Second Sunday of Lent (B)
“The earth… is divided into three parts, one of which is called Asia, the second Europe, the third Africa… Apart from these three parts of the world there exists a fourth part, beyond the ocean, which is unknown to us.” – St. Isidore of Seville, Etymologies, c. 600 AD
This quote may challenge the way some of you have viewed European history. Here is someone who lived nearly two centuries after the collapse of Roman rule in Western Europe – during a time often dismissed as the “Dark Ages”. And yet, he reports this concept that the world is more than he or anyone of his era knew – that there is a “fourth part of the world… unknown to us”. This idea doesn’t come from Isidore himself; he reports it, matter-of-factly, as something commonly assumed in his day. A belief that there was more to the physical world than what they could see then. Continue reading “The Fourth Part of the World”
