Galileo, after his discoveries had been denounced as contrary to Scripture, had been induced to write to the Duchess Christine and to his friend Castelli two letters, to show that his discoveries might be reconciled to Scripture. The archbishop saw his opportunity: he determined to get hold of these letters and exhibit them as proofs that Galileo had uttered heretical views of theology and the Scriptures, and thus to bring the astronomer hopelessly into the clutch of the Inquisition. The archbishop begs Castelli, therefore, to let him see the original letter in the handwriting of Galileo. Castelli declines; the archbishop then, while, as is now revealed, writing constantly and bitterly to the inquisitors against Galileo, professes to Castelli the greatest admiration of Galileo's genius, and a sincere desire to know more of his discoveries. Castelli is seduced by this; but Galileo sturdily forbids sending the letter, and the archbishop is obliged to resort to open attack. The whole struggle to crush Galileo and to save him would be amusing were it not so fraught with evil. There were intrigues and counter-intrigues, plots and counter-plots, lying and spying, and in the thickest of this seething, squabbling, screaming mass, priests, bishops, archbishops, cardinals, and even the future Pope Urban VIII. himself. It is most suggestive to see in this crisis of the Church, on the eve of the greatest errors in church policy the world has known, in all the efforts and deliberations of these consecrated leaders of the Church, at the tomb of the Prince of the Apostles, no more sign of the guidance or presence of the Holy Spirit than in a caucus of New York politicians. But the opposing powers were too strong. In 1615 Galileo is summoned by the Inquisition to Rome, and the mine, which had been so long preparing, was sprung. Pope Paul V. and the cardinal inquisitors order eleven theologians of the Inquisition to examine these two propositions which had been extracted from Galileo's letters on the solar spots: _First_, that the sun does not move about the earth; _secondly_, that the earth does move about the sun. The eleven theologians solemnly considered these points, and in about a month rendered a solemn decision that "the first proposition, _that the sun is the centre, and does not revolve about the earth, is foolish, absurd, false in theology, and heretical, because expressly contrary to Holy Scripture; and that the second proposition, that the earth is not the centre, but revolves about the sun, is absurd, false in philosophy, and, from a theological point of view, at least opposed to the true faith_."[49]