The Sleepwalkers (183 page)

It
was
the
first
in
a
series
of
disasters
which
weighed
down
on
the
last
twenty
years
of
Kepler's
life.
To
keep
going,
he
published
his
correspondence
with
various
scholars
on
questions
of
chronology
in
the
age
of
Christ.
Chronology
had
always
been
one
of
his
favourite
distractions;
his
theory
that
Jesus
was
really
born
in
the
year
4
or
5
"B.C."
is
today
generally
accepted.
Thus
he
was
"marking
time"
in
two
meanings
of
the
word;
for
he
had
secured
himself
a
new,
modest
job
in
Linz,
but
could
not
leave
Prague
while
Rudolph
was
still
alive.

The
end
came
on
20
January,
1612.
It
was
also
the
end
of
the
most
fertile
and
glorious
period
in
Kepler's
life.

3.
Excommunication

The
new
job
was
that
of
a
Provincial
Mathematicus
in
Linz,
capital
of
Upper
Austria
–
similar
to
that
he
had
held
in
his
youth
in
Gratz.
He
was
now
forty-one
years
old,
and
he
stayed
in
Linz
for
fourteen
years,
till
he
was
fifty-five.

It
seemed
a
depressing
come-down
after
the
glories
of
Prague;
but
it
was
not
quite
as
bad
as
it
seemed.
For
one
thing,
Rudolph's
successor
had
confirmed
Kepler
in
his
title
as
Imperial
Mathematician,
which
he
retained
throughout
his
life.
Matthias,
unlike
Rudolph,
had
little
time
for
his
court
astronomer;
but
he
wanted
him
to
be
not
too
far
away,
and
Linz,
in
his
Austrian
domain,
was
a
satisfactory
solution.
Kepler
himself
was
glad
to
be
away
from
the
turmoil
of
Prague,
and
to
receive
a
salary
from
the
Austrians
which
at
least
he
was
sure
to
get.
He
also
had
influential
patrons
among
the
local
aristocracy,
the
Starhembergs
and
Liechtensteins;
in
fact,
the
job
had
been
specially
created
for
him,
carried
only
theoretical
obligations,
and
left
him
all
the
leisure
he
needed
for
his
work.
When
the
Thirty
Years
War
began
with
the
defenestration
of
Prague,
he
could
only
be
thankful
to
be
removed
from
the
focus
of
events.
And
when
he
was
offered
the
succession
of
Magini
in
the
Chair
for
Mathematics
in
Bologna,
he
wisely
refused.

But
nevertheless
it
was
a
come-down.
"
Linz",
to
Austrians,
remains
to
this
day
a
byword
for
provincialism.
Barbara,
whose
homesickness
for
Austria
had
been
one
of
the
reasons
for
Kepler's
choice
of
Linz,
was
dead.
His
desolate
loneliness
wrung
from
him
one
of
his
self-analytical
outcries:

"...
My
exaggerated
trustingness,
display
of
piety,
a
clutching
at
fame
by
means
of
startling
projects
and
unusual
actions,
the
restless
search
for
and
interpretation
of
causes,
the
spiritual
anguish
for
grace..."
⁶

He
had nobody to talk to, nobody even to quarrel with.

This
last
need,
however,
was
fulfilled
after
a
while
by
the
local
parson,
one
Daniel
Hitzler.
He
also
came
from
Wuerttemberg,
and
knew
all
about
Kepler's
scandalous
crypto-Calvinist
deviations.
On
the
first
occasion
when
Kepler
came
for
Communion,
they
had
an
argument.
Kepler
denied,
as
he
had
always
done,
the
Lutheran
doctrine
of
the
ubiquity
–
the
omnipresence
in
the
world,
not
only
of
the
spirit,
but
of
the
body
of
Christ;
while
Hitzler
insisted
on
a
written
statement
of
conformity
to
the
doctrine
(which,
later
on,
was
dropped
by
Lutheran
theology).
Kepler
refused,
whereupon
Hitzler
refused
him
Communion.
Kepler
complained
in
a
fervent
petition
to
the
Church
Council
in
Wuerttemberg;
the
Council
answered
in
a
long,
patient
and
paternally
chiding
letter
that
Kepler
should
stick
to
mathematics
and
leave
theology
to
the
theologians.
Kepler
was
forced
to
go
for
Communion
to
a
parish
outside
Linz,
whose
parson
was
apparently
more
broadminded;
the
Church
Council,
while
backing
Pastor
Hitzler,
did
nothing
to
prevent
his
colleague
from
giving
Communion
to
the
errant
sheep.
Kepler
kept
protesting
against
the
curtailment
of
his
freedom
of
conscience,
and
complaining
that
gossips
called
him
an
atheist
and
a
double-dealer,
who
was
trying
to
curry
favour
with
the
Catholics
and
flirting
with
the
Calvinists.
Yet
this
repeated
falling
between
three
stools
seemed
to
agree
with
his
innermost
nature: