Giordano Bruno was burned for this reason. Was the Vatican hiding secret knowledge about other worlds? Why was a fire lit in Rome's Piazza des Flowers?

09.03.2021

The most famous victims of the Inquisition

The Inquisition was essentially the intelligence and punitive body of Catholicism. She had everything needed to organize the fight against heresy, and her main goal was this fight. The Inquisition quickly developed methods of reconnaissance and recognition of heresy in all its smallest manifestations, in order to accurately and ruthlessly distinguish the “wolf in sheep’s clothing” and be able to expose the sinner, no matter how he pretended to be innocent.

The two forms of apostasy from the true faith, according to the Inquisition, were witchcraft and heresy. Heresy is a deviation from dogma, and magic is service to the devil. Both were equally subject to eradication. And the fact that hundreds of thousands of people had to be killed in order to eradicate heresy and witchcraft was never an obstacle for the Inquisition.

Not a single person could be immune from persecution of “zealots of the faith.” Even the most famous people of their era.

Below we will talk about the most famous, from the author’s point of view, victims of the Inquisition.

Holy Witch of Orleans

One of the devil's servants, witch and saint was Joan of Arc (1412–1431), the national heroine of France, who led her country's fight against England and brought the heir to the throne, Prince Charles, to the French throne.

How so? The witch and the saint? Exactly.

In 1431, by the Inquisition in Rouen, Jeanne was burned at the stake on charges of sorcery and heresy, and in 1456 - just 25 years after her painful death - at the request of King Charles VII, whom she elevated to the throne and who did not lift a finger for her. rescue, Jeanne's trial was revised and Pope Calixtus III declared the unfortunate girl innocent.

In 1928, she was canonized as the defender of France and is now even considered the patroness of telegraphs and radio. A national holiday has been established in her honor in France, which is celebrated every second Sunday in May.

How did it all start, and what do we know about Zhanna?

Jeanne was born into a poor peasant family in the village of Domremy, lost on the borders of Champagne and Lorraine. From early childhood, Zhanna was distinguished by deep piety, diligence and excellent hard work.

At the age of thirteen, she began to hear voices and appear in visions of Saint Michael, Saints Catherine and Margaret. Saint Margaret was depicted in the chapel of Jeanne's native village in men's clothing and with a sword. This is exactly how Zhanna herself will dress. The saints urged her to go to the heir to the throne and convince him to attack the British who were besieging Orleans.

At that time, the British, in addition to Crown Prince Charles, laid claim to the French crown. The quarrels between England and France began once with Henry Plantagenet, who received almost half of the French lands as a dowry for his wife Alienora of Aquitaine. During the time of Prince Charles, old feuds flared up with renewed vigor and led to a war that lasted, with minor interruptions, for a hundred years and went down in history as the Hundred Years' War.

Among the peasants, who were very religious, there was an opinion that God would not allow France to be subjugated by the hated English and would miraculously save the country from foreigners.

Dreamy and impressionable Zhanna spent whole days in prayer and asked the Lord to save her homeland. The first time Jeanne made an attempt to save France at the behest of the voices of the saints was in 1428, when she came to the commandant of the city of Vaculera, in which the forces devoted to the heir had gathered, and begged the guards to let her through to Charles, but no one would listen to the girl. Zhanna was not embarrassed by the failure and returned home.

In her home village, she told her fellow countrymen about the mission assigned to her by God, about the visions and about her sacred duty to expel the British from the country. They began to believe Joan, and in 1429 she repeated her attempt to talk to the commandant of Vacouleurs. The commandant did not consider the girl’s stories worthy of attention, but two knights brought Jeanne to the Dauphin at the castle of Chinon.

This time she managed to convince the advisers of King Charles VII to entrust her with the army. Just before the girl's appearance in the royal camp, a prophecy became known that said that God would send France a savior in the form of a young virgin.

When Jeanne appeared, she was interrogated with passion and invited to a council of priests and theologians. After a conversation with Zhanna, they came to the conclusion that she was guided by a higher power. And a special commission of court ladies, headed by the royal mother-in-law, made sure that Jeanne was a virgin.

Legend has it that Jeanne was tested to see if she really had the gift of prophecy and revelation. For this purpose, when she first appeared to the king, during the solemn meeting of Jeanne, not the king, but a figurehead, was placed on the throne. The Dauphin mingled with the crowd of courtiers. But Jeanne, who had never seen Prince Charles before, recognized him in the crowd of courtiers and knelt before him. In addition, according to legend, Jeanne, during that meeting, read the secret thoughts of Charles, who doubted the legality of his rights to the throne, and told him: “Stop tormenting yourself, for you have a legal right to the throne.” After these signs, the Dauphin believed in Joan.

Inspired by the new saint, the troops lifted the siege of the city of Orleans, which ensured a turning point in the war, and the people awarded Jeanne the honorary title of the Maid of Orleans. In white knightly armor, riding a white horse, Jeanne really looked like an angel, a messenger of God.

According to legend, before the troops left for Orleans, Jeanne again demonstrated her prophetic abilities. She asked the king to send a messenger to the church of St. Catherine in Fierboa for the sword, which was kept behind the altar. The messenger actually found a rusty sword in the ground behind the altar, which he brought to Jeanne. One of the chronicles of that time states that Jeanne had never been to Fierboa.

The Maid of Orleans insisted on Charles going to Reims for coronation and anointing, which confirmed the state independence of France. Although, according to the advisers of Prince Charles, it was impossible to take Reims, the troops were inspired by the belief in the holiness and chosenness of Joan by God. Zhanna called out: “Whoever believes in me follows me!” And people began to flock to her banner.

Her compatriots idolized Jeanne and transferred to her the features of the Blessed Virgin Mary, who with her chastity saved her native France from troubles.

But if the French considered Jeanne a saint, the British claimed that she was a witch and fled from the battlefield in fear. The British argued that a simple peasant woman could not behave on the battlefield like a true warrior and an experienced military leader. There were many examples of her courage and military bearing. In the development of battle plans and the disposition of troops, she showed a complete understanding of the matter; when a military cry was called, she was always the first to appear at the battlefield, and always acted wisely and carefully.

Hoping to liberate Paris, Jeanne led a detachment to Compiègne, where in 1430 she was captured by the British allies and was handed over to the bishop of Beauvais.

The British, in order to justify their defeats, accused Jeanne of having a relationship with the devil and handed her over to the Inquisition.

At the preliminary hearing, Zhanna behaved with amazing composure. The investigation subjected her to a humiliating examination and made sure that d'Arc was still a virgin. This conclusion cast doubt on the Inquisition’s accusation of Jeanne’s witchcraft, for, as we remember, according to the ideas of that time, every witch was simply obliged to copulate with Satan.

However, Bishop Cauchon of Beauvais, who headed the investigation, was not going to retreat. And exhausting interrogations followed, during which Jeanne confirmed that three saints appeared to her, whom she saw, hugged and even kissed. Torture was not used against Zhanna to prevent self-incrimination.

A trial began in which the Maid of Orleans was charged with seventy counts, including witchcraft, divination, evocation of spirits and witchcraft, treasure hunting, false prophecy, and heresy.

The accusation of witchcraft was not proven, and the points regarding witchcraft were dropped. The charges were reduced to twelve articles. The most serious were accusations of wearing men's clothing, disobedience to the Church, seeing ghosts and heresies.

After the announcement of the charges proven by the Inquisition, Jeanne refused to repent of her sins, but when she was accused of a heretic, she was afraid that she would be handed over to the British, who sentenced her to burning in absentia, and decided to repent. Jeanne signed a document in which she renounced her earlier testimony and admitted that all her visions were a diabolical obsession. She vowed to return to the bosom of the true Church and never contradict her again.

For renouncing her ideals, Jeanne's burning at the stake was replaced with life imprisonment. However, in prison, she again heard the voice of the saints, who reproached her for betrayal and apostasy from God. Allegedly, on their orders, Jeanne again put on a man's suit, which she took off after signing the renunciation. However, some historians argue that the reason for the “reverse dressing” was not the voices at all, but the treachery of the inquisitor jailers, who were sorry to destroy Jeanne and took away her woman’s dress.

But one way or another, on May 28, 1431, the Maid of Orleans was declared a persistent heretic, excommunicated and handed over to the English authorities on May 30. On the same day, in the Place de Rouen, she was tied to a stake and burned.

The execution of Jeanne left everyone in the square in awe, even her executioner. The latter claimed that he found her heart in the ashes, which was never burned in the flames of the fire of the Inquisition.

This is the tragic story of Cinderella from Domremy, who for a short time became the ruler of minds, and then was betrayed and burned.

However, there are many dark places in this story. First of all, what voices did Jeanne hear? And what was the power of influence of a simple uneducated peasant woman on the French people?

Is it really just faith in your calling? It’s unlikely, because the people’s faith in Jeanne would quickly die if people did not see the real results of her activities. On the other hand, if there had been no soil on which the seeds sown by the Maid of Orleans had grown, it is unlikely that Joan of Arc would have done what she did. There were many favorable conditions for Zhanna to accomplish her feat, including her own tendency to hallucinate and a certain gift of foresight.

The famous Russian psychiatrist P.I. Kovalevsky wrote that Zhanna had real hallucinations, the first of which she saw at the age of twelve. In visions, Archangel Michael and Saints Margaret and Catherine appeared to her in the very form in which they were depicted in the Domremi church on the icons.

Historians say that the parents knew about the voices their daughter heard. According to her mother, when Jeanne was fifteen years old, the girl's father had a dream in which it was revealed to him that his daughter would go to France with armed men. Since then, Zhanna was firmly convinced that she was acting by the will of God.

Jeanne claimed that she heard voices only when bells were ringing, and psychiatrists conclude from this that she heard voices in bell sounds only thanks to her own religious and patriotic exaltation and extraordinary imagination.

The hallucinations were based on Jeanne's mystical mood, insufficient education, firm belief in prejudices, legends and superstitions, the general political situation of the country, the mood of society, the extremely troubled life of both the whole of France and individuals in this country, and the girl's sincere desire to fulfill her dream and save the Motherland.

Jeanne sincerely believed in the reality of hallucinations and visions and was faithful to them until her death because this coincided with her deep faith in God and the Blessed Virgin Mary, with her boundless love for the Fatherland, loyal feelings for the king and desire to help the country. It is not surprising that she boldly went to the stake and into battle, for everything she did, Jeanne did according to the will of God.

Regarding the gift of foresight, historians have noted that in the legend of Joan of Arc it is difficult to separate truth from fiction.

But be that as it may, Joan of Arc went down in history under the name of the Maid of Orleans, the folk heroine of France and a symbol of all-conquering faith and selflessness.

Nicolaus Copernicus and Giordano Bruno

Nicolaus Copernicus (1473–1543) - Polish astronomer and thinker. He was born in the small town of Torun on the banks of the Vistula River in the family of a merchant. At the age of ten, the boy lost his father and was given to be raised by his uncle, Bishop Luke Watzelrod, who gave his nephew an excellent upbringing.

Copernicus studied at the University of Krakow, famous for its teachers, and then completed his education at the Italian universities of Bologna and Padua.

After completing his education, Copernicus returned to Poland and settled in the city of Frombrok, where he set up an astronomical laboratory in one of the church towers. Copernicus made the instruments for his observations himself.

He began with attempts to improve the geocentric system of the world canonized by the church, set out in Ptolemy’s Almagest. In those days, it was believed that the Earth was at the center of the world, and the Sun, stars and planets moved around it. Such a system was called geocentric - from the Greek word “gaia” - “earth”. Copernicus gradually came to the creation of a new heliocentric system of the world, according to which the Sun, and not the Earth, occupies a central position, while the Earth is one of the planets revolving around its axis. The teaching was called heliocentric from the Greek word “helios” - “sun”.

Copernicus outlined his theory in the book “On the Revolution of the Celestial Spheres,” which he was in no hurry to publish, because he knew that he would certainly be persecuted by the Inquisition. The Church believed that the irrefutable proof of the geocentric system of the world was the Bible, which says that the Sun moves around the Earth. But Copernicus’s calculations turned out to be even more irrefutable.

The scientist’s work was “published,” as we now say, on the day of his death. The teachings of Copernicus set forth in the book eliminated the opposition between the earthly and the heavenly; the laws of nature turned out to be uniform for the entire Universe in general and the Earth in particular.

Copernicus's theory was considered a heresy by the Catholic Church, which is why in 1616 Copernicus's book On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres, published in 1543, was included in the Index of Prohibited Books and remained banned until 1828.

Why did the inquisitors ban the book of Copernicus seventy-three years after its appearance? This happened thanks to the book’s publisher, theologian Osiander, who wrote in the preface that Copernicus’ theory is not a new explanation of the structure of the Universe, but just a way to more simply and conveniently calculate the paths of planetary motion. Ignorant monks could not immediately understand Copernicus’s complex calculations and did not immediately ban the book, which laid the foundation for new ideas about the world.

On the monument to Copernicus in his hometown of Toruń, grateful descendants wrote: “He who stopped the Sun, who moved the Earth.”

What is the “Index of Banned Books”? This is the name of the list of works published by the Vatican in 1559–1966, the reading of which was prohibited to believers under threat of excommunication. The publication of such lists was one of the ways the Catholic Church fought against anti-Catholic views, scientific and social progress.

The Index of Prohibited Books included thousands of titles, among which were works of great writers, scientists and thinkers: “The Divine Comedy” and “The Monarchy” by Dante, books by O. de Balzac, J.P. Sartre, Abelard, Spinoza, Kant and many others . The work of Copernicus was also unlucky.

A supporter of his heliocentric system was Giordano Filippo Bruno (1548–1600), an Italian philosopher and thinker who came up with the doctrine of the unity and materiality of the Universe.

Bruno was born into the family of a poor soldier and at the age of seventeen he took monastic vows and became a monk. However, Bruno stayed in the monastery for only ten years, because he had to flee from there, fearing persecution for his ideas about the structure of the Universe and the court of the Inquisition.

He spent many years away from his homeland, living in Prague, London and Paris, where he lectured and participated in scientific debates. He was a popularizer of Copernican ideas and spoke about them everywhere.

But the Inquisition persecuted Bruno not only for his scientific views. The scientist also resolutely rejected ideas about the afterlife, and Bruno saw religion as a force that generates wars, discord and vices in society. He criticized religious pictures of the world and most of Christian dogmas, and denied the existence of God, the Creator of the world. The Catholic Church could not forgive him for this.

Bruno was tricked into going to Italy, where he was arrested and kept in the dungeons of the Inquisition for seven years. The torturers suggested that the scientist renounce his views, but Giordano Bruno did not repent and did not change his testimony.

Then Bruno was tried and burned at the stake in Rome on the Square of Flowers. Having ascended the scaffold, Bruno said: “To burn does not mean to refute! The coming centuries will appreciate and understand me!”

The scientist was right this time too: in the 19th century, a monument was erected at the site of Bruno’s execution - humanity truly appreciated the works of the great thinker.

Plagiarist Galileo

What do we know about Galileo Galilei (1564–1642)? In any encyclopedia you will read that he was an Italian scientist, one of the founders of the experimental mathematical method in natural science. He made a number of important scientific discoveries in the fields of mechanics and astronomy. Galileo's discoveries confirmed the truth of Copernicus's heliocentric theory and the idea of the infinity of the Universe, the physical homogeneity of earthly and celestial bodies, the existence of objective laws of nature and the possibility of their knowledge. After the publication of Galileo’s work “Dialogue on the two most important systems of the world - Ptolemaic and Copernican” in 1632, the scientist was subjected to an Inquisition trial and was forced to renounce his views. However, the renunciation was of a formal nature.

In 1979, Pope John Paul II admitted that Galileo was undeservedly condemned by the Church and the scientist’s case was reconsidered.

These are the bare facts. But how was it really? Can we restore the truth and understand why the Inquisition did not burn him at the stake, like many other scientists of the Middle Ages?

In his book “Entertaining Physics. What the textbooks were silent about” N.V. Gulia convincingly proves that Galileo surprisingly quickly found a common language with the Inquisition. In the now published interrogations of the Inquisitorial court, it is written that Galileo was only “admonished,” and he rather quickly agreed with these “admonitions.”

The truth of Galileo’s relationship with the Inquisition and Pope Paul V, who promised the scientist his patronage, was established as a result of a series of document analyzes using X-rays, ultraviolet radiation, and even a special graphological examination in 1933. It was found that the documents were repeatedly corrected, cleaned up and falsified. The truth was established, but for Galileo’s admirers it turned out to be sad - the scientist never defended his views and quickly renounced what the Inquisition asked him to renounce.

In addition, in the 20th century it turned out that Galileo appropriated the invention of the Dutch scientist Johann Lippershey, who invented and patented the spyglass. How did it happen? Very simple. The Dutchman patented his telescope in 1608, and in 1609 Galileo “invented” his telescope and placed it at the disposal of the Venetian government, which for this assigned him a chair at the university for life and assigned him a huge salary for those times.

It turned out that plagiarism - the theft of intellectual property - existed in those distant times.

Dante Alighieri

But the great writer, Italian poet Dante Alighieri (1265–1321) was a true fighter for his beliefs.

Everyone knows his “Divine Comedy” - a poem that occupies one of the main places in the history of world literature. The poem is written in the first person. Its hero - Dante himself - wanders through the circles of Hell, Purgatory and Paradise, communicates with the souls of the dead, but the unearthly often turns out to be inseparable from the real world.

Dante was a Catholic, believed in God and respected the highest justice, which condemned sinners to torment in Hell. But as a true humanist, he could not agree with the sometimes very cruel sentences of the Lord, because the souls of deeply unhappy and worthy people often end up in the underworld. Thus, Dante takes pity on gluttons and pagans, soothsayers and suicides. Sometimes his compassion is so great that he cannot hold back his tears. Dante is especially touched by the fate of the unfortunate Francesca da Rimini, who ended up in Hell because of love.

Naturally, such a condemnation of the Divine will could not help but irritate the Inquisition, which was all the more dissatisfied with the “Divine Comedy” because the dogma of Purgatory was introduced and approved by the Catholic Church much later than the creation of the poem. The description of Dante's journey through Purgatory was already pure heresy.

Therefore, it is not surprising that his poem was immediately banned by Catholic censorship.

Dante was also disliked by the Catholic Church because he was always an active fighter against the Pope and took part in the political struggle in Florence. For opposing the papal policy of the city ruler, he was forced to flee Italy in 1302 and lived in exile until the end of his days.

In his treatise Monarchy, Dante defended the idea of a secular, worldwide empire designed to put an end to political strife, greed and violence. The Pope was not given the role of a world dictator, which he wanted to be, but only a spiritual leader. In the 16th century, Monarchy was included by the Inquisition in the Index of Prohibited Books.

The treatise was very relevant in the time of Dante, when Italian cities defended their independence against the pope and the German emperor and turned into rich city-republics. But within each such republic, the strife and struggle did not stop between the townspeople, who were divided into the “fat people” - the rich - and the “skinny people” - the poor artisans. Noble families were also at enmity with each other.

Since the time of the struggle with the German emperor, two parties arose - the Guelphs and the Ghibellines. The first fought with the pope and the emperor, and received their name from the rivals of the imperial family, the Dukes of Welf. The Ghibellines were nicknamed after the ancestral castle of Weibling of the German emperors from the Hohenstaufen dynasty and supported the policies of the ruling classes in everything.

Dante belonged to the Guelph party and fought for the independence of his native country. He was sentenced in absentia to be burned at the stake by the Inquisition. However, when world fame came to the poet, Florence therefore offered to return to his homeland, but at the same time they offered such humiliating conditions and renunciation of his own views that Dante rejected this offer.

He spent the last years of his life in the city of Ravenna, where he died and was buried. Florence has repeatedly appealed to the authorities of Ravenna, including in our days, with requests to rebury Dante's ashes in Italian soil, but Ravenna has invariably refused.

Jan Hus, Hieronymus of Prague and Martin Luther

Throughout the Holy Roman Empire in the Middle Ages, uprisings constantly broke out against the Catholic Church and the Pope. In the 15th century, the era of struggle for change began, which in history was called the era of the Reformation.

One of the first figures of this era was the Czech theologian Jan Hus.

The Czech Republic was part of the Holy Roman Empire, although, according to legend, the Czech principality was created by the legendary Czech. One of the first princesses of the Czech Republic was Lubusha, a wise beauty who defended the independence of her country. Together with her husband, Prince Přemysl, she founded Prague, the Czech capital. From them came the dynasty of the Czech kings of the Premyslids.

The Czechs always defended their independence, fought against German domination, but the forces were unequal, the Czech Republic was defeated and became part of the Holy Roman Empire.

However, the struggle for Czech independence did not stop. There were people in the country who sought to liberate their native country. One of these national heroes was Jan Hus (1371–1415) - a preacher and thinker, a major scientist.

Jan Hus was born into a poor peasant family in the town of Husinec in Southern Bohemia. He was very capable and was able to graduate from Charles University in Prague, where he began teaching, and after a while he even headed this educational institution, becoming its rector.

While remaining a university professor, from 1402 Hus began to preach in the specially built Bethlehem Chapel in Prague, which became a center for the dissemination of reformation ideas.

Hus denounced the corruption of the Catholic clergy, their trade in indulgences - special letters of absolution, through which one could even receive forgiveness for such a serious sin as murder. He also spoke out against the luxury and wealth of the clergy, called for depriving the Church of property and was against German dominance in the Czech Republic.

This criticism was liked by the Czech gentry, who dreamed of seizing church lands. Hus was also supported by King Wenceslas IV. The king even signed the so-called Kutnagorsk Decree, which turned the University of Prague into a truly Czech educational institution. The leadership passed into the hands of the Czechs, and the German masters were forced to leave the university walls.

In 1409–1412, Jan Hus completely broke with Catholicism and placed the authority of the Holy Scriptures above the authority of the pope. The Pope immediately reacted and in 1413 a papal bull appeared, in which he excommunicated Hus from the Church and threatened to excommunicate those cities that would provide refuge to the Czech preacher.

Hus was forced to leave Prague and for two years lived in the castles of the nobles of Southern and Western Bohemia who patronized him. In exile, Hus wrote his main book, “On the Church,” in which he advocated a complete reorganization of the structure of the Catholic Church, and also denied the special position of the pope and the need to strengthen his power. But he never rejected the very dogmas - the basic principles - of the Church. During these same years, Hus completed the translation of the Bible from Latin into Czech, thereby laying the foundation for the creation of the Czech literary language.

The Pope demanded that Huss come to a church council in the German city of Constance. Hus, having received a safe conduct from Emperor Sigismund I, decided to come to Constance and defend his views before the clergy. However, in violation of all obligations, he was captured and thrown into the prison of the Holy Inquisition, where he spent seven months. He was threatened, he was interrogated, he was persuaded and asked to renounce his views and writings. On July 6, 1415, Hus in the Cathedral of Constance was read the verdict of the Inquisitorial court, according to which he was to be sent to the stake if he refused to repent and renounce heresy. Hus said: “I will not renounce!”, after which he was led to a bonfire built nearby in the square.

Gus was placed on several fagots in the yard and tied to thick posts with ropes. Ropes held his body at the ankles, above and below the knees, groin, thighs and armpits. And then someone noticed that Gus was facing east. The East in the Christian church is a symbol of the bright Kingdom of Jesus Christ, in Whom the church believes and to Whose kingdom the church strives. The dead are also buried facing east. But only true believers are buried in this way, so Hus, like a heretic, was untied, turned to face the west and again tied to the pillar.

When the fire had already started, according to one legend, a certain old woman threw a bundle of brushwood into the fire. She sincerely believed that the Inquisition was burning a heretic. Gus only exclaimed: “Holy simplicity!” This phrase has become a catchphrase.

When the fire burned down, one terrible and outrageous scene occurred. The half-charred corpse was chopped into pieces, the bones were carefully chopped, and the remains and entrails were thrown into a new fire. When everything burned to ashes, the inquisitors made sure that the ashes of the heretic were thrown into the waters of the Rhine. The Holy Fathers were afraid that the remains of the martyr Hus would be kept among the people as a relic. Subsequently, Hus was indeed declared a saint.

Hieronymus of Prague (c. 1371–1416), a Czech scholar who supported the reform ideas of Hus, his friend, having learned of the arrest of his associate, immediately came to Constance, but was also captured and imprisoned. Torture and a painful stay in prison undermined Jerome's courage, and under pressure from Catholic priests he renounced his views. But this was just a temporary weakness. At the next meeting of the church council, when Jerome had to confirm his testimony and publicly renounce his writings, Jerome of Prague declared that he would never again renounce his views, for which he was ready to die at the stake. He confirmed that he is a staunch supporter of Huss. The church council in Konstnaz condemned Jerome, and on May 30, 1416 he was burned.

After the death of Hus and Jerome, the Czech nobility took up arms. A war broke out in the country against the German knights and the Pope. The Pope organized five campaigns against the Czech Republic. These wars went down in history under the name Hussite. The followers of Hus - the Hussites, under the leadership of the blind commander Jan Zizka, used new tactics in battle: they lured the enemy's cavalry into a fence of carts, and then unexpectedly the infantrymen hidden there appeared from the carts and exterminated the enemies. The Hussites managed to defeat the Catholic army in almost all battles.

As a result of the Hussite wars, at a council in the Swiss city of Basel, the church adopted a document called the “Compacts,” in which a certain number of rights were recognized for the Czechs. The Czechs were able to legalize the Hussite Church, but the Catholic Church lost all its possessions in this country, which went to the Czech nobility.

But the Hussite movement also had negative sides, for it split the country religiously. According to contemporaries, a “bifurcated people” arose. This discord led at the beginning of the 17th century to a new civil war.

However, the Hussite movement became the prototype of the European Reformation of the 16th century. Its driving force was Martin Luther (1483–1546), a German religious leader.

Martin was born into a miner's family. As a child, while studying at school, the poor boy was forced to earn money for food by singing church songs under the windows of townspeople. However, he managed to graduate from the university and receive a master's degree in liberal arts. Luther wanted to further study jurisprudence, but, experiencing an acute sense of fear of the wrath of the Lord, he took monastic vows. He was a zealous monk and a very capable man.

In 1512 he received a doctorate in theology and became a professor of biblical studies at the University of Wittenberg. His studies of the Bible led him to deny the main theses of the Catholic religion. He believed that Divine grace could only be achieved through personal faith, and not through certain good deeds.

In 1517, Luther nailed a paper with ninety-five theses on the church door, in which he defended his principles. At the same time, he uttered his famous phrase: “On this I stand and will stand!”

Accused of heresy by Rome, he refused to appear before the Inquisition, and in 1520 he publicly burned the bull excommunicating him.

Luther was the main “creator” of a new faith - Protestantism, which recognized the absolute authority of the Bible, the only saving “personal faith” and abolished church cult. Luther believed that every person could turn to God himself without the help of priests, and the basis of a person’s faith should not be the instructions of the pope, but the Bible. So that everyone could read it, Luther, like Huss, translated this book from Latin into his native language - German.

The word “Protestantism” itself comes from the Latin “to protest,” that is, Luther created a new movement in Christianity that “protested” against Catholicism and rejected it. Protestants opposed the pope and his orders and the imposition of his will and way of life.

Quite quickly after the emergence of the new religion, Europe was divided into Catholic and Protestant. The latter include Sweden, Norway, Denmark, England, Holland and part of Germany.

It is interesting that the fight against the Inquisition does not stop in these countries to this day - albeit in a very civilized form. So, in 2003, residents of Norway, whose relatives were burned by the court of faith as witches and sorcerers and whose relationship was proven through church and parish books, sued their government demanding compensation to the families - or rather, to the distant descendants - of those burned for moral and material damage.

We have talked only about the most famous victims of the Inquisition, but the total number of victims of this “holy organization” is enormous. Not all of them were burned at the stake, but all of them were oppressed and their rights were infringed; all of them suffered deep emotional trauma and their lives were ruined.

Speaking about the history of the Middle Ages, and even more so about the history of the Inquisition, one cannot help but be amazed at the mass extermination of people and the very low assessment of human life and personality.

People died in incredible numbers, suffocating in the smoke and flames of the Inquisition fires, and died in torture in prisons and on the battlefield. Streams, rivers and almost seas of human blood flowed across Europe.

Historians even wrote that the degree of greatness of the heroes was directly dependent on the amount of blood they shed. But what is most terrible of all is that all the sophisticated cruelties and bloody massacres were often carried out in them by the Creator and for the glory of God.

But how did the Inquisition arise and who was its founder?

The story of Giordano Bruno is similar to a twisted detective story that humanity has been reading for more than four centuries, but cannot reach the end.

Lost Cause

“Detective,” whose main character is Giordano Bruno, could begin with a “flash-forward” to 1809, when Emperor Napoleon ordered the removal of papal Inquisition documents from the secret archives of the Vatican. Among the requisitioned papers was allegedly Bruno’s file, which included interrogation protocols and the text of the verdict itself. After the return of the Bourbon dynasty to the French throne, the Vatican requested the return of the documents. But Rome was disappointed: the French reported that part of the Inquisition archive had disappeared without a trace. However - oh, miracle! – the papers were soon found. They were discovered by Gaetano Marini, the Pope's envoy in Paris, "in the shops of herring and meat dealers." The secret archives found their way into the Parisian grocery stores thanks to another representative of the Roman Curia, who sold them to shopkeepers as packaging. Having received an order from Rome to destroy particularly delicate papers from the archives of the inquisitors, Gaetano Marini found nothing better than to sell them as waste paper to a Parisian paper mill.

It would seem that this is the end of the story, but in 1886 a second miracle occurs - one of the Vatican archivists accidentally stumbles upon Bruno’s case in the dusty archives of the pontiff, which he immediately reports to Pope Leo XIII. How the documents were teleported from the French paper mill to Rome remains a mystery? As well as how much you can trust the authenticity of these documents. By the way, the Vatican for a long time did not want to share the find with the public. The Giordano case was not published until 1942.

Why was a fire lit in Rome's Square of Flowers?

There were some surprises too. The verdict against Giordano Bruno said nothing about his scientific beliefs - “The Earth is not the center of the Universe, which is infinite.” But “voluntary martyrdom” for science made Bruno an “icon” who inspired scientists to scientific exploits, and here it is! But the most curious thing in the verdict was that there was no specific indictment at all, except for the first sentence of the document: “You, brother Giordano Bruno, son of the late Giovanni Bruno, from Nola, about 52 years old, were already brought in eight years ago to the court of the Holy Office of Venice for declaring: it is the greatest blasphemy to say that bread was transformed into a body, etc.”

In his “Aesthetics of the Renaissance,” the Russian philosopher, professor Alexei Fedorovich Losev formulated an important task for historical science, which had been waiting for the publication of the case for several decades: “The historian must clearly answer the question: Why, in the end, was Giordano Bruno burned?”

Royal friend

For the Vatican, the verdict of Giordano Bruno was not just a condemnation of a Dominican monk who had fallen into heresy. At the end of the 16th century, in terms of popularity among European intellectuals, Bruno could have given odds to modern cosmologist Stephen Hawking. Giordano Bruno maintained very friendly relations with the kings of France Henry III and Henry IV, the British Queen Elizabeth I, the Holy Roman Emperor Rudolf II and many other European “rulers”. With a snap of his fingers, he could receive a chair and a professor's robe at any European university, his books were published in the best printing houses, and the best minds of the continent dreamed of his patronage.

Giordano Bruno's main calling card was not cosmology, but his excellent memory. Bruno developed mnemonics (the art of memory), which was then at the height of fashion among intellectuals. They say that Giordano memorized thousands of books, ranging from the Holy Scriptures to Arabic alchemical treatises. It was the art of memorization that he taught to Henry III, who was proud of his friendship with the humble Dominican monk, and to Elizabeth I, who allowed Giordano to enter her chambers at any time, without reporting. In addition, the monarchs enjoyed how Bruno, with mocking grace, “knocked out” teams of Sorbonne and Oxford professors with his intellect on any issue.

For Giordano Bruno, intellectual combat was a kind of sport. For example, Oxford academics recalled that he could easily prove that black is white, that day is night, and the Moon is the Sun. His debating style was similar to boxer Roy Jones in the ring at his best - a comparison that boxing fans will understand well. It must be admitted that it was hardly thanks to Bruno’s supernatural memory alone that he found himself on friendly terms with the most influential monarchs of Europe.

As biographers recall, some invisible force moved this Dominican monk through the life, easily brought him to the best palaces of Europe, protected him from the persecution of the Inquisition (for Bruno often mentioned theology in his statements). However, unexpectedly this force failed in May 1592.

Denunciation

On the night of May 23-24, 1592, Venetian inquisitors arrested Giordano Bruno following a denunciation from the local patrician Giovanni Mocenigo. Bruno personally taught the latter - for a huge reward - the art of memory. However, at some point the monk got bored with it. He declared the student hopeless and decided to say goodbye. Mocenigo tried all possible methods to return the “guru”, but Bruno turned out to be adamant. Then the desperate student wrote a denunciation to the local Inquisition. To be brief, the informer claimed that his mentor violated Catholic dogmas, talked about some kind of “infinite worlds” and called himself a representative of a certain “new philosophy”.

It must be said that denunciations of violation of dogmas were the most common “signals” from honest citizens of the Inquisition. This was the most proven way to annoy a neighbor, a competing shopkeeper, a personal enemy... Most of these cases did not even reach the court, but in any case the Inquisition was obliged to respond to the “signal”. In other words, the arrest of Giordano Bruno can be considered “technical”. The prisoner himself generally took it as a joke. At the very first interrogations, he deftly brushed aside all accusations of heresy and friendly shared with the investigators his views on the structure of the Universe. However, this frankness of Bruno could in no way ease his situation. The fact is that the works of Copernicus, whose ideas he developed, were not prohibited (they would be prohibited only in 1616), so there were no grounds for arrest.

The monk was kept under investigation largely because of his harmfulness: he behaved too derogatorily with the inquisitors.

Having taught the “proud man” a lesson, the Venetians were about to let him go, but then a request came from Rome demanding that the heretic be “transported” to the Eternal City. The Venetians stood in a pose: “Why on earth?!” Venice is a sovereign republic!” Rome had to organize an entire embassy to Venice to convince. It is curious that the Venetian procurator Contarini firmly insisted that Giordano Bruno should remain in Venice. In his report to the Council of the Wise of Venice, he gave the following description: “One of the most outstanding and rare geniuses that can be imagined. He has extraordinary knowledge. He created a wonderful teaching."

However, Venice trembled under the pressure of the pope - Bruno went “in stages” to Rome.

Crusade against Aristotle

Now let's return to the denunciation of Giovanni Mocenigo - or rather one of its points, which states that Bruno considered himself a representative of a certain “new philosophy”. The Venetian inquisitors hardly paid any attention to this nuance of the accusation. But they were well familiar with this term in Rome.

The very concept of “New Philosophy” (or “New Universal Philosophy”) was introduced by the Italian philosopher Francesco Patrizi, who was very close to the papal curia. Patrizi argued that Aristotle's philosophy, which became the basis for medieval scholasticism and theology, was directly opposed to Christianity, since it denied the omnipotence of God.

The Italian philosopher saw this as the cause of all the discord that arose in the church, which resulted in the Protestant movements. Patruzi saw the restoration of a unified Church and the return of Protestants to its fold in the departure from scholasticism, built on Aristotle, and replacing it with a certain synthesis of Plato’s metaphysics, the views of the Neoplatonists and the pantheistic theosophical teaching of Hermes Trismegistus. This synthesis was called “New Universal Philosophy”. The idea of ousting Aristotle from European universities (primarily Protestant) and regaining the status of an intellectual center with the help of the “New Philosophy” was liked by many in the papal curia. Of course, Rome could not make the “New Universal Philosophy” its official doctrine, but the fact that in those days the papal throne patronized teachings alternative to Aristotle is beyond doubt. And here Giordano Bruno played his bright role. From 1578 to 1590, he made an unprecedented tour of the largest universities in European cities: Toulouse, Sorbonne, Oxford, Wittenberg, Marburg, Helmstadt, Prague. All of these universities were either “Protestant” or were influenced by Protestantism.

In his lectures or debates with local professors, Bruno undermined precisely the philosophy of Aristotle. His sermons about the movement of the Earth and the multitude of worlds questioned Ptolemaic cosmology, built precisely on the teachings of Aristotle.

In other words, Giordano Bruno clearly followed the strategy of the “New Philosophy”. Was he on a secret mission for Rome? Considering his “inviolability”, as well as his mysterious patronage, it is very likely.

Worse than the Knights Templar

Giordano Bruno spent eight years under investigation. This was a record for the proceedings of the Inquisition! Why so long? For comparison, the trial of the Templars lasted seven years, but there the case concerned the entire order. At the same time, as many as nine cardinals were involved in passing the verdict, which, let us recall, actually did not contain an indictment! Were the nine inquisitors general unable to find words to describe the “heretical” acts of a Dominican monk with a good memory?

One passage in the verdict is curious: “Moreover, we condemn, condemn and prohibit all of the above and other books and writings of yours, as heretical and erroneous, containing numerous heresies and errors. We command that from now on all your books, which are in the holy service and in the future will fall into her hands, be publicly torn up and burned in St. Peter before the steps, and as such were included in the list of prohibited books, and so be it as we have commanded.” But apparently the voice of the nine cardinals was so weak that Bruno’s books could be freely purchased in Rome and other Italian cities until 1609.

Another interesting detail: if in Venice Giordano Bruno very quickly makes excuses for accusations of violating Catholic dogmas, then in Rome he suddenly changes tactics and, according to the investigation materials, begins not only to admit it, but also to flaunt his anti-Christianity. At the trial, he even throws out to the judges:

“Perhaps you pronounce your sentence with more fear than I listen to it. I die a martyr voluntarily and I know that my soul will ascend to heaven with its last breath.”

Did Bruno really find the Venetian Inquisition more convincing in its ferocity, and did an atmosphere of humanism and philanthropy reign in the torture chambers of the Vatican?

Who burned at the stake?

The only written evidence of the execution of Giordano Bruno has reached us. The witness was a certain Kaspar Schoppe, a “repentant Lutheran” who went into the service of the cardinal. Schoppe wrote in a letter to his comrade that the “heretic” accepted death calmly: “Without repenting of his sins, Bruno went to the worlds he imagined to tell what the Romans were doing with blasphemers.” I wonder why Schoppe thought that Giordano Bruno’s heresy lay in his view of the Universe - nothing was said about this in the verdict?

Schoppe, by the way, pointed out in his letter to a friend one interesting detail - Giordano Bruno was taken to the stake with a gag in his mouth, which was not in the tradition of the Inquisitorial burnings. It is unlikely that the organizers of the execution were afraid of the possible dying curses of the condemned man - this, as a rule, was the format of any execution. As well as repentance. Why the gag? It is unlikely that in a matter of minutes of execution, even such an intellectual and polemicist as Bruno would have been able to convince the illiterate crowd of the infidelity of Aristotelian cosmology. Or the executioners were simply afraid that the condemned man, in a moment of absolute despair, would suddenly shout out the terrible: “I am not Giordano Bruno!”

Vladimir Legoyda

Despite the fact that the idea of religion as “the opium of the people” is no longer modern and relevant, many old views do not change and continue to wander from generation to generation. One of these ideas is the struggle between religion and science “not to the death, but to the death.” Supporters of this view habitually trump famous names: Copernicus, Galileo, Bruno. The most amazing thing is that the myths about these “martyrs of science” have become so firmly entrenched in everyday consciousness that sometimes it seems that they cannot be eradicated. Times change, history is subject to close and scrupulous analysis, but defenders of scientists allegedly offended by Christianity continue to accuse the “damned churchmen” of destroying science. The reason for the persistence of these myths is a topic for a separate serious conversation, involving both historians and cultural experts, as well as psychologists and sociologists. The purpose of our publications is somewhat different - to try to understand, firstly, what actually happened and, secondly, how much what happened relates to the conflict between religion and science, if such is possible at all. We talked about Galilee. Today we will talk about Giordano Bruno.

I'll start by stating a fact: Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) actually suffered at the hands of the inquisitors. On February 17, 1600, the thinker was burned in the Piazza des Flowers in Rome. Regardless of any interpretations and interpretations of events, the fact always remains: the Inquisition sentenced Bruno to death and carried out the sentence. Such a step can hardly be justified from the point of view of evangelical morality. Therefore, Bruno's death will forever remain a regrettable event in the history of the Catholic West. The question is different. For what Did Giordano Bruno get hurt? The existing stereotype of a science martyr does not even allow one to think about the answer. How for what? Naturally, for your scientific views! However, in reality this answer turns out to be at least superficial. But in fact, it is simply incorrect.

I'm making up hypotheses!

As a thinker, Giordano Bruno certainly had a great influence on the development philosophical tradition of his time and - indirectly - on the development of modern science, primarily as a successor to the ideas of Nicholas of Cusa, which undermined the physics and cosmology of Aristotle. Moreover, Bruno himself was neither a physicist nor an astronomer. The ideas of the Italian thinker cannot be called scientific, not only from the standpoint of modern knowledge, but also by the standards of 16th-century science. Bruno was not engaged in scientific research in the sense that those who really created science at that time were engaged in it: Copernicus, Galileo, and later Newton. The name Bruno is known today primarily because of the tragic ending of his life. At the same time, we can say with full responsibility that Bruno did not suffer for his scientific views and discoveries. Simply because... he didn't have any!

Bruno was a religious philosopher, not a scientist. Natural scientific discoveries interested him primarily as reinforcement of his views on completely non-scientific issues: the meaning of life, the meaning of the existence of the Universe, etc. Of course, in the era of the emergence of science, this difference (scientist or philosopher) was not as obvious as it is now. Soon after Bruno, one of the founders of modern science, Isaac Newton, would define this boundary as follows: “I invent no hypotheses!” (i.e. all my thoughts are confirmed by facts and reflect the objective world). Bruno "invented hypotheses." Actually, he didn’t do anything else.

Let's start with the fact that Bruno was disgusted by the dialectical methods known to him and used by scientists of that time: scholastic and mathematical. What did he offer in return? Bruno preferred to give his thoughts not the strict form of scientific treatises, but poetic form and imagery, as well as rhetorical colorfulness. In addition, Bruno was a proponent of the so-called Lullian art of linking thoughts - a combinatorial technique that involved modeling logical operations using symbolic notation (named after the medieval Spanish poet and theologian Raymond Lull). Mnemonics helped Bruno remember important images that he mentally placed in the structure of the cosmos and which were supposed to help him master divine power and comprehend internal order Universe.

The most accurate and vital science for Bruno was... magic! The criteria of his methodology are poetic meter and Lullian art, and Bruno’s philosophy is a peculiar combination of literary motifs and philosophical reasoning, often loosely related to each other. It is therefore not surprising that Galileo Galilei, who, like many of his contemporaries, recognized Bruno’s outstanding abilities, never considered him a scientist, much less an astronomer. And in every possible way he avoided even mentioning his name in his works.

It is generally accepted that Bruno's views were a continuation and development of the ideas of Copernicus. However, facts indicate that Bruno’s acquaintance with the teachings of Copernicus was very superficial, and in the interpretation of the works of the Polish scientist, the Nolanian made very serious mistakes. Of course, Copernicus' heliocentrism had a great influence on Bruno and on the formation of his views. However, he easily and boldly interpreted the ideas of Copernicus, putting his thoughts, as already mentioned, in a certain poetic form. Bruno argued that the Universe is infinite and exists forever, that there are countless worlds in it, each of which in its structure resembles the Copernican solar system.

Bruno went much further than Copernicus, who showed extreme caution here and refused to consider the question of the infinity of the Universe. True, Bruno’s courage was based not on scientific confirmation of his ideas, but on the occult-magical worldview, which was formed in him under the influence of the ideas of Hermeticism, popular at that time. Hermeticism, in particular, assumed the deification of not only man, but also the world, therefore Bruno’s own worldview is often characterized as pantheistic(pantheism is a religious doctrine in which the material world is deified). I will give only two quotes from the Hermetic texts: “We dare to say that man is a mortal God and that the God of heaven is an immortal man. Thus, all things are governed by the world and man,” “The Lord of eternity is the first God, the world is the second, man is the third. God, the creator of the world and everything that it contains, controls this whole whole and subjects it to the control of man. This latter turns everything into the subject of his activity.” As they say, no comments.

Thus, Bruno cannot be called not only a scientist, but even a popularizer of the teachings of Copernicus. From the point of view of science itself, Bruno rather compromised the ideas of Copernicus, trying to express them in the language of magical superstitions. This inevitably led to a distortion of the idea itself and destroyed its scientific content and scientific value. Modern historians of science believe that in comparison with the intellectual exercises of Bruno, not only the Ptolemaic system, but also medieval scholastic Aristotelianism can be considered the standards of scientific rationalism. Bruno did not have any actual scientific results, and his arguments “in favor of Copernicus” were just a set of nonsense that primarily demonstrated the ignorance of the author.

Are God and the Universe “twin brothers”?

So, Bruno was not a scientist, and therefore it was impossible to bring against him the charges that, for example, were brought against Galileo. Why then was Bruno burned? The answer lies in his religious views. In his idea of the infinity of the Universe, Bruno deified the world and endowed nature with divine properties. This view of the Universe actually rejected Christian idea of God who created the world ex nihilo(out of nothing - lat.).

According to Christian views, God, being an absolute and uncreated Being, does not obey the laws of space-time created by Him, and the created Universe does not possess the absolute characteristics of the Creator. When Christians say, “God is Eternal,” it does not mean that He “will not die,” but that He does not obey the laws of time, He is outside of time. Bruno's views led to the fact that in his philosophy God dissolved in the Universe, between the Creator and creation, the boundaries were erased, the fundamental difference was destroyed. God in Bruno’s teaching, unlike Christianity, ceased to be a Person, which is why man became only a grain of sand in the world, just as the earthly world itself was only a grain of sand in Bruno’s “many worlds.”

The doctrine of God as a Person was fundamentally important for the Christian doctrine of man: man is personality, since he was created in the image and likeness Personalities- The Creator. The creation of the world and man is a free act of Divine Love. Bruno, however, also talks about love, but with him it loses its personal character and turns into cold cosmic aspiration. These circumstances were significantly complicated by Bruno’s passion for occult and hermetic teachings: the Nolan was not only actively interested in magic, but also, apparently, no less actively practiced the “magical art.” In addition, Bruno defended the idea of the transmigration of souls (the soul is capable of traveling not only from body to body, but also from one world to another), questioned the meaning and truth of the Christian sacraments (primarily the sacrament of Communion), ironized the idea of the birth of the God-man from the Virgin and etc. All this could not but lead to conflict with the Catholic Church.

“Hermeticism is a magical-occult teaching that, according to its adherents, dates back to the semi-mythical figure of the Egyptian priest and magician Hermes Trismegistus, whose name we meet in the era of the dominance of religious and philosophical syncretism of the first centuries of the new era, and expounded in the so-called “Corpus Hermeticum”... In addition, Hermeticism had extensive astrological, alchemical and magical literature, which according to tradition was attributed to Hermes Trismegistus, who acted as the founder of religion, the herald and savior in esoteric Hermetic circles and Gnostic sects... The main thing that distinguished esoteric-occult teachings from Christian theology... was the conviction in the divine - uncreated - essence of man and the belief that that there are magical means of purifying a person that return him to the state of innocence that Adam possessed before the Fall. Having been cleansed of sinful filth, a person becomes the second God. Without any help or assistance from above, he can control the forces of nature and, thus, fulfill the covenant given to him by God before his expulsion from paradise.”

Gaidenko P.P. Christianity and the genesis of modern European natural science // Philosophical and religious sources of science. M.: Martis, 1997. P. 57.

Why were the inquisitors afraid of the verdict?

From all this it inevitably follows that, firstly, the views of Giordano Bruno cannot be characterized as scientific. Therefore, in his conflict with Rome there was not and could not be a struggle between religion and science. Secondly, the ideological foundations of Bruno’s philosophy were very far from Christian. For the Church he was a heretic, and heretics at that time were burned.

It seems very strange to the modern tolerant consciousness that a person is sent to the stake for deifying nature and practicing magic. Any modern tabloid publication publishes dozens of advertisements about damage, love spells, etc.

Bruno lived in a different time: during the era of religious wars. The heretics in Bruno’s time were not harmless thinkers “not of this world” whom the damned inquisitors burned for no reason. There was a struggle. The struggle is not just for power, but a struggle for the meaning of life, for the meaning of the world, for a worldview that was affirmed not only with the pen, but also with the sword. And if power were seized, for example, by those who were closer to the views of the Nolanite, the fires would most likely continue to burn, as they burned in the 16th century in Geneva, where Calvinist Protestants burned Catholic inquisitors. All this, of course, does not bring the era of witch hunts closer to living according to the Gospel.

Unfortunately, the full text of the verdict with charges against Bruno has not been preserved. From the documents that have reached us and the testimony of contemporaries, it follows that those Copernican ideas that Bruno expressed in his own way and which were also included in the accusations did not make any difference in the inquisitorial investigation. Despite the ban on Copernicus’s ideas, his views, in the strict sense of the word, were never heretical for the Catholic Church (which, by the way, a little over thirty years after Bruno’s death largely predetermined the rather lenient sentence of Galileo Galilei). All this once again confirms the main thesis of this article: Bruno was not and could not be executed for scientific views.

Some of Bruno’s views, in one form or another, were characteristic of many of his contemporaries, but the Inquisition sent only a stubborn Nolanite to the stake. What was the reason for this sentence? Most likely, it is worth talking about a number of reasons that forced the Inquisition to take extreme measures. Don't forget that the investigation into Bruno's case lasted 8 years. The inquisitors tried to understand Bruno's views in detail, carefully studying his works. And, apparently, recognizing the uniqueness of the thinker’s personality, they sincerely wanted Bruno to renounce his anti-Christian, occult views. And they persuaded him to repent for all eight years. Therefore, Bruno’s famous words that the inquisitors pronounce his sentence with more fear than he listens to it can also be understood as the clear reluctance of the Roman Throne to pass this sentence. According to eyewitness accounts, the judges were indeed more dejected by their verdict than the Nolan man. However, Bruno's stubbornness, refusing to admit the charges brought against him and, therefore, to renounce any of his views, actually left him no chance of pardon.

The fundamental difference between Bruno's position and those thinkers who also came into conflict with the Church was his conscious anti-Christian and anti-church views. Bruno was judged not as a scientist-thinker, but as a runaway monk and an apostate from the faith. The materials on Bruno's case paint a portrait not of a harmless philosopher, but of a conscious and active enemy of the Church. If the same Galileo never faced a choice: or his own scientific views, then Bruno made his choice. And he had to choose between church teaching about the world, God and man and his own religious and philosophical constructs, which he called “heroic enthusiasm” and “the philosophy of the dawn.” If Bruno had been more of a scientist than a “free philosopher,” he could have avoided problems with the Roman throne. It was precise natural science that required, when studying nature, to rely not on poetic inspiration and magical sacraments, but on rigid rational constructs. However, Bruno was least inclined to do the latter.

According to the outstanding Russian thinker A.F. Losev, many scientists and philosophers of that time in such situations preferred to repent not out of fear of torture, but because they were frightened by the break with church tradition, the break with Christ. During the trial, Bruno was not afraid of losing Christ, since this loss in his heart, apparently, happened much earlier...

Let me start by stating a fact: Giordano Bruno (1548-1600) actually suffered at the hands of the inquisitors. On February 17, 1600, the thinker was burned in the Piazza des Flowers in Rome. Regardless of any interpretations and interpretations of events, the fact always remains: the Inquisition sentenced Bruno to death and carried out the sentence. Such a step can hardly be justified from the point of view of evangelical morality. Therefore, Bruno's death will forever remain a regrettable event in the history of the Catholic West. The question is different. Why did Giordano Bruno suffer? The existing stereotype of a science martyr does not even allow one to think about the answer. How for what? Naturally, for your scientific views! However, in reality this answer turns out to be at least superficial. But in fact, it is simply incorrect.

I'm making up hypotheses!

As a thinker, Giordano Bruno, of course, had a great influence on the development of the philosophical tradition of his time and, indirectly, on the development of modern science, primarily as a continuer of the ideas of Nicholas of Cusa, which undermined the physics and cosmology of Aristotle. Moreover, Bruno himself was neither a physicist nor an astronomer. The ideas of the Italian thinker cannot be called scientific, not only from the standpoint of modern knowledge, but also by the standards of 16th-century science. Bruno was not engaged in scientific research in the sense that those who really created science at that time were engaged in it: Copernicus, and later Newton. The name Bruno is known today primarily because of the tragic ending of his life. At the same time, we can say with full responsibility that Bruno did not suffer for his scientific views and discoveries. Simply because... he didn't have any! Bruno was a religious philosopher, not a scientist. Natural scientific discoveries interested him primarily as reinforcement of his views on completely non-scientific issues: the meaning of life, the meaning of the existence of the Universe, etc. Of course, in the era of the emergence of science, this difference (scientist or philosopher) was not as obvious as it is now. Soon after Bruno, one of the founders of modern science, Isaac Newton, would define this boundary as follows: “I invent no hypotheses!” (i.e. all my thoughts are confirmed by facts and reflect the objective world). Bruno "invented hypotheses." Actually, he didn’t do anything else.

The most accurate and most vital science for Bruno was...! The criteria of his methodology are poetic meter and Lullian art, and Bruno’s philosophy is a peculiar combination of literary motifs and philosophical reasoning, often loosely related to each other. It is therefore not surprising that Galileo Galilei, who, like many of his contemporaries, recognized Bruno’s outstanding abilities, never considered him a scientist, much less an astronomer. And in every possible way he avoided even mentioning his name in his works.

It is generally accepted that Bruno's views were a continuation and development of the ideas of Copernicus. However, facts indicate that Bruno’s acquaintance with the teachings of Copernicus was very superficial, and in the interpretation of the works of the Polish scientist, the Nolanian23 made very serious mistakes. Of course, Copernicus' heliocentrism had a great influence on Bruno and on the formation of his views. However, he easily and boldly interpreted the ideas of Copernicus, putting his thoughts, as already mentioned, in a certain poetic form. Bruno argued that the Universe is infinite and exists forever, that there are countless worlds in it, each of which in its structure resembles the Copernican solar system.

Bruno went much further than Copernicus, who showed extreme caution here and refused to consider the question of the infinity of the Universe. True, Bruno’s courage was based not on scientific confirmation of his ideas, but on the occult-magical worldview, which was formed in him under the influence of the ideas of Hermeticism, popular at that time. Hermeticism, in particular, assumed the deification of not only man, but also the world, therefore Bruno’s own worldview is often characterized as pantheistic (pantheism is a religious doctrine in which the material world is deified). I will give only two quotes from the Hermetic texts: “We dare to say that man is a mortal God and that the God of heaven is an immortal man. Thus, all things are governed by the world and man,” “The Lord of eternity is the first God, the world is the second, man is the third. God, the creator of the world and everything that it contains, controls this whole whole and subjects it to the control of man. This latter turns everything into the subject of his activity.” As they say, no comments.

Thus, Bruno cannot be called not only a scientist, but even a popularizer of the teachings of Copernicus. From the point of view of science itself, Bruno rather compromised the ideas of Copernicus, trying to express them in the language of superstition. This inevitably led to a distortion of the idea itself and destroyed its scientific content and scientific value. Modern historians of science (in particular, M.A. Kissel) believe that in comparison with the intellectual exercises of Bruno, not only the Ptolemaic system, but also medieval scholastic Aristotelianism can be considered the standards of scientific rationalism. Bruno had no actual scientific results, and his arguments “in favor of Copernicus” were just a set of meaningless statements that primarily demonstrated the ignorance of the author.

Are God and the universe “twin brothers”?

So, Bruno was not a scientist, and therefore it was impossible to bring against him the charges that, for example, were brought against Galileo. Why then was Bruno burned? The answer lies in his religious views. In his idea of the infinity of the Universe, Bruno deified the world and endowed nature with divine properties. This idea of the Universe actually rejected the Christian idea of God, who created the world ex nihilo (out of nothing - lat.).

According to Christian views, God, being an absolute and uncreated Being, does not obey the laws of space-time created by Him, and the created Universe does not possess the absolute characteristics of the Creator. When Christians say: “God is Eternal,” this does not mean that He “will not die,” but that He does not obey the laws of time, He is outside of time. Bruno's views led to the fact that in his philosophy God dissolved in the Universe, the boundaries between the Creator and creation were erased, and the fundamental difference was destroyed. God in Bruno’s teaching, unlike Christianity, ceased to be a Person, which is why man became only a grain of sand in the world, just as the earthly world itself was only a grain of sand in Bruno’s “many worlds.”

The doctrine of God as a Person was fundamentally important for the Christian doctrine of man: man is a person, since he was created in the image and likeness of the Person - the Creator. The creation of the world and man is a free act of Divine Love. Bruno, however, also talks about love, but with him it loses its personal character and turns into a cold cosmic aspiration. These circumstances were significantly complicated by Bruno’s passion for occult and hermetic teachings: the Nolan was not only actively interested in magic, but also, apparently, no less actively practiced the “magical art.” In addition, Bruno defended the idea of the transmigration of souls (the soul is capable of traveling not only from body to body, but also from one world to another), questioned the meaning and truth of the Christian sacraments (primarily the sacrament of Communion), ironized the idea of the birth of the God-man from the Virgin and etc. All this could not but lead to conflict with the Catholic Church.

Why were the inquisitors afraid of the verdict?

The inquisitors tried to understand Bruno's views in detail, carefully studying his works. And, apparently, recognizing the uniqueness of the thinker’s personality, they sincerely wanted Bruno to renounce his anti-Christian, occult views. And they persuaded him to repent for all eight years. Therefore, Bruno’s famous words that the inquisitors pronounce his sentence with more fear than he listens to it can also be understood as the clear reluctance of the Roman Throne to pass this sentence. According to eyewitness accounts, the judges were indeed more dejected by their verdict than the Nolan man. However, Bruno's stubbornness, refusing to admit the charges brought against him and, therefore, to renounce any of his views, actually left him no chance of pardon.

The fundamental difference between Bruno's position and those thinkers who also came into conflict with the Church was his conscious anti-Christian and anti-church views. Bruno was judged not as a scientist-thinker, but as a runaway monk and an apostate from the faith. The materials on Bruno's case paint a portrait not of a harmless philosopher, but of a conscious and active enemy of the Church. If the same Galileo never faced a choice: the Church or his own scientific views, then Bruno made his choice. And he had to choose between church teaching about the world, God and man and his own religious and philosophical constructs, which he called “heroic enthusiasm” and “the philosophy of the dawn.” If Bruno had been more of a scientist than a “free philosopher,” he could have avoided problems with the Roman throne. It was precise natural science that required, when studying nature, to rely not on poetic inspiration and magical sacraments, but on rigid rational constructs. However, Bruno was least inclined to do the latter.

Literature:

1. Barbour I. Religion and science: history and modernity. M.: BBI, 2000.

2. Gaidenko P. P. History of modern European philosophy in its connection with science. M.: PER SE, 2000.

3. Yeats F. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition. M.: New Literary Review, 2000.

4. Losev A. F. Aesthetics of the Renaissance. M.: Mysl, 1998.

5. Mentsin Yu. L. “Earthly chauvinism” and the star worlds of Giordano Bruno // Questions of the history of natural science and technology. 1994, no. 1.

6. Philosophical and religious origins of science. Rep. editor P. P. Gaidenko. M.: Martis, 1997.

22) For the first time: Foma, 2004, No. 5.

23) Nolanets - Bruno’s nickname after his place of birth - Nola

24) Hermeticism is a magical-occult teaching that, according to its adherents, dates back to the semi-mythical figure of the Egyptian priest and magician Hermes Trismegistus, whose name we meet in the era of the dominance of religious and philosophical syncretism of the first centuries of the new era, and expounded in the so-called “Corpus Hermeticus” ... In addition, Hermeticism had extensive astrological, alchemical and magical literature, which according to tradition was attributed to Hermes Trismegistus... the main thing that distinguished esoteric-occult teachings from Christian theology... was the conviction in the divine - uncreated - essence of man and the belief that there are magical means of purifying man, which return him to the state of innocence that Adam possessed before the Fall. Having been cleansed of sinful filth, a person becomes the second God. Without any help or assistance from above, he can control the forces of nature and, thus, fulfill the covenant given to him by God before his expulsion from paradise.” (Gaidenko P. P. Christianity and the genesis of modern European natural science // Philosophical and religious sources of science. M.: Martis, 1997. P. 57.)

V.R. Legoyda “Do jeans interfere with salvation?” Moscow, 2006

Giordano Bruno's biography is briefly summarized in this article.

Giordano Bruno short biography

BRUNO GIORDANO (1548-1600) - Italian naturalist and philosopher. The creator of a brilliant pantheistic worldview, argued about the infinity of the Universe and the countless suns and planets following there in their orbits. He considered the world to be animate.

Bruno was born in 1548 in Nola, a provincial city of the Kingdom of Naples. Philippe is the name given to the boy at baptism. At the age of 17, Bruno became a monk in a Catholic monastery that belonged to the Dominican order. At the same time, he adopted a new name - Giordano.

At the monastery, the young monk received a good education. Secretly from everyone, Bruno was engaged in literary activities.

At the age of 24, Giordano Bruno was ordained as a priest, and this gave him the opportunity for closer communication with people outside the walls of the monastery. At the age of 28, Giordano Bruno left the Dominican order, having committed a lot of unseemly acts from the point of view of the church. A lawsuit was brought against him, and Bruno fled first to Rome, then to Geneva, from there he moved to France, and then to England. Thus began the scientist’s many years of wandering around Europe.

During his wanderings in France and England, he gave lectures and wrote books, but was not understood anywhere, since Bruno was a dissident. Calling for the emancipation of mind and thought, he thereby encroached on the power over the minds of people, which until that moment had undividedly belonged to the church. Bruno's new, stunningly bold teaching, which he openly proclaimed in disputes with representatives of official science, determined the further tragic fate of the scientist.

In London in 1584, Bruno published in Italian the work “On Infinity, the Universe and Worlds,” which glorified his name for centuries. He denied the existence of any center of the universe. Bruno put forward the following idea: stars are other suns, separated from us at a huge and at the same time equal distance; planetary systems similar to ours also revolve around other star-suns.

The main thing in Bruno's teaching was the idea of self-development of nature. Bruno argued: to think that the Universe is limited and closed means to offend the omnipotence of God the Creator, who could and should have created Infinity.

In 1591 Giordano returned to his homeland. He stayed in Venice with a noble citizen, Giovanni Mocenigo, who asked Bruno to teach him science. Mocenigo believed that the learned guest could turn stones into gold, and when he did not teach him “secret knowledge” and wanted to leave, the disgruntled “student” did not let him go, forcibly locked him up and denounced his teacher to the inquisitors. On a May night in 1592, Giordano Bruno was arrested, and in 1593 Bruno was handed over to the Roman church authorities.

The inquisitors considered that it was never too late to execute him; wouldn’t it be better to first force the adamant Copernican to repent and recognize the teaching dangerous for the church as false. For eight years, Venetian and Roman executioners tormented their victims in dungeons, but neither flattering persuasion and promises, nor threats and painful torture broke Giordano’s will and courage.

Until 1600 he languished in the dungeons of the Vatican.

Giordano Bruno was executed (burnt at the stake) in Rome, at Campo di Fiori. This crime took place in the morning of February 17 (26), 1600.