ts to the foot of God's throne. Finally come Angels;
these care for earthly affairs in general, one being appointed to each
mortal, and others taking charge of the qualities of plants, metals,
stones, and the like. Throughout the whole system, from the great Triune
God to the lowest group of angels, we see at work the mystic power
attached to the triangle and sacred number three--the same which gave
the triune idea to ancient Hindu theology, which developed the triune
deities in Egypt, and which transmitted this theological gift to the
Christian world, especially through the Egyptian Athanasius.

Below the earth is hell. This is tenanted by the angels who rebelled
under the lead of Lucifer, prince of the seraphim--the former favourite
of the Trinity; but, of these rebellious angels, some still rove among
the planetary spheres, and give trouble to the good angels; others
pervade the atmosphere about the earth, carrying lightning, storm,
drought, and hail; others infest earthly society, tempting men to sin;
but Peter Lombard and St. Thomas Aquinas take pains to show that the
work of these devils is, after all, but to discipline man or to mete out
deserved punishment.

All this vast scheme had been so riveted into the Ptolemaic view by
the use of biblical texts and theological reasonings that the resultant
system of the universe was considered impregnable and final. To attack
it was blasphemy.

It stood for centuries. Great theological men of science, like Vincent
of Beauvais and Cardinal d'Ailly, devoted themselves to showing not only
that it was supported by Scripture, but that it supported Scripture.
Thus was the geocentric theory embedded in the beliefs and aspirations,
in the hopes and fears, of Christendom down to the middle of the
sixteenth century.(44)

(44) For the earlier cosmology of Cosmas, with citations from
Montfaucon, see the chapter on Geography in this work. For the views
of mediaeval theologians, see foregoing notes in this chapter. For the
passages of Scripture on which the theological part of this structure
was developed, see especially Romans viii, 38; Ephesians i, 21;
Colossians i, 16 and ii, 15; and innumerable passages in the Old
Testament. As to the music of the spheres, see Dean Plumptre's Dante,
vol. ii, p. 4, note. For an admirable summing up of the mediaeval
cosmology in its relation to thought in general, see Rydberg, Magic of
the Middle Ages, chap. i, whose summary I have followed