NEW CHAPTERS IN THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE. 337 



Yet in this case, as in others, insurrections against the sway 

 of scientific truth appeared among some overzealous religionists. 

 When the Sorhonne, having retreated from its old position, armed 

 itself with new casuistries against those who held to its earlier 

 decisions, sundry provincial doctors in theology protested indig- 

 nantly^ making the old citations from the Scriptures, fathers, 

 saints, doctors, popes, councils, and canonists. Again the Roman 

 court intervened. In 1830 the Inquisition at Rome, with the 

 approval of Pius VIII, though still declining to commit itself 

 on the doctrine involved, decreed that, as to practice, confessors 

 should no longer disturb lenders of money at legal interest. 



But even this did not quiet the more conscientious theologians. 

 The old weapons were again furbished and hurled by the Abb^ 

 Laborde, Vicar of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Auch, and by 

 the Abbd Dennavit, Professor of Theology at Lyons. Good Abbd 

 Dennavit declared that he refused absolution to those who took 

 interest and to priests who pretend that the sanction of the civil 

 law is sufficient. 



But the " wisdom of the serpent " was again brought into requi- 

 sition, and early in the decade between 1830 and 1840 the Abbate 

 Mastrofini issued a work on usury, which, he declared on its title- 

 page, demonstrated that " moderate usury is not contrary to Holy 

 Scripture, or natural law, or the decisions of the Church." Noth- 

 ing can be more comical than the suppressions of truth, evasions 

 of facts, jugglery with phrases, and perversions of history, to 

 which the good abbate is forced to resort throughout his book in 

 order to prove that the Church has made no mistake. In the face 

 of scores of explicit deliverances and decrees of fathers, doctors, 

 popes, and councils, against the taking of any interest whatever 

 for money, he coolly pretended that what they had declared 

 against was exorbitant interest. He made a merit of the action 

 of the Church, and showed that its course had been a blessing to 

 humanity. But his masterpiece is in dealing with the edicts of 

 Clement V and Benedict XIV. As to the first, it will be remem- 

 bered that Clement, in accord with the Council of Vienne, had 

 declared that " any one who shall pertinaciously presume to affirm 

 that the taking of interest for money is not a sin, we decree him 

 to be a heretic^ fit for punishment," and we have seen that Bene- 

 dict XIV did not at all deviate from the doctrines of his prede- 

 cessors. Yet Mastrofini is equal to his task, and brings out, as 

 the conclusion of his book, the statement put upon his title-page 

 that what the Church condemns is only exorbitant interest. 



This work was sanctioned by various high ecclesiastical digni- 

 taries, and served its purpose, for it covered the retreat of the 

 Church. 



In 1873 appeared a book published under authority from the 



