In March, 1616, the Congregation of the Index, under the instructions of Pope Paul V., had rendered a decree to the effect that “the doctrine of the double motion of the earth about its axis and about the sun is false and entirely contrary to Holy Scripture.” The same decree condemned all writings of Copernicus and all writings which affirmed the motion of the earth. These condemnations were inscribed upon the Index and in connection with this Index was issued the usual papal Bull giving to its monitions the most solemn papal sanction. “To teach or even to read the works denounced or the passages condemned was to risk persecution in this world and damnation in the next.”[194] The abjuration of Galileo bears date July 22, 1633. The decree of the same date, which sentences the philosopher to imprisonment and other penance, sets forth that the ground of the charge against him was his statement that the sun was the centre of the system and was immovable, and that the earth, revolving around the sun and also around its own axis, was movable. The decree sets forth further that, in 1616, the offender had been admonished by Cardinal Bellarmin, and that in the same year the Congregation of the Index issued a decree condemning the doctrine; notwithstanding this condemnation, Galileo had again offended by repeating the same erroneous theories in a volume entitled _Dialogo_. This volume, issued in 1632, was a treatise presented in the form of a dialogue, exhibiting the arguments for and against the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems. The publication was the result of discussions which had extended through eight years, and was finally permitted only on the condition that the volume should contain a preface, for the wording of which Ricciardi, master of the sacred palace, was responsible, but which bore the signature of Galileo, and in which the Copernican theory was described as a mere play of the imagination and as not in fact opposed to the Ptolemaic doctrine. The book secured at once a large circulation and a widespread influence. The preface was disregarded or was laughed at, while the reasonings in the dialogue were accepted by many as practically conclusive of the Copernican doctrine. These reasonings were considered by the new Pope, Urban VIII, as bringing him into ridicule and, under the Pope’s instructions, Galileo and his books were placed in the hands of the Inquisition. It was later contended by certain Catholic writers that Galileo was condemned not for his opinions or theories, but for having claimed to found these theories on Scripture. Sir Robert Inglis is quoted by Mendham as having maintained this view as late as 1824.[195] This contention appears however to be fairly met by the fact that the Roman Index of 1704 contains an explicit condemnation of “all works maintaining the mobility of the earth and the immobility of the sun.”