Starting today August 7th, 2024, in order to post in the Married Couples, Courting Couples, or Singles forums, you will not be allowed to post if you have your Marital status designated as private. Announcements will be made in the respective forums as well but please note that if yours is currently listed as Private, you will need to submit a ticket in the Support Area to have yours changed.
Hippolytus clearly believe the sun had a 'proper course' it followed according to natural law, and after the miracle it went back to finish running this course. In other words Hippolytus believed the sun travelled around the earth. He also believed this is what the bible was teaching in these passages.okay here is my rebuttal against assyrian's contentions, my words will be in green & bold to set them apart from the quotes answered. i shall respond in two posts. # 1:
Hippolytus Fragments, III, Discourse on Hezekiah
We find in the commentaries, written by our predecessors, that day had thirty-two hours. For when the sun had run its course, and reached the tenth hour, and the shadow had gone down by the ten degrees in the house of the temple, the sun turned back again by the ten degrees, according to the word of the Lord, and there were thus twenty hours. And again, the sun accomplished its own proper course, according to the common law, and reached its setting. And thus there were thirty-two hours.
Okay, in checking out this quote, I see it is not teaching that hippolytus believed the sun traveled around the earth but that he is commenting on what took place at hezekiahs request. Here is the biblical chapter--2 Kings 20
He is saying to consider the creation we see around us, the flowing of sweet fountains and never-failing rivers, and the seasonable supply of dews, and showers, and rains; the manifold movement of the heavenly bodies. He was talking about the present, rivers that never fail, dews that fall in season, showers.. and the stars circling through the heavens. It is only after this he talks of God creating light. Even if it was talking about the creation it would still be talking about God creating stars that orbit the earth. Theophilus was a geocentrist.Theophilus of Antioch: To Autolycus Book I, 6
Consider, too, the flowing of sweet fountains and never-failing rivers, and the seasonable supply of dews, and showers, and rains; the manifold movement of the heavenly bodies, the morning star rising and heralding the approach of the perfect luminary; andthe constellation of Pleiades, and Orion, and Arcturus, and the orbit of the other stars that circle through the heavens, all of which the manifold wisdom of God has called by names of their own
again, on examining the context there is nothing that indicates that Theophilus believed that the stars orbited as described by Assyrian and others. .consider the sentences that come after this out of context quote:
all of which the
manifold wisdom of God has called by names of their own. He is God
alone who made light out of darkness, and brought forth light from His
treasures, and formed the chambers of the south wind, and the treasure houses
of the deep, and the bounds of the seas, and the treasuries of snows
and hail-storms, collecting the waters in the storehouses of the deep, and
the darkness in His treasures, and bringing forth the sweet, and desirable,
and pleasant light out of His treasures;
{bold mine} it seems to be speakin gof creation as described by Genesis 1 and other scriptural passages.
Sorry two references got run together there:Athenagoras A Plea for the Christians 6
And first, as to our not sacrificing: the Framer and Father of this universe does not need blood, nor the odour of burnt-offerings, nor the fragrance of flowers and incense, forasmuch as He is Himself perfect fragrance, needing nothing either within or without; butthe noblest sacrifice to Him is for us to know who stretched out and vaulted the heavens, and fixed the earth in its place like a centre, who gathered the water into seas and divided the light from the darkness, who adorned the sky with stars and made the earth to bring forth seed of every kind, who made animals and fashioned man. When, holding God to be this Framer of all things, who preserves them in being and superintends them all by knowledge and administrative skill, we "lift up holy hands" to Him, what need has He further of a hecatomb?
that quote is not found in the noted reference. The only thing that comes close is the following:
If, therefore, Plato is not
an atheist for conceiving of one uncreated God, the Framer of the universe,
neither are we atheists who acknowledge and firmly hold that He is God
who has framed all things by the Logos, and holds them in being by His
Spirit.
in chapter 6 Athenagoras tells us Plato thought space was God's body, when in reality it is a sphere of fixed stars moving in circles. Then in chapter 13 he tell us the earth is fixed in its place at the center of the vault of heaven God stretched out. No only is Athenagoras a geocentrist, his referring to a number of geocentrist passages from the bible here and interpreting them literally.Athenagoras A Plea for the Christians
Chapter 6. Opinions of the Philosophers as to the One God.
...If, therefore, Plato is not an atheist for conceiving of one uncreated God, the Framer of the universe, neither are we atheists who acknowledge and firmly hold that He is God who has framed all things by the Logos, and holds them in being by His Spirit. Aristotle, again, and his followers, recognising the existence of one whom they regard as a sort of compound living creature (ζῶον ), speak of God as consisting of soul and body, thinking His body to be the etherial space and the planetary stars and the sphere of the fixed stars, moving in circles; but His soul, the reason which presides over the motion of the body, itself not subject to motion, but becoming the cause of motion to the other. The Stoics also, although by the appellations they employ to suit the changes of matter, which they say is permeated by the Spirit of God, they multiply the Deity in name, yet in reality they consider God to be one. For, if God is an artistic fire advancing methodically to the production of the several things in the world, embracing in Himself all the seminal principles by which each thing is produced in accordance with fate, and if His Spirit pervades the whole world, then God is one according to them, being named Zeus in respect of the fervid part (τὄζέον) of matter, and Hera in respect of the air (ὁ ἀήρ ), and called by other names in respect of that particular part of matter which He pervades.
Chapter 13. Why the Christians Do Not Offer Sacrifices.
But, as most of those who charge us with atheism, and that because they have not even the dreamiest conception of what God is, and are doltish and utterly unacquainted with natural and divine things, and such as measure piety by the rule of sacrifices, charges us with not acknowledging the same gods as the cities, be pleased to attend to the following considerations, O emperors, on both points. And first, as to our not sacrificing: the Framer and Father of this universe does not need blood, nor the odour of burnt-offerings, nor the fragrance of flowers and incense, forasmuch as He is Himself perfect fragrance, needing nothing either within or without; butthe noblest sacrifice to Him is for us to know who stretched out and vaulted the heavens, and fixed the earth in its place like a centre, who gathered the water into seas and divided the light from the darkness, who adorned the sky with stars and made the earth to bring forth seed of every kind, who made animals and fashioned man. When, holding God to be this Framer of all things, who preserves them in being and superintends them all by knowledge and administrative skill, we "lift up holy hands" to Him, what need has He further of a hecatomb?
Whether his central point is the independence of God or not, Crysostome clearly believes the sun runs an unimpeded course all day, he is a geocentrist who believes the sun travels around the earth. Again this is a geocentrist interpretation of the bible, Psalm 19.Chrysostom Homilies to Antioch, Homily X
And again, David saith of the sun, that "he is as a bridegroom coming out of his chamber, and rejoiceth as a giant to run his course." Seest thou how he places before thee the beauty of this star, and its greatness? For even as a bridegroom when he appears from some stately chamber, so the sun sends forth his rays under the East; and adorning the heaven as it were with a saffron-colored veil, and making the clouds like roses, and running unimpeded all the day; he meets no obstacle to interrupt his course. Beholdest thou, then, his beauty
in reading the context, there is nothing there that states or infers that Chrysostom believed the sun went around the earth nor taught such a thing. The context points to the independence of God not that the sun runs around the earth.
No this is not bible exegesis, this is simply Basil describing the seasons as a geocentrist. In the winter the sun spends its time in the south (doesn't he know that the sun is 93 millions of mile away from the earth? and that it is only the tilting of the earth's axis that makes the southern hemisphere face towards the sun) Spring comes because the sun returns from the south to the middle of the heavens. This is pure geocentrism.post #2:
“Basil Hexaemeron, Homily VI, 8
It is winter when the sun sojourns in the south and produces in abundance the shades of night in our region. The air spread over the earth is chilly, and the damp exhalations, which gather over our heads, give rise to rains, to frosts, to innumerable flakes of snow. When, returning from the southern regions, the sun is in the middle of the heavens and divides day and night into equal parts, the more it sojourns above the earth the more it brings back a mild temperature to us.”
I fail to see any statement or inference that says the Bible teaches the sun moves. I do read where basil is giving a perfectly human description to what we, even in modern times, ascribe to the sun.
He is describing the heavens that moving around the earth not the earth rotating. I have never heard a heliocentrist describe a day as the heavens starting from one point and returning back to it, or describing days in terms of a revolution of the sun.Basil Hexaemeron, Homily II, 8
It is as though it said: twenty-four hours measure the space of a day, or that, in reality a day is the time that the heavens starting from one point take to return there. Thus, every time that, in the revolution of the sun, evening and morning occupy the world, their periodical succession never exceeds the space of one day.
Again, I see nothing here that teaches basil believed the sun revolved around the earth, I see a normal description we would use in our modern terminology and be thought quite normal. It seems that it is expected (and I find this with all the quote thus far) that the listener/reader already knows the earth revolves around the sun and not vice versa. The language is not much different than what we would find today and the expectation is the same.
He compares Joshua telling the sun to stand still to a man trying to stop a river. He really believed Joshua's miracle involved the sun literally being stopped as it moved around the earth. Ambrose was a geocentrist and he interpreted Joshua's miracle literally and geocentrically.Ambrose Duties of the Clergy, Bk II, Ch XX, 99
Worthy surely was he to stand forth as a man who might stay the course of the river, and who might say: "Sun, stand still," and delay the night and lengthen the day, as though to witness his victory.
In reading this excerpt, I see this quote used as an example and not a statement o fbelieve that they believe the sun revolves around the earth.
He certainly is comparing the sun with the Son. But he also believes the sun that travels across the heaven and he does not know the sun is just one of billions of other stars. Ambrose is being a geocentrist again.AmbroseExposition of the Christian Faith, Bk V, Ch II
But they say that the sun can be said to be alone, because there is no second sun. But the sun himself has many things in common with the stars, for he travels across the heavens, he is of that ethereal and heavenly substance, he is a creature, and is reckoned amongst all the works of God. He serves God in union with all, blesses Him with all, praises Him with all. Therefore he cannot accurately be said to be alone, for he is not set apart from the rest.
The context of this book is talking about the SON being ‘alone’ and the example quoted above is just that, an example. There is no wording which indicates the interpretation given to it by Assyrian.
He believes the stars orbit the earth. I am afraid it is you who is desperately trying to read heliocentrism into the these writing from long before the time of Copernicus. You obviously do believe fervently that the vast majority back then knew the earth orbited the sun, but you have not shown a shred of evidence.Hilary of PoitiersOn the Trinity, Book XII, 53.
For in human affairs You have set before us many things of such a sort, that though we do not know their cause, yet the effect is not unknown; and reverence inculcates faith, where ignorance is inherent in our nature. Thus when I raised to Your heaven these feeble eyes of mine, my certainty regarding it was limited to the fact that it is Yours. For seeing therein these orbits where the stars are fixed, and their annual revolutions, and the Pleiades and the Great Bear and the Morning Star, each having their varied duties in the service which is appointed them, I recognise Your presence, O God, in these things whereof I cannot gain any clear understanding
Again, such words in bold are just normal expressions anyone would use, even in our present day. To say otherwise is reading into a passage one wants to be there, a belief that the church fathers believed and taught that the sun and stars orbited the earth, and not seeing what is there— a normal human description of what is seen in everyday life.
You will find Aristides here www.newadvent.org/fathers/1012.htm i think he is great talking about the sky and the stars and the sun as they revolve and move by necessity, the way the star get carried along.I do not have 3 of the 12 quoted so they will not be dealt with as I am sure I would find the same corrections as stated above. Aristides, Aphrahat have little known about them with the latter considered Persian and it is hard to consider them church fathers when there is no confirmation documentation.
You don't explain away Gregory Nanzianzus by claiming to have explained Basil. Please explain Gregory's comment about sun's swift course, or his belief the sun's heat is not lessened by the distance from one end of the heaven to the other, what you can still get a sunburn 13.7 billion light years away? Why would he think the sun is swift? If you are describing how the sun appear to rise and set, it is very slow. It take half a day to get from one horizon to the other. It is only if you think the sun is a long distance away and actually moving along the path it appears to take that you would think it 'swift'.As for Gregory Nazianzus, he hung out with basil and I have Gregory Nyssa. I decided not to deal with Augustine as so many others do it better than I, so I defer to them.
The perpetual motion of the heavens not only measures out time, but it drags the darkness of night with it. You think Gregory of Nyssa here wasn't a geocentrist?Gregory of Nyssa Answer to Eunomius’ Second Book
At the entrance of light, by the will of God the darkness that prevailed over the earliest creation is scattered. But the earth lying in the midst, and being upheld on all sides by its surrounding of different elements, as Job says, "He hangs the earth upon nothing Job 26:7," it was necessary when light travelled over one side and the earth obstructed it on the opposite by its own bulk, that a side of darkness should be left by the obscuration, and so, as the perpetual motion of the heavens cannot but carry along with it the darkness resulting from the obscuration, God ordained this revolution for a measure of duration of time. And that measure is day and night.
You haven't rebutted a thing, just ignored the obvious in what these people are saying.it is quite obvious that the poster of these quotes i have rebutted, sees what he wants to see and not what is really there, all in a futile attempt to justify his behavior and personal beliefs.
sure it does as i was responding to your false charge of my making baseless comments. i have posted that verse before thus you are way out of line.
if you have noticed i have ignored hucker and have been ignoring him from the beginning. he is not here for constructive dialogue, but to find something he canuse to attack the poster.
Arche, let me get this straight...? Are you suggesting that all of the Church Fathers whom you addressed in posts 117 & 118 believed that the Earth travelled around the Sun, and not vice-versa?
Behold, I add unto thy time fifteen years. And this shall be a sign to thee
from the Lord: Behold, I turn back the shadow of the degrees of the house
of thy father, by which the sun has gone down, the ten degrees by which
the shadow has gone down, so that that day be a day of thirty-two hours.
For when the sun had run its course to the tenth hour, it returned again.
And again, when Joshua the son of Nun was fighting against the Amorites,
when the sun was now inclining to its setting, and the battle was being
pressed closely, Joshua, being anxious lest the heathen host should escape
on the descent of night, cried out, saying, Sun, stand thou still in Gibeon;
and thou moon, in the valley of Ajalon, until I vanquish this people. And
the sun stood still, and the moon, in their places, so that day was one of361twenty-four hours. And in the time of Hezekiah the moon also turned
back along with the sun, that there might be no collision between the two
elemental bodies, by their bearing against each other in defiance of law.
And Merodach the Chaldean, king of Babylon, being struck with
amazement at that time for he studied the science of astrology, and
measured the courses of these bodies carefully on learning the cause,
sent a letter and gifts to Hezekiah, just as also the wise men from the east
did to Christ.
You don't explain away Gregory Nanzianzus by claiming to have explained Basil.
They certainly criticized Ptolemy's geography. Ptolemy argued that the earth was spherical. St. John Chrysostom, St. Athanasius, St. Augustine, Lactantius all criticized Ptoloemy's views on a spherical earth; where are their criticisms of his geocentrism?
I asked the question first and you dodged it. You have repeatedly dodged the question, it is quite obvious why you do so. The verse does not address the queston, I'll repeat ot tp give you another chance to answer:
when i become a forensic mind reader i will let you know the why.
the reasons are many but i can only speculate.
you are asking me to give a reason for what did or didn't take place 1600 years ago without any documentation as to their motivations for doing or not doing what you say? get real.
when i become a forensic mind reader i will let you know the why. the reasons are many but i can only speculate.
Since I have a Ph.D. in the History of Science, I already knew the answer: they didn't criticize Ptolemy because they agreed with him.
basil, chrysostom, and gregory were RC? Tell that to the EO...
St. Basil
Feastday: March 6
335
Bishop of Bologna, Italy, ordained by Pope St. Sylvester in 315. Basil served his diocese until his death
But John decided, after he had been baptised at the age of 23, to abandon the law in favour of service to the Saviour. He entered a monastery which served to educate him in preparation for his ordination as a priest in 386
Doctor of the Church, born at Arianzus, in Asia Minor, c. 325; died at the same place, 389. He was son -- one of three children -- of Gregory, Bishop of Nazianzus (329-374), in the south-west of Cappadocia, and of Nonna, a daughter of Christian parents. The saint's father was originally a member of the heretical sect of the Hypsistarii, or Hypsistiani, and was converted to Catholicity by the influence of his pious wife
We know the Catholic church believed the sun orbited the earth.read what i wrote:
i said that what was given, the quotes and then study of the context, there was nothing there that indicates they believed the sun revolved around the earth. most of those sentences are quite nromal descriptions, so normal that we do the same thing today inspite of the fact we know it isn't correct.
without other docuumentation, you cannot build a case that the church fathers believed the earth was the center of the universe. this is even more so for those we know so little, as doing so would be pure speculation and assumption.
now i have thrown you a bone when i said that since some of them are contemporaries and lived at a time when the r.c.c. believed such things, that they may have believed it also but i qualified that with the same reasons above and added that their biographies did not mention their beliefs.
you have very little to go on unless you can provide credible documentation to prove your claim.
So, if you are not dodging the question, Archie, let me remind you what it was:-i a not dodging you. you are, like hucker, being ignored for the simple reason, like hucker, that you are incapable of having a decent dialogue and because your only interest is in finding some obscure phrase with which to harass and belittle me.
Are there more species/kinds alive today than there were at the time of Noah's Flood?
No that's not the reference I quoted, that is Hippolytus on Hezekiah fragment I, I quoted Fragment III, but they are both goodassyrian:
here is the fragment. please show where it is clearly stated that hippolytus clearly believed the sun revolved around the earth:
Behold, I add unto thy time fifteen years. And this shall be a sign to thee
from the Lord: Behold, I turn back the shadow of the degrees of the house
of thy father, by which the sun has gone down, the ten degrees by which
the shadow has gone down, so that that day be a day of thirty-two hours.
For when the sun had run its course to the tenth hour, it returned again.
And again, when Joshua the son of Nun was fighting against the Amorites,
when the sun was now inclining to its setting, and the battle was being
pressed closely, Joshua, being anxious lest the heathen host should escape
on the descent of night, cried out, saying, Sun, stand thou still in Gibeon;
and thou moon, in the valley of Ajalon, until I vanquish this people. And
the sun stood still, and the moon, in their places, so that day was one of
361
twenty-four hours. And in the time of Hezekiah the moon also turned
back along with the sun, that there might be no collision between the two
elemental bodies, by their bearing against each other in defiance of law.
And Merodach the Chaldean, king of Babylon, being struck with
amazement at that time for he studied the science of astrology, and
measured the courses of these bodies carefully on learning the cause,
sent a letter and gifts to Hezekiah, just as also the wise men from the east
did to Christ.
In both sections Hippolytus shows that he believed the sun runs along a course every day and this course is governed by natural laws. In other word he believes the sun literally does follow a course around the earth, as prescribed by the laws of science. He believed the sun literally turned back on the path it takes for the Hezekiah miracle. He was also totally unaware that the sun and moon are million of miles apart, the moon a quarter of a million miles from earth and the sun 93 million miles, that it is the earth that rotates and orbits the sun while the moon orbits the earth. Instead he believed they are both in orbits very close to each other around the earth, and that when the sun was turned back the moon had to be turned back too or the sun and moon would have collided.http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/0502.htm
I. Hippolytus, Bishop of Rome on Hezekiah.13
When Hezekiah, king of Judah, was still sick and weeping, there came an angel, and said to him: "I have seen your tears, and I have heard your voice. Behold, I add unto your time fifteen years. And this shall be a sign to you from the Lord: Behold, I turn back the shadow of the degrees of the house of your father, by which the sun has gone down, the ten degrees by which the shadow has gone down,"14 so that day be a day of thirty-two hours. For when the sun had run its course to the tenth hour, it returned again. And again, when Joshua the son of Nun was fighting against the Amorites, when the sun was now inclining to its setting, and the battle was being pressed closely, Joshua, being anxious lest the heathen host should escape on the descent of night, cried out, saying, "Sun, stand still in Gibeon; and moon, in the valley of Ajalon,"14 until I vanquish this people. And the sun stood still, and the moon, in their places, so that day was one of twenty-four hours. And in the time of Hezekiah the moon also turned back along with the sun, that there might be no collision between the two elemental bodies, by their bearing against each otherin defiance of law. And Merodach the Chaldean, king of Babylon, being struck with amazement at that timefor he studied the science of astrology, and measured the courses of these bodies carefullyon learning the cause, sent a letter and gifts to Hezekiah, just as also the wise men from the east did to Christ.
II. From the Discourse of St. Hippolytus on the beginning of Isaiah.
Under Egypt he meant the world, and under things made with hands its idolatry, and under the shaking its subversion and dissolution.14 And the Lord, the Word, he represented as upon a light cloud, referring to that most pure tabernacle, in which setting up His throne, our Lord Jesus Christ came into the world to shake error.
III. We find in the commentaries, written by our predecessors, that day had thirty-two hours. For when the sun had run its course, and reached the tenth hour, and the shadow had gone down by the ten degrees in the house of the temple, the sun turned back again by the ten degrees, according to the word of the Lord, and there were thus twenty hours. And again, the sun accomplished its own proper course,according to the common law, and reached its setting. And thus there were thirty-two hours.
http://www.newadvent.org/fathers/310243.htm Section 66.sorry, it was worded poorly, i do not have his works either so i could not address them.You don't explain away Gregory Nanzianzus by claiming to have explained Basil.
The irony is gobsmacking.but it is clear from your postings and resposne thatyu are reading into the church fathers what you want to see, just like you do with genesis 1.
You look for excuses to handwave away the plain mean of what these people are saying to support a crazy notion that everyone knew the earth orbited the sun before Copernicus established it.again, having gone through the contexts, i find your accusations and claims for the church fathers false and in line with what you want to believe and not what is true. sure you quote their words but you quote nothing else to substantiate that they believed as you say.
How about you support you claim that the vast majority interpreted the geocentric passages heliocentricaly before Copernicus? So far all we have had is you wriggling and trying to escape the obvious meaning of what these people said, even going so far as to try to dismiss people because they were part of the Catholic church, well duh, the vast majority of Western Europe before the time of Copernicus was Catholic. Copernicus's book was published in 1543. Luther had only nailed his 95 Theses to the church door in Wittenburg in 1517. You exclude Church Father living in the Eastern Orthodox region unless we can prove they weren't Catholic, and of course Aphrahat because he lived in Persia.there is no commentary that you have linked to that shows what you claim is true and i have never come across any teaching, except done by TE's, that state what you say.
Wrong Basil there archie. That is St. Basil of Bologna who dies in 335.basil:
http://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=1691
St. Basil
Feastday: March 6
335
Bishop of Bologna, Italy, ordained by Pope St. Sylvester in 315. Basil served his diocese until his death
It is clear what they believed about the movement of the heavens, the sun, the moon and the stars from what they wrote, unless you are trying desperately to deny the obvious. Which is clear by the way you have switched from trying to deny the church fathers were geocentrist, to trying to exclude them for suspected Catholicism (or living in Persia).even in reading their biographies {and newadvent was one of them} there was no claim that they held to the beliefs you want them to hold. (yes, i did that before constructing my reply) on 4 of these people you quoted, very little is known about them and such claims as you make are far-fetched and wishful thinking.
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies for the following purposes:
Do you accept cookies and these technologies?