GALILEO 







Besides making many men envious of his fame 

 and fortune, his writings had excited against him 

 all those who had taught without contestation the old 

 philosophy, and among them nearly the whole body 

 of Ecclesiastics. Some of these maintained that all 

 that he said he saw was pure fiction ; others said 

 that they had looked through his glass (lenses) for 

 entire nights, but saw nothing such as he described. 

 One ecclesiastic quoted against him from the pulpit, 

 "Viri Galilaei quid statis aspicientes in Caelum" 

 (Acts 1. 11), by which the Scriptures had evidently 

 intended to put us on our guard against this astrono- 

 mer, who would try to teach us falsehoods." They 

 also tried to overwhelm him with ridicule. The 

 most effective weapon, though, was to prohibit all 

 teaching of the Copernican doctrine which he had 

 sustained with so much force. It was represented to 

 be false to Scripture, and was denounced as such to the 

 Holy Chair (Saint Siege). Galileo tried to calm the 

 tempest by publishing in 1616 a letter addressed to 

 the Grand Duchess of Tuscany, in which he under- 

 took to prove by citations from the Fathers that the 

 language of the Scriptures was reconcilable with the 

 new discoveries of the constitution of the universe. 

 This served, however, only to give an open field to 

 his adversaries, who denounced him as holding opin- 

 ions contrary to the Faith. He was summoned to 

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