But this is a digression. I have quoted Bellarmine to show what he thought of the necessity, from an ecclesiastical standpoint, of putting down Copernicanism, at least until it should be proved to demonstration. He did not appear to contemplate a dogmatic decision against it, but what he did desire, and succeeded in obtaining, was a disciplinary prohibition of the obnoxious doctrine. As a theologian he well knew that such a prohibition would not be an irrevocable act; it might be withdrawn when the conclusive proof of the forbidden opinion should be established. He probably thought that the certain demonstration of the opinion would only take place, as mathematicians would say, at an infinitely distant date; nor was he wholly wrong, as has already been remarked, for the absolute demonstration of the Copernican doctrine is not, from the very nature of the case, a thing to be achieved.
Yet, if he had lived at a later period, I do not doubt that he would have been satisfied with the moral evidence, the mass of indirect proof, on which Copernicanism rests. Many years later, the Jesuit Father Fabri, who appears to have held the office of Canon Penitentiary of St. Peter’s, expresses himself in much the same way as Bellarmine. He was replying to the arguments of some Copernican correspondent, possibly an Englishman, since his reply was inserted in the Acts of the English Royal Society in 1665, and he says: “There is no reason why the Church should not understand those texts in their literal sense, and declare that they should be so understood so long as there is no demonstration to prove the contrary. But if any such demonstration hereafter be devised by your party (which I do not at all expect), in that case the Church will not at all hesitate to set forth that those texts are to be understood in an improper—i.e., non-literal—and figurative sense, according to the words of the poet, ‘terræque urbesque recedunt.’”
As a further illustration of the position thus taken by Bellarmine and others as to the interpretation of Scripture, I may here mention that some few years after the prohibition of Copernican works by the Index (probably about 1623), it is said that Guidacci had an interview with Father Grassi, at the suggestion of the Jesuit Father Tarquinio Galluzzi, and that F. Grassi’s words were as follows: “When a demonstration of this movement [that of the Earth] shall be discovered, it will be fitting to interpret Scripture otherwise than has hitherto been done: this is the opinion of Cardinal Bellarmine.” It is not intended to deny that there were those who magnified the effect of the decree of the Index; the devotees of Aristotle, who had gained what was to them a great triumph, were sure to make the most of it.
CHAPTER III.
We will now return to the narrative; and in due course discuss the condemnation of Galileo by the Inquisition sixteen years after the events just described.
It may be mentioned, as illustrating the feeling in Rome towards Galileo personally, that on the 11th March, 1616, he had an audience, lasting three-quarters of an hour, of Pope Paul V. He assured the Pope of the rectitude of his intentions, and complained of the persecutions of his adversaries. Paul V. answered very kindly, saying that both himself and the Cardinals of the Index had formed a high personal opinion of him, and did not believe his calumniators.
In the year 1620 there appeared a monitum of the Congregation of the Index, permitting the reading of the great work of Copernicus after certain specified corrections had been made.
Not long after this, in 1622, if I mistake not, Pope Paul V. died, and Galileo’s friend, Cardinal Barberini, succeeded him, taking the name of Urban VIII. Another of his friends, Monsignor Ciampoli, became secretary of briefs to the new Pope.
Our philosopher having ascertained that he would be well received, went to Rome in April, 1624, and was treated by the new Pope with all possible consideration. He had, in fact, several conversations with him; and we may well conjecture it was on these occasions that Urban VIII., discussing the Copernican theory, used some of those arguments which Galileo afterwards put in the mouth of Simplicio in his celebrated Dialogue, thereby deeply offending the Pope.