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History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom

A >> Andrew Dickson White >> History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom




But, as a matter of course, in the early Church and throughout
the Middle Ages all such studies were cast in a theologic mould.
Without some purpose of biblical illustration or spiritual
edification they were considered futile too much prying into the
secrets of Nature was very generally held to be dangerous both to
body and soul; only for showing forth God's glory and his
purposes in the creation were such studies praiseworthy. The
great work of Aristotle was under eclipse. The early Christian
thinkers gave little attention to it, and that little was devoted
to transforming it into something absolutely opposed to his whole
spirit and method; in place of it they developed the Physiologus
and the Bestiaries, mingling scriptural statements, legends of
the saints, and fanciful inventions with pious intent and
childlike simplicity. In place of research came authority--the
authority of the Scriptures as interpreted by the Physio Cogus
and the Bestiaries--and these remained the principal source of
thought on animated Nature for over a thousand years.

Occasionally, indeed, fear was shown among the rulers in the
Church, even at such poor prying into the creation as this, and
in the fifth century a synod under Pope Gelasius administered a
rebuke to the Physiologus; but the interest in Nature was too
strong: the great work on Creation by St. Basil had drawn from
the Physiologus precious illustrations of Holy Writ, and the
strongest of the early popes, Gregory the Great, virtually
sanctioned it.

Thus was developed a sacred science of creation and of the divine
purpose in Nature, which went on developing from the fourth
century to the nineteenth--from St. Basil to St. Isidore of
Seville, from Isidore to Vincent of Beauvais, and from Vincent to
Archdeacon Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises.

Like all else in the Middle Ages, this sacred science was
developed purely by theological methods. Neglecting the wonders
which the dissection of the commonest animals would have afforded
them, these naturalists attempted to throw light into Nature by
ingenious use of scriptural texts, by research among the lives of
the saints, and by the plentiful application of metaphysics.
Hence even such strong men as St. Isidore of Seville treasured
up accounts of the unicorn and dragons mentioned in the
Scriptures and of the phoenix and basilisk in profane writings.
Hence such contributions to knowledge as that the basilisk kills
serpents by his breath and men by his glance, that the lion when
pursued effaces his tracks with the end of his tail, that the
pelican nourishes her young with her own blood, that serpents lay
aside their venom before drinking, that the salamander quenches
fire, that the hyena can talk with shepherds, that certain birds
are born of the fruit of a certain tree when it happens to fall
into the water, with other masses of science equally valuable.

As to the method of bringing science to bear on Scripture, the
Physiologus gives an example, illustrating the passage in the
book of Job which speaks of the old lion perishing for lack of
prey. Out of the attempt to explain an unusual Hebrew word in
the text there came a curious development of error, until we find
fully evolved an account of the "ant-lion," which, it gives us to
understand, was the lion mentioned by Job, and it says: "As to
the ant-lion, his father hath the shape of a lion, his mother
that of an ant; the father liveth upon flesh and the mother upon
herbs; these bring forth the ant-lion, a compound of both and in
part like to either; for his fore part is like that of a lion
and his hind part like that of an ant. Being thus composed, he
is neither able to eat flesh like his father nor herbs like his
mother, and so he perisheth."

In the middle of the thirteenth century we have a triumph of this
theological method in the great work of the English Franciscan
Bartholomew on The Properties of Things. The theological method
as applied to science consists largely in accepting tradition and
in spinning arguments to fit it. In this field Bartholomew was a
master. Having begun with the intent mainly to explain the
allusions in Scripture to natural objects, he soon rises
logically into a survey of all Nature. Discussing the
"cockatrice" of Scripture, he tells us: "He drieth and burneth
leaves with his touch, and he is of so great venom and perilous
that he slayeth and wasteth him that nigheth him without
tarrying; and yet the weasel overcometh him, for the biting of
the weasel is death to the cockatrice. Nevertheless the biting
of the cockatrice is death to the weasel if the weasel eat not
rue before. And though the cockatrice be venomous without remedy
while he is alive, yet he looseth all the malice when he is burnt
to ashes. His ashes be accounted profitable in working of
alchemy, and namely in turning and changing of metals."

Bartholomew also enlightens us on the animals of Egypt, and says,
"If the crocodile findeth a man by the water's brim he slayeth
him, and then he weepeth over him and swalloweth him."

Naturally this good Franciscan naturalist devotes much thought to
the "dragons" mentioned in Scripture. He says: "The dragon is
most greatest of all serpents, and oft he is drawn out of his den
and riseth up into the air, and the air is moved by him, and also
the sea swelleth against his venom, and he hath a crest, and
reareth his tongue, and hath teeth like a saw, and hath strength,
and not only in teeth but in tail, and grieveth with biting and
with stinging. Whom he findeth he slayeth. Oft four or five of
them fasten their tails together and rear up their heads, and
sail over the sea to get good meat. Between elephants and
dragons is everlasting fighting; for the dragon with his tail
spanneth the elephant, and the elephant with his nose throweth
down the dragon....The cause why the dragon desireth his blood is
the coldness thereof, by the which the dragon desireth to cool
himself. Jerome saith that the dragon is a full thirsty beast,
insomuch that he openeth his mouth against the wind to quench the
burning of his thirst in that wise. Therefore, when he seeth
ships in great wind he flieth against the sail to take the cold
wind, and overthroweth the ship."

These ideas of Friar Bartholomew spread far and struck deep into
the popular mind. His book was translated into the principal
languages of Europe, and was one of those most generally read
during the Ages of Faith. It maintained its position nearly
three hundred years; even after the invention of printing it
held its own, and in the fifteenth century there were issued no
less than ten editions of it in Latin, four in French, and
various versions of it in Dutch, Spanish, and English. Preachers
found it especially useful in illustrating the ways of God to
man. It was only when the great voyages of discovery substituted
ascertained fact for theological reasoning in this province that
its authority was broken.

The same sort of science flourished in the Bestiaries, which
were used everywhere, and especially in the pulpits, for the
edification of the faithful. In all of these, as in that
compiled early in the thirteenth century by an ecclesiastic,
William of Normandy, we have this lesson, borrowed from the
Physiologus: "The lioness giveth birth to cubs which remain
three days without life. Then cometh the lion, breatheth upon
them, and bringeth them to life....Thus it is that Jesus Christ
during three days was deprived of life, but God the Father raised
him gloriously."

Pious use was constantly made of this science, especially by
monkish preachers. The phoenix rising from his ashes proves the
doctrine of the resurrection; the structure and mischief of
monkeys proves the existence of demons; the fact that certain
monkeys have no tails proves that Satan has been shorn of his
glory; the weasel, which "constantly changes its place, is a
type of the man estranged from the word of God, who findeth no
rest."

The moral treatises of the time often took the form of works on
natural history, in order the more fully to exploit these
religious teachings of Nature. Thus from the book On Bees, the
Dominican Thomas of Cantimpre, we learn that "wasps persecute
bees and make war on them out of natural hatred"; and these, he
tells us, typify the demons who dwell in the air and with
lightning and tempest assail and vex mankind--whereupon he fills
a long chapter with anecdotes of such demonic warfare on mortals.
In like manner his fellow-Dominican, the inquisitor Nider, in his
book The Ant Hill, teaches us that the ants in Ethiopia, which
are said to have horns and to grow so large as to look like dogs,
are emblems of atrocious heretics, like Wyclif and the Hussites,
who bark and bite against the truth; while the ants of India,
which dig up gold out of the sand with their feet and hoard it,
though they make no use of it, symbolize the fruitless toil with
which the heretics dig out the gold of Holy Scripture and hoard
it in their books to no purpose.

This pious spirit not only pervaded science; it bloomed out in
art, and especially in the cathedrals. In the gargoyles
overhanging the walls, in the grotesques clambering about the
towers or perched upon pinnacles, in the dragons prowling under
archways or lurking in bosses of foliage, in the apocalyptic
beasts carved upon the stalls of the choir, stained into the
windows, wrought into the tapestries, illuminated in the letters
and borders of psalters and missals, these marvels of creation
suggested everywhere morals from the Physiologus, the Bestiaries,
and the Exempla.[14]

[14] For the Physiologus, Bestiaries, etc., see Berger de Xivrey,
Traditions Teratologiques; also Hippeau's edition of the Bestiare
de Guillaume de Normandie, Caen, 1852, and such medieaval books
of Exempla as the Lumen Naturae; also Hoefer, Histoire de la
Zoologie; also Rambaud, Histoire de la Civilisation Francaise,
Paris, 1885, vol i, pp. 368, 369; also Cardinal Pitra, preface to
the Spicilegium Solismense, Paris, 1885, passim; also Carus,
Geschichte der Zoologie; and for an admirable summary, the
article Physiologus in the Encyclopedia Britannica. In the
illuminated manuscripts in the Library of Cornell University are
some very striking examples of grotesques. For admirably
illustrated articles on the Bestiaries, see Cahier and Martin,
Melanges d'Archeologie, Paris, 1851, 1852, and 1856, vol. ii of
the first series, pp. 85-232, and second series, volume on
Curiosities Mysterieuses, pp. 106-164; also J. R. Allen, Early
Christian Symbolism in Great Britain and Ireland (London, 1887),
lecture vi; for an exhaustive discussion of the subject, see Das
Thierbuch des normannischen Dichters Guillaume le Clerc,
herausgegeben von Reinisch, Leipsic, 1890; and for an Italian
examlpe, Goldstaub and Wendriner, Ein Tosco-Venezianischer
Bestiarius, Halle, 1892, where is given, on pp. 369-371, a very
pious but very comical tradition regarding the beaver, hardly
mentionable to ears polite. For Friar Bartholomew, see (besides
his book itself) Medieval Lore, edited by Robert Steele, London,
1893, pp. 118-138.


Here and there among men who were free from church control we
have work of a better sort. In the twelfth and thirteenth
centuries Abd Allatif made observations upon the natural history
of Egypt which showed a truly scientific spirit, and the Emperor
Frederick II attempted to promote a more fruitful study of
Nature; but one of these men was abhorred as a Mussulman and the
other as an infidel. Far more in accordance with the spirit of
the time was the ecclesiastic Giraldus Cambrensis, whose book on
the topography of Ireland bestows much attention upon the animals
of the island, and rarely fails to make each contribute an
appropriate moral. For example, he says that in Ireland "eagles
live for so many ages that they seem to contend with eternity
itself; so also the saints, having put off the old man and put
on the new, obtain the blessed fruit of everlasting life."
Again, he tells us: "Eagles often fly so high that their wings
are scorched by the sun; so those who in the Holy Scriptures
strive to unravel the deep and hidden secrets of the heavenly
mysteries, beyond what is allowed, fall below, as if the wings of
the presumptuous imaginations on which they are borne were
scorched."

In one of the great men of the following century appeared a gleam
of healthful criticism: Albert the Great, in his work on the
animals, dissents from the widespread belief that certain birds
spring from trees and are nourished by the sap, and also from the
theory that some are generated in the sea from decaying wood.

But it required many generations for such scepticism to produce
much effect, and we find among the illustrations in an edition of
Mandeville published just before the Reformation not only careful
accounts but pictured representations both of birds and of beasts
produced in the fruit of trees.[15]

[15] For Giraldus Cambrensis, see the edition in the Bohn
Library, London, 1863, p. 30; for the Abd Allatif and Frederick
II, see Hoefer, as above; for Albertus Magnus, see the De
Animalibus, lib. xxiii; for the illustrations in Mandeville, see
the Strasburg edition, 1484; for the history of the myth of the
tree which produces birds, see Max Muller's lectures on the
Science of Language, second series, lect. xii.


This general employment of natural science for pious purposes
went on after the Reformation. Luther frequently made this use
of it, and his example controlled his followers. In 1612,
Wolfgang Franz, Professor of Theology at Luther's university,
gave to the world his sacred history of animals, which went
through many editions. It contained a very ingenious
classification, describing "natural dragons," which have three
rows of teeth to each jaw, and he piously adds, "the principal
dragon is the Devil."

Near the end of the same century, Father Kircher, the great
Jesuit professor at Rome, holds back the sceptical current,
insists upon the orthodox view, and represents among the animals
entering the ark sirens and griffins.

Yet even among theologians we note here and there a sceptical
spirit in natural science. Early in the same seventeenth century
Eugene Roger published his Travels in Palestine. As regards the
utterances of Scripture he is soundly orthodox: he prefaces his
work with a map showing, among other important points referred to
in biblical history, the place where Samson slew a thousand
Philistines with the jawbone of an ass, the cavern which Adam and
Eve inhabited after their expulsion from paradise, the spot where
Balaam's ass spoke, the place where Jacob wrestled with the
angel, the steep place down which the swine possessed of devils
plunged into the sea, the position of the salt statue which was
once Lot's wife, the place at sea where Jonah was swallowed by
the whale, and "the exact spot where St. Peter caught one
hundred and fifty-three fishes."

As to natural history, he describes and discusses with great
theological acuteness the basilisk. He tells us that the animal
is about a foot and a half long, is shaped like a crocodile, and
kills people with a single glance. The one which he saw was
dead, fortunately for him, since in the time of Pope Leo IV--as
he tells us--one appeared in Rome and killed many people by
merely looking at them; but the Pope destroyed it with his
prayers and the sign of the cross. He informs us that Providence
has wisely and mercifully protected man by requiring the monster
to cry aloud two or three times whenever it leaves its den, and
that the divine wisdom in creation is also shown by the fact that
the monster is obliged to look its victim in the eye, and at a
certain fixed distance, before its glance can penetrate the
victim's brain and so pass to his heart. He also gives a reason
for supposing that the same divine mercy has provided that the
crowing of a cock will kill the basilisk.

Yet even in this good and credulous missionary we see the
influence of Bacon and the dawn of experimental science; for,
having been told many stories regarding the salamander, he
secured one, placed it alive upon the burning coals, and reports
to us that the legends concerning its power to live in the fire
are untrue. He also tried experiments with the chameleon, and
found that the stories told of it were to be received with much
allowance: while, then, he locks up his judgment whenever he
discusses the letter of Scripture, he uses his mind in other
things much after the modern method.

In the second half of the same century Hottinger, in his
Theological Examination of the History of Creation, breaks from
the belief in the phoenix; but his scepticism is carefully kept
within the limits imposed by Scripture. He avows his doubts,
first, "because God created the animals in couples, while the
phoenix is represented as a single, unmated creature"; secondly,
"because Noah, when he entered the ark, brought the animals in by
sevens, while there were never so many individuals of the phoenix
species"; thirdly, because "no man is known who dares assert
that he has ever seen this bird"; fourthly, because "those who
assert there is a phoenix differ among themselves."

In view of these attacks on the salamander and the phoenix, we
are not surprised to find, before the end of the century,
scepticism regarding the basilisk: the eminent Prof.
Kirchmaier, at the University of Wittenberg, treats phoenix and
basilisk alike as old wives' fables. As to the phoenix, he
denies its existence, not only because Noah took no such bird
into the ark, but also because, as he pithily remarks, "birds
come from eggs, not from ashes." But the unicorn he can not
resign, nor will he even concede that the unicorn is a
rhinoceros; he appeals to Job and to Marco Polo to prove that
this animal, as usually conceived, really exists, and says, "Who
would not fear to deny the existence of the unicorn, since Holy
Scripture names him with distinct praises?" As to the other great
animals mentioned in Scripture, he is so rationalistic as to
admit that behemoth was an elephant and leviathan a whale.

But these germs of a fruitful scepticism grew, and we soon find
Dannhauer going a step further and declaring his disbelief even
in the unicorn, insisting that it was a rhinoceros--only that and
nothing more. Still, the main current continued strongly
theological. In 1712 Samuel Bochart published his great work
upon the animals of Holy Scripture. As showing its spirit we may
take the titles of the chapters on the horse:

"Chapter VI. Of the Hebrew Name of the Horse."

"Chapter VII. Of the Colours of the Six Horses in Zechariah."

"Chapter VIII. Of the Horses in Job."

"Chapter IX. Of Solomon's Horses, and of the Texts wherein the
Writers praise the Excellence of Horses."

"Chapter X. Of the Consecrated Horses of the Sun."

Among the other titles of chapters are such as: Of Balaam's Ass;
Of the Thousand Philistines slain by Samson with the Jawbone of
an Ass; Of the Golden Calves of Aaron and Jeroboam; Of the
Bleating, Milk, Wool, External and Internal Parts of Sheep
mentioned in Scripture; Of Notable Things told regarding Lions
in Scripture; Of Noah's Dove and of the Dove which appeared at
Christ's Baptism. Mixed up in the book, with the principal mass
drawn from Scripture, were many facts and reasonings taken from
investigations by naturalists; but all were permeated by the
theological spirit.[16]

[16] For Franz and Kircher, see Perrier, La Philosophie
Zoologique avant Darwin, 1884, p. 29; for Roger, see his La Terre
Saincte, Paris, 1664, pp. 89-92, 130, 218, etc.; for Hottinger,
see his Historiae Creatonis Examen theologico-philologicum,
Heidelberg, 1659, lib. vi, quaest.lxxxiii; for Kirchmaier, see
his Disputationes Zoologicae (published collectively after his
death), Jena, 1736; for Dannhauer, see his Disputationes
Theologicae, Leipsic, 1707, p. 14; for Bochart, see his
Hierozoikon, sive De Animalibus Sacre Scripturae, Leyden, 1712.


The inquiry into Nature having thus been pursued nearly two
thousand years theologically, we find by the middle of the
sixteenth century some promising beginnings of a different
method--the method of inquiry into Nature scientifically--the
method which seeks not plausibilities but facts. At that time
Edward Wotton led the way in England and Conrad Gesner on the
Continent, by observations widely extended, carefully noted, and
thoughtfully classified.

This better method of interrogating Nature soon led to the
formation of societies for the same purpose. In 1560 was founded
an Academy for the Study of Nature at Naples, but theologians,
becoming alarmed, suppressed it, and for nearly one hundred years
there was no new combined effort of that sort, until in 1645
began the meetings in London of what was afterward the Royal
Society. Then came the Academy of Sciences in France, and the
Accademia del Cimento in Italy; others followed in all parts of
the world, and a great new movement was begun.

Theologians soon saw a danger in this movement. In Italy, Prince
Leopold de' Medici, a protector of the Florentine Academy, was
bribed with a cardinal's hat to neglect it, and from the days of
Urban VIII to Pius IX a similar spirit was there shown. In
France, there were frequent ecclesiastical interferences, of
which Buffon's humiliation for stating a simple scientific truth
was a noted example. In England, Protestantism was at first
hardly more favourable toward the Royal Society, and the great
Dr. South denounced it in his sermons as irreligious.

Fortunately, one thing prevented an open breach between theology
and science: while new investigators had mainly given up the
medieval method so dear to the Church, they had very generally
retained the conception of direct creation and of design
throughout creation--a design having as its main purpose the
profit, instruction, enjoyment, and amusement of man.

On this the naturally opposing tendencies of theology and science
were compromised. Science, while somewhat freed from its old
limitations, became the handmaid of theology in illustrating the
doctrine of creative design, and always with apparent deference
to the Chaldean and other ancient myths and legends embodied in
the Hebrew sacred books.

About the middle of the seventeenth century came a great victory
of the scientific over the theologic method. At that time
Francesco Redi published the results of his inquiries into the
doctrine of spontaneous generation. For ages a widely accepted
doctrine had been that water, filth, and carrion had received
power from the Creator to generate worms, insects, and a
multitude of the smaller animals; and this doctrine had been
especially welcomed by St. Augustine and many of the fathers,
since it relieved the Almighty of making, Adam of naming, and
Noah of living in the ark with these innumerable despised
species. But to this fallacy Redi put an end. By researches
which could not be gainsaid, he showed that every one of these
animals came from an egg; each, therefore, must be the lineal
descendant of an animal created, named, and preserved from "the
beginning."

Similar work went on in England, but under more distinctly
theological limitations. In the same seventeenth century a very
famous and popular English book was published by the naturalist
John Ray, a fellow of the Royal Society, who produced a number of
works on plants, fishes, and birds; but the most widely read of
all was entitled The Wisdom of God manifested in the Works of
Creation. Between the years 1691 and 1827 it passed through
nearly twenty editions.

Ray argued the goodness and wisdom of God from the adaptation of
the animals not only to man's uses but to their own lives and
surroundings.

In the first years of the eighteenth century Dr. Nehemiah Grew,
of the Royal Society, published his Cosmologia Sacra to refute
anti-scriptural opinions by producing evidences of creative
design. Discussing "the ends of Providence," he says, "A crane,
which is scurvy meat, lays but two eggs in the year, but a
pheasant and partridge, both excellent meat, lay and hatch
fifteen or twenty." He points to the fact that "those of value
which lay few at a time sit the oftener, as the woodcock and the
dove." He breaks decidedly from the doctrine that noxious things
in Nature are caused by sin, and shows that they, too, are
useful; that, "if nettles sting, it is to secure an excellent
medicine for children and cattle"; that, "if the bramble hurts
man, it makes all the better hedge"; and that, "if it chances to
prick the owner, it tears the thief." "Weasels, kites, and other
hurtful animals induce us to watchfulness; thistles and moles,
to good husbandry; lice oblige us to cleanliness in our bodies,
spiders in our houses, and the moth in our clothes." This very
optimistic view, triumphing over the theological theory of
noxious animals and plants as effects of sin, which prevailed
with so much force from St. Augustine to Wesley, was developed
into nobler form during the century by various thinkers, and
especially by Archdeacon Paley, whose Natural Theology exercised
a powerful influence down to recent times. The same tendency
appeared in other countries, though various philosophers showed
weak points in the argument, and Goethe made sport of it in a
noted verse, praising the forethought of the Creator in
foreordaining the cork tree to furnish stoppers for wine-bottles.

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