so, at times, such huge
masses of the waves that when he belches them forth all the seas feel
their effect." And this theological theory of the tides, as caused by
the alternate suction and belching of leviathan, went far and wide.(205)

(205) See the treatise De mundi constitutione, in Bede's Opera (Migne,
Patr. Lat., vol. xc, p. 884).

In the writings thus covered with the name of Bede there is much showing
a scientific spirit, which might have come to something of permanent
value had it not been hampered by the supposed necessity of conforming
to the letter of Scripture. It is as startling as it is refreshing to
hear one of these medieval theorists burst out as follows against those
who are content to explain everything by the power of God: "What is more
pitiable than to say that a thing IS, because God is able to do it, and
not to show any reason why it is so, nor any purpose for which it is so;
just as if God did everything that he is able to do! You talk like one
who says that God is able to make a calf out of a log. But DID he ever
do it? Either, then, show a reason why a thing is so, or a purpose
wherefore it is so, or else cease to declare it so."(206)

(206) For this remonstrance, see the Elementa philosophiae, in Bede's
Opera (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol xc, p. 1139). This treatise, which has
also been printed, under the title of De philosophia mundi, among the
works of Honorius of Autun, is believed by modern scholars (Haureau,
Werner, Poole) to be the production of William of Conches.

The most permanent contribution of Bede to scientific thought in this
field was his revival of the view that the firmament is made of ice; and
he supported this from the words in the twenty-sixth chapter of Job,
"He bindeth up the waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is not rent
under them."

About the beginning of the ninth century appeared the third in that
triumvirate of churchmen who were the oracles of sacred science
throughout the early Middle Ages--Rabanus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda and
Archbishop of Mayence. Starting, like all his predecessors, from the
first chapter of Genesis, borrowing here and there from the ancient
philosophers, and excluding everything that could conflict with the
letter of Scripture, he follows, in his work upon the universe, his
two predecessors, Isidore and Bede, developing especially St. Jerome's
theory, drawn from Ezekiel, that the firmament is strong enough to hold
up the