It stood for centuries. Great theological men of science, like Vincent of Beauvais and Cardinal d'Ailly, devoted themselves to showing not only that it was supported by Scripture, but that it supported Scripture. Thus was the geocentric theory embedded in the beliefs and aspirations, in the hopes and fears, of Christendom down to the middle of the sixteenth century.(44)
(44) For the earlier cosmology of Cosmas, with citations from
Montfaucon, see the chapter on Geography in this work. For the views
of mediaeval theologians, see foregoing notes in this chapter. For the
passages of Scripture on which the theological part of this structure
was developed, see especially Romans viii, 38; Ephesians i, 21;
Colossians i, 16 and ii, 15; and innumerable passages in the Old
Testament. As to the music of the spheres, see Dean Plumptre's Dante,
vol. ii, p. 4, note. For an admirable summing up of the mediaeval
cosmology in its relation to thought in general, see Rydberg, Magic of
the Middle Ages, chap. i, whose summary I have followed in the main. For
striking woodcuts showing the view taken of the successive heavens with
their choirs of angels, the earth being at the centre with the spheres
about it, and the Almighty on his throne above all, see the Neuremberg
Chronicle, ff. iv and v; its date is 1493. For charts showing the
continuance of this general view down to the beginning of the sixteenth
century, see the various editions of the Margarita Philosophica, from
that of 1503 onward, astronomical part. For interesting statements
regarding the Trinities of gods in ancient Egypt, see Sharpe, History of
Egypt, vol. i, pp. 94 and 101. The present writer once heard a lecture
in Cairo, from an eminent Scotch Doctor of Medicine, to account for the
ancient Hindu and Egyptian sacred threes and trinities. The lecturer's
theory was that, when Jehovah came down into the Garden of Eden and
walked with Adam in "the cool of the day," he explained his triune
character to Adam, and that from Adam it was spread abroad to the
various ancient nations.
II. THE HELIOCENTRIC THEORY.
But, on the other hand, there had been planted, long before, the germs of a heliocentric theory. In the sixth century before our era, Pythagoras, and after him Philolaus, had suggested the movement of the earth and planets about a central fire; and, three centuries later, Aristarchus had restated the main truth with striking precision. Here comes in a proof that the antagonism between theological and scientific methods is not confined to Christianity; for this statement brought upon Aristarchus the charge of blasphemy, and drew after it a cloud of prejudice which hid the truth for six hundred years. Not until the fifth century of our era did it timidly appear in the thoughts of Martianus Capella: then it was again lost to sight for a thousand years, until in the fifteenth century, distorted and imperfect, it appeared in the writings of Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa.
But in the shade cast by the vast system which had grown from the minds of the great theologians and from the heart of the great poet there had come to this truth neither bloom nor fruitage.
Quietly, however, the soil was receiving enrichment and the air warmth. The processes of mathematics were constantly improved, the heavenly bodies were steadily observed, and at length appeared, far from the centres of thought, on the borders of Poland, a plain, simple-minded scholar, who first fairly uttered to the modern world the truth—now so commonplace, then so astounding—that the sun and planets do not revolve about the earth, but that the earth and planets revolve about the sun: this man was Nicholas Copernicus.
Copernicus had been a professor at Rome, and even as early as 1500 had announced his doctrine there, but more in the way of a scientific curiosity or paradox, as it had been previously held by Cardinal de Cusa, than as the statement of a system representing a great fact in Nature. About thirty years later one of his disciples, Widmanstadt, had explained it to Clement VII; but it still remained a mere hypothesis, and soon, like so many others, disappeared from the public view. But to Copernicus, steadily studying the subject, it became more and more a reality, and as this truth grew within him he seemed to feel that at Rome he was no longer safe. To announce his discovery there as a theory or a paradox might amuse the papal court, but to announce it as a truth—as THE truth—was a far different matter. He therefore returned to his little town in Poland.
To publish his thought as it had now developed was evidently dangerous even there, and for more than thirty years it lay slumbering in the mind of Copernicus and of the friends to whom he had privately intrusted it.
At last he prepared his great work on the Revolutions of the Heavenly Bodies, and dedicated it to the Pope himself. He next sought a place of publication. He dared not send it to Rome, for there were the rulers of the older Church ready to seize it; he dared not send it to Wittenberg, for there were the leaders of Protestantism no less hostile; he therefore intrusted it to Osiander, at Nuremberg.(45)