44 GALILEO AND HIS JUDGES. 



that opinion as heretical, but only as temerarious. 

 So again the Master of the Sacred Palace, himself 

 resting neutral between Ptolemy and Copernicus, is 

 reported to have said that there was no matter of 

 faith in question, the great point being that one must 

 not in any way mix up the Holy Scriptures with it. 



We may suppose that when the Pope spoke of the 

 opinion having been condemned as temerarious, what 

 he meant was not that it had been explicitly censured 

 as such using the word in the technical sense which 

 it bears when applied as a censure for that it plainly 

 had not been, but that the general effect of the pro- 

 hibition issued by the Index was to stamp the mark 

 of rashness upon it. This, I may observe, if it be 

 the right interpretation, is quite consistent with the 

 theory that the prohibition was of a disciplinary and 

 a provisional character. 



We have also another reputed conversation of the 

 Pope with Campanella resting on the authority of 

 Prince Cesi, who related it to Father Castelli and it 

 is important if true. Campanella had said that cer- 

 tain Germans, ready to embrace the Catholic faith, 

 had hesitated on account of the condemnation of 

 Copernicus, to which Pope Urban VIII. had replied 

 that this was not his intention, and if he had had 

 the arrangement of matters the decree would never 

 have been made. " Non fu mai nostra intenzione, e se 

 fosse toccato a noi, non si sarebbe fatto quel decreto." 



As already remarked, we must not attach too great 

 weight to reports of private conversations ; but it is 



