among
the Greeks, ideas of the earth's sphericity. The Pythagoreans, Plato,
and Aristotle especially cherished them. These ideas were vague, they
were mixed with absurdities, but they were germ ideas, and even amid the
luxuriant growth of theology in the early Christian Church these germs
began struggling into life in the minds of a few thinking men, and these
men renewed the suggestion that the earth is a globe.(26)

(26) The agency of the Pythagoreans in first spreading the doctrine of
the earth's sphericity is generally acknowledged, but the first full and
clear utterance of it to the world was by Aristotle. Very fruitful, too,
was the statement of the new theory given by Plato in the Timaeus; see
Jowett's translation, 62, c. Also the Phaedo, pp.449 et seq. See also
Grote on Plato's doctrine on the sphericity of the earth; also Sir G. C.
Lewis's Astronomy of the Ancients, London, 1862, chap. iii, section i,
and note. Cicero's mention of the antipodes, and his reference to the
passage in the Timaeus, are even more remarkable than the latter, in
that they much more clearly foreshadow the modern doctrine. See his
Academic Questions, ii; also Tusc. Quest., i and v, 24. For a very full
summary of the views of the ancients on the sphericity of the earth,
see Kretschmer, Die physische Erkunde im christlichen Mittelalter,
Wien, 1889, pp. 35 et seq.; also Eiken, Geschichte der mittelalterlichen
Weltanschauung, Stuttgart, 1887, Dritter Theil, chap. vi. For citations
and summaries, see Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences, vol. i, p. 189, and
St. Martin, Hist. de la Geog., Paris, 1873, p. 96; also Leopardi, Saggio
sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi, Firenze, 1851, chap. xii, pp.
184 et seq.

A few of the larger-minded fathers of the Church, influenced possibly
by Pythagorean traditions, but certainly by Aristotle and Plato, were
willing to accept this view, but the majority of them took fright at
once. To them it seemed fraught with dangers to Scripture, by which, of
course, they meant their interpretation of Scripture. Among the first
who took up arms against it was Eusebius. In view of the New Testament
texts indicating the immediately approaching, end of the world, he
endeavoured to turn off this idea by bringing scientific studies
into contempt. Speaking of investigators, he said, "It is not through
ignorance of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their
useless labour, that we think little of thes