e the torch of knowledge, but, as their reward among
their contemporaries, they fell under the charge of sorcery.

Far more consonant with the theological spirit of the Middle Ages was a
solution of the problem from Scripture, and this solution deserves to
be given as an example of a very curious theological error, chancing to
result in the establishment of a great truth. The second book of Esdras,
which among Protestants is placed in the Apocrypha, was held by many of
the foremost men of the ancient Church as fully inspired: though Jerome
looked with suspicion on this book, it was regarded as prophetic
by Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Ambrose, and the Church
acquiesced in that view. In the Eastern Church it held an especially
high place, and in the Western Church, before the Reformation, was
generally considered by the most eminent authorities to be part of the
sacred canon. In the sixth chapter of this book there is a summary of
the works of creation, and in it occur the following verses:

"Upon the third day thou didst command that the waters should be
gathered in the seventh part of the earth; six parts hast thou dried up
and kept them to the intent that of these some, being planted of God and
tilled, might serve thee."

"Upon the fifth day thou saidst unto the seventh part where the waters
were gathered, that it should bring forth living creatures, fowls and
fishes, and so it came to pass."

These statements were reiterated in other verses, and were naturally
considered as of controlling authority.

Among the scholars who pondered on this as on all things likely to
increase knowledge was Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly. As we have seen, this
great man, while he denied the existence of the antipodes, as St.
Augustine had done, believed firmly in the sphericity of the earth, and,
interpreting these statements of the book of Esdras in connection with
this belief, he held that, as only one seventh of the earth's surface
was covered by water, the ocean between the west coast of Europe and the
east coast of Asia could not be very wide. Knowing, as he thought, the
extent of the land upon the globe, he felt that in view of this divinely
authorized statement the globe must be much smaller, and the land of
"Zipango," reached by Marco Polo, on the extreme east coast of Asia,
much nearer than had been generally believed.

On this point he laid stress in his great work, the Ymago Mundi, and
an edition of it having been p