[Footnote 56: Delambre: _Moyen Age_, 262-272.] [Footnote 57: Delambre: _Moyen Age_, 272.] Regiomontanus[58] (1436-1476) after Pürbach's death, continued his work, and his astronomical tables (pub. 1475) were in general use throughout Europe till superseded by the vastly more accurate Copernican Tables a century later. It has been said[59] that his fame inspired Copernicus (born three years before the other's death in 1476) to become as great an astronomer. M. Delambre hails him as the wisest astronomer Europe had yet produced[60] and certainly his renown was approached only by that of the great Cardinal. [Footnote 58: It has been claimed that Regiomontanus knew of the earth's motion around the sun a hundred years before Copernicus; but a German writer has definitely disproved this claim by tracing it to its source in Schöner's _Opusculum Geographicum_ (1553) which states only that he believed in the earth's axial rotation. Ziegler: 62.] [Footnote 59: Ibid: 62.] [Footnote 60: Delambre: _Op. cit._: 365.] Both Janssen,[61] the Catholic historian, and Father Hagen[62] of the Vatican Observatory, together with many other Catholic writers, claim that a hundred years before Copernicus, Cardinal Nicolas Cusanus[63] (c. 1400-1464) had the courage and independence to uphold the theory of the earth's motion and its rotation on its axis. As Father Hagen remarked: "Had Copernicus been aware of these assertions he would probably have been encouraged by them to publish his own monumental work." But the Cardinal stated these views of the earth's motions in a mystical, hypothetical way which seems to justify the marginal heading "Paradox" (in the edition of 1565).[64] And unfortunately for these writers, the Jesuit father, Riccioli, the official spokesman of that order in the 17th century after Galileo's condemnation, speaking of this paradox, called attention, also, to a passage in one of the Cardinal's sermons as indicating that the latter had perhaps "forgotten himself" in the _De Docta Ignorantia_, or that this paradox "was repugnant to him, or that he had thought better of it."[65] The passage he referred to is as follows: "Prayer is more powerful than all created things. Although angels, or some kind of beings, move the spheres, the Sun and the stars; prayer is more powerful than they are, since it impedes motion, as when the prayer of Joshua made the Sun stand still."[66] This may explain why Copernicus apparently disregarded the Cardinal's paradox, for he made no reference to it in his book; and the statement itself, to judge by the absence of contemporary comment, aroused no interest at the time. But of late years, the Cardinal's position as stated in the _De Docta Ignorantia_ has been repeatedly cited as an instance of the Church's friendly attitude toward scientific thought,[67] to show that Galileo's condemnation was due chiefly to his "contumacy and disobedience." [Footnote 61: Janssen: _Hist. of Ger._, I, 5.]