way that when each thing desires to conserve its own existence as a divine work, it conserves it in communion with others…

Moreover, we ought not to say that because the earth is smaller than the sun and is influenced by the sun, it is more lowly [than the sun]… Although the earth is smaller than the sun—as we know from the earthʼs shadow and from eclipses— … the sunʼs region cannot be precisely equal to the earthʼs, for no star can be equal to another star. Moreover, the earth is not the smallest star, because the earth is larger than the moon, as our experience of eclipses has taught us. And [the earth is larger] than Mercury, too, as certain [people] maintain; and perhaps [it is also larger] than other stars. Hence, the evidence from size does not establish [the earthʼs] lowliness. Furthermore, the influence which [the earth] receives is not evidence establishing its imperfection. For being a star, perhaps the earth, too, influences the sun and the solar region, as I said.

… only God Himself, who is His own Activity, knows the manner of Divine Activityʼs present and future remuneration. Nevertheless, I will say a few things about this later, according to the divinely inspired truth. At the moment, it suffices that I have, in ignorance, touched upon these matters in the foregoing way.

Nicholas of Cusa