II THE ARREST OF ENQUIRY 81 



descent of Christ into hell, which modern research 

 has shown to be a variant of an Orphic legend of 

 the underworld, was a real event, Jesus going 

 thither that he might conquer Satan in a hand-to- 

 hand struggle. 



Therefore, freedom of thought, as we define 

 it, had the bitterest foe in Luther, although, 

 in his condemnation of 'works,' and his fanatical 

 dogma of man's ' justification by faith alone,' 

 which made him reject the Epistle of James as 

 one ' of straw,' and as unworthy of a place in the 

 Canon, he unwittingly drove-in the thin end of the 

 rationalist wedge. The Reformers had hedged the 

 canonical books with theories of verbal inspiration 

 which extended even to the punctuation of the 

 sentences. They thus rendered intelligent study of 

 the Bible impossible, and did grievous injury to a 

 collection of writings of vast historical value, and of 

 abiding interest as records of man's primitive specu- 

 lations and spiritual development. But Luther's 

 application of the right of private judgment to the 

 omission or addition of this or that book into a 

 canon which had been closed by a Council of the 

 Church, surrendered the whole position, since there 

 was no telling where the thing might stop. 



Copernicus waited full thirty years before he 

 ventured to make his theory public. The Ptolemaic 

 system, which assumed a fixed earth with sun, moon, 

 and stars revolving above it, had held the field for 

 about fourteen hundred years. It accorded with 

 Scripture ; it was adopted by the Church ; and, 

 moreover, it was confirmed by the senses, the correc- 

 tion of which still remains, and will long remain, a 



G 



