The controversy between Religion and Science still rages, in spite of the
declaration of Professor Huxley that in his opinion the conflict between
the two is entirely factitious. But theologians are wiser now than they
were in the days of Galileo; they are waiting to see what the scientists
can prove, and then, when the various hypotheses are shown to be true, it
will be time enough to reconcile the verities of the Faith with the facts
of Science.
To those who believed that the earth was flat it was somewhat startling to
be told that there were antipodes. This elementary truth of cosmology
Bishop Virgil of Salzbourg was courageous enough to assert as early as
A.D. 764. He wrote a book in which he stated that men of another race, not
sprung from Adam, lived in the world beneath our feet. This work aroused
the anger of Pope Zacharias II, who wrote to the King of Bavaria that
Virgil should be expelled from the temple of God and the Church, and
deprived of God and the Church, and deprived of his office, unless he
confessed his perverse errors. In spite of the censure and sentence of
excommunication pronounced upon him, Bishop Virgil was canonised by Pope
Gregory XI.; thus, in spite of his misfortunes brought about by his book,
his memory was revered and honoured by the Western Church.
If the account of his imprisonment be true (of which there is no
contemporary evidence) our own celebrated English philosopher, Roger
Bacon, is one of the earliest scientific authors whose works proved fatal
to them.
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