Page:Galileo Galilei and the Roman Curia (IA cu31924012301754).pdf/101

 more than death. His opponents, knowing that he favoured the opinion of the double motion of the earth, and thereby attacked the Ptolemaic and Aristotelian principles, and perceiving since the universal recognition of his observations that they could never combat him successfully on the field of natural philosophy, are trying now to make a shield for their false statements out of a fictitious piety and the authority of Holy Scripture. They have therefore first tried to spread the opinion that the views he defends are opposed to the Bible, and therefore heretical and worthy of condemnation. They then easily found some one to denounce them from the pulpit, and he hurled his anathemas not only at the Copernican doctrines, but against mathematicians in general. They also gave out that the modern views of the system of the universe would shortly be pronounced heretical by the highest authorities.

Galileo then points out that Copernicus, the originator of these doctrines, was not only a good Catholic, but a priest highly esteemed by the Roman curia, both for his learning and piety. He had dedicated his famous work: "De Revolutionibus Orbium Cœlestium," to Pope Paul III., and no one had felt any scruples about his doctrines, although some ill-disposed persons want to have the book pronounced heretical, without ever having read, to say nothing of studied it. As an adherent of the Copernican theory, Galileo now feels compelled, in order to justify himself, to discuss in detail these arguments from Scripture brought forward by his opponents, and he hopes to prove that he is animated by a greater zeal for true religion than his adversaries; for he by no means demands that the book should not be condemned, but that it should not be condemned without being understood or even looked at. Before proceeding to discuss these arguments, he protests that he will not only always be ready publicly to rectify the errors he may from ignorance have fallen into on religious matters in this treatise, but that it was not in the least his intention to enter into dispute with