26. Why the Moon, though situated beneath the Sun, sometimes appears to be above it
TRANSLATION
26. WHY THE MOON, THOUGH SITUATED BENEATH
THE SUN, SOMETIMES APPEARS TO BE ABOVE IT
It is no cause for marvel when we see that the Moon, as it passes through the southern signs, /360/ is much lower down and closer to the Earth than the Sun is when it tarries in its journey through these same regions.
This is because the Moon travels within the frontier region separating this agitated atmosphere and the pure ether,237 for in fact it is much lower not only than the Sun, but also than Venus and Mercury, the lowest of the stars. Hence many philosophers say that the Sun's distance from the Moon is nineteen times the distance from the Moon to Earth.
Pythagoras, a man of keen perception, deduced that it is 126,000 stadia from the Earth to the Moon, double that to the Sun, and three times that to the zodiac.238
But one may with good reason ask, and wonder in puzzlement why the Moon, when it is travelling in the solstitial circle [i.e. in the Tropic of Cancer] seems to ride as far above the summer Sun as the shadows he makes are shorter. Hence it has been intimated by some that this progress of the Moon beyond the Sun in both regions of the sky, the north and the south, extends the whole width of the zodiac. Indeed in the south, the very depression of the Moon itself contributes to this. The zodiac itself is three hundred and sixty-¢ve and one quarter degrees long about the circuit of the heavens, but twelve degrees wide. The Sun usually travels in the two middle degrees, but the Moon [travels] through them all.239
/361/ When the Moon comes to the southern part of the zodiac, it occasionally appears lower than the winter Sun, not only because it is closer to the Earth, but because it is perhaps ¢ve or sometimes six degrees
237 Cf. Pliny, HN 2.7.48 (1.198).
238 Ibid. 2.19.83 (2.236).
239 Cf. ibid. 2.13.66^67 (1.212^214). Bede's statement that the Sun travels ''in the two middle [degrees]'' (harum duastantum medias sol . . . peruagereconsueuit) is, on the face of it, incorrect: the Sun's path never deviates from the centre of the ecliptic, because it de¢nes the ecliptic. However, it seems to be an attempt to paraphrase a rather obscure statement in Pliny: sol deinde medio fertur inter duas partes £exuoso draconum meatu (''then the Sun travels unevenly in the middle of the zodiac between the two halves with a wavy serpentine course'': Rackham's trans. 1.215). It is possible that Bede meant to say that the Sun travels in the middle, between the two parts of the zodiac, i.e. the six degrees to the north and the six degrees to the south of the ecliptic. Given his numerous statements elsewhere about the Sun's undeviating course, particularly in contrast to the Moon's,this construction would seem plausible, but the Latin does not support it.