[I.] This is the chief controversy between us and the Copernicans: for they contend that the Sacred letters, in these Physical and Mathematical matters, accommodate themselves to the common sense of the crowd — to which, since the Sun seems to be moved, but the Earth to stand still (because the Sun seems much smaller than the Earth), Sacred Scripture had to attemper itself, leaving meanwhile to the more learned men [the task] that, from the harmony and beauty of the divine works (estimated by reason rather than by sense), they should reconcile the tongue of God with the finger of God — that is, the sacred locutions with the effects worthy of God’s Omnipotence. For thus Kepler, in the notes to chapter 1 of the Mysterium Cosmographicum:
“There is indeed some tongue of God; but there is also some finger of God. And who would deny that the tongue of God is attempered both to His purpose, and on that account to the popular tongue of men? In matters therefore most evident, to twist the tongue of God, so that it should refute the finger of God in nature — that, every most religious [man] will most of all beware of. Let him to whom the praises of the Creator and our Lord are a care — let him, I say, read my fifth book of the Harmonics, and, having perceived the most exquisitely harmonic arrangement of the motions, let him deliberate with himself whether the causes sought of a reconciliation between the tongue and the finger of God were just enough, pregnant enough; or whether it be expedient — that reconciliation being repudiated — to oppress this fame of the immense beauty of the divine works by censures.”
The same [Kepler] also, in the Epitome of Copernican Astronomy at the end of book 1, when he had noted that the Astronomers too speak according to the sense of the eyes — when they say the Planets stand still, the Sun retrogrades, [the planets] celebrate [their] Solstices, etc. — subjoins:
“How much less will it have to be demanded of the Scriptures divinely inspired, that — the vulgar custom of speaking being repudiated — they should weigh their words to the rule of natural science, and, by abstruse and inopportune locutions concerning matters beyond the grasp of those to be instructed, disturb the simple people of God, and by that very thing fence off for them the way to their own genuine end, [which is] far more sublime.”
And thus, here and there, do the other supporters of the Copernican sect [respond], when something from the most sacred Codices is objected to them.
[Margin: Response to the 4th Question. — Sacred Scripture is to be taken in the proper literal sense, when it is not manifestly false.]
[II.] But I say that, in these and all other propositions and locutions of Sacred Scripture, the proper literal sense is to be followed, and their plain and obvious signification — as often as it does not manifestly repugn some truth [known] from a more certain revelation, or divine tradition, or a definition of the Supreme Pontiff, or [a truth] noted from the natural light [of reason]: for if it should thus repugn, [the words] are to be taken figuratively, and interpreted in another sense. But when I say the sense of the letter is to be followed, I do not exclude the other senses — Mystical or allegorical, tropological, and anagogical; but one may so use them, that nevertheless the literal sense be not denied, but either expressly premised as a foundation, or implicitly and tacitly supposed. Which proposition, when I shall have proved [it], it will then remain to be shown that, if the assertions of Sacred Scripture concerning the motion of the Sun and the immobility of the Earth be taken as uttered only as to appearance and the sense of the crowd, but not as to truth, they are not only not taken to the letter, but [taken] in a sense plainly false — and that without any necessity, since their literal sense repugns no truth evidently or certainly noted from elsewhere.
[Margin: How manifold is the sense of Scripture?]
But I here suppose the most celebrated division of the sense of Sacred Scripture into the literal or Historical — of which the one is called simple or proper, the other figurative — and into…
[…continues on p. 492 (PDF 527) with the catchword “in” — the spiritual senses, and the Rules on the use of the literal sense.]
(printed p. 492 — Chapter XXXIX, Question 4, proves that the proper literal sense must be followed: from Aquinas, Salmeron, and Bellarmine, then from the ancient Fathers (Basil, Tertullian, Augustine, Gregory the Great) — including Augustine’s literal acceptance of the waters above the heavens and his resistance to Jerome over Galatians 2, since admitting one “officious lie” into Scripture leaves no part of it safe; therefore the Sun is really moved, not merely apparently, because Scripture says so.)
[Header: BOOK IX. SECTION IV. — 492]
…into the Spiritual or Mystical [sense], which is subdivided in three ways — namely into the Allegorical (concerning a future thing in the Church of God militant), the Anagogical (concerning the future [life] in the other life), and the Tropological or moral sense — although some confound this [last] with the literal but figurative sense, and St. Jerome (in question 12, to Hedibia) and St. Augustine (book On the utility of believing, ch. 3) distribute these senses a little differently. But concerning the common division of these senses, see especially St. Thomas (part 1, q. 1), Sixtus of Siena (book 3 of the Holy Library), Possevinus (book 2 of the Select Library, ch. 18), Bellarmine (controversy 1, book 3, ch. 4), and Salmeron (vol. 1, Prolegomena 7 and 8).
[Margin: The Response is proved. — St. Thomas’s authority.]
These being supposed, our Response is proved: first, because the literal sense is principally intended by God, who is the author of the divine letters, according to that [saying] of St. Thomas (part 1, q. 1, art. 10): “But because the literal sense is that which the author intends, and the author of Sacred Scripture is God, who comprehends all things at once by His intellect — it is not unfitting (as Augustine says, Confessions 12) if, even according to the literal sense, in one letter of scripture there be several senses.”
But the literal sense, simply [taken], is that which is taken according to the property and obvious signification — which is related to the improper or figurative [sense] as any literal [sense is related] to the mystical, because the figurative is more recondite than the proper.
[Margin: Sixtus of Siena. — Salmeron.]
And the reason is, because, as Sixtus of Siena says (book 3 of the Holy Library, under the title “On the use of the historical exposition”): “The historical kind of exposition is especially most necessary, above all, for the instruction of those things which are to be believed by us, etc. For no exposition adduced for the proof of dogmas has force and strength, except that which truly, purely, and genuinely explains the meaning of the letter.” And the same our Salmeron most gravely inculcates (vol. 1, Prolegomena 9, canon 33), where, when he had said that “from the words of Sacred Scripture, according to the reason of Grammar and from the proper signification of the words, one must by no means recede, unless some valid reason occur which compels [one] to some figurative locution,” he subjoins:
“For otherwise the whole of Sacred Scripture would perish, and its literal sense, and it would have only vain allegories and inopportune understandings, which each one would attach to it according to his own arbitrary will and pleasure; and thus Scripture would always say what we wish, not what the Holy Spirit would wish us to understand.”
Which he confirms from the Jurisconsults (under the Title “On the signification of words”), and from Marcellus the Jurisconsult (on the law Non aliter, Law 3, “On legacies”), who sanction that one must not recede from the property of the words, unless from most manifest indications and from the absurdity of the things themselves it be gathered that the mind of the speaker was other [than the literal].
[Margin: Bellarmine. — Possevinus.]
Thus Bellarmine (controversy 1, book 3, ch. 3): “It is agreed between us and the adversaries, that efficacious arguments must be sought from the literal sense alone: for that sense which is immediately gathered from the words, it is certain, is the sense of the Holy Spirit.” Antonius Possevinus too (book 2 of the Select Library, ch. 18) praises and reviews those “who, either in antiquity or in this age, have interpreted the Divine Scripture according to the literal sense, which is the solid foundation of all the senses.” But lest we seem to beg [our] testimony only from [our] own household or the more recent [authors]: let us see, concerning this literal sense, the opinion of the more ancient Fathers.
[Margin: St. Basil.]
[III.] St. Basil (homily 9 of the Hexaemeron) calls those who drag Scripture to mere allegories, or in any way take away the truth of the letter, “interpreters of their own dreams,” and subjoins: “But I, when I hear ‘grass,’ understand grass; and stalk, and fish, and beast, and all the cattle, I take as they have been said.”
[Margin: Tertullian. — St. Augustine.]
But before him, Tertullian (in the book On the flesh of Christ): “Surely [it would be] most perverse that, naming ‘flesh,’ we should understand ‘soul’; and signifying ‘soul,’ we should interpret ‘flesh.’ All things will be in danger of being taken otherwise than they are, and of losing what they are, while they are taken otherwise, if they are named otherwise than they are”; and below he says: “The salvation of the names is [in their] proper meanings.” That the foundation of the literal notion ought to be laid beneath the other senses, St. Augustine especially teaches (in the sermon on Abraham and the immolation of Isaac), saying: “We admonish as much as we can, and enjoin, that when you hear the mystery of the Scripture relating the things that were done expounded, you first believe that thing to have been done as it was done, in the way it was read — lest, the foundation being withdrawn, you should seek, as it were, to build the done deed in the air.” For, this being posited (as the same [Augustine] teaches in the book of Eighty-three Questions): “When things done are allegorized, the done things do not lose [their] credit.” And in the first book On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 1, speaking of the manner of interpreting the sacred Genesis, he says: “In the narration, therefore, of things done, it is asked whether all things are to be taken only according to the figurative understanding, or whether they are also to be asserted according to the belief of the things done [as historical fact]”; and he resolves the question, saying: “If therefore that Scripture is to be scrutinized in both ways, let us seek how it is said besides the allegorical signification, etc.” And ch. 21: “When we read the divine books, in so great a multitude of true understandings which are drawn out from a few words, and are fortified by the soundness of the catholic faith, let us choose especially that which has appeared certain that he whom we read meant, etc.”
The same holy Doctor (book 3 of On Christian Doctrine, ch. 9): “But as to follow the letter, and to take the signs for the things which are signified by them, is [a mark] of servile weakness, so to interpret the signs uselessly is [a mark] of badly wandering error”; and ch. 10: “To this observation, by which we beware of following the figurative locution — that is, the transferred — as if proper, this [other] also is to be added: that we do not wish to take the proper as if figurative”; and ch. 39: “When the sense, if it be taken according to the property of the words, is absurd, it must indeed be sought whether perhaps it was said by this or that trope which we do not understand: therefore, if it is not absurd, it must be taken according to the property of the words.”
[Margin: Argument from the Waters which are above the heavens.]
Besides these [places], not more often nor in clearer words does Sacred Scripture tell us that there are waters above the heavens, than [it tells us] that the Sun is moved and the earth is stable; and therefore some — but fewer — of the Fathers understood those passages about the waters and the heavens not according to the property of the letter, but figuratively. But St. Augustine took those waters [literally], even to the property of the letter, so that (book 2 of On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 5) he pronounced that golden sentence: “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.”
Moreover, when the Apostle (Galatians 2) narrates that he withstood Cephas [Peter] to the face, because he was reprehensible — because, fearing to eat with the Gentiles before the Jews, he in a manner compelled by his own example the Gentiles to Judaize, that is, to abstain from foods which the Mosaic law forbade — and St. Jerome, interpreting this passage, had said that Saints Peter and Paul had done this by agreement [collusion], and that St. Paul did not truly think St. Peter had done wrong, but [that Peter] wished thus to be rebuked by St. Paul, that he might unburden himself of the Jews’ envy, etc., and so that St. Paul rebuked him [only] as to appearance and external show: St. Augustine resisted St. Jerome, and contended in several letters to him that this manner of interpreting Sacred Scripture is not to be admitted — [letters] which are had also among the Epistles of St. Jerome (vol. 2, from epistle 86 to 96); and epistle 96 indeed has thus:
“For, some officious [well-meaning] lie being once admitted into so great a height of authority, no particle of those books will remain which — when it shall seem to anyone either difficult as to morals or incredible as to faith — may not, by that same most pernicious rule, be referred to the function and design of a lying author.”
Which reasoning he urges in the remaining epistles. But what he says about the “officious lie,” he would surely say of our case [too]: for just as Peter was not only seen to be reprehensible, but was truly reprehensible, and was not only apparently rebuked by St. Paul, but was truly rebuked (as Augustine demonstrates, epistle 86 among the Hieronymian [letters]) — so the Sun is really moved, and not only seems to be moved, because Scripture says both; nor is there any absurdity in interpreting it according to the property of the letter.
[Margin: St. Gregory the Great.]
The very same mind exactly was St. Gregory the Great’s in interpreting the divine letters, who (book 1 of the Morals, ch. 21) assimilates the literal sense to drink, but the figurative or mystical to food, saying: “For Sacred Scripture is sometimes food to us, sometimes drink. It is food in the more obscure places, because it is, as it were, broken by expounding and swallowed by chewing; but it is drink in the more open places, because it is imbibed just as it is found.” And (book 31, ch. 23), explaining that [saying] of Job (“if my land cry against me, and its furrows weep with it”), he says: “In which matter, namely, because the order of history fails, the mystical understanding shows itself to us, as if the doors being now opened — as if it openly cried out: because you recognize that the [literal] letter’s reason has failed, it surely remains that you should without doubt return to me” — that is, to the mystical sense. “But if the literal and historical sense can be retained, it must by all means be retained.”
But the day would fail me, if I should wish to heap up here the testimonies of the other Fathers for our cause. It suffices me to have given notice that Ori-…
[…continues on p. 493 (PDF 528) with the catchword “genem” (Ori-genem) — Origen and the close of the patristic testimonies.]
(printed p. 493 — Chapter XXXIX closes ¶III with Origen as a cautionary case of unbridled allegory, then answers five objections to the literal-sense rule, stating the governing rule: the literal sense holds first place unless its absurdity is proved from elsewhere. Crucially, Scripture’s accommodation to the rude may keep silent a hard truth but cannot affirm a falsehood; a sub-section then begins examining the physical passages the Copernicans claim must be read figuratively, starting with “Firmament” and the “two great Luminaries.”)
[Header: DE SYSTEMATE TERRÆ MOTÆ — 493]
…that Origen, because he shrank from the literal sense in explaining the divine letters, fell into intolerable errors, and so pertinaciously clung to his allegories, that St. Jerome wrote of him (in the preface to the tenth vision of Isaiah, to Bishop Amabilis): “Origen wanders through the free spaces of allegory, and makes his own [private] talent the mysteries of the Church.” Which necessarily happens likewise to those who, addicted to the Platonic Ideas or the Pythagorean mysteries and philosophemes, [explain] the fabric of the world not such as Sacred Scripture expounds it to us, but such as they themselves, contemplating archetypal reasons — most beautiful to their own minds, however unsuitable and absurd to others — have feigned for themselves. Now certain things which seem to stand against our response are to be dissolved.
[Margin: The 1st Objection is dissolved.]
[IV.] First, against the literal sense and its followers there are those two passages of the Apostle — 1 Corinthians [10]: “Now all these things happened to them in figure”; and 2 Corinthians [3]: “For the letter kills, but the spirit gives life.” But the first passage does not signify that the precepts and ceremonies of the law are to be taken only in a figurative sense, the property of the literal sense being excluded; but that they can be taken in the allegorical sense, of Christ and the Church — yet with the literal notion retained or saved.
[Margin: The 2nd Objection is dissolved.]
But the second passage signifies that the old law, understood and observed according to the bare letter — the spiritual sense of grace foreshadowed through Christ being neglected — kills, that is, does not profit unto salvation; but the Spirit of grace, which is had from the new testament, gives life, as Salmeron among others rightly expounds (vol. 1, Prolegomenon 22). Secondly, the literal sense is manifold, which St. Augustine teaches (Confessions 12, chs. 26, 30, 31; On Genesis to the Letter, book 1, chs. 19, 21; City of God, book 11, ch. 19; On Christian Doctrine, book 3, ch. 27), [and] St. Thomas (part 1, q. 1, art. 10), and many others in Salmeron (vol. 1, Prolegomenon 8). But this does not stand in the way, but that the literal-proper [sense] is to be taken chiefly, if nothing absurd follow from it — even if from the figurative sense no inconvenience follow.
[Margin: A notable opinion of St. Augustine for the use of the literal sense.]
Yet this RULE is always to be observed: that, if no absurdity be demonstrated in the property of the literal sense, that sense should hold the first place; but if its absurdity be proved from elsewhere, [then] let us seek another sense, through which the truth of the sacred eloquence may be saved. The same St. Augustine (book 1 of On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 21), expounding that [verse] of Psalm 103 (“stretching out the heaven like a skin”), clearly taught thus:
“But someone says, How is that which is written in our letters — ‘Who stretches out the heaven like a skin’ — not contrary to those who attribute the figure of a sphere to the heaven? Let it indeed be contrary, if what they say is false; for this is true, which the divine authority says, rather than that which human infirmity conjectures. But if perchance they should be able to prove that [sphericity] by such documents that one ought not to doubt thereof, [then] it must be demonstrated that what among us is said about the ‘skin’ is not contrary to those true reasons.”
Which rule we have so often inculcated above.
[Margin: The 3rd Objection is dissolved.]
[V.] Thirdly, the Sacred Interpreters not rarely concede that Moses accommodated himself to the rude people in speaking of the work of God; and among others St. Thomas Aquinas (part 1 of the Summa, q. 70, art. 1, ad 3) said:
“It must be said that, according to Ptolemy, the Luminaries are not fixed in the spheres, but have a motion apart from the motion of the spheres, etc. But according to the opinion of Aristotle the stars are fixed in the orbs, and are not moved except by the motion of the orbs, according to the truth of the matter; yet the motion of the Luminaries is perceived by sense, but not the motion of the spheres: but Moses, condescending to the rude people, followed that which appears sensibly.”
It is not, therefore, derogatory to Sacred Scripture if it be said that it asserted the motion of the Sun and the rest of the earth, because these so appear to the crowd, so that it accommodated itself to the common grasp of men. But it is one thing — of two [things], each of which is true — to be silent about one as difficult to understand or not obvious to the senses (such as St. Thomas thinks the motion of the celestial spheres to be), and to express the other, which is patent to the senses (such as the motion of the Sun is); but another thing to affirm that which is false, on the ground that what is true is not obvious to sense, nor on that account easy for the crowd to understand. But if the Sun were immovable and the Earth were moved, and yet Scripture affirmed the Sun to move and the Earth not to move, it would not merely be silent about the truth, but would besides build up a falsehood — which is unfitting. In which place that [saying] of St. Augustine (in the book On Lying) has force: “There can be no just cause that a lie be told; but there can be a just [cause] that the truth be sometimes kept silent.” Let St. Thomas be seen (part 1, q. 67, art. 4; q. 68, art. 3; q. 69, art. 2, ad 3; and q. 70, art. 1, ad 4), [for] how he explains the locutions of Moses without falsity, and saving some literal sense.
[Margin: The 4th Objection is dissolved.]
[VI.] But you will urge, Fourthly: If the Sun stood still and the Earth in reality were moved, Scripture would nonetheless have spoken in the same manner as now, or certainly could have spoken thus, so as to attemper itself to the grasp of men; for who would believe David, or Job, or Solomon, or Sirach, saying, “The Earth is moved and returns into its circles,” and, on the contrary, “Thou who hast founded the Sun upon its own stability; it shall not be inclined for ever and ever” — or paradoxes [παράδοξα] like these, and utterly alien from the senses of men? But I deny that Scripture, in that case, would have spoken thus, or could have spoken as [it does] now, with no indication anywhere [given] by God in another Scripture, or in some natural effects manifest to sense mediately or immediately, concerning the rest of the Sun and the motion of the earth — from which we should be compelled to take the other locutions about the motion of the Sun and the rest of the Earth figuratively. Moreover, is it not most difficult to grasp, and not obvious to the senses, that there are waters above the heavens, and that the light of the Sun existed before the Sun? And yet these things Scripture did not pass over in silence; and much less did it pass over in silence the Mystery of the Most Holy Trinity, of the Incarnation, of the Eucharist, of the Resurrection of the dead. Whence, therefore, is it so confidently said that it would have kept silent the motion of the Earth, precisely because it is above or against the sense of men? Lastly, you deny that anyone would believe Scripture asserting the motion of the Earth, on account of the absurdity of this motion and [its] paradox [παραδοξίαν]; and yet you wish that Aristarchus or Copernicus be believed, asserting so great an absurdity? Is not this very thing a horrendous monster of intolerable absurdity — not to concede to God speaking what you would concede to a little man speaking? Either, therefore, be silent about that which you maintain God ought to be silent about, or rather speak the things which God by speaking affirms.
[Margin: The 5th Objection is dissolved.]
[VII.] Fifthly, the Copernicans bring forward many propositions of Sacred Scripture pertaining to Cosmographical, Physical, or Mathematical matters, in which nevertheless it is agreed that it accommodates itself to the grasp and sense of the crowd, and that the literal sense according to the property of the speech cannot be taken. To which we respond universally: that in those [passages] never is affirmed what is not, nor denied what is. Then, if it be agreed that they are to be taken in a sense other than the literal and proper, it [must] indeed be agreed [so] either from other clearer passages of Scripture, or from a definition of the Church, or from some evident proposition known by the natural light [of reason]. But by none of these ways is it agreed that the passages adduced (in chapter 36) for the motion of the Sun and the rest of the Earth are to be taken otherwise. We shall run through, nevertheless, these other passages, that the difference of interpreting may appear more clearly.
The Passages of Sacred Scripture pertaining to Physics or Mathematics, which the Copernicans contend are to be taken Figuratively or according to the Popular sense, are Examined.
[Margin: Firmament. — Great Luminaries.]
[VIII.] In Genesis 1 it is said: “And God called the Firmament heaven.” But if the heaven, filled with Fixed stars, is moved, how is it called “Firmament”? I respond, [it is called so] from firmness, which does not necessarily signify local immobility. But see what I said in Section 1, ch. 2, q. 1. And in the same ch. 1 of Genesis it is said: “And God made two great Luminaries: the greater Luminary to rule the day, and the lesser Luminary to rule the night, and the stars.” Where Moses seems to have spoken to the sense of the people; otherwise neither is the Moon a “great luminary,” since Saturn and Jupiter, etc. are Planets much greater than the Moon; nor ought the Sun or the Moon to be contradistinguished from the stars, as though they themselves were not stars. But this passage I have already expounded at length, with the Fathers, in Section 1, ch. 4, question 5 (which is had on p. 231), where we taught that the Moon, in respect of [being] a Luminary, is greater than all the other stars except the Sun — because it is similar to the Sun in illuminating, at least when it is full, and lights up the whole hemisphere at once far more than all the rest taken together; wherefore even according to the property [of the letter]…
[…continues on p. 494 (PDF 529) with the catchword “tem” (proprieta-tem) — the “great Luminaries” justified literally, and further passages examined.]
(printed p. 494 — Chapter XXXIX continues examining the passages the Copernicans call figurative (the two Luminaries, the bronze sea, Psalms 18, 23, and 103, Ecclesiastes 1, Luke 5), granting these are figurative precisely because evident reason so compels — which no one has demonstrated for the Earth’s motion. The single Conclusion follows, proved by one syllogism: the Sun-motion and Earth-rest propositions are by canonical writers and repugn no Scripture, papal definition, or naturally evident truth, so they must be taken literally.)
[Header: BOOK IX. SECTION IV. — 494]
…according to the property of the letter, the Moon is a great Luminary, but less than the Sun. Granted that, in respect of [its] body or [as] a Planet, it is not great, or greater than all the others — and so also nearly Tycho [thinks] (in the Epistles, p. 148). Then, as I said in the same place, it is evident Astronomically — from the apparent diameter of the Moon and [its] distance — that it is smaller than some Planets; and therefore, if Moses had called the Moon a great Planet (which, however, he did not do), we should be compelled to have recourse to its apparent magnitude; but no evidence compels us to say that the motion of the Sun and the stability of the Earth, asserted in the Scriptures, are [asserted] as to appearance only. Nor indeed, when “the stars” is added, is it denied that the Moon and Sun are stars — [the word] being taken as generic; but only [denied] it being taken as specific; or it is to be understood, “and the rest [of the stars].”
[Margin: The Geometric measure of the Bronze Sea.]
In 3 Kings [1 Kings] ch. 7 it is said: “He made also a molten sea, of ten cubits from brim to brim, round in compass; the height of it was five cubits, and a line of thirty cubits girded it round about.” Which passage Jacob Lansberg tries to drag to the sense of the crowd (treatise 3 of the Apology), because, if the diameter of this round [vessel] was 10 cubits, its circumference could not be only 30 cubits, but ought to have been greater — since, from what we said in book 1, ch. 4, the diameter is to the circumference of a circle as 100 to 314. But to this objection I respond in a threefold way. First, from Scripture it is not established whether that “line” [in Italian il corduncello, the little cord] was in the same plane in which were the brim and the ten-cubit diameter; for it could have been somewhat below the brim, and so be exactly 30 cubits, and somewhat less than the [brim’s] circumference. Secondly, even if the “line” be taken for the circumference of the brim, [it is] nevertheless truly, and according to the property of the letter, that a round number is set down — which is often done elsewhere; for by this the more exact number is not denied, which ought to have been 31 2/7, if the diameter was 10; or, if the circumference was 30, the diameter ought to have been 9 [and a fraction]. Thirdly, [if] therefore one had recourse to this rounded signification accommodated to the people, [that would be] because the proportion of the diameter to the circumference has been demonstrated by Archimedes and others; but no one of the Copernicans has hitherto demonstrated that the Sun is really not moved, and that the Earth is moved.
[Margin: The Sun proceeding from [its] bridal chamber.]
In Psalm 18 [19] the Sun is said to proceed like a bridegroom from his bridal chamber — not because it slept the whole night (since it is said that there is none who can hide himself from its heat, and accordingly it illumines the other hemisphere also by night), but [the comparison] being made with regard to the analogy of the nascent splendor to a bridegroom’s new adornments.
[Margin: The Earth upon the waters.]
And in Psalm 23 [24] the Earth [is said to be] founded upon the seas, and prepared upon the rivers — not because it could float on top of the waters, but because, as St. Augustine says (book 2 of On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 1), most banks of rivers, and places receding from the shore on account of mounds and hills, hold a place higher than the water.
[Margin: Heaven stretched out like a skin.]
But in Psalm 103 [104] it is said that God stretched out the heaven like a skin — namely, with that facility with which tents made of skins are stretched out; or because He clothed the world with the heaven as with a skin; or because a skin, in inflated bellows and wineskins, is so stretched out that it tends toward roundness — wherefore this is not repugnant to the roundness of the heaven: which is the exposition of St. Augustine (book 2 of On Genesis to the Letter, ch. 8).
[Margin: The Earth stands for ever.]
In Ecclesiastes 1 it is said: “One generation passes, and another generation comes; but the Earth stands for ever” — which passage, as I said in ch. 36, has a twofold literal sense. One concerns the state of the earth, inasmuch as it is opposed to Generation and corruption — so that it is signified that it is subject to generation and corruption neither as a whole, nor according to the greatest part of [its] depth — which sense alone the Copernicans embrace. The other sense is concerning the state [rest], inasmuch as it is opposed to local motion; for the Earth is like a stage, on whose surface men succeed one another, but at length, their brief spectacle being shown, they pass away also by local motion — when the body [migrates] into the bowels of the earth, but the soul once [migrated] into the bowels of the same [earth], but now migrates either into its bowels, or into heaven. But the earth, immune from all motion, stands for ever; and this sense is the chief one, and conformable to the Hebrew root, as our Pineda shows at length and learnedly (on chapter 1 of Ecclesiastes).
[Margin: Launch out into the deep.]
Finally, CHRIST the Lord says to Peter (Luke 5), “Launch out into the deep” [duc in altum, lit. “lead into the high”]; because the sea seems higher than the shore, on account of an optical illusion whose cause the students of Optics render — although, on account of the swelling of the waves, it can sometimes really be higher than the shore. But if in this [phrase] we are compelled to flee to an Optical locution and the popular sense, that happens because it is supposed evidently known from elsewhere that the Sea is not really higher than the shores. But now it is not evidently established that the Earth is moved and the Sun stands still, so that on that account we should be bound to drag the propositions about the Sun’s motion and the Earth’s state to a figurative sense, or to appearance. (“Altum” could also be taken for “the deep [profundum].”) Let it now be [enough].
SINGLE CONCLUSION. The Propositions of Sacred Scripture in which the Motion of the Sun and the Immobility of the Earth are asserted are to be taken to the letter, according to the proper sense.
[IX.] The Conclusion is proved by this single Syllogism:
“Every proposition which is found uttered by a Canonical Writer in Sacred Scripture is to be taken in the literal and proper sense, as often as in such a sense there is no repugnance with other propositions of the same Sacred Scripture equally or more certain, or with a definition of the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Roman Church, or with some proposition certain and evident by the natural light. But the propositions of Sacred Scripture in which the Motion of the Sun and the Stability of the Earth are asserted are uttered by a Canonical Writer, and do not repugn any of those enumerated in the Major; therefore they are to be taken in the literal and proper sense.”
[Margin: The proof of the Major.]
The MAJOR has been sufficiently proved from number 2 to 7; and as regards the definition made by the Church through the Roman Pontiff, it has now been most learnedly proved by Bellarmine (Controversy 1, book 3, from ch. 3 to 10), where — from the whole antiquity of the Fathers and the custom of the Church, and from the authority conferred by Christ on St. Peter and his successors — he proves that, in a doubt concerning [whether a] Sacred Scripture [is] to be received among the Canonical books or not to be received, or concerning the sense and interpretation of some proposition found in it, recourse must be had to the single and certain visible rule, which is the Supreme Pontiff of the Catholic Roman Church; and it is confirmed from the Decree of the Council of Trent (session 4, on the edition and use of the sacred books).
[Margin: The proof of the Minor as to [its] three parts.]
The MINOR, as regards the Canonical Writer, is proved: for the propositions asserting the Sun’s motion and the Earth’s stability were uttered by the Author of the book of Judges, and of Paralipomenon [Chronicles], by David, by Ecclesiastes, by Ecclesiasticus, by Isaiah, and by Job himself — or by God speaking to Job, but not by the friends of Job — as is clear from what was said in ch. 36. But all these Authors and books are reckoned among the Canonical books by the Council of Trent, and are defined to be held for such (Session 4). But that they do not repugn another Scripture or a definition of the Church is proved — both because no such proposition can be brought forward to which they repugn, and because (although it has not yet [been defined] by the Supreme Pontiff, yet it has been defined by [those] deputed by him) rather the assertions of the Earth’s motion and the Sun’s stability repugn Sacred Scripture, as will be clear from what is to be said in the following chapter. Finally, that those propositions do not repugn any proposition certain and evident by the natural light, is proved: First, because rather the propositions opposed to these repugn the Physico-Mathematical demonstrations, as was said in ch. 35, conclusions 2 and 3. Secondly, because if the celestial phenomena alone be considered, all can be saved in Astronomical rigor, whether the Earth be posited to rest and the Sun to be moved, or the Earth to be moved and the Sun to rest, as was said in ch. 35, conclusion 1. For hitherto the Earth’s motion, or the Sun’s rest, has been demonstrated by no one; but at most it has been demonstrated that, if the Earth be moved through the annual orb with the diurnal motion and the libration of [its] axis, and the Sun in the center of the world be not moved by any motion other than the whirling about its own center, all the celestial Phenomena can occur, as to appearances, in the same way as if, around the Earth resting in the center of the world, the Sun were moved; and that, as regards some [phenomena], a more probable reason of such Phenomena is given by Copernicus’s hypothesis — granted that the other [hypothesis] contains a greater absurdity, inwardly and outwardly. Finally, the Copernicans themselves confess that, in Astronomical rigor, the same things will appear in the heaven, whether the Earth stand still and the Sun be moved, or the Earth be carried around with the Sun standing still: Copernicus (book 1, ch. 5) says: “For among…”
[…continues on p. 495 (PDF 530) with the catchword “inter” — the Copernicus quotation, completing the proof of the Minor.]
(printed p. 495 — Chapter XXXIX closes with testimonies that even Copernicus, Kepler, and Galileo concede the observational equipollence of the hypotheses — the same appearances result either way. Chapter XL then opens, on what censure the asserters of the Earth’s motion deserve and have received: a review of learned condemnations from Tycho, Tassoni, Scheiner, Kircher, Tanner, Inchofer, Polacco, and others, ranging from “absurd and contrary to Scripture” to outright “heresy.”)
[Header: ON THE SYSTEM OF THE MOVED EARTH — 495]
…among [things which are carried along together]; whence Copernicus himself (in book 1 of the Revolutions, ch. 5) confesses that all motion which appears about a thing placed in the middle is not perceived to belong to that middle thing rather than to the beholder, when both are borne along together. And (ch. 8) he writes that “the appearance of the daily revolution is in the heaven, but the truth [of it] is in the earth” — that is, that the very same appearances follow whether the heaven be turned about a resting earth, or the earth be turned beneath a resting heaven; so that, by his own confession, the appearances do not compel the earth’s motion.
[Margin: Kepler grants the equipollence of the hypotheses.]
Kepler likewise, in the preface to the Commentaries on the Motions of the star Mars, praises the middle-path hypothesis of Tycho Brahe; and in the fifth book of the Harmonics (ch. 3) he teaches that the harmonic laws of the celestial motions which he had found hold no less in the hypothesis of Tycho than in that of Copernicus. And in the Hyperaspistes (against the Anti-Tycho of Scipio Chiaramonti) he professes that “the equipollence which I have demonstrated in the Commentaries on Mars, and inculcated in the Harmonics, will satisfy the astronomers” — alluding to that [saying] by which Cleanthes the Stoic thought Aristarchus of Samos ought to be summoned to judgment for impiety, because, to save the appearances, he set the earth in motion.
[Margin: Galileo grants the same.]
Galileo too, in the second Day of his Dialogue, confesses through the mouth of Salviati that the diurnal motion can be ascribed either to the Earth alone or to the whole rest of the universe, with the appearances remaining the same on either hypothesis; and Simplicio and Salviati agree at last that no necessary demonstration of the Earth’s motion is had — for the argument from the tides, urged in the fourth Day, has been refuted by us above (ch. 14), and the supposed natural circular motion of heavy bodies has not been proved (ch. 17). Since therefore even the chief patrons of the moving Earth confess that the appearances are saved equally on either hypothesis, there remains no necessity which should compel us to recede from the proper sense of the letter; and so our single Conclusion stands firm.