Annotatio XIII

”Let the waters that are under heaven be gathered together.” — Genesis 1:9

Procopius of Gaza, in his commentaries, explaining this, endeavors to establish, from the testimonies of divine Scripture, that there is no land below us opposite to our globe, which Antipodes inhabit, turning their footsteps against ours.¹ For he writes thus: “That the whole earth subsists in the waters, and that there is no part of it, situated below us, empty and denuded of waters, I reckon is known to all; for thus Scripture teaches: ‘Who spreads out the earth above the waters.’² And again: ‘For he founded it upon the seas.’³ Understand, therefore, only the surface of the earth which is near us, when he says, ‘Let the waters that are under heaven be gathered together into one place.’ Nor is it fitting that we believe any land below us to be opposite to the globe of our heaven. For if there were Antipodes, certainly Christ would have gone there too, and would have accomplished there the other things that pertain to the salvation of the human race; but also Adam, the first origin of our race, and the serpent, who circumvented the human race by guile, and the flood too, would have existed over against the opposite region.” Thus Procopius: before whom Lactantius, in the third book of the Divine Institutions, chapter 24, had held the same. And Augustine, in the 16th book The City of God, chapter 9, had constantly affirmed, on the authority of the sacred Letters, that it must by no reasoning be believed that Antipodes are found who, in the contrary part of the earth — where the Sun rises when it sets for us — press their footsteps opposite to our feet. Because, since divine Scripture testifies that men are begotten from the one Adam in this our hemisphere, it is too absurd to say that some men could have sailed from this into another hemisphere, the immensity of an impassable Ocean being crossed, so as to propagate the human race there also.

But in our own times it is so certain that there are Antipodes, that to deny them would be of the utmost madness:⁴ for our merchants continually sail to them, and within a short space of time return to us, having traversed and re-traversed almost the whole Ocean. Nevertheless Procopius, Augustine, Lactantius, and the other Christian authors who thought otherwise are to be excused⁵ — because the navigations of the Spanish had not yet uncovered the new worlds which have now been discovered, and it was a report, confirmed by the assent of all writers, that between this Northern region and that Southern one a vast Ocean was interposed, which no one had ever crossed, nor even could cross. These things being considered, the most prudent Fathers denied the Antipodes, lest, if they had granted them, they should at once be compelled to confess that those men did not descend from the seed of Adam. But as for what Procopius objects from the authority of Psalms 23 and 135 — that the other hemisphere is so immersed in waters that it is entirely uninhabitable — it does nothing to the point: for [the claim] that the earth is made firm, founded upon the seas and established upon the rivers (to omit other expositions for the present) — is the same as if you should say that the earth received a greater constancy, firmness, stability, and foundation than the sea and the waters.⁶ For the Hebrews are frequently wont, in place of the comparative, to add to positives the preposition “super” [above], as in Psalm 118[:72]: “The law of thy mouth is good to me, above thousands of gold and silver”; and [118:127]: “I have loved thy commandments above gold and topaz”; and in the fourth [chapter] of Canticles [4:10]: “The odor of thy ointments is above all aromatics.”