Jeniffer electronic book

[90]
But, as civilization was developed, there were evolved, especially
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.[91]
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.


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