Just to be clear... Your so called "context" is pretext. The heart of what Copernicus said that was actually condemned by the Church is:
"Why Copernicus was condemned:For it is not unknown that Lactantius, otherwise an illustrious writer but hardly an astronomer, speaks quite childishly about the earth's shape, when he mocks those who declared that the earth has the form of a globe."
The Church condemned Copernicus for saying Lactantius speaks childishly about the earth's shape when Lactanctius mocks those who think the earth is a globe. This says absolutely nothing that the Church thought the earth was a globe, or recognized the earth is a globe, but that a condemnation was made against Copernicus for belittling Lactantius' position that earth is flat. In other words, the Church condemned Copernicus because he belittled the flat earth.
in it
The OP quoted one sentence out of the 1620 decree giving permission to publish
De Revolutionbus on condition that nine specific corrections and changes were made. This sentence described one of the required corrections. This decree was not a condemnation of Copernicus.
Wikipedia gives the historical background:
In March 1616, in connection with the Galileo affair, the Roman Catholic Church's Congregation of the Index issued a decree suspending De revolutionibus until it could be "corrected," on the grounds of ensuring that Copernicanism, which it described as a "false Pythagorean doctrine, altogether contrary to the Holy Scripture," would not "creep any further to the prejudice of Catholic truth."[144] The corrections consisted largely of removing or altering wording that the spoke of heliocentrism as a fact, rather than a hypothesis.[145] The corrections were made based largely on work by Ingoli.[139]
On the orders of Pope Paul V, Cardinal Robert Bellarmine gave Galileo prior notice that the decree was about to be issued, and warned him that he could not "hold or defend" the Copernican doctrine.[h] The corrections to De revolutionibus, which omitted or altered nine sentences, were issued four years later, in 1620.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nicolaus_CopernicusThe opening paragraph of the decree (not quoted in the OP) gives the reasoning for the earlier censure of Copernicus: The original version of De Revolutionibus was prohibited because in it Copernicus showed that he accepted as true, not merely hypothetically, principles concerning the position and movement of the earth that were contrary to the Catholic interpretation of Sacred Scripture. However, since there were many useful things in the book, the Index wished to give it permission for publishing with corrections for
locis in quibus non ex hypothesi sed asserendo de situ et motu terræ disputat.("places in which he discusses the location and motion of the earth, not hypothetically but as an assertion")
The Congregation, therefore, thought that, in the passage containing the reference to flat earth, Copernicus was treating his ideas as truth rather than a hypothesis. We can see they are right in the sentences immediately preceding the mention of Lactantius: "
Perhaps there will be babblers who claim to be judges of astronomy although completely ignorant of the subject and, badly distorting some passage of Scripture to their purpose, will dare to find fault with my undertaking and censure it. I disregard them even to the extent of despising their criticism as unfounded." It was not because Copernicus belittled flat earth. On the contrary, it was for treating his theory as if it were an established truth like the earth being a sphere.
It is this same opening paragraph of the decree that uses the expression
terrenus globus to refer to the earth, showing that its authors believed the earth was a sphere.
Oh, and by the way: Terrenus globus does not mean earth is a globe. Terrenus means earthly. And globus means "group". Check out google translate for more information.
https://translate.google.com/?sl=la#la/en/globus
The Douay calls earth a "bundle" or "group" because heaven and earth are joined together. Earth is in the center, heaven above and hell below, the globus cruciger so often talked about in these threads proving that heaven, hell and earth comprise the globus (group).
The literal meaning of
globus is globe, ball, or sphere. It is occasionally used figuratively (usually in poetry) to mean a group. The Google translate link you cited gives possible translations in order of frequency, with the back translations, also in order of frequency. The word
globus rarely means group and the concept of group is rarely expressed by
globus. In this context, any competent human translator would use "terrestrial globe" or a similar expression.
Translations of globus
| noun |
| globe | globus, sphaera, orbis terrarum, sphera, tellus, orbis terrae |
| ball | pila, globus, sphaera, globulus, sphera, glomus |
|
| sphere | sphaera, sphera, globus, regio, provincia, area |
|
| troop | turma, agmen, caterva, manus, praesidium, globus |
|
| group | classis, corona, circulus, circlus, turba, globus |
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Topic: The Church censors flat earth criticism (Read 5857 times)