win32/trojandownloader.small.awa

Church--the last word of revelation. Three great men mainly reared this structure. First was the unknown who gave to the world the treatises ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite. It was unhesitatingly believed that these were the work of St. Paul's Athenian convert, and therefore virtually of St. Paul himself. Though now known to be spurious, they were then considered a treasure of inspiration, and an emperor of the East sent them to an emperor of the West as the most worthy of gifts. In the ninth century they were widely circulated in western Europe, and became a fruitful source of thought, especially on the whole celestial hierarchy. Thus the old ideas of astronomy were vastly developed, and the heavenly hosts were classed and named in accordance with indications scattered through the sacred Scriptures. The next of these three great theologians was Peter Lombard, professor at the University of Paris. About the middle of the twelfth century he gave forth his collection of Sentences, or Statements by the Fathers, and this remained until the end of the Middle Ages the universal manual of theology. In it was especially developed the theological view of man's relation to the universe. The author tells the world: "Just as man is made for the sake of God--that is, that he may serve Him,--so the universe is made for the sake of man--that is, that it may serve HIM; therefore is man placed at the middle point of the universe, that he may both serve and be served." The vast significance of this view, and its power in resisting any real astronomical science, we shall see, especially in the time of Galileo. The great triad of thinkers culminated in St. Thomas Aquinas--the sainted theologian, the glory of the mediaeval Church, the "Angelic