A Defense of Galileo

The first part of this joint proposition is proved as follows. For those who possess knowledge but lack zeal for God flatter those in power in the courts or the universities; and consequently, they do not dare to define matters in favor of the truth. As it is said in John 12: Many among the rulers believed in Jesus, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess it, lest they be put out of the synagogue; for they loved the glory of men more than the glory of God. Likewise, in Romans 1, the Apostle condemns the philosophers because, although they had known God, they did not honor Him as God, but instead sacrificed to false gods. This was because, as Plato relates in the Apology for Socrates, and as Xenophon, Cicero, Pliny, and others recount, they feared being accused of the crime of heresy before the senate; indeed, many of them were put to death as if they were impious. Others, however, because they profit and gain honors from the opinions followed by the common people, defend those views in a way that makes it appear they are at least looking out for the public good. They do not struggle or labor for truth and justice, but for their own petty glory and their bellies. Abandoning their own judgment, they "fall into the crime of another," original: in crimen transeunt alienum as Pope Leo says regarding Pilate; and as the Apostle says, they hold back the truth of God in unrighteousness. They affect themselves to such an extent that eventually the opinion they defend with their words—but once denied in their hearts—actually begins to seem true to them. Thus it becomes a "plague of the soul," as Titus Livius says, and as we ourselves noted in our Anti-Machiavelli original: Antimachiauellissimo. This refers to Campanella's own work, Atheismus Triumphatus, which attacked the political realism of Machiavelli..

The second part of the joint proposition is proved thus: those who have zeal for God but lack knowledge, however holy they may be, can by no means judge such a question unless they have received an express revelation from God. Hence, in Romans 10, the Apostle bears witness to the Jews that they persecuted the Christians out of zeal for God, but not according to knowledge. Regarding himself, he also testifies that he thought he was offering a service to God. Although he was literate and learned in the Law at the feet of Gamaliel A famous Jewish teacher and Pharisee mentioned in the Book of Acts. and in secular doctrines, he nevertheless says: I did it ignorantly, in my unbelief, because he had not examined the faith of the Christians through every argument as he ought to have done. Furthermore, Lactantius, Firmianus Lactantius and Firmianus refer to the same person, Lucius Caecilius Firmianus Lactantius (c. 250 – c. 325), an early Christian author., and Saint Augustine, though they were holy and learned, denied the existence of the antipodes People living on the opposite side of the globe.. They were moved to do so by zeal for God and the Scriptures, as is clear from the arguments brought forth: first, because those people would not have descended from Adam, which is against Scripture; and second, because it would be impossible to migrate there from our lands across an impassable Ocean. Others add that Christ would have had to be crucified twice, once here and once there. They also argued that Scripture says the heaven is stretched out like a canopy or tent-roof original: cameram, the base of which is the earth (as Justin says), upon which is the water, and above this the immobile heaven. Nevertheless, now...