How intensely real this way of looking at the universe was, we find
in the writings of St. Isidore, the greatest leader of orthodox
thought in the seventh century. He affirms that since the fall of
man, and on account of it, the sun and moon shine with a feebler
light; but he proves from a text in Isaiah that when the world
shall be fully redeemed these "great lights" will shine again in
all their early splendour. But, despite these authorities and their
theological finalities, the evolution of scientific thought
continued, its main germ being the geocentric doctrine--the
doctrine that the earth is the centre, and that the sun and planets
revolve about it.[115]
This doctrine was of the highest respectability: it had been
developed at a very early period, and had been elaborated until it
accounted well for the apparent movements of the heavenly bodies;
its final name, "Ptolemaic theory," carried weight; and, having
thus come from antiquity into the Christian world, St. Clement of
Alexandria demonstrated that the altar in the Jewish tabernacle was
"a symbol of the earth placed in the middle of the universe":
nothing more was needed; the geocentric theory was fully adopted by
the Church and universally held to agree with the letter and spirit
of Scripture.
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