Spinoza, Critic of Galileo

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Notes

¹ Spinoza, ‘Theological-Political Treatise’, in Spinoza, Complete Works, edited by Michael L. Morgan, translated by Samuel Shirley (Indianapolis: Hackett, 2002), 409.

² Spinoza, ‘Theological-Political Treatise’.

³ Spinoza, ‘Theological-Political Treatise’, 415.

⁴ Spinoza, ‘Theological-Political Treatise’, 414.

⁵ On the Latin translation of the Dialogue and of the Letter to Christina, see Stéphane Garcia, ‘L’édition strasburgeoise du «Systema cosmicum» (1635–1636) dernier combat copernicien de Galilée’, Bulletin de la Société de l'Histoire du Protestantisme Français, 146 (2000), 307–34; Mauro Pesce, L'ermeneutica biblica di Galileo e le due strade della teologia cristiana (Rome: Edizioni di storia e letteratura, 2005), especially 55–70; 175–95. Zuñiga's Commentary on Job 9:6 (1584) and Foscarini's Letter on the Motion of Earth (1615) are translated and commented in Richard Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine and the Bible (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1991), 217–53; 185–6. On Zuñiga see also Robert S. Westman, ‘The Copernicans and the Churches’, in God and Nature, edited by David. C. Lindberg and Ronald L. Numbers (Berkeley/Los Angeles/London: University of California Press, 1986), 76–113, especially 92–3.

⁶ ‘Ad Serenissiman Dominam magnam Ducem Hetruriae, Magni Ducis Matrem Galilaeus’; ‘Admodum Reverende Pater’ (Galileo's Letter to Castelli, 14 December 1613); ‘Illustrissimo reverendissimo Domine D. N. N. Galilaeus S.’ (Galileo's Letter to Monsignor Dini, 23 March 1615) and also ‘Excerptum ex Didaci a Stunica Salmanticensis Commentariis in Iob […]’, in Petri Gassendi Apologia in Io. B. Morini librum, cui titulus: Alae Telluris Fractae; epistola IV de Motu impresso a motore translato, una cum tribus Galilaei epistulis de conciliatione Scripturae S. cum Systemate Telluris mobilis, quorum duae nondum editae, nunc primum, M. Neurae cura proderunt, Lugduni, apud Guillelmum Barbier, 1649 : 1–61; 65–78; 79–94; 61–4.

⁷ The Ancient and Modern doctrine of Holy Fathers and judicious divines, concerning the rush Citations of the Sacred Scripture, in conclusions meerly natural, and that may be proved by sensible experiments, and necessary demonstrations, London, printed by William Leybourn, in Thomas Salusbury esq, Mathematical Collections and Translations in two Tomes, The first tome, The first part, London, printed by William Leibourn, 1661.

⁸ ‘Tractatum Foscarini, in quo dogma Copernicanum cum Sacris Litteris conciliatur, satis speciose ac nervose nisi fallor. Is Galileum adversus eos qui specie pietatis veritatem impugnant egregie communiet’, M. Bernegger to G. M. Lingelsheim, 20 July 1634, in Galileo Galilei, Opere, edited by Antonio Favaro, 20 vols (Florence: Barbera, 1890–1909), vol. 16, 112. Henceforth cited as GO.

⁹ ‘Atqui cum felicius nemo forte unquam arcane eiusdem Scripturae mysteria cum Naturae admirandis operibus conciliavit, quam heic Galileus noster; mirum est tamen quanta religione distrigatur, quantove timore divinas illas meditationes suas comprimat, caveatque […], Gassendi Apologia, 94.

¹⁰ ‘Scriptura sacra sermone uti familiari, vulgique captu accomodato, quipped cum illius scopus erudire homines non in physicis aut astronomicis rebus, sed in iis quae spectant ad gratiam, vitamque supernaturalem’, Syntagma philosophicum, I, book II, in Petri Gassendi, Opera omnia (Lugduni: Anisson, 1658; reprint Stuttgart 1964), vol. 1, 629. See also De motu impresso a motore traslato, Epistolae duae, Parisiis, apud Ludovicum de Hequeville, 1642, 156: ‘Licet Copernicani tueantur loca Sacrae Scripturae, quae Terrae statum sive quietem, et Soli motu tribuunt, vel explicanda esse de ipsa, ut loquuntur, apparentia, deque accomodatione ad captum […] vel intelligenda esse de consistentia, ut ita loquar, indivisibilitate partium, quae non excedunt e tota Terra.’

¹¹ Hugo van Groot, Annotata in Vetus Testamentum, Lutetiae Parisiorum, sumptibus Sebastiani Cramoisy et Gabrielis Cramoisy, 1644, vol. I, 183: ‘Spatio unius diei, ut in perfecta die, id est aestiva, qualis tunc erat illa illis in locis. Ita Maimonides et Hebraei quos citat Masius, nullum hic miraculum agnoscentes, sed phrasim poëticam, quasi Sol expectasset donec occidio hostium perfecta foret, cum potius Israelitae non destiterint insistere hostibus, quamdiu aut Sol aut Luna lumen praebebant […].’ Grotius too explained the standing still of the Sun as a phenomenon of refraction: ‘Haec ita non improbabiliter dici possunt quamquam impossibile Deo non est cursum morari, aut etiam post Solis occasum speciem eius in nube supra horizontem extanti per repercussum ostendere.’

¹² Cfr. Heb. 11:29–40.

¹³ John Wilkins, A Discourse concerning New Planet tending to prove that ’tis probable our Earth is one of the Planets (London: John Gellibrand, 1639), 28.

¹⁴ Wilkins, A Discourse, 10.

¹⁵ Wilkins, A Discourse, 39.

¹⁶ ‘Non absurdum esse, si dicamus, Josuam non omnia scivisse quae pertinebant ad res naturales quamvis Spiritu sancto fuerit plenus, non enim ad hoc ipsi Spiritus sanctus erat datus’, Christoph Wittich, Consensus Veritatis in Scriptura Divina et Infallibili Revelatae cum Veritate Philosophica a Renato Des Cartes Detecta, Editio secunda, Lugduni Batavorum, Impensis Cornelii Boutesteyn et Cornelii Levier, 1682, art. 811, 362. See also Consideratio theologica de Stylo Scripturae quem adhibet de rebus naturalibus instituit, Lugduni Batavorum, apud Adriani Wyngaerden, 1656 in which Wittich rejects any Copernican exegesis of biblical passages: ‘Scripturam de rebus naturalibus loquentem non accuratam veritatem, sed sensum et opinionem vulgi saepius sequi. […] A me factum esse satis, interpretationem Scripturae a Copernicanis usurpatam ab absurdis abunde fuisse liberatam’, 4–5.

¹⁷ Johannes Kepler, Astronomia Nova, GW, 3, 29–30, translated by W.H. Donahue; Johannes Kepler, New Astronomy, translated and edited by W.H. Donahue (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992), 61.

¹⁹ Galileo, ‘Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina’, in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, translated with an Introduction and Notes by S. Drake (Garden City, NY: Doubleday, 1957), 181.

¹⁸ See Bellarmine's Letter to Foscarini, 12 April 1615, GO, vol. 12, 171–2, translated and commented in Blackwell, Galileo, Bellarmine and the Bible, 265–7.

²⁰ Galileo, ‘Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina’, 182.

²¹ Galileo, ‘Letter to the Grand Duchess Christina’, 184.

²² Spinoza, Complete Works, 525.

²³ Galileo, Dialogue concerning the Two Chief World Systems, translated by S. Drake, 2nd ed. (Berkeley, Los Angeles, London: University of California Press, 1967), 29.

²⁴ Galileo, Dialogue concerning the Two Chief World Systems, 421–2.