Chapter XXX: Appendix: VII

THE FATHERS OF THE CHURCH AND SCIENCE.

There is a very general impression in many minds in our time that from the very beginning of Christianity the interest of Church men in the other world was so great that human attention was diverted just as far as possible from concerns of all kinds with the stage of existence through which man is passing here and now. As a consequence, there has been the feeling that from the earliest time the Church was opposed to science and scientific education, partly because this represented a rather compelling diversion from other-worldly interests, but mainly because it gave men control over natural forces which made life more comfortable, raised men up in their own estimation and was opposed to the spirit of humble faith best suited to the adherents of Christianity. Hence it is concluded that there was always a Church policy of deliberate opposition to science and indeed to all intellectual development. This attitude is often declared to be best represented by the expression attributed to one of the Fathers of the Church, "Heaven lies open to the simple of mind, the little ones of the earth, and the ignorant bear it away better than those who are proud of intellect."

Any such impression with regard to the Fathers of the Church as to the establishment of a policy of opposition to science and education is quite erroneous and entirely contrary to the general trend of their writings, even though it may be apparently substantiated by expressions taken at random from the writings of the Fathers at moments when they were emphasizing the truth that has always been so manifest, that from the knowing ones of earth,--and our use of the word knowing in the phrase is not complimentary,--especially from those who are conceited in their knowingness, many things are concealed that are revealed to those who are simple of heart and mind. It has seemed worth while, however, to devote an appendix to this subject of the real attitude of the Fathers to science. As Father Leahy, in his "Astronomical Essays," Boston (Washington Press, 1910), has answered Professor White's assumptions on this subject with a knowledge of the Fathers I could not hope to emulate, I have preferred to avail myself of his permission to quote him at length.

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"By the Fathers we understand in general the Christian writers in
the Church's early history. In the West the period may be held to
have terminated with Isidore of Seville of the seventh century, and
in the East with John of Damascus of the eighth. The important
writers of this epoch number between fifty and a hundred, and their
works constitute, as may be imagined, a body of literature of vast
extent.

Our only present concern is to learn, if possible, what was the
general attitude of this army of ecclesiastical writers towards the
physical sciences, especially the science of astronomy. Explicit
treatises on astronomy we shall not, indeed, expect them to supply.
For their works when massed are seen to constitute a library of
theology, and in such a collection we should no more look for
scientific treatises than in a modern library for law. But inasmuch
as the Fathers of the Church have been accused, by Andrew D. White
and others, of having stayed and even thwarted the advance of
science, it becomes the interest and the duty of the apologist to
hunt up their scientific allusions that we may learn to what extent
the charges made are true.

_The Standstill of Science_.--It has often been alleged as
derogatory to the accomplishments of the Fathers, that they
contributed nothing to the progress of scientific knowledge. From
our modern standpoint we may be tempted to esteem this failure of
theirs as a cardinal sin. But it would be wrong in this instance, as
in every other, to render a verdict of guilt too hastily. We of the
twentieth century are prone to forget that there are other fields of
profitable intellectual exploration besides the physical, and that
there may be objects of research and thought worthier of study than
the material world.

The Fathers of the Church were philosophers and theologians occupied
with the problems of the world's origin and destiny, higher themes,
surely, than any with which physical science is concerned. It is the
fashion of the day to praise the ancient Greeks at the expense of
the patristic and medieval theologians. But the distinction is to a
large extent inconsistent, since both bodies of writers were at work
upon the selfsame themes. Philosophers like the Greeks, the Fathers
were like them moralists as well, engaged in the elaboration of
right rules of conduct. Finally, unlike the Greeks, the Fathers were
Scriptural scholars, many of them of extensive erudition, in homily
and commentary expounding with wonderful assiduity the Sacred Books
in which they believed that God had given His revelation to man.

_Analogous Examples_.--Should we be surprised, then, if men so
occupied failed to add much to the world's store of scientific
knowledge? Though it were admitted, as it cannot be in its entirety,
that they left physical science just where they found it, could not
an explanation be discovered that would exonerate them from all
blame? To justify such an apology, we do not even need to transport
ourselves in spirit back to their time, a process which, however,
strict fairness would demand. But in our own era we can think easily
of dozens and hundreds of men of highest respectability and most
beneficent accomplishment, men of books and men of affairs, jurists,
statesmen, historians and others, who have {486} themselves done
little or nothing for the onward march of Science. That the careers
of these men are profitless, who shall allege?

Again, the present writer has often thought of the almost parallel
example of the ancient Romans. It makes their history but little
less illustrious to learn that this conquering people did nothing
for Science's advance. Till Pliny of the first century after Christ,
what Roman was a scientist? They were a nation of soldiers,
statesmen, orators and jurists, and for seven hundred years they
pursued through such avenues their triumphant course. Yet what
writer of to-day rises to charge them with a cardinal sin, because
Science remained at a standstill among them for seven full
centuries? With these seven centuries can we not properly compare
the later seven in which the Christian Fathers were the teachers of
the civilized world?

_Heritage from the Greeks_.--Objection will be made, no doubt, that
the Fathers began their career with fairer start than the Romans,
forasmuch as they were the direct heirs of the astronomy and physics
of ancient Hellas. And they will be incriminated with having abused
their precious heritage, by not merely letting it lie fallow but by
raising every possible obstruction to its further cultivation. Such
is the tenor of Andrew D. White's accusations against them.

This well-known writer smiles at the puerilities of patristic
science. He cites from among them Cosmas of Egypt as having
propounded a perfectly childish theory of the structure of the earth
and grafted it on the science of theology. The ready answer to this
particular charge is that Cosmas' conception of the universe
belonged to cosmogony and not theology, and further that it had no
influence on subsequent thought. Returning to the general
arraignment, White rebukes the Fathers for having clung so
tenaciously to false opinions regarding the shape of the earth, the
motion of the heavens, and the nature of the firmament. And, most
seriously of all, he charges the Fathers with indifference and even
hostility to the study of science itself.

In a few short paragraphs it is impossible to give an adequate
rejoinder to these damaging complaints. But they demand some sort of
reply, however inadequate it be, as emanating from an American
scholar and statesman of high rank, and embodied in a work that has
free and wide circulation among our college students.

_Defence of Their Doctrine_.--The first palliation for the reputed
offence of the Fathers is that whatever false science they retail,
was practically all of it derived from the very sources which it is
the fashion of the day to laud in the highest degree. As far as was
consistent with their faith, the Christian Fathers were the pupils
of the Greeks. It was the latter and not the patristic writers who
invented the false theories of a solid firmament and a motionless
earth. If Europe and Arabia down to the Renaissance believed in the
Geocentric system, it was because they trusted Ptolemy the Greek,
till then admittedly the greatest of astronomers. And a similar
ancestry could be traced, we venture to say, for all or the major
part of their scientific errors as far as these may have extended.

_Restrictions Made by the Fathers_.--But if the Fathers were in
{487} general the heirs of the Greeks, they were not guilty of the
mistake of accepting the inheritance in its entirety. To a large
extent they could discern the chaff from the wheat, and were
actually at pains to make the separation. It ought to be known that
the scientific literature of the Grecians is teeming with the
wildest and vainest of speculations regarding all matters within the
scope of astronomical science. Here as elsewhere, the Greeks
speculated endlessly, contradictorily, emptily, and almost
aimlessly. In unfounded speculation they discoursed on all manner of
astronomical subjects, the shape and size and distance of the sun,
its nature and that of the moon and stars, and so on almost
indefinitely, with scarcely any agreement or concomitance of
opinion. There were almost as many diverse opinions as there were
men.

To this motley assemblage of groundless and conflicting theories the
Fathers had full access through the medium of Plutarch, the Greek
compiler. Eusebius, for example, the Father of Church History,
quotes Plutarch on just these topics for over thirty pages. If
Eusebius and the other Fathers grew impatient with all this
ill-assorted mass of _soi-disant_ science, shall we charge them as
Dr. White does with having been false to the interest of science?
Should we not rather maintain that they helped save science from its
enemies?

_Opposition to Science_.--It is only in the light of these
indisputable facts that we can understand the sayings of the Fathers
in which, as quoted by White, they upbraid science for its
inutility. Be it noted in passing that White is wont to quote them
not literally but freely, and apart from their context. Lactantius,
Eusebius, Augustine, and Basil, these are the four whom he selects
as representative. They are truly representative, and indeed any one
of them might stand for all.

Let Eusebius be our particular choice, for he discusses astronomy
more completely than the others. White alleges (_Warfare_, Vol. I,
p. 91) that Eusebius endeavored to bring scientific studies into
contempt, and quotes him as saying, "It is not through ignorance of
the things admired by them [scientific investigators], but through
contempt of their useless labor, that we think little of these
matters, turning our souls to better things."

Who would guess from this brief epitome of Eusebius' views that the
latter had devoted to the subject more than thirty pages? Who could
possibly surmise that he had taken pains to write out, under the
guidance of Plutarch, all the known opinions of the Greeks on some
thirty-nine problems, all but two or three of them astronomical? Let
the curious read Eusebius for themselves in the fifteenth book of
his _Praelectio Evangelica_. They will there discover what White
might have well acknowledged, that on not one of the problems are
the Greek philosophers in agreement. On the nature of the sun there
are nine opinions, on its size four, on its shape an equal number,
on the moon's nature seven. And this discrepancy of judgment
continues to the end. Moreover a large proportion of the theories
are of the most fantastic sort.

In the face of this chaotic wilderness of diverse, fluctuating and
contradictory teachings, what could Eusebius do but turn away in
impatience, and take up in their stead the only truth of which he
{488} felt certain, the truth of the Gospel? Such was his actual
procedure. "Does it not seem to you that we have rightly and
deservedly departed from the curiosity of all these men, so idle and
so full of error?" He confesses frankly that he can see no fruit or
utility for man in the teachings he has quoted. And he appeals for
his complete justification to Socrates, the wisest of the Greeks,
who in his day had adopted precisely the same stand. This and no
other is the argument and spirit of Eusebius.

_No Opposition to True Science_.--This was the temper, also, that
actuated the other Fathers named, Lactantius, Basil, and Augustine.
No doubt these men valued spiritual knowledge above material. But it
by no means follows from this that they undervalued Science. They
were scholars of extensive culture, Basil a graduate of Athens,
Augustine of Carthage, and Lactantius styled because of his
proficiency the Christian Cicero. They were well acquainted with the
learning of the Greeks. That they rebelled against the scientific
fantasies of the latter, is not a proof that they were hostile to
the advance of Science itself.

In the Imitation of Christ, Thomas a Kempis expresses a sentiment
quite similar to theirs. "Surely a humble husbandman that serveth
God, is better than a proud philosopher who, neglecting himself, is
occupied in studying the course of the heavens." Like the Fathers, a
Kempis had reason to be disgusted with the astronomy of his time,
for it was beginning to be impregnated again with the virus of
Astrology. By refusing to follow such pseudo-scientific teachings,
both a Kempis and the Fathers did a real if seemingly negative
service to the science of astronomy.

"He was born under a lucky star." Language of this sort, used now
only in pleasantry, recalls a form of superstition which was once
accepted seriously by all men throughout the civilized world. In
many a period, mankind has believed literally that the stars and
planets exercised a real influence in shaping human lives. And there
have been many epochs, ancient, medieval, and even modern, when
astrology, the telling of fortunes by the stars, was given a rank
among the learned professions.

Even now there occur occasional sporadic outbreaks of the same
superstition. Along with other quacks and necromancers, astrologers
are still occasionally in evidence, advertising their trade through
the columns of the press. Indeed it is affirmed by the Catholic
Encyclopedia that the growth of occultistic ideas is reintroducing
astrology into society.

_Errors of Astrology_.--Whatever the popularity of this practice in
the past, and whatever its prospective vogue in the near future, it
is to be set down without qualification or hesitation as a delusion
and a snare. To suppose that the heavenly bodies have an influence
on human conduct is in its origin a pagan error, closely allied with
the pagan myth that the sun, moon and stars are presided over by as
many separate deities. Only thus could have originated the delusion
that Jupiter and Venus would procure a blessed destiny, and Mars and
Saturn a troubled one, for the children born at the time of their
rising.

Nor can the cult be justified by an array of the names of those who
have been its votaries. It is true that many astronomers in the
{489} past, including the great Kepler himself, have practised the
astrological art, casting horoscopes for their clients. But in most
cases it would be found, at least in the modern period, that these
scientists merely yielded through tolerance to the weakness of their
age. In true astronomy there is no place whatever for astrology.

Besides being groundless the practice is to be condemned for its
perilous moral tendencies. Distracting the soul from the worship of
the spiritual God, who alone governs the universe, it substitutes
for His action that of mere material objects, stars and planets,
which it thus elevates to the rank of lesser gods or demons.
Pretending to forecast from birth what each man's course in life
shall be, it robs the will of its proper share in moulding human
conduct.

_The Christian Fathers_.--An interesting testimony to the former
prevalence of this erroneous belief is found in one of Sir Walter
Scott's novels, "Guy Mannering," whose whole plot turns upon the
fulfilment of an astrological prediction. Reading the history at
hand the novelist had learned what complete sway the cult had
formerly exercised, almost down to the time of his writing. It would
have interested the celebrated author to know that there was,
however, one long period in which astrology was absolutely and
effectually excluded from Christian Europe. For over a thousand
years Christendom remained free from this blight, thanks to the
teachings of the Fathers of the Church.

In discussing the relations of the Fathers towards the astral
science, we have already shown how they purged it of some of its
grossest errors. But their principal service to the science remains
now to be told. For amongst all the vagaries of the science of the
heavens, astrology is both in theory and in practice the most
deplorable. That the Fathers placed the weight of their great
authority in the scale against this superstition, is one of the most
praiseworthy of their achievements.

_First Efforts at Reform_.--At the time that the Fathers began to
write, in the century just following the labors of the Apostles,
astrology formed everywhere an integral part of the science of
astronomy. It was taught in all the schools, Chaldean, Jewish,
Grecian and Roman. Almost from the beginning the defenders of the
Christian faith proceeded to attack this pernicious error, realizing
how inimical it was to the spread of truth which Christ had come to
impart. Already in his address to the Greeks, Tatian was heard
denouncing the absurdities of Grecian astronomy and astrology. This
was in the middle of the second century, just at the close of what
is called the Apostolic Period.

A little later, Tertullian, the famed apologist of the then
flourishing African Church, placed himself on record as the
uncompromising enemy of astrology. With his usual vehemence of
language he declared that "of astrologers there should be no
speaking even" among Christians; and went to the length of saying
that "he cannot hope for heaven whose finger or wand abuses the
heavens." These and many similar utterances may be found in his
Treatise on Idolatry.

_Respect for True Astrology_.--With this denunciation of magic and
idolatry there went hand in hand, however, a genuine respect {490}
for the proper science of the heavens. Contemporary with Tertullian,
and like him one of the great Christian masters of the period, was
Clement Alexandria. To the Catholic astronomer of to-day it is
gratifying to find this Father of the Egyptian Church giving
generous testimony to the worth of astronomical science. With just
discrimination he praises astronomy as "leading the soul nearer to
the creative power, as helpful to navigation and husbandry, and as
making the soul in the highest degree observant, capable of
perceiving the true and detecting the false."

Another contemporary, Hippolytus, was indeed unsparing in his
denunciation of astrology. In a treatise of eleven quarto pages,
contained in his "Refutation of All Heresies," he riddled with
merciless logic the vain pretensions of the Greek astrologers. But
he showed that he had no quarrel with a well ordered study of the
heavens, by giving liberal praise to Ptolemy, the ablest of the
astronomers.

_A Universal Teaching_.--In far distant Syria, then a choice realm
in the Church's patrimony, there was at the beginning of the third
century another school of Christian philosophers who joined with
their brethren in West and East in waging war on the same dread
enemy. A Syrian work, called the Book of the Astrologers, has two
quarto pages of excellent quality recounting and scoring the
absurdities of current astrological practices. It is so like
Hippolytus' work that one seems an echo of the other.

Perhaps the most interesting of all these concordant denunciations
is that found in the "Recognitions of Clement," a patristic writing
probably of the third century. Here the treatises on astrology run
to full ten chapters, a sign that the author had abundant knowledge
of the subject. In this work astrology is refuted particularly from
the moral point of view. It is convicted of the double charge of
being fatalistic in its tendency and subversive of all morality.
"Men's conduct," says the author's thesis, "is due to their own free
will and not to the configuration of the planets."

_Golden Age of Patristic Literature_.--So ran on in perfect unity
and harmony the steady flow of patristic teaching. It reached its
climax, as we should expect to find, in the heroic writers of the
fourth century, the golden era of patrology. Lactantius, the
Christian Cicero, re-echoed the voices of the past in pronouncing
astrology the work of demons. An Augustine, the greatest of the
Fathers, confirmed the decision of his predecessors by protesting
against the amalgamation of astrology with the true science of
nature.

So effectual indeed was the opposition to astrology of the earlier
Christian writers, confirmed by the masters of the post-Nicene
period, that the practice came to be regarded by all the faithful as
a superstition and a danger, and continued to be so esteemed down to
the time of the Crusades. For a full millennium, Christian Europe
midst all its vicissitudes was spared the absurdities of
astrological belief and practice, thanks to the patristic school of
writers.

_A Surprising Omission_.--We have thought it well to bring to light
these none too well-known facts regarding one important part of the
astronomical teachings of the Fathers. How they could have {491}
escaped the attention of Andrew D. White, or how he could have
failed to find place for them in his voluminous work, it is
difficult to understand.

His book bristles with accounts of superstitions, always telling
against the theologians, and in favor of the scientists. But
astrology is absent even from the index of his work. Had he allotted
it a chapter, his numerous readers would have learned that one great
school of theological writers, enduring for a thousand years, did
wage war on a certain sort of science, to wit, the pseudo-science of
astrology.

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