In the year 1553 Michael Servetus was on trial for his life at
Geneva on the charge of Arianism. Servetus had rendered many
services to scientific truth, and one of these was an edition of
Ptolemy's _Geography_, in which Judea was spoken of, not as "a land
flowing with milk and honey," but, in strict accordance with the
truth, as, in the main, meagre, barren, and inhospitable. In his
trial this simple statement of geographical fact was used against
him by his arch-enemy John Calvin with fearful power. In vain did
Servetus plead that he had simply drawn the words from a previous
edition of Ptolemy; in vain did he declare that this statement was
a simple geographical truth of which there were ample proofs: it
was answered that such language "necessarily inculpated Moses, and
grievously outraged the Holy Ghost."[113]
In summing up the action of the Church upon geography, we must say,
then, that the dogmas developed in strict adherence to Scripture
and the conceptions held in the Church during many centuries
"always, every where, and by all," were, on the whole, steadily
hostile to truth; but it is only just to make a distinction here
between the religious and the theological spirit.
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