The Warfare of Science with Theology by A. D. White

[_Maksutov]

For the final assault upon him a park of heavy artillery
was at last w^heeled into place. It may be seen on all the
scientific battlefields. It consists of general denunciation ;
and in 163 1 Father Melchior Inchofer, of the Jesuits, brought
his artillery to bear upon Galileo with this declaration :
" The opinion of the earth's motion is of all heresies the most
abominable, the most pernicious, the most scandalous ; the
immovability of the earth is thrice sacred ; argument against
the immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and the
incarnation, should be tolerated sooner than an argument to
prove that the earth moves."

From the other end of Europe came a powerful echo.
From the shadow of the Cathedral of Antwerp, the noted
theologian Fromundus gave forth his famous treatise, the
Ant-Aristarchus. Its very title-page was a contemptuous
insult to the memory of Copernicus, since it paraded the as-
sumption that the new truth was only an exploded theory
of a pagan astronomer. Fromundus declares that 'a' sacred
Scripture fights against the Copernicans." To prove that
the sun revolves about the earth, he cites the passage in the
Psalms which speaks of the sun " which cometh forth as a
bridegroom out of his chamber." To prove that the earth
stands still, he quotes a passage from Ecclesiastes, *' The
earth standeth fast forever." To show the utter futility of
the Copernican theory, he declares that, if it were true, " the
wind would constantly blow from the east " ; and that
'' buildings and the earth itself would fly off with such a
rapid motion that men would have to be provided with claws
like cats to enable them to hold fast to the earth's surface."
Greatest weapon of all, he works up, by the use of Aristotle
and St. Thomas Aquinas, a demonstration from theology
and science combined, that the earth must stand in the cen-
tre, and that the sun must revolve about it.* Nor was it
merely fanatics who opposed the truth revealed by Coper-
nicus ; such strong men as Jean Bodin, in France, and Sir
Thomas Browne, in England, declared against it as evidently
contrary to Holy Scripture.

[_Maksutov]

IV. VICTORY OF THE CHURCH OVER GALILEO.

While news of triumphant attacks upon him and upon
the truth he had established were coming in from all parts
of Europe, Galileo prepared a careful treatise in the form of
a dialogue, exhibiting the arguments for and against the
Copernican and Ptolemaic systems, and offered to submit to
any conditions that the Church tribunals might impose, if
they would allow it to be printed. At last, after discussions
which extended through eight years, they consented, impos-
ing a humiliating condition — a preface written in accord-
ance with the ideas of Father Ricciardi, Master of the Sacred
Palace, and signed by Galileo, in which the Copernican
theory was virtually exhibited as a play of the imagination,
and not at all as opposed to the Ptolemaic doctrine reassert-
ed in 1616 by the Inquisition under the direction of Pope
Paul V.

This new work of Galileo — the Dialogo — appeared in 1632,
and met with prodigious success. It put new weapons into
the hands of the supporters of the Copernican theory. The
pious preface was laughed at from one end of Europe to the
other. This roused the enemy ; the Jesuits, Dominicans,

* For Father Inchofer's attack, see his Tractatus Sylleptictis, cited in Galileo's
letter to Deodati, July 28, 1634. For Fromundus's more famous attack, see his
Ant-Aristarchics, already cited, passim, but especially the heading of chapter vi,
and the argument in chapters x and xi. A copy of this work may be found in the
Astor Library at New York, and another in the White Library at Cornell Univer-
sity. For interesting reference to one of Fromundus's arguments, showing, by a
mixture of mathematics and theology, that the earth is the centre of the universe,
see Quetelet, Histoire des Sciences math^matiques et physiques, Bruxelles, 1S64, p.
170; also Madler, Geschichte der Astronomic, vol. i, p. 274. For Bodin's opposi-
tion to the Copernican theory, see Hallam, Literature of Europe \ also Lecky.
For Sir Thomas Browne, see his Vulgar and Common Errors, book iv, chap, v ;
and as to the real reason for his disbelief in the Copernican view, see Dr. John-
son's preface to his Life of Browne, vol. i, p. xix, of his collected works.

and the great majority of the clergy returned to the attack
more violent than ever, and in the midst of them stood Pope
Urban VIII, most bitter of all. His whole power was now
thrown against Galileo. He was touched in two points:
first, in his personal vanity, for Galileo had put the Pope's
arguments into the mouth of one of the persons in the dia-
logue and their refutation into the mouth of another ; but,
above all, he was touched in his religious feelings. Again
and again His Holiness insisted to all comers on the absolute
and specific declarations of Holy Scripture, which prove
that the sun and heavenly bodies revolve about the earth,
and declared that to gainsay them is simply to dispute rev-
elation. Certainly, if one ecclesiastic more than another
ever seemed not under the care of the Spirit of Truth, it was
Urban VIII in all this matter.

[_Maksutov]

Herein was one of the greatest pieces of ill fortune that
has ever befallen the older Church. Had Pope Urban been
broad-minded and tolerant like Benedict XIV, or had he
been taught moderation by adversity like Pius VII, or had
he possessed the large scholarly qualities of Leo XIII,
the vast scandal of the Galileo case would never
have burdened the Church : instead of devising endless quib-
bles and special pleadings to escape responsibility for this
colossal blunder, its defenders could have claimed forever
for the Church the glory of fearlessly initiating a great
epoch in human thought.

But it was not so to be. Urban was not merely Pope ;
he was also a prince of the house of Barberini, and therefore
doubly angry that his arguments had been publicly con-
troverted.

The opening strategy of Galileo's enemies was to forbid
the sale of his work ; but this was soon seen to be unavail-
ing, for the first edition had already been spread throughout
Europe. Urban now became more angry than ever, and
both Galileo and his works were placed in the hands of
the Inquisition. In vain did the good Benedictine Castelli
urge that Galileo was entirely respectful to the Church; in
vain did he insist that " nothing that can be done can now
hinder the earth from revolving." He was dismissed in dis-
grace, and Galileo was forced to appear in the presence of
the dread tribunal without defender or adviser. There, as
was so long- concealed, but as is now fully revealed, he was
menaced with torture again and again by express order of
Pope Urban, and, as is also thoroughly established from the
trial documents themselves, forced to abjure under threats,
and subjected to imprisonment by command of the Pope ;
the Inquisition deferring in this whole matter to the papal
authority. All the long series of attempts made in the sup-
posed interest of the Church to mystify these transactions
have at last failed. The world knows now that Galileo was
subjected certainly to indignity, to imprisonment, and to
threats equivalent to torture, and was at last forced to pro-
nounce publicly and on his knees his recantation, as follows :

*' I, Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being a prisoner
and on my knees, and before your Eminences, having before
my eyes the Holy Gospel, which I touch with my hands,
abjure, curse, and detest the error and the heresy of the
movement of the earth." ^

He was vanquished indeed, for he had been forced, in
the face of all coming ages, to perjure himself. To com-
plete his dishonour, he was obliged to swear that he would
denounce to the Inquisition any other man of science whom
he should discover to be supporting the " heresy of the mo-
tion of the earth."

Many have wondered at this abjuration, and on account
of it have denied to Galileo the title of martyr. But let such
gainsayers consider the circumstances. Here was an old
man — one who had reached the allotted threescore years
and ten — broken with disappointments, worn out with la-
bours and cares, dragged from Florence to Rome, with the
threat from the Pope himself that if he delayed he should be
** brought in chains"; sick in body and mind, given over

* For various utterances of Pope Urban against the Copernican theory at this
period, see extracts from the original documents given by Gebler. For punish-
ment of those who had shown some favour to Galileo, see various citations, and
especially those from the Vatican manuscript, Gebler, p, 216. As to the text of
the abjuration, see L'Epinois ; also Polacco, Afiticopcrjiiciis, etc., Venice, 1644 ;
and for a discussion regarding its publication, see Favaro, Miscellanea Galileana,
p. 804. It is not probable that torture in the ordinary sense was admiristered
to Galileo, though it was threatened. See Th. Martin, Vie de GaliUe, for a fair sum-
ming up of the case.

[_Maksutov]

to his oppressors by the Grand-Duke who ought to have pro-
tected him, and on his arrival in Rome threatened with tor-
ture. What the Inquisition was he knew well He could
remember as but of yesterday the burning of Giordano Bruno
in that same city for scientific and philosophic heresy ; he
could remember, too, that only eight years before this very
time De Dominis, Archbishop of Spalatro, having been
seized by the Inquisition for scientific and other heresies,
had died in a dungeon, and that his body and his writings
had been publicly burned.

To the end of his life— nay, after his life was ended— the
persecution of Galileo was continued. He was kept in exile
from his family, from his friends, from his noble employ-
ments, and was held rigidly to his promise not to speak of
his theory. When, in the midst of intense bodily sufferings
from disease, and mental sufferings from calamities in his
family, he besought some little liberty, he was met with
threats of committal to a dungeon. When, at last, a special
commission had reported to the ecclesiastical authorities that
he had become blind and wasted with disease and sorrow,
he was allowed a little more liberty, but that little was ham-
pered by close surveillance. He was forced to bear con-
temptible attacks on himself and on his works in silence ; to
see the men who had befriended him severely punished ;
Father Castelli banished ; Ricciardi, the Master of the
Sacred Palace, and Ciampoli, the papal secretary, thrown
out of their positions by Pope Urban, and the Inquisitor at
Florence reprimanded for having given permission to print
Galileo's work. He lived to see the truths he had estab-
lished carefully weeded out from all the Church colleges and
universities in Europe ; and, when in a scientific work he
happened to be spoken of as " renowned," the Inquisition
ordered the substitution of the word " notorious." -

And now measures were taken to complete the destruc-
tion of the Copernican theory, with Galileo's proofs of it.
On the i6th of June, 1633, the Holy Congregation, with the
permission of the reigning Pope, ordered the sentence upon

* For the substitution of the word " notorious " for " renowned " by order of the
Inquisition, see Martin, p. 227.

Galileo, and his recantation, to be sent to all the papal
nuncios throughout Europe, as well as to all archbishops,
bishops, and inquisitors in Italy ; and this document gave
orders that the sentence and abjuration be made known " to
your vicars, that you and all professors of philosophy and
mathematics may have knowledge of it, that they may know
why we proceeded against the said Galileo, and recognise
the gravity of his error, in order that they may avoid it, and
thus not incur the penalties which they would have to suffer
in case they fell into the same."

[_Maksutov]

As a consequence, the professors of mathematics and
astronomy in various universities of Europe were assem-
bled and these documents were read to them. To the theo-
logical authorities this gave great satisfaction. The Rec-
tor of the University of Douay, referring to the opinion of
Galileo, wrote to the papal nuncio at Brussels : " The profess-
ors of our university are so opposed to this fanatical opin-
ion that they have always held that it must be banished from
the schools. In our English college at Douay this paradox-
has never been approved and never will be."

Still another step was taken : the Inquisitors were or-
dered, especially in Italy, not to permit the publication of a
new edition of any of Galileo's works, or of any similar writ-
ings. On the other hand, theologians were urged, now that
Copernicus and Galileo and Kepler were silenced, to reply
to them with tongue and pen. Europe was flooded with
these theological refutations of the Copernican S3^stem.

To make all complete, there was prefixed to the Index
of the Church, forbidding ''all writings which affirm the
motion of the earth," a bull signed by the reigning Pope,
which, by virtue of his infallibility as a divinely guided
teacher in matters of faith and morals, clinched this con-
demnation into the consciences of the whole Christian
world.

From the mass of books which appeared under the
auspices of the Church immediately after the condemnation


* For a copy of this document, see Gebler, p. 269, As to the spread of this
and similar documents notifying Europe of Galileo's condemnation, see Favaro,
pp. 804, 805.


of Galileo, for the purpose of rooting out every vestige of
the hated Copernican theory from the mind of the world,
two may be taken as typical. The first of these was a work
by Scipio Chiaramonti, dedicated to Cardinal Barberini.
Among his arguments against the double motion of the
earth may be cited the following :

''Animals, which move, have limbs and muscles ; the
earth has no limbs or muscles, therefore it does not move.
It is angels who make Saturn, Jupiter, the sun, etc., turn
round. If the earth revolves, it must also have an angel in
the centre to set it in motion ; but only devils live there ; it
would therefore be a devil who would impart motion to the
earth. . . .

" The planets, the sun, the fixed stars, all belong to one
species — namely, that of stars. It seems, therefore, to be a
grievous wrong to place the earth, which is a sink of im-
purity, among these heavenly bodies, which are pure and
divine things."

[_Maksutov]

The next, which I select from the mass of similar works,
is the Anticopernicus Polacco. It was intended
to deal a finishing stroke at Galileo's heresy. In this it is
declared :

"The Scripture always represents the earth as at rest,
and the sun and moon as in motion ; or, if these latter bodies
are ever represented as at rest. Scripture represents this as
the result of a great miracle. . . .

"These writings must be prohibited, because they teach
certain principles about the position and motion of the ter-
restrial globe repugnant to Holy Scripture and to the Cath-
olic interpretation of it, not as hypotheses but as established
facts. ..."

Speaking of Galileo's book, Polacco says that it "smacked
of Copernicanism," and that, " when this was shown to the
Inquisition, Galileo was thrown into prison and was com-
pelled to utterly abjure the baseness of this erroneous
dogma."

As to the authority of the cardinals in their decree, Po-
lacco asserts that, since they are the '' Pope's Council " and
his " brothers," their work is one, except that the Pope is
favoured with special divine enlightenment.

Having shown that the authority of the Scriptures, of
popes, and of cardinals is against the new astronomy, he
gives a refutation based on physics. He asks : '' If we con-
cede the motion of the earth, why is it that an arrow shot
into the air falls back to the same spot, while the earth and
all things on it have in the meantime moved very rapidly
toward the east? Who does not see that great confusion
'would result from this motion ? "

Next he argues from metaphysics, as follows : "The Co-
pernican theory of the earth's motion is against the nature
of the earth itself, because the earth is not only cold but
contains in itself the principle of cold ; but cold is opposed
to motion, and even destroys it — as is evident in animals,
which become motionless when they become cold."

[_Maksutov]

Finally, he clinches all with a piece of theological reason-
ing, as follows : " Since it can certainly be gathered from
Scripture that the heavens move above the earth, and since
a circular motion requires something immovable around
which to move, . . . the earth is at the centre of the uni-
verse."

But any sketch of the warfare between theology and
science in this field would be incomplete without some ref-
erence to the treatment of Galileo after his death. He had
begged to be buried in his family tomb in Santa Croce ;
this request was denied. His friends wished to erect a
monument over him ; this, too, was refused. Pope Urban
said to the ambassador Niccolini that '* it would be an evil
example for the world if such honours were rendered to a
man who had been brought before the Roman Inquisition
for an opinion so false and erroneous; who had communi-
cated it to many others, and who had given so great a scan-
dal to Christendom." In accordance, therefore, with the
wish of the Pope and the orders of the Inquisition, Galileo
was buried ignobly, apart from his family, without fitting
ceremony, without monument, without epitaph. Not until
forty years after did Pierrozzi dare write an inscription

* For Chiaramonti's book and selections given, see Gebler as above, p. 271.
For Polacco, see his work as cited, especially Assertiones i, ii, vii, xi, xiii, Ixxiii,
clxxxvii, and others. The work is in the White Library at Cornell University.
The date of it is 1644.

to be placed above his bones ; not until a hundred years
after did Nelli dare transfer his remains to a suitable
position in Santa Croce, and erect a monument above
them. Even then the old conscientious hostility burst
forth : the Inquisition was besought to prevent such hon-
ours to ''a man condemned for notorious errors" ; and that
tribunal refused to allow any epitaph to be placed above
him which had not been submitted to its censorship. Nor
has that old conscientious consistency in hatred yet fully
relented : hardly a generation since has not seen some eccle-
siastic, like Marini or De Bonald or Rallaye or De Gabriac,
suppressing evidence, or torturing expressions, or inventing
theories to blacken the memory of Galileo and save the
reputation of the Church. Nay, more: there are school his-
tories, widely used, which, in the supposed interest of the
Church, misrepresent in the grossest manner all these trans-
actions in which Galileo was concerned. Sancta simplicitas!
The Church has no worse enemies than those who devise
and teach these perversions. They are simply rooting out,
in the long run, from the minds of the more thoughtful
scholars, respect for the great organization which such writ-
ings are supposed to serve.*

[_Maksutov]

The Protestant Church was hardly less energetic against
this new astronomy than the mother Church. The sacred
science of the first Lutheran Reformers was transmitted as
a precious legacy, and in the next century was made much
of by Calovius. His great learning and determined ortho-
doxy gave him the Lutheran leadership. Utterly refusing
to look at ascertained facts, he cited the turning back of the
shadow upon King Hezekiah's dial and the standing still
of the sun for Joshua, denied the movement of the earth,
and denounced the whole new view as clearly opposed to
Scripture, To this day his arguments are repeated by sun-
dry orthodox leaders of American Lutheranism.

* For the persecutions of Galileo's memory after his death, see Gebler and
Wohlwill, but especially Th. Martin, p. 243 and chaps, ix and x. For documentary
proofs, see L'Epinois. For a collection of the slanderous theories invented against
Galileo, see Martin, final chapters and appendix. Both these authors are devoted
to the Church, but, unlike Monsignor Marini, are too upright to resort to the pious
fraud of suppressing documents or interpolating pretended facts.

As to the Other branches of the Reformed Church, we
have already seen how Calvinists, Anglicans, and, indeed,
Protestant sectarians generally, opposed the new truth. "^ In
England, among the strict churchmen, the great Dr. South
denounced the Royal Society as "irreligious," and among
the Puritans the eminent John Owen declared that New-
ton's discoveries were " built on fallible phenomena and ad-
vanced by many arbitrary presumptions against evident
testimonies of Scripture." Even Milton seems to have hesi-
tated between the two systems. At the beginning of the
eighth book of Paradise Lost he makes Adam state the diffi-
culties of the Ptolemaic system, and then brings forward an
angel to make the usual orthodox answers. Later, Milton
seems to lean toward the Copernican theory, for, referring
to the earth, he says :

" Or she from west her silent course advance
With inoffensive pace, that spinning sleeps
On her soft axle, while she faces even
And bears thee soft with the smooth air along."

English orthodoxy continued to assert itself. In 1724
John Hutchinson, professor at Cambridge, published his
Moses Principia, a system of philosophy' in which he sought
to build up a complete physical system of the universe from
the Bible. In this he assaulted the Newtonian theory as
"atheistic," and led the way for similar attacks by such
Church teachers as Home, Duncan Forbes, and Jones of
Nayland. But one far greater than these involved himself
in this view. That same limitation of his reason by the sim-
ple statements of Scripture which led John Wesley to de-
clare that, " unless witchcraft is true, nothing in the Bible is
true," led him, while giving up the Ptolemaic theory and
accepting in a general way the Copernican, to suspect the
demonstrations of Newton. Happily, his inborn nobility of
character* lifted him above an}' bitterness or persecuting
spirit, or any imposition of doctrinal tests which could pre-
vent those who came after him from finding their way to
the truth.


* For Calovius, see Zoeckler, Geschichie, vol. i, pp. 684 and 763. For Calvin
and Turretin, see Shields, The Final Philosophy, pp. 60, 61.

[_Maksutov]

But in the midst of this vast expanse of theologic error
signs of right reason began to appear, both in England and
America. Noteworthy is it that Cotton Mather, bitter as
was his orthodoxy regarding witchcraft, accepted, in 1721,
the modern astronomy fully, with all its consequences.

In the following year came an even more striking evi-
dence that the new scientific ideas were making their way
in England. In 1722 Thomas Burnet published the sixth
edition of his Sacred Theory of tJie Earth. In this he argues,
as usual, to establish the scriptural doctrine of the earth's
stability ; but in his preface he sounds a remarkable warn-
ing. He mentions the great mistake into which St. Augus-
tine led the Church regarding the doctrine of the antipodes,
and says, *' If within a few years or in the next generation it
should prove as certain and demonstrable that the earth is
moved, as it is now that there are antipodes, those that have
been zealous against it, and engaged the Scripture in the
controversy, would have the same reason to repent of their
forwardness that St. Augustine would now, if he were still
alive."

Fortunately, too. Protestantism had no such power to
oppose the development of the Copernican ideas as the older
Church had enjoyed. Yet there were some things in its
warfare against science even more indefensible. In 1772
the famous English expedition for scientific discovery sailed
from England under Captain Cook. Greatest by far of all
the scientific authorities chosen to accompany it was Dr.
Priestley. Sir Joseph Banks had especially invited him.
But the clergy of Oxford and Cambridge interfered. Priest-
ley was considered unsound in his views of the Trinity ; it
was evidently suspected that this might vitiate his astro-
nomical observations ; he was rejected, and the expedition
crippled.

The orthodox view of astronomy lingered on in other
branches of the Protestant Church. In Germany even Leib-
nitz attacked the Newtonian theory of gravitation on theo-
logical grounds, though he found some little consolation in
thinking that it might be used to support the Lutheran doc-
trine of consubstantiation.

[_Maksutov]

In Holland the Calvinistic Church was at first strenuous
against the whole new system, but we possess a comical
proof that Calvinism even in its strongholds was powerless
against it; for in 1642 Blaer published at Amsterdam his
book on the use of globes, and, in order to be on the safe
side, devoted one part of his work to the Ptolemaic and the
other to the Copernican scheme, leaving the benevolent
reader to take his choice.*

Nor have efforts to renew the battle in the Protestant
Church been wanting in these latter days. The attempt in
the Church of England, in 1864, to fetter science, which was
brought to ridicule by Herschel, Bowring, and De Morgan ;
the assemblage of Lutheran clergy at Berlin, in 1868, to pro-
test against " science falsely so called," are examples of these.
Fortunately, to the latter came Pastor Knak, and his denun-
ciations of the Copernican theory as absolutely incompatible
with a belief in the Bible, dissolved the whole assemblage
in ridicule.

In its recent dealings with modern astronomy the wisdom
of the Catholic Church in the more civilized countries has
prevented its yielding to some astounding errors into which
one part of the Protestant Church has fallen heedlessly.

Though various leaders in the older Church have com-
mitted the absurd error of allowing a text-book and sundry
review articles to appear which grossly misstate the Galileo
episode, with the certainty of ultimately undermining con-
fidence in her teachings among her more thoughtful young
men, she has kept clear of the folly of continuing to tie her
instruction, and the acceptance of our sacred books, to an
adoption of the Ptolemaic theory.