History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom Part 20

(107) See De Angelis, Lectiones Meteorologicae, Rome, 1669.

Equally striking is an example seen a little later in another part of Europe; and it is the more noteworthy because Halley and Newton had already fully established the modern scientific theory. Just at the close of the seventeenth century the Jesuit Reinzer, professor at Linz, put forth his Meteorologia Philosophico-Politica, in which all natural phenomena received both a physical and a moral interpretation. It was profusely and elaborately ill.u.s.trated, and on account of its instructive contents was in 1712 translated into German for the unlearned reader.

The comet receives, of course, great attention. "It appears," says Reinzer, "only then in the heavens when the latter punish the earth, and through it (the comet) not only predict but bring to pa.s.s all sorts of calamity.... And, to that end, its tail serves for a rod, its hair for weapons and arrows, its light for a threat, and its heat for a sign of anger and vengeance." Its warnings are threefold: (1) "Comets, generated in the air, betoken NATURALLY drought, wind, earthquake, famine, and pestilence." (2) "Comets can indirectly, in view of their material, betoken wars, tumults, and the death of princes; for, being hot and dry, they bring the moistnesses (Feuchtigkeiten) in the human body to an extraordinary heat and dryness, increasing the gall; and, since the emotions depend on the temperament and condition of the body, men are through this change driven to violent deeds, quarrels, disputes, and finally to arms: especially is this the result with princes, who are more delicate and also more arrogant than other men, and whose moistnesses are more liable to inflammation of this sort, inasmuch as they live in luxury and seldom restrain themselves from those things which in such a dry state of the heavens are especially injurious." (3) "All comets, whatever prophetic significance they may have naturally in and of themselves, are yet princ.i.p.ally, according to the Divine pleasure, heralds of the death of great princes, of war, and of other such great calamities; and this is known and proved, first of all, from the words of Christ himself: 'Nation shall rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom; and great earthquakes shall be in divers places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs shall there be from heaven.'"(108)

(108) See Reinzer, Meteorologica Philosophico-Politica (edition of Augsburg, 1712), pp. 101-103.

While such pains was taken to keep the more highly educated cla.s.ses in the "paths of scriptural science and sound learning;" at the universities, equal efforts were made to preserve the cometary orthodoxy of the people at large by means of the pulpits. Out of the ma.s.s of sermons for this purpose which were widely circulated I will select just two as typical, and they are worthy of careful study as showing some special dangers of applying theological methods to scientific facts.

In the second half of the sixteenth century the recognised capital of orthodox Lutheranism was Magdeburg, and in the region tributary to this metropolis no Church official held a more prominent station than the "Superintendent," or Lutheran bishop, of the neighbouring Altmark. It was this dignitary, Andreas Celichius by name, who at Magdeburg, in 1578, gave to the press his Theological Reminder of the New Comet.

After deprecating as blasphemous the attempt of Aristotle to explain the phenomenon otherwise than as a supernatural warning from G.o.d to sinful man, he a.s.sures his hearers that "whoever would know the comet's real source and nature must not merely gape and stare at the scientific theory that it is an earthy, greasy, tough, and sticky vapour and mist, rising into the upper air and set ablaze by the celestial heat." Far more important for them is it to know what this vapour is. It is really, in the opinion of Celichius, nothing more or less than "the thick smoke of human sins, rising every day, every hour, every moment, full of stench and horror, before the face of G.o.d, and becoming gradually so thick as to form a comet, with curled and plaited tresses, which at last is kindled by the hot and fiery anger of the Supreme Heavenly Judge."

He adds that it is probably only through the prayers and tears of Christ that this blazing monument of human depravity becomes visible to mortals. In support of this theory, he urges the "coming up before G.o.d"

of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah and of Nineveh, and especially the words of the prophet regarding Babylon, "Her stench and rottenness is come up before me." That the anger of G.o.d can produce the conflagration without any intervention of Nature is proved from the Psalms, "He sendeth out his word and melteth them." From the position of the comet, its course, and the direction of its tail he augurs especially the near approach of the judgment day, though it may also betoken, as usual, famine, pestilence, and war. "Yet even in these days," he mourns, "there are people reckless and giddy enough to pay no heed to such celestial warnings, and these even cite in their own defence the injunction of Jeremiah not to fear signs in the heavens."

This idea he explodes, and shows that good and orthodox Christians, while not superst.i.tious like the heathen, know well "that G.o.d is not bound to his creation and the ordinary course of Nature, but must often, especially in these last dregs of the world, resort to irregular means to display his anger at human guilt."(109)

(109) For Celichius, or Celich, see his own treatise, as above.

The other typical case occurred in the following century and in another part of Germany. Conrad Dieterich was, during the first half of the seventeenth century, a Lutheran ecclesiastic of the highest authority.

His ability as a theologian had made him Archdeacon of Marburg, Professor of Philosophy and Director of Studies at the University of Giessen, and "Superintendent," or Lutheran bishop, in southwestern Germany. In the year 1620, on the second Sunday in Advent, in the great Cathedral of Ulm, he developed the orthodox doctrine of comets in a sermon, taking up the questions: 1. What are comets? 2. What do they indicate? 3. What have we to do with their significance? This sermon marks an epoch. Delivered in that stronghold of German Protestantism and by a prelate of the highest standing, it was immediately printed, prefaced by three laudatory poems from different men of note, and sent forth to drive back the scientific, or, as it was called, the "G.o.dless,"

view of comets. The preface shows that Dieterich was sincerely alarmed by the tendency to regard comets as natural appearances. His text was taken from the twenty-fifth verse of the twenty-first chapter of St.

Luke: "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring." As to what comets are, he cites a mult.i.tude of philosophers, and, finding that they differ among themselves, he uses a form of argument not uncommon from that day to this, declaring that this difference of opinion proves that there is no solution of the problem save in revelation, and insisting that comets are "signs especially sent by the Almighty to warn the earth." An additional proof of this he finds in the forms of comets. One, he says, took the form of a trumpet; another, of a spear; another of a goat; another, of a torch; another, of a sword; another, of an arrow; another, of a sabre; still another, of a bare arm. From these forms of comets he infers that we may divine their purpose. As to their creation, he quotes John of Damascus and other early Church authorities in behalf of the idea that each comet is a star newly created at the Divine command, out of nothing, and that it indicates the wrath of G.o.d. As to their purpose, having quoted largely from the Bible and from Luther, he winds up by insisting that, as G.o.d can make nothing in vain, comets must have some distinct object; then, from Isaiah and Joel among the prophets, from Matthew, Mark, and Luke among the evangelists, from Origen and John Chrysostom among the fathers, from Luther and Melanchthon among the Reformers, he draws various texts more or less conclusive to prove that comets indicate evil and only evil; and he cites Luther's Advent sermon to the effect that, though comets may arise in the course of Nature, they are still signs of evil to mankind. In answer to the theory of sundry naturalists that comets are made up of "a certain fiery, warm, sulphurous, saltpetery, sticky fog," he declaims: "Our sins, our sins: they are the fiery heated vapours, the thick, sticky, sulphurous clouds which rise from the earth toward heaven before G.o.d." Throughout the sermon Dieterich pours contempt over all men who simply investigate comets as natural objects, calls special attention to a comet then in the heavens resembling a long broom or bundle of rods, and declares that he and his hearers can only consider it rightly "when we see standing before us our Lord G.o.d in heaven as an angry father with a rod for his children." In answer to the question what comets signify, he commits himself entirely to the idea that they indicate the wrath of G.o.d, and therefore calamities of every sort. Page after page is filled with the records of evils following comets. Beginning with the creation of the world, he insists that the first comet brought on the deluge of Noah, and cites a ma.s.s of authorities, ranging from Moses and Isaiah to Albert the Great and Melanchthon, in support of the view that comets precede earthquakes, famines, wars, pestilences, and every form of evil. He makes some parade of astronomical knowledge as to the greatness of the sun and moon, but relapses soon into his old line of argument. Imploring his audience not to be led away from the well-established belief of Christendom and the principles of their fathers, he comes back to his old a.s.sertion, insists that "our sins are the inflammable material of which comets are made,"

and winds up with a most earnest appeal to the Almighty to spare his people.(110)

(110) For Deiterich, see Ulmische Cometen-Predigt, von dem Cometen, so nechst abgewischen 1618 Jahrs im Wintermonat erstenmahls in Schwaben sehen la.s.sen,... gehalten zu Ulm... durch Conrad Dieterich, Ulm, 1620.

For a life of the author, see article Dieterich in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie. See also Wolf.

Similar efforts from the pulpit were provoked by the great comet of 1680. Typical among these was the effort in Switzerland of Pastor Heinrich Erni, who, from the Cathedral of Zurich, sent a circular letter to the clergy of that region showing the connection of the eleventh and twelfth verses of the first chapter of Jeremiah with the comet, giving notice that at his suggestion the authorities had proclaimed a solemn fast, and exhorting the clergy to preach earnestly on the subject of this warning.

Nor were the interpreters of the comet's message content with simple prose. At the appearance of the comet of 1618, Gra.s.ser and Gross, pastors and doctors of theology at Basle, put forth a collection of doggerel rhymes to fasten the orthodox theory into the minds of school-children and peasants. One of these may be translated:

"I am a Rod in G.o.d's right hand threatening the German and foreign land."

Others for a similar purpose taught:

"Eight things there be a Comet brings, When it on high doth horrid range: Wind, Famine, Plague, and Death to Kings, War, Earthquakes, Floods, and Direful Change."

Great ingenuity was shown in meeting the advance of science, in the universities and schools, with new texts of Scripture; and Stephen Spleiss, Rector of the Gymnasium at Schaffhausen, got great credit by teaching that in the vision of Jeremiah the "almond rod" was a tailed comet, and the "seething pot" a bearded one.(111)

(111) For Erni, see Wolf, Gesch. d. Astronomie, p. 239. For Gra.s.sner and Gross, see their Christenliches Bedenken... von dem erschrockenlichen Cometen, etc., Zurich, 1664. For Spleiss, see Beilauftiger Bericht von dem jetzigen Cometsternen, etc., schaffhausen, 1664.

It can be easily understood that such authoritative utterances as that of Dieterich must have produced a great effect throughout Protestant Christendom; and in due time we see their working in New England. That same tendency to provincialism, which, save at rare intervals, has been the bane of Ma.s.sachusetts thought from that day to this, appeared; and in 1664 we find Samuel Danforth arguing from the Bible that "comets are portentous signals of great and notable changes," and arguing from history that they "have been many times heralds of wrath to a secure and impenitent world." He cites especially the comet of 1652, which appeared just before Mr. Cotton's sickness and disappeared after his death.

Morton also, in his Memorial recording the death of John Putnam, alludes to the comet of 1662 as "a very signal testimony that G.o.d had then removed a bright star and a s.h.i.+ning light out of the heaven of his Church here into celestial glory above." Again he speaks of another comet, insisting that "it was no fiery meteor caused by exhalation, but it was sent immediately by G.o.d to awaken the secure world," and goes on to show how in that year "it pleased G.o.d to smite the fruits of the earth--namely, the wheat in special--with blasting and mildew, whereby much of it was spoiled and became profitable for nothing, and much of it worth little, being light and empty. This was looked upon by the judicious and conscientious of the land as a speaking providence against the unthankfulness of many,... as also against voluptuousness and abuse of the good creatures of G.o.d by licentiousness in drinking and fas.h.i.+ons in apparel, for the obtaining whereof a great part of the princ.i.p.al grain was oftentimes unnecessarily expended."

But in 1680 a stronger than either of these seized upon the doctrine and wielded it with power. Increase Mather, so open always to ideas from Europe, and always so powerful for good or evil in the cloonies, preached his sermon on "Heaven's Alarm to the World,... wherein is shown that fearful sights and signs in the heavens are the presages of great calamities at hand." The texts were taken from the book of Revelation: "And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning, as it were a lamp," and "Behold, the third woe cometh quickly."

In this, as in various other sermons, he supports the theological cometary theory fully. He insists that "we are fallen into the dregs of time," and that the day of judgment is evidently approaching. He explains away the words of Jeremiah--"Be not dismayed at signs in the heavens"--and shows that comets have been forerunners of nearly every form of evil. Having done full justice to evils thus presaged in scriptural times, he begins a similar display in modern history by citing blazing stars which foretold the invasions of Goths, Huns, Saracens, and Turks, and warns gainsayers by citing the example of Vespasian, who, after ridiculing a comet, soon died. The general shape and appearance of comets, he thinks, betoken their purpose, and he cites Tertullian to prove them "G.o.d's sharp razors on mankind, whereby he doth poll, and his scythe whereby he doth shear down mult.i.tudes of sinful creatures." At last, rising to a fearful height, he declares: "For the Lord hath fired his beacon in the heavens among the stars of G.o.d there; the fearful sight is not yet out of sight. The warning piece of heaven is going off. Now, then, if the Lord discharge his murdering pieces from on high, and men be found in their sins unfit for death, their blood shall be upon them." And again, in an agony of supplication, he cries out: "Do we see the sword blazing over us? Let it put us upon crying to G.o.d, that the judgment be diverted and not return upon us again so speedily.... Doth G.o.d threaten our very heavens? O pray unto him, that he would not take away stars and send comets to succeed them."(112)

(112) For Danforth, see his Astronomical Descritption of the Late Comet or Blazing Star, Together with a Brief Theological Application Thereof, 1664. For Morton, see his Memorial, pp. 251, 252,; also 309, 310. Texts cited by Mather were Rev., viii, 10, and xi, 14.

Two years later, in August, 1682, he followed this with another sermon on "The Latter Sign," "wherein is showed that the voice of G.o.d in signal providences, especially when repeated and iterated, ought to be hearkened unto." Here, too, of course, the comet comes in for a large share of attention. But his tone is less sure: even in the midst of all his arguments appears an evident misgiving. The thoughts of Newton in science and Bayle in philosophy were evidently tending to accomplish the prophecy of Seneca. Mather's alarm at this is clear. His natural tendency is to uphold the idea that a comet is simply a fire-ball flung from the hand of an avenging G.o.d at a guilty world, but he evidently feels obliged to yield something to the scientific spirit; hence, in the Discourse concerning Comets, published in 1683, he declares: "There are those who think that, inasmuch as comets may be supposed to proceed from natural causes, there is no speaking voice of Heaven in them beyond what is to be said of all other works of G.o.d. But certain it is that many things which may happen according to the course of Nature are portentous signs of Divine anger and prognostics of great evils hastening upon the world." He then notices the eclipse of August, 1672, and adds: "That year the college was eclipsed by the death of the learned president there, worthy Mr. Chauncey and two colonies--namely, Ma.s.sachusetts and Plymouth--by the death of two governors, who died within a twelvemonth after.... Shall, then, such mighty works of G.o.d as comets are be insignificant things?"(113)

(113) Increase Mather's Heaven's Alarm to the World was first printed at Boston in 1681, but was reprinted in 1682, and was appended, with the sermon on The Latter Sign, to the Discourse on Comets (Boston, 1683).

III. THE INVASION OF SCEPTICISM.

Vigorous as Mather's argument is, we see scepticism regarding "signs"

continuing to invade the public mind; and, in spite of his threatenings, about twenty years after we find a remarkable evidence of this progress in the fact that this scepticism has seized upon no less a personage than that colossus of orthodoxy, his thrice ill.u.s.trious son, Cotton Mather himself; and him we find, in 1726, despite the arguments of his father, declaring in his Manuductio: "Perhaps there may be some need for me to caution you against being dismayed at the signs of the heavens, or having any superst.i.tious fancies upon eclipses and the like.... I am willing that you be apprehensive of nothing portentous in blazing stars.

For my part, I know not whether all our worlds, and even the sun itself, may not fare the better for them."(114)

(114) For Cotton Mather, see the Manuductio, pp. 54, 55.

Curiously enough, for this scientific scepticism in Cotton Mather there was a cause identical with that which had developed superst.i.tion in the mind of his father. The same provincial tendency to receive implicitly any new European fas.h.i.+on in thinking or speech wrought upon both, plunging one into superst.i.tion and drawing the other out of it.

European thought, which New England followed, had at last broken away in great measure from the theological view of comets as signs and wonders.

The germ of this emanc.i.p.ating influence was mainly in the great utterance of Seneca; and we find in nearly every century some evidence that this germ was still alive. This life became more and more evident after the Reformation period, even though theologians in every Church did their best to destroy it. The first series of attacks on the old theological doctrine were mainly founded in philosophic reasoning. As early as the first half of the sixteenth century we hear Julius Caesar Scaliger protesting against the cometary superst.i.tion as "ridiculous folly."(115) Of more real importance was the treatise of Blaise de Vigenere, published at Paris in 1578. In this little book various statements regarding comets as signs of wrath or causes of evils are given, and then followed by a very gentle and quiet discussion, usually tending to develop that healthful scepticism which is the parent of investigation. A fair example of his mode of treating the subject is seen in his dealing with a bit of "sacred science." This was simply that "comets menace princes and kings with death because they live more delicately than other people; and, therefore, the air thickened and corrupted by a comet would be naturally more injurious to them than to common folk who live on coa.r.s.er food." To this De Vigenere answers that there are very many persons who live on food as delicate as that enjoyed by princes and kings, and yet receive no harm from comets. He then goes on to show that many of the greatest monarchs in history have met death without any comet to herald it.

(115) For Scaliger, see p. 20 of Dudith's book, cited below.

In the same year thoughtful scepticism of a similar sort found an advocate in another part of Europe. Thomas Erastus, the learned and devout professor of medicine at Heidelberg, put forth a letter dealing in the plainest terms with the superst.i.tion. He argued especially that there could be no natural connection between the comet and pestilence, since the burning of an exhalation must tend to purify rather than to infect the air. In the following year the eloquent Hungarian divine Dudith published a letter in which the theological theory was handled even more shrewdly, for he argued that, if comets were caused by the sins of mortals, they would never be absent from the sky. But these utterances were for the time brushed aside by the theological leaders of thought as shallow or impious.

In the seventeenth century able arguments against the superst.i.tion, on general grounds, began to be multiplied. In Holland, Balthasar Bekker opposed this, as he opposed the witchcraft delusion, on general philosophic grounds; and Lubienitzky wrote in a compromising spirit to prove that comets were as often followed by good as by evil events. In France, Pierre Pet.i.t, formerly geographer of Louis XIII, and an intimate friend of Descartes, addressed to the young Louis XIV a vehement protest against the superst.i.tion, basing his arguments not on astronomy, but on common sense. A very effective part of the little treatise was devoted to answering the authority of the fathers of the early Church. To do this, he simply reminded his readers that St. Augustine and St. John Damascenus had also opposed the doctrine of the antipodes. The book did good service in France, and was translated in Germany a few years later.(116)

(116) For Blaise de Vigenere, see his Traite des Cometes, Paris, 1578.

For Dudith, see his De Cometarum Dignificatione, Basle, 1579, to which the letter of Erastus is appended. Bekker's views may be found in his Onderzoek van de Betekening der Cometen, Leeuwarden, 1683. For Lubienitsky's, see his Theatrum Cometic.u.m, Amsterdam, 1667, in part ii: Historia Cometarum, preface "to the reader." For Pet.i.t, see his Dissertation sur la Nature des Cometes, Paris, 1665 (German translation, Dresden and Zittau, 1681).

All these were denounced as infidels and heretics, yet none the less did they set men at thinking, and prepare the way for a far greater genius; for toward the end of the same century the philosophic attack was taken up by Pierre Bayle, and in the whole series of philosophic champions he is chief. While professor at the University of Sedan he had observed the alarm caused by the comet of 1680, and he now brought all his reasoning powers to bear upon it. Thoughts deep and witty he poured out in volume after volume. Catholics and Protestants were alike scandalized. Catholic France spurned him, and Jurieu, the great Reformed divine, called his cometary views "atheism," and tried hard to have Protestant Holland condemn him. Though Bayle did not touch immediately the ma.s.s of mankind, he wrought with power upon men who gave themselves the trouble of thinking. It was indeed unfortunate for the Church that theologians, instead of taking the initiative in this matter, left it to Bayle; for, in tearing down the pretended scriptural doctrine of comets, he tore down much else: of all men in his time, no one so thoroughly prepared the way for Voltaire.