‘Whether the Stars are Innumerable for Us?’: Astronomy and Biblical Exegesis in the Society of Jesus around 1600

Abstract

The relationship between astronomy and biblical exegesis has received only very unsystematic attention from historians. Where it has been considered, the central points of reference have normally been Copernican theory and, in particular, the Galileo affair of 1616. The literature on the history of biblical exegesis and the Galileo affair can be divided into two groups: one focuses on the period before 1600, with a particular emphasis on Protestant reactions to Copernican theory.1 The other is devoted to investigating the period after 1610, primarily the reaction of Catholic exegesis to Copernican theory. In both cases, the search for Galileo’s sources and the reaction of the exegetes to his position have stood at the centre of research interest.2 Only a few studies have given detailed attention to Catholic or Jesuit biblical exegesis before 1610, so that historical knowledge about this topic remains incomplete, although this is precisely the field which needs to be closely investigated if we are to understand the relationship between science and exegesis among the Jesuits, as one of the foremost intellectual elites of the seventeenth century, and the situation between 1610 and 1616, when Galileo composed his famous letter to the Grand Duchess Christina of Tuscany.3 However, beyond this rather narrow perspective, the relationship between the mathematical sciences in general (not only astronomy) and biblical exegesis from the late sixteenth to the early seventeenth centuries is an important element for the historical understanding of the relationship between science and religion since the Scientific Revolution.