In the writings of the Greek and Roman philosophers are found the germinal concepts of geological truths. But as Christianity took control of the world instead of a steady progression of knowledge in this field there was a distinct retrogression. According to the prevailing belief the earth was soon to be destroyed and the collecting of knowledge was futile and any study of its nature was vain.
St. Jerome stated that the broken and twisted crust of the earth exhibited the wrath of God against sin. Tertullian asserted that fossils resulted from the flood of Noah. A scientific explanation of fossil remains was attempted by De Clave, Bitaud, and De Villon in the seventeenth century. The theological faculty of Paris protested against the scientific doctrine as unscriptural, destroyed their treatises, and banished their authors from Paris.
In the middle of the eighteenth century Buffon, in France, produced a thesis attempting to state simple geological truths. The theological faculty of the Sorbonne158 dismissed him from his high position and forced him to print a recantation stating, "I declare that I had no intention to contradict the text of the Scripture; that I believe most firmly all therein related about the creation, both as to order of time and matter of fact. I abandon everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth and generally all which may be contrary to the narrative of Moses!"
The doctrine which Buffon abandoned is now as firmly established as that of the earth's rotation upon its axis. Yet, in his day, it was heatedly asserted by ecclesiastics that the scientific doctrine that fossils represent animals which died before Adam contradicts the theological doctrine of Adam's fall, and the statement that death entered the world by sin€"and this objection was further strengthened when the ecclesiastics became cognizant that geology had proved that the earth was vastly older than the 6000 years determined by Archbishop Ussher's interpretation of the Old Testament.
About 1580, there was published by authority of Pope Gregory XIII, the Roman Martyrology, revised in 1640 under Pope Urban VIII, which declared that the creation of man took place 5199 years before Christ. In 1650, Archbishop Ussher announced after careful study that man was created 4004 years before the Christian era. But, this proving too vague, Dr. John Lightfoot, vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, assured the world that, "Heaven and earth, centre and circumference, were created together, in the same instant, and clouds full of water ... and this work took place and man was created by the Trinity on the 23d of October, 4004 B.C. at nine o'clock in the morning."
When the Egyptologists, Assyriologists, archeologists, and anthropologists showed that man had reached a far advanced stage of civilization long before the 6000 years159 given as the age of the earth, their efforts were ridiculed by the clergy, and these scientists were forced to bring their findings before the world in the face of the well known methods of ecclesiastical opposition.
At a very early period in the evolution of civilization men began to ask questions regarding language, and the answers to these questions were naturally embodied in the myths, legends, and chronicles of their sacred books. Language was considered God-given and complete. The diversity of language was firmly held to be explained by the story of the Tower of Babel; and since the writers of the Bible were merely pens in the hand of God the conclusion was reached that not only the sense, but the words, letters, and even the punctuation proceeded from the Holy Spirit.
At the end of the seventeenth century, the ecclesiastical contention that the Hebrew punctuation was divinely inspired seemed to be generally disproven. The great orthodox body of "religiosa dementia" fell back upon the remainder of the theory that the Hebrew language was the first of all languages which was spoken by the Almighty, given by Him to Adam, transmitted through Noah to the world after the deluge, and that the confusion of tongues was the origin of all other tongues.
It has only been in comparatively recent time, and in spite of the opposition of the clergy, that language has been accepted as the result of evolutionary processes in obedience to laws more or less clearly ascertained. Babel thus takes its place quietly among the other myths of the Bible.
In a purely civil matter, the infallible Church from its inception had displayed a marked hostility to loans at interest. From the earliest period the whole weight of the Church was brought to bear against the taking of160 interest for money. Pope Leo the Great solemnly adjudged it a sin worthy of severe punishment. In the thirteenth century, Pope Gregory IX dealt an especially severe blow at commerce by his declaration that even to advance on interest the money necessary in maritime trade was damnable usury. The whole evolution of European civilization was greatly hindered by this policy.
St. Jerome stated that the broken and twisted crust of the earth exhibited the wrath of God against sin. Tertullian asserted that fossils resulted from the flood of Noah. A scientific explanation of fossil remains was attempted by De Clave, Bitaud, and De Villon in the seventeenth century. The theological faculty of Paris protested against the scientific doctrine as unscriptural, destroyed their treatises, and banished their authors from Paris.
In the middle of the eighteenth century Buffon, in France, produced a thesis attempting to state simple geological truths. The theological faculty of the Sorbonne158 dismissed him from his high position and forced him to print a recantation stating, "I declare that I had no intention to contradict the text of the Scripture; that I believe most firmly all therein related about the creation, both as to order of time and matter of fact. I abandon everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth and generally all which may be contrary to the narrative of Moses!"
The doctrine which Buffon abandoned is now as firmly established as that of the earth's rotation upon its axis. Yet, in his day, it was heatedly asserted by ecclesiastics that the scientific doctrine that fossils represent animals which died before Adam contradicts the theological doctrine of Adam's fall, and the statement that death entered the world by sin€"and this objection was further strengthened when the ecclesiastics became cognizant that geology had proved that the earth was vastly older than the 6000 years determined by Archbishop Ussher's interpretation of the Old Testament.
About 1580, there was published by authority of Pope Gregory XIII, the Roman Martyrology, revised in 1640 under Pope Urban VIII, which declared that the creation of man took place 5199 years before Christ. In 1650, Archbishop Ussher announced after careful study that man was created 4004 years before the Christian era. But, this proving too vague, Dr. John Lightfoot, vice-chancellor of the University of Cambridge, assured the world that, "Heaven and earth, centre and circumference, were created together, in the same instant, and clouds full of water ... and this work took place and man was created by the Trinity on the 23d of October, 4004 B.C. at nine o'clock in the morning."
When the Egyptologists, Assyriologists, archeologists, and anthropologists showed that man had reached a far advanced stage of civilization long before the 6000 years159 given as the age of the earth, their efforts were ridiculed by the clergy, and these scientists were forced to bring their findings before the world in the face of the well known methods of ecclesiastical opposition.
At a very early period in the evolution of civilization men began to ask questions regarding language, and the answers to these questions were naturally embodied in the myths, legends, and chronicles of their sacred books. Language was considered God-given and complete. The diversity of language was firmly held to be explained by the story of the Tower of Babel; and since the writers of the Bible were merely pens in the hand of God the conclusion was reached that not only the sense, but the words, letters, and even the punctuation proceeded from the Holy Spirit.
At the end of the seventeenth century, the ecclesiastical contention that the Hebrew punctuation was divinely inspired seemed to be generally disproven. The great orthodox body of "religiosa dementia" fell back upon the remainder of the theory that the Hebrew language was the first of all languages which was spoken by the Almighty, given by Him to Adam, transmitted through Noah to the world after the deluge, and that the confusion of tongues was the origin of all other tongues.
It has only been in comparatively recent time, and in spite of the opposition of the clergy, that language has been accepted as the result of evolutionary processes in obedience to laws more or less clearly ascertained. Babel thus takes its place quietly among the other myths of the Bible.
In a purely civil matter, the infallible Church from its inception had displayed a marked hostility to loans at interest. From the earliest period the whole weight of the Church was brought to bear against the taking of160 interest for money. Pope Leo the Great solemnly adjudged it a sin worthy of severe punishment. In the thirteenth century, Pope Gregory IX dealt an especially severe blow at commerce by his declaration that even to advance on interest the money necessary in maritime trade was damnable usury. The whole evolution of European civilization was greatly hindered by this policy.
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