A thousand years ago, the pope studied the stars and found God in numbers. Mathematics ranked among the highest forms of worship, for God had created the world, as the Book of Wisdom said (chapter 11, verse 21), according to number, measure, and weight. Our modern tension between faith and science did not exist.
Pope Sylvester II (999-1003) was known as "the Scientist Pope." Born Gerbert of Aurillac, he rose from peasant beginnings to the pinnacle of the Christian church "on account of his incomparable scientific knowledge" -- not in spite of it. Such is the testimony of men who knew him and wrote during, or right after, his lifetime. They call him "acutely intelligent" and "deeply learned in the study of the liberal arts." He was the leading mathematician and astronomer of his day.
Read Full Article »