It is obvious that the old geocentric view of the world, which thought of the earth as the center of the universe, was nothing more than a statement of the apparent relations of the visible heavens to the broad earth which stretches out on either hand as far as eye can see. That this natural view of things was taken up into the religious picture of the universe was the occurrence to be expected. Had it not been and had the priests and prophets enunciated the Copernican theory, there would be reason to suspect a hidden source of revelation. Needless to say such a reversal of the natural sequence never occurs.
It is only when we grasp the naïve outlook of early days that we can realize the full significance of many Christian doctrines. Let us take the articles of the { 102} creed. We are taught to believe that Jesus descended into Hell and then ascended into Heaven and sitteth on the right hand of God. What is this Hell into which Jesus is supposed to have descended? It is the Sheol of the old Hebrews, a misty region below the surface of the earth; it is the Hades of the Greeks, the place of the departed shades; it is the Avernus of the Romans, the lower regions where ghosts flit and gibber. This place of the dead is at first the grave and sinks deeper into the earth as time passes and the myth-making fancy has been directed upon it. But it is thought of literally as in the bowels of the earth. All through the Middle ages this naïve view was held. There was an absolute down and a subterranean Hell, and every country told of some cavern which was one of its many mouths. With the advent of the Copernican view what becomes of these age-old ideas? To save them they must be transformed and given another location or a merely symbolic meaning. But why save them? They are as pure myths as any others to be found in olden days. They are brother to Tartarus and the Battle of the Titans and the Slaying of Rahab. The early Christians believed in a literal Hell beneath the surface of the earth. Their belief was wrong beyond the shadow of a doubt. We cannot make it true by modifying it out of all recognition.
The ascent into Heaven was thought of as a literal ascension of the resurrected body by the majority of early Christians. We have seen, however, that Paul did not teach any such doctrine. But even for Paul, Jesus, as the Messiah, was literally in the heavens directly above the earth. Into this region Paul is caught up in ecstasy--even to the third heaven. It is from { 103} this region, not very far above us, that the last trump will sound and the day of judgment dawn. The account, given by the so-called "Revelation of St. John the Divine," which has led to so much foolish controversy among certain protestant sects, is typical of the apocalyptic literature of the time. No scholar to-day believes that it was written by an apostle or by any one in direct relation to an apostle. It is simply an example of the current religious phantasies of the age just before and after the Fall of Jerusalem. What factual basis could there be for such myths of the end of the world? To take this old picture of the days to come as having anything but historical interest is to live in a mist. Only the scholar can understand the allusions made and connect the ideas with the beliefs of this vanished world. It is poetry, a creation of generations of dreamers steeped in the tremendous idea of a coming destruction preceded by portents and disasters. We can understand how it arose in the motley and chaotic press of the Roman Empire in the East with its memories of oppressions and conquests and changing kingdoms; but to regard it gravely as a revelation, to be taken seriously, of the destruction of the world is impossible. The universe was a small affair for the men of that time and the little planet we call the earth and live upon was the center of all things. We who think in terms of light-years, and nebulae in which our solar system could be lost, and huge constellations far off in the pathless void, realize that we have outgrown even the imagery of this apocalyptic poem.