Page:A History of Mathematics (1893).djvu/174

 amount of confusion. The rapid progress of astronomy led to the consideration of this subject, and many new calendars were proposed. Pope Gregory XIII. convoked a large number of mathematicians, astronomers, and prelates, who decided upon the adoption of the calendar proposed by the Jesuit Lilius Clavius. To rectify the errors of the Julian calendar it was agreed to write in the new calendar the 15th of October immediately after the 4th of October of the year 1582. The Gregorian calendar met with a great deal of opposition both among scientists and among Protestants. Clavius, who ranked high as a geometer, met the objections of the former most ably and effectively; the prejudices of the latter passed away with time.

The passion for the study of mystical properties of numbers descended from the ancients to the moderns. Much was written on numerical mysticism even by such eminent men as Pacioli and Stifel. The Numerorum Mysteria of Peter Bungus covered 700 quarto pages. He worked with great industry and satisfaction on 666, which is the number of the beast in Revelation (xiii. 18), the symbol of Antichrist. He reduced the name of the 'impious' Martin Luther to a form which may express this formidable number. Placing $$\scriptstyle{a=1,~b=2}$$, etc., $$\scriptstyle{k=10,~l=20}$$, etc., he finds, after misspelling the name, that $$\scriptstyle{\text{M}_{(30)}\text{A}_{(1)}\text{R}_{(80)}\text{T}_{(100)}\text{I}_{(9)}\text{N}_{(40)}\text{L}_{(20)}\text{V}_{(200)}\text{T}_{(100)}\text{E}_{(5)}\text{R}_{(80)}\text{A}_{(1)}}$$ constitutes the number required. These attacks on the great reformer were not unprovoked, for his friend, Michael Stifel, the most acute and original of the early mathematicians of Germany, exercised an equal ingenuity in showing that the above number referred to Pope Leo X.,—a demonstration which gave Stifel unspeakable comfort.[23]

Astrology also was still a favourite study. It is well known that Cardan, Maurolycus, Regiomontanus, and many other eminent scientists who lived at a period even later than