History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom Part 14

(60) For curious exemplification of the way in which these weapons have been hurled, see lists of persons charged with "infidelity" and "atheism," in the Dictionnaire des Athees., Paris, (1800); also Lecky, History of Rationalism, vol. ii, p. 50. For the case of Descartes, see Saisset, Descartes et ses Precurseurs, pp. 103, 110. For the facility with which the term "atheist" has been applied from the early Aryans down to believers in evolution, see Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i, p.

420.

Yet a baser warfare was waged by the Archbishop of Pisa. This man, whose cathedral derives its most enduring fame from Galileo's deduction of a great natural law from the swinging lamp before its altar, was not an archbishop after the n.o.ble mould of Borromeo and Fenelon and Cheverus.

Sadly enough for the Church and humanity, he was simply a zealot and intriguer: he perfected the plan for entrapping the great astronomer.

Galileo, after his discoveries had been denounced, had written to his friend Castelli and to the Grand-d.u.c.h.ess 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 bitterly to the Inquisition against Galileo, professes to Castelli the greatest admiration of Galileo's genius and a sincere desire 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 ma.s.s 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 presence of the Holy Spirit than in a caucus of New York politicians at Tammany Hall.

But the opposing powers were too strong. In 1615 Galileo was summoned before the Inquisition at Rome, and the mine which had been so long preparing was sprung. Sundry 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 unanimous 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 confronted 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 Galileo, "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 immovable, 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 promises to obey.(61)

(61) I am aware that the theory proposed by Wohwill and developed by Gebler denied that this promise was ever made by Galileo, and holds that the pa.s.sage was a forgery devised later by the Church rulers to justify the proceedings of 1632 and 1644. This would make the conduct of the Church worse, but authorities as eminent consider the charge not proved.

A careful examination of the doc.u.ments seems to disprove it.

This was on the 26th of February, 1616. About a fortnight later the Congregation of the Index, moved thereto, as the letters and doc.u.ments 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 EARTH." The great work of Copernicus was interdicted until corrected in accordance 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."

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 sanction. To teach or even read the works denounced or pa.s.sages condemned was to risk persecution in this world and d.a.m.nation 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 Florence, remained in his hermitage near the city in silence, working steadily, indeed, but not publis.h.i.+ng anything save by private letters to friends in various parts of Europe.

But at last a better vista seemed to open for him. Cardinal Barberini, who had seemed liberal and friendly, became 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 ensued.

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 opponents 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 acc.u.mulate proofs of the unfitness 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 Archbishop of Pisa some years before had tried to betray him with honeyed words to the Inquisition, so now Father Gra.s.si tried it, and, after various attempts to draw him out by flattery, suddenly denounced his scientific ideas as "leading to a denial of the Real Presence in the Eucharist."

For the final a.s.sault upon him a park of heavy artillery was at last wheeled into place. It may be seen on all the scientific battlefields.

It consists of general denunciation; and in 1631 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 G.o.d, 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-Aristarclius. Its very t.i.tle-page was a contemptuous insult to the memory of Copernicus, since it paraded the a.s.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 pa.s.sage 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 pa.s.sage 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 centre, and that the sun MUST revolve about it.(62) Nor was it merely fanatics who opposed the truth revealed by Copernicus; such strong men as Jean Bodin, in France, and Sir Thomas Browne, in England, declared against it as evidently contrary to Holy Scripture.

(62) For Father Inchofer's attack, see his Tractatus Syllepticus, cited in Galileo's letter to Deodati, July 28, 1634. For Fromundus's more famous attack, see his Ant-Aristarchus, already cited, pa.s.sim, but especially the heading of chap. 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 University. For interesting references 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 mathematiques et physiques, Bruxelles, 1864, p. 170; also Madler, Geschichte der Astronomie, vol.

i, p. 274. For Bodin's opposition to the Copernican theory, see Hallam, Literature of Europe; also Lecky. For Sir Thomas Brown, 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. Johnson's preface to his Life of Browne, vol. i, p. xix, of his collected works.

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, imposing a humiliating condition--a preface written in accordance 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 rea.s.serted 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, 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 dialogue 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 revelation. 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 reigning, the vast scandal of the Galileo case would never have burdened the Church: instead of devising endless quibbles 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 controverted.

The opening strategy of Galileo's enemies was to forbid the sale of his work; but this was soon seen to be unavailing, 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 disgrace, 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 doc.u.ments 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 supposed 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 p.r.o.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."(63)

(63) For various utterances of Pope Urban against the Copernican theory at this period, see extracts from the original doc.u.ments given by Gebler. For punishment of those who had shown some favor to Galileo, see various citations, and especially those from the Vatican ma.n.u.script, Gebler, p. 216. As to the text of the abjuration, see L'Epinois; also Polacco, Anticopernicus, 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 administered to Galileo, though it was threatened. See Th. Martin, Vie de Galilee, for a fair summing up of the case.

He was vanquished indeed, for he had been forced, in the face of all coming ages, to perjure himself. To complete 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 motion of the earth."

Many have wondered at this abjuration, and on account of it have denied to Galileo the t.i.tle of martyr. But let such gainsayers consider the circ.u.mstances. Here was an old man--one who had reached the allotted threescore years and ten--broken with disappointments, worn out with labours 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 to his oppressors by the Grand-Duke who ought to have protected him, and on his arrival in Rome threatened with torture. 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 n.o.ble employments, 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 hampered by close surveillance. He was forced to bear contemptible 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 established 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 subst.i.tution of the word "notorious."(64)

(64) For the subst.i.tution of the word "notorious" for "renowned" by order of the Inquisition, see Martin, p.227.

And now measures were taken to complete the destruction of the Copernican theory, with Galileo's proofs of it. On the 16th of June, 1633, the Holy Congregation, with the permission of the reigning Pope, ordered the sentence upon 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 doc.u.ment 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."(65)

(65) For a copy of this doc.u.ment, see Gebler, p. 269. As to the spread of this and similar doc.u.ments notifying Europe of Galileo's condemnation, see Favaro, pp. 804, 805.

As a consequence, the processors of mathematics and astronomy in various universities of Europe were a.s.sembled and these doc.u.ments were read to them. To the theological authorities this gave great satisfaction. The Rector of the University of Douay, referring to the opinion of Galileo, wrote to the papal nuncio at Brussels: "The professors of our university are so opposed to this fanatical opinion 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 ordered, especially in Italy, not to permit the publication of a new edition of any of Galileo's works, or of any similar writings. 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 system.

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 condemnation into the consciences of the whole Christian world.

From the ma.s.s of books which appeared under the auspices of the Church immediately after the condemnation 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 impurity, among these heavenly bodies, which are pure and divine things."

The next, which I select from the ma.s.s of similar works, is the Anticopernicus Catholicus of Polacco. It was intended to deal a finis.h.i.+ng 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 terrestrial globe repugnant to Holy Scripture and to the Catholic 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 compelled to utterly abjure the baseness of this erroneous dogma."