On the Motion of the Sun, and the Miracles divinely wrought in the Sun’s Motion.

[I.] Most briefly I pronounce that all the Holy Fathers, and all the Interpreters of Sacred Scripture not reproved by the Church, who have explained the cited passages on the motion of the Sun, understood them first in the literal sense, of a true and real motion of the Sun — granted that some, upon this foundation, afterward built up certain non-literal senses. To this pertain all those whom — concerning the creation of Light, and the distinction of days and nights made by that light, and afterward by the Sun — we reviewed in Section 1, ch. 1, questions 7, 8, and 9, and ch. 4, questions 2, 5, and 6. For thus all speak, that the Sun, by the local motion of translation, effects the vicissitudes of days and nights, and also of years. To whom is to be added St. Augustine (book 1 of On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 10), where, explaining how “from evening and morning” a day was made, he proposed an opinion which would explain this without the local motion of light and of the Sun, saying:

“Is it to be said that, since this work of God was quickly accomplished, the light stood [stayed] so long — night not succeeding — until the daytime space was completed, and the night succeeding the light remained so long, until the space of the nocturnal time passed, and the morning of the following day came, the one and first day being thus transacted?”

But he at once rejects it, subjoining:

“But if I shall say this, I fear lest I be derided, both by those who have most certainly come to know, and by those who can most easily observe, that at the time at which it is night with us, the presence of light illumines those parts of the World through which the Sun returns from the West to the East; and through this, in all 24 hours, there is not lacking — through the circuit of the whole gyre — day in one place, night in another, etc.”

And book 2 of On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 15, has thus:

“But the fixed hour, and days, and years, which we customarily know, would not come about except by the motions of the stars [heavenly bodies]. And so, if we understand in this way times, days, and years — as certain articulations which we compute by clocks, or [as those] most known in the heaven: when the Sun rises from the East up to the Meridian altitude, and thence again bends toward the West, so that next either the Moon, or some star, can be observed to emerge from the East immediately after the setting of the Sun, which likewise, when it shall have come to the mid-altitude of heaven, indicates the middle of the night, [being] then about to set when, the Sun returning, it becomes morning — but [reckoning] whole days as the circuit of the Sun from the East to the West; and years, either as those customary windings of the Sun (not when it returns to the East, which it does daily, but when it returns to the same places of the stars, which it does not do except after three hundred sixty-five days and six hours — that is, a quarter of the whole day, which part, multiplied four times, compels one day to be interposed, which the Romans call the bissextile [leap day], that the same circuit may be returned to), or even greater and more hidden years (for, the spaces of other stars being completed, greater years are said to come about): if therefore we understand times, days, and years thus, no one doubts that these come about by the stars and Luminaries” —

that is, by the motion of the stars and Luminaries, as he had said at the beginning.

[Margin: Joshua’s miracle, of what sort, in the Sun’s course.]

[II.] As regards the Miracle of the Sun wrought by Joshua, all likewise conspire in [affirming] a true and real restraint of the motion of the very Solar body — as is to be seen in Serarius (on Joshua ch. 10, from question 17 to 27), Jacobus Salianus (vol. 2 of the Annals of the Old Testament, year of the World 2584, from no. 168, or p. 303), Cornelius à Lapide (on Ecclesiasticus ch. 46, verse 5), Oliverius Bonartius in the same place, and Cosmas Magalianus (on Joshua ch. 10, section 1, from annotation 4). Nor did the Fathers understand this portent in any other sense — especially St. Jerome, who on ch. 28 of Isaiah says: “By the confidence of God dwelling in him, Joshua said, Let the Sun stand still”; and St. Ambrose (book 1 of On Duties, ch. 40): “Joshua son of Nun, by greatness of mind and faith, exclaimed, Let the Sun stand still — and it stood still, until this victory should be consummated.” And St. Bernard, as is had in the author of his Life (book 2, ch. 7): “Joshua fights; and that the day, prolonged, might suffice for the consummation of the victory, he does not so much pray as command the Sun to stand still: his faith merits both the obedience of the Sun, and the victory over the prostrated enemy.” And similarly speak Saints Dionysius (Epistle to Polycarp), Chrysostom (homily 27 on the Epistle to the Hebrews), St. Augustine (book 21 of the City of God, ch. 8, and book 11 of the Confessions, ch. 23), St. Ephrem (vol. 3, sermon on the sinful woman), St. Maximus (Epistle to Thalassius), the Author of the Marvels of Sacred Scripture (book 2, ch. 4), Tertullian (Against the Psychics, ch. 10), and others of whom [I shall speak] below.

But it is controverted whether the Sun was at the meridian, or near the horizon, and how many hours that day had. Some think it was at the meridian — the Author of the Marvels of Sacred Scripture (book 2, ch. 4, [printed] among [the works of] St. Augustine): “Joshua son of Nun commanded the Sun at midday that it should not move”; Theodoret (question 13 on Joshua), from those words “For as the Sun stood still while the Prophet fought”; Serarius (questions 21 and 22 on Joshua); Lyranus [Nicholas of Lyra], Arias [Montano], Radak [David Kimchi], Vatablus (on Joshua ch. 10); and Salianus above; and the 70 [Septuagint] Translators greatly favor them, saying: “The Sun in the midst of heaven did not proceed toward the West.” Thus also Sedulius sang:

The Sun stood still at Gabaon, and at the mid-summit of heaven fixed the panting light, the evening deferred — unwonted to rein in the day.

Yet that the Sun was near to setting [some] thought — Severus Sulpitius (in the Ecclesiastical history), [Peter] Comestor (in the Scholastic History, on Joshua ch. 9), Dionysius the Carthusian, the Abulensis [Tostado] (question 12), Hugo [of St. Cher] and Cajetan (on Joshua ch. 10) — because, for “move not,” the Hebrews read “Wait”; and therefore Cajetan says: “For unless he had seen the setting of the Sun imminent, he would not have said, Sun, wait.” Granted that other Hebrews read “Sun, be silent,” and to this second opinion subscribe Magalianus and Cornelius à Lapide above — both because those words of Joshua 10, “the Sun hasted not to go down,” sufficiently indicate that it was about to come about that it would soon rush headlong below the horizon, unless it had been restrained by Joshua’s command; and because a miracle is not to be multiplied, nor procured except by urgent necessity; and because that [phrase] “in the midst of heaven” can be taken for any part of the visible hemisphere, which nevertheless, with respect to some horizon, is always in the meridian.

[Margin: How long was the Joshuan day?]

[III.] It is asked, moreover, to how many hours that day was prolonged, and whether those words of Joshua 10, “It hasted not to go down the space of one day,” and those of Ecclesiasticus 46, “And one day was made as two,” ought to be understood of an entire natural day of 24 hours, or of an artificial [day] of 12 temporal [seasonal] hours; or (because the interpreters, from the circumstances of the history, reckon that it was around the summer Solstice, and that at Jerusalem — having a pole-altitude of 32° 10’ — the longest day is of 14 hours 5 minutes) [whether] they ought to be understood of a day of 14 equal hours. For if the Sun stood still through 24 hours, those, added to the temporal hours of the artificial day which had preceded, make 36 hours; but with the 14 equal hours 5 minutes, they make 38 hours 5 minutes. But if the Sun stood still for only 14 hours, those, added to the 14 hours likewise elapsed, make 28 hours; nay, if that station were computed from the meridian, according to the opinion of those who reckon that Joshua’s command was made to the Sun holding the meridian, there would be only 21 hours. That that day was of 36 hours, the [Chaldee] Para-…

[…continues on p. 482 (PDF 517) with the catchword “Paraphra-” (Paraphrastes, the Chaldee Paraphrast).]

(printed p. 482 — Chapter XXXVII continues its patristic treatment of the Joshua miracle: the disputed length of the Joshuan day (commonly 36 hours), whether the whole heaven stopped with the Sun (the more likely view), and a catalogue of later reported Sun-halts (Charlemagne, Godfrey of Bouillon, Oran, St. Francis Xavier), explained by Cornelius à Lapide as refraction-images. It then opens the Hezekiah miracle: whether only the sundial’s shadow went back or the Sun itself.)

[Header: BOOK IX. SECTION IV. — 482]

…the [Chaldee] Paraphrast, Dionysius the Carthusian, Emmanuel Sà; and it is attributed to St. Justin (in the dialogue against Trypho); and it seems to be confirmed by [the fact] that in Joshua 10 it is said that there was not so long a day before, nor after — whereas yet the day prolonged by Isaiah’s prayers, in favor of King Hezekiah, is reckoned by some to have been of 32 hours. But granted that this be conceded: the writer of the book of Joshua nevertheless spoke of the days before Joshua and after, up to his own age in which he was writing — whether he were Joshua himself, or Samuel, or some other older than Isaiah. But in those 36 hours some reckon the whole natural day of 24 hours together with the 12 hours of the prolonged artificial day, as Serarius. But that that day was composed of two artificial [days], or of 24 temporal hours, or 28 unequal [hours], thought Cajetan, Vatablus, Rabbi Eliezer, Rabbi Kimchi, Magalianus (on Joshua ch. 10), Serarius (ibid., question 23), Cornelius à Lapide, and Salianus above — for this [span] was sufficient to complete the victory; but these speak of a day not embracing the night. I wonder, therefore, that it pleased Toletus (book 4 of the Physics, ch. 14, question 16) [to allow] a delay of only three hours; nor indeed does St. Augustine (Confessions 11, ch. 23) say this, but says: “That the victor Joshua might finish the battle, the Sun stood still, but time went on.” St. Dionysius (in the epistle to Polycarp): “For one day the Sun and Moon stand still”; and of one day [also] affirm Saints Jerome and Ephrem — nay, also Tertullian.

[Margin: Whether the Sun alone stood still.]

[IV.] It is also wont to be asked whether the Sun alone stood still, or all the stars together with their leader and Chorus-master [the Sun]. St. Dionysius the Areopagite, in the epistle to Polycarp, brings both forward as a miracle, as an exceptional argument of the divine power, and does not determine which it was; but says it would be more admirable if, the Sun standing still, the other stars completed their courses. Yet it is more likely that the whole heaven stood still with all the stars — as think the Author of the Marvels of Sacred Scripture (book 2, ch. 4), St. Maximus (to Thalassius), the Abulensis (on Joshua ch. 10), Masius and Cajetan (ibid.), the Conimbricenses (book 2 On the Heaven, ch. 6, question 2, art. 3), Serarius (on Joshua ch. 10, q. 26), Salianus, Cornelius à Lapide, and Bonartius above — both lest the order of the celestial motions be disturbed, and because this seems to indicate Joshua’s command over the Moon, whose light, the Sun being present, was not necessary for the consummation of the victory; but he seems implicitly, and by Divine instinct, to have said, “Sun, and you all other lights of the world, move not” — briefly, under the name of the Luminaries, as of the king and queen of the stars, comprehending the whole soldiery of heaven. But if the Earth had to stop, as the Copernicans wish, there was no cause why God — who wished to work this portent at Joshua’s wish — should incite him by an internal impulse to [command] the Moon also to be stopped, or else St. Dionysius and the rest of the sacred writers would certainly raise this question in vain — unless the Copernicans feign that the miracle of the diurnal revolution was wrought in the Earth, but [the miracle] of the proper motion in the rest of the Planets.

[V.] It is asked, finally, whether this portent was wrought at another time [as well]: for in 1 Paralipomenon ch. 4, verse 22, there is named, among the sons of Sela, some unknown person, “Who made the Sun to stand still.” This man the Rabbis say was Elimelech the husband of Naomi; but he was not of the sons of Sela, but of the sons of Phares. And in Hebrew, in place of that periphrasis “Who made the Sun to stand still,” there is had the name Iocim or Ioakim, whose etymology is “he made to stand still”; but whether this is a fable feigned by the Rabbis — as Cajetan thinks (on that place of Paralipomenon) and Serarius (question 25 on Joshua ch. 10) — and whether the name “Sun” has been inserted into the sacred Bibles by certain [persons]; or whether [the man] was rather a “stopper of Salt,” because, like Elijah, he brought drought upon the lands (as Magalianus thinks, on Joshua ch. 10, verse 22, annotation 7); or whether those words are to be read merely materially [as letters], as Salianus thinks (in scholium 3, on the Year of the World 2801); or [taken] for the etymology of the proper name, abstracting from the truth of the signification, as Gaspar Sanchez wishes (on 4 Kings ch. 20) and Bonartius above; or whether, finally, he really made the Sun stand still — as St. Jerome, from the tradition of the Hebrews, relates and does not reprove (in his book On the Hebrew Traditions, on that place), [and] the Abulensis (ibid., question 18), Lyranus, Hugo, Rabanus, Dionysius the Carthusian, and several others — it seems uncertain; nor does Cornelius à Lapide above define anything, just as neither do I, out of reverence for the Vulgate edition, which I prefer to receive as it stands.

But on this occasion Cornelius à Lapide and Bonartius (on Ecclesiasticus ch. 46) add other portents — if not so great, yet similar.

[Margin: St. Mutius the Abbot and Bessarion stop the Sun.]

For St. Mutius the Abbot, as Rufinus relates (book 2 of the Lives of the Fathers, ch. 9), proceeding by God’s admonition to visit one of the brethren who was sick: “When he now saw the Sun setting, he said to it: ‘In the name of our Lord JESUS Christ, stand still a little while in thy course, and wait for me, until I come to the village.’ And it, when it had now in some part begun to sink, stood still, nor did it go down before the man of God reached the village; but all, standing and gazing at the delays of the Sun in setting, marveled — to whom he said: ‘Do you not remember the word of the Lord, If you have faith like a grain of mustard, you shall do greater signs than these?’” So Rufinus, and from him Maiolus (Colloquy 1 of the Dog-Days). But also from a similar cause, Bessarion the Abbot, and another old man, are reported to have made the Sun stand still (book 6 of the Lives of the Fathers, ch. 2).

[Margin: The Sun stands still under Charlemagne. And under Charles V.]

That the Sun, moreover, stood still under Charlemagne, to take vengeance on the Saracens who had slain Roland and other princes of Charles in the slaughter of Roncesvalles, narrates Turpin, Archbishop of Rheims, who was familiar with Charlemagne (ch. 26 of the Life of Charles); but this [author] Baronius, Bellarmine, and Possevinus (On Ecclesiastical Writers) note as a suspect and fabulous author. Again, that the Sun stood still under Charles V, when he overcame the Saxon in battle, affirms Ludovicus Avila (book 2 of the German War), Gonzalvo de Illescas (part 2 of the History of the Pontiffs), and others, whom Christopher Scheiner follows (in his book On Celestial Refractions, ch. 32).

[Margin: And under Godfrey of Bouillon. And under Francisco Ximenes.]

Likewise, on that day on which Godfrey of Bouillon, in the year 1099, stormed Jerusalem — on Friday, and at the hour at which Christ had there been crucified — the Sun retreated some degrees, narrates Eucherius (in the History, ch. 21), and from him Genebrard (in the Chronicle, book 4). In the preceding century too, at the time when the Spaniards stormed Oran and conquered the Moors, the Sun stood still for 4 hours, testifies Alvarus Gomez (book 4 of the Deeds of Cardinal Francisco Ximenez).

[Margin: And under Francis Xavier.]

Finally Bonartius (in the cited place), from letters written from Madrid, and by the oath of the Fathers of our Society, narrates that the Sun, when just about to set, stood still for five and more hours, until our men with others could escape from the shoals which are between Goa and Malacca, into which the Helmsman had imprudently run with the greatest danger — [a danger] which had been increased by a wind suddenly stirred up, and driving the ship onto the shoals. Which miracle he says was wrought by the intercession of St. Francis Xavier, to whom they had commended themselves, a vow being added of a silver lamp to be carried to his tomb. Portents of this kind, moreover, Cornelius à Lapide explains [as occurring] not in the globe of the Sun itself, but in an image refracted through clouds or vapors of the horizon: otherwise, says he, if the Sun itself had stood still, the Astronomers of the whole world would have noted this. But I come to the other miracle wrought under Hezekiah.

[Margin: The miracle under Hezekiah, on the sundial of Ahaz.]

[VI.] For concerning the Going-back of the Sun under King Hezekiah, at the wish and prayers of Isaiah, the Holy Fathers and Interpreters likewise treat — on 4 Kings ch. 20, or on Isaiah ch. 38, or on Ecclesiasticus ch. 48, or in 2 Paralipomenon ch. 32, where this miracle is mentioned; but the most diligent of all are Gaspar Sanchez (on 4 Kings ch. 20), Salianus (vol. 4 of the Annals, on the Year of the World 3322, from no. 86), Cornelius à Lapide (on Isaiah ch. 38, and on Ecclesiasticus ch. 48), and Oliverius Bonartius (on Ecclesiasticus ch. 48) — all of our Society.

[Margin: Whether the Sun itself, or only the shadow, went back.]

Concerning this miracle, therefore, the chief question is whether only the shadow went back on the sundial of Ahaz, or the Sun itself. That the shadow alone retreated, think Burgensis (on 4 Kings), Vatablus, Arias Montano (on Isaiah), Emmanuel Sà — because the Sun’s regress is a greater miracle than its restraint, and [it ought] not to be passed over in silence by Isaiah and the writer of the book of Kings, who nevertheless made mention only of the shadow; nor was the choice offered to the King except concerning the shadow, since he, sick in bed, could not see the Sun, but only the shadow through the window; finally the Babylonians would not have doubted about a portent which had been observed at Babylon too, nor [merely] brought to them by report. But on the contrary, that the Sun itself returned affirm Sirach (Ecclesiasticus 48), where, when he had said, “Isaiah the great Prophet, and faithful in the sight of God,” he at once added: “In his days the Sun went backward, and he added life to the King.” In Greek ἀνεπόδισεν ὁ ἥλιος [anepodisen ho hēlios], “the Sun went back” — where the [phrase] “added life to the King” is referred to Isaiah rather than to the Sun, unless you understand that the Sun “added,” that is, signified [the life] to be added by its regress; nay, Isaiah himself (ch. 38) says, “And the Sun re-…”

[…continues on p. 483 (PDF 518) with the catchword “epi-” (epi-stola) — completing “the Sun returned ten lines,” and the witnesses (Dionysius, etc.) that the Sun itself went back. (Note: the printed sentence “the Sun returned ten lines, and 2 Paralipomenon 32 says that portent happened not at Jerusalem only but ‘upon the earth,’ signifying universality; wherefore deservedly St. Dionysius in [his] epistle… and others judged the Sun itself went back.”)]

(printed p. 483 — Chapter XXXVII continues the Hezekiah-sundial miracle: that the Sun itself returned is the constant opinion of almost all Fathers and interpreters; the dial’s form, the hour of the prodigy, and whether the ten lines were whole hours or fractions are canvassed. Riccioli then gives his own five-point opinion — the reversal was a true miracle, nearly instantaneous, before noon, and the ten lines were probably half-hour marks.)

[Header: DE SYSTEMATE TERRÆ MOTÆ — 483]

…[St. Dionysius in his] epistle to Polycarp; Saints Jerome and Cyril (on Isaiah); Procopius, Lyranus, Haymo, Hugo, Adamus (ibid.); the Author of the Marvels of Sacred Scripture (book 2, ch. 48); Theodoret (on Psalm 29); Elias of Crete (on the 19th oration of St. Nazianzen); the Abulensis; Sanchez; Cornelius à Lapide (on Isaiah ch. 38, and on 4 Kings ch. 20, where Sanchez says that it is the constant opinion of almost all the Fathers and Interpreters); finally Serarius (on Joshua), Salianus, and Bonartius above. Granted that Isaiah expressed to the King only the regress of the shadow, as the effect — from which he could more conveniently and evidently discern the magnitude of the miracle wrought in the Sun; nor did the Babylonian Legates doubt about the substance of the prodigy, but about its manner and circumstances. There is added that sundials can be made naturally, in which the shadow alone retreats, as Clavius demonstrates (in the construction of the instrument for sundials, ch. 21), where he prudently refutes Pedro Nuñez [Petrus Nonius], who said that that prodigy was wrought by a sciateric [gnomonic] artifice, and accordingly naturally — whereas it was wrought miraculously and supernaturally.

[Margin: The time of the Miracle, and the kind of sundial.]

[VII.] It is moreover controverted at what time of day, and in what kind of solar sundial, this miracle was wrought. But since Scripture (4 Kings ch. 20) introduces Isaiah speaking thus: “Wilt thou that the shadow go up ten lines, or that it return back as many degrees?” and soon: “And Hezekiah said, It is easy for the shadow to grow ten lines; nor do I wish this to be done, but that it return backward ten degrees. And so Isaiah the Prophet invoked the Lord, and brought back the shadow through the lines by which it had already descended on the sundial of Ahaz, backward ten degrees.” And Isaiah 38: “And the Sun returned ten lines, by the degrees by which it had gone down.” From these, Cornelius à Lapide (on Isaiah ch. 38) gathers that that sundial was in a vertical plane, erected to the Horizon in such a way that its face was turned toward the Meridian [South]; for, since it is probable that it was conspicuous on the wall of the royal palace for common use, those conditions cannot be verified except of such a sundial — namely [one having] the ascent and descent of the shadow; but [rather] the ascent of the growing shadow, and the hours from East to West ten. If indeed on it could be marked an ascent through 10 degrees or lines, and a descent through as many lines. For concave hemispheres [hemispherical dials] would have been less apt and convenient for this, and less exposed to observers. Moreover the same author gathers that it was the time of noon, or near it; for now, the Sun ascending [toward noon], the shadow had descended toward the meridian through 10 lines, and through as many it was about to ascend, if the King had wished; wherefore the shadow seems to have been at the terminative point of the descent made and the ascent to come.

[Margin: The antiquity of the Solar sundial.]

On which occasion, note in passing that the inventor of the Solar sundial was not Anaximenes — as Pliny thinks (book 2, ch. 76), who flourished around the fiftieth Olympiad; whereas Ahaz lived under the first Olympiad, that is, nearly 200 years before Anaximenes; and many more years before L. Papirius Cursor, who first set up a Solar sundial for the Romans, at the temple of Quirinus, about the first Punic War, as Pliny relates (book 7, ch. 60). But see Clavius (book 1 of the Gnomonics, p. 7).

[Margin: Whether the 10 lines were hour-lines or half-hour-lines.]

[VIII.] Thirdly, it is asked whether those ten lines designated ten whole hours, or halves or quarters of hours — on which depends the solution of the question concerning the quantity of that day. Although in these [matters] another question too is involved, namely whether the return of the Sun and shadow was made suddenly and in a moment, or little by little and successively. That those lines were hour-[lines], not half-hour-[lines], indicated St. Dionysius (in the epistle to Polycarp); the Author of the Marvels of Sacred Scripture (book 2, ch. 28); Eucherius (on 4 Kings ch. 20); the Chaldee Paraphrast, Bede, and Angelomus (ibid.); and from these St. Dionysius [reckoned] that that day was of 32 hours — namely 12 temporal hours, and 10 which the Sun added by going back, and as many others which it added by going forward; and thus the artificial day would have been almost tripled. But some say that that day was [merely] doubled — as the Author of the Marvels of Sacred Scripture, Procopius (on Isaiah ch. 38), Rabbi Kimchi (in Vatablus), Tornielli (Year of the World 3322, no. 6), the Abulensis and Cajetan, Sanchez (on Isaiah). And so [they say] either that those lines were half-hour-[lines], or that the Sun returned to the East in a moment of time, or at least most swiftly, and afterward, advancing by ordinary succession, added to the 12 hours another 10 hours, or to the 10 hours already elapsed [another] 12 hours; and thus the day was of 22 hours. For if the lines were hour-[lines], and the Sun had used its accustomed slowness both in the regress and in the progress, the shadow of the Sun could not grow through the other 10 lines, as Isaiah had offered to the King; otherwise the artificial day at Jerusalem would have been of 20 hours naturally — inasmuch as [they were] designated on the sundial. But Cornelius à Lapide (on Isaiah), because he thinks it was then noon, and that on that sundial only 10 hours were designated — five forenoon [hours] by 10 half-hour lines, and as many afternoon — judges likewise that that day was of 15 hours; which number is surely apt for designating the 15 years which God superadded to Hezekiah. Hence likewise it will follow that the day prolonged by Joshua’s command was longer than this day prolonged by Isaiah’s prayers — although this is by no means necessary, since those words of Joshua 10, “there was not before nor after so long a day,” pertain only to the time at which the Author of that book was writing.

[Margin: Whether the other stars went back.]

Yet on this occasion too — that not the Sun only but the rest of the stars retreated proportionally, lest the disposition of the heaven be disturbed — teach St. Dionysius (to Polycarp), the Author of the Marvels of Sacred Scripture (book 2, ch. 28), the Abulensis (on 4 Kings, question 33), Baradius (vol. 1, book 5, ch. 14), Cornelius (on Isaiah ch. 38), Salianus above, and Bonartius.

[Margin: Our opinion concerning this miracle.]

[IX.] But I explain the aforesaid miracle thus, the better judgment being always reserved. And First, I say that Isaiah, when he offered the King the choice — either of the ascent of the shadow, or of its return — offered in either case some miracle; and accordingly that the ascension of the shadow was not to be accomplished after 10 or 5 hours by the ordinary descent of the Sun toward the West, but immediately, and in almost a single instant. The King, however — who either had not understood that miracle [as] not expressed by the Prophet, or [who] was wishing for a greater and more evident miracle, liable to no ambiguity, when now the choice was given — chose the return of the shadow; for whether that miracle were to be accomplished most swiftly and almost in an instant, or by the succession accustomed to the Sun’s motion, some miracle would at last be wrought — namely in the regress of the shadow through the same lines through which it had already advanced from the rising of the Sun; and if this very thing was to be done in a moment, there would be a double miracle in one miracle.

Secondly, I say that the return of the Sun and shadow was made in a moment, or with the greatest possible speed — which those words signify: “And he brought back the shadow through the lines by which it had already descended”; for there was no cause for deferring the perfection of the miracle and keeping the King in suspense, and the Prophet occupied in the palace in vain for 10 or 5 hours. Finally reason demands that the ascent of the shadow in the regress was such as it was going to be in the progress, if the King had chosen the former part of the offer; but that [progress] would doubtless have been miraculous, and accordingly without the accustomed delay of the Solar course; nor did it belong to the divine liberality, [the King] choosing a greater and surer miracle, to restrict it to the return alone.

Thirdly, I say that, although from the sacred text and the property of that sundial it is gathered that the time was not yet afternoon (for the shadow had so descended through ten lines, on account of the ascent of the Sun, that it could still ascend through ten other lines as the Sun descended toward the West, and grow or advance to as many remaining lines, if the King had wished it thus suddenly, by God’s command, to advance — and yet through all the lines through which it returned, it would [by then] have already descended; but it would not have descended through some lines, and begun to ascend through [some] one); it does not however follow that it was the very moment of noon, but it could have been a forenoon time — and yet the Prophet could bring it about (if the King had chosen the mere ascent) that the shadow, immediately crossing the meridian line, should hasten to the last of the eastern lines, the Sun rushing into setting by a headlong and almost momentary leap.

Fourthly, I say that the ten lines through which the shadow had already descended could not be lines designating or terminating whole hours; because the forenoon hours, not even on the artificial solstitial day, could at Jerusalem be 10, but only 7 hours 2½ minutes [7h 2′ 30″] — since there the longest artificial day is only of 14 hours 5 minutes. It is therefore more probable that they were half-hour [lines], and that on that sundial not only the hours but also the half-hours were marked — which is done by the more diligent Sundial-makers, whether with the same or with different colors. Therefore the ten lines comprehended five whole hours.

Fifthly, I say that it is not probable that that maker, who was so diligent that on the wall of the royal palace [he marked] not only the hours, but also the di-…

[…continues on p. 484 (PDF 519) with the catchword “scri-” (di-scri-mina, the distinctions [of the half-hours]).]

(printed p. 484 — Chapter XXXVII finishes Riccioli’s opinion on Hezekiah’s dial (probably a year-round wall-dial with seasonal hours marked by half-hour lines, “steps” being figurative) and opens the patristic dossier proper, quoting the Fathers’ own words on both miracles: Dionysius the Areopagite, Hilary, Cyril of Alexandria, Gregory Nazianzen, Elias of Crete, Theodoret, Augustine, and Jerome beginning.)

[Header: BOOK IX. SECTION IV. — 484]

…the di[stinctions of the half-hours], should [yet] have delineated a sundial so maimed and imperfect that for the whole day it designated only 10 hours — namely five forenoon and as many afternoon. For if those hours were unequal or temporal [seasonal], the first hour after sunrise and the last before sunset would be lacking, since the artificial day is of 12 temporal hours; but if they were equal hours, then on the days nearest the summer solstice two hours after sunrise and two before sunset would be lacking — since the artificial day would be, as I said, of 14 equal hours; but at the time of the equinox, single hours on each side would be lacking; nor would the sundial serve accurately, except on the days of winter, on which the day there was of 10 equal hours. Therefore in that sundial there were designated at least 12 unequal hours, by 24 half-hour lines; for it is more likely that the Hebrews, like the Romans and Greeks, used temporal hours — as we taught in our Chronological work. Wherefore, since Isaiah brought back the shadow through all those lines through which it had already descended, and those were 10, it is very probable that it was then the 5th hour from sunrise, and that one hour still remained to noon; and accordingly, since the Sun completed these twice on that day by its motion, that whole day was of 17 temporal hours.

But if someone wishes those hours to have been equal, and [it] a winter day, then it would have been noon, and from the 10 hours of the artificial day, with 5 superadded, 15 hours would be formed — which would be apt for signifying the 15 years divinely superadded to the King; granted that this signification is not necessary.

[Margin: Whether the sundial of Ahaz was a kind of staircase?]

There are, however, [those] who think that that sundial consisted of degrees, as of stairs, rather than of lines — as we shall see below, from Saints Hilary, Cyril, Jerome, and Elias of Crete. But a sundial of this kind — which would serve the whole year, and be at once obvious to the common [people], and could be seen by the King lying in bed, and on which the bringing-back or return of the shadow through 10 lines could be at once observed — would have been most difficult [to construct]; nor, from the fact that Scripture says “Degrees [Gradus],” does it follow that they were real degrees of some staircase, but [Scripture] so called them because the lines in vertical sundials are so disposed around the gnomon that they imitate the steps of spiral staircases, whose ground-plan has been designed by some architect on the remaining plane; and by which reasoning also the lines of the parallels on globes or Geographical maps imitate the steps of staircases — whence arose the name of “Climates” — and yet they are not in reality steps by which one ascends.

[Margin: St. Dionysius the Areopagite’s opinion on the Sun’s standing-still and regress under Joshua and Hezekiah.]

[X.] Thus far concerning the substance and circumstances of each miracle, whose exposition was not to be interrupted by the sentences of the Fathers; yet it pleases [me] to bring these forward in this place, beginning with St. Dionysius the Areopagite, who, in the Epistle to Polycarp, speaking of Apollophanes the Sophist (who used the divine testimonies wickedly against the divine [Author]), says:

“Apollophanes ought to have understood — he who was [accounted] wise — that nothing in the order and motion of the heavens could ever have been changed otherwise than it is, unless it had had Him who both contains it in its state and created it, by whose motion and nod it had been brought to that point — [He] who, as is [said] in the divine letters, makes and changes all things. Why therefore does he not worship Him, whom from this too we have truly known to be the God of all, marveling at His power, by which He is the cause of all, and [which] cannot be expressed in words? Since by Him the Sun and Moon, by force and station above the nature of the universe of things, are fixed utterly immovable; and all day all things rest on the same points; or — what is greater — all the higher [bodies] being moved in a circle, those things which were contained in their embrace were not borne round together in a circle [with them]. And when a certain other day was made almost three times longer, even by twenty whole hours; or the universe repeated the contrary course of so much time, and was turned back by contrary revolutions so admirable; or the Sun, having contracted its varied motion into ten hours, again, by going back, completed the same whole [motion] anew in another ten hours. This indeed terrified the Babylonians — and by right and deservedly — and, without a fight, subdued [them] to Hezekiah, as though he were equal and like to God, and surpassed [other] men.”

But in the same place he describes the immobility of the Earth, as we shall see below.

[Margin: St. Hilary’s opinion on the sundial of Ahaz.]

But St. Hilary too seems to have thought the same as [we shall see of] the sundial of Ahaz; for thus he seems to think (in the preface on Psalm 119) — that it distinguished the hours by certain steps of a staircase; for he says:

“For in the book of Isaiah, Hezekiah praying, a Sign of his prolonged health was set for him in the steps. Now there were in his house ten steps, which the Sun, beyond the course of its [normal] time, ascended with its light approaching, and again descended on the day of his death, with its light descending.”

But on Psalm 135 he says:

“That too was [a matter] of great miracle, both when, at the saying of Joshua son of Nun, ‘The Sun stood still against Gabaon, and the Moon against the valley of Aialon.’ I know not what more wonderful than this could be wrought: when, at the word of a man, the Sun and Moon were held back, for the delay of one day, from the law of their course.”

In the same place he also describes the immobility of the Earth, as we shall see below.

[Margin: St. Cyril of Alexandria’s opinion on the same sundial and miracle.]

But St. Cyril of Alexandria too seems to have thought the same as St. Hilary, when (book 3 on Isaiah, on ch. 38) he says:

“They say that Ahaz, the father of Hezekiah, took care that in his house certain steps were made, as by a machine and a certain art, which, as it were, numbered the hours, and measured the course of the Sun by the descent of the shadow made on them. That Hezekiah was about to return to life, God made plain by the shadow of the Sun going back, and the day being extended to an unusual measure of hours.”

And on Isaiah ch. 39 he teaches that the miracle was wrought in the Sun itself, so that this was one of the chief causes for which Merodach son of Ladan, King of Babylonia, sent legates to Hezekiah with gifts and letters:

“But not this alone struck the Babylonian with wonder — that, I say, Hezekiah was sick and again returned to good health — but that [other thing was] altogether great, and truly a vast sign. By an ineffable and divine nod the Sun was commanded to run back and retrograde, so that the shadow too returned 10 degrees. The Sophi [wise men], by the surname of the Babylonians and Chaldeans — that is, the wise — although they boast themselves subtly learned in knowing the course of the Sun and the rising and setting of the stars, did not, as it seems, fail to know this retroversion and the unusual magnitude of its day, etc.”

[Margin: St. Gregory Nazianzen’s opinion.]

To these let St. Gregory Nazianzen be added, who (in oration 18, which is in praise of St. Cyprian the Martyr) reckons among the ancient miracles these: “The Sea is cleft, bread is poured like rain, the course of the Sun is restrained, etc.”; and (oration 20) “He who cleft the sea, compressed the Sun’s course, restrained the river, etc.”; nay, before, in oration 3, he had said: “The Sun standing still, and the Moon held back, and the course of the Jordan cut off, etc.” — in which places he indicates Joshua’s miracle. But in oration 19 he touches the other miracle, saying of Hezekiah, “Whom God endowed with an increment of life, and that by the shadow of the steps driven back He indicated — honoring the king at once with grace and with a sign, and confirming [it] by the increase of the day.”

[Margin: Elias of Crete’s opinion on the sundial of Ahaz, etc.]

Which place Elias of Crete thus expounds:

“In the commentaries of the ancients we find that that day was of thirty-two hours; for, since there were twelve steps of the house [palace], by which Ahaz his father, reckoning the hours and giving attention to this art, accurately perceived the course of the Sun — and at that time the Sun had run its course and had come to the tenth hour, and in the same way the shadow had descended ten steps — the Sun again went back ten steps, and thus twenty hours elapsed; after which, when the Sun had again traversed its course in its order, it went to its setting: thus the length of that day was of thirty-two hours, and that miracle pervaded the whole globe of the lands. For all beheld the Sun to have gone back.”

[Margin: Theodoret’s testimony on the miracle of Hezekiah.]

Theodoret agrees with these, on Psalm 20, which begins (“O Lord, the King shall rejoice in Thy strength”) and which he thinks was composed by David, in the prophetic spirit, concerning Hezekiah; wherefore, explaining that verse (“He asked life of Thee, and Thou hast given it him”) and the following (“great is his glory in Thy salvation; glory and great honor, etc.”), he adds:

“Not only didst Thou grant him life, but Thou madest him illustrious and famous — both by the admirable destruction of [his] enemies, and also because the Sun ran in a preposterous [reversed] order; and this became so known by land and sea, that the king of the Babylonians sent gifts to those who once lavished gifts on the Assyrians.”

[Margin: Venus changes its course. St. Augustine’s opinion.]

Mention of each miracle is also made by St. Augustine (book 21 of the City of God, ch. 8), where he first narrates thus, from Marcus Varro, concerning the star Venus:

“In heaven there appeared a marvelous portent; for in the most noble star of Venus — which Plautus calls Vesperugo, Homer Hesperos, calling it most beautiful — Castor writes that so great a portent appeared, that it changed its color, magnitude, figure, course; which has happened thus neither before nor after. This Adrastus of Cyzicus and Dion of Naples, noble Mathematicians, said happened under King Ogyges”; and, a few words interposed: “It surely then disturbed [the rules], if there were already any Canons of the Astrologers, etc.”

But [coming] to our matter:

“But we read in the divine books that the Sun itself also stood still, when the holy man Joshua son of Nun had asked this of the Lord God, until the begun battle should end in victory; and that it went backward, so that to King Hezekiah the fifteen years added for living might also be signified, this prodigy being joined to the promise of God.”

Let us now hear St. Jerome on Isaiah ch. 7, where, explaining that [passage] (“Ask thee a sign of the Lord thy God…”)

[…continues on p. 485 (PDF 520) with the catchword “tuo” (Deo tuo) — Jerome’s exposition.]

(printed p. 485 — Chapter XXXVII finishes its patristic dossier on the miracles (Jerome, Gregory the Great) and expounds the literal sense of Psalm 18’s Sun as bridegroom and giant running its course, with a cascade of Fathers on the Sun’s real diurnal motion. It then treats Ecclesiastes 1 (“the Sun rises and sets”), Riccioli preferring Aquinas’s reading of “the spirit goes on in its circuit” as the Angel that moves the Sun.)

[Header: DE SYSTEMATE TERRÆ MOTÆ — 485]

[Margin: St. Jerome’s opinion on the sundial of Ahaz.]

…thy [God, either] into the depth of hell, or into the height above”) and teaching by many examples that some signs were given on earth, others in heaven, he subjoins: “I think that Hezekiah too, when the Sun went back ten lines, received a sign from heaven; and Joshua son of Nun, in Gabaon and Aialon, the Sun and Moon standing still.” And on Isaiah ch. 38 he indicates two opinions concerning the form of the sundial, in these words: “A sign is given, that the Sun go back ten degrees, which we — following Symmachus — turn into lines and a sundial: who [i.e. Symmachus] understood the degrees [to be] in lines, that he might make the sense clearer to readers. Or [it may be that] the steps were so constructed by mechanical art that, the shadow descending through each one, it marked off the spaces of the hours; which sign was a type both of the present time and of the future — [namely] as [a figure of] how the Sun would return to its beginning, etc.” And on chapter 39: “And because among the Chaldeans — whose King was Nebuchadnezzar — there is observation of the stars, and the course of the stars is known by long use and exercise (which is also shown at the Lord’s nativity), they understood that the Sun, having returned, the spaces of the day being doubled, served Him whom they thought to be the only God. And when they sought out the causes and reason of this miracle, the report flying through all nations, they learned that, on account of the sickness of the King of Judah, even the course was changed, by a most clear sign.” Most briefly St. Gregory [the Great], on 1 Kings ch. 2: “Joshua by [his] prayers fixed the Sun.”

[XI.] But that [verse] of Psalm 18 [19], “In the Sun He has set His tabernacle,” etc. — although by St. Augustine, St. Bernard, Cassiodorus, and others it is taken in a mystical sense, of CHRIST and the Church, or of CHRIST in the womb of the Virgin MARY, etc. — the literal sense nevertheless is of the Sun, the most illustrious of all the Planets, and of its most swift motion. But by those words, “His going forth is from the highest heaven, and His meeting even to the highest thereof,” many — as our Lorinus says on this place — interpret [it] of the diurnal motion of the Sun from East to West;

[Margin: Caesarius’s opinion. The opinion of Arias and Cajetan.]

especially Caesarius (dialogue 1), and St. Chrysostom (homily 6 on Genesis), and Theodoret (on Psalm 18); and St. Thomas, of the point of noon and of midnight, or of the same point of noon from which the day astronomically begins, and meeting itself in the same [point] terminates it. But Arias Montano understands it of the annual motion, from one Equinoctial or Solstitial point to the other. But Cajetan [understands it] of each motion — so that the diurnal is indicated by the “going forth from the highest heaven,” and the annual by the “meeting” or “circuit”; so that we need not here delay over that place of Esdras (book 3, ch. 34), “The swift course of the Sun turns the heaven in [its] gyre into its place in one day” — for it is an apocryphal book.

[Margin: What does Nazianzen [say] of the Sun?]

But rather let us hear St. Gregory Nazianzen (oration 20), in which he compares St. Basil to the Sun, saying: “There is praised in David, Psalm 18, the beauty and magnitude of the Sun, and [its] course, and [its] swiftness, and [its] force and faculty — inasmuch as it represents a bridegroom by [its] splendor, a giant by [its] magnitude, and, advancing far and wide, has such great force that it equally illumines the extremes from the extremes, nor is its heat in any way diminished by the intervals of places. But in Basil, beauty was [his] virtue; [his] magnitude, [his] Theology; [his] course, the perpetual exercise of virtue, tending by daily ascents toward God; [his] power, the seed and distribution of doctrine. And so I shall not fear to say even this — that ‘into all the earth his sound went out, and into the ends of the globe of the earth the force of his words.’” Thus he, understanding David to the letter,

[Margin: St. Chrysostom.]

no otherwise than St. John Chrysostom (homily 6 on chapter 1 of Genesis); for he says: “Blessed David, declaring its beauty, said, ‘And he himself like a bridegroom coming forth,’ etc. You see how it declared its beauty, and in operating [its] velocity? For by saying, ‘His going forth is from the highest heaven, and His meeting even to the highest of heaven,’ it signified to us how in one moment of time it runs through the whole globe, and from the ends to the ends sends its rays, etc.”

[Margin: Theodoret.]

Let Theodoret succeed to this (on Psalm 18), who reads thus with three [other] interpreters: “He has set the tabernacle of the Sun in them” — and subjoins, namely in the heavens; and a little after: “He has set a tabernacle for the Sun in the heavens, that it might be carried by them; but according to beauty it imitates a bridegroom coming forth from the bridal chamber with much grace; and according to velocity, a certain giant running with great strength, nothing standing in the way to keep it from advancing further. For thus it rises from the East, and in the space of one day, running through, it arrives at the West.”

[Margin: Saints Athanasius, Cyril of Jerusalem, Basil, Ambrose, Nazianzen, Nyssen.]

But since David had premised, “The heavens declare the glory of God,” hence the Holy Fathers teach that the beauty of the Sun, [its] velocity, [its] most ordered and (from the beginning of the world) constant course, is a most luminous argument of the divine power and providence — but especially St. Athanasius (oration against the Idols, p. 9), St. Cyril of Jerusalem (Catechesis 9), St. Basil (homily 6 of the Hexaemeron), St. Ambrose (book 4 of the Hexaemeron, ch. 6), St. Gregory Nazianzen (oration 34, last page) — who, weaving excellent encomia of the Sun, especially extol its course and motion. But St. Gregory of Nyssa (oration 10 on the Canticle) thus proclaims the motion of the Sun around the Earth: “For who is ignorant of the Sun’s motion — that it, from the East, through the southern region of the heaven, by an established course, bends toward the West? But the Earth, since it is globular in figure (as those skilled in these matters say), from whatever part it be at length illumined by the Sun, [from that part day is made, and] from the other opposite [part] it is necessary that darkness be made, etc.”

[Margin: St. Jerome on the Sun’s motion.]

[XII.] There remains finally that most celebrated testimony for the motion of the Sun, Ecclesiastes 1: “The Sun rises and sets, etc., and returns to its place, and there rising again, etc.” — which place St. Jerome interprets of each motion of the Sun, first indeed of the diurnal, and afterward of the annual (on Ecclesiastes ch. 1), although in a flowery and as it were poetic style he thus begins: “The Sun itself, which has been given as a light to mortals, daily indicates the destruction of the world by its rising and setting; which, after it has dipped [its] burning wheel in the Ocean, returns, by ways unknown to us, to the place whence it had gone out; and, the course of the night being completed, again hastily bursts forth from its bridal chamber.” Read the rest in him.

With St. Jerome, this whole place — of each course of the Sun, namely the diurnal and the annual — [also] understand Saints Bonaventure, [Gregory] Thaumaturgus, Theophilus of Alexandria (3rd Paschal Epistle); likewise Olympiodorus, Hugh of St. Victor, Hugh the Cardinal [of St. Cher], Lyranus, Albinus [Alcuin], the Carthusian, Cajetan, John Arboreus. But of the diurnal [motion] either solely or especially [understand it] St. John Chrysostom (homily 12 to the people of Antioch), St. Thomas (on Job ch. 37), and Lorinus (on Ecclesiastes ch. 1). But surely on the same one day, on which it wheels through the Meridian [South], it is not bent toward the North; nor even if it were moved by the force of two orbs — namely the Eccentric and the Epicycle — and on that account return into its several circles, and much less on the same day from [its] Apogee to the opposite of the apogee, as Lorinus seems to wish; for the revolution of these [orbs] is not wholly completed except by the annual motion, and of this is properly verified both the bending now toward the South, now toward the North, and the plurality of circuits into which it returns. Wherefore [it is] better, with St. Jerome and the several others above, [that] those former words, up to “and there rising again,” be understood of the one diurnal circuit, but the rest of the remaining diurnal circuits composing the annual course.

Moreover, that the acceleration of the Solar motion might be signified, and as it were [its] desire of returning to restore the new day, that [phrase] “returns to its place” — Aquila renders προσέπνευσε [prosepneuse], or εἰσπνεῖ [eispnei], that is, “it breathes [toward],” and the Chaldee, “it pants for its place.” But the following words, “and there rising again it wheels through the South and is bent toward the North,” the Chaldee paraphrast renders thus: “It walks through the way of the abyss [over] every side of the South, and returns to the side of the North.” Finally those words, “surveying all things in its circuit the spirit goes on,” Hugh of St. Victor separates by punctuation, entering on a new period from those [words], “The spirit goes on, etc.,” and by the name of “spirit” understanding the air and wind, which is borne round in a circle by [its] rapt motion — which also did not displease [Gregory] Thaumaturgus in [his] paraphrase, [nor] St. Bonaventure and Cajetan in [their] commentaries. But St. [Gregory of] Nyssa interprets [it] of man, who is denominated “spirit” from [his] nobler part.

[Margin: Whether and why the Sun is called “spirit.”]

But St. Jerome understands [it of] the Sun, since it animates, breathes, etc.; and he uses the testimony of Virgil, who sang (Georgics, book 1):

In the beginning, the heaven and earth and the liquid plains, and the shining globe of the Moon, and the Titanian stars, a Spirit nourishes within, etc.

But there Virgil signifies an animated world — much more [an animated] Sun — from a false opinion; nor indeed did St. Jerome think the Sun animated, at least with an intellective soul, since (in the epistle to Avitus 59, and on Deuteronomy ch. 32, and on Isaiah ch. 45) he reckons among Origen’s errors that he attributed a rational soul to the heavens. To me, as I have already said (section 2, ch. 1, no. 4), the opinion of St. Thomas (opuscule 10, on article 6) pleases [me] greatly — by the name of “spirit” understanding the intelligent Angel, who is said to “go on in a circuit” figuratively, because, namely, he makes the Sun go on, while he moves it (in the way in which, in Romans 8, it is said “the Spirit intercedes for us,” that is, makes [us] intercede); to which opinion at last John Lo-[rinus] seems to subscribe…

[…continues on p. 486 (PDF 521) with the catchword “Io. Lo-” (John Lorinus).]

(printed p. 486 — Chapter XXXVII ends: Riccioli concludes there is a unanimous consent of the Fathers that the heaven moves locally, then presents a second dossier of Fathers on the Earth’s stability (Basil, Ambrose, Chrysostom, Damascene, Jerome, and others). His synthesis assigns that stability an extrinsic cause (God’s conserving will) and an intrinsic one (magnetism or the gravity of parts toward the center); as Cleanthes indicted Aristarchus, so Riccioli indicts “the Aristarchuses of our age” for moving Scripture itself from its place.)

[Header: BOOK IX. SECTION IV. — 486]

[Margin: The unanimous consent of the Fathers on the Motion of the Sun.]

…John Lorinus, on Ecclesiastes ch. 1, at the end of verse 6. But besides so many Fathers and interpreters who have taught that the Sun is moved locally — as we have hitherto abundantly shown — there agree also Origen (homily 3 on Matthew), Isidore of Pelusium (epistle 100), Isidore of Seville (book 3 of the Origins, ch. 49), St. Chrysostom (on Psalm 134), St. Justin (question 59), Glycas (part 2 of the Annals, p. 271), Claudius Mamertus (book 2 On the State of the Soul, ch. 13) — and finally, who [does] not [agree]? Deservedly therefore we conclude that there is a Unanimous consent of the Fathers [that] the Heaven is moved in a gyre by local motion, and that Sacred Scripture was thus understood by them.

The Opinion of the Fathers on the Stability, Place, and Poising of the Earth from Sacred Scripture.

[Margin: St. Basil on the Earth’s place and immobility.]

[XIII.] In the first place there presents itself St. Basil (homily 1 of the Hexaemeron), where he approves the opinion of Aristotle, and says: “These things therefore being set aside, let us not now inquire upon what substrate the earth is founded and rests; for in this way the mind will be disturbed by a certain vertigo, the discourse finding no sure exit”; and again: “Surely this answer is for us most safe for acquiring the understanding of Scripture, and useful for hearers.” Then: “But that the middle of the universe is the lowest place, our discourse has now demonstrated; do not therefore wonder if the earth falls off in no part of itself, since indeed it occupies the very middle place of the universe, most accommodated to it by nature.”

[Margin: St. Ambrose. — Job ch. 26.]

Whom St. Ambrose imitates in his manner (book 1 of the Hexaemeron, ch. 6): “Let it suffice for knowledge, what the series of the divine scriptures comprehends — that He suspended the earth upon nothing. What [need is there] for us to discuss whether it hangs in the air, or upon the water, so that thence a controversy might arise, how the nature of the air, [being] thin and softer, could sustain the earthen mass?” Afterward he concludes: “that it has [its] stability not from this, that it is suspended in the middle as if on an even balance, but because the majesty of God, by His will, binds it by [such] a law, that it persists stable above an unstable and empty nature.” And again: “But the earth is a foundation, on which we stand; although that the earth is in the midst of heaven, both the discourse which is outside [secular philosophy] celebrates, and Scripture seems to signify, Job saying, ‘He suspended the earth upon nothing.’”

[Margin: St. Chrysostom.]

St. Chrysostom agrees (homily 2 on Psalm 103), on those words (“Who hast founded the earth upon thy stability; it shall not be inclined, etc.”): “But what,” says he, “is this stability? Surely the effecting power, for in His hand are all the ends of the earth.” And homily 12 to the people of Antioch: “The earth is fixed, the water [above it], but [the heavens] are always moved.”

[Margin: St. Nazianzen. St. Hilary. St. Justin.]

To the same power of God recur St. Nazianzen (oration 34) and St. Hilary (on Psalm 135), explaining that [verse] (“who established the earth above the waters”): “Let it suffice to have learned, from Prophetic authority, that the earth stands above the waters by a hanging firmness.” Also St. Justin Martyr (question 130), where it is concluded most elegantly: “The waters therefore sustain the heaven; the Earth [sustains] the waters; the divine nod [sustains] the Earth — which, he says, He suspended upon nothing.”

[Margin: St. Damascene. St. Nazianzen again. St. Jerome.]

But also St. John Damascene (book 2 of the Orthodox Faith, ch. 10): “The Earth is one of the four elements, endowed with dryness, coldness, and heaviness, and devoid of motion, etc. But upon what thing it sits, or on what foundation it leans, could be told by no mortal.” There is extant also, in the catena of the Fathers on Job, a saying of St. Gregory Nazianzen on the Earth: “By what reasoning, finally, dost thou persist stable and firm? what is it that sustains it? and that very thing which sustains it, [what] makes it firm? Surely reason finds nothing on which it may rest, except the will of God, by which He suspended and made it firm; nor is there anything else by which the earth is propped or contained.” The same mind exactly was St. Jerome’s (on Job ch. 26), expounding that saying (“who hangs the earth upon nothing”): “This is to be understood thus — either that the earth was made out of nothing, or that there is nothing beneath the earth by which the earth is sustained; since He Himself sustains all the universe, and it is poised immovably by the power of God; because in Him are all things, and by Him all are contained — of whom the Apostle says, ‘bearing all things by the word of His power.’” But on Psalm 12 he affirms that the Earth is the lowest of all, “Because the end of creatures… is the Earth”; and on Jeremiah ch. 13: “Just as the heaven cannot be loftier than it is, nor the earth lower than it is.”

[Margin: St. Prosper. St. Athanasius. Procopius.]

Add to these St. Prosper (on Psalm 103), [recurring] to the divine power as to a sacred anchor in this wavering [question]: “Concerning this Earth it is laboriously asserted that it is not to be inclined for ever and ever; although it has been said, ‘heaven and earth shall pass away.’ For [the earth] being founded upon firmness, we can so understand [it], that that force, by which it is sustained and contained, is called its ‘firmness’ — which, although hidden from us, is nevertheless rightly believed [to be] in the wisdom and power of the Creator, who established all things in Himself, in whom also He founded all.” Yet that the immediate cause is gravity St. Athanasius seems to have thought (in the oration against the Idols), when he says: “That the Earth, remaining immovable, bears fruit; and, being by nature the heaviest of all, does not sink down, but stands stable and immovable.” Thus also Procopius (on Genesis ch. 1 and on Isaiah ch. 13), explaining those words (“Over this I will disturb the heaven, and move the earth out of its place”), subjoins: “For [the earth], suspended by an even balance, since it is equidistant on every side by an equal interval, must necessarily be unmoved.” The same intrinsic force Theodoret hints at (on Psalm 103): “When He had built it upon itself, He gave it [the property] that it should never be moved”; and Clement of Alexandria (in the oration exhorting to the Gentiles): “This for thee — and the Universe — He adorned harmoniously and elegantly, and reduced the discord of the elements into order, so that for it the whole world might become a harmony; but the Earth He made stable and solid.” As regards the other Interpreters, they may be seen on Job chs. 26 and 38, on Psalm 103, and on Ecclesiastes ch. 1.

[Margin: The twofold Cause of the Earth’s stability. — 1. Extrinsic.]

[XIV.] From the things said hitherto we gather two causes of the Earth’s stability. One [is] as it were extrinsic, which most of the Fathers acknowledge — namely the divine will and omnipotence: of which the [will] decreed from eternity that the Earth should be placed and consist rather in this virtual part of His own divine immensity (or, as others say, in this region of imaginary space); but the [omnipotence], executing the divine decree, created [it] from the beginning of the world, and now conserves the Earth in the same place, so that there is no created power which could move it from its place. Since indeed most of the Scholastics, with St. Thomas (opuscule 10, article 16, and on book 2 On the Heaven, lecture 2), teach that not even the Angels can do this — not so much because they could not overcome the whole weight of the earth, as lest the order of the universe constituted by God be disturbed; and St. Thomas subjoins: “But if it be asked concerning circular motion, by which the said order is not varied, it seems that the earth naturally rests.”

[Margin: 2. Intrinsic cause.]

The other cause is some intrinsic force of the Earth, divinely conferred, by which it can hold itself in the place once assigned to it — whether that be magnetism (as our Fathers Cabeo, Athanasius Kircher, and Nicolaus Zucchi suppose), or the weight and gravity of all the parts toward that center which God willed to be at once the center of the Earth and of the Universe (from which it comes about that it recedes equally from the extremes).

[Margin: Ancient profane [pagan] authors for the stability of the earth.]

And this [view], besides St. Athanasius, Procopius, and Theodoret, [hold] most of the Philosophers with Aristotle (book 2 On the Heaven, from text 77), and many other profane writers — namely Cicero (in the Dream of Scipio), and there Macrobius (book 1, ch. 22), Vitruvius (book 9, ch. 4), Pliny (book 2, ch. 5), Cleomedes (book 1 of the Cyclic Theory, ch. 9), Martianus Capella (p. 192), Manilius (book 1 of the Astronomicon, ch. 2), and Ovid (book 1 of the Metamorphoses), in that verse:

Nor did the earth hang in the surrounding air, poised by its own weights.

Whose [Ovid’s] is also that [verse]:

The earth stands by its own force; by standing [stando], it is called Vesta.

On account of which force, indeed, the Pythagoreans and Platonists attributed the Cube — the symbol of stability — to the Earth (as Plutarch testifies, book 2 On the Opinions [of the Philosophers], ch. 6); and the Roman Priests were wont to sacrifice sitting, to Ops at rest (which is the Earth), because she brings help [opem] to all (from the same Plutarch, in the Roman Questions); and finally Cleanthes brought an indictment against Aristarchus of Samos — who led the Earth round through the annual orb — before the Areopagites, because he had moved the sacred things of Vesta from [their] place (as the same Plutarch narrates, in the opusculum On the Face of the Moon). Wherefore it ought to seem the less wonderful, if we too bring an indictment, before the Sacred Tribunal, against the Aristarchuses of our age reviving from below, because they have striven to move not only the Earth, but Sacred Scripture itself, as it were, from its place — since indeed the literal sense is, as it were, a certain “place,” and foundation, in which its other senses rest; which [literal sense], so long as nothing stands in the way, we shall teach in the following chapter must be retained immovably.

✠ [Chapter XXXVII ends here.]

[…continues on p. 487 (PDF 522) with the catchword “CA-” (CAPVT XXXVIII) — the opening of Chapter XXXVIII.]

(printed p. 487 — Chapter XXXVIII opens: the Copernicans’ responses to the sacred authorities are to be brought forward and refuted as unsound and dangerous. Their responses, from Copernicus’s preface to Paul III through Kepler, Foscarini, and Lansberg, are reduced to five heads; Question 1 then asks whether astronomical skill is necessary for ecclesiastics to censure such matters, with Copernicus’s arrogant “Mathematics are written for Mathematicians” and Kepler’s grievances over the 1616 decree cited.)

[Header: BOOK IX. SECTION IV. — 487]