Melancthon thus sums up the usual arguments from the Scriptures, from Aristotle, Ptolemy and the then current physics, in opposition to this theory. Not only did he publish his own text-book on physics, but he republished Sacrobosco's famous introduction to astronomy, writing for it a preface urging diligent study of this little text endorsed by so many generations of scholars.
Calvin, the great teacher of the Protestant Revolt, apparently was little touched by this new intellectual current.[1] He did write a semi-popular tract[2] against the so called "judicial" astrology, then widely accepted, which he, like Luther, condemns as a foolish superstition, though he values "la vraie science d'astrologie" from which men understand not merely the order and place of the stars and planets, but the causes of things. In his Commentaries, he accepts the miracle of the sun's standing still at Joshua's command as proof of the faith Christ commended, so strong that it will remove mountains; and he makes reference only to the time-honored Ptolemaic theory in his discussion of Psalm XIX.[3]
For the absolute authority of the Pope the Protestant leaders substituted the absolute authority of the Bible. It is not strange, then, that they ignored or derided a theory as yet unsupported by proof and so difficult to harmonize with a literally accepted Bible.
How widespread among the people generally did this theory become in the years immediately following the publication of the De Revolutionibus? M. Flammarion, in his Vie de Copernic (1872), refers[4] to the famous clock in the Strasburg Cathedral as having been constructed by the University of Strasburg in protest against the action taken by the Holy Office against
- ↑ Farrar: Hist. of Interpretation: Preface; xviii: "Who," asks Calvin, "will venture to place the authority of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?"
- ↑ Calvin: Oeuvres François: Traité … contre l'Astrologie; 110-112.
- ↑ Calvin: Op. Om. in Corpus Reformatorum: vol. 25; 499-500; vol. 59; 195-196.
- ↑ P. 78-79: "Ce planétaire … represente le système du monde tel qu'il a été expliqué par Copernic."
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