unscientific, especially by Protestants, for their forefathers were even more
radically opposed to the Copernican System:
Martin Luther:
“People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove to
show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the
firmament, the sun and the moon…This fool wishes to
reverse the entire science of astronomy, but sacred
Scripture tells us (Joshua 10:13) that Joshua
commanded the sun to stand still, and not the earth.”
5
“Some think it a distinguished achievement to
construct such a crazy thing as that Prussian
astronomer who moves the earth and fixes the sun.
Verily, wise rulers should tame the unrestraint of men’s
minds.”
6
Philip Melanchthon:
“Certain men, either from the love of novelty, or to
make a display of ingenuity, have concluded that the
earth moves … Now, it is a want of honesty and
decency to assert such notions publicly and the
example is pernicious. It is the part of a good mind to
accept the truth as revealed by God and to acquiesce in
it … The earth can be nowhere if not in the center of
the universe.”
7
John Calvin answered Copernicus with a line from Psalm 93:1:
5
Table Talk (ed. William Hazlitt, London, 1884), p. 69 (June 4, 1539) quoted in Thomas
Kuhn, The Copernican Revolution, NY: Vintage Books, 1959, p. l91.
6
Letter of October 16, 1541, quoted in Hermann Kesten, Copernicus and His World, NY:
1945, p.309. Also in Will Durant, The Reformation (vol. 6, The Story of Civilization, 1967),
NY: Simon & Schuster, 1957, p. 859.
7
Melanchthon, Initia Doctrinae Physicae (Elements of Physics), 1549, quoted in
Kuhn, ibid., p. l91.
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