f Ezekiel regarding "the crystal stretched above the
cherubim."(201)

(201) For Ambrose, see the Hexaemeron, lib. ii, cap. 3,4; lib. iii, cap.
5 (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xiv, pp. 148-150, 153, 165). The passage
as to lubrication of the heavenly axis is as follows: "Deinde cum ispi
dicant volvi orbem coeli stellis ardentibus refulgentem, nonne divina
providentia necessario prospexit, ut intra orbem coeli, et supra orbem
redundaret aqua, quae illa ferventis axis incendia temperaret?" For
Jerome, see his Epistola, lxix, cap. 6 (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xxii,
p.659).

The germinal principle in accordance with which all these theories were
evolved was most clearly proclaimed to the world by St. Augustine in his
famous utterance: "Nothing is to be accepted save on the authority of
Scripture, since greater is that authority than all the powers of the
human mind."(202) No treatise was safe thereafter which did not breathe
the spirit and conform to the letter of this maxim. Unfortunately, what
was generally understood by the "authority of Scripture" was the tyranny
of sacred books imperfectly transcribed, viewed through distorting
superstitions, and frequently interpreted by party spirit.

(202) "Major est quippe Scripturae hujas auctoritas, quam omnis humani
ingenii capacitas."--Augustine, De Genesi ad Lit., lib. ii, cap. 5
(Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xxxiv, pp. 266, 267). Or, as he is cited by
Vincent of Beauvais (Spec. Nat., lib. iv, 98): "Non est aliquid temere
diffiniendum, sed quantum Scriptura dicit accipiendum, cujus major est
auctoritas quam omnis humani ingenii capacitas."

Following this precept of St. Augustine there were developed, in every
field, theological views of science which have never led to a single
truth--which, without exception, have forced mankind away from the
truth, and have caused Christendom to stumble for centuries into abysses
of error and sorrow. In meteorology, as in every other science with
which he dealt, Augustine based everything upon the letter of the sacred
text; and it is characteristic of the result that this man, so great
when untrammelled, thought it his duty to guard especially the whole
theory of the "waters above the heavens."

In the sixth century this theological reasoning was still further
developed, as we have seen, by Cosmas Indicopleustes. Finding a sanction
for the old Egyptian theory of the universe in the ninth chapter of
Hebrews, he insisted that the ear