I am inclined to think that the authority of Holy Scripture is intended to convince men of those truths which are necessary for their salvation, and which being far above man’s understanding cannot be made credible by any learning, or any other means than revelation by the Holy Spirit. But that the same God who has endowed us with senses, reason, and understanding, does not permit us to use them, and desires to acquaint us in any other way with such knowledge as we are in a position to acquire for ourselves by means of those faculties, that it seems to me I am not bound to believe, especially concerning those sciences about which the Holy Scriptures contain only small fragments and varying conclusions; and this is precisely the case with astronomy, of which there is so little that the planets are not even all enumerated.”
Having emphatically declared that thus dragging the Bible into a scientific controversy was only a subterfuge of his opponents, who, feeling that they could not successfully fight him on his own ground, had entrenched themselves behind an unassailable bulwark, Galileo proceeds to discuss the well known passage in Joshua which the Aristotelians were fond of adducing to demonstrate the contradictions between the modern views and Holy Scripture. His object is to beat his adversaries with their own weapons, by showing that if this passage is taken literally, and God really arrested the sun in his course in answer to Joshua’s prayer, and thus prolonged the day, it makes the incorrectness, nay the impossibility, of the Ptolemaic system quite clear, while the Copernican agrees with it very well. According to the Ptolemaic ideas, Galileo goes on, the sun has two motions, the annual one from west to east, and the daily one from east to west. Being diametrically opposed to each other, they cannot both be the sun’s own motions. The annual motion is the one which belongs to it; the other originates in the primum mobile, which carries the sun round the earth in twenty-four hours and occasions day and night. If therefore God desired to prolong the day (supposing the Ptolemaic system to be the right one) He must have commanded, not the sun but the primum mobile, to stand still. Now, as it is stated in the Bible that God arrested the sun in its course, either the motions of the heavenly bodies must be different from what Ptolemy maintained them to be, or the literal meaning must be departed from, and we must conclude that the Holy Scriptures, in stating that God commanded the sun to stand still, meant the primum mobile, but, accommodating themselves to the comprehension of those who are scarcely able to understand the rising and setting of the sun, said just the opposite of what they would have said to scientifically educated people. Galileo also says that it was highly improbable that God should have commanded the sun alone to stand still, and have allowed the other stars to pursue their course, as all nature would have been deranged by it without any occasion, and his belief was that God had enjoined a temporary rest on the whole system of the universe, at the expiration of which all the heavenly bodies, undisturbed in their mutual relations, could have begun to revolve again in perfect order: doubtless his inmost conviction, although to us it sounds like irony.
At the close of this long letter he explains how the literal sense of the passage accords with the Copernican system. By his discovery of the solar spots the revolution of the sun on its axis is demonstrated; moreover it is also very probable that the sun is the chief instrument of nature, the heart of the universe so to speak, and not only, as is known with certainty, is the source of light to the planets revolving round it, but also lends them their motion. If, further, we accept with Copernicus a revolution of the earth, at any rate a diurnal motion on its own axis, it would certainly suffice merely to stop the sun in his course, in order to bring the whole system to a standstill, and thus to prolong the day without disordering nature.[91]
Castelli saw nothing ominous in this exhaustive reply to the Grand Duchess Christine’s objections, and took care to give it a wide circulation by means of numerous copies. Galileo’s enemies, however, eagerly grasped the dangerous weapon thus guilelessly placed in their hands by his friend. They ingeniously gave a meaning to the epistle which exactly adapted it to their purpose. They turned Galileo’s emphatic opinion that the Scriptures had no business in a scientific controversy into the reproach that he assailed the universal authority of the Bible; by making Joshua’s miracle the subject of his disquisitions he laid himself open to the cutting remark that the statements of Holy Scripture must be protected from the arbitrary interpretations of profane laymen.
Gherardini, the worthy bishop of Fiesole, who was apparently entirely unaware of the existence of Copernicus, was so enraged about the system that Galileo had defended that he publicly insulted him, and threatened to bring the matter before the Grand Duke. He could only be pacified by being informed that the founder of that system was not any man then living in Tuscany, but a German who had died seventy years before, and that his work had been dedicated to Pope Paul III., and had been graciously accepted by him.
Meanwhile, the league formed in Florence against Galileo had found in Father Caccini, a Dominican monk, the right tool for setting on foot the long-desired scandal. He had had some experience in misuse of the pulpit, for he had before this got up a scene in church at Bologna. And as the favourable moment for action had now arrived, Caccini appeared as Galileo’s first public accuser by thundering out a fierce sermon against the astronomer and his system on the fourth Sunday after Advent, 1614, in the church of Santa Maria Novella, at Florence. He showed his wit by selecting as the two texts for his philippic the tenth chapter of Joshua and the first chapter of Acts. He began with the words: Viri Galilæi quid statis aspicientes in cœlum: “Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing up into heaven?” Astronomy was thus happily introduced into the pulpit. The furious preacher asserted that the doctrine taught by Galileo in Florence, of the earth’s revolution round the sun, was quite irreconcilable with the Catholic religion, since it glaringly contradicted several statements in Holy Scripture, the literal meaning of which, as adopted by the fathers, was opposed to it. And, as he further asserted that no one was permitted to interpret the Bible in any other sense than that adopted by the fathers, he as good as denounced the doctrine as heretical. The sermon ended with a coarse attack on mathematicians in general, whose science he called an invention of the devil; and with a wish that they should be banished from all Christian states, since all heresies proceeded from them.
As was to be expected, the affair caused a great sensation. Father Luigi Maraffi, a Dominican monk distinguished for his learning, who was all his life an admirer of Galileo, told him in a letter of 10th January, 1615,[92] how heartily he regretted this miserable exhibition. He said, among other things: “I have been extremely annoyed at the scandal which has taken place, and the more so because the author of it is a brother of my order; for, unfortunately, I have to answer for all the stupidities (tutte le bestialità) which thirty or forty thousand brothers may and do actually commit.” This sentence has caused all Galileo’s biographers who mention this letter, with the exception of Nelli,[93] to conclude that Maraffi was the general of the order of Dominicans; yet a glance at the Scriptores Ordinis Prædicatorum, etc., edited by the Fathers Quetif and Echard, would have shown them that from 1612 to 1629 Father Seraphin Secco, of Pavia, was general, and was succeeded by Nicholas Ridolfi.[94] Perhaps, however, Father Maraffi bore the title of a preacher of the Dominican order, which fully explains his letter to Galileo.[95]
Galileo thought of complaining to the ecclesiastical authorities of the insult which had been offered him, and of demanding satisfaction. But Prince Cesi, whom he consulted about it, strongly advised him, if any steps were taken against Caccini, to keep himself entirely out of the affair and to avoid all mention of the Copernican theory; for Cardinal Bellarmine, the first authority of the sacred college, had told him (Cesi) that he held the opinion to be heretical, and that the principle of the earth’s double motion was undoubtedly contrary to Holy Scripture. In this complicated state of affairs the prince recommended that several mathematicians should complain of the public insults to the science of mathematics and its disciples. But he gave another express warning to leave the Copernican system entirely alone, or they might take occasion at Rome to consult whether the further spread of this opinion was to be permitted or condemned. Cesi added that in that case it would very likely be condemned, as the Peripatetic school was in the majority there, and its opponents were generally hated; besides, it was very easy to prohibit and suspend.[96]
Although Galileo took this hint, and the affair of Caccini was prudently allowed to drop, it must be regarded as the first impetus to all the later persecutions of Galileo.
The questionable merit of having brought Galileo’s affairs before the tribunal of the Inquisition belongs to Father Lorini, a friend of Caccini, and brother of the same order. Galileo’s fatal letter to Castelli had fallen into his hands; and when, later on, thanks to Caccini’s zeal, a great ferment began about it in monkish circles at Florence, Lorini was moved to send a denunciation of the letter and a copy of it secretly to the Holy Office at Rome. The whole statement, which was addressed to Cardinal Mellini, President of the Congregation of the Index, is couched in a most artful and miserable style. The denunciator, too cowardly and too cunning to mention Galileo by name (for he still had powerful friends even among the highest dignitaries of the Church), only speaks of the “Galileists” in general, “who maintain, agreeably to the doctrine of Copernicus, that the earth moves and the heavens stand still.” He even ascribes the enclosed letter to Copernicus, in order to leave the honoured philosopher quite out of the question. Lorini goes on to say: “all the fathers of this (his own) devout convent of St. Mark find many passages in this letter which are suspicious, or presumptuous, as when it says that many expressions of Holy Scripture are indefinite; that in discussions about natural phenomena the lowest place must be assigned to them; that the commentators have often been mistaken in their interpretations; that the Holy Scriptures should not be mixed up with anything but matters of religion; that in nature philosophical and astronomical evidence is of more value than holy and Divine (which passages your reverence[97] will find underlined by me in the said letter, of which I send an exact copy); and, finally, that when Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, we must only understand that the command was addressed to the primum mobile, as this itself is the sun.” In these statements Lorini perceives great peril for the Church; he is indignant “that they (the Galileists) should explain the Holy Scriptures after their own fashion, and differently from the usual interpretation of the fathers, and should defend an opinion which the Holy Scriptures appear to be entirely opposed to.... They tread the entire philosophy of Aristotle, of which scholastic philosophy has made so much use, under foot,” he exclaims: “in short, to show how clever they are, they (the Galileists) say a thousand shameless things and scatter them abroad in our city, which holds fast to the Catholic faith, both from its own good spirit and the watchfulness of our august rulers.” He feels moved to inform the cardinal of all this, that he may keep an eye on it, and that if any remedy seems called for he may take the necessary measures. After this ominous hint he hypocritically adds: “I, who hold that all those who call themselves Galileists are orderly men and good Christians, but a little over wise and self conceited in their opinions, declare that I am actuated by nothing in this business but zeal for the sacred cause.” After this assurance he begs that this letter of his, (“I do not say the enclosed letter,”) he hastens to add in a parenthesis, “may be kept secret and considered merely a friendly exchange of opinion between servant and master,” and not as a legal deposition.[98] In conclusion, he expressly mentions the celebrated sermon of Caccini, probably in order that he might be called as a witness against Galileo, an object which, as we shall see, was attained.