LITTLE Novarra taught the Ptolemaic theory of astronomy 

 JOURNEYS for the esoteric few. The Church is made up of men, 

 and while priests for the most part are quite content 

 to believe what the Church teaches, yet it has ever 

 been recognized that there was one doctrine for the 

 Few, and another for the Many the esoteric and the 

 exoteric. The esoteric is an edged tool, and only a very 

 few are fit to handle it. The charge of heresy is only 

 for those who are so foolish as to give out these edged 

 tools to the people. You may talk about anything you 

 want, provided you do not do it, and you may do any- 

 thing you want, provided you do not talk about it. 

 The proposition that the earth was flat, had four cor- 

 ners, and the stars were jewels hung in the sky as 

 " signs," and were moved about by angels, was all 

 right for the many, but now and then there were priests 

 who were not content with these child-stories they 

 wanted truth and these usually accepted the theories 

 of Ptolemy. 



Novarra believed that the earth -was a globe ; that this 

 globe was the center of the universe, and that around 

 the earth the sun, moon and certain stars revolved. 

 The "fixed" stars he still regarded as being hung 

 against the firmament, and that this firmament was 

 turned in some mysterious way, en masse. 

 Copernicus listened silently, but his heart beat fast. 

 He had found something upon which he could exer- 

 cise his mathematics. He and Novarra sat up all night 

 in the belfry of the cathedral and watched the stars. 

 They saw that they moved steadily, surely and with- 

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