iii, cap.
3; also citations in Whewell, Hist.Induct.Sciences, London, 1857, vol.
i, p.

194, and in St.Martin, Histoire de la Geographie, pp.

216, 217.
For the views of St.John Chrysostom, Ephraem Syrus, and other great churchmen, see Kretschmer as above, chap i.
In the sixth century this development culminated in what was nothing less than a complete and detailed system of the universe, claiming to be based upon Scripture, its author being the Egyptian monk Cosmas Indicopleustes.

Egypt was a great treasure-house of theologic thought to various religions of antiquity, and Cosmas appears to have urged upon the early Church this Egyptian idea of the construction of the world, just as another Egyptian ecclesiastic, Athanasius, urged upon the Church the Egyptian idea of a triune deity ruling the world.

According to Cosmas, the earth is a parallelogram, flat, and surrounded by four seas.
It is four hundred days' journey long and two hundred broad.