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Science and Christian Faith: The Example of the Turin Shroud- Juniper Publishers

Summary

Taking the Turin Shroud as an example, this paper analyzes the strict relationship between science and faith, considered as two forms of knowledge that try to explain the world according to two different methods. In fact, while we are often offered a dualistic vision that tends to separate science and faith, leading them to be two spheres in continuous conflict with each other, the most important Relic of Christianity just shows the opposite.

From the numerous similarities between what is scientifically detected on the Shroud and what is reported in the Holy Scriptures, a clear example of how science and faith can meet together is shown. The Shroud, even furnishing additional scientific details, confirms many facts described in the Bible and vice versa, many clues reported in the Bible have a clearer explanation at the light of the scientific facts shown on Relic.

Introduction

Science and faith can be considered as two forms of knowledge that try to explain the world according to two different methods. The relationship between scientific knowledge and religious belief has long been the object of reflection by many scholars. Is it possible to find a meeting point between the two spheres? Often we are offered a dualistic vision that separates science and faith, leading them to be two spheres in continuous conflict with each other. Auguste Comte, father of the Positivism, even argues that theology must be outclassed by rational and scientific thought. Science, that has long tried to replace religion [1], promised to respond to the desires of humanity, to resolve all difficulties by thinking to an assurance of happiness on this earth. However, it did not succeed in recreating an earthly paradise and the faith remained, even if feeble.

While many affirm that science and faith must travel on two parallel levels without ever meeting, others, with the author, are convinced that they must meet together to compare and enrich each other, after having traveled mutually independent avenues. In agreement with St. John Paul II “Faith and reason are like two wings on which the human spirit rises to the contemplation of truth” [2]. It is as if a blind man (faith) sustains a lame one (science) which in turn leads the blind (faith) on the path to truth.

Like in other cases such as the one concerning the explanation of the origin of life where religious texts do not show up in contrast with the results of scientific analyses, the case of the Turin Shroud (or simply Shroud) highlights the close relationship that exists between science and faith. The following presentation shows this strict connection. The Shroud [3-12], see Figure 1 is the archaeological object, as well as religious, more studied in the world. From a scientific point of view, it is important because it shows a double image of a man up to now not reproducible nor explainable; it is also religiously important because, according to the Christian tradition, it shows some traces of the Resurrection of Jesus Christ.

It is an ancient linen cloth, 4.4m long and 1.1m wide, which wrapped the corpse of a tortured man, scourged, crowned with thorns, crucified and pierced by a spear in the chest. Many are convinced that the Shroud is the sepulchral cloth of Jesus Christ resurrected there after about forty hours from the wrapping. The double body image there impressed has been the subject of intense studies especially during the twentieth century, but even today, it is not technically reproducible and cannot even be explained scientifically. On the Shroud, various signs are visible, more or less important and not easily comprehensible at first glance: the double mirror image of a man, frontal and dorsal, the bloodstains corresponding to the wounds of the Man there wrapped, the stains caused by water, the traces and the holes caused by fires and other minor signs.

Hypothesizing the identification of Jesus Christ with the Man of the Shroud, we analyze here the significant correlations between the scientific aspects detected on the Shroud and what is reported in the Bible, to better understand the close relationship between science and faith [13]. We will see that the quotations from the Bible and in particular from the four Canonic Gospels confirm the observable facts on the Shroud thus evidencing the strict connection between science and faith.

Shroud Results and Corresponding Citations from the Bible

The asked sign

The Shroud bears the impressed image of Crist who was put in the tomb and then, according to the Christians, resurrected during the third day. This body image can be interpreted as the sign of Jonah (2,1-11), promised by Jesus, who remained for three days and three nights in the belly of a big fish before being vomited on the ground.

a. no sign shall be given to it except the sign of the prophet Jonah (Mt 16,4).

b. all flesh shall see the salvation of God (Lk 3,6).

All the human body is Battered

The Shroud body image shows signs of tortures everywhere. Various injuries, such as that of the side, have not been closed; in fact the casting of post-mortem blood, considered impure by the Jews, was not been touched. It seems that the complete embalming had been postponed to the first day after Saturday because the evening was arriving.

a. From the sole of the foot even to the head there is no soundness in it (Is 1,6).

Many Signs of Tortures on the Head

The imprint of the face shows numerous swellings: the broken nose, right eye hurt, perhaps blinded by a blow to the scourge, his lower lip cut and various wounds caused by the crown of thorns that are also evident at the nape; actually it does not result a healthy part of the face. It is obviously not easy to identify the sign of a slap or spit on the face of Jesus from the analysis of the Shroud, but the evident and various swellings on the cheeks and on the eyebrows arch, as well as the broken nose, demonstrate that the man was hit and tortured especially in correspondence of the head.

a. The whole head is sick (Is 1,5).

b. They struck His head with a staff and spit on Him (Jn 19.3).

c. and they hit Him with their hands (Mk 15.9).

Flagellation

It is on the back that is more evident the fury of the torturers; there is in fact a greater concentration of shots. Typically, a man condemned to crucifixion was not punished with additional torture. In the case of the Shroud instead, we may think that the scourging was given as a sentence independent by crucifixion, which was decided later. The author counted on the Shroud at least 372 signs wounds caused by flagellation. Since the sides of the body image are not visible on the Shroud, we may think that the wounds could be about 700 in total. If the Roman flagrum was composed of three cords with two lead balls at each end as someone supposes [3,6-8], we can deduct that the number of blows inflicted was about 120 (since 120 x 6 = 720). The area around the heart shows few signs of the scourge because, hitting him, they would have caused the premature death of the condemned.

a. The plowmen plowed upon my back; they made their furrows long.” “ (Ps 129.3),

b. I gave my back to those who struck me, (Is 50.6).

c. then Pilate took Jesus and flogged Him (Jn 19.1).

Hair and Beard Plucked Out

On the Shroud the left hair appear longer than the right ones and the right beard seems sparse in some areas. This can be explained as a torture produced by the soldiers.

- “I gave … my cheeks to those who plucked out my beard; (Is 50:6).

Coronation of Thorns

On the Shroud, the presence of a crown of thorns is not clearly visible but forehead, temples and neck have dozens of wounds caused by sharp objects that may be related to a crown of thorns.

a. humiliation has covered my face. (Ps 69.7).

b. The soldiers twisted a crown of thorns and put it on His head (Jn 19.2).

c. and when they wove a crown of thorns, they put it on His head (Mt 27.29).

Transportation of the Cross

Excoriations imputable to the transport of the cross are evident on the region of the shoulders of the Shroud body image. Jesus repeatedly fell to the ground: this is demonstrated by the dust particles found on the area of the nose and the left knee. As recently highlighted by M. Bevilacqua [11], the cross dislocated his right shoulder during a fall, causing a paralysis of his right arm. The Roman soldiers therefore decided to help Jesus in the transportation of the Cross by forcing a man coming from Cyrene to follow him with the weight of the cross.

a. He went out, carrying His own cross, to a place called The Place of a Skull (Jn 19.17.).

b. they seized Simon of Cyrene, who was coming from the country, and they laid the cross on him to carry it behind Jesus (Lk 23.26).

Crucifixion

The Shroud shows that Jesus was nailed to the cross with two nails for his hands [14] and one longer for both His feet. The rigor mortis detected on the body image is not consistent with a man lying on a floor, but with a dead man hanged on the cross to which were subsequently repositioned the arms, by breaking the rigor mortis.

a. like a lion they pin my hands and my feet (Ps 22.16).

b. Golgotha. There they crucified Him … (Jn 19:17-18).

c. and by lawless hands have crucified and killed Him (Acts 2.23).

A Parched Man

According to various medical analysis [4,6], Jesus died dehydrated, even after significant blood loss caused by the scourging. However, according to several theologians, His thirst was not only physical but also moral because with His voluntary sacrifice aspired to draw to Himself all souls.

a. my throat is parched; (Ps 69.3).

b. in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. (Ps 69,21).

A Shout Before Dying

“The signs of our sins” including the stab to the chest with a spear are impressed there on the Shroud. The wound in the side, following Haemothorax shows the red part of the blood separated by the serous part, transparent like water. It is not yet completely clarified the cause of Jesus’ death, but asphyxia, typical of the crucified men, seems to be a contributing cause, not the main reason. If Jesus had died for asphyxia alone, as supposed by someone, it is not easy to explain how he could have issued the loud cry reported in the Gospels. Accentuated by the intense moral pain, along with orthostatic and haemothorax collapse, the haemopericardium diagnosed as a possible cause of death as a result of infarction, produced a violent expansion of the pericardial pleura with consequent shooting retrosternal pain and sudden death associated with a shout.

We must remember that an orthostatic collapse happens when the blood in the body falls down and does not flow to the heart and brain; the hemothorax is a shedding of blood in the pleural cavity after thoracic trauma; the haemopericardium is a shedding of blood in the space between the heart and the pericardial sheet that surrounds him.

a. and Jesus, when He had cried out again with a loud voice, released His spirit (Mt 27, 50).

b. so that they look to Me, whom they have pierced through. (Zechariah 12:10).

c. This is He who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood (1 Jn 5,6).

Rigor Mortis and Legs not Broken

Rigor mortis of Jesus is remarkable on the Shroud [14]; it grew up in a vertical position where the knees were partially bent due to the body collapsing, leaning on the fix point of the nail of the feet. Such a configuration is contrary to the fact that sometimes the bones of the legs were broken to the crucified to hasten death.

On the Shroud some dislocation are evident, but not a fractured bone.

a. nor shall you break a bone of it (Ex 12:46).

b. they did not break His legs (Jn 19,33).

c. For these things happened so that the Scripture should be fulfilled, “Not one of His bones shall be broken (Jn 19,36.).

A Valuable Shroud for the Burial

According to three of the four canonical Gospels, Jesus was wrapped in a new and valuable sheet, purchased by a wealthy person. The Shroud shows a particularly fine texture and herringbone fabric for an important person, probably a highranking priest.

a. When Joseph had taken the body, he wrapped it in a clean linen cloth, and laid it in his own new tomb, which he had cut out of the rock (Mt 27.59-60).

A soft bed for the corpse

The study of the dorsal image of the Shroud shows that the Man was leaned on a soft bed, probably made of spices in dust [8].

a. and You have set me toward the dust of death.(Ps 22,15)

Use of Aromas for the Burial

P.L. Baima Bollone [15], found traces of aromas such as aloe and myrrh on the Shroud probably used to bury the body of the Man. Interestingly, according to the custom of the Jews, P. Vignon [3] reported that rolled bandages impregnated with aromatic oils surrounded the body wrapped in the Shroud. The term “linen cloths” (from the Greek “othonia”), in the plural, was preferred by the apostle John to the term “sindon” used by the other Evangelists probably because in reference to the set of linens like Shroud, sudarion and various bandages used for burial.

a. Nicodemus, … also came, bringing a mixture of myrrh and aloes, weighing about seventy-five pounds (Jn 19:39).

b. Then they took the body of Jesus and wrapped it in linen cloths with the spices, as is the burial custom of the Jews (Jn 19:40).

Spillage of Separated Blood from the Chest Due to Lance Shot

It is evident from the Shroud the escaping of separate blood (plasma and post mortem serum) due to the side stubbed by a spear after death. On the right side of the chest, according to P. Barbet [4], there is a wound whose margins widened and well defined typical, of a blow inflicted after death. Among the contributory causes of death, we must not forget the moral pain of Jesus seeing Him treated in that way, just from people who had come to save. The insult has therefore accentuated the effects of orthostatic collapse also followed by the hemothorax.

a. because for Your sake I have endured insult; (Ps 69.8).

b. my heart is like wax; it is melted inside my body. (Ps 22:14).

c. Insults have broken my heart, and I am sick; (Ps 69,20).

d. However, one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear and immediately blood and water came out (Jn 19:34).

Absence of Sign of Corruption

The evident rigor mortis of the corpse and the lack of spots on the body image, produced by emissions of putrefaction gases also in correspondence of the orifices (e.g. nose and mouth), demonstrate that the body of Jesus did not see any kind of corruption [14]. According to the Bible in fact Jesus’ life was therefore not abandoned in the hell because on the third day Jesus rose from the dead. The lack of smearing in correspondence of the Shroud bloodstains, conserved in a humid environment like the sepulcher, demonstrate that the corpse was not moved after wrapping. Therefore, we must think that Jesus was not placed in the niche carved into the rock, but he was left on the stone for the preparation of the corpse, waiting for the finish of embalming operations to be performed after the Holy Saturday.

a. For You will not leave my soul in Sheol, nor will You suffer Your godly one to see corruption. (Ps 16:10).

b. For You will not abandon my soul to Hades, nor will You allow Your Holy One to see corruption. (Acts 2:27).

A Burst of Energy for the body Image Formation?

According to many scholars [1,6,8-10], the body image imprinted on the Shroud, not yet scientifically explainable, was probably formed by a brief and intense burst of energy, maybe even of electric type [16], which could be related to a lightning. If we refer to the hypothesis of the disappearance of the corpse due to the concurrent radiation that formed the body image, the Shroud presents a double sign: the death of Jesus and the burn caused by the intense energy source that produced the body image.

a. And you shall let nothing of it remain until the morning, but that of it which remains until the morning you shall burn with fire…. 11 It is the Lord’s Passover. (Exodus 12:10).

b. For as the lightning comes from the east and flashes to the west, so will be the coming of the Son of Man (t 24,27).

c. For as the lightning flashes and lights up the heavens from one side to the other, so will the Son of Man be in His day (Lk 17,24).

Resurrection

Science cannot study the Resurrection as a scientific fact because it is not reproducible, but we can formulate scientific hypothesis based on this phenomenon to try to explain what can be scientifically detected on the Shroud.

From the Shroud it results what follows:

a. The Man remained there wrapped for not more the about forty hours because there are no signs of putrefaction, therefore someway the corpse went out of the linen Sheet.

b. To explain the body image of the Shroud it seems necessary the hypothesis of a burst of energy coming from the corpse [8,9], but a dead man only exchanges relatively small quantities of thermal energy with the environment.

c. The absence of smearing in all the stains visible on the Shroud due to the blood re-dissolved by fibrinolysis in the humid environment of the sepulcher, implies that no skinfabric movements happened during wrapping.

d. It is not possible for the moment to scientifically explain how Jesus came out from the Shroud, but when science stops, all other hypotheses can be considered, Resurrection not excluded. Supported by various experimental data J. Jackson [9] supposes that Jesus became mechanically transparent with respect to the sagging Sheet and produced a flash of energy, which would be the cause of image formation.

e. Some scholars with the author think that the body image could have been originated by an intense electric field, which produced the so-called corona discharge, directly responsible for the image [16]. While some scholars tend to form hypotheses related to an earthquake, the author thinks that this supernatural energy can be directly related to the Resurrection.

f. This description from the Evangelists makes us think about what happened for the Shroud when the body image formed.

g. The Transfiguration of Mount Tabor is a prelude to the Resurrection of Jesus, He “was transfigured before them. His face shone as the sun, and His garments became white as the light” (Mt 17,2).

h. The Resurrection of Jesus …. (Lk 24).

i. He foresaw this and spoke concerning the resurrection of the Christ.” (Acts 2:31).

j. And then there was a great earthquake. For the angel of the Lord descended from heaven and came and rolled back the stone from the door and sat on it (Mt 28,2).

k. Paul wrote this letter in the years 53-55 AD, in a period when there were certainly too many eyewitnesses and this could not be an invention without historical foundation. Then He was seen by over five hundred brothers at once, of whom the greater part remain to this present time, though some have passed away (1.Cor 15.6).

Paul wrote this letter in the years 53-55 AD, in a period when there were certainly too many eyewitnesses and this could not be an invention without historical foundation.

The Position of the Shroud that Pushed John to See and Believe

The synthetic description of the sepulchral linens made by the apostle John is not exhaustive, but we can think that the very particular position of both the Shroud and the Sudarium helped a lot him to believe in the Resurrection, that was a preannounced fact but not understood up to this moment. Probably the particular shape of the Shroud lowered on the sepulchral bed and the Sudarium that was hardened by the aromas, placed in a form that seemed to wrap the lacking head, led the apostle John to believe in the Resurrection of Christ.

a. 3So Peter came out with the other disciple and they went toward the tomb. 4They both ran together, and the other disciple outran Peter and came to the tomb first. 5Stooping down and looking in, he saw the linen cloths lying. Yet he did not enter. 6Then Simon Peter came, following him, and went inside the tomb. He saw the linen cloths lying there, 7and the cloth that was around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but wrapped in a place by itself. 8Then the other disciple, who came first to the tomb, went in also. He saw and believed. 9For as yet they did not know the Scripture, that He must rise from the dead.”(Jn 20.3 to 9).

First of all we must observe the description of “the cloth that was around His head, not lying with the linen cloths, but wrapped in a place by itself.” And we may interpret this cloth as the sudarium that was posed on Jesus’ head, not laying with the Shroud, but still wrapping up the disappeared head. This significant description deserves an additional comment from the Greek version: “ 5καὶ παρακύψας βλέπει κείμενα τὰ ὀθόνια, οὐ μέντοι εἰσῆλθεν. 6ἔρχεται οὖν καὶ Σίμων Πέτρος ἀκολουθῶν αὐτῷ, καὶ εἰσῆλθεν εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον • καὶ θεωρεῖ τὰ ὀθόνια κείμενα, 7καὶ τὸ σουδάριον, ὃ ἦν ἐπὶ τῆς κεφαλῆς αὐτοῦ, οὐ μετὰ τῶν ὀθονίων κείμενον ἀλλὰ χωρὶς ἐντετυλιγμένον εἰς ἕνα τόπον • 8τότε οὖν εἰσῆλθεν καὶ ὁ ἄλλος μαθητὴς ὁ ἐλθὼν πρῶτος εἰς τὸ μνημεῖον, καὶ εἶδεν καὶ ἐπίστευσεν”.

This text reports three different instants, characterized by three different verbs used to describe the facts when the two Apostles saw the Shroud in the sepulcher. These verbs similar but different, βλέπει, θεωρεῖ, εἶδεν have the same main meaning -to see-, but they are used to characterize different peculiar situations:

a. βλέπει, referred to the Apostle Peter, means -to see- in the sense of –turning his eyes- with a touch of attention but with a limited use of one of the five senses;

b. θεωρεῖ, referred to the apostle John, instead indicates -to see- in a way that contemplates something beyond, in deeper way, involving thought and reflection; it means trying to understand an hidden meaning and it derives from the same root θεωρ of theory and theorem;

c. εἶδεν, again referred to John, indicates -to see- in a different way, meaning to be careful, but also experiencing and showing that John deeply meditated on this fact.

It seems clear now that John, after his deep meditation (εἶδεν) on the particular disposition of both the Shroud and the sudarium, still wrapping the lacking head, was pushed to think in the Resurrection (ἐπίστευσεν), a phenomenon that was preannounced to him by the same Jesus, but that was very difficult for him to understand without the physical signs seen in the sepulcher.

Studying the Shroud

Waiting to contemplate the face of Jesus after the Resurrection from the dead, we can now contemplate His image observing the Holy Shroud.

a. When You said, “Seek My face,” my heart said to You, “Your face, Lord, I will seek” (Ps 27:8).

It is instead not forget the text of Isaiah who even mention a sheet or a shroud in prophecy that could have a direct connection with the Shroud.

b. (the Lord) will destroy in this mountain the covering (translated as “shroud” too in other versions) which is over all peoples, even the veil that is spread over all nations (Is 25.7).

Results from the Bible Contrary to the Shroud

The author is not able to find citations of the Bible and, in particular, from the four Canonic Gospels against either the scientific facts detectable on the Shroud or the Relic itself but he will try to answer to possible questions raised by the readers of this paper. Only two points offered by some persons against the existence of the Shroud are here discussed.

The Shroud body image is not mentioned in the Gospels

Some state that the body image of the Shroud is not authentic because, if true, the Gospels would have certainly mentioned it. This fact is true, but according to the author, it is in favor of the Shroud authenticity too. In fact, experimental tests with coronal discharge [16] demonstrated that only a latent image could be formed by using this source of electric energy. The latent image “develops” with time and a source of heating at about 200 °C is necessary to produce a visible image in few minutes. It is therefore easy to think that months or better years were necessary for the Shroud to form its body image and this is why the Gospels did not mention it: the Apostles probably did not see any visible image on the Shroud, but only the bloodstains that were surely not so important to be mentioned in their Gospel.

The Gospel of John speaks of bandages but not of a Shroud

Unfortunately the Greek language, from which derives the translations of the Gospels, is not rich of terms and therefore a single word has various meanings. While the other Apostles (Mt 27,59 Mc 15,46 Lc 23,53) who were not present to the burial mention the word “Sindon”, that is Shroud, to make reference to the most important Object used in the sepulcher, John uses the generic term “Othonia” that may be translated as “linens” or “bandages”. Some translator of the Gospel selected this last term for his unhappy translation, thus inducing the reader to think to a wrapping like that used for the Egyptian mummies. In this case instead it seems more proper the first term “linens”, because John, who was present during the burial, wanted to mention not only the Shroud, but also other pieces of linen used there, like the sudarium and the rolls of bandages full of spices posed at the sides of the corpse to better conserve it. Therefore nothing seems strange if John used a term not directly referred to the Shroud but to all the linen fabrics used that Friday evening.

Concluding Remarks

From the numerous similarities detected between the Shroud and the Holy Scriptures, we see that there is here a full agreement between science and faith. In agreement with prof. Eberhard Lindner who widely studied the Shroud, we can therefore think that the most important Relic of Christianity is a “Scientific Gospel”. In fact it scientifically confirms many facts described in the Bible, representing them all together concentrated in one sheet and even adding new details. Therefore the Shroud summarizes the facts of the Passion described in the Gospels and, while confirming their historical veracity, in turn these facts confirm the authenticity of the Relic too. For example, in the Gospels we read: “Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged Him “ (Jn 19.1-2). The reader of our times has probably some difficulties to imagine what was the severity of punishment inflicted on Jesus about 2000 years ago because flogging is a kind of torture nowadays almost forgotten. On the Shroud however, by analyzing the hundreds wounds left by the blows of the scourge, it is scientifically documented the harsh punishment and it is easier for us to understand what physical suffering were inflicted to that Man. Therefore, we can say with M. Laconi that the Shroud meets our materialist expectations, in fact, while the New Testament puts the blood of Jesus in front of the heart, warmed by faith, the Shroud instead puts it in front of our eyes.

Acknowledgment

The author thanks Wanda René Thompson of Ichthus Inspirational Publications (ichthushouse.org) for the translation from Italian of some sentences, Dr. John Donahue of Shroud Science Group on Yahoo for his advices and Dr. Susan Lara, Managing Editor of Juniper Publishers with her collaborators for the help and kindness manifested during the publication of both the present paper and the two already published:

-Fanti G. “Why is the Turin Shroud Authentic?”. Glob J Arch & Anthropol. 2018; 7(2): 555707, https://juniperpublishers.com/ gjaa/pdf/GJAA.MS.ID.555707.pdf

-Fanti G. “Why is the Turin Shroud Not Fake?”. Short Communication, Glob J Arch & Anthropol. 2018: 7(3), https:// juniperpublishers.com/gjaa/pdf/GJAA.MS.ID.555715.pdf

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makingscipub · 7 years

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Milton and Galileo: Affinities between art and science

I don’t know much about John Milton and Galileo Galilei. However, I have stood beside Milton’s Mulberry tree at Christ’s College, Cambridge and beside Galileo’s chair and lectern at the University of Padua – and felt some affinity with the poet and the scientist. I didn’t know though that there was actually a connection between Milton and Galileo until I opened The Observer on Sunday and chanced upon an article that said: “In preparation for a Radio 4 documentary – In Search of Paradise Lost – to be broadcast next Sunday, Dr Joe Moshenska, an academic at Trinity College, Cambridge, retraced Milton’s journey to Florence in the late 1630s and claims that the legacy of a formative trip can be spotted throughout Paradise Lost. If he is correct, one of England’s most famous works of literature also bears the stamp of the city of Dante.”

In a quote Moshenka says: “It’s such an extraordinary thing to picture, the two of them crossing paths, people who you think of as belonging to two entirely different worlds, especially now, when we tend to separate science from literature so dramatically”.

This post is about affinities, between Milton and Galileo, between art and science, between poetry and technology (the telescope), between England and Italy, between the 16th and the 21st century, us and them, then and now. All these affinities have gradually been or are gradually being replaced by barriers and blockades. That is a great shame. To quote from the article again: “Moshenska believes that discussion of Milton’s Florentine sojourn is particularly timely as Brexit looms. It transpires that Milton, the most English of poets, was a polyglot Europhile whose most famous work is at least partially tinged by Tuscan ochre.”

Reading the article set me off on a little journey of discovery and time travel. I thought: there must be people before Dr Moshenska who have written about Milton and Galileo. And indeed there are – quite a few. I can of course not survey them all. So I just want to pick a few things out here and there. In the process I found one article from 1922 by Allan H. Gilbert for Studies in Philology, which made me smile, as it contains a lot of lengthy Latin quotes without providing any translation! How’s that for accessibility?

In the following I’ll first put Paradise Lost in the context of the lives of Milton and Galileo – very briefly. Then I go on to say a few things about science, technology, and freedom of speech.

Milton, Galileo and Paradise Lost

As people probably know, Paradise Lost is a long epic poem. The first version of this poem was published towards the end of Milton’s life in 1667. Milton had been born in 1608. The final version consisting of 12 books was published the year he died, in 1664. “The poem concerns the biblical story of the Fall of Man: the temptation of Adam and Eve by the fallen angel Satan and their expulsion from the Garden of Eden.” So what has this to do with astronomy and Galileo?

Since his youth, Milton had been interested in astronomy and many of his works contain allusions to this new and exciting field of science. Milton was also interested in maths and while he lived at Horton (his family home in Berkshire), “he was in the habit of repairing to London ‘for learning … the mathematics’” (Gilbert, 1922: 154). However, Milton never really committed to the new Copernican or Galilean view of the world, that is, the heliocentric one, even after his apparent meeting with Galileo; and even after giving Galileo the honour of appearing in Paradise Lost (the only contemporary of Milton to do so).

Milton went to Italy when he was still quite young, at the age of thirty. The Galileo he visited was, by contrast, very old and under house arrest. The Inquisition had found him suspect of heresy because of his views on heliocentrism.

Galileo was born in in 1564 and died in 1642, that is, a few years after his encounter with Milton. 1642 also signalled the start of the English Civil Wars, in which Milton was quite heavily involved on the side of the Commonwealth. After the Restoration in 1660, he spent some time in the Tower of London but was, fortunately, not killed. These were the times, including the 1664 plague and the 1665 fire of London, during which Milton started to write Paradise Lost.

Milton and Galileo met in 1638. That was also the year that Milton published one of his early poems, Lycidas, which was “dedicated to the memory of Edward King” a friend of Milton’s at Christ’s College, Cambridge, who drowned when his ship sank off the coast of Wales in August 1637. Furthermore, in 1638 Galileo published one of his later works, namely Discourses on Two New Sciences. “Although, this book completely overturned Aristotle’s physics, the Church didn’t punish him further” (Bembenek, 2012). 1638 was also the year that John Wilkins published his famous Discovery of a New World in the Moon, in which “he defended the Copernican and Galilean idea that the Earth is a planet by establishing analogies with the Moon”. Overall, this was a rather fruitful time for poetry and science and everything in between.

A few years after Galileo’s death, in 1644, Milton published Areopagitica, his defence of free speech. It was in this work that he mentions his journey to Italy and says: “There it was that I found and visited the famous Galileo grown old, a prisner to the Inquisition, for thinking in Astronomy otherwise then the Franciscan and Dominican licencers thought. And though I knew that England then was groaning loudest under the Prelaticall yoak, neverthelesse I took it as a pledge of future happines, that other Nations were so perswaded of her liberty.”

It should be noted that while he very much admired Galileo and his work, Milton did not fully accept the new astronomy, it seems. As Gilbert pointed out: “Yet even in mentioning his visit, in the Areopagitica, he does not assert his belief that Galileo was right. However his purpose was not to uphold the correctness of any particular opinions, but to declare that all should be tolerated.” (p. 155). And as Jonathan Rosen said in The New Yorker (2008): “For Milton, the great trial of life was to discover truth through error, but without falling off the pat of good.” And yet, it has also been pointed out that the younger Milton’s cosmology as it appears in poems preceding the Italian journey is decidedly more medieval than the universe of Paradise Lost (see Hunter, A Milton Encyclopedia, vol. 3, p. 120).

Poetry and technology

Let’s now come to the most famous passage from Paradise Lost in which Milton talks about Galileo and his telescope (although he never used that new-fangled word, it seems):

He scarce had ceas’t when the superior Fiend Was moving toward the shore; his ponderous shield Behind him cast; the broad circumference Hung on his shoulders like the Moon, whose Orb Through Optic Glass the Tuscan Artist views At Ev’ning from the top of Fesole, Or in Valdarno, to descry new Lands, Rivers or Mountains in her spotty Globe.

Satan’s shield is here depicted as the moon seen through Galileo’s, or rather ‘the Tuscan artist’s, telescope. Milton probably used the word artist to refer to the art of designing optical instruments.

Many articles have been written about Milton and the telescope but I only want to quote from one by Marjorie Nicolson (1935): which claims that Milton never forgot the experience of looking through a telescope and seeing new worlds on the moon. This, she says, “is reflected again and again in his mature work; it stimulated him to reading and to thought; and it made Paradise Lost the first modern cosmic poem, in which a drama is played against a background of inter-stellar space”.

The encounter with Galileo and the telescope left in fact many traces in Paradise Lost: “each of Galileo’s most famous discoveries is reflected in one or more passages in the epic. Among them are the countless newly sighted stars (7. 382-84), the nature of the Milky Way (7. 577-81), the phases of the planet Venus (7.366), the four newly discovered moons around Jupiter (8.148-51), the new conception of the moon (7. 375-78), the nature of moon spots (1. 287-9; 5. 419-20; 8. 145-48), and the nature of sun spots (3. 588-90)”. (Hunter, A Milton Encyclopedia, vol. 3, p. 120-121).

Paradise Lost might be in part inspired by Galileo, science and technology but it basically represents Milton grappling with the new science and its impacts on the fortunes of the humanities and in particular on Christian theology and cosmology – as struggle that continues today.

Science, art and politics

Milton was not only a poet and polymath, but also a politician and Paradise Lost was published in a period of political turmoil – which in fact affected directly its publication and printing. As we have seen, in Areopagitica “Milton recalls his visit to Galileo” but more importantly perhaps also “warns that England will buckle under inquisitorial forces if it bows to censorship, ‘an undeserved thraldom upon learning.’” (Rosen, 2008). One passage of Areopagitica in particular has resonated to this day: “Give me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties…Truth was never put to the worse in a free and open encounter…. It is not impossible that she [truth] may have more shapes than one…. If it come to prohibiting, there is not ought more likely to be prohibited than truth itself, whose first appearance to our eyes bleared and dimmed with prejudice and custom is more unsightly and implausible than many errors….Where there is much desire to learn there of necessity will be much arguing, much writing, many opinions; for opinion in good men is but knowledge in the making.”

This passage was quoted twice in the British Medical Journal, once in the year 2000 and once in the year 2004. Both times the passage was quoted by Richard Smith the editor of the journal. In 2004 the ‘Correspondence’ was entitled “Milton and Galileo would back BMJ on free speech”. Subtitle: “Arguments, crazy ideas and open communication are the lifeblood of science”.

These are values that still need defending in 2017, on the 350th anniversary of Paradise Lost. It is a strange time, where the people talking most about freedom of speech are not defending new truths, but old hatreds.

PS I am neither an expert on Milton nor on Galileo, so I expect that I have got some things wrong – comments and corrections welcome! And if somebody knows what ‘areopagitica’ actually means, let me know! I also wonder what Galileo might have made of Milton and whether they discussed the moon as a metaphor……

Image: Milton visiting Galileo when a prisoner of the Inquisition. Oil painting by Solomon Alexander Hart, 1847 (Wellcome Collection)

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