[I.] This business is of greater moment than certain of the Copernicans have reckoned; for, on occasion of this controversy concerning the motion and rest of the Earth — which in itself is merely Physical and Astronomical — there is now turned by them, if we accept their interpretation, into controversy both the literal sense of Sacred Scripture, and the right of judging and defining concerning its true sense. Therefore it behooves me — both for the plan of the work undertaken, and for the duty of a Religious life and of Theology (which for nearly a whole decade I have professed by teaching publicly and privately) — to inquire with all the diligence and sincerity I can, whether and how far the opinions of the divine letters avail to settle this question; especially [those] estimated from the unanimous consent of the Fathers and expositors. Especially since every year, according to the most laudable custom of our Society, all the Masters of Theology and of Arts, together with our Scholastics, at the beginning of the opening of the schools, in the profession of Faith, by the prescript of the Most Holy Council of Trent, by a most sacred oath upon the holy Gospel of God, are wont among other things thus to pledge, vow, and swear:
[Margin: From the bull of Pius IV on the form of the oath of the Profession of Faith.]
“Likewise I admit Sacred Scripture according to that sense which Holy Mother Church has held and holds — whose office it is to judge of the true sense and interpretation of the Sacred Scriptures; nor will I ever take it otherwise than according to the unanimous consent of the Fathers, and so will I interpret it.”
Things similar to which are had in Session 4 [of Trent], in the decree concerning the edition and use of the sacred books. And always to be kept before the eyes, even in matters arduous to the understanding, is that illustrious opinion of St. Augustine (book 2, On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 5):
[Margin: St. Augustine’s opinion on the authority of Sacred Scripture.]
“But in whatever manner, and of whatever sort, the waters there may be, let us not at all doubt that they are there. For greater is the authority of this Scripture than all the capacity of human talent” —
and (ch. 9):
“For this is true which the divine authority says, rather than that which human infirmity conjectures.”
[II.] Yet on the other side, care must be taken lest, when Sacred Scripture is capable of several interpretations, we cling to some one which can be convicted of falsity from elsewhere, and [lest] we summon patronage from the divine letters for our errors. For most prudently the same St. Augustine (book 1, On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 18) says:
[Margin: The same St. Augustine’s opinion on the use of the Sacred Scriptures.]
“And in obscure matters, most remote from our eyes, if we read any divine writings thereon which can — the Faith in which we are imbued being saved — give rise to one opinion and another, let us not cast ourselves into any one of them by precipitate affirmation: so that, if perchance the truth, more diligently discussed, rightly overthrow it, we fall — fighting not for the opinion of the divine Scriptures, but for our own, in such a way that we wish that to be the Scriptures’ which is our own; whereas we ought rather to wish that to be our own which is the Scriptures’.”
A similar admonition he has at the end of book 2 On Genesis to the Letter. It must furthermore be guarded against that we not serve up the sacred letters to be derided by those to whom the error is manifest which we would wish to defend by abuse of them: as if someone wished to maintain that a clod of earth set upon water could float on top, on account of a wrongly-understood Psalm 135 [136]. And so the same holy Doctor (book 2, On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 1) says:
“Here it comes [to mind] to admonish that the error be guarded against which in book 1 we admonished must be guarded against: lest perchance, because it is written in the psalms, ‘He founded the earth upon the waters,’ anyone of us should think that, against those subtly disputing about the weights of the elements, one must lean on this testimony of the scriptures — because they, not held by the authority of our letters, not knowing in what manner it was said, will more easily deride the holy books than repudiate that which they have either perceived by certain reasons, or proved by most manifest experiments.”
And explaining that passage of the Psalm to the letter, he says it is understood of islands and continents having a higher situation above the waters, and of the roofs of caverns made firm over the waters with a hanging solidity; and therefore he concludes:
“Wherefore no one can understand to the letter what was said, ‘He founded the earth upon the waters,’ so as to think that the weight of the waters is, as it were, subjected by natural order to supporting the earthly weight.”
Furthermore, in book 1 On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 19, when he had taught that it can happen that the author or writer of Sacred Scripture wished [the words] to be understood in a twofold sense, he inculcates that it must be guarded against that we seek — to the great detriment of catholic esteem — a defense from the divine eloquences for a falsehood easily manifest from the rules of Astronomy; whose words I shall not be loth to transcribe here, because they serve our business greatly:
“It is not inconveniently believed that the Sacred Writer wished to convey both [senses], if a sure circumstance favors either opinion. For it often happens that something about the earth, the heaven, the other elements of this world of this sort, about [their] motion and revolution, or even the magnitude and intervals of the stars, about certain eclipses of the Sun and Moon, about the cycles of years and seasons, about the natures of animals, shrubs, stones, and the like — even a non-Christian knows in such a way that he holds it by most certain reason or experience. But it is exceedingly base, and pernicious, and most of all to be guarded against, that any infidel should hear a Christian, speaking of these things as if according to the Christian writings, so rave that — as the saying goes — seeing him err by a whole heaven, he can scarcely hold his laughter. And the trouble is not so much that the erring man is derided, but that our authors are believed by those who are outside [the Church] to have held such things; and, to the great ruin of those for whose salvation we labor, they are reprehended and spurned as unlearned. For when they have caught anyone of the number of Christians erring in a matter which they themselves know most excellently, and asserting his vain opinion from our books — by what means are they going to believe those books concerning the resurrection of the dead, and the hope of eternal life, and the kingdom of heaven, when they shall have thought them to be fallaciously written about those things which they have now been able to experience, or to perceive by indubitable reckonings? For how much trouble and sadness rash presumers bring upon prudent brethren cannot be sufficiently told: when, if ever they begin to be reprehended and convicted of their depraved and false opinion by those who are not held by the authority of our books, in order to defend that which they have said with the lightest rashness and most open falsity, they try to bring forward those same Holy books, to prove it from them,” etc.
These forewarnings premised, let us approach the sacred letters.
✠ [Chapter XXXV ends, Chapter XXXVI begins, on this page.]
[…continues on p. 480 (PDF 515) with the catchword “Solis” — beginning the Scripture passages on the motion of the Sun.]
(printed p. 480 — Chapter XXXVI unfolds its catalogue of Scripture passages under three headings: the Sun’s motion (its risings and settings, Joshua’s halted Sun, Hezekiah’s reversed sundial, and the Psalmist’s Sun running its course); the Earth’s rest and immobility (Paralipomenon, Job, Psalms, Ecclesiastes, with two literal senses distinguished — station against local motion, and incorruptibility); and the Earth’s situation, that heaven is “up” and the Earth “down,” which begins here.)
[Header: BOOK IX. SECTION IV. — 480]
The Motion of the Sun from Sacred Scripture
[Margin: The rising and setting of the Sun [is] frequent in Scripture.]
[III.] First, that the Sun rises and sets, and goes forth over the earth, Scripture often expressly affirms: thus Genesis 15, “And when the Sun was setting, a deep sleep fell upon Abraham”; and ch. 19, “The Sun was risen upon the earth, and Lot entered into Segor [Zoar]”; and ch. 32, “And immediately the Sun rose upon him”; and Judges 19, “And the Sun set upon them near Gabaa [Gibeah]”; and 3 Kings [1 Kings] ch. 22, “Before the Sun set”; and 2 Paralipomenon [Chronicles] ch. 18, “He died at the setting of the Sun”; and Judith 14, “And it shall be, when the Sun is risen”; and Esther 11, “Light and the Sun arose”; and in very many other places in which mention is made of the rising or setting of the Sun — but especially Matthew 5, “Who makes His Sun to rise upon the good and the evil”; and Ephesians 4, “Let not the Sun go down upon your wrath” — besides which I have numbered another 40 and more passages for this matter.
[Margin: Joshua stayed the Sun and Moon.]
[IV.] Secondly, it is attributed to a Miracle of the divine Omnipotence to be able to restrain the course of the Sun, and conversely to move the Earth, which stands unmoved — Job 9, “Who moves the Earth out of its place, and its pillars are shaken; who commands the Sun, and it rises not” — that is, if He command, it will not rise; as will happen at the end of the world, concerning which Habakkuk 3, “The Sun and Moon stood still.” And it was done at the command of Joshua, ch. 10:
“Then Joshua spoke to the Lord, in the day that He delivered the Amorite in the sight of the children of Israel, and he said before them: Sun, move not toward Gabaon, and Moon, toward the valley of Aialon. And the Sun and the Moon stood still, until the people avenged themselves of their enemies.”
So the Vulgate — granted that the Hebrew reading has, for “move not,” Sile [Be still], and for “stood,” Siluit [was still]; but the Septuagint has στήτω ὁ ἥλιος [stētō ho hēlios], “Sun, stand still.” And the Canonical Writer goes on in the same place, saying: “Is not this written in the book of the Just? So the Sun stood still in the midst of heaven, and hasted not to go down the space of one day. There was not before nor after so long a day: the Lord obeying the voice of a man, and fighting for Israel.” In which place the Septuagint translators have: “And the Sun in the midst of heaven did not proceed toward the West” — wherefore it then appears restrained, when it was in the meridian. To this pertains that [passage], 1 Paralipomenon ch. 4, “Who made the Sun to stand still”; and Ecclesiasticus 46, “Was not the Sun stopped in his anger, and one day made as two?”
To which portent — by far most celebrated — that other [miracle] was almost a twin, by which the Sun, at God’s command, was turned back toward the East, so that the shadow of the stylus [gnomon] on the sundial of Achaz [Ahaz] went back by 10 lines.
[Margin: The Sun’s return on the sundial of Ahaz.]
For although in 4 Kings [2 Kings] ch. 20 it is said, “And so Isaiah the Prophet invoked the Lord, and brought back the shadow through the lines by which it had already descended on the sundial of Ahaz, backward ten degrees,” yet that bringing-back was made in the very motion of the Sun retreating, as Isaiah himself — the worker and witness of this miracle — expounds (ch. 38), expressly saying: “Behold, I will bring back the shadow of the lines, by which it had descended on the sundial of Ahaz in the Sun, backward ten lines. And the Sun returned ten lines, by the degrees by which it had gone down.” And Ecclesiasticus ch. 48 confirms [it], speaking of Hezekiah: “In his days the Sun went backward, and he added life to the King.” Wherefore not on the sundial of Ahaz only, but in others too the same portent appeared; which was the cause that the Babylonians — most observant of the stars and the celestial motions — when they had noted it, and had heard the cause from the now-spread report of the miracle, in order to be made more certain of its circumstances, sent legates to Hezekiah; concerning which legation the second book of Paralipomenon ch. 32 testifies, in these words: “Notwithstanding, in the legation of the princes of Babylon, who had been sent to him, to inquire about the portent which had happened upon the earth, etc.”
[Margin: The Sun’s motion described in detail in the Sacred Scriptures.]
[V.] Thirdly, the motion of the Sun — especially the diurnal — and its vicissitudes, effects, and speed are described in detail in the sacred letters: for in Psalm 18 [19], concerning the glory of God peculiarly appearing in the Sun, it is sung:
“In the Sun He has set His tabernacle; and He, like a bridegroom coming forth from his bridal chamber, has rejoiced as a giant to run the way. His going forth is from the highest heaven, and His circuit even to the highest thereof; nor is there any who can hide himself from His heat.”
Where, in the Astronomical manner, the beginning and end of the day is taken from the highest, and at the highest, of heaven — that is, from the culmination of the Meridian and the highest altitude of the Sun. But what is clearer than those words of Ecclesiastes, ch. 1: “One generation passes, and another generation comes; but the Earth stands for ever. The Sun rises and sets, and returns to its place; and there rising again, it wheels through the South, and bends toward the North: surveying all things in its circuit, the spirit goes forth, and returns unto its own circles.”
But the transition being made from Ecclesiastes to Ecclesiasticus, it is surely worthy of observation how often the motion of the Sun is intimated by him [Sirach]. In ch. 26 he says, “As the Sun rising,” etc.; and ch. 33, “Why does one day excel another, and one light another, and one year another year — [coming] from the Sun? By the knowledge of the Lord they were separated, the Sun being made; and by the wisdom of the Lord, keeping His command, they are divided.” Therefore it belongs to the Sun, and not to the Earth, to obey God and to distinguish the days. And ch. 43, “The Sun in his appearance announcing at his going forth; an admirable vessel, the work of the Most High, etc. Great is the Lord who made him, and at His words he hastens his course.” And so God Himself commends His own greatness from the speed of the Sun’s course — which is surely as much greater than the speed of the Earth would be (if revolved by a diurnal whirling), as the circumference of the Ecliptic, through which the center of the Sun proceeds, is greater than the circumference of the terrestrial globe; for it is, according to our opinion, greater 7300 times. The same Sun’s perpetual obedience toward God in its motion is commended in Baruch 6 [the Letter of Jeremiah]: “The Sun indeed and the Moon and the stars, since they are bright and sent forth for [men’s] uses, are obedient.” The rest we pass over, because to one for whom these do not suffice, no other testimonies would be enough.
The Rest and Immobility of the Earth from the Sacred Letters
[VI.] In the first book of Paralipomenon ch. 16, in the Canticle of David after the bringing-back of the ark, it is said: “Let all the earth be moved from before His face; for He has founded the world immovable” — namely the globe of the earth. And Job 9: the power of God is praised, that He could, if He willed, move the Earth: “Who moves the earth out of its place, and its pillars are shaken” — which are the words of Job himself; and ch. 26, “Who stretches out the North over the void, and hangs the earth upon nothing” — which likewise are Job’s words; and ch. 38, God Himself says, “upon what are its bases made solid?” For that suspension and balancing signifies immobility; as also Proverbs 8, “When He poised the foundations of the earth”; and Isaiah ch. 40, “Who has measured the waters in his fist, and weighed the heavens in his palm? who has poised with three fingers the bulk of the earth, and weighed the mountains in a balance, and the hills in scales?” And now Psalm 74 [75]: “The earth is melted, and all that dwell in it: I have established its columns” — that is, although the animals and inhabitants of the earth be melted like wax or ice, and vanish, yet the Earth itself remains immovable, as though leaning on most firm columns, by my command and power. On which matter God is again commended: Psalm 92 [93], “For He has established the globe of the earth, which shall not be moved”; and Psalm 95 [96], “For He has set right the globe of the earth, which shall not be moved”; and Psalm 103 [104], “Who has founded the earth upon its own stability; it shall not be inclined for ever and ever”; and Psalm 118 [119], verse 90, “Thy truth [endures] unto generation and generation; Thou hast founded the earth, and it abides.” Isaiah too, ch. 44, “I am the Lord that makes all things, that alone stretches out the heavens, that establishes the earth, and [there is] none with me.” But that [passage] of Ecclesiastes 1, “One generation passes, and another generation comes; but the Earth stands for ever,” in Hebrew is had thus: “The Earth is fixed and abiding for ever.”
Wherefore the first and simple sense is that it [the Earth] stands, inasmuch as “station” is opposed to lation or local motion — especially since it is contraposed to the local motion of the Sun, when it is said, “The Sun rises and sets.” But the secondary literal sense is that it does not pass away like the generations of men — that is, that it is not wholly corrupted. For St. Augustine teaches, by examples or in practice (book 12 of the Confessions, chs. 8, 19, 20, 24, 31; and book 1 of On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 19), and St. Thomas (part 1, q. 1, art. 10), that Sacred Scripture can have many literal senses; but the same St. Augustine (book 1 of On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 19, and book 3 of On Christian Doctrine, ch. 23) likewise teaches that, when Scripture admits several senses not repugnant to one another, all are to be received together.
On the Situation of the Earth from Sacred Scripture
[VII.] That heaven is simply “up,” but the Earth “down,” the divine letters not rarely teach: namely…
[…continues on p. 481 (PDF 516) with the catchword “nempe” — the Scripture passages on the situation of the Earth.]
(printed p. 481 — Chapter XXXVI finishes its passages on the Earth’s downward situation, with which the Copernican system “seems little to agree.” Chapter XXXVII then opens on how the Fathers and sacred interpreters understood these texts: all understood the Sun-motion passages literally of a true, real motion (even Augustine rejecting his own floated alternative); all “conspire” that Joshua’s miracle was a real halting of the solar body, though the Sun’s position and the length of the Joshuan day are controverted.)
[Header: DE SYSTEMATE TERRÆ MOTÆ — 481]
…namely Deuteronomy 4, verse 39: “Know therefore, and consider in thy heart, that the Lord Himself is God in heaven above, and on the earth beneath.” With which agrees Joshua 2, verse 11: “For the Lord your God, He is God in heaven above, and on the earth beneath.” And 3 Kings [1 Kings] ch. 8: “O Lord God of Israel, there is no God like Thee, in heaven above and on the earth beneath.” In Proverbs too, ch. 25, it is said: “The heaven above, and the earth beneath.” And Jeremiah 31: “Thus says the Lord: If the heavens above can be measured, and the foundations of the earth beneath be searched out.” And Joel ch. 2, which is cited in Acts of the Apostles 2: “I will give wonders in heaven above, and signs on the earth beneath.” Add to these many other places in which heaven is opposed to Earth: Genesis 1, “God created heaven and Earth”; and Psalm 113 [115], “The heaven of heaven is the Lord’s, but the Earth He has given to the children of men”; to the Colossians 1, “In the Heavens and on the Earth.” With which the Copernican system seems little to agree, since it places the Earth not simply “beneath,” but sets the Sun in the center of the universe as in the lowest place; and since it does not distinguish the Earth from heaven, but locates it in heaven among the Planets.