Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition

by Alberto A. Martinez

  Second Argument

  ‘The starry heaven is called a Firmament, only because it

  is stable and unmoving, therefore the Earth really moves.’

  Third Argument

  ‘Scriptures speak metaphorically and in the common ordinary way in many places, especially in Mathematics and in 204

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  Theoretical Truths; therefore the Earth’s stasis and Sun’s

  motion are said in the ordinary sense, from which it does

  not follow that this happens in Physics and Mathematics.’

  Fourth Argument

  ‘That the Firmament rests and the stars in it, is not contrary

  to Scriptures, therefore by necessary consequence the motion

  of the Earth is not contrary to Scriptures.’

  Fifth Argument

  ‘Hell is in the Centre of the Earth, and in it is a fire tormenting the damned; therefore it is absolutely necessary that Earth moves . . . Because fire is a cause of motion,

  therefore Pythagoras, who as Aristotle reports put the place

  of punishment in the Centre, felt that Earth is animated and

  endowed with motion.’

  Sixth Argument

  According to Genesis 1, there are waters in heaven above the

  firmament and beneath it. ‘Therefore the Earth’s Water is not

  contained only in the solidity of the Earth, and consequently

  the natural place of the Earth is not the centre, but possibly,

  outside it and carried in circular motion in a Great Orb.’

  Seventh Argument

  ‘This opinion of the Earth’s motion, and quiescence of the

  Sun at the Centre is most ancient, not first by Pythagoras,

  but had been conveyed by Moses from whom Pythagoras

  received it as a kind of Jew.’

  Inchofer rejected these seven arguments. Since it was inappropriate to discuss heretics, he did not mention Galileo or Campanella, or much less Bruno. Still, he criticized many claims Campanella had

  voiced: that the scriptures refer to the starry heavens as the ‘firmament’ because they are immobile, that Copernicus’s book had been approved by Pope Paul iii, and that recent astronomers (allegedly)

  had found it impossible to establish astronomical tables correctly

  without using Copernicus’s book. 200 Inchofer also criticized Bruno’s beliefs, without naming him either.

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  Since Inchofer considered the Earth’s motion to be an ancient

  Pythagorean idea, and he described its advocates as ‘Pythagoreans’,

  then all of these seven arguments were Pythagorean, both to him

  and to his readers. But among these arguments, consider the two

  that explicitly mentioned additional Pythagorean notions: the fifth

  and the seventh.

  The fifth argument states that since the fires of Hell are in the

  Earth’s centre, therefore Pythagoras argued that Earth is animated

  and moves. Whereas Aristotle has attributed to ‘the Pythagoreans’

  the idea that the centre of the world is the place of punishment,

  Inchofer (like Thomas Aquinas) blamed this idea on Pythagoras

  himself. Inchofer agreed that Hell is in the centre of the Earth, and

  it contains fire. But he said that this would not necessarily cause the

  Earth to move, because ‘if the argument is valid, it proves also that

  lime kilns, baking ovens and hot fire­grates are animated and in

  themselves movable.’ He also argued that fire naturally goes upward,

  whereas ‘such a motion is conceded neither by Pythagoras nor other

  more recent followers’. Inchofer agreed that in some sense there

  is fire in animals that, affected by their soul, causes their bodily

  motions. But he disagreed that this applies to Earth:

  Thus if Pythagoras attributed soul to Earth because of fire

  contained within it, he did so in ignorance, and against his

  own principles, for elsewhere the stars are said to be fiery

  and animated, and even the Sun is animated by its fiery

  nature, and hence they would be endowed with motion;

  then how can the Sun be at rest in the Centre as the Earth

  moves around it?

  Inchofer cited Thomas Aquinas as having proven that Earth is

  not animated, ‘against the arguments of Alexander who followed

  the errors of the Gentiles, who thus attributed a cult of the Deity

  to the Earth’. Inchofer said the Earth is not moved by a soul:

  thus clearly the Earth is not animated, nor can its generator

  be a soul joined to the Earth, as Pythagoras wanted, rather

  it has a separate mover, which however is not sufficient for

  Earth in the opinion of the Pythagoreans and other ancients,

  but [allegedly] requires also a soul conjoined to the Earth as

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  a proximate mover; thus, if the Pythagoreans want it to be

  fire, they have to admit that this fire is produced by a separate

  form and again that Earth was produced by fire according

  to this same Philosophy; but everyone sees that all of this

  is ridiculous and absurd.

  Thus clearly, the Pythagoreans have clashed greatly against

  their own principles, especial y in saying with Pythagoras

  that Earth is made of forty­eight angles, containing six triangles with equal sides, and similarly with the Cube; and as was said above in Chapter 3, giving a completely useless

  account of [Earth’s] motion; nevertheless they endow it

  with a soul, and affirm that it rotates with an extremely fast

  motion. This has led their fol owers into deceptive errors, as

  not undeservingly ridiculed by the philosopher Hermias in

  his Book on the Pagan Philosophers, and especially given their

  argument about the Cube and the Earth, they are laughed at.

  Inchofer thus cited Hermias against the Pythagoreans. He didn’t

  explain it, but Hermias had ridiculed claims about transmigration,

  that souls consist of ‘number in motion’, and many worlds. More

  importantly – Inchofer denounced the notion that Earth has a soul.

  Bruno had said this, not Galileo.

  Next, the seventh argument, criticized by Inchofer, claimed

  that the opinion of Earth’s motion was so ancient that Pythagoras

  derived it from Moses, and therefore it was true. Inchofer countered

  that philosophical opinions are not rejected because they are new

  or old, but because they are false. He said many old opinions are

  ‘false and disproven’, including the claim that ‘the Sun is a prison

  for the souls of sinners.’ More to the point, Inchofer said that it is

  false that Moses originated the Pythagorean theory. He added that

  it is indifferent whether Pythagoras was really Jewish. He did not

  specify who said that, but Campanella had stressed it in Defence

  of Galileo.

  Inchofer insisted that if good astronomers use any statements

  that seem to contradict Scriptures, then they should proceed as

  if such statements are mere hypotheses, not truths. He therefore

  quoted astronomer Nicholas Mulerius, who in 1611 wrote that

  Sacred Scriptures should have such a great authority over us ‘that

  we would not dare to fall into the opinion of the Pythagoreans,

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  which is openly contrary to scripture’. 201 Elsewhere Mulerius called the Pythagorean astronomers ‘a sect’.202

  Inch
ofer construed the theory of Earth’s motion as an ancient,

  Pythagorean idea that had been revived and refined by Copernicus.

  His knowledge of Christian theology informed him that such ideas

  had been criticized centuries ago by thinkers such as Aristotle,

  Hermias, John Chrysostom, Augustine and Thomas Aquinas.

  Inchofer summarily explained: ‘Indeed before Copernicus came

  to light, the Philosophy of the Pythagoreans was contemplated by

  many, but it was not introduced into the [monastic] Schools, either

  because nature opposed it, or divine Faith. ’203

  Inchofer traced the infamous beliefs of Pythagoras to his supposed teacher, quoting Tatian: ‘the fictions of Pherecydes were fol owed by the dogmas inherited by the Pythagoreans, and fol owed

  by the imitations of Plato.’ Pherecydes of Syros apparently lived

  around 550 bce and some writers claimed that at some point he lived

  on the island of Samos. Several writers claimed that Pherecydes was

  the first to teach the transmigration of human souls and their eternal

  existence. Cicero and Augustine, for example, both said that he first

  taught the ‘immortality of the soul’. Hence some writers said that

  Pherecydes had been the teacher of Pythagoras.204

  For Catholics not everything in scriptures had to be interpreted

  literally, but there were clear limits to interpretative liberties. In

  particular, any Catholic was required to accept the interpretations

  dogmatized by the Church. Thus it was heretical for Bruno and

  Galileo to wilfully reinterpret biblical passages as they wished, especially to try to make such passages mean the opposite of what they literally state, or the opposite of what Church Fathers had explained.

  Heretics typically said, on the one hand, that they believe

  everything the Catholic Church teaches, while on the other modifying certain dogmas at will, say, to match pagan beliefs. In opposition, Inchofer complained:

  Christian piety does not conform with the precepts of error.

  Otherwise never was Philosophy taught better than to defend

  with clear reasons against these glorious errors: that in each

  man there are three distinct substantial souls; that the one

  in all is informed by a rational soul, as in each mortal; also

  that Angels are corporeal; that other Worlds exist in the Sun

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  and the Moon, with other creatures endowed with reason

  and humanity; and six hundred other monstrosities stirred

  up, introduced into the [monastic] Schools, and defended

  with obstinate speculations; when many [philosophers] of

  such kinds, excluding the Faith, dispute philosophically, and

  despite a certain verisimilitude, cannot prove even one such

  discourse.205

  Inchofer said that Thomas Aquinas had written, ‘it is not possible

  that there exists an Earth other than this one. ’206

  Inchofer’s critiques against Pythagorean ideas are remarkable

  for how much they echo ideas that the Roman Inquisition had

  denounced in the books of Giordano Bruno. Inchofer rejected the

  following Pythagorean ideas:

  (1) The Earth moves.

  (2) The Earth is animated, alive.

  (3) The Earth has a soul.

  (4) Souls transmigrate from body to body.

  (5) There are many worlds, including the Sun and the Moon.

  (6) Such worlds are inhabited by rational, humanlike beings.

  (7) The Sun too is animated.

  (8) The stars too are animated.

  The Roman Inquisition had censured all of these ideas in the works

  of Bruno! No historian previously had pointed this out because they

  usually treat Galileo’s trial separately from Bruno’s. This is revealing

  because it shows that many of the main and controversial concerns

  in Bruno’s trial were in fact part of the systematic critique against

  Galileo three decades later. Inchofer thought that such pagan falsehoods were intimately linked to the propositions Galileo defended.

  Although Inchofer mentioned the latter two notions only briefly, that

  ‘the stars are said to be fiery and animated, and even the Sun is animated by its fiery nature’, he rejected such ideas. In addition to these critiques, Inchofer also rejected other so­called Pythagorean ideas:

  (9) The Sun does not move.

  (10) The Sun is at the centre of the universe.

  (11) The Sun is a prison for sinners.

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  The propositions about the Sun being immobile and central had

  been affirmed by Copernicus, Galileo and Kepler, and denounced

  by the Inquisition as ‘Pythagorean’ and heretical. The claim that the

  Sun is a prison stems from Aristotle’s early accounts of the beliefs

  of the Pythagoreans. It is essentially a religious proposition.

  The majority of these eleven Pythagorean propositions were

  not merely about astronomy or nature, they were about souls and

  the afterlife. Galileo, by attributing the Copernican theory to the

  Pythagoreans, had unwittingly pushed it closer to pagan doctrines

  that theologians rejected as profoundly perverse.

  Inchofer required that the ‘Pythagorean philosophy’ should not

  be taught. He ridiculed the Pythagoreans for believing that Earth

  has a soul and that hellfire causes it to move. As we have seen,

  the idea that Earth has a soul had been advanced by ‘Plutarch’,

  Origen, Philostratus, Plotinus, Abelard (allegedly), Ficino, Bruno,

  Campanella and Kepler. And the idea that hellfire causes the Earth’s

  motion had been discussed by Campanella.

  The Imprimatur for Inchofer’s book specifies: ‘Three theologians of the Society [of Jesus] . . . reviewed it and approved it for publication. ’207 The Commissary General of the Roman Curia, Lucas Waddingus, promptly approved Inchofer’s book for publication, remarking: ‘This theologian has given a Christian refutation of these Pythagoreans. And he shows rightly that mathematics and the human sciences should be subordinated to the rule of Sacred Scripture.’208 This book too was approved for publication by Inchofer’s friend Riccardi.

  Like Holste’s book on Porphyry and Pythagoras, Inchofer’s

  book bears on its first page the official emblem of the Barberini

  family: three bees. The globe of the Earth is illustrated inside a triangle, and on each corner a bee holds the Earth in place with its front legs. Overhead, a banner proclaims: ‘Fixed by these, it rests.’

  The emblematic bees show that Inchofer’s book was approved by

  the highest authorities.

  Thus I confirm that Inchofer’s Summary Treatise is a neglected

  but revealing window into the motivations of the most critical

  expert in the infamous trial against Galileo. Historians would be

  thrilled to have a comparable treatise by, say, Bellarmine, explicitly

  explaining his personal critiques and concerns in the earlier proceedings against Galileo and Bruno. We are fortunate to have Inchofer’s 210

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  account for the trial of 1633. Furthermore, it turns out that there

  exists a more extensive account by Inchofer, which historians have

  entirely neglected.

  No Life in Other Worlds, No Living Earth

  Galileo was perplexed when he heard about Inchofer’s Summary

  Treatise. In July 1634 Galileo complained about it to a close friend:

  Froidmont restrained himself to submerg
e just below the

  mouth that the mobility of the Earth is a heresy. But recently

  a certain Jesuit Father has printed in Rome that such an

  opinion is so horrible, pernicious and scandalous, that

  although we do allow in teaching, in [discussion] circles,

  in public disputes and in publications to convey arguments

  against the foremost articles of faith, against the immortality

  of the soul, the Creation, the incarnation, and so on, yet it

  cannot be allowed that there be dispute nor even argument

  against the stability of the Earth, such that only this article

  above all can thus be held as sacred, that in no way can there

  be anything against it, nor any dispute in any way, but for

  its corroboration. The title of this book is Summary Treatise

  of Melchior Inchofer, of the Society of Jesus.209

  Galileo exaggerated, yet he realized that the Earth’s motion was far

  more disturbing to Inchofer than he could comprehend.

  Inchofer’s Summary Treatise consolidates a circumstantial

  argument about the role of Pythagorean notions in Galileo’s trial.

  Inchofer denied Earth’s motion while linking it to pagan beliefs

  known as ‘Pythagorean’.

  However, this is what his book does not do: it does not specify

  whether this Jesuit knew that Church Fathers, Saints and theologians had condemned such pagan beliefs as heretical. Like Giordano Bruno, Inchofer linked the Earth’s motion to the theory that Earth

  has a soul and that many worlds exist – but did he know those

  beliefs were heretical? Apparently Bruno himself did not know. So

  did Inchofer know?

  After all, we have traced an intricate web of developments in

  which numerous Catholic authorities denounced Pythagorean

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  beliefs across the centuries. Were such old pronouncements remembered in the 1630s? Did any of the consultants or Inquisitors in Galileo’s trial fret about the ancient judgements of Philaster, Isidore

  of Seville or Pope Zacharias? Did anyone connect the Copernicans

  to the heretical Gnostics or to Origen Adamantius? Did anyone

  worry about the pagan poetry of Orpheus, Ovid or Virgil? Did

  anyone care about the Spirit that nourishes within?

  If any of the consultants or Inquisitors had cared about such

  things at the time of Galileo’s trial we might expect that they would