Galileo Understood the Then Standard View, But Misunderstood its Application to Joshua 10

Was it Baronius and Did Galileo Recall His Words Accurately? · Galileo Understood the Then Standard View, But Misunderstood its Application to Joshua 10

Letter to Benedetto Castelli
Galileo Galilei | 1613, December 21
https://inters.org/Galilei-Benedetto-Castelli

On the view expressed by St. Thomas Aquinas and shared since Ptolemy, the angel of the Sun is moving the Sun East around Earth along the Zodiac each year. Meanwhile, God moves all of the heavens from East to West each day, from the Primum Mobile (that is, the sphere of the fixed stars) down to the Oceanic Currents around the Equator.

Here is what Galileo had to say in one of these arguments for Heliocentrism:

I first ask the opponent whether he knows with how many motions the sun moves. If he knows, he must answer that is moves with two motions, namely with the annual motion from west to east and with the diurnal motion in the opposite direction from east to west.

Then, secondly, I ask him whether these two motions, so different and almost contrary to each other, belong to the sun and are its own to an equal extent. The answer must be No, but that only one is specifically its own, namely the annual motion, whereas the other is not but belongs to the highest heaven, I mean the Prime Mobile; the latter carries along with it the sun as well as the other planets and the stellar sphere, forcing them to make a revolution around the earth in twenty-four hours, with a motion, as I said, almost contrary to their own natural motion.

Coming to the third question, I ask him with which of these two motions the sun produces night and day, that is, whether with its own motion or else with that of the Prime Mobile. The answer must be that night and day are effects of the motion of the Prime Mobile and that what depends on the sun's own motion is not night or day but the various seasons and the year itself.

Now, if the day derives not from the sun's motion but from that of the Prime Mobile, who does not see that to lengthen the day one must stop the Prime Mobile and not the sun? Indeed, is there anyone who understands these first elements of astronomy and does not know that, if God had stopped the sun's motion, He would have cut and shortened the day instead fo lengthening it? For, the sun's motion being contrary to the diurnal turning, the more the sun moves toward the east the more its progression toward the west is slowed down, whereas by its motion being diminished or annihilated the sun would set that much sooner; this phenomenon is observed in the moon, whose diurnal revolutions are slower than those of the sun inasmuch as is own motion is faster than that of the sun. It follows that it is absolutely impossible to stop the sun and lengthen the day in the system of Ptolemy and Aristotle, and therefore either the motions must not be arranged as Ptolemy says or we must modify the meaning of the words of the Scripture; we would have to claim that, when it says that God stopped the sun, it meant to say that He stopped the Prime Mobile, and that is said the contrary of what it would have said if speaking to educated men in order to adapt itself to the capacity of those who are barely able to understand the rising and setting of the sun.

The answer is, both movements stopped. God stopped His own moving of the Prime Mobile, which lengthened the day, which is noted in Joshua 10:14, here:

There was not before nor after so long a day, the Lord obeying the voice of a man, and fighting for Israel
[Josue (Joshua) 10:14]

But the Sun and Moon themselves also stopped:

The sun and the moon stood still in their habitation, in the light of thy arrows, they shall go in the brightness of thy glittering spear
[Habacuc (Habakkuk) 3:11]

Why? Because Joshua had spoken to them.

Imagine a man who was holy passed by a man sick in AIDS and in a cold. Imagine he stated "God cures your cold" and God then cured BOTH the AIDS and ALSO the cold. That would be befitting, since God would be giving authority to the words of the miracle worker, he would only go beyond them to fix a deeper problem as well.

This is about what happens when God in defending the authority of Joshua's words, decree that Sun and Moon stop, within orbits that normally run Eastward, but that are dragged Westward by the Prime Mobile. AND God on top of that stops Himself the Prime Mobile.

However, we cannot imagine God just curing the AIDS but leaving the cold as it was, since in that case He would not be giving authority to the words of the holy man.

For that reason, we cannot imagine that God stopped Earth from rotating instead of stopping the heavens from rotating around it. Which is how Fundamentalists who are Heliocentrics, not the ideal combination, now tend to take this passage.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Octave of All Saints
8.XI.2024

PS, I obviously agree with Cardinal Bellarmine in his letter to Fr. Foscarini. Something may be missing at [?]

Nor is it the same to demonstrate that by supposing the sun to be at the center and the earth in heaven one can save the appearances, and to demonstrate that in truth the sun is at the center and the earth in the heaven; for I believe the first demonstration may be available, but I have very great doubts about the second, and in case of doubt one must not abandon the Holy Scripture as interpreted by the Holy Fathers. ... Now, suppose you say that Solomon speaks in accordance with appearances, since it seems to us that the sun moves (while the earth does so), just as to someone who moves away from the seashore on a ship it looks like the shore is moving, I shall answer that when someone moves away from the shore, although it appears to him that the shore is moving away from him, nevertheless he knows that it is an error and corrects it, seeing clearly that the ship moves and not the shore; but in regard to the sun and the earth, no wise man has any need to correct the error, since he clearly experiences that the earth stands still and that the eye is not in error when it judges that the [?] it also is not in error when it judges that the stars move.