Three years
later, Boscovich, the great mathematician of the Jesuits, used
these words: "As for me, full of respect for the Holy Scriptures
and the decree of the Holy Inquisition, I regard the earth as
immovable; nevertheless, for simplicity in explanation I will argue
as if the earth moves; for it is proved that of the two hypotheses
the appearances favour this idea."
In Germany, especially in the Protestant part of it, the war was
even more bitter, and it lasted through the first half of the
eighteenth century. Eminent Lutheran doctors of divinity flooded
the country with treatises to prove that the Copernican theory
could not be reconciled with Scripture. In the theological
seminaries and in many of the universities where clerical influence
was strong they seemed to sweep all before them; and yet at the
middle of the century we find some of the clearest-headed of them
aware of the fact that their cause was lost.[155]
In 1757 the most enlightened perhaps in the whole line of the
popes, Benedict XIV, took up the matter, and the Congregation of
the _Index_ secretly allowed the ideas of Copernicus to be tolerated.
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