Hey there,
I’ve been debating someone who claims Copernicus and Galileo were persecuted by the Church for their discoveries. Basically the claim is that Copernicus had to play a lot of politics, to be allowed to publish his book, including staying loyal to the Catholic church, after the establishment of the Protestant state, and make nice dedications, and donations.
How should this be answered?
It was a well known fact that the Bible reveals a geocentric universe with an orbiting sun relative to the earth. Copernicus was also aware of this so was reluctant to go public with his hermetic idea. If this is ‘persecution’ for your belief, then its true. But it is also know he feared the opinion of philosophers more for many reasons. Here is what happened:
Copernicus’s Heliocentricism and the Church.
In the wake of the H/G U-turn taken by Churchmen from 1741 onwards, there is a tendency by Catholic writers to portray De revolutionibus’s heliocentricism as having been acceptable in the eyes of the Church of the time. If this were not so, they infer, why didn’t the Church condemn heliocentricism as heresy in 1543 and not until 1616. Well there are good reasons for this. First, because Copernicus presented his reasoning prefaced by a question, thus it was framed as no more than a hypothesis. We can confirm this because Cardinal Belarmine himself, who was instrumental in getting heliocentricism condemned in 1616 said so in his Letter to Foscarini in 1615.
The second reason has a story to it. It seems Copernicus had always feared his thesis, some 30 years in the writing, would be met with derision among natural philosophers rather than with theologians, and this is why he curtailed its publication over the years. Finally, with old age coming upon him, he handed it over to a Protestant friend, a Lutheran theologian named Andrew Osiander (1498-1552) who was the one who had it printed. On the revolutions of heavenly spheres was published in 1543. An advance copy was dramatically rushed to Copernicus who was gravely ill in his home at Frauenburg, arriving on May 24th the day he died. The first edition however, had the following introduction entitled To the Reader Concerning the Hypothesis of this Work:
‘Since the newness of the hypothesis of this work –which sets the earth in motion and puts an immovable sun at the centre of the universe- has already received a great deal of publicity, I have no doubt that certain of the savants have taken grave offence and think it wrong to raise any disturbance among liberal disciplines which have had the right set-up for a long time now. If, however, they are willing to weigh the matter scrupulously, they will find that the author has done nothing that merits blame…
This artist is markedly outstanding in both these respects for it is not necessary that these hypotheses should be true, or even possible; but it is enough if they provide a calculus which fits the observations…And if it constructs and thinks up causes - and it has certainly thought up a good many - nevertheless it does not think them up in order to persuade anyone of their truth but only in order that they provide a correct basis for calculation…Maybe the philosopher demands probability instead; but neither of them will grasp anything certain or hand it on, unless it has been divinely revealed to him.’
In other words, the preface presented explicitly defined the type of ‘hypothesis’ Copernicus presented in De revolutionibus.
As a declared false one, one the Church would permit without interference, to facilitate the concept of phenomena, and for the convenience in making calculations.
It was this disclaimer then that avoided the possibility of an Inquisition enquiry.
Then there was the problem, how would the world of lay philosophers receive his work? Again Copernicus was not short of friends who knew what they were doing and decided on yet another strategy. They saw to it that the book was published in Nuremberg, and by dedicating it to Pope Paul III in Rome calculated this would allay the criticisms and censures of the Aristotelian philosophers. How well the Church’s enemies know their trade. This piece, designed as carefully as the wooden horse of Troy, would ensure the book’s safe passage through the corridors of Rome before it fanned out among the cities of Europe. But more than that, for in the Preface and Dedication to Pope Paul III there was added another little bit of psychology, hoping the Pope would protect the heliocentric hypothesis from the anger of the Aristotelian philosophers:
‘I can reckon easily enough, Holy Father, that as soon as certain people learn that in these books of mine, which I have written about the revolutions of the spheres of the world I attribute certain motions to the terrestrial globe, they will immediately shout to have me and my opinion hooted off the stage.’
Historians now agree that Osiander did write the first part of the preface of Copernicus’s book, a ‘hypothesis’ he knew the Church would permit in the interest of science. Kepler, in his Opera Omnia held Osiander entirely responsible. History however, was not kind to Osiander for his strategy. Andrew White for instance, in his book a History, poured ridicule on Osiander’s tactics:
‘He wrote a grovelling preface, endeavouring to excuse Copernicus for his novel ideas, and in this he inserted the apologetic lie that Copernicus had propounded the doctrine of the earth’s movement not as a fact but as a hypothesis…Thus was the greatest and most ennobling perhaps, of scientific truths – a truth no less ennobling to religion than to science - forced, in coming before the world, to sneak and crawl.’
Von Gebler called the foreword ‘an unprincipled introduction… Osiander’s sacrilegious act.’ But Osiander knew what he was doing. As far as he was concerned had he not written such a foreword the book may not have seen the light of day. Another consideration was that Protestants were even more vehement in their defence of Scripture. Luther, Melanchthon, and, according to White, Calvin, were to condemn Copernicanism. Luther, records White, went on to call Copernicus ‘an upstart astrologer, who strove to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the sun and the moon.’ Melanchthon, in his treatise on the Elements of Physics, published six years later, said: ‘The eyes are witnesses that the heavens revolve in the space of twenty four hours. But certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the eight sphere nor the sun revolves…Now it is a want of honesty and decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious….’
