Note 118 — II III

It needed uncommon courage to pronounce in favour of Copernicus at the end of the sixteenth century. The assertion that 'the advancement of Spaniards is evidenced by the facility with which the theory of Copernicus... was accepted in Spain, when it was rejected elsewhere' is in the nature of an over-statement. According to Muiños Sáenz (op. cit., pp. 19-20), who refers to his brother-Augustinian, M. Gutiérrez, 'la doctrina copernicana pugnaba con la opinión generalizada en las escuelas, y tuvo en España impugnadores que, como Pineda, y con referencia personal á Zúñiga, la calificaron de falsa, no sin añadir que, á juicio de otros autores, merecía las calificaciones de temeraria, peligrosa y opuesta al sentir de la Sagrada Escritura.' It seems likely that Zúñiga was dead before this sweeping condemnation appeared, but the fact that he thought it prudent to modify the expression of his unqualified acceptance of the Copernican theory favours the assumption that he may have had to endure some volume of hostile private criticism. Whatever may have been Zúñiga's reasons for qualifying his early adhesion to the Copernican theory, it seems safe to think that timidity was not one of them. His nerve was unshaken. Towards the end of his life he was engaged on a task after Luis de Leon's own heart: the bringing to book of an unreasonable Provincial.