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Chapter 4 - From 'Signs and Wonders' to Law in the Heavens
Theological Efforts to Crush the Scientific View
Out of this belief was developed a great series of efforts to
maintain the theological view of comets, and to put down forever
the scientific view. These efforts may be divided into two classes:
those directed toward learned men and scholars, through the
universities, and those directed toward the people at large,
through the pulpits. As to the first of these, that learned men and
scholars might be kept in the paths of "sacred science" and "sound
learning," especial pains was taken to keep all knowledge of
the scientific view of comets as far as possible from students in
the universities. Even to the end of the seventeenth century the
oath generally required of professors of astronomy over a large
part of Europe prevented their teaching that comets are heavenly
bodies obedient to law. Efforts just as earnest were made to fasten
into students' minds the theological theory. Two or three examples
out of many may serve as types.
First of these may be named the
teaching of Jacob Heerbrand, professor at the University of
Tubingen, who in 1577 illustrated the moral value of comets by
comparing the Almighty sending a comet, to the judge laying the
executioner's sword on the table between himself and the criminal
in a court of justice; and, again, to the father or schoolmaster
displaying the rod before naughty children. A little later we have
another churchman of great importance in that region, Schickhart,
head pastor and superintendent at Goppingen, preaching and
publishing a comet sermon, in which he denounces those who stare at
such warnings of God without heeding them, and compares them to
"calves gaping at a new barn door." Still later, at the end of the
seventeenth century, we find Conrad Dieterich, director of studies
at the University of Marburg, denouncing all scientific
investigation of comets as impious, and insisting that they are
only to be regarded as "signs and wonders."
The results of this ecclesiastical pressure upon science in the
universities were painfully shown during generation after
generation, as regards both professors and students; and examples
may be given typical of its effects upon each of these two classes.
The first of these is the case of Michael Maestlin. He was by birth
a Swabian Protestant, was educated at Tubingen as a pupil of Apian,
and, after a period of travel, was settled as deacon in the little
parish of Backnang, when the comet of 1577 gave him an occasion to
apply his astronomical studies. His minute and accurate
observation of it is to this day one of the wonders of science. It
seems almost impossible that so much could be accomplished by the
naked eye. His observations agreed with those of Tycho Brahe, and
won for Maestlin the professorship of astronomy in the University
of Heidelberg. No man had so clearly proved the supralunar position
of a comet, or shown so conclusively that its motion was not
erratic, but regular. The young astronomer, though Apian's pupil,
was an avowed Copernican and the destined master and friend of
Kepler. Yet, in the treatise embodying his observations, he felt it
necessary to save his reputation for orthodoxy by calling the comet
a "new and horrible prodigy," and by giving a chapter of "conjectures
on the signification of the present comet," in which he proves
from history that this variety of comet betokens peace, but
peace purchased by a bloody victory. That he really believed in
this theological theory seems impossible; the very fact that his
observations had settled the supralunar character and regular
motion of comets proves this. It was a humiliation only to be
compared to that of Osiander when he wrote his grovelling preface
to the great book of Copernicus. Maestlin had his reward: when, a
few years, later his old teacher, Apian, was driven from his chair
at Tubingen for refusing to sign the Lutheran Concord-Book, Maestlin
was elected to his place.
Not less striking was the effect of this theological pressure upon
the minds of students. Noteworthy as an example of this is the book
of the Leipsic lawyer, Buttner. From no less than eighty-six
biblical texts he proves the Almighty's purpose of using the
heavenly bodies for the instruction of men as to future events, and
then proceeds to frame exhaustive tables, from which, the time and
place of the comet's first appearance being known, its
signification can be deduced. This manual he gave forth as a
triumph of religious science, under the name of the Comet
Hour-Book.
The same devotion to the portent theory is found in the
universities of Protestant Holland. Striking is it to see in the
sixteenth century, after Tycho Brahe's discovery, the Dutch
theologian, Gerard Vossius, Professor of Theology and Eloquence at
Leyden, lending his great weight to the superstition. "The history
of all times," he says, "shows comets to be the messengers of
misfortune. It does not follow that they are endowed with
intelligence, but that there is a deity who makes use of them to
call the human race to repentance." Though familiar with the works
of Tycho Brahe, he finds it "hard to believe" that all comets are
ethereal, and adduces several historical examples of sublunary ones.
Nor was this attempt to hold back university teaching to the old
view of comets confined to Protestants. The Roman Church was, if
possible, more strenuous in the same effort. A few examples will
serve as types, representing the orthodox teaching at the great
centres of Catholic theology.
One of these is seen in Spain. The eminent jurist Torreblanca was
recognised as a controlling authority in all the universities of
Spain, and from these he swayed in the seventeenth century the
thought of Catholic Europe, especially as to witchcraft and the
occult powers in Nature. He lays down the old cometary superstition
as one of the foundations of orthodox teaching: Begging the
question, after the fashion of his time, he argues that comets can
not be stars, because new stars always betoken good, while comets
betoken evil.
The same teaching was given in the Catholic universities of the
Netherlands. Fromundus, at Louvain, the enemy of Galileo, steadily
continued his crusade against all cometary heresy.
But a still more striking case is seen in Italy. The reverend
Father Augustin de Angelis, rector of the Clementine College at
Rome, as late as 1673, after the new cometary theory had been
placed beyond reasonable doubt, and even while Newton was working
out its final demonstration, published a third edition of his
Lectures on Meteorology. It was dedicated to the Cardinal of
Hesse, and bore the express sanction of the Master of the Sacred
Palace at Rome and of the head of the religious order to which De
Angelis belonged. This work deserves careful analysis, not only as
representing the highest and most approved university teaching of
the time at the centre of Roman Catholic Christendom, but still
more because it represents that attempt to make a compromise
between theology and science, or rather the attempt to confiscate
science to the uses of theology, which we so constantly find
whenever the triumph of science in any field has become inevitable.
As to the scientific element in this compromise, De Angelis holds,
in his general introduction regarding meteorology, that the main
material cause of comets is "exhalation," and says, "If this
exhalation is thick and sticky, it blazes into a comet." And again
he returns to the same view, saying that "one form of exhalation
is dense, hence easily inflammable and long retentive of fire, from
which sort are especially generated comets." But it is in his third
lecture that he takes up comets specially, and his discussion of
them is extended through the fourth, fifth, and sixth lectures.
Having given in detail the opinions of various theologians and
philosophers, he declares his own in the form of two conclusions.
The first of these is that "comets are not heavenly bodies, but
originate in the earth's atmosphere below the moon; for everything
heavenly is eternal and incorruptible, but comets have a beginning
and ending - ergo, comets can not be heavenly bodies."
This, we may
observe, is levelled at the observations and reasonings of Tycho
Brahe and Kepler, and is a very good illustration of the scholastic
and mediaeval method - the method which blots out an ascertained
fact by means of a metaphysical formula. His second conclusion is
that "comets are of elemental and sublunary nature; for they are
an exhalation hot and dry, fatty and well condensed, inflammable
and kindled in the uppermost regions of the air." He then goes on
to answer sundry objections to this mixture of metaphysics and
science, and among other things declares that "the fatty, sticky
material of a comet may be kindled from sparks falling from fiery
heavenly bodies or from a thunderholt"; and, again, that the
thick, fatty, sticky quality of the comet holds its tail in shape,
and that, so far are comets from having their paths beyond the,
moon's orbit, as Tycho Brahe and Kepler thought, he himself in 1618
saw "a bearded comet so near the summit of Vesuvius that it almost
seemed to touch it."
As to sorts and qualities of comets, he
accepts Aristotle's view, and divides them into bearded and
tailed. He goes on into long disquisitions upon their colours,
forms, and motions. Under this latter head he again plunges deep
into a sea of metaphysical considerations, and does not reappear
until he brings up his compromise in the opinion that their
movement is as yet uncertain and not understood, but that, if we
must account definitely for it, we must say that it is effected by
angels especially assigned to this service by Divine Providence.
But, while proposing this compromise between science and theology
as to the origin and movement of comets, he will hear to none as
regards their mission as "signs and wonders" and presages of
evil. He draws up a careful table of these evils, arranging them in
the following order. Drought, wind, earthquake, tempest, famine,
pestilence, war, and, to clinch the matter, declares that the comet
observed by him in 1618 brought not only war, famine, pestilence,
and earthquake, but also a general volcanic eruption, "which would
have destroyed Naples, had not the blood of the invincible martyr
Januarius withstood it."
It will be observed, even from this sketch, that, while the learned
Father Augustin thus comes infallibly to the mediaeval conclusion,
he does so very largely by scientific and essentially modern
processes, giving unwonted prominence to observation, and at times
twisting scientific observation into the strand with his
metaphysics. The observations and methods of his science are
sometimes shrewd, sometimes comical. Good examples of the latter
sort are such as his observing that the comet stood very near the
summit of Vesuvius, and his reasoning that its tail was kept in
place by its stickiness. But observations and reasonings of this
sort are always the first homage paid by theology to science as the
end of their struggle approaches.
Equally striking is an example seen a little later in another part
of Europe; and it is the more noteworthy because Halley and Newton
had already fully established the modern scientific theory. Just at
the close of the seventeenth century the Jesuit Reinzer, professor
at Linz, put forth his Meteorologia Philosophico-Politica, in
which all natural phenomena received both a physical and a moral
interpretation. It was profusely and elaborately illustrated, and
on account of its instructive contents was in 1712 translated into
German for the unlearned reader. The comet receives, of course,
great attention. "It appears," says Reinzer, "only then in the
heavens when the latter punish the earth, and through it [the
comet] not only predict but bring to pass all sorts of calamity....
And, to that end, its tail serves for a rod, its hair for weapons
and arrows, its light for a threat, and its heat for a sign of
anger and vengeance."
Its warnings are threefold: (1) "Comets,
generated in the air, betoken naturally drought, wind, earthquake,
famine, and pestilence." (2) "Comets can indirectly, in view of
their material, betoken wars, tumults, and the death of princes;
for, being hot and dry, they bring the moistnesses [Feuchtigkeiten]
in the human body to an extraordinary heat and dryness, increasing
the gall; and, since the emotions depend on the temperament and
condition of the body, men are through this change driven to
violent deeds, quarrels, disputes, and finally to arms: especially
is this the result with princes, who are more delicate and also
more arrogant than other men, and whose moistnesses are more liable
to inflammation of this sort, inasmuch as they live in luxury and
seldom restrain themselves from those things which in such a dry
state of the heavens are especially injurious." (3) "All comets,
whatever prophetic significance they may have naturally in and of
themselves, are yet principally, according to the Divine pleasure,
heralds of the death of great princes, of war, and of other such
great calamities; and this is known and proved, first of all, from
the words of Christ himself: `Nation shall rise against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom; and great earthquakes shall be in divers
places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great
signs shall there be from heaven."'
While such pains was taken to keep the more highly educated classes
in the "paths of scriptural science and sound learning; at the
universities, equal efforts were made to preserve the cometary
orthodoxy of the people at large by means of the pulpits. Out of
the mass of sermons for this purpose which were widely circulated
I will select just two as typical, and they are worthy of careful
study as showing some special dangers of applying theological
methods to scientific facts. In the second half of the sixteenth
century the recognised capital of orthodox Lutheranism was
Magdeburg, and in the region tributary to this metropolis no Church
official held a more prominent station than the "Superintendent,"
or Lutheran bishop, of the neighbouring Altmark. It was this
dignitary, Andreas Celichius by name, who at Magdeburg, in 1578,
gave to the press his Theological Reminder of the New Comet. After
deprecating as blasphemous the attempt of Aristotle to explain the
phenomenon otherwise than as a supernatural warning from God to
sinful man, he assures his hearers that "whoever would know the
comet's real source and nature must not merely gape and stare at
the scientific theory that it is an earthy, greasy, tough, and
sticky vapour and mist, rising into the upper air and set ablaze by
the celestial heat." Far more important for them is it to know what
this vaponr is. It is really, in the opinion of Celichius, nothing
more or less than "the thick smoke of human sins, rising every
day, every hour, every moment, full of stench and horror, before
the face of God, and becoming gradually so thick as to form a
comet, with curled and plaited tresses, which at last is kindled by
the hot and fiery anger of the Supreme Heavenly Judge." He adds
that it is probably only through the prayers and tears of Christ
that this blazing monument of human depravity becomes visible to
mortals. In support of this theory, he urges the "coming up before
God" of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah and of Nineveh, and
especially the words of the prophet regarding Babylon, "Her stench
and rottenness is come up before me." That the anger of God can
produce the conflagration without any intervention of Nature is
proved from the Psalms, "He sendeth out his word and melteth
them."
From the position of the comet, its course, and the
direction of its tail he augurs especially the near approach of the
judgment day, though it may also betoken, as usual, famine,
pestilence, and war. "Yet even in these days," he mourns, "there
are people reckless and giddy enough to pay no heed to such
celestial warnings, and these even cite in their own defence the
injunction of Jeremiah not to fear signs in the heavens." This idea
he explodes, and shows that good and orthodox Christians, while not
superstitious like the heathen, know well "that God is not bound
to his creation and the ordinary course of Nature, but must often,
especially in these last dregs of the world, resort to irregular
means to display his anger at human guilt."
The other typical case occurred in the following century and in
another part of Germany. Conrad Dieterich was, during the first
half of the seventeenth century, a Lutheran ecclesiastic of the
highest authority. His ability as a theologian had made him
Archdeacon of Marburg, Professor of Philosophy and Director of
Studies at the University of Giessen, and "Superintendent," or
Lutheran bishop, in southwestern Germany. In the year 162O, on the
second Sunday in Advent, in the great Cathedral of Ulm, he
developed the orthodox doctrine of comets in a sermon, taking up
the questions:
What are comets? What do they indicate? What have we to
do with their significance?
This sermon marks an
epoch. Delivered in that stronghold of German Protestantism and by
a prelate of the highest standing, it was immediately printed,
prefaced by three laudatory poems from different men of note, and
sent forth to drive back the scientific, or, as it was called, the
"godless," view of comets. The preface shows that Dieterich was
sincerely alarmed by the tendency to regard comets as natural
appearances. His text was taken from the twenty-fifth verse of the
twenty-first chapter of St. Luke: "And there shall be signs in the
sun, and in the moon, and in the stars; and upon the earth distress
of nations, with perplexity; the sea and the waves roaring." As to
what comets are, he cites a multitude of philosophers, and, finding
that they differ among themselves, he uses a form of argument not
uncommon from that day to this, declaring that this difference of
opinion proves that there is no solution of the problem save in
revelation, and insisting that comets are "signs especially sent
by the Almighty to warn the earth."
An additional proof of this he
finds in the forms of comets. One, he says, took the form of a
trumpet; another, of a spear; another of a goat; another, of a
torch; another, of a sword; another, of an arrow; another, of a
sabre; still another, of a bare arm. From these forms of comets he
infers that we may divine their purpose. As to their creation, he
quotes John of Damascus and other early Church authorities in
behalf of the idea that each comet is a star newly created at the
Divine command, out of nothing, and that it indicates the wrath of
God. As to their purpose, having quoted largely from the Bible and
from Luther, he winds up by insisting that, as God can make nothing
in vain, comets must have some distinct object; then, from Isaiah
and Joel among the prophets, from Matthew, Mark, and Luke among the
evangelists, from Origen and John Chrysostom among the fathers,
from Luther and Melanchthon among the Reformers, he draws various
texts more or less conclusive to prove that comets indicate evil
and only evil; and he cites Luther's Advent sermon to the effect
that, though comets may arise in the course of Nature, they are
still signs of evil to mankind. In answer to the theory of sundry
naturalists that comets are made up of "a certain fiery, warm,
sulphurous, saltpetery, sticky fog," he declaims: "Our sins, our
sins: they are the fiery heated vapours, the thick, sticky,
sulphurous clouds which rise from the earth toward heaven before
God."
Throughout the sermon Dieterich pours contempt over all men
who simply investigate comets as natural objects, calls special
attention to a comet then in the heavens resembling a long broom or
bundle of rods, and declares that he and his hearers can only
consider it rightly "when we see standing before us our Lord God
in heaven as an angry father with a rod for his children." In
answer to the question what comets signify, he commits himself
entirely to the idea that they indicate the wrath of God, and
therefore calamities of every sort. Page after page is filled with
the records of evils following comets. Beginning with the creation
of the world, he insists that the first comet brought on the
deluge of Noah, and cites a mass of authorities, ranging from Moses
and Isaiah to Albert the Great and Melanchthon, in support of the
view that comets precede earthquakes, famines, wars, pestilences,
and every form of evil. He makes some parade of astronomical
knowledge as to the greatness of the sun and moon, but relapses
soon into his old line of argument. Imploring his audience not to
be led away from the well-established belief of Christendom and the
principles of their fathers, he comes back to his old assertion,
insists that "our sins are the inflammable material of which
comets are made," and winds up with a most earnest appeal to the
Almighty to spare his people.
Similar efforts from the pulpit were provoked by the great comet of
1680. Typical among these was the effort in Switzerland of Pastor
Heinrich Erni, who, from the Cathedral of Zurich, sent a circular
letter to the clergy of that region showing the connection of the
eleventh and twelfth verses of the first chapter of Jeremiah with
the comet, giving notice that at his suggestion the authorities had
proclaimed a solemn fast, and exhorting the clergy to preach
earnestly on the subject of this warning.
Nor were the interpreters of the comet's message content with
simple prose. At the appearance of the comet of 1618, Grasser and
Gross, pastors and doctors of theology at Basle, put forth a
collection of doggerel rhymes to fasten the orthodox theory into
the minds of school-children and peasants. One of these may be
translated:
"I am a Rod in God's right hand
threatening the German and foreign land."
Others for a similar purpose taught:
"Eight things there be a Comet brings,
When it on high doth horrid range:
Wind, Famine, Plague, and Death to Kings,
War, Earthquakes, Floods, and Direful Change."
Great ingenuity was shown in meeting the advance of science, in the
universities and schools, with new texts of Scripture; and Stephen
Spleiss, Rector of the Gymnasium at Schaffhausen, got great credit
by teaching that in the vision of Jeremiah the "almond rod" was
a tailed comet, and the "seething pot" a bearded one.
It can be easily understood that such authoritative utterances as
that of Dieterich must have produced a great effect throughout
Protestant Christendom; and in due time we see their working in New
England. That same tendency to provincialism, which, save at rare
intervals, has been the bane of Massachusetts thought from that day
to this, appeared; and in 1664 we find Samuel Danforth arguing
from the Bible that "comets are portentous signals of great and
notable changes," and arguing from history that they "have been
many times heralds of wrath to a secure and impenitent world." He
cites especially the comet of 1652, which appeared just before Mr.
Cotton's sickness and disappeared after his death. Morton also, in
his Memorial recording the death of John Putnam, alludes to the
comet of 1662 as "a very signal testimony that God had then
removed a bright star and a shining light out of the heaven of his
Church here into celestial glory above." Again he speaks of another
comet, insisting that "it was no fiery meteor caused by
exhalation, but it was sent immediately by God to awaken the secure
world," and goes on to show how in that year "it pleased God to
smite the fruits of the earth - namely, the wheat in special - with
blasting and mildew, whereby much of it was spoiled and became
profitable for nothing, and much of it worth little, being light
and empty. This was looked upon by the judicious and conscientious
of the land as a speaking providence against the unthankfulness of
many,... as also against voluptuousness and abuse of the good
creatures of God by licentiousness in drinking and fashions in
apparel, for the obtaining whereof a great part of the principal
grain was oftentimes unnecessarily expended."
But in 1680 a stronger than either of these seized upon the
doctrine and wielded it with power. Increase Mather, so open always
to ideas from Europe, and always so powerful for good or evil in
the colonies, preached his sermon on "Heaven's Alarm to the
World,... wherein is shown that fearful sights and signs in the
heavens are the presages of great calamities at hand." The texts
were taken from the book of Revelation: "And the third angel
sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven, burning, as it
were a lamp," and "Behold, the third woe cometh quickly." In this,
as in various other sermons, he supports the theological cometary
theory fully. He insists that "we are fallen into the dregs of
time," and that the day of judgment is evidently approaching. He
explains away the words of Jeremiah - "Be not dismayed at signs in
the heavens" - and shows that comets have been forerunners of
nearly every form of evil. Having done full justice to evils thus
presaged in scriptural times, he begins a similar display in modern
history by citing blazing stars which foretold the invasions of
Goths, Huns, Saracens, and Turks, and warns gainsayers by citing
the example of Vespasian, who, after ridiculing a comet, soon died.
The general shape and appearance of comets, he thinks, betoken
their purpose, and he cites Tertullian to prove them "God's sharp
razors on mankind, whereby he doth poll, and his scythe whereby he
doth shear down multitudes of sinful creatures." At last, rising to
a fearful height, he declares: "For the Lord hath fired his beacon
in the heavens among the stars of God there; the fearful sight is
not yet out of sight. The warning piece of heaven is going off.
Now, then, if the Lord discharge his murdering pieces from on high,
and men be found in their sins unfit for death, their blood shall
be upon them." And again, in an agony of supplication, he cries
out: "Do we see the sword blazing over us? Let it put us upon
crying to God, that the judgment be diverted and not return upon us
again so speedily.... Doth God threaten our very heavens? O pray
unto him, that he would not take away stars and send comets to
succeed them."
Two years later, in August, 1682, he followed this with another
sermon on "The Latter Sign," "wherein is showed that the voice of
God in signal providences, especially when repeated and iterated,
ought to be hearkened unto." Here, too, of course, the comet comes
in for a large share of attention. But his tone is less sure: even
in the midst of all his arguments appears an evident misgiving. The
thoughts of Newton in science and Bayle in philosophy were
evidently tending to accomplish the prophecy of Seneca. Mather's
alarm at this is clear. His natural tendency is to uphold the idea
that a comet is simply a fire-ball flung from the hand of an
avenging God at a guilty world, but he evidently feels obliged to
yield something to the scientific spirit; hence, in the Discourse
concerning Comets, published in 1683, he declares: "There are
those who think that, inasmuch as comets may be supposed to proceed
from natural causes, there is no speaking voice of Heaven in them
beyond what is to be said of all other works of God. But certain it
is that many things which may happen according to the course of
Nature are portentous signs of Divine anger and prognostics of
great evils hastening upon the world." He then notices the eclipse
of August, 1672, and adds: "That year the college was eclipsed by
the death of the learned president there, worthy Mr. Chauncey and
two colonies - namely, Massachusetts and Plymouth - by the death of
two governors, who died within a twelvemonth after... Shall, then,
such mighty works of God as comets are be insignificant things?"
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