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church can tolerate at any given time the heresy which it reprobated two centuries before?[1]
But to leave this part of the discussion, I must be indulged yet shortly and finally to say, that when the jealousy of Rome was so alive to her scientific reputation, as it appears to have been in 1835, pity it was that Monsignor Niccola Wiseman, or whoever might be of his
- ↑ Ferrari, a writer of good and deserved repute, in his Prompta Bibliotheca, under Hereticus, tom. iv. pp. 196-8, last edition, is right orthodox in contending for the simple and for. mal heresy of Galileo's doctrine in the judgment of the Roman Church; and be defends himself effectually by authorities of the same Church. He has likewise the fairness to insert in a note the objections of a Roman Theologian, who infers from the expression, "vehemently suspected of heresy," in Galileo's abjuration, that the philosopher was denounced, not as a heretic, but only as suspected of heresy, not sufficiently considering — good, easy, apologist — that the main matter concerned, not the person, but the thing — not the heretic, whether more or less so, but the heresy, the Copernican system. To do the objector, however, justice, be does not, like some moderns, shift the question from the main one, to a simple accidental and subordinate — the philosopher's insisting upon the agreement of the denounced opinion with Scripture, much less his passion or obstinacy in justifying that opinion. We have no quibbling about technicalities. And it must likewise be added, he is perfectly silent about the Index and its decrees. Ferrari was not at all convinced by the logic of his corrector, but fortified his view of the offence of Galileo being formal heresy, according to his Church, with additional testimonies; and he thus plainly established his opinion.
