Picturing Jesuit Anti-Copernican Consensus 291 13 / Picturing Jesuit Anti-Copernican Consensus: Astronomy and Biblical Exegesis in the Engraved Title-Page of Clavius’s Opera mathematica (1612) VOLKER R. REMMERT The debate over the Copernican theory held a prominent place in the so-called scientific revolution of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. It culminated in the trial of Galileo Galilei and his conviction in June 1633. Much has been written about the context of this trial, its motivations, and its rationale. This article is concerned not with these issues, but rather with the prehistory of the ‘first trial’ of 1616. Here my particular focus is on the position adopted by Jesuit biblical exegesis on Copernican theory and its connection, in turn, with the views of the leading Jesuit mathematician and astronomer Christoph Clavius, whose writings had a fundamental influence on the Jesuit exegetes. 1 The relationship between Copernican theory and biblical exegesis has re- ceived unsystematic attention from historians. In particular, only a few studies have given detailed attention to Catholic or Jesuit biblical exegesis before 1610, 2 although this is precisely the field that needs to be investigated if we are to understand the situation between 1610 and 1616, when Galileo composed his famous letter to Christina. In this paper I make no claim to fill that gap in the historical record. My theme is the treatment of terrestrial motion in Jesuit biblical exegesis, particularly in the light of the astronomical miracles of the Sun standing still in Joshua 10:12 and the Sun reversing its course in 2 Kings 20:8–11 (Horologium Ahas), both portrayed in the engraved title-page of Clavius’s Opera mathematica of 1612. By interpreting the title-page in the context of the exegetic and scientific traditions of the Jesuits and in the light of their interaction with the post- Tridentine Counter-Reformation project, I will show that Clavius played a decisive role in the rejection of terrestrial motion by Jesuit exegetes. In February 1616 the Holy Office condemned two principal features of the Copernican system. First, the idea that the sun rested at the centre of the universe was rejected as stupid, absurd, and, moreover, formally heretical, because it