[92]
In the sixth century this development culminated in what was
nothing less than a complete and detailed system of the universe,
claiming to be based upon Scripture, its author being the Egyptian
monk Cosmas Indicopleustes. Egypt was a great treasure-house of
theologic thought to various religions of antiquity, and Cosmas
appears to have urged upon the early Church this Egyptian idea of
the construction of the world, just as another Egyptian
ecclesiastic, Athanasius, urged upon the Church the Egyptian idea
of a triune deity ruling the world. According to Cosmas, the earth
is a parallelogram, flat, and surrounded by four seas. It is four
hundred days' journey long and two hundred broad. At the outer
edges of these four seas arise massive walls closing in the whole
structure and supporting the firmament or vault of the heavens,
whose edges are cemented to the walls. These walls inclose the
earth and all the heavenly bodies.
The whole of this theologico-scientific structure was built most
carefully and, as was then thought, most scripturally.
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