To make the
matter complete, this experiment was publicly made in one of the
churches at Rome by the eminent astronomer, Father Secchi, of the
Jesuits, in 1852--just two hundred and twenty years after the
Jesuits had done so much to secure Galileo's condemnation.[157]
VI. THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH AFTER ITS VICTORY OVER GALILEO.
Any history of the victory of astronomical science over dogmatic
theology would be incomplete without some account of the retreat
made by the Church from all its former positions in the Galileo case.
The retreat of the Protestant theologians was not difficult. A
little skilful warping of Scripture, a little skilful use of that
time-honoured phrase, attributed to Cardinal Baronius, that the
Bible is given to teach us, not how the heavens go, but how men go
to heaven, and a free use of explosive rhetoric against the
pursuing army of scientists, sufficed.
But in the older Church it was far less easy. The retreat of the
sacro-scientific army of Church apologists lasted through two centuries.
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