Since this opinion may be suspected of singularity, I shall therefore first confirme it by sufficient authority of divers Authors, both ancient and moderne, that so I may the better cleare it from the prejudice either of an upstart fancie, or an absolute errour. This is by some attributed to Orpheus, one of the most ancient Greek Poets. Who speaking of the Moone, sayes thus,1 […], That it hath many mountaines, and cities, and houses in it. To him assented Anaxagoras, Democritus, and Heraclides,2 all who, thought it to have firme solid ground, like to our earth, containing in it many large fields,3 champion grounds, and divers Inhabitants.
Of this opinion likewise was Xenophanes,4 as he is cited for it by Lactantius; though that Father (perhaps) did mistake his meaning whilst hee relates it thus Dixit Xenophanes, intra concavum Lunae esse aliam terram, & ibi aliud genus hominum simili modo vivere sicut nos in hac terra, &c. As if hee had conceived the Moone to be a great hollow body, in the midst of whose concavity, there should be another globe of sea and land, inhabited by men, as our earth is. Whereas it seemes to be more likely by the relation of others, that this Philosophers opinion is to be understood in the same sence, as it is here to be proved. True indeed, the Father condemnes this assertion as an equall absurdity to that of Anaxagoras, who affirmed the snow to be black: but no wonder, for in the very next Chapter it is that hee does so much deride the opinion of those who thought there were Antipodes. So that his ignorance in that particular may perhaps disable him from being a competent Judge in any other the like point of Philosophy. Vnto these agreed Pythagoras, who thought that our earth was but one of the Planets which moved round about the Sun,5 (as Aristotle relates it of him) and the Pythagoreans in generall did affirme that the Moone also was terrestriall, & that she was inhabited as this lower world; That those living creatures and plants which are in her, exceed any of the like kind with us in the same proportion, as their dayes are longer than ours: viz. by 15 times. This Pythagoras was esteemed by all,6 of a most divine wit, as appeares especially by his valuation amongst the Romans, who being commanded by the Oracle to erect a statue to the wisest Graecian, the Senate determined Pythagoras to be meant,7 preferring him in their judgements before the divine Socrates, whom their Gods pronounc’d the wisest. Some think him a Iew by birth; but most agree that hee was much conversant amongst the learneder sort and Priests of that Nation, by whom hee was informed of many secrets, and (perhaps) this opinion which he vented afterwards in Greece, where he was much opposed by Aristotle in some worded disputations, but never confuted by any solid reason.
To this opinion of Pythagoras did Plato also assent, when he considered that there was the like eclipse made by the earth; and this, that it had no light of its owne, that it was so full of spots.8 And therefore wee may often reade in him and his followers, of an aetherea terra, (Macrob) and lunares populi, An aethereall earth,9 & inhabiters in the Moon; but afterwards this was mixed with many ridiculous fancies: For some of them considering the mysteries implied in the number 3, concluded that there must necessarily be a Trinity of worlds, whereof the first is this of ours; the second in the Moon, whose element of water is represented by the spheare of Mercury, the ayre by Venus, and the fire by the Sunne. And that the whole Vniverse might the better end in earth as it began, they have contrived it, that Mars shall be a spheare of the fire, Iupiter of ayre, Saturne of water; and above all these, the Elysian fields, spacious and pleasant places appointed for the habitation of those unspotted soules, that either never were imprisoned in, or else now have freed themselves from any commerce with the body.10 Scaliger speaking of this Platonick fancy, quae in tres trientes mundum quasi assem divisit, thinks ‘tis confutation enough, to say, ‘tis Plato’s. However, for the first part of this assertion, it was assented unto by many others, and by reason of the grosnesse and inequality of this planet, ‘twas frequently called quasi terra coelestis, as being esteemed the sediment and more imperfect part of those purer bodies;11 you may see this proved by Plutarch, in that delightfull work which he properly made for the confirmation of this particular.12 With him agreed Alcinous and Plotinus, later Writers.