Post by bjorn on Feb 21, 2011 22:45:04 GMT
It is always a bit sad when some of one's fav historical sites fall for the flat earth myth, or at least parts of it.
Beachcombing at beachcombing.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/flat-earthing-the-destruction-of-knowledge/ is well aware that the medievals didn't believe in a flat earth.
For it is certainly true that the ancients, from the fourth century BC onwards (and perhaps rather earlier) believed that the earth was a sphere. It is also true that this knowledge was fully established in Christian Europe by the eighth century AD – the idea that Columbus discovered that the world was a sphere is nonsense.
Still he insists that there was a period when it was believed, and with (of all) Lacantius being the canonical text.
However, there is an intermediate period from about the fourth century AD through the seventh century AD when the Christian consensus seems to have been that the world was, in fact, flat. The canonical text here is Lactantius attacking the idea of antipodes, continents on the other side of the globe, and the following is a nice example of what common sense will do to you if it gnaws for too long at its leash:
‘But how can there be those who think that there are feet opposite to our feet [i.e. in the antipodes]? Do they have any evidence? Or are there those who really think that there are men with feet above their heads and that the things that are the right way up here hang there upside down? Do the crops and trees grow down then? Does the snow and rain and hail fall upwards towards the earth? And no wonder that the Hanging Gardens [of Babylon] are included among the seven wonders of the world, when thinkers believe that there are hanging fields, seas, cities and mountains!’
And so the idea of a spherical earth and antipodes was, in part, mocked out of existence.
As he seems familiar with Augustine not falling for this (and he was not quite lacking in influence), it is strange he thinks Lacantius was much more important.
Other Church Fathers, it is true, held on to the traditional model: there are lines in Augustine that suggest, for example, that he did so with some reservations, particularly over the status of the antipodes.
So why does knowledge sometimes disintegrate in humanity’s collective hands? There are no general rules. The question has to be looked at on a case by case basis: though perhaps the word ‘distraction’ would do justice to most cases.
A good question which would have been even better if it had not been written in a context based on a misunderstanding.
Beachcombing at beachcombing.wordpress.com/2011/02/22/flat-earthing-the-destruction-of-knowledge/ is well aware that the medievals didn't believe in a flat earth.
For it is certainly true that the ancients, from the fourth century BC onwards (and perhaps rather earlier) believed that the earth was a sphere. It is also true that this knowledge was fully established in Christian Europe by the eighth century AD – the idea that Columbus discovered that the world was a sphere is nonsense.
Still he insists that there was a period when it was believed, and with (of all) Lacantius being the canonical text.
However, there is an intermediate period from about the fourth century AD through the seventh century AD when the Christian consensus seems to have been that the world was, in fact, flat. The canonical text here is Lactantius attacking the idea of antipodes, continents on the other side of the globe, and the following is a nice example of what common sense will do to you if it gnaws for too long at its leash:
‘But how can there be those who think that there are feet opposite to our feet [i.e. in the antipodes]? Do they have any evidence? Or are there those who really think that there are men with feet above their heads and that the things that are the right way up here hang there upside down? Do the crops and trees grow down then? Does the snow and rain and hail fall upwards towards the earth? And no wonder that the Hanging Gardens [of Babylon] are included among the seven wonders of the world, when thinkers believe that there are hanging fields, seas, cities and mountains!’
And so the idea of a spherical earth and antipodes was, in part, mocked out of existence.
As he seems familiar with Augustine not falling for this (and he was not quite lacking in influence), it is strange he thinks Lacantius was much more important.
Other Church Fathers, it is true, held on to the traditional model: there are lines in Augustine that suggest, for example, that he did so with some reservations, particularly over the status of the antipodes.
So why does knowledge sometimes disintegrate in humanity’s collective hands? There are no general rules. The question has to be looked at on a case by case basis: though perhaps the word ‘distraction’ would do justice to most cases.
A good question which would have been even better if it had not been written in a context based on a misunderstanding.
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