Burned Alive: Bruno, Galileo and the Inquisition

by Alberto A. Martinez

  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