56. Petrus Lombardus et al., “Consultants' Report on Copernianism” [24 February 1616], in Finocchiaro, Galileo Affair, 146.
57. Sfondarti, “Decree of the Index,” in Finocchiaro, Galileo Affair, 149.
58. Kepler, quoted in James R. Voelkel, Johannes Kepler and the New Astronomy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), 77.
59. Connor, Kepler's Witch, 242, 287, 320–21.
60. Kepler, Harmony, bk. 3, p. 127.
61. Kepler, Harmony, bk. 1, p. 12: “Therefore that in the secrets of the Pythagoreans on this basis the five figures were distributed not among the elements, as Aristotle believed, but among the planets themselves is very strongly confirmed by the fact that Proclus tells us that the aim of geometry is to tell how the heaven has received appropriate figures for definite parts of itself.”
62. Kepler, Harmony, bk. 4, p. 284.
63. Connor, Kepler's Witch, 266.
64. Galileo Galilei, The Assayer [1623], in Discoveries and Opinions of Galileo, trans. Stillman Drake (New York: Anchor Books/Random House, 1957), 237–38.
65. Pope Urban VIII, quoted by Francesco Niccolini to Lord Balì Cioli, 11 September 1632, in Finocchiaro, Galileo Affair, 229.
66. As quoted by Galilei to Elia Diodati, 15 January 1633, in Finocchiaro, Galileo Affair, 225. See also D'Addio, Galileo Case, 115.
67. To give just one example, Finocchiaro characterized Pythagoras simply as one of the earliest thinkers to advance the idea that Earth circles the sun. See Finocchiaro, Galileo Affair, 7, 15.
68. Diogenes Laertius, The Lives and Opinions of Eminent Philosophers [ca. 225 CE], trans. C. D. Yonge, bk. 8, Life of Pythagoras (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853), sec. 12.
69. Ancient poem quoted in Iamblichus, Pythagorean Way, chap. 2, p. 35.
70. Iamblichus, Pythagorean Way, chap. 2, p. 35.
71. Hippolytus [traditionally misattributed to Origen], Philosophumena (The Refutation of All Heresies) [ca. 225 CE], trans. J. Macmahon, ed. Alexander Roberts and James Donaldson (Edinburgh: T&T Clark, 1867), bk. 6, chaps. 23, 24, 47. Hippolytus (bk. 4, chap. 13) denounced the “alliance between heresy and the Pythagorean philosophy,” he criticized the “enormous and endless heresies” of those such as Colarbasus who attempted to explain religion by measures and numbers, and who deceived unsophisticated individuals with vain prophecies and calculation. He convicted Valentinus (bk. 6, chap. 24) of plagiarizing arithmetical philosophy, that he “may therefore justly be reckoned a Pythagorean and Platonist, not a Christian.” He complained (bk. 6, chap. 47) that Marcus too and his followers practiced “portions of astrological discovery, and the arithmetical art of the Pythagoreans” and therefore were not disciples of Christ. He also dismissed Monoïmus (bk. 8, chap. 8) as having copied Pythagoras. Furthermore, Hippolytus (bk. 9, chap. 9) denounced the heretical system of Elchasai as being derived from Pythagoras, and rejected especially the claim that Christ had been born repeatedly and would continue to be born as His soul transferred from body to body.
72. [Ambrosius Aurelius Theodosius] Macrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis [ca. 430? CE], in Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, trans. William Harris Stahl (New York: Columbia University Press, 1952), 134: “Pythagoras also thinks that the infernal regions [or the empire of death] of Dis [Pluto] begin with the Milky Way, and extend downwards because souls falling away from it seem to have withdrawn from the heavens. He says that the reason why milk is the first nourishement offered to the newborn infant is that the first movement of souls slipping into earthly bodies is from the Milky Way.” See also Porphyry, “De Antro Nympharum,” Select Works of Porphyry, trans. Thomas Taylor (London: T. Rodd and J. Moyes, 1823), 193: “According to Pythagoras, also, the people of dreams, are the souls which are said to be collected in the galaxy, this circle being so called from the milk with which souls are nourished when they fall into generation.” Also, Hippolytus complained that Pythagoras claimed that the world is eternal, originated from the un-begotten monad, that the stars are fragments of the Sun, and that from the stars come the souls of animals, which are then buried into bodies, until later death separates them from bodies, whence their souls become immortal. Human souls could pass between animals and plants, and souls who philosophized would eventually ascend to a kindred star, but if a soul did not escape the passions it could become mortal. See Hippolytus, Refutation, bk. 4.
73. Claudius Ælianus, Varia Historia [ca. 220 CE], in Claudius Ælianus, His Various History, trans. Thomas Stanley (London: Thomas Dring, 1665), bk. 4, chap. 17; Iamblichus, Pythagorean Way, chap. 28.
74. For discussion on whether the Metamorphoses were “dangerously pagan,” see Ursula D. Hunt, Le Sommaire en Prose des Métamorphoses d'Ovide dans le manuscrit Burney 511 au Musée Britannique de Londres (Paris: Presses Universitaires de France, 1925), xiii; Alan Cameron, Greek Mythography in the Roman World (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004), 24.
75. Diogenes Laertius, Life of Pythagoras, see sections 4, 15, 19, 20. The ancient belief that the sun is a god was briefly noted by Copernicus, e.g., “Trimegistus uisibilem Deum,” that for Hermes Trismegistus the sun was a visible god. See Copernici, De Revolutionibus, f. cij verso.
76. Porphyry, Life of Pythagoras [ca. 300? CE], trans. Kenneth Sylvan Guthrie (Alpine, N.J.: Platonist Press, 1919), sec. 28. Porphyry claimed that Pythagoras had a golden thigh, evidence that he was divine, related to Apollo. He insisted that Pythagoras predicted earthquakes and stopped violent winds, hail, and storms over rivers and seas. The heretical nature of Porphyry's portrayal of Pythagoras was well conveyed by Reverend Waddington, who argued that by comparison to Porphyry's books Against the Christians, “that which being more insidious, may have been more pernicious was his ‘Life of Pythagoras.’ Early in the third century, one Philostratus, a rhetorician at Rome, had composed a fabulous account of Apollonius of Tyana, a celebrated philosopher and magician; and so wrought out the supposed extraordinary incidents of his life, as to establish a close resemblance between them and the miracles of Christ. Porphyry imitated this example; and he represented the peaceful Pythagoras as having worked by his own power many stupendous prodigies—and having, moreover, imparted the same power to his principal disciples, Empedocles, Epimenides, and others. Such is the sort of weapon, which as it proceeds from the imagination, and addresses the imagination, and eludes the grasp of reason, has proved at all times the most dangerous to Christianity.” George Waddington, A History of the Church from the Earliest Ages to the Reformation, 2nd ed. (London: Baldwin and Cradock, 1835), 103.
77. Porphyry, “On the Philosophy Derived from Oracles” [ca. 270 CE], quoted in Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica [ca. 314 CE], as translated in Amos Berry Hulen, Porphyry's Work Against the Christians: An Interpretation, Yale Studies in Religion, no. 1 (Scottsdale, Penn.: Mennonite Press, 1933), 16.
78. Porphyry, Adversus Christianos [ca. 290 CE]; Porphyry appreciated the historical Jesus but attacked Christians and contradictions in the Gospels; he criticized some of the alleged deeds and sayings of Jesus. He ridiculed the claim that Jesus was God incarnate and he denied the resurrection of Jesus and of select humans on Judgment Day. He denied the doctrine that the world has a beginning and an end. He criticized Christianity for its emphasis on faith, unreason, and its appeal to the gullible poor and uneducated rather than to the educated and to philosophers. He denied that Jesus was the sole path to salvation. Porphyry believed instead in the existence of many gods and demons, and he asserted the eternity of the universe. He also stated that human souls transmigrate into various bodies as they travel for nine thousand years, descending from the moon, spending time on each planet, and finally going to the sun. See Hulen, Porphyry's Work; R. Joseph Hoffman, Porphyry's Against the Christians: The Literary Remains (Amherst, N. Y.: Prometheus Books, 1994); Jeffrey W. Hargis, Against the Christians: The Rise of Early Anti-Christian Polemic (New York: Peter Lang, 1999).
79. Pope Leo X, Papal Bull: Exsurge Domine [15 June 1520], in Hans. J. Hiller, The Reformation in Its Own Words
(London: SCM Press, 1964), 80.
80. Augustine of Hippo, De Civitate Dei Contra Paganos [ca. 412–427 CE], ed. R. W. Dyson (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998); City of God Against the Pagans, bk. 7 [ca. 417 CE], chap. 35, p. 310. Augustine attributes this claim about Pythagoras to Marcus Terentius Varro (ca. 40 BCE), also known as Varro Reatinus. Likewise, Cicero had commented on divination that Pythagoras “added a great weight of authority to this belief—and indeed he himself wished to acquire the skill of an augur.” Marcus Tullius Cicero, “On Divination” [ca. 44 BCE], in Treatises of M. T. Cicero, trans. C. D. Yonge (London: Henry G. Bohn, 1853), bk. 1, sec. 3. Plutarch also claimed that Pythagoras engaged in false divination: Plutarch, “A Discourse Concerning Socrates's Daemon,” in Plutarch's Miscellanies and Essays. Comprising All His Works Under the Title of “Morals,” ed. William W. Goodwin, vol. 2, 6th ed. (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1898), sec. 9. Also, Hippolytus (Refutation, bk. 9, chap. 9) denounced the followers of Elchasai for their incantations and for pretending “to be endued with a power of foretelling futurity, using as a starting-point, obviously, the measures and numbers of the aforesaid Pythagorean art. These also devote themselves to the tenets of mathematicians, and astrologers, and magicians, as if they were true. And they resort to these, so as to confuse silly people, thus led to suppose that the heretics participate in a doctrine of power.”
81. Iamblichus, Pythagorean Way, chap. 19.
82. Hermias the Philosopher, Irrisio Gentilium Philosophorum [ca. 250–550 CE?], in Demetrii Cydonii, Oratio de Contemnenda Morte (Basle: Ralph Seiler, 1533); also in The Writings of the Early Christians of the Second Century, trans. J. Giles (London: John Russell Smith, 1857), 193. See also R. P. C. Hanson, Hermias. Satire des Philosophes Païens; Sources Chrétiennes 388 (Paris: Cerf, 1993).
83. Niceforo Callistos, Ecclesiasticae Historiae III [ca. 1300–1330?], in J.-P. Migne, ed., Patrologiae Graecae (Paris: Migne, 1857–1866), 145; Gianfrancesco Pico della Mirandola, De Rerum Praenotione [On the Foreknowledge of Things] (1507), in Joannis Francisci Pici Mirandulae, Opera Omnia (Basel: 1519), 664–74. See also Maria Dzielska, Apollonius of Tyana in Legend and History, trans. Piotr Pienkowski (Rome: L'Erma di Bretschneider, 1986).
84. Caesar Longinus, Trinvm Magicvm, sive Secretorum Magicorvm Opvs (Frankfurt: Conradi Eifridi, 1630), 45, 373, 385–91; Henning Grosse, ed., Magica de Spectris et Apparitionibus Spiritu: de Vaticiniis, Divinationibus, &c (N.p.: Franciscum Hackium, 1656), 186–87. Pliny the Elder had claimed that Pythagoras studied magic, in Natural History, bks. 24, 25, 30, secs. IC, V, II, respectively.
85. Anonymous authors, manuscript [late 1500s]: Ms. Marshall 15 (5266), University of Oxford, Bodleian Library, f. f66v; Christofo de Cattan, La Géomance dv Seigneur Christofe de Cattan, gentilhomme Geneuoys. Liure non moins plaisant & recreatif. Auec la roüe de Pythagoras, rev. and trans. Gabriel du Preau (Paris: G. Gilles, 1558); The Geomancie of Maister Christopher Cattan, Gentleman. A booke no lesse pleasant and recreatiue, then of a wittie inuention, to knowe all thinges, past, present, and to come. Whereunto is annexed the Wheele of Pythagoras, trans. (from French) Francis Sparry (London: John Wolfe, 1591); Robert Fludd [Roberto Flud], Utriusque Cosmi Maioris scilicet et Minoris Metaphysica, Physica atqve Technica Historia: in Duo Volumina secundum Cosmi differentiam divisa (Oppenheim: Johan-Theodori de Bry, 1619); Thomas Taylor, The Theoretic Arithmetic of the Pythagoreans [1816], with an introductory essay by Manly Hall (Los Angeles: Phoenix Press, 1934), ix–xii.
86. Fludd, “De Numero et Numeratione,” in Utriusque.
87. The context of this statement makes it clear that Augustine was referring to astrologers. Augustine, De Genesi ad Litteram [ca. 408 CE], in Iosephi Zycha, Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesisticorum Latinorum, vol. 28 (Prague: F. Tempsky, 1894), bk. 2, p. 62, trans. Martínez.
88. Bartholomaeus Agricola, Symbolum Pythagoricum; sive De Justitia in Forum Reducenda, 2 lib. (Neapoli: Nemetum, 1619).
89. Galileo seems unaware that by mistakenly attributing the heliocentric theory to Pythagoras, he connected it to many old heresies. To what extent were the clergymen in the proceedings against Bruno and Galilei concerned with such connotations? That remains a direction for future research.
90. Galilei, depositions of 12 and 30 April 1633, in Finocchiaro, Galileo Affair, 260, 262, 277.
91. Galilei, “Abjuration,” 22 June 1633, in Finocchiaro, Galileo Affair, 292.
92. Giuseppe Baretti, The Italian Library (London: Millar, 1757), 52.
93. The painting, apparently by Bartolomé Murillo, a Spaniard, is dated 1643 or 1645; see Antonio Favaro, “Eppur si muove,” Il Giornale d'Italia, 12 July 1911, 3; J. Fahie, Memorials of Galileo Galilei, 1564–1642 (London: Courier Press, 1929), 72–75, plate 16; Stillman Drake, Galileo at Work: His Scientific Biography (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1978; reprint: New York: Courier Dover Publications, 2003), 356–57.
94. For the history of this old myth, see Maurice Finocchiaro, “That Galileo Was Imprisoned and Tortured for Advocating Copernicansim,” in Galileo Goes to Jail, 68–78.
95. Melchior Inchofer, Tractatus Syllepticus (A Summary Treatise Concerning the Motion or Rest of the Earth and the Sun, according to the Teachings of the Sacred Scriptures and the Holy Fathers) [1633], in Richard J. Blackwell, ed., Behind the Scenes at Galileo's Trial: Including the First English Translation of Melchior Inchofer's Tractatus Syllepticus (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2006), 108, 123, 167, 106. Inchofer also ridiculed Pythagoras and the Pythagoreans for believing that Earth has a soul, and that hell fire at its center causes it to move (he cited Hermias as a critical source against the Pythagoreans). See Blackwell, Behind the Scenes, 189–91.
96. Following the report of a Catholic Study Commission, in 1992, Pope John Paul II stated that theologians in Galileo's trial did not grasp the distinction between Scripture and its interpretation: “The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the Earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was, in some way, imposed by the literal sense of the Sacred Scripture.” John Paul II, “Allocution,” 31 October 1992, in Bernard Pullman, ed., The Emergence of Complexity in Mathematics, Physics, Chemistry and Biology: Proceedings of the Plenary Session of the Pontifical Academy of Sciences, 27–31 October 1992 (Vatican City: Pontificia Academia Scientiarum/Princeton University Press, 1996), 471.
97. “A Letter from Professor Bessel to Sir J. Herschel, Bart., Dated Königsberg, Oct. 23, 1838,” Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society 4, no. 17 (1838), 152–61 and no. 18 (1838), 163. On the basis of thousands of observations over a year, Bessel ascertained hundreds of measurements of the positions of star 61 Cygni against two background stars. In 1837, Wilhelm Struve had reported an estimate of parallax of the star Vega on the basis of just seventeen measurements, but his results were so rough and inconclusive that in 1848 he acknowledged Bessel's priority.
CHAPTER 3. NEWTON'S APPLE AND THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE
1. Richard G. Olson, Science & Religion, 1450–1900; From Copernicus to Darwin (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2006), 18. Many other books still repeat this old mistake, such as the following. Leon Lederman, with Dick Teresi, The God Particle (1993; repr., New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2006), 86; James Shipman, Jerry D. Wilson, Aaron Todd, An Introduction to Physical Science, 12th ed. (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2007), 47; Keith Johnson, Physics for You, Revised National Curriculum Edition for GCS, 4th ed. (Cheltenham: Nelson Thornes, 2001), 376; B. R. Hergenhahn, An Introduction to the History of Psychology, 6th ed. (Belmont: Wadsworth/Cengage Learning, 2009), 112; Paul A. Tipler and Gene Mosca, Physics for Scientists and Engineers, 6th ed. (New York: W. H. Freeman, 2008), 93.
2. Joseph Warton, ed., The Works of Alexander Pope, Esq., vol. 2 (London: B. Law et al., 1797), see editor's note on “Epitaphs. XII. Intended for Sir Isaac Newton, in Westminster-Abbey,” 403. See also “Newton,” Walker's Hibernian Magazine, or, Compendium of Entertaining Knowledge (Dublin: R.
Gibson, 1798), 119; and “Newton,” Scots Magazine 60 (Edinburgh, 1798): 228.
3. Stephen W. Hawking, God Created the Integers: The Mathematical Breakthroughs that Changed History (Philadelphia: Running Press, 2005), 365. Hawking retired from the Lucasian Chair of Mathematics in 2009.
4. Michael A. Seeds and Dana E. Backman, Horizons: Exploring the Universe, 11th rev. ed. (Belmont: Books/Cole, Cengage Learning, 2010), 58. Current convention for English dates is to use the Old Style Julian dates until the change of calendars in September 1752.
5. Some early accounts (influential and very useful, but yet significantly incomplete) are: Bolton Corney, “Art. XXI.—The Path of the Woolsthorpe Apple—Calculated on Data Not Known to Sir Isaac Newton!” in Corney, Curiosities of Literature by I. D'Israeli, Illustrated, 2nd rev. ed. (London: Richard Bentley, 1838), 152–58; Augustus De Morgan, “Newton's Apple,” in De Morgan, A Budget of Paradoxes (London: Longmans, Green, and Co., 1872), 81–82; Douglas McKie and G. R. de Beer, “Newton's Apple,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 9, no. 1 (1951): 46–54; D. McKie and G. R. de Beer, “Newton's Apple: An Addendum,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London 9, no. 2 (1952): 333–35. More recent accounts are available, but those also omit quotations, include modifications and errors in transcriptions, do not provide translations, and overall, use fewer primary sources than the present chapter.
6. Isaac Newton, “Before Whitsunday 1662,” manuscript, Fitzwilliam Notebook, Fitzwilliam Museum, Cambridge. This manuscript, written in Thomas Shelton's shorthand notation, was deciphered by Richard S. Westfall in “Short Writing and the State of Newton's Conscience,” Notes and Records of the Royal Society 18, no. 1 (June 1963): 10–16.
7. Wm. Stukeley, manuscript: “Memoirs of Sr. Isaac Newtons Life” [1752 Royal Society archives, GB 117, MS 142, p. 42 (hand numbered 15)]. See also McKie and de Beer, “Newton's Apple.”
8. Robert Greene, “Miscellanea Qaedam Philosophica,” in Greene, The Principles of the Philosophy of the Expansive and Contractive Forces, An Inquiry into the Principles of the Modern Philosophy (Cambridge: C. Crownfield, 1727), 972. The original reads: “Quæ Sententia Celeberrima, Originem ducit, uti omnis, ut fertur, Cognitio nostra, a Pomo; id quod Accepi ab Ingeniosissimo & Doctissimo Viro, pariter ac Optimo, mihi autem Amicissimo, Martino Folkes Armigero, Regiæ vero Societatis Socio Meritissimo…” trans. Martínez. Note that the awkward initial phrase is difficult to clarify, it seems ungrammatical, and the word “Pomo” can be translated otherwise as “fruit.” Aside from my translation above, one might very literally write: “which famous proposition, originates, all used, so found, our knowledge, an apple…”
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