The Popes and Science: The History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own TimeWalsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Religion
The Popes and Science: The History of the Papal Relations to Science During the Middle Ages and Down to Our Own Time
Walsh, James J. (James Joseph)
Popes; Religion and science -- History; Science -- History
[Footnote 14: The meaning of this term we discussed in the previous
chapter on Anatomy in relation to the bull of Boniface and Liber VI.
The motto of the publisher of the volume in which it occurs deserves
quotation because of its apt application in the present circumstance.
It is in Latin: "Quod tibi fieri non vis, alteri ne feceris"--"What
you would not have done to yourself, don't do to another." If writers
about the Popes were as careful to substantiate accusations against
them as fully as they would like any accusations against themselves to
be corroborated before being accepted and circulated, we should hear
much less of Papal intolerance and of Church opposition to science.
Even a dead Pope must be considered as a man whose reputation one
should not malign without good reason and substantial proof. I must
add that, as with regard to the other Papal documents mentioned, I owe
the copy of this decree to Father Corbett, of St. Charles Borromeo
Seminary, Overbrook, Pennsylvania, and am indebted to him besides for
many helpful suggestions.]
{125}
We quote the decree as it is found in Canon Law:
The Crime of Falsification.
"Alchemies are here prohibited and those who practise them or
procure their being done are punished. They must forfeit to the
public treasury for the benefit of the poor as much genuine gold and
silver as they have manufactured of the false or adulterate metal.
If they have not sufficient means for this, the penalty may be
changed to another at the discretion of the judge, and they shall be
considered criminals. If they are clerics, they shall be deprived of
any benefices that they hold and be declared incapable of holding
others." (See also the Extravagant of the same John which begins
with the word 'Providens' and is placed under the same title.)
[Footnote 15]
[Footnote 15: The decree referred to here was issued by John XXII.
against the counterfeiting of the money of France. The fact that the
two decrees should be considered by canonists as connected in subject
shows just what was thought to be the purport of the first, namely, to
prevent the debasement of the currency by the admixture of adulterate
gold as well as to protect the ignorant from imposition.]
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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