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

[_Fence Sitter]

Bump

[_Maksutov]

Blessed Virgin, outlined on its surface mountains and val-
leys ; this was denounced as a sacrilege logically resulting
from the astronomer's heresy.

Still another struggle was aroused when the hated tele-
scope revealed spots upon the sun, and their motion indicat-
ing the sun's rotation. Monsignor Elci, head of the Univer-
sity of Pisa, forbade the astronomer Castelli to mention these
spots to his students. Father Busaeus, at the University of
Innspruck, forbade the astronomer Scheiner, who had also
discovered the spots and proposed an explanation of
them, to allow the new discovery to be known there. At
the College of Douay and the University of Louvain this
discovery was expressly placed under the ban, and this be-
came the general rule among the Catholic universities and
colleges of Europe. The Spanish universities were espe-
cially intolerant of this and similar ideas, and up to a recent
period their presentation was strictly forbidden in the most
important university of all— that of Salamanca.

Such are the consequences of placing the instruction of
men's minds in the hands of those mainly absorbed in saving
men's souls. Nothing could be more in accordance with
the idea recently put forth by sundry ecclesiastics, Catholic
and Protestant, that the Church alone is empowered to pro-
mulgate scientific truth or direct university instruction.
But science gained a victory here also. Observations of
the solar spots were reported not only from Galileo in Italy,
but from Fabricius in Holland. Father Scheiner then en-
deavoured to make the usual compromise between theology
and science. He promulgated a pseudo-scientific theory,
which only provoked derision.

The war became more and more bitter. The Dominican
Father Caccini preached a sermon from the text, " Ye men
of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?" and this
wretched pun upon the great astronomer's name ushered in
sharper weapons ; for, before Caccini ended, he insisted that
''geometry is of the devil," and that" mathematicians should
be banished as the authors of all heresies." The Church
authorities gave Caccini promotion.



* See Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, vol. iii.

[_Maksutov]

Father Lorini proved that Galileo's doctrine was not only
heretical but '-atheistic," and besought the Inquisition to
intervene. The Bishop of Fiesole screamed in rage against
the Copernican system, publicly insulted Galileo, and de-
nounced him to the Grand-Duke. The Archbishop of Pisa
secretly sought to entrap Galileo and deliver him to the In-
quisition at Rome. The Archbishop of Florence solemnly
condemned the new doctrines as unscriptural ; and Paul V,
while petting Galileo, and inviting him as the greatest astron-
omer of the world to visit Rome, was secretly moving the
Archbishop of Pisa to pick up evidence against the astron-
omer.

But by far the most terrible champion who now ap-
peared was Cardinal Bellarmin, one of the greatest theo-
logians the world has known. He was earnest, sincere,
and learned, but insisted on making science conform to
Scripture. The weapons which men of Bellarmin's stamp
used were purely theological. They held up before the
world the dreadful consequences w^hich must result to
Christian theology were the heavenly bodies proved to
revolve about the sun and not about the earth. Their
most tremendous dogmatic engine was the statement that
'' his pretended discovery vitiates the whole Christian plan
of salvation." Father Lecazre declared " it casts suspicion
on the doctrine of the incarnation." Others declared, " It
upsets the whole basis of theology. If the earth is a
planet, and only one among several planets, it can not be
that any such great things have been done specially for it as
the Christian doctrine teaches. If there are other planets,
since God makes nothing in vain, they must be inhabited ;
but how can their inhabitants be descended from Adam?
How can they trace back their origin to Noah's ark ? How
can they have been redeemed by the Saviour?" Nor was
this argument confined to the theologians of the Roman
Church ; Melanchthon, Protestant as he was, had already
used it in his attacks on Copernicus and his school.

In addition to this prodigious theological engine of war
there was kept up a fire of smaller artillery in the shape of
texts and scriptural extracts.

But the war grew still more bitter, and some weapons
used in it are worth examining. They are very easily ex-
amined, for they are to be found on all the battlefields of
science ; but on that field they were used with more effect
than on almost any other. These weapons are the epithets
" infidel " and *' atheist." They have been used against
almost every man who has ever done anything new for his
fellow-men. The list of those who have been denounced as
''infidel" and "atheist" includes almost all great men of
science, general scholars, inventors, and philanthropists.
The purest Christian life, the noblest Christian character,
have not availed to shield combatants. Christians like Isaac
Newton, Pascal, Locke, Milton, and even Fenelon and How-
ard, have had this weapon hurled against them. Of all
proofs of the existence of a God, those of Descartes have
been wrought most thoroughly into the minds of modern
men ; yet the Protestant theologians of Holland sought to
bring him to torture and to death by the charge of atheism,
and the Roman Catholic theologians of France thwarted him
during his life and prevented any due honours to him after
his death.

[_Maksutov]

These epithets can hardly be classed with civilized weap-
ons. They are burning arrows ; they set fire to masses of
popular prejudice, always obscuring the real question, some-
times destroying the attacking party. They are poisoned
weapons. They pierce the hearts of loving women ; they
alienate dear children ; they injure a man after life is ended,
for they leave poisoned wounds in the hearts of those who
loved him best — fears for his eternal salvation, dread of the
Divine wrath upon him. Of course, in these days these weap-
ons, though often effective in vexing good men and in scar-
ing good women, are somewhat blunted ; indeed, they not
infrequently injure the assailants more than the assailed. So
it was not in the days of Galileo ; they were then in all their
sharpness and venom.

* For various objectors and objections to Galileo by his contemporaries, see
Libri, Histoire des Sciences mathe'matiques eji Italic, vol. iv, pp. 233, 234 ; also Mar-
tin, Vie de Galilde. For Father Lecazre's argument, see Flammarion, Mondes irna-
ginaires et mo)ides r^els, 6e ed., pp. 315, 316. For Melanchthon's argument, see
his Initia, in Opera^ vol. iii, Halle, 1846.


Yet a baser warfare was waged by the Archbishop of
Pisa. This man, whose cathedral derives its most endurinof
fame from Galileo's deduction of a great natural law from
the swinging lamp before its altar, was not an archbishop
after the noble mould of Borromeo and Fenelon and Cheve-
rus. Sadly enough for the Church and humanity, he was
simply a zealot and intriguer: he perfected the plan for en-
trapping the great astronomer.

[_Maksutov]

Galileo, after his discoveries had been denounced, had
written to his friend Castelli and to the Grand-Duchess
Christine two letters to show that his discoveries might be
reconciled with Scripture. On a hint from the Inquisition
at Rome, the archbishop sought to get hold of these letters
and exhibit them as proofs that Galileo had uttered heretical
views of theology and of Scripture, and thus to bring him
into the clutch of the Inquisition. The archbishop begs
Castelli, therefore, to let him see the original letter in the
handwriting of Galileo. Castelli declines. The archbishop
then, while, as is now revealed, writing constantly and bit-
terly to the Inquisition against Galileo, professes to Castelli
the greatest admiration of Galileo's genius and a sincere de-
sire to know more of his discoveries. This not succeeding:,
the archbishop at last throws off the mask and resorts to
open attack.

The whole struggle to crush Galileo and to save him
would be amusing were it not so fraught with evil. There
were intrigues and counter-intrigues, plots and counter-plots,
lying and spying; and in the thickest of this seething,
squabbling, screaming mass of priests, bishops, archbishops,
and cardinals, appear two popes, Paul V and Urban VIII.
It is most suggestive to see in this crisis of the Church, at
the tomb of the prince of the apostles, on the eve of the
greatest errors in Church policy the world has known, in all
the intrigues and deliberations of these consecrated leaders
of the Church, no more evidence of the guidance or pres-
ence of the Holy Spirit than in a caucus of New York politi-
cians at Tammany Hall.

[_Maksutov]

But the opposing powers were too strong. In 1615 Gali-
leo was summoned before the Inquisition at Rome, and the
mine which had been so long preparing was sprung. Sun-
dry theologians of the Inquisition having been ordered to
examine two propositions which had been extracted from
Galileo's letters on the solar spots, solemnly considered
these points during about a month and rendered their unani-
mous decision as follows: ''The first proposition, that the sun
is the centre and does not revolve about the earth, is foolish,
absurd, false in theology, and heretical, because expressly contrary
to Holy Scripture'' ; and " the second proposition, that the earth
is not the centre but revolves about the sun, is absurd, false in
philosophy, and, from a theological point of view at least, opposed
to the true faith.''

The Pope himself, Paul V, now intervened again : he
ordered that Galileo be brought before the Inquisition.
Then the greatest man of science in that age was brought
face to face with the greatest theologian — Galileo was con-
fronted by Bellarmin. Bellarmin shows Galileo the error
of his opinion and orders him to renounce it. De Lauda,
fortified by a letter from the Pope, gives orders that the
astronomer be placed in the dungeons of the Inquisition
should he refuse to yield. Bellarmin now commands Gali-
leo, " in the name of His Holiness the Pope and the whole
Congregation of the Holy Office, to relinquish altogether
the opinion that the sun is the centre of the world and im-
movable, and that the earth moves, nor henceforth to hold,
teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever, verbally or in
writing." This injunction Galileo acquiesces in and prom-
ises to obey."

This was on the 26th of February, 1616. About a fort-
night later the Congregation of the Index, moved thereto,
as the letters and documents now brought to light show, by
Pope Paul V, solemnly rendered a decree that '* the doctrine
of the double motion of the earth about its axis and about the sun
is false and entirely contrary to Holy Scripture" ; and that
this opinion must neither be taught nor advocated. The
same decree condemned all writings of Copernicus and ''all
writings which affirm the motion of the earths The great
work of Copernicus was interdicted until corrected in ac-
cordance with the views of the Inquisition ; and the works
of Galileo and Kepler, though not mentioned by name at
that time, were included among those implicitly condemned
as "affirming the motion of the earth."

[_Maksutov]

The condemnations were inscribed upon the Index; and,
finally, the papacy committed itself as an infallible judge
and teacher to the world by prefixing to the Index the usual
papal bull giving its monitions the most solemn papal sanc-
tion. To teach or even read the works denounced or pas-
sages condemned was to risk persecution in this world and
damnation in the next. Science had apparently lost the
decisive battle.

For a time after this judgment Galileo remained in Rome,
apparently hoping to find some way out of this difficulty ;
but he soon discovered the hollowness of the protestations
made to him by ecclesiastics, and, being recalled to Flor-
ence, remained in his hermitage near the city in silence,
working steadily, indeed, but not publishing anything save
by private letters to friends in various parts of Europe.

But at last a better vista seemed to open for him. Car-
dinal Barberini, who had seemed liberal and friendly be-
came pope under the name of Urban VIII. Galileo at this
conceived new hopes, and allowed his continued allegiance
to the Copernican system to be known. New troubles en-
sued. Galileo was induced to visit Rome again, and Pope
Urban tried to cajole him into silence, personally taking the
trouble to show^ him his errors by argument. Other op-
ponents were less considerate, for works appeared attacking
his ideas — works all the more unmanly, since their authors
knew that Galileo was restrained by force from defending
himself. Then, too, as if to accumulate proofs of the unfit-
ness of the Church to take charge of advanced instruction,
his salary as a professor at the University of Pisa was taken
from him, and sapping and mining began. Just as the Arch-
bishop of Pisa some years before had tried to betray him
with honeyed words to the Inquisition, so now Father
Grassi tried it, and, after various attempts to draw him out
by flattery, suddenly denounced his scientific ideas as "lead-
ing to a denial of the Real Presence in the Eucharist."

[_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 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.

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, now
reio:ninor 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.

[_Maksutov]

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.

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.