When Gassendi attempted to raise the point that the decision was not sanctioned by the Church as such, a great theological authority, Father Lecazre, rector of the College of Dijon, publicly contradicted him, and declared that it "was not certain cardinals, but the supreme authority of the Church," that had condemned Galileo; and to this statement the pope and the Church gave consent, either openly or by silence.[64] The suspected thinkers, like Descartes and others, who attempted to raise the same point, were treated with contempt. Father Castelli, who had devoted himself to Galileo, and knew to his cost just what the condemnation meant and who made it, takes it for granted, in his letter to the papal authorities, that it was made by the Church. Cardinal Querenghi in his letters, the embassador Guicciardini in his dispatches, the historian Viviani in his biography of Galileo--all writing under Church inspection at the time--take the view that the Church condemned Galileo. The Inquisition itself, backed by the greatest theologian of the time, Bellarmin, took the same view;[65] and if this were not enough, we have the Roman Index, containing the condemnation for nearly two hundred years, prefaced by a solemn bull of the reigning pope, binding the condemnation on the consciences of the whole Church, and reiterating year after year the condemnation of "all books which affirm the motion of the earth" as damnable.[66] To attempt to face all this, added to the fact that the Inquisition condemned Galileo, and required his abjuration of "the heresy of the movement of the earth" by written order of the pope, was soon seen to be impossible. In spite, then, of all the casuistry of de l'Epinois and all the special pleadings of M. Martin, the sturdy common-sense of the world proved too strong; and now comes to view the most astounding defense of all--that hinted at by Viscount de Bonald and developed in the _Dublin Review_. This was nothing less than an attempt to retreat under a charge of deception against the Almighty himself. The argument is as follows: "But it may well be doubted whether the Church did retard the progress of scientific truth. What retarded it, was the circumstance that God has thought fit to express many texts of Scripture in words which have every appearance of denying the earth's motion. But it is God who did this, not the Church; and, moreover, since He thought fit so to act as to retard the progress of scientific truth, it would be little to her discredit even if it were true that she had followed His example." With this, the retreat of the army of apologists is complete; further than this, through mazes of sophistry and into depths of contempt, they could not go.[67]