ASE 33/2(2016) 435-458

Jeffrey M . Tripp

The Ascension of A Square:

Edwin A. Abbott’s F la tla n d
as an Apocalypse

The 19 ‫ ه‬century was a golden age for two seem ingly disparate areas
of research and speculation: apocalyptic literature‫ ؛‬and four-dim ension-
al space. Beginning with the publication of the A sce n sio n o f Isa ia h
in 1819,2 a slew of new apocalypses became available for study. To
4 Ezra and the S h e p h e rd o fH e rm a s 3 were added I E n o c h and 2 B a ru c h
am ong others.^ Not only were these apocryphal texts published, their
similarities to each other and to the biblical books of Daniel and Rev-
elation were also noted. The landmark work on the subject, Friedrich
λ ϋ ١ ‫ > ؟‬V ersu ch e in er vo llstä n d ig en E in le itu n g in d ie O ffe n b a ru n g d e s
J o h a n n e s , appeared in 1832 and was expanded to two volumes in 1852 .‫و‬

1 Although I keep to the study of apocalypses as a genre, the terminology can be slippry.
W hile ‘apocalypse" is generally used for a s۴ cific text, “apocalyptic” can encompass the genre
of apocalypse, a mode of thought evident in other texts, or the general worldview of apocalypti-
cism . See di Tom maso 2007, esp. 236, and W ebb 1990.
2 Richard Laurence, A s c e n s i o I s a i a e V a t i s (1819), reprinted by A.F. GfrOrer { P r o p h e t a e
v e t e r e s p s e u d e p i g r a p h i [1.840]) and translated into German by H. Jolowicz (1854). A. Dillmann
produced a new Latin translation in 1877.
‫ ־‬١ Fourth Ezra 2)‫ ־‬E s d r a s 3-14) was included in the Vulgate until 1592 (.its canonicity was
questioned in the Council of Trent [1546J). After this point it continued to be printed in an ap-
pendix in Catholic Bibles, and under the heading of "Apocrypha” in Protestant Bibles. For more,
see Hessayon 2007, 23940. T h e S h e p h e r d drew fresh attention after Constantin Tischendorf
published the biblical Codex Sinaiticfis in 1869, which included the apocalyptic text. Addition-
ally, the T e s t a m e n t o f L e v i had been available in England since the end of the 17((' century (Johann
ss.
‫ ﺗ ﺄ‬. G r ، \ k , S p ic ile g iu m \\-<‫ > י‬-\(‫י‬
P u tr u m , u t e t H u e r e f tc o r u m
‫ ا‬Richard Laurence, T h e B o o k o f E n o c h t h e P r o p h e t (.1821, 18331 2 , *18382,
*5 1883*). Dillmann
also produced his own translation (1853). For more on the history of British fascination witli
Enoch, see Hessayon 2006. S e c o n d B a r u c h was published by Antonio M . Ceriani in M o n u m e n t a
s a c r a e t p r o f a n a (1866). Tischendorf ( A p o c a l y p s e s a p o c r y p h a e 11866‫ )! ־‬published Greek texts
of the A p o c a l y p s e o f J o h n t h e T h e o l o g i a n , A p o c a l y p s e o f M o s e s , R e v e l a t i o n o f E s d r a s , and
A p o c a ly p s e o f P a u l.

5 On the importance of LUcke in the field of apocalyptic studies, see Christophersen 2001.

435
Adolf H ilgenfelds study of Jewish aprcalypses followed in 1857. As
the century closed, Germ an scholars like Johannes W eiss and Albert
Schweitzer began to understand the teachings of Jesus of Nazareth in
light of the apocalyptic worldview.^
M eanwhile in other scholarly circles, ideas about four-dim ensional
space were ram pant and breaking into popular s ۴ culation. These days
we tend to understand a fourth dim ension either as time? or, following
Einstein, as the curvature of space that we experience as gravity. Yet
the 17th century Cam bridge Platonist Henry M ore had s ۴ culated on a
fourth spatial dim ension where angels have m aterial reality and into
which spiritual beings like hum ans extend in som e unperceived way.«
In the ‫ ا ﻻ و ل‬century, investigation into the possibility of four dim ensions
led away from Kant’s philosophical appeals to Euclidean certainty to-
ward m athem atical research into non-Euclidean geom etries. Fourth-
dim ensional speculation sprang into the popular British consciousness
with the trial for fraud of the Spiritualist Henry Slade in 1870s London.
Slade gained an unexpected ally in physicist Johann C.F. ZOllner who
explained that each of the Spiritualist’s “tricks” (e.g. writing on paper
sealed between two slates) was possible if he could m anipulate m atter
in the fourth dim ension.^ Slade was acquitted. As the century ended,
physicists Balfour Stewart and P.G. Tait attem pted to harm onize sci-
ence and religion by appealing to the ether as a fourth-dim ensional
surface (T h e U n seen U n ive rse , 1875)‫ ؛‬Arthur W illink applied fourth-
dim ensional theory directly to Christianity (T h e W o rld o fth e U n se en ,
1893) ‫ ؛‬٤ ‫ ﻻ‬and M ary Baker Eddy could casually define Christian Science
as “the infinite calculus defining the line, plane, space, and fourth di-
m ension of Spirit.” 1 *9876 ‫!؛‬

6 W eiss emphasized the apocalyptic dim ensions of Jesus’ ministry in D i e P r e d i g t J e s u v o m

R e ic h G o tte s (1892); Schweitzer and others followed in this vein with both Jesus and Paul (see
Sturm 1989, 26-27).
7 The idea of time as a fourth dimension apjæared as early as 1754 in the E n c y c l o p é d i e edited
by Denis Diderot and Jean d’Alemtert, under the section “dim ension.”
8 M ore referred to this extension as “spissitude,” comparable to width, length, and height,
in his E n c h i r i d i o n M e t a p h y s i c u m (1671).
9 Zöllner ran experim ents with Slade that convinced him of the m edium’s abilities, and

devoted his “On Space of Four Dim ensions” (1878) and T r a t i s c e à n t a l P h y s i c s (1880) to the
subject. M artin Gardner (1986) would later write a short stoty featuring a church run by Slade’s
descendant (and decorated with Dali’s C o r p u s H y p e r c u b u s ) , who cites the G o s p e l o f T h o m a s
as evidence of ancient awareness of the fourth dimension: “The kingdom is within you and it is
outside of you.” For more on the fourth dim ension in visual art, see L. Henderson 2013.
‫ ؛‬٥ Additionally, Alfred T. Schofield explained the Kingdom of God as a fourth-dimensional
reality in A n o t h e r W o r l d , o r T h e F o u r t h D i m e n s i o n (1888). Later W illiam A. Granville systemati-
cally explained each of Christ’s miracles through his ability to manipulate higher dimensions in
T h e F o u r t h D i m e n s i o n a n d t h e B i b l e (1922), appealing to Eph 3:18 as an explicit confirmation
of four dimensions (“what is the breadth and length and height and depth”). For a useful survey
of this literature, see Valente 2008.
11 Eddy 1924, 22.

436
 It ‫ ؛‬s in this m ilieu that, in 1884, the Anglican cleric and head of the
City of London School (CLS), Edwin A. Abbott, wrote an odd little
novel titled, F la tla n d : A R o m a n c e o fM a n y D im en sio n s. Although Ab-
bott published nearly four dozen books including three other novels,
F la tla n d has had the broadest influence. It required a second edition
within a m onth and has rarely been out of print in the United States
since the first Am erican edition in 1885.2 ‫ا‬
The novel follows the adventures of its m iddle-class protagonist, A
Square, a literal square living in a two-dim ensional planar space-the
Flatland of the title. The first half ("This W orld”) finds Square describ-
ing Flatland society and history. In the second half (“Other W orlds”),
he receives visions of other (zero- and one-) dim ensional spaces and is
taken “up” into three dim ensions by a sphere. A Square soon becomes
obsessed with com m unicating the reality not only of three dim ensions
but also of four dim ensions and higher, despite knowing that talk of
higher dim ensions is forbidden. In the end he is indeed arrested to
silence him , so that Square tells the novel’s story from prison. F la t-
la n d is widely recognized as a scathing satire of Victorian sexism and
classism in its first half, where Flatlander attitudes toward wom en and
social stratification m irror contem porary British attitudes. The novel is
viewed as an endorsem ent of and ۴ dagogical aid to fourth-dim ensional
speculation in its second half, where Square’s experience of three di-
m ensions helps the reader to im agine som ething of his or her own
potential experience of four.١ 3 W hile F la tla n d can play the role of a
higher-dim ensional thought experim ent, it is questionable whether it
should be read as an e n d o rse m en t of such speculation without a proper
m oral grounding.
Flatland is populated by Euclidean polygons. Som e of Square’s
descriptions of Flatland are m eant to explain the physical aspects of life
in two dim ensions. Just as we, for example, view the world as a two-
dim ensional im age projected onto our retinas and infer a third (through
depth perception), Flatlanders view the world as a one-dimensional
im age, i.e. a series of line segm ents against a linear backdrop, and
infer a second through sim ilar visual clues.4 ‫ ا‬The m iddle and upper 12 13 14

12 There are now numerous editions with introductions by the likes of Isaac Asim ov and Ray

Bradbury. F l a t l a n d has been translated into Dutch, French, German, Hebrew, Italian, Japanese,
Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish, and it has been animated three times, most recently in 2 1
with M artin Sheen voicing A Square.
13 E.g. Banchoff 1991, xvi and xxvi-xxxi: but see also Smith, Berkove, and Baker 1996,

129, note 1.
14 Flatlanders can tell which objects are closer if they appear larger and/or in front of other
objects. As for assessing shape, objects in Flatland glow. An acute angle would appear as a bright
point quickly fading to the sides while an obtuse angle would fade more slowly. Furthermore one
might see only one com er of a triangle but several com ers of an octagon. The male, educated
classes require years of training to measure an angle accurately by sight, and the value they place

437
classes can even assess shape by sight since it is part of their m ore
developed education. The lower classes and wom en infer shape by
touch, as children do.
Class and gender differences dom inate the first half of F la tla n d .
The m ark of upward m obility is regularity. Irregularity in shape is ab-
solutely taboo am ong the upper classes, with m any regular Flatlanders
willing to subject their children to dangerous surgery to correc't small
defects (an angle a bit larger, a side a bit shorter), or to quietly dispose
of children if they are noticeably irregular. The partially regular iso-
sceles triangles are kept to the lower classes and characterized as stupid
and m orally suspect. Regular Flatlanders tend to beget children with
an extra side: Square’s father was a triangle, his sons are pentagons.
Flatland society is ruled by priests who are vie ١ ved as Circles, although
they are adm ittedly m any-sided polygons whose sides have become
so sm all they are difficult to discern from one another: "It is always
assum ed, by courtesy, that the Chief Circle for the tim e being has ten
thousand sides.”
W om en, on the other hand, are not even two-dim ensional. They are
line segments, able to virtually disappear ١ vhen vie ١ ved head on. There
are intricate rules to protect the m en of Flatland from the dangers of
wom en: Flatland wom en enter houses by a separate door, wag their
behinds to remain visible, and sing to m ake their presences known to
others so that potentially fatal contact m ay be avoided. Elliott Gilbert
correctly recognizes this as “Abbott’s wry com ment on an exag-
gerated-and threatening-female sexuality.”^
Abbott’s attention to Flatland’s history and srciety was im m ediately
dism issed as a distraction. Another writer on the fourth dim ension, C.H.
Hinton, com plained that the physical conditions in Flatland were not
Abbott’s m ain object: “He has used them as a setting wherein to place
his satire and his lessons.”)* The sam e attitude is evident over a century
later in an article by Andrea Henderson, who focuses on the place of
F la tla n d within the collapse of Euclid’s authority. After dismissing the
first half of the novel she m oves quickly to the second where “the nar-
rative proper begins.”)? W hile F la tla n d 's first part m ay seem bogged
do ١ vn by social issues to its m ore m athem atically-minded critics, ١ ve
will see that the reviev of history is integral to the type of narrative
crafted by Abbott.* * *

on regularity feeds into this elem ent of class and gender division: with regular figures one need
only measure one angle and presume, the rest are congruent. If irregular figures were allowed,
the upper classes would be reduced to feeling shape as the lower classes and women do.
‫ ا‬٩ Gilbert 1^1,398.
'(> Introduction to "A Plane W orld” (Hinton 1884, viii). Hinton’s essay features another

two-dim ensional thought experiment (see below').

'7 A. Henderson 2009. 457.

438
 In the second half of F la tla n d ) the focus shifts to Square’s experi-
ences in reaim s of different dim ensions. He has a dream about a one-
dim ensional space (Lineland) and its inhabitants, the m en line segments
and the wom en faints. Later he has a vision of zero-dim ensional space
(Pointland), its sole inhabitant an am using but com pletely solipsistic
point who interprets Square’s com munications as random thoughts
that he has spontaneously generated him self. Bertveen these visions, A
Square is visited by a sphere from three-dim ensional space (Spaceland).
The Sphere arrives periodically to educate a chosen Flatlander about
the third dim ension. Unfortunately for the one he has chosen this tim e,
F la tla n d ends with A Square, along with his brother who has becom e
another partial witness to the Sphere’s m essage, in prison for trying to
teach others about three dim ensions.
Scholars have frequently comm ented on the oddity of the novel
within Abbott’s bibliography and I9، h century literature generally. Hen-
derson for exam ple refers to the book’s "generic hybr‫ ؛‬dity.” ٤ * That has
not kept Abbott scholars from putting forward several genres, of which
F la tla n d would be a variant. One such genre is widely unkno ١ vn but
is certainly connected: thought experim ents on the fourth dim ension
us-ing two-dim ensional figures. Gustav Fechner’s "Der Raum hat vier
Dim ensionen” (1846) not only invokes two-dimensional shadow m en
to explain our experience of four dim ensions by analogy, Fechner also
m anages to explain the eschatological resurrection along the way. ‫ ؛‬y An
anonym ous essay of this sort, "A New Philosophy” (1877), even argues
for m athem atics as an unshakeable foundation for intellectual religious
faith. It appeared in the C ity o fL o n d o n S c h o o l M a g a zin e , where Abbott
was headmaster, and F la tla n d can be read as “a corrective response
reintroducing a moral elem ent.”2() W hile Abbott undoubtedly borrows
elem ents from these thought experim ents, there is a world of difference
between the dry, ”let US suppose” voice of these short essays and the
lively narrative of F la tla n d .
there are also similarities ١ v‫ ؛‬th the fantastic voyage novel, such as
G u lliv eF s T ra ve ls (1735). Lewis Carroll’s books on Alice (1865 and
1871) are especially appealing since the author, Charles L. Dodgson,
was a m athematician at Oxford (where Abbott lectured) who incorpo-
rated m athem atics into his fiction including, in T h ro u g h th e L o o k in g - 1 8 * *

18 Ibid., 461.
‫ ذ ا‬See Fellner and Lindgren 2011. Fechner’s m odel, unlike Abbott’s, is an adaptation of
Plato’s allegory of the cave. Hermann von Helm holtz wrote several popular essays imagining
two-dim ensional beings living on a sphere (1870-1878), and Hinton wrote two-dim ensional
thought experiments before and after F l a t l a n d . See Smith 1994 for further discussion of the
sub-genre of Flatland narratives.
٦-" Valente 2004, 69.

439
G la ss, an element of fourth-dim ensional geom et ٢ y.21 However Thom as
Banchoff highlights a difficulty in the com parison:
The narrative style of F l a t l a n d is somewhat different from som e of
the more familiar reports of visits to exotic lands, since the story is
told not by the visitor but by the person visited. It is as if the stoiy of
Gulliver were told by the mayor of Lilliput or the adventures of Alice
by the W hite Rabbit.22

W hile there is a broad fam ily resemblance, something beyond the

fantastic voyage novel is needed in order to understand what Abbott is
doing in F la tla n d .
By far the m ost frequently cited precedent for F la tla n d is Plato’s
allegory of the cave {R ep . 514a-520a).21
23 24
The
2225allegory features people
who believe themselves to be two-dim ensional teings (since they have
only ever perceived their shad0ws)24 ripped out of that illusion into an
awareness of three dim ensions. There are, however, not only form al
problem s with the com parison-a brief, third-person allegory versus a
long, first-person narrative— but also m athem atical difficulties. Philip
i. Bossert com es close to detecting these problem s when he com pares
Abbott with Husserl:
The point that distinguishes Husserl’s use of this analogy from Abbott’s
is that, for Husserl, life occurs in all three dimensions simultaneously
while for Abbott the square seem s to be a two-dimensional be-
ing rather than a three-dimensional being manifest in only two of its
dimensions.25

That is, A Square is not a cube projected onto a plane who m istak-
enly believes he is a square — is a sq u a re ! W hen he is brought up
into three dim ensions, he m erely becom es aware of higher dim ensional
space‫ ؛‬he does not acquire a third dim ension. Bossert wants to push

21 Imagine a drawing of a person with his right hand lifted. If one were to cut out the draw-
ing, lift it out of the plane and flip it over, it would now appear in the plane as the same figure
but with the left hand raised. The same could be done to US by flipping US in four dimensions
(.although a right-handed person would now be left-handed, her m oles would be on the oposite
side of her body, etc.). Tweedledee is not descrited as a twin of Tweedledum, but as a flipped
version of him (Gardner 2000, 182). Additionally Carroll’s D y n a m i c s o f a P a r t i c l e (1865) fea-
tures linear creatures confined to a plane. The Alice books have the advantage ol'being written
pseudonym ously, although not by Alice. G u l l i v e r , s T r a v e l s is ١ vritten pseudonym ously by the
protagonist and in the first person (see below).
22 Banchoff 1991, xxiv.
23 To list just a few: Bossert 1985‫ ؛‬Stewart 2002,191‫ ؛‬Freydberg 2010‫ ؛‬L. Henderson 2013,22.
24 A Square uses the metaphor of shadows just once: Flatlanders “m ove freely about, on or
in the surface f...] very much like shadows.” It is a fleeting image, and A Square immediately
clarifies how Flatlanders are n o t like shadows (they have hard edges and are l u m i n o u s ) . Lindgren
and Banchoff (2010, 17), who explore the relationships tetween F l a t l a n d and Plato most fully
in their commentary, concede that an allusion to 1 Chr 29:15 (“Our days on the earth are as a
shadow”) is just as likely.
25 Bossert 1985, 61-62.

440
the similarities, and so abandons this im itant observation in the next
paragraph: "W e m ust consider the square in Flatland to be a cube whose
third dim ension of being rem ains anonym ous.”2^ Unfortunately this is
never signaled in the text itself. The connection to Plato’s allegory is
very m uch over-stressed, and it reflects Fechner and Hinton m uch more
than Abbott.26 27 28 * 30
Each of these genres is inform ative in its own way, but none of
them accounts for the form al characteristics of F la tla n d in anything
like a com prehensive m anner. Scholars have turned to them because
of Abbott’s backgrounds in m athem atics, English literature, and clas-
sics. Recently Abbott scholars have turned instead to his theological
books to try to understand the ideas in F la tla n d , and rightly so.2« Yet
no one has seriously explored whether A bbott’s m ore than 20 books
on the Bible m ight provide a useful background for the literary char-
acter of F la tla n d . 2 9 As Rudy Rucker quickly notes but fails to unpack,
“A Square’s trip into higher dim ensions is a perfect m etaphor for the
m ystic’s experience of higher reality.’*" Indeed, within the context of
19* century understandings of apocalyptic literature, F la tla n d is crafted
as an apocalypse, structurally and in detail. Furtherm ore Abbott, as
a novelist and a noted biblical scholar, was in the perfect position to
incorporate apocalyptic elem ents into his satire.

I. Fl at l and a s a n Apo c a l y ps e

One of the defining aspects of apocalyptic literature in the 19* cen-

tury was pseudonym ity.2‫ ؛‬It was never seriously considered that the

26 Ibid., 62.
27 See Hinton 19Μ ,35.
28 Jann 1985‫ ؛‬Smith, Berkove, and Baker 1996‫ ؛‬Valente 2004‫ ؛‬and Gill 2010.
2‫ د‬Banchoff (1989,4) notes that Rev. Percival Gardner-Smith owned a signed and annotated
copy of the first edition of F l a t l a n d which he willed to Jesus College, without mentioning that
Gardner-Smith was one of the m ost influential biblical scholars of the 20، h century, in particular
through his slim book. S a i n t J o h n a n d t h e S y n o p t i c G o s p e l s (1938). By 1884 Abbott had already
published five books and multiple articles on the Bible, as well as a 50-page entry on the “Gos-
pels” in the E n c y c l o p a e d i a B r i t a n n i c a (1875). After F l a t l a n d he published a 15-volume study of
the Gospels, D i a t e s s e r i c a , which included a J o h a n n i n e G r a m m a r still frequently cited by John
scholars. Additionally he published a book on the Son of M an in 1909, which anticipated his
D i a t e s s e r i c a volume on the same subject (see below), and a two-volume M i s c e l l a n e a E v a n g é l i c a
(,see Abbott 1913 and 1915).
30 Rucker 1984, 12‫ ؛‬he also states: “W e can perhaps view F l a t l a n d as Abbott’s circuitous
way ol‫ ־‬trying to talk about som e intense spiritual experiences.” Likewise Stewart (2002, ix)
admits that it is “perhaps, an allegory ol' a spiritual journey,” but does not develop the point.
Gilbert even notes several apocalyptic features of the text, but abandons the observation in the
interest ol‫ ־‬reading F l a t l a n d as “a consideration of the creative act in general” (1991, 400-02).
3‫ ا‬Hilgenfeld (1857,6-7) criticizes Lücke for downplaying pseudonymity as a defining aspect
of apocalypses. Since for LUcke Revelation was the highpoint of A p o k a l y p t i k , pseudonymity is

441
A sce n sio n o f Isa ia h was written by the prophet, or that 1 E n o c h was
written by the patriarch. By the 1880s even the canonical Book of Dan-
iel ١ vas considered by a m ajority of scholars to be pseudonym ous, its
prophecies e x e ve n tu ? 2 Bernard Freydberg claim s that F la tla n d , like Ab-
bott’s other novels, is anonym ous" but the author is nam ed on the title
page,*34 32
35
even
33
* if that nam e is baldly fictional: A Square. Just as ancient
apocalyptic writers chose famous figures of Israel’s past as their protago-
nists, Abbott chose another famous figure, this one from basic Euclidean
geom etry. The square is the only regular polygon with a sim ple nam e
(unlike ‘equilateral triangle’ or ‘regular pentagon’), and therefore the
m ost fam iliar to Abbott’s readers.33 It is safe to say that, com ing from
England’s educational system where Euclid’s E lem e n ts was a univer-
sally learned text, the square would te just as fam iliar to his readers as
Isaiah or Enoch were to second tem ple Jews. That A Square also serves
as the novel’s first-person narrator sets it apart from Plato’s allegory,
the m athem atical thought experim ents, and the books on Alice.3^ Yet

a com m on but incidental quality. Neither seriously questioned that the John of Revelation was
the same as John the Evangelist and son of Zebedee. Pseudonymity was thought of as an “es-
sential feature” of apocalyptic literature well into the 20th century (e.g. Jones 1968, countered
by Collins 1977).
32 See Koch, Niewisch, and Tubach 1980, 8-9. Daniel is considered pseudonym ous by
Hilgenfeld (e.g. 1857,4), following the earlier work of Heinrich Corrodi (1783) and Johann G.
Eichhorn (in the later editions of his E i n l e i t u n g i n s A l t e T e s t a m e n t [17953 and 18231).
33 Freydberg 2010, 401.
‫ ﻷ‬On the title page, “Flatland” is written across a bank of clouds with various spaces (“Five
Dimen,” “Ten Dim ,” “Eight D”) embedded in them. On the final page, “The End 01' Flatland”
is similarly written across clouds, this time with a paraphrase of T h e T e m p e s t 4.1.151-57 em -
bedded: “The baseless fabric of my vision M elted into air, into thin air. Such stuff as dreams
I‫ ־‬...] made on.” A. Henderson is correct that the cloud imagery suggests that the “content of A
Square’s vision of higher-dimensional space is nothing but cloud, air, dreams” (2009,466), but
the importance ol' clouds in apocalypticism should also be noted. Abbott would eventually write
two books on the Son ol‫ ־‬M an who com es with/on clouds (M k 13:2614:62 ‫ ؛‬and par.), an image
derived 1‘r om Dn 7:13 (see also on clouds 1 E n . 14:8‫ ؛‬Rev 1:74 ‫ ؛‬Ezra 13:3). In these contexts,
clouds are essentially angelic (Lupieri 2006, 105), which may correspond to the fact that only
spaces of four dim ensions or higher are. listed among them.
35 That the heavenly Jerusalem is likewise said to be square (Rev 21:16‫ ؛‬cf. Ez 48:35) is
perhaps coincidental but highlights that geometry was a point of interest to the ancient apoca-
lypticists (Lupieri 2006, 33942).
‫ ﻷ ل‬Lindgren and Banchoff 2010, 19. An anonymous and fictitious Editor (neither identified as
Abbott nor signaling the character of the headmaster) introduces a preface to the second edition
in order to address criticisms the book had already received, including that Square is a woman-
hater. Given Abbott’s reputation as a champion ol‫ ־‬wojnen’s rights, including close associations
with wom en’s education advocates Dorothea Beale and Frances Buss (Lindgren and Banchofl‫־‬
2010, 261-63), it would have been much simpler to name him self as the author and uncover the
apparent sexism as the satire it was. The pseudonym ity of the work was seem ingly important
enough to maintain that Abbott’s name was never officially attached to F l a t l a n d until the year
of his death. The Editor underlines the satire by pointing out that Square’s views are shared by
spaceland (i.e. English) historians, “in whose pages (until very recent tim es) the destinies of
W omen and of the masses of mankind have seldom been deem ed worthy of meittion and never
of careful consideration.”

442
first-person narration is a comm on feature of the apocalypses available
to Abbott, including Revelation and Daniel.37
It is in the context of a first-person, pseudonym ous author that
A Square’s long review of Flatland society and history m akes better
sense. For Hilgenfeld the need for pseudonym ity is tied to prophecies
e x e ve n tu (the predictions are only im pressive if told by som eone who
pre-dates their fulfilm ent), but only as an extension of a universal his-
tori cal perspective.^ A Square likewise tells the history of his entire
world, including a story of the Color Revolt led by the heretic Chrom a-
tistes in which the authority of the Circles/Priests was underm ined. Just
as apocalypses tell a universal history focused on religiously im portant
m om ents, F la tla n d tells the history of its world leading up to the fate-
ful events surrounding the prophet A Square as the Third M illennium
approaches.
W hile it is true that eschatology is largely absent from F la tla n d ,
the dates of A Square’s experiences are significant. A Square has his
dream vision of Lineland on “the last day but one of the 1999th year of
our era.” He receives his heavenly .journey into three dim ensions the
next night at m idnight, and his vision of Pointland the night after that.
Given the im portance of the M illennium in Revelation, and that the
year 2000 was som etim es associated ١ vith the start of the M illennium
in Abbott’s England,^ it would appear that he worked in a reference to
eschatology on the sly.
Dream visions and heavenly journeys are com m on features of apoc-
alypses. Furthermore, som e of the language and themes that em erge in A
Square’s three revelations are im ۴ rtant to note since they are frequently
glossed over. His dream vision of lineland could be viewed as a sort
of hellish journey analogous to Enoch’s tour of Sheol (/ E n . 18:11.-
19:3). After he has grown frustrated with his inability to convince the
King of Lineland of the reality of two dim ensions. Square declares:
“You are a Line, but I am a Line of Lines.” The title “Line of Lines”
invokes the com m on geom etric m odel of a square as the path of a line
segm ent in a perpendicular direction,") but it also echoes the Prince
of Princes (Dn 8:25) or the Lord of Lords, God of Gods, and King of
Kings (7 E n . 9:4). Prior to this. Square’s m iraculous attem pts to prove 37 38 39 *

37 The A s c e n s i o n o f I s a i a h and A p o c a l y p s e o f M o s e s are exceptions, and 1 E n o c h awk-

wardly alternates between third-person and first-person. All others are told in the first person.
Indeed Devorah Dimant includes “a discourse in the first person” in her working definition of
apocalypse (1.994, 179).
38 Hilgenfeld 1857,6-7.

39 Unlike in our calendar, Flatland has a year 0. Isaac Newton and others did not anticipate
the M illennium to begin until after the year 2000 (M urrin 1999, 217). On the vast cultural impact
of British speculation about the Apocalypse, see W ilson Carpenter and Landlow 1984.
4° Stewart (2 1 , 128) hears an echo of the biblical “King of kings" and gives a more detailed
mathematical interpretation of the t‫ ؛‬t.le.

443
that he is two-dimensional— for example, appearing and disappearing
as he crosses through Lineland— are dismissed by the King as tricks,
“som e m agic art of vanishing and returning to sight.” A Square is in
the position of angel to the King’s one-dimensional human,*! and as an
angel seemingly practicing m agic he takes on the dem onic qualities of
the fallen Azazel (7 E n . 7-8).
There is another angelic quality of A Square in this scene: his per-
ceived androgyny. The King explains that in Lineland m en are line
segm ents with two voices, a bass voice on one end and a tenor voice on
the other. W om en have only one voice since they are Joints. Square has
the physical quality of a m an when he enters Lineland since he appears
as a line segment, yet he has only one voice like a wom an. His gender
therefore confuses the King, who calls him a “feminine M onstrosity
with a bass voice” and eventually refers to Square as “she.” Angelic and
dem onic androgyny was a well-established trope by Abbott’s time, ap-
pearing explicitly in M ilton’s P a r â s e L o st (1.422-24, a later Christian
apocalyptic text taught by Abbott). As we will see, angelic androgyny
returns with Square’s visitor.
The Sphere approaches Square and his wife the next night. At first
the Sphere is an unseen Voice hovering just outside of Flatland. One
is rem inded of the unseen Voice that tells Gabriel to explain Daniel’s
vision (Dn 8:16) or of the great Voice that John of Patm os turns to se e
(Rev 1:10-1.2), suggesting an angelic reahty.42 Furtherm ore when the
Sphere enters into Flatland, the visible cross sections are circular. In A
Square’s society, circularity is equated with holiness yet he has never
actually seen a genuine circle (see above).*‫ ؟‬Since he can perceive no
angles whatsoever. Square thinks that the Sphere is perhaps a wom an
faking a m an’s voice and shading herself off toward the ends to pretend
she is a Circle, introducing angelic androgyny into the scene.4* After
his wife resorts to feeling the Stranger (as Square also refers to the 41 42 43

41 Incidentally H.G. W ells wrote a short novel in 1895, T h e W o n d e r fu l V is it‫י‬ in which an

angel "falls” to Earth through the fourth dimension and tefriends an Anglican priest.
42 Charlesworth 1985. See also Lupieri 2006, 108: “This would explain why John writes of

‘seeing’ a voice, and at times uses masculine forms when referring to the fem inine term φωνή:
he thinks of the Voice as an angel (see 4:1 ).”
43 A platonic influence on F la tla n d is evident here, as it is in the Euclidean geom etry on
which Abbott based his novel. In fact F la tla n d does not indulge in non-Euclidean geom etries,
unlike other contemporary two-dim ensional thought experiments. There are no curved spaces
and the appeals to projective geom etry in Flatlander perception, while strictly accurate, are
unnecessary: a Renaissance understanding of perspective is sufficient. Abbott merely expands
Euclidean space into four dimensions b y a n a lo g y . Despite the platonic influence, Abbott does
not seem to have structured his long story in imitation of the brief allegory of the cave or with
the same message.
44 The Square is not geom etrically out of line here (Lindgren and Banchoff 2010, 143).

444
Sphere),45 *she
47 asks
48 in disbelief whether she has so m isbehaved with a
perfect Circle:.
، ، I am indeed in a certain sense a Circle,” replied the Voice, “and a more
perfect Circle than any in FJatland‫ ؛‬but to speak more accurately, 1 am
many Circles in one.”

The Sphere is pure holiness m ade up of an infinite num ber of per-

feet circles, but Square has no conception of rotating a circle around its
diameter in a third dim ension or of piling up (what is “up”?) circles of
varying sizes to form a sphere. Instead one is reminded of enigmatic
and paradoxical “I am” statem ents of the Lord God (“I am the Alpha
and the Om ega,” 1:8) and of the Lam b (“I am the root and the offspring
of David,” 22:16) in Revelation.4?
After his argum ents for a third dim ension fail, the Sphere passes
through Flatland trying to give Square a sense of m ovem ent up and
down. But all Square can perceive is a circle growing and shrinking.4«
He accuses the Sphere of being “no Circle at all, but som e extrem ely
clever juggler after all there were such people as Enchanters and
M agicians.” Like the King of Lineland, A Square sees deceptive and
indeed dem onic qualities in his visitor. The Sphere is exasperated:

45 The Stranger ( A l l o g e n e s ) was an apocalyptic revealer among the Gnostics. An apocalypse

bearing this name was found at Nag Hammadi (XI, 3), but the figure was already known through
Porphyry, L i f e o f P l o t i n u s 16.3 and Epiphanius, A g a i n s t H e r e s i e s 40.7.1-2.
■46 “Feeling is !relieving” is a proverb among women, in which Lindgren and Banchoff (2010,

145) see an allusion to Thomas in Jn 20:25.

47 “I am” statements by revelatory figures appear often in apocalypses (e.g. Rev 1:1722:9 ‫ ؛‬,
13 1 ‫ ؛‬E n . 106:8‫ ؛‬Avt‘. I s a . 8.5).
48 Since Flatlanders do not change shape as they grow in size (a liexagon is always a hexa-
gon), the Sphere would appear to A Square as a childish circle growing to maturity until he
reached his equator, then de-aging back to childhood as he passed through Flatland (cp. Rev 1:8‫؛‬
4:8). Visions of apocalyptic revealers as children occur occasionally (e.g. Hippolytus, A g . H e r .
6.42.2‫ ؛‬the M andaean R i g h t G i n z a 2.1.153 ‫ ؛‬translated by J.H. Petermann, 1867J‫ ؛‬G o s p e l o f J à s
1 ‫ ؛‬translated 2006]). In the closest parallel, although discovered too late for Abbott to know of it,
the A p o c r y p l u m o f j o h n 2:1-8 portrays the androgynous Barlrelo ap۴ aring to John first as a child,
then as an old man, then as a youth. The A p o c r y p l u m may borrow this age-changing image from
depictions of the Greek god Aiôn, who is associated with three Chronoi, them selves depicted
as young, m iddle-aged, and old men. The fact that the feast of AiOn took place on January 5-6
(Epiphanius, A g . H e r . 51.22.8‫ ؛‬see Belayche 1984) may have influenced the frequent depiction
of the Three M agi/Kings, celebrated on January 6 in the Feast of Epiphany, in the sam e three
stages of life. AiOn and the Chronoi are echoed in a story from Persia, recorded by M arco Polo
( I I M i l i o n e 30), that each of the three M agi (young, middle-aged, and old) perceived Christ as his
own age‫ ؛‬only when they entered together could they perceive the infant Jesus (connections sug-
gested by Albrile 2014). W illiam Garnett, a physicist and former student of Abbott’s, interpreted
the fourth spatial dim ension in F l a t l a n d as time in his introduction to the 1926 edition: Square
would ۴ rceive the Sphere as changing in time rather than m oving perjrendicularly to the plane.
In an image rather close to Gregory of Nyssa’s idea of a soul inhabiting a river of bodies as it
passes through life ( D e O p . H o r n . 13.1), the Sphere inhabits an infinity of circles that appear to
age and rejuvenate as he passes through Flatland.

445
 ly will you refuse to listen to reason? I had hoped to find in you-as
being a man of sense and an accomplished mathematician— a fit apostle
for the Gospel ofThree Dimensions, which I am allowed to preach only
once in a thousand years: but now I know not how to convince you.

The explicitly biblical language of these passages is unavoidable.

The Sphere is an ancient and m ediating figure: so m eb o d y forbids him
from visiting m ore frequently. Earlier Square had admitted that if the
Sphere could convince him, he would become his Lordship’s convert
(later disciple), but so far the Sphere has failed. Now he perform s
m iracles, rem oving a tablet from a locked cabinet (cp. Jn 20:19‫ ؛‬Acts
12:6-11) and touching Square’s insides which forces a “dem oniacal
laugh” to issue from him, echoing dem onic possession. Instead of being
convinced Square charges the Stranger, who sinks beneath Flatland to
avoid being bludgeoned.
Finally the Sphere declares in a thundering voice (cp. Rev 14:2) that
Square m ust m eet his fate and lifts him above Flatland. Seeing with a
sight that was not like seeing, A Square can only say, “Either this is
m adness or this is Hell.” But as he looks around, and particularly as he
sees the circular beauty of the Sphere (yet does not see his insides, as
he would expect). Square quickly changes his tone:
Prostrating m yself mentally before my Guide,4 ٧ I cried, “How is it,
0 divine ideal of consummate loveliness and wisdom, that I see thy
inside, and yet cannot discern thy heart, they lungs, thy arteries, thy
liver?” 'W hat you think you see, you see not," he replied‫“ ؛‬it is not
given to you, nor to any other Being, to behold my internal parts. I am
of a different order of Beings from those in Flatland. W ere I a Circle,
you could discern my intestines, but I am a Being composed, as 1 told
you before, of many Circles, the M any in the One .”‫ﻻ و‬

Square reacts by worshipping the Sphere in silent adoration.

W hen he looks around and sees the whole inside of his house (and
the insides of his fam ily). Square believes that he has becom e a god
since he can now see all.*51 50
Here angelic androgyny enters a second
time. W hen Square says that the ability to see all “is the attribute of God

‫ د ا ب‬Cp. Rev 19:10; 22:8. Stewart sees in this title an allusion to Dante’s D i v i n e C o m e d y (2002,
157), another later Christian apocalypse which Abbott taught at CLS.
50 Origen was (wrongly‘?) accused 01‫ ־‬claim ing that the resurrection body would be spherical
(e.g. Anathema 10 of Constantinople II; see Sorabji 21,197). Instead, Origen claim ed that the
resurrection body would retain its form but would no longer need its organs (cited in M ethodius,
R e s . 1.22.3-5; 3.3.45‫) ־‬. Abbott, who was familiar with Origen, could be playing off of both ideas
with this passage on the sphere (see on Ε.Α. Abbott, “A M odern Origen,” anonymous review of
Abbott’s N o t e s o n N e w T e s t a m e n t C r i t i c i s m , in T h e T i m e s , April 9, 1908: “Origen is evidently
one of his own favourite authors”). W e should keep in mind Origen’s views on the Apocalypse
( D e P r i n c . 2.11.2), that those who read Revelation literally, exacting !‫ ־‬uture material rewards
in an earthly if divine kingdom, are simply indulging their own desires and lusts.
51 Taking the seer up to heaven or to the top of a mountain to survey all of creation is an occa-
sional theme in apocalyptic contexts. The temptation of Jesus in which the Devil takes him to the

446
alone,” the Sphere retorts: “Is it so indeed? Then the very pickpockets
and cut-throats of my country are to be worshiped by your wise men
as being Gods.” After all, the Sphere argues, this ability does not m ake
anyone m ore just, m ore m erciful, less selfish, m ore loving: “Then how
does it m ake you m ore divine?” Square’s response? “But these are the
qualities of wom en!” The Sphere is a contradiction: he looks like a man
but thinks and acts like a wom an. W e will return to the moral require-
m ents of divinity that the Sphere professes, but it is enough here to
point out how Abbott uses them to im pose a sort of angelic androgyny
on the Sphere.
He then takes A Square to the General Assembly Hall of the States
of Flatland, where the Circles have gathered in a Grand Council. They
have anticipated the arrival of the “Apostle of the Gospel of Three
Dim ensions” since one arrives every thousand years, and they have
passed a resolution to im prison or to execute (if he is irregular) anyone
who proclaim s m ore than two dim ensions. This will be what later gets
A Square and his brother locked up when he cannot hold back from
telling people of higher dim ensional space. W hen the story is written
Square and his brother, both witnesses of a sort to a higher reality, have
been in prison for a very apocalyptic seven years.52
Before his im prisonm ent. Square has one m ore vision. He has been
disappointed in his aspirations to ascend to a still higher “blessed region
of the Fourth Dim ension,” som ething the Sphere cannot do nor even
believes is possible. Unfortunately the Apostle of Three Dim ensions,
like the Apostle Paul before him (cf. 2 Cor 12:2‫ ؛‬A p o c . P a u l ), can only
reach the third heaven. It is im portant to note that Square only speculates
about fourth and higher dim ensions, and while the Sphere indulges him
to an extent in his speculation, he never concedes that four dim ensions
are in any way re a l or finds a way to transport Square out of three-
dim ensional space. Instead, the next night the Sphere gives him a vision
of Pointland, “the Abyss of No Dim ensions” (cp. Tb 13:2). The entire
space is taken up by a solipsistic. Point talking to itself with no thought
of plurality “because he is him self his One and All”:
Infinite beatitude of existence! It is‫ ؛‬and there is none beside It.

The clearest allusion is to Isa 47:8, 10, “I am , and there is none be-
sides m e,” spoken in im itation of God (cf. Is 45:546:9 ‫ ) ؛‬by the wicked
w h o sh o w n o m e rcy in a book of prophecy containing apocalyptic sec- 52

top of a mountain to survey all the kingdoms of the world (M t 4:8-10 // Lk 4:5-8) is a brief and
familiar version of the scene (cf. also Rev 21 ‫ ﻟ ﻢ ؛‬E n . 17-36 ‫ ؛‬52 - 54 ‫ ؛‬72 - 82 ‫ ؛‬A p o c . A b r . f 18971).
52 The number seven is a theme throLighout Revelation, and “weeks’' of days or years run
through Daniel, Revelation, and the A p o c a l y p s e o f W e e k s (‫ ﻟ ﻢ‬E n o c h 91,93). In Revelation the
witnesses testify for half a week of years (113‫ ) ؛‬and their bodies are left to rot for half a week
before they ascend to heaven (11:9-12).

447
tions.53 54The vision serves a paraenetic purpose, exhorting Square “to
aspire, and to teach others to aspire” in contrast to the com placency
of the Point. Exactly to what Square should aspire, however, wilt be
explored below.
The dedication of F la tla n d indicates that it was written in the hope
that the “Citizens of that Celestial Region” (US) m ay aspire to higher
dim ensions. The reference to a Celestial Region is perhaps idiomatic,
but if so then it is out of character: Flatland has no sky or stars (light is
uniform throughout Flatland‫ ؛‬cp. Rev 21:23). Since angels are identi-
fied with astronom ical phenom ena like stars (cf. Rev 1:20), even the
dedication allows an aprcalyptic interpretation. Two years after writing
F la tla n d , Abbott answers a hypothetical question about his theory on
the spirit. Initially he replies in purely m oralistic term s: “It possesses
capabilities for loving and serving God [...1 my nearest conception of
a spirit is a personified virtue.” Yet knowing that such an answer will
not satisfy, he adds:
[W Jhen I try to conceive of the causes of terrestrial thoughts, and emo-
tions, and spiritual movements, I find m yself recurring to the antique
notion, hinted at in one or two passages of the Bible [...] that there are
two worlds: one visible, terrestrial, and material, the other invisible,
c e l e s t i a l , and spiritual.^

On the next page, however, he adds that this is “but a harmless fan-
cy,” tefore anonym ously citing F la tla n d (Í) as an exam ple of why this
sort of thinking should be avoided (see below). W riting is a com m on
feature of apocalypses, from Daniel’s sealed book (Dn 12:4) to Enoch’s
dream visions (7 E n . 92: l).55 56
Still it may seem odd for Square to write to
higher-dimensional beings. Yet even this has precedence in both Revela-
tion, which begins with John writing to the angels of the seven churches
(esp. Rev 1:11), and in 7 E n o ch 13 where Enoch, the “righteous scribe,”
writes as an interm ediary between fallen angels and G od !٥
Alm ost a century after F la tla n d was published a group of scholars
constructed a tyjrology of ancient apocalypses with 28 criteria. F la tla n d

5٩ However, the declaration of the demon Behar (Avr. I s a . 4.6), “I am God and there has been
none before m e,” and the similar paraphrase of Ialdabaoth (Irenaeus, A g . H e r . 1.30.6: Epipha-
nius, A g . H e r . 25.2.2) should not be ruled out either. These citations were confirmed when the
Gnostic texts were later discovered (see A p o c r . J o h n 11:19; 13:5‫ ; ي‬H y p . A r c h . 86:28; 94:21;
95:4; T r i m . P r o t . 44:1‫ ؛‬Eg. G o s p e l III 58:23).
54 Abbott 1886, 258 (emphasis added).

55 Compare also 4 Ezra 12:37; 14:22-26,42Α 7 and 1 E n . 72-82, esp. 82:1 ; J u h . 23.

56 For more, see Lupieri 2006, 114-15. .lohn writes his aprcalypse, including the letters to
the angels, while in exile Just as Square writes his story from prison. W e m ight also think of
Paul’s prison letters (Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, and Philemon), the letters of Ignatius of
Antioch, or Boethius’ C o n s o l a t i o n o f P h i l o s o p h y . However, real and fictitious memoirs written
from prison had becom e fairly common by the 19th century‫( ׳‬e.g. M arco Polo, Sir W alter Raleigh,
the novels of the M arquis de Sade, or the memoirs of Silvio Pellico).

448
satisfies 17 of these,7‫ ؟‬m atching or surpassing all but seven of the 51
Jewish and Early Christian apocalypses surveyed by the group.^ In fact
their working definition applies quite well to F la tla n d :
“A ۴ calypse” is a genre of revelatory literature with a narrative frame-
work, in which a revelation is mediated by an otherworldly being to a
human recipient, disclosing a transcendent reality which is both tempo-
ral, insofar as it envisages eschatological salvation, and spatial insofar
as it involves another, supernatural worid.59

Arguably only "eschatological salvation” fails to ap^ar in F la tla n d .

Viewing the novel as a m athem atical apocalypse explains why Abbott
constructs a long-form narrative in the first person with rich details
regarding the history and m orality of Square’s world. It explains why
explorations of different dimensions take the form of visions, dream s,
and heavenly journeys guided by a m ediator. The pedagogical effec-
tiveness of F la tla n d in allowing the reader to im agine som ething of the
fourth dim ension through A Square is aptly described by David Aune,
who sum marizes the function of first-person descriptions of m ystical
experiences in apocalyptic literature:

[T]he author does not merely n a r r a t e the substance of the divine reve-
lation he has received to his audience, he provides the audience with a
literary vehicle so that they can, in effect, relive the experience of the
seer and thereby appropriate for them selves the revelatory m essage.^

The sim ilarities with apocalypses are so abundant that it is worth

exploring what Abbott m ight be trying to com m unicate in adapting
the apocalypse to tell his “rom ance” of four dim ensions. By creating a
parody of an apocalypse with a failed visionary as the protagonist. Ab-
bott is able to criticize a Christian epistem ological reliance on m iracles
and to underm ine the ram pant Spiritualism and apocalypticism that
were, in his eyes, divorced from a moral foundation. * 58 * *

7‫ ؟‬The categories met by F l a t l a n d are: visions, epiphanies, discourse, dialogue, otherworldly

journey, writing, otherworldly mediator, pseudonym ity, disposition of recipient (the circum-
stances and emotional state when the revelation is received), reaction of the recipient, recollection
of the past, persecution, otherworldly regions, otherworldly beings, paraenesis by the revealer,
instructions to the recipient, and a narrative conclusion. Those it fails to meet are: cosm ogony
(although cosm ology is a strong characteristic of F l a t l a n d ), primordial events, e x e v e n t u proph-
ecy, present salvation, eschatological upheavals, judgment or destruct-ion of the wicked, of the
world, and of otherworldly teings, cosm ic transformation, resurrection, other forms of afterlife.
58 See Collins 1979b and Yarbro Collins 1979. Revelation meets the most criteria with 20,
only three more than F l a t l a n d . M any of the criteria that F l a t l a n d fails to meet are eschatologi-
cal, and the tyjrology of this group was criticized for overemphasizing eschatology (e.g. Him-
melfarb 1986).
٩ ‫ ؟‬Collins 1979a, 9٠ A Square is human in Flatland and repeatedly refers to him self as such.
٥ ٥ Aune 1986, 90 (emphasis original).

449
II. A Sq u a r e as a Fa i l ed Vi s i o nar y

The apocalyptic genre was not viewed positively in the early days
of its study. It is invariably linked to classic prophetic literature, but
the com parison does not favor the apocalypses. LUcke strives to protect
Daniel and Revelation as som ehow exceptional since for him the genre
tends toward a degenerate form of prophecy ( E n ta rtu n g d e s p ro p h e -
tisch e n G e iste s i.e. in the apocrypha) where the “clarity of thought,
‫י‬

sim plicity and beauty of pure prophetic literature’’ is contrasted with the
“human capriciousness and fantasizing” of apocalypses.^' LUcke detects
in A p o k a ly p tik a transition away from the idea of a moral Kingdom of
God (som ething that appealed to Abbott.) toward a greater em phasis on
dualistic contrasts (tem poral/eternal, earthly/heavenly, or in Abbott’s
setting, irregular/regular).61 62 *Hilgenfeld
* 65 * adds that apocalyptic literature
arose in part due to a lack of confidence that G od’s Spirit played an
active role any longer.*3 W ith the prophetic Spirit departed from Israel,
the scribes were left with a rank im itation of prophecy to address their
spiritual concerns.
Closer to hom e in England, fellow novelist George Eliot argues that
interpreting Revelation as a supernatural prediction of current events
has a negative moral effect on the interpreter, who is m ore concerned
with the “visible advent of Christ” than with looking for the Kingdom
of God ١ vithin.^ Sara Hennell m eanwhile argues that John's revelation
will not be realized by a sudden, violent in-breaking of G od’s power
b u lb ١ j “ th e g ra d u a l, u n fo ld in g o f th e h u m a n m in d .% 5 ¥\w aW \ H k w
M .w . Call, who is fam iliar with the Germ an scholarship, concludes
that the predictions in Revelation are the fictional product of a literary
genre (i.e. apocalypses). The prophetic Spirit is awakening in England
nonet-heless, yet “Our ideal is not a celestial but an earthly ideal
not the less do we look for som e proximate realization of our dream of
terrestrial justice, wisdom, and love.”. One can take the apocalypses
at their word and becom e obsessed with calculating the time of the
End at the expense of m oral and intellectual development, or one can
allow them to stand as sym bolic expressions of spiritual and therefore
moral truths.
There are indications in Abbott’s later books that he shared this out-
1‫س‬ on apocalypses. Abbott had a general aversion to m iracles as viola­

61 Cited in Sturm 1989, 1.8-19 and notes 3-4, from LUcke’s first edition.
6‫ت‬ In a detaiJed review of H. Ewald's commentary on the Apocalypse from 1829 (Christo-
phersen 2001, 160-61).
‫״‬ Hilgenfeld 1857, 10-11.
M Cited in W ilson Carpenter and Landlow 19^, 308.
65 Hennell 1860, 33-34 (.emphasis original).

(/١ Call 1861,486-87.

450
tions of natural law s.67 The hope for a future, m iraculous in-breaking
of God’s power did not appeal to him as m uch as faith in the current,
active power of God and hum anity working through love. M ore to the
point in his D ia te sse ric a book on the Son of M an, Abbott refers to
Revelation as "the m ost illiterate book of the New‫ ׳‬Testam ent,” written
so to appeal to the unlearned.^ Abbott distances Jesus’ self-appellation
as the Son of M an from fantastical apocalyptic conceptions. The use of
the title in Daniel and Ezekiel m erely points to Adam as the im age of
God, i.e. son of A d a m in his pre-lapsarian state in contrast to hum anity
in its current, bestial state.6^ Abbott criticizes Alexander Pope for por-
traying hum anity as a beast “so lar as M an is an intellectual creature.
Of the greatness of M an as a loving creature Pope says nothing.”7(-) Our
intellect is not the goal but a means of achieving true hum anity through
love. This is perhaps because Abbott views the im age of God as Father
in terms of “M aker, Originator, or Source” worn down and sterile. In-
stead Christ wants US to conceive of God as Father in his great capacity
to love and to sym pathize, to which we should aspire.7‫ ؛‬M eam vhile
Abbott dism isses the use of “Son of M an” in the S im ilitu d e s o f E n o ch
(/ E n . 37-71), 2 E sd ra s (containing 4 Ezra), and the T e sta m e n ts o fth e
T w elve P a tria rchs (containing T . L evi). The writer of the S im ilitu d e s , for
example, is a “m an of no great spiritual originality” who merely‫ ׳‬picks
up on Ezekiel’s language.77 These apocalyptic precedents are helpful
only in that they fail to use “Son of M an” m essianically just as Jesus
does, although in Jesus’ case with greater understanding of what is truly
m eant by Son of M an.
So Abbott denies that God acts divinely through m iracles and viola-
tions of nature: instead God acts divinely through love and sym pathy.
Recall that the Sphere denies that seeing all things from a higher di-
m ensional vantage point- m akes him divine because it does not m ake
him “m ore just, m ore m erciful, less selfish, m ore loving.” In the pas-
sage from T h e K e rn e l a n d th e H u sk ١ vhere Abbott gives his theory
of the spirit (see above), he explains that a fourth-dim ensional being
could perform several types of m iracles com m only associated W'ith spir-
its— entering locked room s, com m unicating invisibly, appearing and

67 He admitted the reality of healing miraeles but only due to psychosom atic responses. See

his examination of the healing miracles of Thomas of Canterbury (,Abbott 1913, 2): “The cause
is that it was a strong emotional shoc-k conveyed to them thjough faith.’' See also his A p o l o g i a
(1907,11-12).
Abbott 1910, 7.
‫ ﻻ ه‬Ibid., 4 and 113-14.
7(' Ibid., 14. Abbott wrote the introduction to his father’s concordance of the works of Pope

and was not at'raid to use ideas from all fields of knowledge (here English poetry.) to comment
ojt theology.
7' Ibid., 114-15.

77 Ibid., 50.

451
disappearing— yet he denies that these m iracles qualify such a being
as a spirit:
St. Paul teaches US that the deep things of the spirit are in some degree
made known to US by our own spirits. Now when does the spirit seem
most active in US? or when do we seem nearest to the apprehension of
“the deep things of God”? Is it not when we are exercising those virtues
which, as St. Paul says, “abide’’— I mean faith, hope and love? Now
there is obviously no connection tetween these virtues and the Fourth
Dimension. Even if we could conceive of space of Four Dimensions
[...]w e should not be a whit the better morally or spiritually. It seems
to me rather a moral than an intellectual process, to approximate to the
conception of a spirit.^

M iracles can am aze but they are easily m isunderstood, distracting,

and only a starting point in our path toward understanding God who is
characterized by his moral perfection.
Rosem ary Jann was perhaps the first to com ment directly on theo-
logical them es in F la tla n d , which in her reading “becom es an allegory
aim ed at correcting the arrogance of the m aterialist intellect and dogm at-
ic faith and at dem onstrating the progressive force of im agination.”™ In
other works A btott argues that while Christ spoke m etaphorically atout
spiritual realities, these m etaphors-including apocalyptic language-
were m isinterpreted when they were taken literally by his followers.™
Instead we com e closer to understanding the kernel of truth in Christ’s
teachings as the husk of ancient illusion is progressively shed. Abbott
continually em phasizes the role of im agination even in scientific and
m athem atical thought,™ which invalidates neither. They are true to the
extent that they work, just as religious concepts are. Im portantly, reli-
gious concepts only w o rk insofar as they lead “to a fuller, m ore loving
existence.”™ Jann reads F la tla n d as a “rebuke to the rigid literalism of
both m aterialist science and fundam entalist religion,”™ the latter con-
nected to A bbott’s public refutations of the theology of John Henry
Newman, which appealed to m iracles as a basis for faith and doctrine.™ 73 * * 7

73 Abbott !886, 259. Abbott reiterates this point in a later book. T h e S p i r i t o n t h e W a t e r s

(1897,29-33) where he argues that a “Super-solid” cannot be named God despite being all-seeing
and omnipresent without having the moral qualities of God.
7‫ ﺑ ﻰ‬Jann 1985,486.
73 Ibid., 484. A Square, the only direct witness to the third dimension, admits that his under-
standing of it has begun to degrade. He is left repeating the phrase “Upward, not Northward”
like an incomprehensible mantra.
76 Abbott (1886, 30-31) points out that no constructed isosceles triangle has exactly con-
gruent base angles and so Euclid’s laws do not absolutely apply. Euclid’s geom etry applies
absolutely only in the imagination.
77 Jann 1985,481.
78 Ibid., 478.
7‫ ﻷ‬Abbott wrote two books critical of Newman, P h i l o m y t h u s : A n A n t i d o t e A g a i n s t C r e d u l i t y
(V & 9 Y ) a n d T h e A n g lic a n C a r e e r o j C a r d in a l N e w m a n 0 ، ! ) .

452
 Sm ith, Berkove, and Baker critique and expand on Jann’s theologi-
cal interpretation of F la tla n d . They em phasize to a greater extent Ab-
bott’s medial position on im agination, evident in the preface of F la tla n d
which is dedicated to Spacelanders who “decline to say on the one hand,
‘This can never be,’ and on the other hand, ‘It m ust needs be precisely
thus, and we know all about it’.” Cardinal Newm an represents the latter
because his “analogical leap from original sin to transubstantiation, from
the Athanasian Creed to Papal Infallibility, is suspiciously sim ilar to A
Square’s certitude atout the physical existence and spiritual superiority
of higher dim ensions.”«‫ ״‬Abbott received a “m ental and almost moral
shock” reading Newm an’s E ssa y o n E c cle sia stic a l M ira c le s, referring
to it as an “Abom ination of intellectual D esolation.”«) The focus of
both Jann and this group is on A bbott’s rejection of an epistemology
untethered to evidence and experience. Recognizing that F la tla n d is an
apocalypse supports them: apocalypses appeal to m antic wisdom tied to
dream s and revelation instead of experiential wisdom.«2 Every attem pt
to convince others of the reality of higher dimensions fails except the
unique and m iraculous experience of A Square, but this is precisely
how understandings of higher dim ensions fail to w o rk in any real sense.
Sm ith, Berkove, and Baker recognize that the tragic ending of F la t-
la n d , with A Square in prison for trying to proselytize others into belief
in higher dim ensions, is not am bivalent as som e claim , although they
trace Square’s tragic flaw only to his “im aginative excesses.”«‫ ؟‬Yet
Square is also punished because he fails in the moral virtues that A btott
valued. One such virtue is Abbott’s noted aversion to proselytizing,^
but we can tie Square’s failure m ore directly to his satire. The idea that
A Square adopts a typical Flatland jrersona when explaining its classist
and sexist attitudes, attitudes that h e has shed during his im prisonment,
is absent in the first edition and only added by the fictional Editor to
appease Abbott’s critics. The text dœ s not supjrort it. Square has written
his m em oirs, replete with degrading com m ents about wom en and the
rabble of the lower classes, a fte r his m iraculous experiences and a fte r
seven years in prison. Despite discovering firsthand that his w orld’s
conceptions of gender are contingent and cultural because they are not
shared by Spacelanders or Linelanders, to the point that gender confu-

80 Smith, Berkove, and Baker 1996, 147.

81 Cited from P h i l o m y t h u s in Smith, Berkove, and Baker 1996, 132. Abbott’s image is decid-
edly apocalyptic (cf. D nl2:U ;M kl3:14//M t24:15).
«2 Collins 19^, 92.
83 Smith, Berkove, and Baker 1996, 147. Compare also A. Henderson (2009, 465): “Even
m odem readers have often found it difficult to make senses of the novel’s dark ending, its ap-
parent failure to offer A Square poetic justice [...1 A Square is right about the existence of three
dimensions, but he is wrong to assume that the knowledge of three dim ensions has any spiritual
relevance, that it affords a knowledge of the divine order.”
* Banchoff 1989, 8; Stewart 2002,4 6 ‫ب‬ .

453
sion ensues in each interaction, and despite experiencing firsthand the
anti-intellectual and unjust policies of the Circles, Square continues to
vie ١ v wom en and irregulars as beneath him.*5
W here is the love and res ۴ nsibility that he owes his wife, his chil-
dren and grandchildren? After his apocalyptic experiences Square lies
to his wife (he thinks she is too stupid to understand),*) scares his grand-
son, and abandons his business to contem plate his revelation. Since
Square’s father was the first to enter the m iddle class as a tradesm an,
we m ight reasonably doubt that his fam ily has a lot of reserve wealth.
But then. Square does not give any thought to the financial or social
wellbeing of his fam ily. He exposes him self at a m eeting of the Lo-
cal Speculative Society because (sounding suspiciously like the Point)
“at times m y spirit was too strong in m e” due to his conviction that
“prophets and inspired people are always considered by the m ajority to
be m ad.” W ithout a thought to his wife or his children who are never
m entioned again, he is arrested and tried.
The Sphere is a som ewhat am bivalent revealer. Initially he tries
to proselytize Square even though he is unsurprised by the Council’s
declaration that the Apostle will be sent to an asylum , as if this has hap-
pened before. like m any aprcalyptic revealers, the Sphere anticipates
Square’s persecution. Of course it would be m ore effective for him to
rem ain and to continue his revelations to m ore than just A Square, but
his superior's tim etable is m ore im portant than the wellbeing of the
Apostle or com municating the truth of three dim ensions.
However, Square throws his visitor off by insisting on the reality of
four dim ensions. The vision of Pointland does not seem planned but a
concession m ade by the Sphere. A potential lesson in this final vision
is easy to m iss if one is focused solely on epistem ology. The “God
of Pointland” illustrates what a figure with certain divine qualities—
om niscient and om nipresent, speaking in divine term s-but without a
moral focus would look like. W here the Sphere argues that to be m ore
divine is in part to be less selfish, the Point is self-centeredness personi-
fied, com pletely ignorant of anyone outside of him self. Furtherm ore
Square’s attem pts to proselytize the Point utterly fail-he cannot even
converse with him ! Square believes that the m oral of the vision, to

85 Square, refers without irony to isosceles policem en with a central angle of 2" or 3” as of an

“inferior class’' to policemen with a central angle of 55" (and therefore closer to regularity) not
four pages before ending the book.
86 Square hints at the intelligence of wom en in his recollection of the Color Revolt which
threatened to make wom en indistinguishable from priests— Flatland’s best and brightest.. The
intelligence of women is clearest in the presentation of Square's wife, who rightly recognizes that
their grandson is not a fool and her defense is soon echoed by the Sphere. Later she recognizes
the lie that Square tells her about his journey to three dimensions (that he fell into the cellar) but
lets it slide because h e is too emotional.

454
aspire, is m eant to encourage him to proselytize, even though the vi-
sion underlines ik fu tility of proselytizing others in the knowledge of
higher dim ensions. Yet the Sphere, who links higher states of being to
selflessness and love, has also provided him with a m oral lesson: do
not be like the Point, so !'ocused on your own thoughts and desires, that
you are unaware of others around you. The Point is utterly incapable of
either selflessness or love and so cannot aspire to anything m ore than
he is. The novel ends with Square indifferent to the turmoil he causes
his wife and fam ily, intent on converting others not because their lives
will be better for knowing the truth but because he k n o w s that he is
right! W hat rem ains hidden to Square is that his failure to sym pathize
with others and to sho ١ v his fam ily the love they are due is the cause
of his “m iserable Fall” (as he calls it) into confinem ent and obscurity.
In F la tla n d , Abbott constructs a geom etrical apocalypse in which A
Square fails as a visionary, epistemologically and morally.‫ ׳‬, for the sam e
reason that m any in A bbott’s England failed to benefit from ancient
apocalypses: he focuses too narrowly on the literal reality of the revela-
tion, which he can neither reproduce nor adequately explain, instead of
allowing it to help him become a m ore just, sym pathetic, and loving
person. W here we expect the novel to end on a note of apocalyptic or
at least narrative redem ption, Abbott argues that such redem ption is
im possible because the lesson Square has received from his ascension,
the m ere fact of three dim ensions, cannot provide it. The Sphere will not
return for another thousand years. M iracles can be dism issed as tricks:
visions, no m atter how real, can be dism issed as delusions. Tragically
he continues to act out of the stubborn conviction that higher dim en-
sions point to higher spiritual realities, when only by expressing truly
spiritual qualities like love and sym pathy would redem ption be possible
for A Square. Abbott writes F la tla n d as an apocalyptic, which is to say a
symbolic, prophetic warning to his own England, which looks for salva-
tion in m iracles. Spiritualism , and the fulfilm ent of poorly understood
predictions in the records of ancient apocalyptic visions, rather than
question the social and gender inequalities of its day.

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Jeffrey M. Tripp
Loyola University Chicago
jtripp@luc.edu

458
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