Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition

by Alberto A. Martinez

Moving along, Inchofer referred to the things that ‘Galileo’s

  observations’ with a telescope had allegedly revealed on the Moon:

  woods, fields, mountains, valleys, rivers and seas. Since Galileo himself had not affirmed so much, Inchofer turned to criticize Kepler’s Discussion with the Starry Messenger for having posited men who

  live on the Moon and hide in its shadows. 236 Regarding Galileo and Kepler, Inchofer disdained ‘their deviant imagination of many

  worlds’, insisting that theologians rightly teach that there is only

  one world. 237 He said that the deviant fictions were necessarily

  ‘erroneous and temerarious’.238

  To consolidate his argument, he said that the plurality of worlds

  had been declared absurd by St Philaster in his book on heresies, and

  in conflict with scriptures. And there it is! The explicit evidence that

  Inchofer knew ‘that worlds are innumerable’ had been categorized

  as heretical. In 1616, an important date, Bel armine had similarly

  noted that he knew well about ancient pagan heresies thanks to

  the works of Philaster and others. And now Inchofer made an even

  more explicit statement.

  Inchofer added that St Isidore of Seville had also condemned

  the ‘postulate of infinite worlds’ as a heresy. He also cited Augustine,

  Thomas Aquinas and the apostles John and Paul. Echoing Augustine,

  Inchofer admitted that in a Christian sense it was admissible to say

  that there exist two worlds. Augustine had borrowed the expression

  from Plato: that there is a sensible world and an intelligible world.

  Like other writers, Inchofer justified this notion on the basis of John

  18:36, where Jesus said, ‘My kingdom is not of this world’, as if there

  exists another. Still, for Inchofer there existed only one physical,

  sensible and present world: the Earth.

  Inchofer argued: ‘Therefore, allow that it is a Catholic assertion

  that the world is one, to deter those who resolutely contend multiple, from achieving heresy.’239 Inchofer noted that Origen held the opinion of many worlds, although it was not easy to believe.240

  Inchofer further attacked the notion of many worlds and systems,

  and ridiculed those who ‘very stupidly’ affirmed it by misinterpreting scriptures. Right then he again dismissed ‘the imaginary wisdom of Galileo and Kepler’, elicited by the new telescopic phenomena,

  but which was actually just ‘trash and dreams’.241 Inchofer argued that we can

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  appreciate all errors acutely, as they do not understand

  this nonsense at all, because they [Galileo and Kepler]

  have trusted their imagination so much, that which others

  condemn from the sense of reasoning, about the Earth’s

  quiescence and the Sun’s motion, from sight and errant

  imagination daring to affirm many worlds, animals and

  lunar men.242

  Inchofer then reiterated that such ‘New Pythagorean arguments’

  had already been denounced as fallacious when Pope Zacharias

  condemned the notion of the antipodes.

  Moving along, Inchofer argued that the errors of the New

  Pythagoreans resembled the heresies of the Manichaeans and the

  Valentinians (Gnostic heretics). He mentioned questions about

  souls, the Earth’s magnetism and the generative power of the Sun’s

  heat. He touched upon whether ‘the universe has life and sense, the

  metempsychosis in the opinions of the Pythagoreans and of the

  Manichaeans, as thought commonly by the innovators, and also by

  the institutes of Kepler and Galileo that humans and other animate

  beings inhabit the orb of the Moon’.243 Thus Inchofer linked Galileo to the heretical theory of many worlds, and lunar beings, and even

  the transmigration of souls (metempsychosis) – but again, without

  mentioning Bruno or Campanella.

  Next Inchofer discussed an ancient confrontation between

  Pope Gelasius and the Manichaeans. Recall that the Manichaeans

  believed that Earth is infused by a soul and that there are many

  worlds. Many of the Manichaeans also refused to eat meat or

  drink wine. Hence Melchior Inchofer recounted that around 494

  ce Pope Gelasius had persecuted the Manichaeans by decreeing

  that everyone had to partake of communion by ingesting both the

  bread and the wine. Thus the many members of this sect who had

  infiltrated the Christian Roman community would be exposed as

  heretics. Similarly, Inchofer argued that now the Copernicans or

  New Pythagoreans had to be exposed.

  Furthermore, St Augustine had also criticized the Manichaeans

  for worshipping the Sun and the Moon as divine.244 In one of his writings, Augustine replied to a Manichaean who claimed to

  believe in Mani because ‘He taught us why there is day and why

  there is night. He taught us about the course of the Sun and the

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  Moon. Since we have not heard this in Paul or in the writings of the

  other apostles, we believe that Mani is the Paraclete. ’245 Augustine replied that God wanted to make Christians, not astronomers, and

  that knowledge about the Sun and the Moon did not pertain to

  Christian doctrine. Similarly, Inchofer warned about the misleading

  pronouncements of Pythagoras and the New Pythagoreans about

  the Sun and the Moon.246

  Inchofer insisted that the Earth’s motion was false, just

  ‘Pythagorean dreams, that are eternally false and imaginary, and

  plainly opposed by the true contents of divine Scriptures’. 247 The

  ‘doctrine of Pythagoras’ seemed to be the product of a depraved

  intellect. Inchofer praised Tycho Brahe for having rightly asserted

  that there are five planets and that both the Sun and the Moon circle

  the central Earth.248

  Furthermore, Inchofer complained that some of the New

  Pythagoreans had cast doubt on the traditional Catholic notion

  of how long the Earth had existed. He therefore pointed out that

  Philaster had listed, as heresy number 84, to be ‘uncertain about

  the number of years since the origin of the world, and to be ignorant of the course of human time, from Adam to the flood, there being ten generations and two thousand two hundred and forty­two

  years’.249 Still, Inchofer also cited various time frames specified by other ancient Christian authorities.

  Inchofer associated the New Pythagoreans to other heretics

  or heresiarchs, such as Jan Hus and John Wycliffe. 250 Like Bruno, Jan Hus had been burned alive, whereas Wycliffe was already dead

  when he was condemned, so the Catholics exhumed his body and

  burned it. Inchofer also accused heretics who had been condemned

  of pantheism, and he cited the Fifth Ecumenical Council of 553

  for condemning Origen for having believed that the heavens are

  animated.251

  Next Inchofer turned his wrath to Philippe Lansberge, the

  Dutch Calvinist minister who had published a booklet in 1630

  endorsing Copernicus. Although Lansberge had recently died,

  Inchofer criticized him as if he were still a major threat – after all,

  his book had become very popular. Inchofer associated Lansberge’s

  beliefs with those of Origen, and he wrote that ‘the mystical theology of Lansberge is plainly ridiculous’ and vain. He praised Libert Froidmont for having derided Lansberge�
��s ‘barbaric speculations’

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  and ‘inane New Pythagorean arguments’.252 Inchofer then defended the traditional, literal interpretation of the miracle of Joshua at

  Gibeon and the valley of Aijalon. He also cited Job 26:7, that God

  ‘suspends the Earth over nothing’.253

  Inchofer tenaciously belittled Lansberge, Kepler and Gilbert,

  and he traced the pagan lineage of their Pythagorean heresy:

  Orpheus, then Aglaophamus, who Pythagoras follows, [and

  then] Plato’s teacher Philolaus [following] Pythagoras,

  and we omit others, but Pythagoras rather badly departing from the example and doctrine of his teachers, with Philolaus, [was] the first of anyone who asserted the heresy

  of the Earth’s motion, certainly promoting impiety (just as

  Cleanthes of Samos later), unless he were wary.254

  The expression ‘and we omit others’ leads me to think about who else

  taught the ‘heresy’ of the Earth’s motion. By now I instantly think of

  someone in particular: Bruno. Inchofer also discussed ‘the sermon of

  Hermes to Asclepius’. In that ancient work, Hermes Trismegistus

  claimed that ‘the Spirit agitates or governs all species in the world,

  as distributed from God to each of them according to their natures

  . . . Therefore the world nourishes bodies, spirits, and souls.’ Inchofer

  did not quote these words, yet he rejected Hermes’s notion of the

  soul of the world, and complained that ‘other New Pythagoreans

  wonder and adore this, as with [David] Origanus, in their contempt,

  perhaps not laughing at their own heresy’.255

  In case his passing allusions to the soul of the world were not

  enough, Inchofer further dedicated an entire chapter to attacking

  this notion. He argued that the notion that the Earth has a noble

  soul was defeated by scriptures, St Augustine and St Anselm. He

  said that Origen’s notion of an animated heavens had been condemned. Again, Inchofer knew wel which ‘philosophical’ notions were theologically illegal for a Catholic person.

  Inchofer ridiculed Anaxagoras for having been cited by Gilbert

  as an ancient authority who claimed that magnets have portions

  of the soul of the world. Anaxagoras was also problematic because

  he, like Orpheus, had reportedly taught that the Moon is similar to the Earth. In his biography of Anaxagoras, Diogenes had reported that: ‘Anaxagoras . . . was the first who attributed soul

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  to matter . . . He said that the Sun was a mass of burning iron,

  and greater than Peloponnesus; but some attribute this doctrine

  to Tantalus; and that the Moon has dwellings, and also hills and

  canyons. ’256 Hence Gilbert affiliated his own conjectures to those of Anaxagoras; but Inchofer complained that Gilbert’s philosophy

  was ridiculous. At length Inchofer ranted that the alien doctrine of

  the ‘New Pythagoreans’ was ‘absurd’, ‘a­Catholic’ and ‘contrary to the

  faith’. Inchofer listed and celebrated the foremost critics of the New

  Pythagoreans: ‘the Great Mersenne, Libert Froidmont, Christopher

  Scheiner, Joannes Costeus and others’. Inchofer complained that

  the ancients believed in a universal soul, and then he quoted disapprovingly the relevant passages from Gilbert’s On the Magnet, which was published in 1600, the year the Roman Catholics killed Bruno.

  It should be recalled that Gilbert had not mentioned Bruno in

  that book, but he echoed several of Bruno’s beliefs, such as that the

  Earth moves because it is a living animal with a soul, and that it

  gives parts of its soul to humans, to vivify them, and that the Sun,

  Moon, planets and stars all have souls – and even that God is a soul.

  Gilbert was active in London at the same time that Bruno lived

  there, and therefore historians argue that Bruno helped to inspire

  Gilbert’s cosmology. Gilbert died in 1603, but he left a manuscript,

  On the World, in which he mentioned Bruno three times. He discussed two kinds of motion that ‘the Nolan’ had attributed to the Earth ‘when he was younger’. 257 In this work too Gilbert wrote about the souls that animate the Earth and the heavenly bodies.258

  None of this was orthodox Catholic doctrine.

  In his Dialogue, however, Galileo had discussed Gilbert at

  length.259 Galileo wrote about whether the Earth is really magnetic. He then praised Gilbert for ‘the progress in his manner of philosophizing, with a certain similarity to my own’, and he urged

  that Simplicio (or the reader) should actually read Gilbert’s book. 260

  Galileo highlighted ‘Gilbert’s progress upon philosophizing’ in the

  margin of the page as well as in the index of his book.

  Instead, in his Vindication, Inchofer quoted Gilbert’s awful claim:

  ‘we think that the whole world is animated, all the globes, all stars,

  and also Earth, each have their own distinct souls to govern from

  the start, to maintain their motions. ’261 He also quoted Gilbert’s claim that the Earth is an animal. Inchofer replied: ‘We laugh at

  him more than at the Stoics, as in a contradictory way he affirms

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  and denies that which is a soul, he identifies it with what has vigour

  or form.’262 Inchofer remarked that here readers could well see ‘how evil is impiety’. 263 Similarly, this was how Schoppe and Mersenne had disparaged Bruno.

  Again Inchofer cited more Christian authorities – St Hilary,

  Augustine, Gregory of Nyssa, St John of Damascus and John

  Chrysostom – all to argue that misinterpretations of scriptures had

  given rise to heresies and irrationality. For example, in his book On

  the Orthodox Faith, John of Damascus had discussed philosophers’

  various opinions about the heavens, to show their confusion and

  uncertainty, and he there remarked:

  It must not be supposed that the heavens or the luminaries

  are endowed with life. For they are inanimate and insensible.

  Thus when the divine Scripture says, Let the heavens rejoice

  and the Earth be glad, it is the angels in heaven and the men

  on Earth that are invited to rejoice. For the Scripture is

  familiar with the figure of personification, and is wont to

  speak of inanimate things as though they were animate: for

  example . . . again, the heavens declare the glory of God, does

  not mean that they send forth a voice that can be heard by

  bodily ears, but that from their own greatness they bring

  before our minds the power of the Creator.264

  Accordingly, Inchofer quoted multiple passages from scripture,

  which, to him, were also not meant to be taken literally, for example,

  ‘Listen, you heavens, and I will speak’ (Deuteronomy 32:1) and ‘while

  the morning stars sang together’ (Job 38:7). Inchofer stressed that

  there are many other such phrases: ‘six hundred others of this kind,

  of which the explanation is so easy and obvious, and if the New

  Pythagoreans strongly oppose this, they should be ashamed of their

  ineptitude, but being guided by Hermes Trismegistus, Orpheus and

  Pythagoras dims the constitution’.265 Inchofer argued that if the Sun and the Moon have a soul and a mind, and if the Earth truly moves,

  then in the Joshua miracle the Earth would need to have hearing

  organs in order to obey. Inchofe
r pleaded, ‘Turn off the dementia.’

  He quoted Origen for falsely asserting that the ‘heavens and

  the Sun and the Moon and the stars and the waters that are above

  the heavens, have a soul’. This falsehood, Inchofer said, had been

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  echoed by Gilbert, but rightly condemned by Augustine, Anselm

  and Ambrosius Boethius. Moreover, Inchofer quoted the reputedly

  official words of the Fifth Ecumenical Council of Constantinople

  condemning Origen for this very heresy, that ‘the heaven and Sun

  and Moon and stars and the waters that are above the heavens,

  are animated and have material powers.’266 Inchofer then pointed out the Copernican affiliation with Origen’s heresies, while quoting

  from the Fifth Ecumenical Council:

  ‘ Anathema to Origen who is Adamantius, who promoted this

  with his nefarious and entirely execrable doctrine, and anyone

  (note the New Pythagoreans) who claims or defends that statement, or presumes to protect it in any way or at any time.’ It’s all over for the New Pythagoreans, or as settled according

  to their own opinion, [they are] Heretics, for if through all

  philosophy, like heaven and the stars so too they think that

  the Earth is animated, not to say a monstrous animal, having

  a soul throughout its entire body, clearly to some degree or

  other they are refuted by positing an animated Heaven and

  even more so by affirming this about the Earth.267

  Furthermore, Inchofer complained about the theory that God

  is the soul of the world, which governs the motions of heavenly

  bodies. Inchofer said that St Basil, in his Hexameron, had rejected

  the claim that the heavens and the stars are animated, in Basil’s

  words, as ‘an ancient imposture, ruinous and rotting’. 268 Inchofer further supported this denunciation by citing John of Damascus,

  Cyril, Ambrosius and Lactantius.269

  Inchofer continued to repeatedly attack Gilbert. He said that

  Gilbert’s absurd New Pythagorean philosophy seemed to revive the

  ancient ‘Idolatry or Egyptian paganism’, in professing that the Sun is

  divine. Such beliefs waged war against Catholic philosophy. Inchofer

  said that Gilbert’s claim that magnets and the Earth have souls

  was clearly and plainly derived from the awful Hermetic philosophy. And right then Inchofer complained that Galileo had greatly supported Gilbert’s philosophy.270