avi

Roger and Doug have both asked me for a reference to support my claim that it was the Christians in Italy in the sixteenth century who destroyed the last remaining copies of the Greek manuscripts authored by Aristarchus.

Doug asserted that none of my references described or illustrated book burning, this is incorrect. Here is the Wiki article again, look at it, there is a painting depicting the burning of books under the section marked "Censorship".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish...ion#Censorship

Roger politely asked for evidence that it was specifically Christians who destroyed the manuscript.

I haven't any proof.

a. Copernicus in 1500 did see the manuscripts, apparently he was the last person to see them. Maybe he destroyed them.

b. Copernicus, fearing for his life, and for the life of his family, because of the inquisition, DELETED all reference to Aristarchus from the revised, official, printed copy of his Latin treatise on heliocentrism, published just weeks before his death, an incendiary publication, deliberately withheld from the printing press, until his imminent demise, so that he would not face torture and execution by the Christians, for repudiating the Bible.

c. Galileo, a century later, had NO KNOWLEDGE of Aristarchus. He referred to Copernicus, as though he were the originator of heliocentrism, and it is from Galileo's advocacy, that people today misunderstand the true significance of Copernicus' publication: Copernicus stole (plagiarized) Aristarchus' research, presenting Aristarchus' experiments and calculations as though they were his own, to save his own life, and the lives of his family members.

d. Today, we have no extant manuscripts of Aristarchus' work.

So, who destroyed the last copies of this invaluable manuscript?

Yes, Roger, it could have been anyone. It may have been a simple thief. It could have been burned in an ordinary house fire. It might have blown out the window in an ordinary wind storm....

There are MANY alternative explanations. Maybe a Muslim passerby, visiting Italy in the 16th century thought it heretical, for contradicting the Quran, and destroyed it.

Maybe it was an orthodox Jew, who was appalled at the challenge to Genesis....

You are correct, I have no evidence whatsoever, that the wonderful Christians of the Inquisition, (the same benevolent folks who tortured and imprisoned Galileo,) destroyed this manuscript, recopied a hundred times during 17 centuries, originally authored by Aristarchus of Samos. Maybe these Christian Inquisitors have been falsely accused by me. You can chalk it up, Roger, to just another instance of useless hyperbole and misguided allegations by an uneducated buffoon.

And maybe Jeanne d'Arc died not from burning at the stake, as a heretic, at the hands of the Christians, but from abruptio placentae, the result of a liason with some kind of rascal like me, for certainly the maid of Orleans was not raped by her Christian captors, was she?

Who knows the truth in these matters? But, we can be pretty confident, right Roger, that it wasn't the Christians who engaged in any of these appalling crimes. We know this, because of the original post on this thread, assuring us, that the Christians throughout history, safeguarded pagan science. I am confident that you can produce bushel baskets of references confirming this fact.

rlogan

I can see the flames from clear up here.

Toto

Pete's discourse on buried gnostic documents as 4th century rebellion against his favorite villains split

andrewcriddle

Can you give your evidence that Copernicus knew Aristarchus' work at first hand ? I thought that Copernicus knew of Aristarchus' views only through references in other ancient writers.

Andrew Criddle

Roger Pearse

I think we need the original claim:

I had not realised that this was a claim about the sixteenth century! But I am quite interested in the transmission of Greek texts from antiquity and the renaissance rediscovery.

I'm still somewhat unclear about what is being said here, tho. The claim is, if I understand it, that a single manuscript of works (which ones?) by Aristarchus survived into the 16th century, and was then destroyed? I would like to know much more about this, if so. What is your source for all this?

Interesting. Do you have a reference to where Copernicus talks about this? It would be interesting to see his words, you see; and I always think that we should always go for primary sources. If you can give me something to work with, we can see what we can find.

I think this doesn't bear on the survival of Aristarchus, tho, so I won't comment on it.

You might want to know, however, that James Hannam is rather an expert on the subject of myths about religion and science -- indeed has just published a book on it -- and so may have something to say about this. I think you probably want to reference your source, unless you are making this claim yourself.

But this involves a presumption; that people went around deliberately destroying texts. They didn't. On the contrary! At that period a scholar could make his reputation by finding new ancient texts, however daft or heretical. Texts were indeed lost in the 16th century, but not for the sort of reasons you suppose.

Indeed we can. I admit that I have never been asked such a question, so have never compiled a list. But you can find this information yourself readily enough.

Off the top of my head, I can refer you to the astronomical works of Severus Sebokht, a Syriac bishop and monk at the monastery of Kinnesrin. I placed online his treatise on the astrolabe, based on pagan science, and also on the treatise of John Philoponus (which I also placed online, I think). I translated part of his treatise on the constellations and placed that online, which draws heavily on Ptolemy but rejects the superstitious idea that the planets were gods -- a real advance. This too is online.

Severus was the first to record the coming of "Arabic" numbers from India, in a chapter in an unpublished work (which I ought to get translated, now I think of it; I had forgotten).

There is the treatise of Hunain ibn Ishaq on the works of Galen, in which he goes through every one known to him, in the 10th century, and lists the translations of it (often by himself or Job of Edessa).

There is the work of Cosmas Indicopleustes, indicating in five chapters that he thinks the world is the shape of a portacabin; and a further five more chapters in which he defends his idea against the derision of his fellow monks, telling him not to be so silly.

But as I say, I haven't researched it in detail, this is just casual encounters. But no-one was interested in losing technology. It should be obvious that no-one stood to gain. Greek literature could go to hell; but handbooks of knowledge were precious.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

PS: A quick search (e.g. Wikipedia, here) tells me that the work in which Aristarchus proposed this idea (his only surviving work is geocentric) is known to us only via a quote in an extant work by Archimedes, the "Sand Reckoner." Is there any evidence that this work survived the Dark Ages?

Doug Shaver

I won't try to speak for Roger, but the claim I asked you to support was this one:

I didn't ask for anything as specific as the time or place. All I wanted was evidence that it happened, doesn't matter when or where -- and good enough evidence to justify the claim the "we sure know'" that it happened.

That was not my assertion. Here is what I asserted:

Are you serious? It's too bad you're not a believer. You'd have made one terrific apologist with that kind of reasoning.

There exists a painting of Christians burning books. Therefore, we know it to be a fact that Christians burned books -- and not just any books, but those particular books on that particular subject by that particular author -- and not just some of those books but all of those books? Gimme a break.

Oh, and did you even read the caption underneath that picture?

Roger Pearse

Avi,

I hope you understand that we're not having a go at you? In this forum there are people genuinely interested in the preservation of ancient texts, and you (inadvertantly or otherwise) came out with something that pressed all the right buttons. The issue is not one of religion here, but of a factual issue.

It may be that you were repeating in good faith something you remembered, and can't in fact give us more than this. If so, by all means say so. Or you may simply have misremembered or misspoke, as we all do from time to time. But if you do have a lead on this matter of Aristarchus, do let us know.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

avi

Thank you Roger, thank you Doug. You are both correct to have criticised my statements.

I have no source to document my belief that Christians, in particular the Italian version of the infamous "Inquisition", destroyed the last surviving copies of the works of Aristarchus.

For all I know, the mice ate the manuscripts.

Yes, Doug, I had read the caption. It was irrelevant to me. It was, and remains, my belief, based on other examples, that Christians deliberately burned not only books, but also people, if those books, or people, disagreed with any aspect of the faith of those murderers. Censorship is not something abstract, it is real. Real people died at the stake. Real books were burned. The wiki illustration demonstrated graphically that point. To me it was simply a picture of what actually happened, quite possibly in a different locale, or different set of circumstances. So what? These horrific crimes were committed by Christians, "to protect the one true faith".

I have no proof that Christians destroyed Aristarchus' works. I don't even have proof that Galileo a scientist, was arrested and tried for heresy by Christians. I know very little, and most of what little I know is prejudiced. Thank you both for insisting upon evidence, which is the proper way to proceed.

Roger Pearse

The thing that we must always remember about material lost from antiquity is that 99% of all ancient literature is lost, and most works survive in just a single copy. Chance, as much as anything else, must have played the most considerable part in many cases.

For instance a large proportion of our surviving Christian literature from the 2nd century is of defences of Christianity to the emperor. The reason for this is that many are preserved in the "Arethas codex". Archbishop Arethas of Caesarea in the 10th century was interested in early apologetics, and got one of his toadies to search out these texts and present them to him in a bound volume. This volume happens to survive, and is the main witness for much of what it contains. No doubt other early literature also existed; but in the absence of this impulse to collect it, perished.

All the best,

Roger Pearse

Doug Shaver

Mice probably did eat some of them. The only improbability is that that's what happened to all of them.

And I am not disputing that that sort of thing did happen on a few occasions.

Of course it is. But it does not equate to destruction.

That obviously is one way to do censorship. But to prove that censorship happened is not to prove that those particular things happened.

I don't have proof, either, in the sense of being able to cite any primary documentation. But if I were asked to defend my belief that Galileo was arrested and tried for heresy, I could do a great deal better than linking to a picture somebody painted of him standing before the Inquisition.

And by the way, some pretty credible historians are agreed that Galileo practically begged for what happened to him. This is one instance where blaming the victim might be almost appropriate.