Antipodes

ANTIPODES. - Those who inhabit a part of the earth diametrically opposite to a given place. Therefore, to admit the existence of the antipodes is for us, now, equivalent to admitting the sphericity of the earth. For the ancients, however, the antipodes were men who inhabited the regions situated beneath their feet and who, separated from them by an immense, insuperable expanse of water, would have been of a different origin. Regarding their existence, as regarding the sphericity of the earth, the opinions of the holy Fathers were divided; more yielding regarding sphericity; less, much less, regarding their actual habitability. From this fact the adversaries of the Church draw grounds for deducing that the holy Fathers condemned belief in the antipodes, and, consequently, in the sphericity of the earth. And they adduce the case of Pope St. Zachary, who in a letter to St. Boniface, bishop and apostle of Germany, would have declared it false and heretical. Proof further, that the mentality of the Church is always backward in the face of the conquests of science.

The answer is easy: 1) The holy Fathers cannot be blamed if, before the era of the great discoveries of the 16th century and the voyages of Magellan, when no argument scientifically demonstrated the sphericity of the earth, they remained in doubt about it (e.g. St. Augustine, Confess., I, 16, 9) or denied it as absurd (e.g. Lactantius, Div. Instit., I, 3, 24). The opinion, however, was free and several other Fathers held it to be true (e.g. St. Clement pope, Epist. I ad Corint., 20; St. Hilary of Poitiers, Tract. in psalmum, II, n. 32: PL 9, 281). 2) On the other hand the two arguments, sphericity of the earth and existence of the antipodes, which could indeed be discussed separately, often interfered with each other, inasmuch as they could lead to assertions against the fundamental dogma of the universality of the human race and of the redemption; because some deduced from them that the antipodes, of a different race and not descended from Adam, would have had no need of baptism and redemption, granted that they did not participate in the sin of Adam. 3) As for the condemnation pronounced by Pope St. Zachary, we know historically very little. All that is known to us is contained in the letter (Epist. 117, of 1 May 748: PL 89, 946-47) of the pope to St. Boniface; from which we learn that the latter had invoked the papal censure against a certain Virgil, missionary among the Germans, among other things for the theory professed by him that "under the earth there was another world and other men, another sun and another moon." If this had been true, Boniface "was to convoke a council, excommunicate Virgil and deprive him of the dignity of priest, if priest he was." And the Pope continued with these words: "Nevertheless we too write to the aforesaid duke (of Bavaria, Odilo) that by virtue of our letter of summons, directed to Virgil, the latter is to present himself before us so that we may subject him to a careful examination and if he should prove to be infected with error, he will be condemned with the canonical sanctions." Nothing else. If, admitting the sphericity of the earth, Virgil had deduced from it only the existence of the antipodes, he would have done nothing other than follow the opinion of Hilary and would certainly not have been condemned; all the more so since Boniface was an assiduous reader of the works of the venerable Bede, who had also taught that opinion (De rerum natura, ch. 46). If, on the other hand, Virgil held that the antipodes belonged to a race different from that descended from Adam, which therefore would not have inherited original sin, he would have been justly condemned, because opposed to the doctrine of the Church, which teaches that all men descend from Adam and all have been redeemed by Jesus Christ.

Who this Virgil really was is not known exactly; some would identify him with the Irish monk V. Ferghill, missionary and later bishop of Salzburg in 760 and venerated as a saint; but this is far from being proved (v. VIRGILIO). Nor is it known whether the inquisition and condemnation of Virgil took place, whether before the council that Boniface was to have convoked, or before the supreme tribunal of the Pope. This, however, takes nothing away from the value of the answer. The Church, therefore, has never condemned the theory of the sphericity of the earth, nor that of the antipodes, when it was rightly understood.

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