not to hold, defend, or teach the said doctrine in any manner. You
also confessed that the style of the said book was, in many places,
so composed that the reader might think the arguments adduced on the
false side to be so worded as more effectually to entangle the
understanding than to be easily solved, alleging in excuse, that you
have thus run into an error, foreign (as you say) to your intention,
from writing in the form of a dialogue, and in consequence of the
natural complacency which every one feels with regard to his own
subtilties, and in showing himself more skilful than the generality
of mankind in contriving, even in favour of false propositions,
ingenious and apparently probable arguments.
"And, upon a convenient time being given to you for making your
defence, you produced a certificate in the hand-writing of His
Eminence the Lord Cardinal Bellarmine, procured, as you said, by
yourself, that you might defend yourself against the calumnies of
your enemies, who reported that you had abjured your opinions, and
had been punished by the Holy Office; in which certificate it is
declared, that you had not abjured, nor had been punished, but
merely that the declaration made by His Holiness, and promulgated by
the Holy Congregation of the Index, had been announced to you, which
declares that the opinion of the motion of the earth, and stability
of the sun, is contrary to the Holy Scriptures, and, therefore,
cannot be held or defended. Wherefore, since no mention is there
made of two articles of the order, to wit, the order 'not to teach,'
and 'in any manner,' you argued that we ought to believe that, in
the lapse of fourteen or sixteen years, they had escaped your
memory, and that this was also the reason why you were silent as to
the order, when you sought permission to publish your book, and that
this is said by you not to excuse your error, but that it may be
attributed to vain-glorious ambition, rather than to malice. But
this very certificate, produced on your behalf, has greatly
aggravated your offence, since it is therein declared that the said
opinion is contrary to the Holy Scripture, and yet you have dared to
treat of it, to defend it, and to argue that it is probable; nor is
there any extenuation in the licence artfully and cunningly extorted
by you, since you did not intimate the command imposed upon you. But
whereas it appeared to Us that you had not disclosed the whole truth
with regard to your intentions, We thought it necessary to proceed
to the rigorous examination of you, in which (without any prejudice
to what you had confessed, and which is above detailed against you,
with regard to your said intention) you answered like a good
Catholic.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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