Leo Ferrari explains that Augustine was influenced by his conversion to the Christian religion after being raised in the pagan mindset
and rejected the globe because the Christians rejected it.
Ferrari also says:
Photius was markedly critical of Diodore, noting that he was undoubtedly “a true
believer,” but that his scriptural proofs were lacking in cogency.14
There is some evidence that Diodore of Tarsus passed on his cosmological views
to his students, which included Theodore of Mopsuestia (c. 350–428/29) and John
Chrysostom (c. 345–407). In his tract On the Creation of the World (546/60), John
Philoponus repeatedly criticizes Theodore and his school for their use of biblical
citations in an effort to contradict the spherical cosmology of the philosophers.15
That Chrysostom held similar views to Diodore and Theodore concerning the earth’s
flatness becomes apparent from his references to the world as a cosmic tabernacle.16
An even clearer picture is provided by one of Chrysostom’s contemporaries (and
personal rivals), Severianus of Gabala (d. after 408), whose Homilies on Genesis
depict a tabernacle-shaped universe with a flat earth at the bottom.17 Finally, there is the famous sixth-century case of Cosmas Indicopleustes, whose Christian To-
pography (ca. 550) contains by far the most elaborate and systematic example of a scripturally derived flat-earth cosmology that has come down to us. Although
Cosmas spent most of his life in Byzantine Egypt, there are clear links between his
own writings and the aforementioned Syriac or Antiochene tradition.
Topic: Challenge for globe earthers (Read 14996 times)