Bruno. In response, Bruno insisted that Earth spins and moves but
the firmament does not, and he denied that this undermines divine
scriptures. However, any Catholic who refused to abandon an opinion
that contradicted the Bible was considered a heretic.
Catholic writers referred to claims about Earth’s motion and
the Sun’s immobility in various ways. The Jesuit Serarius said that
it was heretical. The astronomer Nicholas Mulerius wrote that ‘we
would not dare to fall into the opinion of the Pythagoreans, which is
openly contrary to Scriptures’. Fathers Zuñiga and Foscarini argued
instead that the ‘Pythagorean opinions’ actually do not disagree with
scriptures. But then Cardinal Bellarmine warned Foscarini that
actually it ‘is a very dangerous thing, likely not only to irritate all
scholastic philosophers and theologians, but also to harm the Holy
Faith by rendering Holy Scripture false’.3 In private Bellarmine seems to have held an even stronger opinion, as Prince Cesi wrote
to Galileo: ‘Bellarmine told me that he considers it heretical, and
that the motion of the Earth, without any doubt, is contrary to
Scripture. ’4 Galileo disagreed. In a deposition, Father Caccini said that it was ‘nearly heretical’. But in private he too was apparently
more critical: Giannozzo Attavanti reported that Caccini had told
him that the Sun’s immobility was indeed ‘a heretical proposition’.5
Father Ferdinando Ximenes said that it was ‘false and heretical’.6
The Tuscan ambassador Piero Guicciardini wrote that Bellarmine
and Pope Paul v had called it ‘erroneous and heretical’.7 Alessandro Tassoni said ‘heretical’. 8 The official Notice from Rome ‘to be published everywhere’ said that the Congregation of the Index ruled that
‘the Pythagorean opinion by which the Earth moves and the Sun
stays fixed is contrary to Sacred Scripture.’ Father Antonio Querengo
said that the opinion ‘manifestly dissents from the infallible dogmas
of the Church’. 9 In 1631 Froidmont and Jean Morin hesitated to condemn it as heretical, pending Pope Urban’s explicit judgement, but they called it ‘temerarious’, and entering ‘the threshold of heresy’. 10
By 1635 Melchior Inchofer judged that this Pythagorean opinion
was offensive, scandalous, temerarious and heretical.
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From this sample of more than fifteen Catholic individuals we
see that there were various disagreements, describing the Earth’s
motion and Sun’s immobility as consonant with scriptures, or
temerarious, erroneous, false, contrary to scriptures, nearly heretical
or heretical. Likewise, other socalled Pythagorean doctrines were
variously viewed.
Consider the thesis that multiple worlds exist. In 1631 Froidmont
cited Pope Zacharias at length to finally say that the notions that
there is another Sun, another Moon or another inhabited Earth
are ‘heretical, or are nearly so’.11 Inchofer referred to the idea that there are worlds in the Moon or the Sun as monstrous ‘errors’.
In his long manuscript he condemned it as ‘heretical’, following
Philaster, Zacharias and others. Previously, in his Defence of Galileo,
Campanella too had noted that St John Chrysostom had said that it
is ‘heretical and contrary to scriptures’ to assert that there are ‘many
heavens and orbs’. Campanella was not the only one; for example,
the Jesuit Nicolas Caussin also cited Chrysostom to note that heretics believe in ‘other starry heavens and worlds’.12 But Campanella and Wilkins disagreed with them and celebrated what they admired
as a great discovery by Galileo.
Domenico Gravina voiced a critical and authoritative opinion.
Gravina was a consultor of the Inquisition, and in 1630 he published
the Catholic Prescriptions against Heretics of our Times. Gravina listed and denounced many heresies, and among those he argued that ‘it is
very clearly against the orthodox faith to dogmatize’ that ‘matter is
coeternal with God’, and to ‘defend the transmigration of souls’, and
‘to dream of many worlds preceding the formation of our first par
ents’.13 Bruno had been accused of these very claims, but as usual he was not mentioned in this book. Gravina denounced such claims right
alongside heresies about adultery, being rebaptized, having sex with
demons, and denying that souls were created by God.14 As a con sultor of the Inquisition, Gravina knew the Inquisitors in Galileo’s trial,
Inquisitors whom he named and praised in his writings.15
Likewise, in a book of 1629, an authoritative Spanish jurist
rejected the plurality of worlds by referring to St Augustine’s work
on heresies, along with the writings of Aristotle, Tertullian, St
Isidore and Justus Lipsius. 16 Similarly, editions of St Jerome’s works also denounced the notion as heretical.17 Another book of 1631 cited Augustine to argue that it is false that the world is eternal and that
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‘innumerable worlds’ exist.18 New editions of Augustine’s authoritative and selective list of heresies continued to include the ‘77th heresy’: that innumerable worlds exist. 19 Furthermore, the ‘opinion of innumerable worlds’ was also listed as a heresy in the authoritative compendium of Canon Law issued by Pope Gregory xiii, which was printed in 1582, 1591, 1605 and 1622 – which was still the official
code of law in 1633.20
Furthermore, the Jesuit theologian Antonio Rubio had decried
the belief in many worlds in a book first published in 1617 and
reprinted in 1620, 1625 and 1626. Rubio identified it as a heresy and
cited critics of this belief, including Augustine. 21 As noted before, Rubio did not attribute this belief to Pythagoras. But multiple writers
attributed the theory of more than one world to Pythagoras or the
Pythagoreans, including ‘Plutarch’, Hippolytus, Lucian, Iamblichus,
Theodoret, Bruno, Piccolomini, Kepler, de Nancel, Lagalla, Galileo,
Jean Tarde and Campanella.
Moreover, when the Calvinist minister Johann Heinrich Alsted
authored a ‘Chronology of Heresies, Sects and Schismatics’, in the
1620s, he listed ancient and recent heresies, including ‘inventing
innumerable worlds’.22 Did Alsted know about Bruno? Yes, and he had studied Bruno’s art of memory.23 Some other books, though, were not as explicit. One theologian in 1624, for example, discussed
the notions of pagan philosophers such as Thales, Pythagoras, Plato
and Anaximander, and noted that ‘even in the Church the errors of
such philosophers have induced heresies.’ Among the various questionable philosophical views, the author included the claim that
‘innumerable worlds’ exist.24 Here the claim of heresy was ascribed to philosophers in general, not overtly to the one thesis in question in particular. Regardless, other more authoritative works did categorize it as a heresy, as we have seen.
Next, consider the thesis that Earth has a soul. Bruno affirmed it
as compatible with scriptures, calling it a ‘Pythagorean doctrine’ and
he advocated this ‘Pythagorean way’ of reading the Bible in order
to understand what Christians mean by ‘the Holy Spirit’. Bruno’s
Inquisitors disagreed with his departure from the Council of Trent:
only the Holy Church had the right to interpret or explain scriptures, not the Pythagoreans
and not Bruno. Apparently Bruno did not know that it was a heresy to say that the Holy Spirit is the soul
of the world.25
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By 1611 Campanella cited Origen to support ‘the Pythagorean
dogmas’ that Earth is alive and soulful, like the stars. Yet any
Inquisitor who knew Origen’s infamous heresies knew that, ‘If
anyone shall say that the Sun, the Moon and the stars are also
rational beings’, that person is a heretic. 26 Bishop Tempier too had censured the belief that the heavenly bodies have souls. Hence, in
1613 one of Galileo’s critics, the clergyman Francesco Ingoli, declared
(in a dinner hosted by Prince Cesi) that the opinion ‘that the heavens
are animated’ had been ‘condemned as erroneous by the Sorbonne of
Paris’.27 Yet Galileo secretly thought that a vivifying spirit emanates from the Sun.
Accordingly, in 1627 one theologian warned that Christians
should approach Plato’s doctrines with caution, rejecting the belief
that the world is a soulful animal, ‘that which is denied by our law’,
because ‘if it were allowed, it would give the opportunity to Heretics
who hold (wrongly) that the heavens and the elements are animated,
an opinion that is false & heretical and is legally condemned &
reproved. ’28 That same year the Index of Forbidden Books prohibited a treatise by Robert Fludd (who had been physician to King James i of England), which argued that the world has a soul that
emanates from the Sun, by the Trinity, which is how God becomes
ubiquitous.29 Fludd argued that this world soul animates and vivifies beings and he attributed this belief to the Platonists, the
Pythagoreans and others, and he quoted Virgil’s line ‘Spirit nourishes within’.30 Hence, in 1631 Froidmont dismissed Kepler’s claim that the Earth has a soul as a delusion. Father Rhetor said that it
was heretical. Inchofer categorized it as an ‘error’ that leads to other
‘deceptive errors’. In addition, in his manuscript Vindication he duly
quoted the Fifth Ecumenical Council and declared that it was a
heresy to believe that Earth or the heavenly bodies have souls.
Next, the doctrine of the transmigration of souls was not
merely heretical: it was antiChristian. Irenaeus had denounced the
Gnostics for this belief. Theodoret said that Mani and the Gnostics
had copied it from Plato and Pythagoras. It was also often attributed to Empedocles and Simon Magus, to Basilides, as an alleged punishment for sinners, and to Carpocrates and his followers.
Hippolytus, Tertullian and Epiphanius denounced this notion in
Pythagoras, Marcion, Valentinus, Elchasai, Colarbasus, the Gnostics
and the Manichaeans. For centuries it continued to be criticized
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as a common ‘error’ of the heathen or even the ancient Hebrews. 31
In 1599 it was condemned again in the Synod of Diamper. Any
Catholics who asserted this error, especially against fair warning, were regarded as heretics.32 Accordingly, in 1620 Campanella referred to Pythagorean transmigration as a heresy.33
Next, some notions that were often attributed to the
Pythagoreans were also classified as heretical even though they were
too widespread among various religious and philosophical groups
to be identified simply as Pythagorean. In particular the notion that
souls are immortal had been frequently attributed to Pythagoras
since antiquity. But it was also attributed to other philosophers, such
as Plato and Empedocles, both of whom were said to be followers of Pythagoras. Christian writers denounced this notion because it claimed that souls preexist human bodies or are themselves
corporeal. Instead of naming it in relation to any particular philosopher, this heresy became associated with prominent Christian heretics, such as Origen and Tertullian. Thus the ‘Origenists’ and
‘Tertullianists’ appeared in St Isidore’s list of heresies, and consequently also in the Corpus of Canon Law published by Pope Gregory xiii, which states, for example, that the Tertullianists are those who
proclaim that ‘the soul is immortal, but preaching that it is corporeal,
and they think that the souls of men who are sinners are converted
into daemons after death’.34 Like other entries, this heresy does not specify the Pythagoreans by name but such beliefs had often been
attributed to them.
Consider finally the French scholar Gabriel Naudé. He had been
a prominent librarian in Paris, until in 1629 he became the librarian
for Cardinal Giovanni Francesco Guidi di Bagno in Rome. In 1640
Naudé wrote a letter to the astronomer Ismaël Boulliau, in which
he argued:
I’m afraid that the old theological heresies are nothing by
comparison to the new ones, which the Astronomers want to
introduce with their worlds, or rather the lunar and celestial
Earths. Because the consequence of these will be much more
perilous than the previous ones, and wil introduce some very
strange revolutions. God help, above all, those who would
say about Lucian that what he gave us as extravagant fables,
and which he professed to not exist and to not be true, that
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it would be verified to be the truth itself, what do you think
that he would say? This reminds me of the Antipodes, which
nobody could believe for some two or three hundred years
without being declared a Heretic.35
It should be recalled that Bruno himself had said that Lucian had
made the mistake of not realizing that the Moon and planets really
are inhabited. Like Inchofer and others, Naudé thought that the
belief in other worlds was a heresy. In a previous book, Naudé had
complained about recent ‘innovators’ who followed Telesio, Bruno
and Campanella, ‘who truly have no other intention but to strike
this Philosophy with an elbow, and to ruin this great building that
Aristotle and more than twelve thousand others who have interpreted him have struggled to build over a long span of years’. 36 When his employer Cardinal Guidi di Bagno died, in 1641, Naudé became a
librarian for Cardinal Antonio Barberini, brother of Francesco, head
of the Inquisition. As we will see, other members of the Barberinis’
entourage shared the same concerns.
Summing up, from the 1590s until the 1640s there were various opinions about the acceptability, error or gravity of several socalled Pythagorean beliefs. Since we presently have more anecdotal evidence that some individual clergymen explicitly described the Earth’s immobility and the Sun’s motion as heretical, it might
seem that such views were stronger than the opinions against other
‘Pythagorean’ doctrines. But no, on the contrary, the opinion that
many or innumerable worlds exist was more objectionable precisely because it had been explicitly listed as a heresy for centuries, whereas the former opinions had not. Galileo, in particular, was not
accused of such a belief because unlike Bruno and Kepler he had
specifically abstained from elaborating such notions. Immediately
after the proceedings of 1616 Galileo wrote to Cardinal Muti’s
nephew, to clarify statements Galileo had made in front of the
Cardinal, insisting now that it was ‘absolutely false and impossible’
that there are plants, animals and intelligent human bei
ngs living
on the Moon. Galileo was covering his tracks, intentionally moving
away from the kinds of claims that could get him in trouble. It was
to Galileo’s advantage that he did not assert that human souls are
reborn in other worlds, or that the Earth has a soul, or worse, that
its soul is the Holy Spirit.
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According to standard practice, if an Inquisitor informed a
Catholic person that their opinion was an error, by its opposition to
scriptures, that person had to abandon that error or else be treated
as a heretic: one who wilfully chooses false beliefs. The belief of a
moving Earth was dangerously connected to heretical notions. For
Inchofer the cause was false: that Earth has a soul, and therefore its
alleged effect was also false: that therefore it moves.
Thomas Aquinas had defined heresy as a kind of infidelity in
men who profess the faith of Christ, yet corrupt its dogmas. In 1616
the Congregation of the Index had described the Pythagorean doctrine of the Sun’s immobility as being ‘formal y heretical’. Such a heresy was ‘formal’ in that any Catholic who asserted it was wilfully
departing from scriptural truth. Obstinate adhesion to false beliefs
constituted formal heresy. Or, if instead someone asserted a heretical
proposition out of mere ignorance of the true creed, that is, if they
could reasonably be excused of not knowing the truth, then such a
heresy would be described merely as ‘material’ or ‘objective’.
Since the Earth’s immobility was not expressly defined as an article of faith, some Catholics described the opposite view, the Earth’s mobility, as being a ‘nearly heretical proposition’. The Sun’s mobility
was more directly connected to an article of faith, inasmuch as it
seemed to be necessarily implied by the Joshua miracle. How could
it stop moving if it were always immobile?
Galileo’s attempt to interpret the Joshua miracle as meaning
the opposite of what it literal y said was just one among several
ways to interpret the Bible, in socalled Pythagorean ways. Another
such interpretation was Bruno’s effort to construe the Holy Spirit
as the soul of the world. A further Pythagorean interpretation was
Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition Page 33