Architecture, mysticism and myth
Architecture, mysticism and mythIntroductoryChapter 1. The World FabricChapter 2. The MicrocosmosChapter 3. Four SquareChapter 4. At The Centre Of The EarthChapter 5. The Jewel-Bearing TreeChapter 6. The Planetary SpheresChapter 7. The LabyrinthChapter 8. The Golden Gate Of The SunChapter 9. Pavements Like The SeaChapter 10. Ceilings Like The SkyChapter 11. The Windows Of Heaven And Three Hundred And Sixty DaysChapter 12. The Symbol Of CreationCopyright
Architecture, mysticism and myth
W. R. Lethaby
Introductory
'Invention, strictly speaking, is little
more than a new combination of those images, that have been
previously gathered and deposited in the memory: nothing can come
of nothing: he who has laid up no materials can produce no
combinations.'—REYNOLDS, Discourse II.THE history of architecture, as usually written, with its
theory of utilitarian origins from the hut and the tumulus, and
further developments in that way—the adjustment of forms to the
conditions of local circumstance; the clay of Mesopotamia, the
granite of Egypt, and marble of Greece—is rather the history of
building: of 'Architecture' it may be, in the sense we so often use
the word, but not the Architecture which is the synthesis of the
fine arts, the commune of all the crafts.As the pigments are but the vehicle of painting, so is
building but the vehicle of architecture, which is the thought
behind form, embodied and realised for the purpose of its
manifestation and transmission. Architecture, then, interpenetrates
building, not for satisfaction of the simple needs of the body, but
the complex ones of the intellect. I do not mean that we can thus
distinguish between architecture and building, in those qualities
in which they meet and overlap, but that in the sum and polarity of
them all; these point to the response of future thought, those to
the satisfaction of present need; and so, although no hut or mound,
however early or rude, but had something added to it for thought's
sake, yet architecture and building are quite clear and distinct as
ideas—the soul and the body.Of the modes of this thought we must again distinguish; some
were unconscious and instinctive, as the desire for symmetry,
smoothness, sublimity, and the like merely æsthetic qualities,
which properly enough belong to true architecture; and others were
direct and didactic, speaking by a more or less perfect
realisation, or through a code of symbols, accompanied by
traditions which explained them. The main purpose and burthen of
sacred architecture—and all architecture, temple, tomb, or palace,
was sacred in the early days—is thus inextricably bound up with a
people's thoughts about God and the universe.Behind every style of architecture there is an earlier style,
in which the germ of every form is to be found; except such
alterations as may be traced to new conditions, or directly
innovating thought in religion, all is the slow change of growth,
and it is almost impossible to point to the time of invention of
any custom or feature. As Herbert Spencer says of ceremonial
generally: 'Adhering tenaciously to all his elders taught him, the
primitive man deviates into novelty only through unintended
modifications. Every one now knows that languages are not devised
but evolve; and the same is true of usages.' It has, rightly, been
the habit of historians of architecture to lay stress on the
differences of the several styles and schools of successive ages,
but; in the far larger sense, all architecture is one, when traced
back through the stream of civilisations, as they followed or
influenced one another. For instance, argue as archæologists may,
as to whether the columns at Beni Hassan are rightly called
proto-Doric, it is a fact to be read as in an open book, that a
Greek temple and an Egyptian temple are substantially at one, when
we consider the infinite possibilities of form, if disassociated
from tradition.It has often been pointed out, how early examples of stone
construction still repeat the forms of the manner of building in
wood that went before, and so is it always. How long the steamship
retained survivals of the sailing vessel, and how the vocabulary of
the coachroad still answers for the railway.What then, I want to ask, are the ultimate facts behind all
architecture which has given it form? Mainly three: First, the similar needs and desires
of men; secondly, on the
side of structure, the necessities imposed by materials, and the
physical laws of their erection and combination; and thirdly, on the side of style, nature.
It is of this last that I propose to write; the influence of the
known and imagined facts of the universe on architecture, the
connection between the world as a structure, and the building, not
of the mere details of nature and the ornaments of architecture,
but of the whole—the Heavenly Temple and the Earthly Tabernacle.
'Has anyone,' says Mr Lillie in his "Buddhism in Christendom,"
'puzzled over the fact, that the only modern representative of the
initiates of the ancient mysteries should occupy themselves
entirely with the business of the hodman and builder; what is the
connection between the kingdom of heaven, and matter of fact
mortar, tee-squares and trowels? Esoteric masonry occupied itself
in reality, with a temple built without sound of hammer, axe, or
tool of iron. It was the temple of the skies, the Macrocosmos, in
point of fact.'It will be necessary, not only to examine architecture in the
monuments, but the contemporary statements which relate to them,
the stories about buildings, and even the mythology of
architecture, for such a mythology there is.If we trace the artistic forms of things, made by man, to
their origin, we find a direct imitation of nature. The thought
behind a ship is the imitation of a fish. So to the Egyptians and
Greeks the 'Black Ship' bore traces of this descent, and two eyes
were painted at the prow. The custom still lingers on the
Mediterranean and on the waters of China: the eyes are given, it is
said, to enable the ship to see its way over the pathless sea.
Tables and chairs, like the beasts, are quadrupeds; the lion's leg
and foot of modern furniture come to us from the Greeks, and,
earlier, they were used in Assyria and Egypt. Thrones had beasts on
either hand, a custom traditionally followed for thrones, Hittite,
Chaldean, or Hindu, that of Solomon, the imperial throne at
Constantinople, or our own Coronation chair. The Egyptian funeral
bier seems like a joke, so frank and unmodified is the imitation:
it looks, as shown on the mummy cases, like a long, flat-backed
lion, tail and all; the example preserved in the Boulak Museum, has
the ordinary parallelogram of a bed, each leg being a lion's leg; a
head is attached to the middle of the front rail, and a tail, like
a pump handle, projects far behind in a great sweeping
curve.Where else, indeed, should we go for the highest imagination?
In the modern Greek folk stories, the hero usually has three
marvellous robes; one embroidered with the heavens and its stars,
the second with the sea and fish swimming there, the third with the
earth in May and all its flowers. Could anyone produce finer
designs?The commonplaces of poetry, in which the world is likened to
a building, 'heavenly vaults,' or 'azure domes,' 'gates of
sunrise,' and the rest, are survivals of a time when the earth was
not a tiny ball, projected at immeasurable speed through infinite
space, one, among other fireflies of the night, but was stable and
immovable, the centre of the universe, the floor on which the sky
was built. The whole, a chamber lighted by the sun, moon, and
stars.The ceremonial of religion during the great building ages in
Chaldea, Egypt, and India, was going through the phase of Nature
worship, in which the sky, the sun, the sea were not so much
veiled, as afterwards to the Greeks, until they became persons, not
things; but open and understood, astronomical observation was
closely associated as part of the cultus.In all this there is enough to dispose us to receive evidence
of a cosmical symbolism in the buildings of the younger world, and
we shall find that the intention of the temple (speaking of the
temple idea, as we
understand it) was to set up a local reduplication of the temple
not made with hands, the World Temple itself—a sort of model to
scale, its form governed by the science of the time; it was a
heaven, an observatory, and an almanack. Its foundation was a
sacred ceremony, the time carefully chosen by augury, and its
relation to the heavens defined by observation. Its place was
exactly below the celestial prototype; like that it was sacred,
like that strong, its foundations could not be moved, if they were
placed foursquare to the walls of the firmament, as are still our
churches—and was it not to be like the heavenly sanctuary, that
Solomon built the temple without the sound of tool?I do not necessarily claim that this was the origin of all
structures set apart for a purpose in a sense sacred; nor possibly
in every case was this the first interpretation of some of the
symbols. Customs have many explanations. I claim that, given the
idea of a universe and universe gods, the phase here set out was a
necessary one; and as this stage certainly everywhere preceded the
age, when works, worthy the name of architecture, were
produced—buildings which enshrined ideas—it is here we shall find
the formative factor in their design. And for this there is ample
authority; De la Saussaye, in his comprehensive 'Manual of the
Science of Religion' (1891), says 'the symbolism of temple
buildings sometimes seems to refer to the structure of the world,
sometimes to the religious relationship of men to the
gods.'Beginning with the form of the world in the first chapter,
the three or four which follow, deal with the relation of the
building to it as a whole, and the rest with parts and
details.We need not suppose that temples were a sum of these symbols
in all cases, if in any; but that from this common book of
architecture, each took what he would, little or much, sometimes
openly, sometimes with more or less translation, sometimes at first
hand, often as a half-remembered tradition.The ritual side of symbolism is entirely neglected here, but
there is ample evidence that sacred ceremony, the state that
surrounded a throne, and the pageant of war, all had reference to
the ritual and pomp of nature; so that man might be one with her
and share her invincible strength. Ridiculous as, at first, it may
seem, the Throne, Crown, and Orb of Her Majesty Queen Victoria can
only be explained in this way: they are all symbols of a God in his
temple; and hereditary kingship has everywhere, as Mr Spencer has
shown, claimed divinity, God descent, and afterwards God
consent—the right divine. As is said in the old Chinese book, the
Li Ki (Sac. Books of E. Vol. 28), 'all ceremonial usages, looked at
in their general characteristics, are the embodiment of the ideas
suggested by heaven and earth; take their laws from the changes of
the four seasons; imitate the operation of the contracting and
developing movements in nature, and are conformed to the feelings
of men. It is on this account that they are called the Rules of
Propriety; and when anyone finds fault with them, he only shows his
ignorance of their origin.'Old architecture lived because it had a purpose. Modern
architecture, to be real, must not be a mere envelope without
contents. As M. Cesar Daly says in his Hautes Etudes, if we would have
architecture excite an interest, real and general, we must have a
symbolism, immediately comprehensible by the great majority of
spectators. But this message cannot be that of the past—terror,
mystery, splendour. Planets may not circle nor thunder roll in the
temple of the future. No barbaric gold with ruddy bloom; no jewels;
emeralds half a palm over, rubies like an egg, and crystal spheres,
can again be used more for magic than for beauty. No terraced
temples of Babylon to reach the skies; no gold-plated palaces of
Ecbatana, seven-walled; no ivory palaces of Ahab; nor golden houses
of Nero with corridors a mile long; no stupendous temples of Egypt
at first all embracing, then court and chamber narrowing and
becoming lower, closing in on the awed worshipper and crushing his
imagination; these, all of them, can never be built again, for the
manner and the materials are worked out to their final issue. Think
of the Sociology and Religion of all this, and the stain across it,
"each stone cemented in the blood of a human creature." Those
colossal efforts of labour forced on by an implacable will, are of
the past, and such an architecture is not for us, nor for the
future.What, then, will this art of the future be? The message will
still be of nature and man, of order and beauty, but all will be
sweetness, simplicity, freedom, confidence, and light; the other is
past, and well is it, for its aim was to crush life: the new, the
future, is to aid life and train it, 'so that beauty may flow into
the soul like a breeze.'
Chapter 1. The World Fabric
'Tales of ages long forgotten Now the legends of creation Once familiar to the children.'—KALEVALA.IF we erase from the mind absolutely all that science has
laboriously spied out of the actual facts of the material universe,
and ask ourselves what would have been the thoughts by which man
attempted at first to explain and image forth the natural order, we
may put ourselves in sympathy with notions that at first seem
absurd. We may see that the progress of science is merely the
framing and destruction one by one of a series of hypotheses, and
that the early cosmogonies are one in kind with the widest
generalisations of science—from certain appearances to frame a
theory of explanation, from phenomena to generalise
law.In thus putting ourselves back into the early world, not only
must we remember the limitations to the knowledge of phenomena, but
also the inadequate means of expression. Not only must we ask
ourselves what primitive man—to use the phrase for what it is
worth, not letting it betray us—can have observed: we must ask at
the same time; what images can he have had before him to which he
might liken the wonder of the sky and the might of the sea? Or
rather, these are two phases of the same question by which we may
realise the early systems, for in these things at least concepts
were immediately linked with words, words which were descriptive
comparisons.The unknown universe could then only be explained in terms of
its known parts; the earth, shut in by the night sky, must have
been thought of as a living creature, a tree, a tent, a building;
and these each form the world system to peoples now living. 'Given
the data,' says Herbert Spencer, as known to him, the inference
drawn by the primitive man is the reasonable
inference.'A tree with wide over-arching branches must have formed an
apt and satisfactory explanation, for legends of a world tree are
so widely distributed; we meet with them at the dawn of record, and
they still strike their roots where wild in woods' the savage
runs.The Chaldean inscriptions describe such a tree as growing at
the centre of the world; its branches of crystal formed the sky and
drooped to the sea. The Phœnicians thought the world like a
revolving tree, over which was spread a vast tapestry of blue
embroidered with stars. Traces of this scheme linger late into
times of culture, and would account for a story in 'Apollonios of
Tyana' that the people of Sardis doubted if the trees were not
created before the earth; an idea exactly parallel to the
controversy in the Talmud, as to the priority in creation of the
heavens or the earth; one side maintaining that the object was made
first and then the pedestal; the other, that the foundation is laid
before the building is erected.All the East knew of such a tree; in Japan the gods broke
their swords against it in vain; in Greece its memory seems long to
have survived as the olive of the forest of Colonas.In the Norse system a vast tree, the world-ash, rises in the
centre of the earth, its branches forming the several heavens of
the gods, its roots strike deep into hell, and there—'
. . . . . . A serpent evermoreLies deep asleep at the world's dark core.'Maori science still represents such a tree as rising to the
heavens, 'that dark nocturnal canopy which like a forest spreads
its shade,' its mighty growth first forced asunder Heaven and
Earth. Such an idea is probably very uniform at a certain early
stage of civilisation—'The fundamental conception of these myths,'
says Lenormant, which never appear in perfection except under their
oldest forms, represents the universe as an enormous tree.' Its
trunk transfixes the earth, projecting upwards into heaven and
below into the abyss, the heavens revolve on this axis, and may be
reached by climbing the stem.An extract from Dr Tylor's 'Early History of Mankind' will
lead us to a later point of view. Man now surrounded by his own
works sees in the universe a larger 'tent to dwell in,' a chamber,
and ultimately a most elaborate structure, a conception which lasts
long even in the direct line of descent of science. This idea it is
children find so difficult to shake off—that there must be a brick
wall somewhere circumscribing the universe, and we still recognise
it in the phrase to 'make the welkin ring.''There are,' says Dr Tylor, 'other mythological ways besides
the heaven-tree by which, in different parts of the world, it is
possible to go up and down between the surface of the ground and
the sky or the regions below. . . . Such tales belong to a rude and
primitive state of knowledge of the earth's surface, and what lies
above and below it. The earth is a flat plain surrounded by the
sea, and the sky forms a roof on which the sun and moon and stars
travel. The Polynesians who thought, like so many other people
ancient and modern, that the sky descended at the horizon and
enclosed the earth, still call foreigners "heaven bursters," as
having broken in from another world outside. The sky is to most
savages, what it is called in the South American language, "the
earth on high," and we can quite understand the thought of some
Paraguayans that at death their souls would go up to heaven by the
tree which joins earth and sky. There are holes or windows through
the sky-roof or firmament where the rain comes through; and if you
climb high enough, you can get through and visit the dwellers
above, who look and talk and live very much in the same way as the
people upon earth. As above the flat earth, so below it, there are
regions inhabited by men or manlike creatures, who sometimes come
up to the surface, and sometimes are visited by the inhabitants of
the upper earth. We live, as it were, upon the ground-floor of a
great house, with upper storeys rising one over another above us,
and cellars down below.'This stage of thought lasted so long, embracing the great
architectural ages in its span, that one cannot but see that there
must have been a relation and reaction between such a world
structure and the buildings of man, especially the sacred buildings
set apart, as they mostly were, for a worship that thought it found
its object in earth, sky, and stars.It would appear generally that to the great civilising races
a square formed universe preceded the hemispherical; indeed, we are
much in the hemispherical age at present, it is just archaic enough
to furnish the poet with his similes, but an old poet like Job
found his comparisons in the chamber-form, a cubical box with a lid
on. In the centre of this vast box whose lid is the sky rises the
earth mountain, which is its prop and the pivot of its revolutions.
It was seen that the centre of this revolution is at a point within
the space guarded by the great bear, and that beyond this the stars
dip under the earth of the northern horizon. Thus the earth
mountain in the North furnishes a most adequate explanation of the
apparent motions of the heavens; the crystal or metal heaven of the
fixed stars revolves about it, and consequently the stars are
hidden behind it in every revolution. The sun, moon, and planets
issuing from a hole at the east, and sinking into another at the
west, move overhead and find their way back by a subterranean path.
The motive power was sometimes given by active beings, as in the
Book of Enoch, or by the winds; thus the universe was like a great
mill.It is likely that the dome was the next step, although as yet
they were hard put to it to convey the idea, so a skull or half an
eggshell furnished the comparison for the whole canopy of heaven,
as in the northern system of the Edda:—Earth was not formed nor heaven above, a yawning gap there
was, but grass nowhere. The earth is made fast in the midst, the
sea round about it in a ring. The firmament in the form of a skull
was set up over the earth with four sides, and under each corner
they set dwarfs. The earth, called Midgard, is round without, and
beyond is the deep sea; in the midst of the world was reared
Asgard, where Odin is enthroned seeing over the whole world and
each man's doings. Without in the deep sea lies the Midgard-worm,
tail in mouth. The holiest seat of the gods is at Yggdrasil's ash,
its boughs spread over the whole world. Three roots it has, one in
heaven, one in hell, where is Nidhogg, one where before was
Yawning-gap, and there is the Spring of Knowledge. A fair hall is
there, and from it issue three maidens—Has-been, Being, and
Will-be—who shape the lives of men. On the boughs of the ash sits
an eagle, wise in much, and between his eyes a hawk, while a
squirrel runs up and down the tree bearing words of hate betwixt
the eagle and the worm.The following may serve as a general description of what we
may call the chamber type, either square or round, with a ceiling
or a dome. The earth is a mountain, and around its base flows the
ocean, or it floats on the ocean; beyond is a high range of
mountains which form the walls of the enclosure, and on these is
either laid the ceiling in one great slab, or it is domed
(sometimes the system is a compromise, the earth square, the sky
circular, and they do not seem to have realised the difficulty of
the pendentives!). The firmament is sustained by the earth mountain
in the centre; as in the Esquimaux account given by Dr Rink 'the
earth with the sea supported by it, rests upon pillars, and covers
an under-world accessible by various entrances from the sea, as
well as from mountain clefts. Above the earth an upper world is
found, beyond which the blue sky, being of solid consistence,
vaults itself like an outer shell, and, as some say, revolves
around some high mountain top in the far north.' A man in a boat
went 'to the border of ocean, where the sky comes down to meet it.'
(H. Spencer, Sociology, I.) Man was created on the mountain top,
where it is in contact with heaven, and all earthly vegetation
springs from the seeds of the central tree. In the South Pacific,
Mr Andrew Lang tells us, the sky is a solid vault of blue stone. In
the beginning of things the sky pressed hard on the earth, and the
god Ru was obliged to thrust the two asunder. Ru is now the Atlas
of Mangaia, 'The sky-supporting Ru.'Above the firmament is the Over-sea, and the rain falls from
it through perforations; it serves as the floor of the upper
regions, and flowing down the firmament, or down the sides of the
mountain, supplies earthly seas; the stars are either attached to
the firmament or float on this over-sea. There is an amusing story
of this celestial sea as late as Gervase of Tilbury. Some people
coming out of church were surprised to see an anchor dangling by a
rope from the sky, which caught in the tombstones, presently a man
was seen descending with the object of detaching it, but as he
reached the earth he died as we should if drowned in
water.The Egyptian system would seem to have been of the square
type. The Egyptian, says Champollion, 'compared the sky to the
ceiling of an edifice;' illustrations which figure the Cosmos in
personified forms are frequent on the temples and mummy cases. An
example is given by Lenormant (Histoire
Ancienne) showing Seb the Earth-Mountain, Tpe
the firmament, and Nut the heavenly waters. In the Book of the Dead
the soul passes through the gateway of this world into the other,
'the House of Osiris,' and that too was shut in by a wall with a
great gateway for the sun at the east to reach our land; the dead
had to be ferried over the waters which surrounded the earth, and
so the river of death had purely a geographical import in its
origin.Renouf says that 'Ra is addressed as Lord of the great
dwelling. The "great dwelling" is the universe, as the Hall of Seb
is the earth, the Hall of Nut the heaven, and the Hall of the
twofold Maat is the netherworld.'Water was with them the primordial element in the formation
of the universe, of which Maspero gives this account: 'For the
astronomers of Egypt, as for the writer of the first chapter of
Genesis, the sky was "fluid" (une masse
liquide), and enclosed wholly the earth resting
on the solid atmosphere; when the elemental chaos took form, the
God Schou raised on high the waters and spread them out in space.
It is on this celestial ocean, Nut, that the planets and stars
float, the monuments show us them as genii of human or animal form
navigating each his bark in the wake of Osiris. There was another
widely known conception which presented the stars fixed like
suspended lamps to the celestial vault, and they were lighted
afresh each night by Divine power to give light to the nights of
earth.'The cosmogonic theories in the Veda have been abstracted by
Mr Wallis and summarised in a review in the Academy (November 1887). 'The Rig
Vedic hymns disclose three distinct lines of thought in regard to
the creation of the world, yielding three separate views as to its
construction. The simplest theory is that the building of the world
was done very much as the building of a house, by architects and
artificers.' 'What, indeed, was the wood? What, too, was that
tree,' asks a hymn, 'from which they fashioned the heaven and the
earth?' The space was laid out with the measuring rod of Varuna.
This measuring-rod was the sun; and hence the measurers of the
earth are the solar deities, especially Vishnu, 'who measured the
regions of the earth, and made fast the dwelling-places on high,
stepping forth the Mighty Strider in three steps.' The edifice had
three stories or flats—the earth, the air, and the heavens—the
measurement beginning from the front of the structure, or the East.
'Indra measured out as it were a house with measures from the
front.' 'The Dawn shone with brilliance and opened for us the
doors;' the doors that 'open high and wide with their frames.' The
roofing of the house is referred to in the epithet of the sky as
'beamless or without rafters.' The firmness of the edifice is
marvelled at and praised. While the design and general structure
are assigned to the greater deities, and especially to Indra as
their representative, the woodwork and other details are done by
artificer gods. As the first act of the Indian peasant on taking
possession of a new house is to bring in sacred fire, so, says Mr
Wallis, 'the first act of the gods after the formation of the world
was to produce the celestial Agni.'In the Avesta the sky is said to be 'like a palace built of a
heavenly substance firmly established with ends that lie far
apart.' The idea of the temple of the sky is common to the classic
poets, and becomes the palace or temple of glass of the
Romancers.The early system of Chaldea belongs to the hemispherical
class, and it is an interesting fact that modern evidence goes to
show that the dome was first known in the Land of the Plain. 'The
Turanians of Chaldea represented the earth like a bark inverted and
hollow underneath, not one of those oblong boats in use with us,
but of a kind entirely round which the reliefs show, and which are
still used on the Euphrates. In the interior hollow was concealed
the abyss—the place of darkness and of death; upon the convex
surface was spread the earth, properly so called, enveloped on all
sides by the stream of Ocean. Chaldea was regarded as the centre of
the world, and far beyond the Tigris reposed the mountain of the
east which united the heavens and the earth. The heavens were in
the form of a vast hemisphere, of which the lower rim rested upon
the extremity of the terrestrial bark beyond the river of
ocean.''The firmament was spread out over the earth like a curtain;
it turned, as if on a pivot, around the mountain of the east, and
carried with it in its never-resting course the fixed stars with
which its vault was studded. Between the heavens and the earth
circled about the seven planets like large animals full of life;
then came the clouds, the winds, the thunder, the rains. The earth
rested on the abyss, the sky upon the earth. The early Chaldeans
had not yet asked themselves upon what rested the abyss'
(Maspero).It is delightfully appropriate that to the heroic age of
Greece a shield (probably circular and convex with a central boss)
figured the form of the earth. To Homer the land where appeared the
phantoms of the dead is beyond the ocean. We may suppose that this
was the lonely shore of the belt of mountains from which the
firmament would spring. The abyss is Tartarus, as in Iliad VIII.,
'gloomy Tartarus very far from hence (Olympus), where there is a
very deep gulf beneath the earth, and iron portals and a brazen
threshold as far below Hades as heaven is from earth.' Hesiod is
more particular; in nine days would a brazen anvil fall from Heaven
to Earth, and nine other days from earth to Tartarus.Thus the Homeric scheme knew the earth as depicted by the
shield of Achilles; it was surrounded by ocean, and was midway
between the solid metal heavens and Tartarus, probably, like a disc
in a spherical envelope. Many-peaked Olympus, where the gods
assembled, is rather the celestial Olympus—the surface of the vault
of heaven, than a mere earthly mountain. A good account of this is
given in Duncker's 'History of Greece' (I. IX.), on its summit was
the 'all-nourishing lake' from which flowed all the waters of the
world; the earthly Olympus was but a symbol of the heavenly mount.
Anaxagoras taught that the celestial vault was made of stone.
Theophrastus said the milky way was the junction of the two halves
of the solid dome so badly joined that the light came through;
others said that it was a reflection of the sun's light on the
vault of heaven (Flammarion, 'Astronomical Myths').Later when Phœnician voyagers had explored the Western seas,
and a knowledge of India opened up the East, it was evidently felt
that the world extended east and west, and with the same climate,
while north and south the range was inconsiderable and the climate
changing; so that Herodotus says, 'I smile when I see many persons
describing the circumference of the earth who have no sound reason
to guide them; they describe ocean flowing round the earth, which
is made circular as if by a lathe.' Certain, however, that it was
planned on some simple geometrical form, the proportion of 2 to 1
was accepted. Mr Charles Elton, writing of the traveller Pytheas of
Marseilles 330 B.C., and the extension of the estimate of size
necessitated by his voyages, says, 'The world was thought to be
twice as long as its own breadth; the total breadth from the spicy
regions of Ceylon to the frozen shores of Scythia being taken at
about 3400 miles; the length from Cape of St Vincent to the ocean
east of India at about 6800 miles.' Pytheas increased the estimate,
thus making the world 4700 miles wide, and being compelled by the
accepted formula to extend its length to 9400 miles.'The next step was to accept the spherical theory for the
earth as well as for the heavens. We shall find a return to the
Middle Ages to the proportion of the double square.Pythagoras seems to have borrowed the fully-developed Eastern
scheme; for the Babylonians had later arrived at a highly complex
and carefully reasoned structure of several heavenly spheres; which
apparently were elaborated in this way. The blue heaven of the
fixed stars is seen to revolve around the pole at a constant rate,
sweeping the whole of the stars with it. But the sun and moon and
five other planets do not for long occupy their positions relative
to the other bodies; it is seen that they have a motion through the
signs proper to themselves from the thirty days of the moon to the
thirty years of Saturn, and so the Chaldean astronomers assigned a
revolving sphere to each of these: seven concentric spheres
revolving at rates proportioned to their distance from the centre
on a common axis through the pole star. 'The Chaldean astronomers,'
says Lenormant (Magic), 'imagined a spherical heaven completely
enveloping the earth; the periodical movements of the planets took
place in the lower zone of the heavens underneath the firmament of
the fixed stars; astrology afterwards ascribed to them seven
concentric and successive spheres. The firmament supported the
ocean of the celestial waters.' These seven spheres, forming as
many regions above in the heavens or below in the underworld, were
distinguished by colours such as Herodotus describes for the walls
of Ecbatana of the Medes, 'a symbolism which,' continues Lenormant,
'was borrowed direct from the Babylonian religion—the colours of
the seven planetary bodies.' It is necessary that this system
should be firmly grasped; it is the perfected structure of
astrology which for two thousand years solved the problem of the
universe over the whole of civilisation; it is the system embodied
in all Mysticism, Astrology, and Arts magic. It was by irresistible
analogy that the earth also became a sphere.In the Western world the scheme attributed to Pythagoras
gives in all twelve spheres, which succeed each other in the
following order, beginning from the remotest: (1) Sphere of the
fixed stars; (2) of Saturn; (3) Jupiter; (4) Mars; (5) Venus; (6)
Mercury; (7) Sun; (8) The Moon; (9) Sphere of Fire; (10) Sphere of
Air; (11) Sphere of Water; (12) The Earth. 'The early Pythagoreans
further conceived that the heavenly bodies, like other moving
bodies, emitted a sound; these they supposed made up a harmonious
symphony. Hence they established an analogy between the intervals
of the seven planets and the musical scale' (Sir G. C. Lewis,
'Astronomy of the Ancients').The motive power in the Chaldean system was the energy of
seven spirits who governed the several spheres; these, as angels of
the stars, survived to the Middle Ages, and in their cabbalistic
form—Zadkiel, Raphael, and the like—are still familiar to those who
put their trust in prophetic almanacks. We shall see what Dante
says of the orders of angels.The most picturesque prospect of these whirling spheres is
that in Cicero's vision of Scipio.—'The globular bodies of the
stars greatly exceeded the magnitude of the earth, which now to me
appeared so small that I was grieved to see our empire contracted
as it were into a very point. Which, while I was too eagerly gazing
on, Africanus said:—"How long will your attention be fixed upon the
earth? Do you not see into what temples you have entered? All
things are connected by nine circles, or rather spheres; one of
which (which is the outermost) is heaven, and comprehends all the
rest, inhabited by the all-powerful God, who binds and controls the
others; and in this sphere reside the original principles of those
endless revolutions which the planets perform. Within this are
contained seven other spheres that turn round backward; that is, in
a contrary direction to that of the heaven. Of these, that planet
which on earth you call Saturn occupies one sphere. That shining
body which you see next is called Jupiter, and is friendly and
salutary to mankind. Next, the lucid one, terrible to the earth,
which you call Mars. The sun holds the next place, almost under the
middle region; he is the chief, the leader, and the director of the
other luminaries; he is the soul and guide of the world, and of
such immense bulk, that he illuminates and fills all other objects
with his light. He is followed by the orbit of Venus and that of
Mercury as attendants, and the Moon rolls in the lowest sphere
enlightened by the rays of the sun. Below this there is nothing but
what is mortal and transitory, excepting those souls which are
given to the human race by the goodness of the gods. Whatever lies
above the moon is eternal. For the earth, which is the ninth
sphere, and is placed in the centre of the whole system, is
immovable, and below all the rest, and all bodies by their natural
gravitation tend toward it." Which, as I was gazing at in
amazement, I said as I recovered myself, "From whence proceed these
sounds so strong and yet so sweet that fill my ears?"' It is the
melody of the spheres which human sensibility is too dulled by use
to be conscious of hearing.The distinction of above and below was not lost nor the
solidity of the spherical heavens, as seen in this extract from the
Astrologer Manilius:—'Come, then, prepare your mind for learning the Meridians;
they are four in number, their position in the firmament is fixed,
and they modify the influence of the signs as these speed across
them. One is placed where the heaven rises springing up to form its
vault, and this one has the first view of the earth from the level.
The second is placed facing it on the opposite border of the æther,
and from this begins the falling-away of the firmament and its
headlong sweep down to the Nether-world. The third marks the
highest part of the heavens aloft, when Phœbus reaches this he is
weary, and his horses out of breath; here, then, he rests a moment
while he is giving the downward turn to the day and balancing the
shadows of noon. The fourth holds the very bottom of all, and has
the glory of being the foundation of the round world; on it the
stars cease their sinkings and begin their upward course once more;
it is equidistant from the setting and the rising.' The flatness of
the earth was not necessarily affected in popular view. Strabo
finds it necessary to argue that the earth must be of a spherical
form, for if it was of an infinite depth it would transfix the
planetary spheres and prevent them going round!This seven-fold system came westward with Latin civilisation,
and made the world-scheme for our Saxon forefathers.From the fragments collected by Cory of the writings
attributed to Zoroaster, it would appear that the Persian Universe
was fashioned in the like form: 'For the Father congregated
the seven firmaments of the world, circumscribing them of a convex figure.'
These seven firmaments are conceived of in the old Persian writings
as transparent 'mountains,' one without the other.The ancient Hindus understood the universe to be formed by
seven concentric envelopes around the central earth-mountain Meru,
on which the waters of the celestial Ganges fell out of heaven, and
circling it seven times in its descent, distributed its waters in
four great streams to the whole earth. And the Mexicans had nine
heavens distinguished by different colours one over the
other.The Arab system is clearly set forth by Lane:—'According to the common opinion of the Arabs, there are
seven heavens, one above another, and seven earths, one beneath
another; the earth which we inhabit being the highest of the
latter, and next below the lowest heaven. The upper surface of each
heaven and of each earth are believed to be nearly plane, and are
generally supposed to be circular. Thus is explained a passage of
the Koran in which is said that God has created seven heavens and
as many earths or storeys of the earth. Traditions differ
respecting the fabric of the seven heavens. In the most credible
account, according to a celebrated historian, the first is
described as formed of emerald; the second of white silver; the
third of large white pearls; the fourth of ruby; the fifth of red
gold; the sixth of yellow jacinth; and the seventh of shining
light. Some assert Paradise to be in the seventh heaven; indeed, I
have found this to be the general opinion of my Muslim friends; but
the author above quoted proceeds to describe, next above the
seventh heaven seven seas of light, then an undefined number of
veils or separations of different substances seven of each kind,
and then Paradise, which consists of seven stages one above another
(these are distinguished by the names of precious gems) canopied by
the Throne of the Compassionate. These several regions of Paradise
are described in some traditions as forming so many degrees, or
stages ascended by steps.''The earth is believed by the Arabs to be surrounded by the
ocean, which is described as bounded by a chain of mountains called
Kaf, which encircles the whole as a ring, and confines and
strengthens the entire fabric; these mountains are described as
composed of green chrysolite like the green tint of the sky. Mecca,
according to some, or Jerusalem, according to others, is exactly in
the centre. The earth is supported by successive creations one
beneath the other. The earth is upon water, the water upon the
rock, the rock on the back of the bull, the bull on the bed of
sand, the sand on the fish, the fish upon a still suffocating wind,
the wind on a vale of darkness, the darkness on a mist, and what is
beneath the mist is unknown. It is believed that beneath the earth
and the seas of darkness is Jahennem, which consists of seven
stages, one beneath another.'Dante himself sums up in that culminating year 1300 of the
Middle Ages all lore Classic and Oriental, and in the Convito gives the clearly
reasoned system on which he constructs the world scheme of the
'Divine Comedy:'—'I say, then, that concerning the number of the heavens and
their site, different opinions are held by many, although the truth
at last may be found. Aristotle believed, following merely the
ancient foolishness of the Astrologers, that there might be only
eight heavens, of which the last one, and which contained all,
might be that where the fixed stars are ('fixed' in the sense of attached) that
is the eighth sphere, and that beyond it there could be no other.
Ptolemy, then, perceiving that the eighth sphere is moved by many
movements, seeing its circle to depart from the right circle, which
turns from east to west, constrained by the principles of
philosophy, of necessity desires a Primum
mobile, a most simple one, supposing another
heaven to be outside the heaven of the fixed stars, which might
make that revolution from east to west, which I say is completed in
twenty-four hours nearly, that is, twenty-three hours, fourteen
parts of the fifteen of another, counting roughly. Therefore,
according to him, and according to that which is held in Astrology
and in Philosophy, since these movements were seen, there are nine
movable heavens, the sight of which is evident and determined,
according to an art which is termed Perspective, Arithmetical, and
Geometrical, by which and by other sensible appearances it is
visibly and reasonably seen, as in the eclipses of the sun it
appears sensibly that the moon is below the sun. And by the
testimony of Aristotle, who saw with his own eyes, according to
what he says in the second book on Heaven and the World, the Moon
being new, to enter below Mars, on the side not shining, and Mars
to remain concealed so long that he reappeared on the other bright
side of the Moon which was towards the west. And the order of the
houses is this, that the first that they enumerate is that where
the moon is; the second is that where Mercury is; the third is that
where Venus is; the fourth is that where the Sun is; the fifth is
that where Mars is; the sixth is that where Jupiter is; the seventh
is that where Saturn is; the eighth is that of the Stars; the ninth
is that which is not visible except by that movement which is
mentioned above, which they designate the great crystalline sphere,
diaphanous, or rather all transparent. Truly, beyond all these the
Catholics place the Empyrean Heaven, which is as much as to say the
Heaven of Flame, or rather the Luminous Heaven, and they assign it
to be immovable.'