(75) For good statements of the final action of the Church in the
matter, see Gebler; also Zoeckler, ii, 352. See also Bertrand,
Fondateurs de l'Astronomie moderne, p. 61; Flammarion, Vie de Copernic,
chap. ix. As to the time when the decree of condemnation was repealed,
there have been various pious attempts to make it earlier than the
reality. Artaud, p. 307, cited in an apologetic article in the Dublin
Review, September, 1865, says that Galileo's famous dialogue was
published in 1714, at Padua, entire, and with the usual approbations.
The same article also declares that in 1818, the ecclesiastical decrees
were repealed by Pius VII in full Consistory. Whewell accepts this;
but Cantu, an authority favourable to the Church, acknowledges that
Copernicus's work remained on the Index as late as 1835 (Cantu, Histoire
universelle, vol. xv, p. 483); and with this Th. Martin, not less
favourable to the Church, but exceedingly careful as to the facts,
agrees; and the most eminent authority of all, Prof. Reusch, of Bonn,
in his Der Index der vorbotenen Bucher, Bonn, 1885, vol. ii, p. 396,
confirms the above statement in the text. For a clear statement of
Bradley's exquisite demonstration of the Copernican theory by reasonings
upon the rapidity of light, etc., and Foucault's exhibition of the
rotation of the earth by the pendulum experiment, see Hoefer, Histoire
de l'Astronomie, pp. 492 et seq. For more recent proofs of the
Copernican theory, by the discoveries of Bunsen, Bischoff, Benzenberg,
and others, see Jevons, Principles of Science.
VI. THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH AFTER ITS VICTORY OVER GALILEO.
Any history of the victory of astronomical science over dogmatic theology would be incomplete without some account of the retreat made by the Church from all its former positions in the Galileo case.
The retreat of the Protestant theologians was not difficult. A little skilful warping of Scripture, a little skilful use of that time-honoured phrase, attributed to Cardinal Baronius, that the Bible is given to teach us, not how the heavens go, but how men go to heaven, and a free use of explosive rhetoric against the pursuing army of scientists, sufficed.
But in the older Church it was far less easy. The retreat of the sacro-scientific army of Church apologists lasted through two centuries.
In spite of all that has been said by these apologists, there no longer remains the shadow of a doubt that the papal infallibility was committed fully and irrevocably against the double revolution of the earth. As the documents of Galileo's trial now published show, Paul V, in 1616, pushed on with all his might the condemnation of Galileo and of the works of Copernicus and of all others teaching the motion of the earth around its own axis and around the sun. So, too, in the condemnation of Galileo in 1633, and in all the proceedings which led up to it and which followed it, Urban VIII was the central figure. Without his sanction no action could have been taken.
True, the Pope did not formally sign the decree against the Copernican theory THEN; but this came later. In 1664 Alexander VII prefixed to the Index containing the condemnations of the works of Copernicus and Galileo and "all books which affirm the motion of the earth" a papal bull signed by himself, binding the contents of the Index upon the consciences of the faithful. This bull confirmed and approved in express terms, finally, decisively, and infallibly, the condemnation of "all books teaching the movement of the earth and the stability of the sun."(76)
(76) See Rev. William W. Roberts, The Pontifical Decrees against the
Doctrine of the Earth's Movement, London, 1885, p. 94; and for the text
of the papal bull, Speculatores domus Israel, pp. 132, 133, see also St.
George Mivart's article in the Nineteenth Century for July, 1885. For
the authentic publication of the bull, see preface to the Index of 1664,
where the bull appears, signed by the Pope. The Rev. Mr. Roberts and
Mr. St. George Mivart are Roman Catholics and both acknowledge that the
papal sanction was fully given.
The position of the mother Church had been thus made especially difficult; and the first important move in retreat by the apologists was the statement that Galileo was condemned, not because he affirmed the motion of the earth, but because he supported it from Scripture. There was a slight appearance of truth in this. Undoubtedly, Galileo's letters to Castelli and the grand duchess, in which he attempted to show that his astronomical doctrines were not opposed to Scripture, gave a new stir to religious bigotry. For a considerable time, then, this quibble served its purpose; even a hundred and fifty years after Galileo's condemnation it was renewed by the Protestant Mallet du Pan, in his wish to gain favour from the older Church.