Herein I will consider that which Lactantius and Cosmas Indicopleustes had to say about a flat Earth. I am focusing on these two as it is them upon whom the inventors of the flat Earth myth focus. I am referring to the false claim that a flat Earth was popularly believed in, in general and was especially a Christian Bible based belief.
As I noted in my article Positive Atheism – Cliff Walker: The Flat Earth Falls Flat, the late agnostic anti-Creationist Stephen Jay Gould did some honest research debunking the myth (as a side note, also see “The Copernican Myths” and “Galileo – A Story of a Hero of Science”) and the main mythologizers were John Draper who wrote “The History of the Conflict Between Religion and Science” and Andrew Dickson White who wrote “A History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom” right around the time when Darwinians needed a boost in showing how their opponents were ignorant flat Earthers—sound familiar?
LACTANTIUS
Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (240-320 AD) Divine Institutes, Book III: Of the False Wisdom of Philosophers, Chapter 3: Of What Subjects Philosophy Consists, and Who Was the Chief Founder of the Academic Sect.
This chapter sets the stage for Lactanius’ uneventful comments on the topic at hand as he states that questions such as “whether the sun is as great as it appears to be, or is many times greater than the whole of this earth; also whether the moon be spherical or concave; and whether the stars are fixed to the heaven, or are borne with free course through the air,” etc. “to wish to comprehend these things, I say, by disputation and conjectures, is as though we should wish to discuss what we may suppose to be the character of a city in some very remote country, which we have never seen, and of which we have heard nothing more than the name.”
Chapter 24 is titled, “Of the Antipodes, the Heaven, and the Stars” (as an FYI: antipode is a reference to the opposite side of the Earth).
Lactantius begins by asking “How is it with those who imagine that there are antipodes opposite to our footsteps?” and asks if they actually believe that “there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? Or that the things which with us are in a recumbent position, with them hang in an inverted direction? That the crops and trees grow downwards?” etc.
He then surveys “What course of argument, therefore, led them to the idea of the antipodes?” and notes that “they thought that the world is round like a ball.”
He notes that “they fancied that the heaven revolves in accordance with the motion of the heavenly bodies…they both constructed brazen orbs” as illustrations of “constellations. It followed, therefore, from this rotundity of the heaven, that the earth was enclosed in the midst of its curved surface. But if this were so, the earth also itself must be like a globe.”
He retorts, “I am at a loss what to say respecting those who, when they have once erred, consistently persevere in their folly, and defend one vain thing by another; but that I sometimes imagine that they either discuss philosophy for the sake of a jest, or purposely and knowingly undertake to defend falsehoods, as if to exercise or display their talents on false subjects.”
Thus, he does not bother replying but ends with “But I should be able to prove by many arguments that it is impossible for the heaven to be lower than the earth, were is not that this book must now be concluded, and that some things still remain, which are more necessary for the present work.”
Thus, not only does he not argue against a spherical Earth and for a flat Earth but certainly does not appeal to the Bible in either case.
COSMAS INDICOPLEUSTES
Cosmas Indicopleustes (6th c. AD) is a pseudonym for an apocryphal Greek sailor from Alexandria and second part of the “name” merely means India-voyager and he later became a monk.
In view is the text Christian Topography and he begins the Book VI-Superadded: Regarding the Size of the Sun by noting that he is writing it reply to a question which pertained to how “much greater the sun may be than the earth.”
With reference to an illustrative drawing, he sates “having drawn lines and imprinted…strengthened by the divine power, to show” and he makes reference to seeking to elucidate the size of the Sun and notes that he seeks to show those who disagree that they should “bow submissively to divine scripture.” I should point out that I am not interested in dissecting his arguments but to see if, in keeping with his reference to divine scripture he actually cites any and/or bases his arguments upon them.
He, somewhat generically, notes that “The Lord also bears me witness in the Gospels, when He calls the country of the Homerites, which is not more than a two days’ sail by sea distant from Barbaria, the ends of the earth. It is evident again that I am right from the climates which they acknowledge…from the shadows themselves which are produced in each climate, it is proved that the sun does not exceed in size two climates, nay, even that the earth is flat, as the delineation shows, and not spherical.”
One thing to note is that “climate” did not mean, as we employ the term now, a reference to weather conditions, etc. but Cosmas Indicopleustes held the view that the Earth’s surface sloped and it was this slope that was called kli’ma thus, cli-mate.
Cosmas notes, “it is proved from the account of the creation that God divided the one place which extends from the earth to the first heaven, by placing in the middle the firmament, that is, the second heaven, thus making the one place into two places” and “it is proved from the very structure of man, inasmuch as he consists of two, namely, of mortal and immortal, evidently subjecting him through their contrariety to a life of conflict, in order that he may afterwards be honoured with gifts.”
Reference to the first and second heavens says nothing of their shape (FYI: the first referring to what we term the atmosphere and the second to outer-space—with the third being God’s paranormal realm).
His reference to the “very structure of man” shows that he is employing the Bible metaphorically at this point. He continues along these lines by referencing “the two trees which grew in the midst of Paradise [the Garden of Eden], scripture shows that there are two states, one mortal and mutable, and one immortal and immutable,” “the expulsion of the man from the Garden,” and various others which make up the bulk of this section.
He ends up stating, “By all these considerations the opinion of the Christians is shown to be the best of all” in general “and in accordance and harmony with the constitution of the world, and to be most true.” Thus, he seems to be claiming that since the various and sundry topics upon which he touched regarding the “opinion of the Christians” then his opinion regarding “constitution of the world” are “most true” yet, he did not appeal to the Bible for any reference to a flat Earth.
Interestingly, he notes that “The Manichaeans, holding the same opinions as the Pagans, and supposing also the heaven to be spherical” which may or may note related to the shape of the Earth itself and yet, he is employing the example in order to point out that which he does directly following where I left off the quote with “and expecting the utter destruction of the body, these, along with their evil deity whom they elected for themselves about the earth, are condemned and driven away from the City above, which they denied” thus, this is not so much about the shape of the Earth but about resurrection, etc.
Another reference to the Bible states, “Blessed then are all those who, through the divine scriptures of the Old and New Testament, recognize the Maker of all things as one God in three Persons, namely Father and Son and Holy Spirit, a holy Trinity, consubstantial, equal in power, in strength, in glory and in honour, and without beginning” which great evidence of the doctrine of the Trinity but shows that Cosmas Indicopleustes was going far and away from dealing directly with the shape of the Earth—and, of course, in any regard his main focus was the size of the Sun.
I had noted that he was not directly focused on “the shape of the Earth but about resurrection” but he later brings the two issues together with “No religion therefore, neither the Judaic, nor the Samaritan, nor the Pagan, nor the Manichaean, believes or hopes that there is a resurrection or an ascension into heaven for men; but such of these religions as think that heaven is a sphere, namely the Pagan and the Manichaean, are consistent with themselves in holding their unbelief.”
The ties the resurrection and shape of the heavens, not necessarily of the Earth, together by rhetorically asking, “For, where are they able to find a place in the sphere for the kingdom of heaven? They are both of them therefore justified in denying the resurrection of the body, and in saying that souls only are glorified or punished after the life here—or in saying, as some of them do, that souls are whirled round along with the sphere and see all things, or are condemned to be cast into Tartarus.”
Thus, Cosmas Indicopleustes seems to, for some reason, think that a resurrection can only truly occur if we move from a flat Earth to a flat heaven—in a manner of speaking as that will keep the souls of the dead from (aimlessly?) whirling around the sphere.
He makes other references to the Bible thusly, “divine scripture, in which there is the power of God, saying to them: For, in the resurrection, they neither marry, nor are given in marriage, but are as the angels of God in heaven” so that, again, he is not focused on the shape of the Earth.
He finally gets around to, literally, connecting the heavens and the Earth by noting “The heaven is bound together with the earth, and is divided into parts, for as it forms the two vaulted chambers and the two walls on each side, and after the manner of vaulted chambers has one of these walls curving round till it joins the other, and completes the entire figure (to_ sxh~ma) [sorry but I have no idea what the parenthetical statement means] of the world.”
He does not reference the Bible at this point for support and then get back to his original point on “the rays of the sun falling upon bodies produce shadows for each climate.”
Comas lived in the 6th c. AD: this is an illustration of his cosmology the
11th c. Codex Sinaiticus graecus 1186, folio 69r
Thus, his argument for the size of the Sun and by a very long extension the shape of the Earth is in no way directly claimed to come from the Bible and he has to engage in much metaphorical speculation to even reference the Bible.
The preface to the online edition of Cosmas Indicopleustes’ Christian Topography notes that “It advances the idea that the world is flat, and that the heavens form the shape of a box with a curved lid. The author cites passages of scripture which he distorts wildly in order to support his thesis, and attempts to argue down the idea of a spherical earth by stigmatizing it as ‘pagan.’ The approach to scripture is discreditable, and the conclusion made simply wrong.”
Directly to our context, the preface also notes that “The book is often cited as evidence that Christianity introduced the idea of the flat-earth into the world, and brought in the age of ignorance. This is hardly fair, since Cosmas does not represent a mainstream of any kind, personally or spiritually. The latter pages of his work are devoted to rebutting the criticism of his fellow-monks, that what he was saying was wrong.” In other words, directly after distorting the Bible, he was called to task and his views are only known because of those who “cited as evidence that Christianity introduced the idea of the flat-earth into the world” which brings us full circle.
It is also noted that “Christian writers of this” flat Earth “school” of which the only other one noted is Lactantius “turned to scripture to illustrate their theme, but their methods of exegesis attracted severe criticism from other Christian authors such as Photius.”