This bull confirmed
and approved in express terms, finally, decisively, and infallibly,
the condemnation of "all books teaching the movement of the earth
and the stability of the sun."[158]
The position of the mother Church had been thus made especially
difficult; and the first important move in retreat by the
apologists was the statement that Galileo was condemned, not
because he affirmed the motion of the earth, but because he
supported it from Scripture. There was a slight appearance of truth
in this. Undoubtedly, Galileo's letters to Castelli and the grand.
duchess, in which he attempted to show that his astronomical
doctrines were not opposed to Scripture, gave a new stir to
religious bigotry. For a considerable time, then, this quibble
served its purpose; even a hundred and fifty years after Galileo's
condemnation it was renewed by the Protestant Mallet du Pan, in his
wish to gain favour from the older Church.
But nothing can be more absurd, in the light of the original
documents recently brought out of the Vatican archives, than to
make this contention now.
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