CHAP.
CHRISTOPHER COLUMBUS.
III.]
91
those magnificent texts of Scripture, and those mysterious predic tions of the prophets, which, in his enthusiastic moments, he con sidered as types and annunciations of the sublime discovery which he proposed! Among the number who were convinced by the reasoning, and warmed by the eloquence of Columbus, was Diego de Deza, a worthy and learned friar of the order of St. Dominick, at that time professor of theology in the convent of St. Stephen, but who became afterwards archbishop of Seville, the second ecclesiastical dignitary of Spain.
This able and erudite divine was a man
whose mind was above the narrow bigotry of bookish lore; one who could appreciate the value of wisdom even when uttered by unlearned lips.
He was not a mere passive auditor; he took a
generous interest in the cause, and by seconding Columbus with all his powers, calmed the blind zeal of his more bigoted brethren, so as to obtain for him a dispassionate, if not an unprejudiced, hearing.
B y their united efforts, it is said, they brought over
the most learned men of the schools.*
One great difficulty
was to reconcile the plan of Columbus with the cosmography of Ptolemy, to which all scholars yielded implicit faith.
How would
the most enlightened of those sages have been astonished, had any one apprised them that the man, Copernicus, was then in ex istence, whose solar system should reverse the grand theory of Ptolemy, which stationed the earth in the centre of the universe ! Notwithstanding every exertion, however, there was a prepon derating mass of inert bigotry, and learned pride, in this erudite body, which refused to yield to the demonstrations of an obscure foreigner, without fortune or connections, or any academic honors. * Remesal, Hist. de Chiapa, lib. xi. cap. 7.