[118]
Let us look into this vast creation--the highest achievement of
theology--somewhat more closely.
Its first feature shows a development out of earlier theological
ideas. The earth is no longer a flat plain inclosed by four walls
and solidly vaulted above, as theologians of previous centuries had
believed it, under the inspiration of Cosmas; it is no longer a
mere flat disk, with sun, moon, and stars hung up to give it light,
as the earlier cathedral sculptors had figured it; it has become
a globe at the centre of the universe. Encompassing it are
successive transparent spheres, rotated by angels about the earth,
and each carrying one or more of the heavenly bodies with it: that
nearest the earth carrying the moon; the next, Mercury; the next,
Venus; the next, the Sun; the next three, Mars, Jupiter, and
Saturn; the eighth carrying the fixed stars. The ninth was the
_primum mobile_, and inclosing all was the tenth heaven--the
Empyrean. This was immovable--the boundarv between creation and the
great outer void; and here, in a light which no one can enter, the
Triune God sat enthroned, the "music of the spheres" rising to
Him as they moved.
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