Aristotle, Copernicus, and the Sacred Cosmos: Negotiating Early Modern Astronomy and the Mosaic...

ARISTOTLE, COPERNICUS, AND THE SACRED COSMOS: NEGOTIATINGEARLY MODERN ASTRONOMY AND THE MOSAIC CREATION ACCOUNT

IN THE HEXAMERAL COMMENTARIES OF THE RENAISSANCE, 1527-1633

Joshua Benjamins21 April 2014

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For centuries, thoughtful exegetes of the Bible have faced

the question of how to relate science and Scripture. One

category of literature that exhibits various approaches to this

question is the tradition of commentaries on the Book of Genesis.

The practice of systematically exegeting the book of Genesis—and

especially the Mosaic account of the six days of creation,

commonly called the hexameron1—has a long and storied history.

During the first few centuries after Christ, hexameral treatises

appeared from the pen of Church fathers in both the East and

West, including Augustine, Ambrose, Origen, Chrysostom, and Basil

of Caeserea.2 The medieval period also saw numerous learned

commentators on Genesis, like Peter Lombard, Hugo of St. Victor,

and Thomas Aquinas. No era, however, can rival the Renaissance

1 I have regularly used the Latin form hexameron, rather than the Greek form hexaemeron (ἑξαήμερον). The Greek term ἡ ἑξαήμερος means literally ‘the six days.’ The term was used as early as Philo of Alexandria (20 B.C.–50 A.D.).

2 For a brief survey of the early hexameral commentaries, see Edward Grant, Science and Religion, 400 B.C. to A.D. 1550: Aristotle to Copernicus (Baltimore, MA: John Hopkins University Press, 2006), 114-135.

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in both the sheer volume and scope of Genesis commentary. Nearly

every major theological figure of the sixteenth and seventeenth

centuries, whether Protestant or Catholic, tried his hand at the

genre. From Martin Luther to Benedict Perera, from Jerome Zanchi

to Robert Bellarmine, from Andrew Willet to Girolamo Vielmi,

educated men across England and the Continent produced weighty

tomes on Genesis. The vast majority of these commentaries were

penned in Latin; a handful appeared in English.3 This prolific

hexameral tradition of the Renaissance has received little

scholarly attention, even though—as Kerry Magruder notes—it

represents “one of the most important textual traditions for

discussing the formation of the Earth before such discussions

acquired a more interdisciplinary character in the contested

print tradition known as Theories of the Earth.”4 Among other

3 It is singularly unfortunate for students of Renaissance intellectualhistory that virtually none of the many Latin commentaries on Genesis from this period have been translated into English. In this essay, all translations from the Latin commentaries are my own.

4 Kerry V. Magruder, “The idiom of a six day creation and global depictions in Theories of the Earth,” in Geology and Religion: A History of Harmony and Hostility, ed. Martina Kölbl-Eber (London: Geological Society of London, 2009), 49. For a wide-ranging and learned introduction to the Renaissance commentaries on Genesis, see Arnold Williams, The Common Expositor: An Account of the Commentaries on Genesis, 1527-1633 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press,1948), 174. Though somewhat dated, this is the only book-length treatment of the Renaissance commentaries on Genesis to date, and I have found it to be generally reliable.


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things, these Renaissance commentaries provide a fascinating

window into early modern attempts to relate science and

Scripture.

At first glance, the hexameral commentaries might seem like

a curious instrument for exploring the relation between natural

and theological inquiry during the Renaissance period. However,

several factors make this genre a revealing window into the

subject. For one, the Renaissance commentaries typically

integrated leading scholarship of the day in such areas as

geology, astronomy, and physics. Arnold Williams, an expert on

Renaissance hexameral literature, even claims that

the exegetes of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries incorporated within their work a larger amount of what they took to be science than any exegetes before or since their day. They took Genesis far more as a literal, rather than as a merely religious or even literary account than have commentators since their time.5

Renaissance authors viewed the Mosaic narrative as a source of

scientific as well as theological truth. Genesis, as a book of

beginnings or origins, proved to be a particularly fertile ground

for inquiry into a wide range of scientific and particularly

5 Williams, The Common Expositor, 174.


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cosmological questions. As a result, these Renaissance

commentaries can provide significant insight into early modern

hermeneutics of Scripture and science.

To the modern reader perhaps, very few of the extended

discussions in the hexameral commentaries on physical and

astronomical topics seem to qualify as ‘scientific’

investigations. Questions such as whether the fixed stars have

living souls, whether the light of the sun is a body or a

substantial form, and whether the power of the stars comes

directly from God, fall more naturally into the category of

natural philosophy. (Other questions—such as “Did God create the

Moone in the Full, or in the Change?”—might seem patently

pedantic or simply quirky.)6 But it is important to remember

that the distinction between ‘science’ and ‘natural philosophy’

is a modern one, and cannot be retroactively applied to the

Renaissance period. It is better to recognize these standard

types of questions as part and parcel of the sort of inquiry into

nature which was characteristic of this time period. Most often

6 Abraham Rosse [Alexander Ross], An Exposition of the Fourteene first Chapters of Genesis, by way of Question and Answere. Collected out of Ancient and Recent Writers: Both briefely and subtilly propounded and Expounded (London: for Anthony Uphill, 1626), 8.


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in the Genesis commentaries, the question of how to relate

‘scientific’ or natural inquiry to religion takes the concrete

form of how to harmonize the Mosaic creation account with

traditional Aristotelian cosmology.7

With this caveat in mind, we can begin to explore how

Renaissance commentators tried to relate Scripture and science,

particularly astronomy. The dates selected to bracket this

inquiry nicely encapsulate a century of Renaissance commentary on

Genesis.8 1527 was the year Martin Luther published In Genesin Mosi

librum sanctissimum declamationes, in formal terms the first

‘Protestant’ commentary on Genesis. The succeeding hundred years

saw a flood of commentaries, right up to Andrew Willet’s Hexapla

in Genesin & Exodum in 1633. This period is especially suitable for

examining the commentary treatment of astronomical subjects,

since it coincides with the early phases of the Copernican

controversy. Copernicus published his revolutionary De

revolutionibus orbium coelestis in 1543. Galileo’s Sidereus Nuncius appeared7 Hereafter, when I use the word ‘science’ or ‘scientific’, it should

be construed in this broad sense.

8 I have borrowed these dates from Williams, who also provides a helpful list of commentaries on Genesis during the period (a list which, however, is incomplete and needs to be supplemented with additional sources).


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in 1610. Although few of the Genesis commentaries mention

Copernicus, virtually every commentator during this period makes

some attempt to relate the Mosaic account to questions of

astronomy, and in some cases—especially in the later decades of

the century—the questions they raise clearly reflect the new,

post-Copernican cosmological terrain.

As will become clear, the Renaissance interpreters, in

treating astronomical issues, generally follow a hermeneutic of

harmony, as they seek to demonstrate continuity between the Book

of Nature (the testimony of the senses and conclusions of natural

reason) and the Book of Scripture. They also see natural

philosophy and the Bible as mutually illuminative, and often try

to reconcile the Mosaic account with the traditional

Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmological synthesis. Despite a broad

continuity in hermeneutical approach, the commentators differ in

the extent to which they yoke the hexameron to the received

natural philosophy and astronomy of the day. When it comes to

the Copernican issue, the evidence suggests that most

commentators were ignorant of Copernicus’s theory.


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To set the scene for an inquiry into astronomical

discussions in the commentaries, it is useful to survey the

general hermeneutical principles which motivate and direct the

Renaissance commentators. Although there is danger of painting

this background with excessively broad strokes, we can identify

some key principles which, explicitly or implicitly, undergird

nearly all the commentaries of this period. First of all, the

Renaissance exegetes generally viewed the Book of Genesis as an

authoritative source not only of religious truth but also of

history and science. For example, Benedict Perera (1536–1601), a

Spanish Jesuit and voluminous exegete, calls Moses “the first

Theologian, Philosopher, Poet, and Historian.”9 In his judgment,

“No one who now reads this book [of Genesis] can have any doubt

as to how distinguished a philosopher Moses was, for this book

certainly contains the most difficult and noblest part of

[natural] philosophy, namely that which concerns the world and

man, and Moses describes and explains it so wondrously and

9 “Ex his palam est, Mosem, qui Cecropi synchronos fuit omnium, quorum nunc extant scripta, vel quorum nomen in Gentilium scriptis proditum sit, primum fuisse Theologum, Philosophum, Poetam, & Historicum.” Benedict Pererius [Benito Perera], Commentariorum et disputationum in Genesim. Continentes historiam Mosis, usque ad obitum S.S. Patriarchum Iacobi & Iosephi. . . . (Cologne, 1601), 7.


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impressively.” Perera adds that Moses did not receive these

insights from men, but through divine revelation.10 David Pareus

(1548–1622), a Reformed Protestant commentator from Germany,

similarly comments that while philosophers disagree about “the

principles, substance, number, motion, and end of all things,”

the true “doctrine concerning these works of God is proper also

to Theology, and should be learned from Moses and the prophets,

who received this doctrine from God himself.”11 Jerome Zanchi

(1516–1590), a Protestant Scholastic and author of the hexameral

treatise De operibus dei (a work which seamlessly integrates

10 “Quam autem eximius Philosophus fuerit Moses, nemini qui vel hunc modo librum legerit, dubium esse potest: difficillimam quippe, ac nobilissimamPhilosophiae partem, eam dico, quae est de mundo & homine, hic liber, ut verissime, ita graviter & mirabiliter ab ipso descriptam & explicatam, continet. Atque haec omnia Moses non a se conficta, non ab hominibus accepta,non naturae vestigiis ductuque indagata, sed ipso Deo indicante ac docente sibi patefacta & cognita, litterarum monumentis consignavit.” Perera, Commentariorum . . . usque ad obitum S.S. Patriarchum, 8.

11 “Etsi autem Philosophia etiam aliquid docet de hac parte operum Dei,& philosophi profitentur, se de Deo, & de principiis, substantia, numero, motuac fine rerum omnium in natura . . . disserere: tamen revera in his tantum sequuntur conjecturas ingeniorum suorum, & ut loquitur Iustinus Martyr οἰκείῳ εἰχασμῳ placita sua definiunt, ac de internis quidem principiis, materia, & forma, quibus privatio accidit, rerum naturalium multa acute disputant, quorumcognitio est utilis & propria philosophiae. De externis vero principiis, hoc est, efficiente & fine creationis caecutiunt, ut noctuae in meridie, & ipsi inter se & a se mirum in modum diffentiunt. Doctrina igitur de his Dei operibus etiam propria est Theologiae, & ex Mose ac prophetis disci debet, quia Deo eam acceperunt. . . .” Pareus, In Genesin Mosis commentarius, cols. 43-44.


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Aristotelian natural philosophy with Biblical commentary), even

describes Genesis as “Moses’ history of the primal physical works

of God.”12 All of these commentators share a consensus that

Genesis should be understood as a source of infallible

information about the Book of Nature. This holds true to such a

degree that, in his discussion of the fourth day of creation, the

Jesuit commentator Perera feels the need to explain why Moses did

not treat questions like “what is the nature of the heavens, what

sort of figure it possesses, how great is its magnitude, what is

the number of the celestial spheres,” and similar topics which

are “customarily discussed by the philosophers and

mathematicians.”13 Even though Moses’ primary purpose was not to

reveal scientific truths, the Biblical author speaks infallibly

whenever he touches on issues of natural philosophy.

12 “Etsi vero Moses brevissimus est in sua primorum Physicorum operum Dei Historia. . . .” Hieronymus Zanchius [Girolamo Zanchi], De operibus dei intra spacium sex dierum creatis opus: tres in partes distinctum (Neustadt, 1591), 199.

13 “Quaerit B. August. cap.9.lib.2. de Genesi ad litteram, cur Auctoressacrarum litterarum non aperte & enucleare docuerunt, quaenam esset caeli natura, qualis figura, quanta magnitudo, & numerus orbium caelestium, qui motus, quae caelestis motus efficiens causa, quam ingens & varia syderu potentia, & efficacitas, aliaque huius generis multa, quae tam Philosophi quamMathematici solentur investigando, arguteque tractando, immortalitatem ingeniilaudem & nominis memoriam promeruerunt.” Perera, Commentariorum et disputationum in Genesim. Continentes historiam Mosis, ab exordio mundi usque ad Noeticum diluvium. . . . (Horatius Cardo, 1601), 87.


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Another general principle of the commentaries relates to the

tradition of natural theology, or understanding the nature of God

through the works of creation. The Renaissance commentators

often introduce their studies by explaining the purposes and

motivations for studying creation and particularly for studying

the heavens. Often, the primary motive turns out to be

theological in nature. Jerome Zanchi—who, in his discussion of

the work of the fourth day, devotes over thirty closely-set pages

to some two dozen astronomical questions—explains that, in

comparison with the earth, the heavens contain “even more

illustrious images of the divine power, wisdom, goodness, and

love towards us,” and have the power to “seize us and stir us up

to just admiration and honor of God.” The form of the heavens

(figura coeli) serves as a “shining mirror of divine wisdom and

power.” Zanchi waxes eloquently about the “very broad expanse”

of the heavens, “most pleasing in aspect, and most ornamented,

distinguished by many spheres, embossed and variegated by

infinite stars, as if by emblems.” All of this spacious theater—

the uniform motion of the heavens, the wonderful order of the

planetary spheres—“brings forward the divine art of the Creator,


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and places it before our eyes, so that we can admire and

contemplate them to the full.”14 Along similar lines, the famous

French-born Reformer of Geneva, John Calvin (1509–1564), remarks

that “astronomy is not only pleasant, but also very useful to be

known; it cannot be denied that this art unfolds the admirable

wisdom of God.”15 Theology furnished a motivation for

investigating and analyzing the natural world.

An important hermeneutical principle observed by nearly all

the Renaissance commentators on Genesis is that the interpreter

of Scripture should—whenever possible—seek explanations from

reason and nature, without needlessly appealing to the absolute

power of God (potentia absoluta). One of the rules of

interpretation (regulae) which Benedict Perera lays out in his

14 “Verum e terra, si lubet, ascendamus in coelum. Ibi enim illustriores extant imagines divinae potentiae, sapientiae, bonitatis & erga nos amoris. . . . Sin figuram coeli, aliaque accidentia respicias, nonne pelcerrimum, nitidissimum, ac pellucidum divinae sapientiae, potentiaeque speculum vides? Expansio latissima, aspectui laetissima, & ornatissima, pluribus orbibus distincta, infinitis stellis, tanquam emblematis, caelata, & variegata: magnitudo tanta aetheris, ut ima haec terrae pelagique sphaera, centri duntaxat, & puncti rationem ad eum habeat: siderum splendor & positus admirabilis: virtus in haec inferiora impervestigabilis, divinum conditoris artificium ita produnt, oculisque subiiciunt, ut satis admirari contemplariquenequeamus.” Zanchius, preface (not paginated).

15 John Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses called Genesis, trans. John King, vol. 1 (Grand Rapids: Wm. B. Eerdmans, 1948), ad. 1.16.


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preface to Genesis is that “In treating of and expounding this

teaching of Moses, we should not needlessly appeal to miracles

and to the absolute power of God, as do some unlearned and inept

men who, when they are unable to give a sufficient and probable

reason for their view, flee to miracles and the divine

omnipotence, as to an asylum.”16 Instead, Perera and other

commentators look for naturalistic explanations.

Closely related to this rule is the presupposition that the

teaching of Genesis can be harmonized with the conclusions of

other disciplines, including natural philosophy or ‘science’.

Some commentators explicitly appeal to the ‘two-books’ metaphor:

both the Book of Nature and the Book of Scripture are divine in

origin and hence cannot contradict one another. Matthias Martini

(1572–1630), a German Calvinist, opens his commentary with a

discussion of the “book of nature and scripture.”17 For

commentators like Martini, the unity of all truth implies the

16 “In hac Mosis doctrina tractanda & explicanda, non est sine causa recurrendum ad miracula, & ad potentiam Dei absolutam, sicut inscienter, & inepte faciunt nonnulli, qui cum opinionis suae rationem idoneam & probabilem reddere non possint quasi ad asylum, confugiunt ad miracula & omnipotentiam Dei.” Perera, Commentariorum . . . usque ad obitum S.S. Patriarchum, 24.

17 Matthias Martini, De creatione mundi commentariolus, ad declarandam s. theologiae summulam methodicam pertinens (Bremen: Johannis Wesselius, 1613), preface (n.p.).


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congruence of the Bible with other disciplines. Perera explains

the principle of harmony in the beginning of his commentary: “We

must diligently beware, and take the greatest pains, lest in

treating the teaching of Moses, we should emphatically believe

and teach anything which is at variance with manifest experience

and the proofs of philosophy or of other disciplines: for since

every truth is congruent with every other, the truth of Sacred

Scripture cannot be contrary to the proofs and experiments of

human disciplines.”18 Perera finds support for this principle in

Augustine’s On Genesis according to the Letter,19 and gives some modern-

day illustrations from astronomy. If the commentator justly

weighs the opinions of previous interpreters in accordance with

18 “Illud etiam diligenter cavendum, & omnino fugiendum est, ne in tractanda Mosis doctrina, quicquam affirmate & asseveranter sentiamus, & dicamus quod repugnet manifestis experimentis, & rationibus philosophiae, vel aliarum disciplinarum: namque cum verum omne semper cum vero congruat, non potest veritas sacrarum litteratum, veris rationibus & experimentis humanarum doctrinarum esse contraria.” Perera, Commentariorum . . . usque ad obitum S.S. Patriarchum, 25.

19 Perera quotes Genesis ad litteram 1.25: “Hoc indubitanter tenendum est, utquicquid sapientes huius mundi de natura rerum verciter demonstrare potuerint,ostendamus nostris litteris non esse contrarium quicquid autem illi in suis voluminibus contrarium sacris litteris docent, sine ulla dubitatione credamus id falsissimum esse, & quoquo modo possumus, etiam ostendamus: atque ita teneamus fidem Domini nostri, in quo sunt absconditi omnes thesauri sapientiae, ut neque falsae Philosophiae loquacitate seducamur, neque simulatereligionis superstitione terreamur.” Perera, Commentariorum . . . usque ad obitum S.S.Patriarchum, 25.


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this rule of harmony, he will have to reject the teaching of men

like Origen, Lactantius, and Chrysostom, who thought “that

Scripture teaches that the heavens are not spherical, and are

immobile; that the stars move through the sky like fish through

water and birds through air; that there are no Antipodes . . .

Manifest experiments and necessary proofs demonstrate all these

things to be false.”20 This sentiment is reflective of a broader

concern in the Genesis commentators to harmonize reason and

experience with the words of Moses. As Arnold Williams comments,

“There was a widespread disposition to harmonize Genesis with the

findings of science, which for most of the commentators meant the

Aristotelian science of the schools.”21

Although Wilkins is correct to recognize the common impulse

towards harmonizing Moses with Aristotle, some intellectuals of

the period took a rather different approach to the subject. The 20 “Ad hanc regulam si exigamus, & expendamus nonnullas quorundam

interpretum opiones, plane respuendas atque reiiciendas esse intelligemus. Exempli causa: Origenes, Lactantius, Procopius Gazaeus, Chrysostomus, & quidamalii censent secundum scripturam coelum non esse rotundum, esse immobile: moveri stellas per coelum, ut pisces per aquam, & aves per aerem: non esse Antipodas: aquam maris esse multis partibus sblimiorem, celsissimis etiam terrae montibus: quae tamen falsa esse omnia, manifestis experimentis, necessariisque rationibus nunc conflat.” Perera, Commentariorum . . . usque ad obitum S.S. Patriarchum, 25.



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so-called Mosaic philosophers tried to derive a comprehensive

physics and metaphysics from the book of Genesis. The Harvard

intellectual historian Ann Blair, in an excellent survey of this

curious late-Renaissance phenomena, observes that while most

modern historians of science hastily dismiss the “Mosaic” or

“Christian” philosophers, eighteenth-century historians of

science assigned this school its own place alongside

Aristotelians, Platonists, Epicureans, Stoics, and Sceptics.

Thus, the German historian Johann Jakob Brucker (1696–1770), for

example, explained the uniqueness of the Mosaic philosophy thus:

“Some, following the letter of Scripture, used what the sacred

writers touched on [in passing] rather than recounted [at length]

concerning cosmogony and natural things in order to build a new

sacred physics. . . . Hence they are called Mosaic and Christian

philosophers.”22

The most well-known and widely-read of these “Mosaic

philosophers” was Johann Amos Comenius (1592–1670), an

influential Czech-born thinker and educator. He prescribed a

22 Cited in Ann Blair, “Mosaic physics and the search for a pious natural philosophy in the late Renaissance,” Isis 91.1 (2000): 35.


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Christian physics based on a naive union of “sense, reason and

Scripture,” uncontaminated by the alloy of Aristotelianism.23

Like many of the more mainstream commentators, Comenius and his

colleagues recognized the need to use reason and sense to find

the true meaning of Scripture as it related to the physical

world. Unlike most thinkers, however, the Mosaic philosophers

rejected established philosophical resources as tools for

integrating the Bible with reason and sense experience. In the

context of the suspicion of and even hostility to philosophy

voiced by Luther and some of the other Reformers, men like

Comenius jettisoned Aristotle and articulated a stringent

biblical literalism. As the prominent English physician and

cosmologist, Robert Fludd (1574–1637), put it, “the subject of

true Philosophy is not to be found in Aristotle’s works, but in the

Book of truth and Wisdom.”24 Though the Mosaic philosophers did

not produce any major commentaries during this period (unless we

count the first book of Fludd’s 1617 work, Utriusque cosmi Historia)25 23 Blair, “Mosaic physics,” 39-40.

24 Cited in Peter Harrison, The Bible, Protestantism, and the Rise of Natural Science (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998), 139.

25 Robert Fludd, Utriusque cosmi maioris scilicet et minoris metaphysica, physica atque technica historia. . . . (Oppenheim, 1617). Reprinted, in part, in Robert Fludd, ed.


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and remained a minority school, their bibliocentric approach to

knowing the world complicates the narrative of Renaissance

understandings of the relationship between science and Scripture.

How do the general hermeneutical principles sketched out

above play out in the various discussions of astronomy in the

Renaissance commentaries? First, as the principle of harmony

implies, both Protestant and Catholic commentators seek a

confluence of reason and sense experience with Scriptural

teaching as they unfold the nature and structure of the heavens.

For example, David Pareus notes that “Aristotle ascribes the

light and heat which are diffused through the air not to the

stars themselves, but to the motion of the stars, because he says

that the air is rubbed and thence kindled by the constant motion

of the stars.” Pareus objects to this view on biblical grounds:

“Moses truly teaches that God at creation endowed the light-

bearers with light, and created them as actually bearing light,

not dark.” Pareus draws part of the evidence for this view from

Scripture: aside from Moses, he cites Paul’s statement that

“There is one glory of the sun and another of the moon” (1

William Huffman (Berkeley, CA: North Atlantic Books, 2001), 58-81.


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Corinthians 15:41). But he also buttresses his view with the

testimony of the senses: “Our senses themselves also testify the

same thing. For the sun, like a king, supersedes all the stars

in magnitude and splendor.”26 The same hermeneutic appears in

Pareus’s defense of the traditional doctrine of creation ex nihilio.

Pareus notes that “Mathematicians define the stars as the densest

parts of the orbs, visibly enlarged by a mass of matter and by an

abundance of light.” He insists that this definition does not

necessarily imply creation ex materia: it is far better to ascribe

the origin of heavenly matter to creation ex nihilo than to affirm

that God created the stars out of scattered bits of pre-existing

heavenly matter—for the alternative “cannot be proved either from

Moses’ words or through rational proof.”27 Rational 26 “Aristoteles lumen & calorem in aere sparsum non ipsis astris, sed motui

astrorum asscribit, quia dicit, aerem assiduo motu astrorum fricari & inde ignescere. . . . At Moses vero docet, Deum luminaribus indidisse lucem in creatione, & creasse actu lucida, non opaca. . . . quod etiam testatur Apostolus: Alia enim est claritas solis alia Luna, alia stellarum, &c. Et testatur ipse sensus. Sol enim quasi rex magnitudine & fulgore sidera omnia superat. Proxime fulget Luna instar reginae: stellae reliquae sunt quasi fatellitiutu utriusque.” Pareus, In Genesin Mosis commentarius, col. 226. Zanchius uses the same kingly image to represent the physical and symbolic centrality of the sun: “Et deinde Solem in medio omnium, tanquam omnium astrorum regem” (De operibus dei, 379). Pareus in his commentary feels the need to insert an excursus combatting Roman Catholic interpreters of the hexameron who took the sun as a symbol of the papacy: In Genesin Mosis commentarius, col. 254.

27 “Mathematici definiunt astra esse densiores orbium partes, auctas mole materiae perspicue & copia complicatae lucis: Id absurdum non est credere. Verum non probat, astra ex materia coelorum facta esse, ut quidam volunt. Qui enim materia


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demonstration and Scriptural testimony form the two great pillars

of astronomical truth, and the Renaissance commentators

consistently seek to harmonize these authorities.

Many of the commentators also try to harmonize Moses with

the traditional Aristotelian cosmology. This tendency appears

more strongly in some exegetes than others. As seen above,

Pareus disagrees with Aristotle on issues like the inherency of

light in the heavenly bodies. Other commentators entertain a

deep and thoroughgoing respect for Aristotle on astronomical

questions. The Jesuit Perera and the scholastic-minded Zanchi

both exemplify this veneration of the Philosopher. Zanchi makes

an extensive effort to reconcile Arisotelian physics with the

creation account. He argues that Moses and Aristotle have the

coelorum ex nihilo condere potuit, quidni luminaria eiusdem materiae ex nihilocondere potuerit? . . . tamen longe gloriosius Deo iudicamus statuere, cum astra eiusdem cum coelo materiae, vel etiam nobilioris, ex nihilo subito fecisse: quam dicere Deum ex partibus coeli plurimis invicem contractis astra conflusse, ut cum multae partes coaguli in unam massam contrahuntur: id quod nec Mosis verbis nec ratione probari potest, quin vel coelum iis partibus, quae astris carent, nunc esse tenuimus, quam initio conditum erat, vel in locum materiae in astra compactae tantundem materiae rursus fuisse a Deo creatum dieatur, vel certe ibi vacuum quid statuatur, quorum duo priora non sunt verisimilia, posterius absurdum est.” Pareus, In Genesin Mosis commentarius, cols. 231-232. The question of ex nihilo vs. ex materia creation is also taken up by Zanchius: De operibus dei, 13ff.


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same subject and even follow a similar method (ordo); Genesis

1:1-2 presents us with Aristotle’s form and matter.28

Often the commentators insert principles of contemporary

astronomy into their exegesis, as ways of unfolding the meaning

of the Biblical text.29 But the Mosaic account also has

independent authority and can disprove certain astronomical

theories. Zanchi emphasizes that the words “Let them be in the

expanse of the heavens” (Genesis 1:15) disproves the theory of

some astronomers that some stars exist outside of the eight

spheres.30 Pareus insists that the stars are infinite in number,

and from a literal reading of passages like Psalm 147:4, he

concludes, “The astronomers therefore are greatly deceived in

28 Zanchius, De operibus dei, 199-200.

29 Thus, e.g., Peter Martyr Vermigli: “Sed si nos physicorum sententiamhaec de re exploremus, hoc inveniri a nobis poterit, Coelorum substantiam esselucidam, sed cum rara admodum fit, non lucet, quod si alicubi condensetur in globos, tunc maxime splendet.” In primum librum Mosis, qui vulgo Genesis dicitur, commentarii doctissimi. . . . (Zurich: Christophorus Froschoverbus, 1579), 12. In contrast with Zanchi, Vermigli devotes very little space to questions of natural philosophy with reference to the hexameron, but this is no doubt to beattributed to the vastly greater amount of Mosaic material he aspires to cover.

30 “Neque illud praetereundem est, quod ait: Fiant in expansione Caelorum. Non sunt igitur facta extra Coelum, ut quidam volunt, & postea collocata in Coelis: sed facta sunt in ipsis Coelis: ac proinde etiam ex materia Coelorum: ut recte docent Philosophi: astra nil aliud esse, quam densiores Coelorum partes: sicut nodi sunt in asseribus.” Zanchius, De operibus dei, 379.


21

thinking that they can define the number of the stars.” In the

end, “the number of these stars must be left to God, the most

perfect Astronomer.”31

Under the overarching authority of received Aristotelianism,

many exegetes explain the creation of the heavenly bodies

(Genesis 1:14-18) in terms of a traditional cosmos. For example,

the Italian cardinal Tommaso Cajetan (1469–1534) in his

commentary identifies the firmament with the empyrean and the sky

(coelum) with the seven planetary spheres.32 Cajetan further

31 “Septem igitur coelorum orbibus inferioribus, septem astra affixit, quae propter ἀνώμαλον motum suorum orbium planetae vocantur, seu stellae errantes, non retinentes eundem perpetuo situm ad se invicem, & ad stellas fixas. In octava autem sphaera non fidus unum ut in reliquis, sed plurima & innumera posuit, quae fixa vocantur, non quod non etiam alia septem suis infixa sint orbibus, aut quasi plane immobilia consistant: sed quia tardissimo& vix perceptibili motu moventur cum suo orbe, eundem perpetuo situm inter se retinentia. Haec sphaera ideo dicitur firmamentum, & coelum stellatum, a stabilitate & multitudine stellarum in eo defixarum. Quam vero multae haec sint, Deo perfectissimo astrologoest relinquendum. Solus enim numerare potest. Sicut dicitur Ps. 147.4. . . . Quod igitur astronomi putant, se possestellarum numerum definire, multum falluntur.” Pareus, In Genesin Mosis commentarius, col. 233.

32 “Quod autem Moses hoc loco nomine Coeli, empyrei Coeli creationem tradere voluerit, tribus argumentis confirmant. Primum argumentum petitur ex ipsa scriptura, quae in hac narratione Mosis distingit Coelum a firmamento, & aquis supra firmamentum factis secundo die, & a sole & luna caeterisque astris, quae quarto die sunt condita. Cum igitur per firmamentum intelligaturoctava sphaera per aquas supra firmamentum locatas, nonum Coelum, quod vocant crystallinum per solem autem lunamque & astra septem orbes planetarum: relinquitur, per coelum in principio factum, non aliud posse intelligi quam coelum empyreum.” Tommaso de Vio Cajetanus, Commentarii illustres planeque insignes in quinque mosaicos libros, edited by Antonio Fonseca (Johannis Boulle, 1539), 48.


22

identifies the light-bearers of Genesis 1 with “the denser parts

of the heavens, which contain and transmit light,” and explains

that on the fourth day God endowed the heavenly bodies with light

—the Aristotelian ‘form’ appropriate to their matter—and with

their proper motion.33 Antonio Honcala (1484–1565) also appeals

to Aristotelian terminology when he explains that the sun and

moon “were placed in their orbits, not—to use the customary

language of the philosophers—as a thing located in place [locatum

in loco], but as a singular part in its whole.”34 Zanchi finds a

similar confluence between the received cosmological wisdom and

the Mosaic account. Commenting on Genesis 1:14-17, he remarks,

“Next, this too should be noted, that the heavens possess a

spherical form, and for this reason their motion—and,

consequently, the motion of the stars which are in them—is

circular. The sacred Scriptures indeed teach this; so do the

33 “Est autem astri forma ipsa lux, quae hoc quarto diei illis data est, Deo partes illas Coeli densiores spissa luce complente, datus est illis praeterea proprius motus, nam alio motu cietur Luna, & alio Mercurius, itemquealio sidera.” Cajetan, Commentarii, 137.

34 Antonio Honcala, Commentaria in Genesim. . . . (Johannus Brocarius, 1555), 12.


23

philosophers, who deduce the same by reason.”35 For Cajetan,

Honcala, Zanchi, and others, traditional Aristotelian philosophy

and Ptolemaic cosmology supplied both linguistic categories and

philosophical resources for explaining the sacred cosmos.

David Pareus, in his commentary on the hexameron, takes the

Mosaic narrative as an occasion for giving a full description of

the Ptolemaic system. In expounding the verse “he placed the

light-bearers in the expanse of the sky” (Genesis 1:15), Pareus

runs through the traditional catalog of planets “according to the

received teaching of Ptolemy,” affirming that all the heavenly

bodies—including the fixed stars and the planets—were created on

the fourth day, along with the Sun and Moon.36 The inmost of the

nested spheres contains the Moon; the next two, Mercury and

35 “Deinde illud quoque notandum est, Coelos omnes esse figurarae sphaericae: eoque motum ipsorum, & ex consequenti motum astrorum quae in ipsissunt, esse circularem. Tradunt haec etiam sacrae literae: praeter Philosophos; qui ratione idem evincunt.” Zanchi, De operibus dei, 387.

36 “Aetheria corpora elementis superiora & qualitatum & mutationum elementarium expertia sunt orbes coelestes novem, iuxta receptam Ptolemai doctrinam: infimus Lunae, proximus Mercurii, tertius Veneris, quartus Solis, quintus Martis, sextus Iovis, septimus Saturni, octavus firmamentum, quo sidera fixa continentur: nonus & extremus primi mobilis.” Pareus, In Genesin Mosis commentarius, col. 164. Likewise Zanchius: “Hic habemus mandatum, quo Deus iussit esse in Coelis luminaria: Solem scilicet, Lunam, & reliquas stellas: tam Planetas reliquos quinque, quam stellas in octava sphaera fixas: quibus & Coelos ornavit, & orbem hunc sublunatem multis maximisque utilitatibus affecit: sine quibus consistere non poterat” (De operibus dei, 379).


24

Venus; then “in the middle sphere the Sun, like a king;” last of

all come Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.37 While these planets

(planetae), or “wandering stars,”38 occupy the first seven spheres,

the eighth sphere contains innumerable “fixed stars” which “move

with a very slow and scarcely perceptible motion, constantly

keeping the same position with respect to one another.” All

together, these eight spheres compose the “firmament” or “starry

heaven.” This completes Pareus’s sacred cosmos, uniting the

Genesis account with a traditional cosmology inherited from

Ptolemy.

Exposition of the Mosaic account often prompts inquiries

into strictly scientific matters. Even the question of the

magnitude of the heavenly bodies comes under the commentators’

purview. Here again the typical concern to harmonize empirical

37 “Supra Lunam proximae sphaerae fidus Mercurii affixit: tertiae a Luna stellam Veneris, quam mane φωσφόρον, Luciferum, vesperi ἔμπερον vocamus, indidit. In media sphaera Solem tanquam regem collocabit, qui cum eadem annuo spacio circa terram revolutus annum eiusque partes designaret, quanto etiam spacio Venus & Mercurius cursum proprium absolvunt. Soli super imposuit Martem, qui biennio Zodiacum permeat: Marti Iovis lucidissimum sidus eundem Zodiacum XIIannis percurrens: Saturni stellam frigidam & pallidam in septimo orbe supra Lunam collocavit, quae XXX annis semel eursum conficit.” Pareus, In Genesin Mosis commentarius, col. 233.

38

Stellae erantes, alluding to the derivation of planeta/πλανήτης from the Greek verb πλανάομαι, meaning ‘to wander’.


25

and scientific proofs with Scripture is on display. Cajetan,

commenting on the creation of the “two great lights,” opines that

“it will not be unsuitable to our plan to discuss the magnitude

of the stars, insofar as it may illuminate this passage.

Concerning the magnitude of the sun, the philosophers have

posited various opinions, which Plutarch reports”—including

Epicurus’ position that the sun is no larger than it appears to

the naked eye. But, he adds, such a foolish and unlearned

estimate does not accord with “the huge magnitude demonstrated by

necessary mathematical proofs.”39 He cites mathematical figures

for the circumference of the earth, the diameter of the moon, and

the size of the stars. One of the fullest discussions of the

magnitude of the heavenly bodies comes from the pen of Marin

Mersenne, who devotes an entire article to ascertaining “the

earth’s diameter, radius, surface, and solidity, and weight, and 39 “. . . de eorum syderum magnitudine, quatenus ad locum hunc

illustrandum sit satis, disserere, non erit proposito nostro alienum. De Solis magnitudine variae fuerunt olim Philosophorum sententiae, quas refert Plutarchus libri undecimi de placitis Philosophorum capite vigesimo primo, Anaximander astrum Solis aequale fecit terrae, orbem autem in quo circumvehitur, septies & vicies terra maiorem: Anaxagoras maiorem dixit esse Polponesso: Heraclitus, latitudine pedali: Epicurus, aut esse tantum quantus apparet (quam opinionem etiam Heraclito affingit Laertius) aut paulo maiorem minoremve. Sed eius ingens magnitudo necessariis Mathematicorum rationibus explorate percepta, in consesso est apud omnes, tantum non doctrinae rudes & expertes.” Cajetan, Commentarii, 141.


26

what profit can be deduced from it.”40 David Pareus also

discusses the question and, like Cajetan, takes issue with

Epicurus’ position. “The sun, to be sure, is more than one-

hundred-sixty-two times larger than the earth,” he insists, and

gives a rough estimate of the diameter of the moon “according to

the teaching of the astronomers.”41 Again, astronomical

principles are established by both Scripture and science: Moses

explicitly distinguishes the “absolute quantity” of the greater

and lesser luminaries, but the same truth is “discerned through

the observations of astronomers.”42

40 “De terrae diametro, semidiametro, superficie, ac soliditate, nec non de eius pondere, & quisinde fructus elici possit.” Marin Mersenne, Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim, cum accurata textus explicatione. . . . (Paris: Sebastian Cramois, 1623), cols. 875-880.

41 “Neque enim Sol aut Luna tantum pedalis est, ut nobis videtur: aut bipedalis, ut Epicurus contendebat, solis caeterorumque siderum magnitudinem eam esse quae videtur, ut est apud Laertium lib.10.p.436. Sed sunt corpora revera magna & maxima in sese: Solis quidem terra maius centies sexagies bis, octava minus: Lunae vero terra qui de minus tricies novies & unitate plus besse, ita tamen in se magnum ut diameter 600.fere milliaria germanica contineat, iuxta doctrinam astronomorum.” Pareus, In Genesin Mosis commentarius, col. 229.

42 “Ne vero cogitemus, haec luminaria esse aequaliter magna: Moses ea distinguit tum usu inaequali (de quo hic dicere non attinet) tum quantitate absoluta. . . . Errantes vero tres supra Solem terram aliquoties superant, Infra Solem, Venus terra minor, Luna maior, solus Mercurius etiam Luna minor esse observationibus Astronomorum deprehenditur.” Pareus, In Genesin Mosis commentarius, cols. 229-230.


27

The Englishman Andrew Willet (1562–1621), an outspoken

Calvinist clergyman who published his Hexapla upon Genesis in 1595,

cites a similar figure to that of Pareus: “the Mathematicians

have found that the Sunne exceedeth the earth in bignesse 166

times.” He also gives figures for the size of the moon: “it is

found to be lesse than the earth.39.times, and to be the least of

all the Starres, except Mercurie.” The larger magnitude of the

sun relative to the moon leads Willet to articulate a principle

of accommodation, resolving an apparent inconsistency between

Moses and the heavens: “Moses therefore here speaketh according

to the opinion and capacity of the vulgar folk, to whose sight

the Moone seemeth greatest, next to the Sunne, because it is

nearest of all the Starres to the earth, and for that it is

greatest in operation, and hath the government of the night.”

Willet explicitly invokes accommodationism as a means of

reconciling Scripture with the testimony of the senses: the

language of the Mosaic narrative is adapted to the understanding

of ordinary readers. Willet repeatedly contrasts the common-


28

sense outlook of the Biblical account with what “the

Mathematicians have found” or “the Mathematicians say.”43

The principle of accommodationism, in fact, finds favor with

a number of commentators, often as a way of escaping certain

interpretative knots. John Calvin appeals to the principle in

explaining why Moses referred to the moon as a “light-bearer,”

given that “it is, as the astronomers assert, an opaque body.”44

He answers that Moses, “as it became a theologian,” had “respect

to us rather than to the stars,” and hence did not “subtilely

descant, as a philosopher.” Though the inspired author was not

ignorant of the fact that the moon reflects the sun’s rays, “he

deemed it enough to declare what we all may plainly perceive.”45

Calvin contrasts this with the ambitious project of the

astronomers of his day. The passage is worth quoting in full:

Moses wrote in a popular style things which without

instruction, all ordinary persons, endued with common

43 Andrew Willet, Hexapla in Genesin & Exodum: that is, a sixfold commentary upon the two first Bookes of Moses, being Genesis and Exodus. . . . (London: John Haviland, 1633), 8.

44 Calvin rejects the theory that the moon is a dark body, and insists that it can produce some light of itself.45

Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses, ad. 1.13-14.


29

sense, are able to understand; but astronomers

investigate with great labor whatever the sagacity of

the human mind can comprehend. . . [Not that Moses

wished] to withdraw us from this pursuit in omitting

such things as are peculiar to the art; but because he

was ordained a teacher as well of the unlearned and

rude as of the learned, he could not otherwise fulfill

his office than by descending to this grosser method of

instruction. . . . If the astronomer inquires

respecting the actual dimensions of the stars, he will

find the moon to be less than Saturn; but this is

something abstruse, for to the sight it appears

differently. Moses, therefore, rather adapts his

discourse to common usage.46

This hermeneutic of accommodation is not unique to Calvin. As

Williams points out, the Jesuit Perera follows a similar route in

reconciling the motion of the spheres with Scriptural passages

attributing motion to the heavenly bodies: “We do not see the

motion of the spheres, but only its effect in the motion of the

46 Calvin, Commentaries on the First Book of Moses, ad. 1.16.


30

planets. Hence Scripture, speaking of that which is apparent,

attributes the motion to the planets.”47 In short, the biblical

writer’s mode of discourse is adapted to the ways of thought and

understanding natural to his audience. This implies that the

exegete should not look to Genesis as a scientific textbook.

One final, nearly invariable feature of all the Renaissance

hexamera—usually occurring in the context of Genesis 1:14-18—is a

diatribe against astrology.48 Andrew Willet remarks that

although the “celestiall bodies doe serve, both for politicall

observations . . . and the celebration of festivals,” when it

comes to

morall matters, as to calculate mens nativities, and to

discerne of their dispositions to good or evill, or for

supernaturall, to foretell things to come, to discover

secrets, finde out things that are lost, or such like,

these celestiall signes have no use at all, neither

hath the vaine and superstitious invention of Astrology47

Perera, Commentariorum . . . usque ad obitum S.S. Patriarchum, 186.48

Note that the term astrologi in the commentaries is occasionally used asa synonym for astronomi, without any pejorative connotation—e.g. in Cajetan, Commentarii, 141.


31

any ground at all out of this place, but is altogether

repugnant to 1. the Scriptures: 2. against reason: 3.

vaine: 4. impious.49

Similar denunciations of magic and astrology occur in many of the

other commentators.50 Like many other facets of Mosaic exegesis,

the excursus on astrology became a standard trope of the genre.

Of course, one of the largest issues overshadowing astronomy

during this period is the debate over heliocentrism. How do the

Genesis commentators respond to the Copernican controversy? In

many cases, the answer is simple: They don’t. Strikingly, very

few of the commentators mention Copernicus, Kepler, or Galileo.

Even the Scottish controversialist, Alexander Ross (c.1590–1654),

who is known to have been a virulently outspoken opponent of

Copernican astronomy,51 passes over the issue in silence.

49 Willet, Hexapla in Genesin & Exodum, 9.

50 Typical diatribes against astrology can be found in Pareus, In Genesin Mosis commentarius, cols. 217-221; Girolamo Vielmi, De sex diebus conditi orbis liber, ad Aloysium Iustinianum, Patritium Venetum, & Coadiutorem Aquileinsem ampliss (Venice, 1575), 211-213; Augustino Steuco, Cosmopoeia: vel, de mundane opificio, exposition trium capitum Genesis, in quibus de creatione tractat Moses (Sebastianus Gryphius, 1535), 85; and Salomon Gesner, Genesis sive primus liber Moysis, disputationibus XXXVIII. breviter comprehensus, &collatis diversorum inter se Patrum sententiis. . . . (Wittenburg, 1604), 23.

51 See John L. Russell, “The Copernican System in Great Britain,” in TheReception of Copernicus’ Heliocentric Theory: Proceedings of a Symposium Organized by the Nicolas Copernicus Committee of the International Union of the History and Philosophy of Science, ed. JerzyDobrzycki (Dordrecht: D. Reidel, [1972?]), 223-230.


32

Sometimes the commentators, in discussing the size of the

heavenly bodies, or the eighth sphere, appropriate the

mathematical figures of Copernicus or Tycho Brahe, but without

accepting the whole system of either.52 In many instances, it is

difficult to say with certainty to what degree the commentators

are familiar with the Copernican view, and whether they pass over

it out of ignorance or contempt. In any case, most of the

commentators take the geocentric Ptolemaic cosmos as given.

Some commentators support the standard Aristotelian-

Ptolemaic synthesis with Scriptural proofs. In his hexameral

commentary, Jerome Vielmi (1509–1575?), a little-known French

Dominican, defends the fixity of the earth. After dispatching a

possible objection against the movement of the heavens from

Proverbs 3:19 (“God fixed the heavens by his wisdom”), he appeals

to Psalm 104:5 (“He founded the earth upon its foundation, and it

shall never be moved”) to prove that the earth is stationary.

But Vielmi also appeals to common-sense experience: “For we

perceive that the sun rises from the east at dawn, and then



33

continues on to the summit of the sky, that is, gradually mounts

to its median position, and then sinks gradually to the west,

creating evening. Again, on a calm night we see the stars, which

are nearest to the Arctic Pole, moving around it in uniform

circles, and never falling towards us—just as Ptolemy says in the

Almagest.”53 Vielmi also cites Aristotle’s opinion in De caelo.

The testimony of common sense, wedded to the authority of Ptolemy

and Aristotle and the plain interpretation of Genesis 1,

interlock to support the traditional geocentric hypothesis.

Robert Bellarmine (1542–1621), the Italian Roman Catholic

cardinal famed for his role in the Galileo trial, exemplifies the

usual reading of Genesis with regard to the Copernican question.

As Robert Westman explains, Bellarmine shared the common

understanding that Scripture must be harmonized with astronomical

explanations. Further, “where heavenly observers disagreed, 53 “Iam vero & de terra sic legimus in Psal. 103. Qui fundavit terram super

stabilitatem suam, non inclinabitur in saeculum saeculi, & Psal. 92. Etenim firmavit orbem terrae, qui non commovebitur, hoc est, orbem qui terra est, quae stabilis perenniter ac immota stabit. Refelluntur & sensu, quem in eiusmodi rebus dimittere, imbecillis intellectus certissima nota est. Nam perspicimus Solem mane ab Oriente surgere, & inde ad caeli fastigium, quod est eius medium sensim conscendere, meridiemque efficere, ac deinceps continue labi ad occasum, & vesperum facere. Rursum serena nocte videmus stellas, quas iuxta Polum arcticum sunt, gyros uniformes circa illum ducere, & nobis nunquam occidere: sicuti & Ptolemeus in Almagesti dist.1.cap.3. & Sphaetae auctor. cap.1. iampridem adnotarunt.” Vielmi, De sex diebus conditi orbis liber, 222.


34

then, said Bellarmine, ‘it is possible for us to select among

them the one which best corresponds to Sacred Scriptures.’ And

it was here that the theologian, relying on the consensus of the

Church fathers, the literal meaning of scripture, and his own

interpretive intuitions, could feel confident in advancing

positions independent of astronomical tradition.”54 James M.

Lattis adds that “though Bellarmine disassociated himself from

the traditional Aristotelian and Ptolemaic approach to

understanding the structure of the heavens, he remained

nonetheless convinced of the earth’s centrality and immobility

because they are attested by the two trustworthy sources of

knowledge, the senses and Scripture.”55 Most commentators, like

Vielmi, shared Bellarmine’s view. In fact, this outlook proved

so widespread among the Genesis commentators of the period that

Robert Bellarmine could write to Galileo in a letter dated April

12, 1615, “if Your Paternity wants to read not only the Holy

Fathers, but also the modern commentaries on Genesis, the Psalms,

54 Robert Westman, The Copernican Question: Prognostication, Skepticism, and Celestial Order (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011), 219.

55 James M. Lattis, Between Copernicus and Galileo: Christoph Clavius and the Collapse of Ptolemaic Cosmology (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994), 111.


35

Ecclesiastes, and Joshua, you will find all agreeing in the

literal interpretation that the sun is in heaven and turns around

the earth with great speed, and that the earth is very far from

heaven and sits motionless at the center of the world.”56

Even where Copernicus’s name is not mentioned, sometimes the

questions set out by the commentators betray his influence.

Perera—whose Commentariorum et disputationum in Genesin was the most

popular commentary of the period, going through seven separate

editions57—includes an excursus on “What sacred Scripture teaches

about the heavens and the stars, and what astrology teaches.”58

There, he sets out ten questions for consideration. The choice

of these questions is revealing:

First, Whether the heavens and the stars have an

incorruptible nature. Second, How the heavens will be

transformed and renewed after the day of judgment.

Third, On the figure of the heavens. Fourth, On the

56 In The Essential Galileo, trans. Maurice A. Finnochiaro (Indianapolis, ID:Hackett, 2008), 146-148.


58 “Qui est de Coelis & astris secundum sacram Scripturam, & de Divinatione astrologica.” Perera, Commentariorum . . . ab exordio mundi usque ad Noeticum diluvium, 87.


36

number of the heavenly spheres. Fifth, Whether the

heavens move by their own natural power, or whether

they are moved by angels. Sixth, whether the motion of

the heavens will completely cease after the day of

judgment. Seventh, Whether the heavens and stars

really have souls. Eighth, Whether the stars are

actually hot. Ninth, Whether the stars are fixed in

their orbits, and revolve by their own motion, or

whether they are moved by their own motion with the

heavens unmoved, as fish move through water and birds

through the air through their own motion. Tenth,

Whether the multitude of fixed stars in the eighth

orbit are innumerable.59

59 “Hae autem sunt quaestiones, quas hoc volumine tractandas suscepimus: prima, An caeli & astra sint incorruptibilis naturae: secunda, Qualis futura sit post diem iudicii caelorum commutatio & renovatio: tertia, De figura caeli: quarta, De numero orbium caelestium: quinta, An coeli seipsi sua vi naturali moveant, an moveantur ab Angelis: sexta, An post diem iudicii omnino cessaturus sit caeli motus: septima, An caeli & astra sint vere animata: ocatava, An sydera sint actu calida: nona, An stellae sint infixae inorbibus, eorumque tantu motu voluantur, an coelo immoto per se, ipsae propriisagantur motibus, similter ut pisces in aqua & aves per aerem motus suos per agunt: decima, An multitudo syderum inerrantium quae sunt in ocatavo orbe, sitmortalibus innumerabilis.” Pererius, Commentariorum . . . ab exordio mundi usque ad Noeticum diluvium, 87.


37

Many of these questions are longstanding topoi of the Renaissance

commentaries, as we have seen above. The fifth question relates

to one of the scholastic additions to the Ptolemaic-Aristotelian

synthesis. Most intriguing, however, is the ninth question,

which specifically “touches the battle between the proponents of

the received astronomy and the Copernicans.”60 In answering the

question, Perera begins by laying out two possible

interpretations of Genesis 1:15. God might have fixed the

heavenly bodies in their celestial places, or he might have

ordained them to move through a designated space. He concludes,

on the authority of the “Ecclesiastical writers,” that the

heavenly bodies—including the sun and moon—are not fixed but in

perpetual motion.61 Though he refutes a theory that there are

certain celestial “canals” through which the heavenly bodies


61 “Potest enim intelligi sydera esse infixa in caelo tanquam eius partes paulo densiores spissioresque ei cohaerentes & continuatas. . . . Potest etiam intelligi sydera esse posita in caelo, non ut ei cohaerentia & affixa, sed quia iussu Dei per ipsum caelum motus suos peragunt tanquam per spatium sibi a Deo determinatum, quod quaeque suo cursu emetiri & conficere debeant. Vetus est & complurium scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum auctoritate nobilis opinio, stellas non esse haerentes & affixas caelo, sed propriis motibus per spatium caeleste circumagi.” Pererius, Commentariorum . . . ab exordio mundi usque ad Noeticum diluvium, 100.


38

pass, Perera does not explicitly mention the heliocentric

hypothesis in this article, nor does he name Copernicus.

One of the few Genesis commentators to explicitly address

the Copernican question is the French polymath Marin Mersenne

(1588–1648). Mersenne was a music theorist, mathematician, and

active scientific figure who laid the groundwork for both the

Académie des Sciences in Paris and the Royal Academy in London.

One historian calls him “the center of the world of science and

mathematics during the first half of the 1600s.”62 But Mersenne,

a Jesuit-trained theologian and one-time fellow student of

Descartes at La Flèche, was also a learned Biblical exegete, who

published a lengthy commentary on Genesis. His burden in this

work was largely to refute the perceived impiety of naturalistic

thought, and especially cabalism, alchemy, and astrology. One of

Mersenne’s lengthiest “Questions on Genesis” is entitled “Whether

or not the earth is moved: in which reasons are adduced for the

mobility of the earth, along with apparent proofs for the

immobility of the heavens.”63 The following article bears the 62 Peter L. Bernstein, Against the Gods: The Remarkable Story of Risk (New York:

Wiley and Sons, 1996), 59.63

“An terra moveatur, necne. In quo rationes afferuntur, quibus terrae mobilitas, & coelorum quies probari videtur.” Mersenne, Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim, cols. 879-894.


39

heading, “That the heaven is moved while the earth is at rest.”

In these columns, Mersenne discusses at length the “authors of

new philosophy,” including Campanella, Telesio, Kepler, Galileo,

and others. As Robert Westman observes, “Nothing like this had

happened in the sixteenth century, the heyday of Genesis

commentary.”64

Mersenne opens his discussion of the Copernicans with an

extended list of examples—sometimes humorous, sometimes ludicrous

—of the follies of accepting sense experience at first blush.

Epicurus’ infamous judgment on the size of the sun appears amidst

this whimsical catalog of errors, all leading to the simple

conclusion, “The philosophic man should not give attention to his

eyes, but to his mind.”65 He writes, “Perhaps someone will ask

where such a long discussion is heading? The endpoint is that

you may understand this: we should not have so much faith in our

eyes, that we accept their testimony without further persuasion

64 Westman, The Copernican Question, 496.

65 “Oportere hominem philosophum non oculos, sed mentem intueri.” Mersenne, Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim, col. 882.


40

and exploration.”66 Mersenne then progressively surveys sixteen

arguments for the Ptolemaic view, ranging from the parallels

between the human body (with unmoved head and moveable feet) and

the solar system, to an argument from Pythagorean geometric

figures. Mersenne goes on to point out several absurdities which

would supposedly follow from the Copernican view. He concludes,

“Therefore the Copernican motion of the earth should hardly be

assented to, since indeed it destroys the simple upward and

downward motion of things” and introduces a circular motion “of

which no principle—either natural or unnatural, either external

or internal—can be designated without introducing many

absurdities.”67 If the fundamental principle of motion is

circular, he argues, then the vertical motion of a stone would be

violent and unnatural.

66 “Sed forte aliquis dixerit, cedo, quorsum tam longa tendit oratio? eo scilicet ut intelligas: non ita esse oculis habendam fidem, ut quod illi nuntiarint, persuasum exploratumque protinus haberi oporteat.” Mersenne, Quaestiones celeberrimae in Genesim, col. 881.

67 “Itaque motus terrae Copernicanus minime constituendus est, quippe qui tollit ex universo motum rerum simplicium sursum, & deorsum, inducit necessario rebus omnibus, tam a centro, quam ad centrum latis motum aliquem circularem, cuius tamen principium neque naturale, neque non naturale, nec externum, aut internum absque multis absurdis assignari potest. . . .” Mersenne, Quaestiones celeberrima in Genesim, col. 894.


41

Mersenne naturally is at pains to point out that all the

ancient philosophers and mathematicians affirmed the geocentric

schema. More recent authors (Mersenne mentions Francis

Patricius, David Origanus, Kepler, and Maestlin) who claim to

have better insights into the heavenly phenomena should be

classed, Mersenne suggests, with those theologians who, rejecting

the traditional view regarding divine simplicity, affirm a real

distinction between the divine attributes and thus “make the

truth of the universe to depend upon their conceptions.”68 Since

the things we seem to perceive in the earthly realm often turn

out to be mistaken, Mersenne urges a safer course: we should

“walk in the footsteps of the ancients” and not introduce new

hypotheses unless either “manifest reason or experience” compels

us to reject the received view.69

68 “. . . quibus [Philosophis et Mathematicis] Bernardus, Patricius, Keplerus, Origanus, Moestlinus, & caeteri Copernicani contradicere videntur, quia inde se melius intelligere credunt phaenomena coelestia, quos profecto similes illis esse putem Theologis, quicum non possunt concipere ea, quae de attributis divinis praedicantur, illa inter se realiter differe aiunt, quasi vero rerum veritas nostris e conceptibus pendeat.” Mersenne, Quaestiones celeberrima in Genesim, cols. 895-896.

69 “Nunquid satius est antiquorum insistere vestigiis, ac eorum hypotheses retinere, si manifesta ratio, vel experientia nos ad aliud non cogit, quam omnia innovate, atque vetera: & usu communi recepta susque deque vertere.” Mersenne, Quaestiones celeberrima in Genesim, col. 896.


42

In the end, however, Mersenne proves to be flexible on the

Copernican question: “he neither endorsed the Earth’s motion nor

regarded the Church’s judgment as irreversible.”70 For instance,

in reviewing the Scriptural texts commonly cited in favor of the

geocentric view, Mersenne suggests that the literal

interpretation is not the only legitimate reading. In

particular, Joshua 10 presents no obstacle to the heliocentric

view: the description of the sun standing still was “accommodated

to our senses” so as to conform to our everyday experience of the

movements of the heavenly bodies.71 Mersenne’s final course is

“to present all the facts, to lean somewhat toward the Tychonian

system, which explained all observed phenomena as well as the

Copernican, and finally to deliver no positive judgment of his

own.”72 On the whole, the Renaissance commentators who deal with

70 Westman, The Copernican Question, 496.

71 “Nec obstat quod Iosue Soli iusserit, ut staret contra gabaon, & Lunae contra vallem Aialon, sese enim nostris sensibus accommodare potuit, quippequi se percipere existiment stellas, & planetas quotidie suum integrum cursum peragere ab ortu in occcasum. . . .” Mersenne, Quaestiones celeberrima in Genesim, col. 894.

72 Williams, The Common Expositor, 190. At cols. 897-900, Mersenne printsdiagrams of both the Copernican and Tychonian system, though he declines to make any detailed comparison of the relative scientific merits of the two hypotheses.


43

Copernicanism seem less perturbed by the new astronomy than one

might have expected.

In summary, the Renaissance commentaries on Genesis provide

fascinating insight into the way early modern exegetes tried to

harmonize the astronomy of their day with the Mosaic creation

account. Nearly all the commentators on Genesis share a few

basic principles: the Mosaic account is literal, historical, and

accurate insofar as it touches on scientific matters; further, it

can and should be harmonized with the conclusions of reason and

sense experience. In most commentators of the period—both

Protestant and Catholic—we see a sustained attempt to yoke Moses

together with Aristotle and Ptolemy. Some commentators attempt a

thoroughgoing synthesis of Aristotelian-Ptolemaic cosmology with

the hexameron, while others are more cautious about the received

cosmology. A few thinkers in the so-called Mosaic school reject

philosophy altogether as an interpretative tool. However, the

majority of commentators believe that the creation account and

Aristotelian astronomy can fruitfully inform one another,

providing both specific content and principles of investigation.

In some of commentators, we find hints of the Copernican debate;


44

the shadow of Copernicus lies over the astronomical discussions

of exegetes like Perera and Mersenne. On the whole, however,

Williams is correct to conclude that “one sees little of the

struggle over the Copernican system in the commentaries.”73 What

we do find is a thoroughgoing effort to read Scripture and the

heavens in tandem, grounded in the belief that all truth is one

and that the Book of Scripture and the Book of Nature are

ultimately reconcilable.



45

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