Essay The Cheese and the Worms

There will always be a battle between religion and science, it is a truth universally acknowledged. Galileo attempted to make the two compatible by suggesting that the truth can only be sought out if the notion under consideration can be accurately tested and if the opposing view can be founded as false. Galileo’s goes into depth about the truth of scripture and the sciences, intertwined with the reason of man, in his letter to Christina of Lorraine, Grand Duchess of

The 16th century was a time of creativity, discovery, exploration, and invention. The Cheese and the Worms, written by Carlo Ginzburg, tells the story of Domenico Scandella. The book explores Scandella’s, otherwise known as Menocchio, world-view at the time. Menocchio was a miller who was tried for his unorthodox religious views and eventually burnt at the stake for heresy in 1599. During this time, Menocchio was seen as special as he was a peasant who could read, a peasant who had an education. Ginsburg’s display of Menocchio’s views gives the reader an insight into peasant culture. The peasant culture experienced many grievances as they suffered in their daily lives with little opportunity for survival. Their only opportunity of survival was working for landlords on the land. Peasants had little to no money and it did not help that they were being controlled by the church. The people were unaware that history was occurring but the Protestant Reformation, the Renaissance, the Inquisition, and other historical moments during the time were all relevant to the typical European peasant Menocchio as most of his ideas were caught in the currents of the 16th century.

In this paper, I will discuss how three influential scholars in this order: Augustine, Aquinas, Galileo, delimit science or the bible and the ways their beliefs overlapped or didn’t.

During the Scientific Revolution, in the 17th century, several philosophers began to doubt scientific knowledge of the Holy Scriptures. One of those philosophers, Galileo, discovered a new innovation that could have changed the viewpoint on the Church’s Scripture accuracy. Galileo discovered that the sun stayed still as the Earth revolved around it, which was the opposite of what the Church taught. During this time, it was very dangerous for Galileo to oppose the Church. This was because doubts about the Church would lead to a loss of its power and the people’s trust, which was unwanted.

The Black Death had arrived in Europe and would kill more than half of the population. This one event spawned economic depression, revolts, and started power struggles between the elite and lower classes, and would lead to a new way of thinking that would spark changes that are still felt today in modern times. Humanism was born and instead of the Bible and religious issues being the only resource to look to, worldly issues and the thought that the individual had importance, became the new way of thinking. Before the renaissance the church controlled art, science, and even how one learned. Any discovery that went against the churches teachings was considered heresy and anyone participating in these acts could expect excommunication or death. Many great artists come from this time, some like Michangllo were able to still thrive under the church’s rule but others like Johann Kepler and Galileo did not fare so well. In the Catholic institution, only the members of the clergy had the power to interpret scripture, and in this new age of learning, these men did not think the bible had all the

Hildegard von Bingen, a German prophetic visionary and polymath, lived in the twelfth century at a time when the church was becoming corrupt and unstable. As a young nun in the Benedictine community at Rupertsburg and under Jutta’s tutelage, Hildegard acquired a prolific knowledge of the Christian scriptures as well as the doctrines and theology of the Church. She was able to use this knowledge to shape her ideas and to lobby for church reform. Throughout her life, Hildegard received visions that were believed to have been divinely inspired. She was encouraged to write down these ‘visions’ in her exemplary work, the Scivias—‘Know the Ways of the Lord’— which was approved by papal imprimatur and as such was motivated to carry God’s Work. The

The Cheese and the Worms: The Cosmos of a Sixteenth Century Miller (1976) written by Carlo Ginzburg was centered on Domenico Scandella, well known as Menocchio, a sixteenth-century miller from the village in the Friuli region of northeastern Italy. He was the defendant of Catholic heresy trial that occurred in 1584-1585 and again in 1599. Menocchio had many dangerous ideologies of the church, which reject an abundance of theological concepts and practices of its time. He was a literate peasant, who collided two worlds, the oral culture of peasants and the literate culture of aristocracy. During his first interrogation, Menocchio often poured out his beliefs carelessly and the inquisitor seemed to have been astonished by what they had heard

Over two centuries ago the Catholic Church tried Galileo, because he published his book in 1632 that supported the heliocentric ideas that originated from Copernicus. The church claimed that the heliocentric theory went against scripture. During this time the Catholic Church believed in the idea that the Earth was at the center of the universe. This was called the geocentric theory, which had been around for nearly 1500 years. Galileo was tried less than a year later in 1633. The trial was private, because the church feared the community would support him, because he was one of the most achieved astronomers of their time. The church’s committee unanimously voted that his book, the Two Chief World Systems violated his

The Medieval Inquisition was an office in the Vatican in charge of defending and advancing the Roman Catholic faith. During this period of time, the established idea of our universe was the Aristotelian geocentric model. The earth was thought to be the most divine planet, so much that all heavenly bodies, including the sun, orbited earth. Heretical ideas were suspected of being taught during this time, so the Inquisition investigated the claims. Galileo Galilei, an astronomer, physicist, engineer, philosopher, and mathematician, was a primary suspect regarding heresy,

The theme of equilibrium between reason and faith is one of the core messages of Inferno and it is essential in conveying the main idea of the Divine Comedy and of the pilgrim’s journey that the exploitation of intellect and the misuse of will is the cause of sin, and that through faith, those who are morally lost find their salvation in God. In Inferno Dante makes it clear that he greatly values knowledge and reason in a way that is more characteristic to the Renaissance rather than of his own Medieval time. However, throughout this first book, the author reminds the audience of the Christian nature of his poem as he uses the stories of the sinners he encounters to stress the idea that without faith, the intellect is not sufficient to achieve divine salvation and that the misuse of reason can often lead to terrible sins.

In the history of the Catholic Church, no episode is so contested by so many viewpoints as the condemnation of Galileo. The Galileo case, for many, proves the Church abhors science, refuses to abandon outdated teachings, and is clearly not infallible. For staunch Catholics the episode is often a source of embarrassment and frustration. Either way it is undeniable that Galileo’s life sparked a definite change in scientific thought all across Europe and symbolised the struggle between science and the Catholic Church.

If people did want to challenge the church, whether it be in science or in moral dilemma, they were automatically threatened with heresy and excommunication. The church's complete control, as a result of no separation between church and state, forced every other person to also excommunicate the 'heretic' or fear being excommunicated as well. This, of course, was not an appealing path to tread. However, even Everyman tries to deny the 'injustice': "Who are you to ask me for this accounting?" (Scene 2, Line 38) The response is powerful and final: "I am Death, and I fear no one." (Scene 2, Line 39) There was no liberty in the Renaissance period for questioning the church, contradictory to even God's command in the Bible: "Test everything. Hold on to the good." (1 Thessalonians 5:21) Galileo, Martin Luther, and Chaucer were all men that challenged

Hayashi, Y. Science and Religion in “The Birth-mark” and “Rappaccini’s Daughter”. Retrieved March 9, 2014, from http://www.kushiroct.ac.jp/library/kiyo/kiyo37/hayashiscience37.pdf

The rise of literacy towards the end of the Middle Ages brought with it a torrent of individuals ready to think fro themselves and formulate their own theories and ideas regarding God and the Christian faith. For a long time, the church held a near monopoly on literacy and used this to maintain control over people’s lives and beliefs. While some of these new intellectuals created ideas that would forever change the way people envision themselves and their relation to God and the universe, some simply patched together tidbits of ideas that were not born out of deep philosophical inquiry, but had more of an instinctive type of logical grounding. This was the line of thinking that made up Domenico

It is indeed true that the quality of food that you take in will do a