Ptolemy

Ptolemy, in the second century AD, developed a cosmological model with the Earth motionless at the centre of the universe, and surrounded by eight rotating spheres carrying the Moon, Sun, planets, and stars. The planets were those known to Ptolemy: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. .

The planets were assumed to move in circular orbits because their spheres rotated, but this did not correspond to their observed motions in the sky. To account for this, they were also assumed to move in complicated circular paths (epicycles) relative to their spheres. The stars were assumed to be 'fixed' to the outer rotating sphere which carried them in a perfectly circular motion around the earth.

Ptolemy’s model provided reasonably accurate predictions for the positions of the heavenly bodies, but only at the cost of other false predictions. For instance, the predicted variation in the moon's orbit was much greater than could be explained by the the moon's unvarying size. Flaws like this were overlooked, and the Christian church adopted the model. It had the great advantage that heaven could  be assumed to lie beyond the final sphere.