st. john of damascus (676-749 - Cristo Raul

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ST. JOHN OF DAMASCUS.
observe what scientific knowledge was possessed by
John of Damascus nearly a century before.
What Damascenus has written on the subject is
De
mainly to be found in the second book of his
Fide Orthodoxa." After a few general remarks, in
the fifth chapter, about the visible creation, he pro
ceeds to discuss the meaning of Heaven. This he
defines to be that which encompasses all things, both
visible and invisible. Such expressions, found in
Scripture, as heaven of heavens and third heaven may
be explained, without laying stress on the Hebrew
way of using a plural for a singular, as denoting (i)
the air, (2) the firmament, and (3) the starless region
beyond. It is to the second, or starry firmament,
that the term heaven most properly belongs; and
various opinions as to its nature, shape, and motion
are briefly referred to. Some have held, with regard
to the first of these points, that it must be a quintum
corpus, or fifth variety of matter, seeing that it has
properties distinct from those of any of the four
known. This refers, of course, to the doctrine of
the later
peripatetic school, deduced from Aristotle s
treatise "De Caelo." 1 The shape of it is
thought by
some to be spherical, and its motion circular, while
others hold it to be of a hemispherical form. Here
1
Lib. i., c. ii. The arguments on this topic are summed up
of his De Mundo
by Franciscus Coventriensis, at p. 29
Peripatetico," Antwerp, 1652. The work is, I believe, very
little known, and certainly does not appear to possess any
scientific merit. But the frequent allusions contained in it to
English persons and events it
might possibly give a value for
enquirers with other objects.