as incomprehensible. In 1312, however, the Council of Vienna had
decreed that anyone who denies or doubts that ‘soul is the form of
the human body’ is ‘a heretic’.
56
The Crimes of Giordano Bruno
To determine whether Bruno’s heresy was Pythagorean, we must
specify his definition of soul. He claimed that souls are immortal
intellective substances that inhabit bodies that are human or other.
Under interrogation he explained:
Speaking as a Catholic, they [souls] do not pass from body
to body, but go to Paradise, Purgatory or Hell. But I have
reasoned deeply, and, speaking as a philosopher, since soul
is not found without body and yet is not body, it may be
in one body or another, and pass from body to body. This,
if it be not true, seems at least verisimilar, according to the
opinion of Pythagoras.156
In several books Bruno wrote about transmigration.157 He beseeched God: ‘We beg that in our transfusion, or transit, or metempsychosis
we shal receive contented geni [daemons]: since however inexorable He be, we must attend him with pleas, either to be kept in our present state, or to enter into a better one, or a similar one, or a
little worse. ’158 Bruno argued that death does not affect souls, so that following the saintly Pythagoras we should not fear death, which
was really a transition.159
Aristotle denied the ‘Pythagorean myths; that any soul could be
clothed upon with any body – an absurd view, for each body seems
to have a form and shape of its own. It is absurd as to say that the
art of carpentry could embody itself in flutes; each art must use
its tools, each soul its body.’ Justin Martyr too denied transmigration. Tertullian said that Pythagoras used shameful lies to advocate transmigration, which corrupted Christianity. Epiphanius criticized
Pythagoras for proclaiming ‘the wicked, extremely impious doctrine
of the immortalizations and transmigrations of souls and the dissolution of bodies’. Augustine rebuked Porphyry on transmigration.
Thomas Aquinas rejected it too.160
In Bruno’s eleventh deposition, the Inquisitors asked him
whether ‘the soul of one man can transmigrate from one body
into another’. Bruno replied that he posited ‘ la transmigratione’,
not as a fact, but only as possible. 161 Under interrogation, Bruno said that the false claim that the soul is the form of the body is
not found in scriptures. Instead he said that the soul, ‘in its pilgrimage’, inhabits the body ‘as a captive in a prison’ and controls 57
burned alive
it like a ship.162 He said the soul subsists outside the body, against Aristotle (who said that souls are inseparable from bodies, but
that ‘it is uncertain whether the soul is the actuality of its body
as a sailor of a ship’).163 Bruno’s analogy to a ‘prison’ was not rare but the Pythagoreans used it. 164 Lactantius and Jerome attributed it to Pythagoras. 165 St Irenaeus ( c. 180 ce) denounced that doctrine as false, saying that its insane believers relied partly on the Devil to supposedly help transfer their souls into new bodies, new
‘prisons’.166 Apollonius reportedly said: ‘all the time we men are in a prison we call life; our soul, attached to this perishable body,
suffers much.’167 St Basil quoted Pythagoras on people who eat a lot: ‘Can you not stop planning for a heavier prison?’168 Erasmus too said that Pythagoras construed the soul as imprisoned in
the body.169
So Bruno’s eighth proposition was Pythagorean. The Fifth
Ecumenical Council denounced Origen’s heresy that souls are
‘condemned to punishment in bodies’ like prisons.170 They also condemned: ‘That the intellect is not a bodily form, except as a captain is the form of a ship.’ Tempier also condemned the thesis ‘That the
intel ect can transit from body to body’. 171 In 1553 theologians of the University of Paris censured claims ‘That the transmigration of souls
is an argument for the Resurrection’.172
The ninth censure was Bruno’s denial of Solomon’s statement
that individuals’ true being is vanity. Consider Bruno’s De la causa:
Every production, of any kind, is an alteration, while substance always remains the same, since there is only one substance, as there is but one divine, immortal being.
Pythagoras, who did not fear death but saw it as a transformation, reached this conclusion . . . Solomon inferred this as well, saying, ‘there is nothing new under the Sun, but what
is, has already been’. You see, then, how the universe is . . .
eternal, while every aspect, every face, every other thing is
vanity and nothingness.173
Bruno’s proposition was Pythagorean because he credited it to
Pythagoras. In another book he wrote that mutable things do not
exist, but are vanity.174 For Bruno, primal substance was not vanity, it was eternal like God.
58
The Crimes of Giordano Bruno
The Inquisitors disagreed. Ecclesiastes 1:14 states: ‘I have seen al
that is done under the Sun, and behold: all is vanity and an affliction
of the spirit.’ To the Inquisitors it meant that every thing is vanity.
They censured Bruno’s belief ‘that true substances are species of
primal nature, that truly are what they are’.
Finally, the tenth proposition: many inhabited worlds and suns
exist. Historians have argued that the accusation of many worlds was
‘too vague to be defined as formally heretical’, so instead, maybe it
was merely ‘erroneous’, ‘scandalous’, ‘injurious’ and so on. 175 But no, I’ll show that it was heretical. I found that many theologians, jurists,
bishops, archbishops, one emperor, three popes, five Church Fathers
and nine saints had denounced this notion.176
Aristotle had complained that the Pythagoreans said that ‘Earth
is one of the stars.’177 Lucian wrote that Pythagoras lived in such starry worlds. The Placita said that the Pythagoreans thought the
Moon and the stars are worlds, with soil, air and animals. And
Bruno told the Inquisitors: ‘I have indeed asserted infinite particular worlds similar to the Earth, which with Pythagoras I consider a star, similar to which is the Moon, other planets and other stars,
which are infinitely many. ’178
Was it a heresy? Hippolytus ridiculed the doctrine of infinitely
many suns, moons and worlds, some inhabited. 179 Around 260 ce Pope Dionysius of Alexandria wrote a tract against the Epicureans,
mainly to criticize their theory that all things are composed of
atoms without divine Providence. In it, Pope Dionysius dismissed
one of the corollaries of that theory, that atoms clash and combine
by chance ‘and thus gradually form this world and all objects in it;
and more, that they construct infinite worlds’.180
Most significantly, however, in 384 ce the belief in many worlds
was categorized as heretical by Philaster, Bishop of Brescia. In his
Book on Heresies, Philaster wrote: ‘Another heresy is to say that
worlds are infinite and innumerable, following the asinine opinion
of the philosophers, whereas Scriptures say that the world is one and
it teaches us that it is one. ’181
In 402 St Jerome complained that one of ‘the most heretical’ among Origen’s transgressions was his claim that ‘worlds are innumerable, succeeding one another eternally.’ Subsequently St
Augustine composed an authoritative list of 88 heresies, inc
luding ‘that worlds are innumerable’ as the ‘Seventyseventh heresy’.
59
burned alive
In the early seventh century Bishop Isidore of Seville also listed it
as heretical. 182 Isidore’s encyclopaedic work was so admired that it was printed in at least twelve editions between 1470 and 1595; he was
belatedly canonized by Pope Clement viii in 1598.
There is evidence that the denial of the plurality of worlds was
taken seriously. In 748 the abbot of St Peter’s monastery in Salzburg so
annoyed Pope Zacharias that he denounced the notion that more than
one world exists. The abbot was an Irishman named Feargal, known in
Latin as Virgilius. Apparently he said that the Earth is spherical and is
inhabited everywhere, even in points diametrically opposite, known as
the ‘antipodes’. (Plato mentioned the antipodes in Timaeus and these
were later discussed by Aristotle and others. Hence Diogenes said that
Alexander Polyhistor found that the ‘Commentaries of Pythagoras’
asserted the existence of the antipodes.)
But Virgilius’s superior, Archbishop Boniface of Mainz, primate of Germany, misunderstood whatever Virgilius said about the Earth and the antipodes. He complained to Pope Zacharias that
Virgilius argued that another world exists and that it is inhabited.
Pope Zacharias replied that Virgilius
has lied to himself: out of the perverse doctrine, which is
spoken against the Lord and his own soul too, namely that
there is another world and other men beneath the earth,
another Sun and Moon; if he is convicted by the summoned
council of the Church for confessing this, he will be deprived
of the honour of the priesthood. ’183
Apparently there are no records of how Virgilius replied to such
accusations, but he seems to have defended himself convincingly,
because he was not defrocked. Presumably he had to explain that
Boniface had misunderstood his remarks. Virgilius later became
Bishop of Salzburg and was eventually canonized in 1233.
Nevertheless, the complaint by Pope Zacharias is very significant. It shows that the notion that there is more than one world, Sun and Moon seemed intolerable and was addressed severely by
the highest authority of the Church. Moreover the Pope’s complaint
was set in writing and disseminated, so henceforth clergymen had
another precedent, in addition to objections by other authorities,
now that another pope had personally denounced that idea.
60
The Crimes of Giordano Bruno
The heresy of many worlds appeared in books for centuries,
for example, in a Thesaurus of the Christian Religion (1559) and in an
edition of Philaster’s Book of Heresies (1578).184 St Jerome too was an authority in the Renaissance, because at the Council of Trent
the Catholic Church had selected his translation of the Bible,
known as the Latin Vulgate Bible, as the official version to use
and trust. Writers also cited Augustine. In 1591 the Jesuit theologian Gregorius de Valentia cautioned: ‘There is no need of heretics among Christians, who follow Democritus and other ancient philosophers in saying that there exists not one but innumerable worlds, as the divine Augustine reports in his book on heresies, namely the
seventyseventh heresy. ’185
Other theologians too cited this heresy for centuries.186 They explained the problem: ‘we cannot assert that there exist two or
many worlds, since neither do we assert two or many Christs.’187
Aristotle had insisted that many worlds cannot exist since it would
require more than one First Cause. The belief in many worlds
seemed to entail belief in many gods.
Above all, however, the highest authority proves that Bruno’s
belief in many worlds was heretical. In 1582 Pope Gregory xiii issued
a compilation of laws of the Catholic Church and ordered that it be
used in all church courts and schools of canon law. Expanded in 1591,
the Corpus of Canon Law includes long discussions of what are heresies and who shall be considered a heretic. Echoing Isidore, its list of heresies includes ‘having the opinion of innumerable worlds’.188
The Canon Law embodied the fundamental laws of the Catholic
Church. Al inquisitorial laws and courts had to comply with the
Pope’s canon laws. Even the Roman Inquisition’s condemnation of
Bruno refers to the ‘sacred Canons’ three times.189
In his depositions Bruno did not mention Democritus or other
philosophers associated with belief in many worlds. He only credited Pythagoras. Finally there is a link between many worlds and transmigration in Bruno’s motto about ‘Solomon and Pythagoras’.
Centuries before Bruno highlighted ‘nothing new under the Sun’,
others had linked that phrase to claims about transmigration and
many worlds. This had been done by an early theologian accused of
heresies, Origen, who argued, ‘The fact is that prior to this world
there have existed others, as Ecclesiastes says: “What is it that has
been done? the same as is the future. And what is it that has been
61
burned alive
created? the same that will be created: and there is nothing new
under the Sun”.’190 Origen said that omnipotence led God to create worlds prior to ours, and after it. He said that our souls might live
in future worlds. Jerome condemned Origen’s notion of innumerable worlds as heretical. Others stressed the link between many worlds and transmigration. Rupert of Deutz spoke of Ecclesiastes
1:9 by denying that many worlds exist. He said that ‘heretics’ who
posit worlds are deathly wrong to think that Pythagoras’ soul
transmigrated to many bodies.191
Remarkably, Bruno’s claims echoed Origen’s heresies: eternally
many worlds and transmigration. Had he read Origen’s censored
book On Principles? Yes – and Bruno praised him as ‘the only theologian, who like the great philosophers’ dared to voice ‘after the reproved sects’ the truth of revolutions and eternal change.192
Having analysed Bruno’s ten propositions, we see that they are a
coherent set of interconnected beliefs. Five propositions were clearly
heretical: the first, sixth, seventh, eighth and tenth. These involve
at least six formal heresies: the eternity of the world; the world
soul; that the heavenly bodies are animated; transmigration; that the
human soul is not form; and many worlds. The other propos itions
could be considered ‘errors’ or ‘nearly heretical’. Any such proposition,
once identified, could constitute a heresy if the accused persisted in
not abandoning it. And Bruno did defend such propositions. Such
heresies do not challenge the divinity of Christ. They are not about
magic or esoteric Hermetic beliefs.
Yet without exaggeration they can be described as Pythagorean
heresies. Only the sixth censured proposition, about angels, is not
quite Pythagorean, though it has some relevant aspects. The rest –
nine out of ten – of Bruno’s crimes as a writer were Pythagorean
propositions inasmuch as either ancient or recent writers attributed
such ideas to Pythagoras or his followers, Church Fathers denounced
those beliefs as Pythagorean, or that Bruno himself presented such
notions as Pythagorean.
Bruno learned many of these notions from the Placita,
Lucian,
Virgil, Erasmus and Ovid. Bruno appreciated the Pythagorean tradition as one of the alternative, ancient traditions that challenged the philosophy of Aristotle. Bruno did not discuss Pythagoras just as
62
The Crimes of Giordano Bruno
a philosopher, but also as a contributor to theology: ‘the negative
theology of Pythagoras and Dionysius [the Areopagite] is much
more renowned, above the demonstrative one of Aristotle and the
scholastic doctors. ’193
On 24 March 1597 the Inquisitors and theologians visited Bruno
in his cell. This meeting is significant for two reasons. It is the first
extant record that shows the participation of ‘Robertus Bellarminius’,
the famous Jesuit theologian who would exert important influence
in the Inquisition’s proceedings against both Bruno and Galileo.
Robert Bel armine was a highly accomplished professor of theology for twenty years. He had become the authority in the analysis and persecution of heresies, especially against the Protestants. He
claimed that ‘heresy is a more serious perversity than all other crimes
and atrocities, just as the plague is more formidable and fearsome
than common diseases’.194 Bellarmine became the personal theologian to Pope Clement viii. On 5 February 1597 Bellarmine made his vow of secrecy as Consultor to the Roman Inquisition.195 Weeks later Bellarmine served as a theologian consultor in the trial against
Bruno.
The second important point about this meeting on 24 March
is that the record states a single demand against Bruno: ‘He was
admonished to thus abandon his delusions [ vanitates] of diverse
worlds, and ordered that he should be interrogated sternly. Afterward
he was given the censure. ’196
In this connection, Bellarmine’s presence is significant because
he knew that certain heresies were rooted in pagan notions. For
example, in a book of 1594, titled On the Need for Caution When
Reading Pagan Philosophers, its author noted that ‘Father Robert
Bellarmine’ had advised that ‘certain Catholics who are too pleased
with a burgeoning Pagan sense should be subjected to censorship,
by admonishing the Author. ’197
At that point, the official written ‘proceedings’ of Bruno’s trials,
in Venice and Rome, spanned 256 sheets of text, that is, 512 pages.
Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition Page 8