The term " pseudoscience"goes far back to the Middle Ages. We can remember Copernicus, who was burned for saying “ But the Earth still turns"..." The author of this fantastic quote, where three are mixed up different people- politician Boris Gryzlov.
Galileo Galilei was forced to renounce his views, but the phrases “ But still she spins!"he didn't speak
In fact, Galileo Galilei was persecuted for heliocentrism (the idea that the center of our planetary system is the Sun). The great astronomer was forced to renounce his views, but the phrases “ But still she spins!“he didn’t say - this is a late legend. Nicolaus Copernicus, who lived earlier, the founder of heliocentrism and a Catholic clergyman, also died a natural death (his doctrine was officially condemned only 73 years later). But Giordano Bruno was burned on February 17, 1600 in Rome on charges of heresy.
There are many myths surrounding this name. The most common of them sounds something like this: “The cruel Catholic Church burned a progressive thinker, scientist, follower of Copernicus’s ideas that the Universe is infinite and the Earth revolves around the Sun.”
Back in 1892, a biographical essay by Julius Antonovsky “Giordano Bruno. His life and philosophical activity." This is a real “life of a saint” of the Renaissance. It turns out that the first miracle happened to Bruno in infancy - a snake crawled into his cradle, but the boy scared his father with a cry, and he killed the creature. Further more. Since childhood, the hero has been distinguished by outstanding abilities in many areas, fearlessly argues with opponents and defeats them with the help of scientific arguments. As a very young man, he gained all-European fame and, in the prime of his life, fearlessly died in the flames of a fire.
A beautiful legend about a martyr of science who died at the hands of medieval barbarians, from the Church, which “has always been against knowledge.” So beautiful that for many a real man ceased to exist, and in his place a mythical character appeared - Nikolai Brunovich Galilei. He lives a separate life, moves from one work to another and convincingly defeats imaginary opponents.
For many, a real person ceased to exist, and in his place a mythical character appeared - Nikolai Brunovich Galilei.
Monument to Giordano Bruno in Rome
But this has nothing to do with the real person. Giordano Bruno was an irritable, impulsive and explosive man, a Dominican monk, and a scientist more in name than in essence. His “one true passion” turned out to be not science, but magic and the desire to create a single world religion based on ancient Egyptian mythology and medieval Gnostic ideas.
Here, for example, is one of the spells for the goddess Venus, which can be found in the works of Bruno: “Venus is good, beautiful, most beautiful, amiable, benevolent, merciful, sweet, pleasant, shining, starry, Dionea, fragrant, cheerful, Afrogenia, fertile, merciful ", generous, beneficent, peaceful, graceful, witty, fiery, the greatest reconciliator, the mistress of love" ( F. Yates. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition. M.: New Literary Review, 2000).
It is unlikely that these words would be appropriate in the works of a Dominican monk or an astronomer. But they are very reminiscent of the conspiracies that some “white” and “black” magicians still use.
Bruno never considered himself a student or follower of Copernicus and studied astronomy only to the extent that it helped him find “strong witchcraft” (to use an expression from the “goblin translation” of “The Lord of the Rings”). This is how one of the listeners of Bruno’s speech in Oxford (admittedly rather biased) describes what the speaker was talking about:
“He decided, among very many other questions, to expound the opinion of Copernicus that the earth goes in a circle, and the heavens are at rest; although in fact it was his own head that was spinning and his brain could not calm down" ( quote from the said work by F. Yeats).
Bruno patted his senior comrade on the shoulder in absentia and said: yes, to Copernicus “we owe liberation from some false assumptions of general vulgar philosophy, if not from blindness.” However, “he was not far from them, since, knowing mathematics more than nature, he could not go so deep and penetrate into the latter as to destroy the roots of difficulties and false principles.” In other words, Copernicus operated with exact sciences and did not seek secret magical knowledge, therefore, from Bruno’s point of view, he was not “advanced” enough.
Such views brought the philosopher to the stake. Unfortunately, full text Bruno's verdict has not been preserved. From the documents that have reached us and the testimony of contemporaries, it follows that Copernican ideas, which the defendant expressed in his own way, were also among the accusations, but did not make a difference in the inquisitorial investigation. Many readers of the fiery Giordano could not understand why among his works on the art of memorization or the structure of the world there were some crazy schemes and references to ancient and ancient Egyptian gods. In fact, these were the most important things for Bruno, and the mechanisms of memory training and descriptions of the infinity of the Universe were just a cover. Bruno, no less, called himself the new apostle.
This investigation lasted eight years. The inquisitors tried to understand in detail the views of the thinker and carefully study his works. All eight years he was persuaded to repent. However, the philosopher refused to admit the accusations made. As a result, the inquisitorial tribunal declared him an “impenitent, stubborn and inflexible heretic.” Bruno was stripped of his priesthood, excommunicated and executed ( V. S. Rozhitsyn. Giordano Bruno and the Inquisition. M.: USSR Academy of Sciences, 1955).
Of course, imprisoning a person and then burning him at the stake just because he expressed certain views (even false ones) is unacceptable for people of the 21st century. And even in the 17th century, such measures did not add to the popularity of the Catholic Church. However, this tragedy cannot be viewed as a struggle between science and religion. Compared to Giordano Bruno, medieval scholastics are more likely to resemble modern historians defending traditional chronology from the fantasies of academician Fomenko, rather than stupid and limited people who fought with advanced scientific thought.
Most of our contemporaries remember the name Giordano Bruno from the history textbook for high school. It briefly says: this scientist was recognized as a heretic in the Middle Ages and burned at the stake, because, contrary to the then church dogmas, he, following Copernicus, argued that the Earth is round and revolves around the Sun. But a closer acquaintance with the biography of the great Italian allows us to conclude: he was not executed for his scientific beliefs.Left only the crucifix
One of the most common myths about Bruno is that he passed away in at a young age. This is due to two surviving portraits where he actually looks young. All other images of him were destroyed by decision of the Catholic Church.
But Giordano Bruno was born in 1548 and was 52 years old before his execution. In Europe at that time, such an age was considered advanced. So we can assume that the scientist’s life was long.
At birth, the boy received the name Filippo; he was born in the town of Nola near Naples. His father served as a simple soldier, earning 60 ducats a year (the average city official received (200-300 ducats). Despite the fact that the boy showed himself well at the local school, it was clear that due to lack of money, the path to university was closed to him. The only option to continue scientific activity a career as a priest was imagined - since in church institutions they taught for free.
In 1559, when Filippo was 11 years old, his parents sent him to the school at the monastery of St. Dominic, located in Naples. The teenager studied logic, theology, astronomy and many other sciences. In 1565, he was tonsured a monk and began to bear the name Giordano, the Italian name for the sacred Jordan River, in whose waters Jesus was baptized.
Seven years later, Bruno received the priesthood. And then denunciations from other Dominicans began to arrive at the monastery’s leadership. Giordano was accused of reading heretical books, and also of removing all the icons from his cell and leaving only the crucifix there. But the main sin was doubts about the unshakable postulates of the Christian Church - for example, about the immaculate conception of the Virgin Mary. The authorities of the monastery began to investigate the activities of the heretic, but Bruno did not wait for the obvious solution and in 1576 fled first to Rome and then abroad.
Stubborn Shakespeare
Another myth is the claim that Giordano Bruno was not a scientist. Modern researchers like to emphasize that his works contain absolutely no mathematical calculations. Yes, he talks about the boundlessness of the Universe and the multiplicity of its planets, but rather as a publicist. And most of his works are comedies and poems. That is, he should be considered not a scientist, but a writer.
However, a long period of travel abroad proves that Giordano Bruno was perceived by the people of his time as a man of science. During his years of wandering around Europe, he taught at major universities - including the Sorbonne and Oxford. Giordano defended two doctoral dissertations. Several of his works are devoted to the development of memory. Bruno himself, thanks to his personal memorization technique, knew by heart more than a thousand books, including the Bible and the works of Arab philosophers.
In 1581, King Henry III of France attended one of Giordano’s lectures, who was literally amazed by the scientist’s memory. The monarch invited him to his court and even gave him a good allowance. But the calm life did not last long - Giordano quarreled with scientists of the French Academy over the works of Aristotle and was forced to say goodbye to hospitable Paris. Henry II! advised him to go to England and gave letters of recommendation for the trip.
In London, Bruno lectured on the truth of Copernicus's ideas, according to which it is not the Earth, but the Sun that is at the center of our planetary system. He held discussions on this matter with the most outstanding people countries - writer William Shakespeare, philosopher Francis Bacon, physicist William Gilbert. Shakespeare and Bacon could not be convinced; they remained faithful to the beliefs of Aristotle and Claudius Ptolemy that the Sun is a planet and revolves around the Earth. But Gilbert not only became imbued with Bruno’s ideas, but also developed them, establishing some physical laws of the heliocentric system.
Here, in England, Giordano published his main scientific work, “On Infinity, the Universe and Worlds,” where he argued that there are necessarily other habitable creatures in outer space.
planets. Among the evidence was the following: God created our world in a week, didn’t he really want to try to do something else during the rest of the time? In total, Bruno wrote more than 30 scientific papers.
Great Heretic
For 16 years, Giordano Bruno traveled around Europe, lecturing at universities and promoting his views. In 1591, he returned to Italy as a personal teacher to the Venetian aristocrat Giovanni Mocenigo. However, the relationship between teacher and student quickly deteriorated. A year later, Mocenigo wrote the first denunciation against the scientist. In a letter to the Venetian inquisitor, he said that Giordano Bruno is a heretic because he claims that other worlds exist, that Christ did not die of his own free will and tried to avoid death, that human souls, after the death of the body, pass from one living being to another, etc. . The first denunciation was followed by two more. As a result, the scientist was arrested and placed in prison. But Bruno's personality and influence were too large for provincial Venice - and in February 1593 he was transported to Rome, where he was tortured for seven years, forcing him to renounce his views.
The third and main myth about Giordano Bruno: he was executed for advanced scientific ideas - in particular, for the doctrine of the infinity of worlds and the heliocentric theory of the structure of our planetary system. But at the end of the 16th century, similar views were expressed by many. The Inquisition had not yet sentenced the followers of Copernicus to death. Only 16 years after Bruno was burned at the stake, Pope Paul V declared that Copernicus's theory contradicted the Holy Scriptures, and only in 1633 was Galileo forced to renounce his belief that the Earth revolves around the Sun.
Paradoxical but true: all the works of Giordano Bruno were declared heretical only three years after his death. Then why was he sent to the stake?
Court documents in Rome indicate that Bruno was killed for denying the fundamental tenets of Christianity. The great scientist, in fact, created his own teaching, which threatened to undermine the influence of the Vatican. He called on everyone to doubt the sanctity of church books and argued that it was necessary to completely reconsider many provisions of Catholicism and create a different religion.
For more than seven years, the inquisitors tried through torture and persuasion to persuade Bruno to renounce these views - but they could not break the will of the convinced heretic. And releasing such an authoritative person meant subjecting the Catholic Church to tests in the fight against new religious teachings.
Execute, cannot be pardoned
On February 9, 1600, the tribunal of the Holy Inquisition declared Giordano Bruno “an unrepentant, stubborn and inflexible heretic.” He was deprived of his priesthood and excommunicated from the church. After which the Vatican authorities pretended to withdraw: the sinner was transferred to the court of the governor of Rome with a hypocritical request to impose a “merciful” punishment that does not shed blood. In reality, this meant a painful execution - burning alive at the stake.
The full text of the verdict of the secular court has not been preserved. From the passages that have survived to this day, it is known that it dealt with eight heretical statements - but more or less specifically we can talk about only one: the denial that bread can turn into the body of Christ, that is, the church dogma about holy communion.
According to legend, Giordano, after hearing the verdict, said:
- Burning does not mean disproving!
The execution took place on February 17, 1600 in the Piazza des Flowers in Rome. According to evidence, the verdict was deliberately read out so vaguely that the people did not understand who was being set on fire and for what.
Another myth about the great heretic is that the Roman Catholic Church today forgave him and condemned the then actions of the Inquisition. But, unlike Galileo, whom Pope John Paul II completely rehabilitated in 1992, Giordano Bruno has still not been acquitted. Moreover, in 2000, when the 400th anniversary of the scientist’s execution was celebrated, Cardinal Angelo Sodano, acting as an official representative of the Vatican, although he called the actions of the inquisitors a “sad episode,” but emphasized that these people did everything to save the heretic’s life. There was no talk of any forgiveness - so for Bruno the death sentence is still considered justified by the Church.
And despite the fact that back in 1889 a monument to Giordano Bruno was erected on the Square of Flowers, the already mentioned John Paul II, famous for his progressive views, meeting with a group of scientists, when asked why Bruno had not yet been rehabilitated, sharply answered:
- When you find aliens, then we’ll talk.
Story:/ However
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Why was Giordano Bruno burned?
The minority is always wrong - at first!
...The scientist was sentenced to be burned.
When Giordano ascended the fire,
The Supreme Nuncio in front of him lowered his gaze...
- I see how afraid you are of me,
Not being able to refute science.
But the truth is always stronger than fire!
I don’t renounce and I don’t regret.
...The heretic was executed for his idea,
The fire was burning on the Square of Flowers...
...Then they threatened Galileo with torture...
With science, darkness will not build bridges.
As the Earth turns, he is ready to renounce...
The earth is round, Galileo declared in 1633, but in order to avoid the fate of Giordano Bruno, being burned alive at the stake, he was forced to abandon his teaching and admit that the earth cannot rotate. But, leaving the Inquisition hall, the great scientist uttered his famous phrase:“But still she spins!” Whether it was true or not, the stubborn exclamation has survived the centuries. It now means:“Say what you want, I’m sure I’m right!”
On Orthodox forums there are often topics about the burning of Giordano Bruno, where Christians very passionately and convincingly argue that Bruno was burned “not for science,” but for heresy. Thank you for the fact that the very fact of grief is not denied. And Bruno himself, presumably, did not care what he was formally burned alive for - for science or heresy. Well, they burned and burned, so what...
Needless to say, Christianity strenuously disavows the medieval persecution of science, trying to tear away Bruno’s image as a martyr of science and prove that the entire Holy Inquisition are the nicest, kindest and most intelligent people. In principle, we have almost been convinced that science in the Middle Ages developed solely thanks to the care and patience of the Inquisition. I willingly believe it.
Bruno refused to recognize the main of his theories as false and was sentenced to death by the Catholic Church, and then burned alive by Christians at the stake in Rome's Campo di Fiore on February 17, 1600. Last words Bruno were:“You probably announced this verdict with more fear than I listened to it... Burning does not mean refute.”
There is such a legend. When Giordano Bruno was being burned in the Piazza des Flowers in Rome, the fire suddenly began to die out: either the wind blew, or the wood became damp. From the crowd of onlookers watching the execution, an old woman, God's dandelion, suddenly rushed to the pyramid of firewood on which Giordano was tied and carefully thrust an armful of dry straw into the dying fire. Remember what Baron Munchausen said in the famous film by Mark Zakharov:“In the end, Galileo also renounced! That's why I always loved Giordano Bruno more..." . And indeed, even under the threat of the death penalty, the medieval thinker remained true to his convictions.
Why did Giordano Bruno so frighten the Catholic Church that, having lost to him in a philosophical dispute, it did not find any other way to fight philosophy and science than to burn its representative? Bruno in his teaching asserted what every person has known for a long time and was even recently recognized by the Vatican, which acquitted Galileo. The Universe is infinite, as is the number of stars in it. The Sun is not a fire lit by the Christian god to revolve around a stationary strip of the Earth and illuminate it, but one of the countless stars, which, like the Earth, rotates in space along its own trajectory. Our Earth is not the only planet in the universe where life exists.
He argued that the same laws apply throughout the universe, and they are based on the material principle. On June 9, 1889, in Rome, in the square of flowers - Campo dei Fiori, where the great scientist Giordano Bruno was burned in 1600, a monument to him was erected. The church made its last justification for the inhumanity of the “holy” Inquisition through the lips of the Jesuit historian Luigi Cicuttini in 1950, who literally said the following:"The manner in which the Church intervened in Bruno's case is justified... the right to intervene is an inherent right, which is not subject to the influence of history" ...Neither subtract nor add.
Notice of the burning of Giordano Bruno.
On Thursday morning, at Campo di Fiore, the Dominican criminal Brother Nolanets, about whom it has already been written before, was burned alive; the most stubborn heretic, who at his own will created various dogmas against our faith and, in particular, against the Most Holy Virgin and the saints, stubbornly wanted to die, remaining a criminal, and said that he was dying as a martyr and voluntarily, and knew that his soul would ascend along with the smoke to Correct. But now he will see whether he was telling the truth.
...No, people have not forgotten that fire
At the turn of the Renaissance.
And three centuries have not passed since then -
Became a monument to Bruno for his torment.
In monastic granite vestments
He looks at Rome from the Square of Flowers...
Heirs of the "seditious" teaching
They follow him in understanding the world.
The path to other Universes is open, to other worlds...
Why did the State Duma speaker “burn” Copernicus, for Galileo’s statement?
“But still she spins!” - “Say what you want, I’m sure I’m right!”
“The boyars in the Duma speak according to what is not written, so that everyone’s stupidity can be seen.” - Peter the First.
State Duma Speaker Boris Gryzlov demonstrated his scholarship “without a piece of paper” in an online interview. Speaking on May 28, 2010 at the press center of Gazeta.Ru (the speech was broadcast on the Internet), he, in particular, touched upon issues of pseudoscience. Speaking about this, the speaker said the following phrase:“These are the Middle Ages! So, Copernicus was burned at the stake because he said, “Still, the Earth rotates!”
Let us recall that Nicolaus Copernicus lived peacefully to the age of 70 and died of a stroke. Phrase“But still the Earth rotates!” attributed to Galileo Galilei, who also died in his bed. And the scientist philosopher Giordano Bruno was burned.“To burn does not mean to refute.”
So in the future we shouldn’t be too surprised if tomorrow our parliamentary “stargazer”, who, by the way, is also the chairman Supreme Council party "United Russia", will declare that the constellation Ursa Major is named so exclusively in honor of his favorite party, and the corporation MP ROC "United Ecumenical Religion" and other religions in Rus' cannot exist...
Encyclopedia of Brockhaus and Efron
Inquisition (lat. Inquisition) - in the ancient Roman criminal process, which was exclusively accusatory, the so-called collection of evidence. If necessary, the prosecutor, at the preliminary stage of the process, received official powers from the praetor and was provided with an open sheet (litterae), by virtue of which he could obtain the evidence he needed, even coercive measures. A historically famous example of such an Inquisitio is the extensive research that Cicero carried out in Sicily before he brought the accusation against Verres to trial. When, during the empire, the accusatory process gave way to the investigative process, justice began to mean an official search, and then a special court created by the Roman Catholic Church to prosecute heretics.
1. The Inquisition is a typically Christian invention.
The Inquisition, as a separate structure, became widespread in the south of Europe: in Spain, Portugal, and to a lesser extent Italy, France and Germany. Therefore, it cannot be called typical for all Christianity. Of course, in other Christian countries there were persecutions of people of other faiths. But, in this case, the Inquisition can be called a typical invention of mankind, because the persecution and execution of people for their beliefs was in different times in different states that have different religions. For example, in the pagan Roman Empire there was a long persecution of Christians. They were given over to be torn to pieces wild animals in the Colosseum, they crucified them, cut them out and made living torches out of them.
There were also mass persecutions of Christians in Persia (Zoroastrianism), in Japan (Buddhism and Shintoism), in China (Buddhism and Taoism), in the USSR (atheism), in Islamic countries, etc.
2. The Inquisition did nothing but burn people.
To be precise, it was not the church itself that burned people, but the secular authorities. Although, of course, when handing over the defendants to them, the inquisitors knew what awaited them. Moreover, some clergy even tried to provide a theological justification for the burning of heretics.
However, burning at the stake was not the most popular punishment among the Inquisition.
The punishments for those convicted were varied:
- sacrifice of candles for the altar and participation in procession,
- money penalty,
- corporal punishment,
- Pillorying,
- branding,
- punishment by imprisonment,
- confiscation of property, - expulsion,
- transfer of the criminal into the hands of secular authorities, often leading to the death penalty.
The most common sentences of the Inquisition were expulsion and confiscation of property. ((see point 4.))
Torture, according to historians, was used in approximately 2 percent of cases.
3. Millions of people became victims of the Inquisition (depending on the author’s imagination, numbers range from several million to 80!)
To see for yourself what human imagination is capable of, just type in a search engine Internet Rambler the phrase “the Inquisition burned millions.” And we'll see how ordinary people they are juggling numbers of millions and even tens of millions of people.
In fact, there are no historical sources confirming this point of view. It is no longer possible to establish the exact number of victims of the Inquisition throughout history. Researchers' estimates have significant differences, but they do not exceed several tens of thousands of people during the entire existence of the Inquisition throughout Europe.
It is appropriate here to present research results from both sides.
Commissioned by Pope John Paul 2, a commission of scientists, some of whom belonged to catholic church, while others were simply secular historians, conducted research into the Inquisition archives.
According to the results of these studies, from 1540 to 1700, the Spanish Inquisition persecuted 44 thousand people on charges of heresy. And only 2 percent of these people were sentenced to death. The other part was sentenced to imprisonment or public repentance. Torture was used, but only in a small number of cases - when the inquisitors had reason not to trust the accused.
The most famous anti-Inquisition data was provided by Juan Antonio Llorente in the book “History of the Spanish Inquisition” for Spain in the years 1540-1700. According to his calculations, it turns out that approximately 31,700 people were burned in Spain, excluding its colonies. Sentenced to other types of punishment - 291,450. As can be seen, even Llorente, who himself served as a secretary in the Inquisition, but then broke with it, admitted that the overwhelming number of sentences did not lead to execution.
Considering that the Spanish Inquisition was the most ferocious (let's say, the Roman Inquisition was much softer), then in any case, apparently, the number of victims of the Inquisition was within the tens of thousands of people throughout its existence.
Of course these thousands real people- victims of the Inquisition, and there is no need to justify her in this.
But still, this is far from millions. For comparison, according to official data only, 681,692 people were shot in the USSR in 1937-1938 alone. (1)
4. Inquisitors are murderers who dreamed only of how more people burn.
In fact, if this were so, then there would be no trials, which sometimes lasted for years and even sometimes tens of years.
The main purpose of the Inquisition was to study a person to determine whether he was a heretic or not, and to try to persuade him to repent. For example, Giordano Bruno was expected to repent for 8 years. As Llorente himself admits (who, we recall, belongs to the opponents of the Inquisition):
“They never brought the case to an auto-da-fé without trying over a long period of time to convert him (the accused) and bring him to unity with the Catholic Church by all means that experience in this matter could inspire. Having ensured the safety of his imprisonment, they allowed and even in some way encouraged him relatives, friends, compatriots, clergy and all people known for their education, visit him in prison and talk with him. The bishop or inquisitor himself came to the accused and persuaded him to return to the bosom of the Church. Although he expressed in his stubbornness the most desire to be burned as quickly as possible (which happened often, because these people considered themselves martyrs and showed their characteristic firmness), the inquisitor never agreed to this; on the contrary, he redoubled kindness and meekness, removed everything that could inspire horror in the condemned man, and tried to assure him that by converting, he would avoid death, as long as he did not fall into heresy again, which is what actually happened..." .( 2)
There are many examples from history when a person avoided punishment if he repented. This applied even to inveterate heretics. For example, Raymond the Fourth, who was the head of the Albigensians, repented and received freedom. However, after this he ordered the brutal torture of the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau...
5. The Inquisition - it was and only the Inquisition that was engaged in witch hunts.
Witch hunts are generally common to all people. And the point here is that the witches themselves actually advertised themselves as people who easily communicate with evil spirits. Therefore it is natural that simple people in case of any misfortune, they took out their anger on them, seeing them as the source of misfortune. Deacon Kuraev in his book “The Un-American Missionary” gave many examples of how sorcerers and witches were killed in non-Christian countries. The Inquisition, on the contrary, although it took part in the witch trials, still treated this issue with caution. In addition to opposing lynchings of witches and introducing trials, it was the Inquisition that ultimately stopped persecution in Catholic countries. The witch hunt itself became most widespread in Protestant states, especially Germany, where, as we know, there was no Inquisition. F. Donovan, a modern historian, writes:
* “If we put a dot on a map for every identified case of witch burning, the greatest concentration of dots would be in the area where France, Germany and Switzerland border. Basel, Lyon, Geneva, Nuremberg and nearby cities would be hidden under many of these points. Solid spots of dots would form in Switzerland and from the Rhine to Amsterdam, as well as in the south of France, splashing England, Scotland and the Scandinavian countries. It should be noted that, at least during the last century of witch hunts, the areas of greatest concentration of points were centers of Protestantism. In fully Catholic countries - Italy, Spain and Ireland - there would be very few points; in Spain there is practically none.”
For example, according to the American historian William T. Walsh, in England 30,000 people were burned for witchcraft and witchcraft, and in Protestant Germany - 100,000."
One of the last witch trials is the famous Salem Trial, which resulted in the execution of 20 people. The Salem trial took place in 1692 in America, where there had never been any Inquisition...
6. The Inquisition is a tool of Christians with which they dealt with all progressive and scientifically minded people.
No that's not true. The Inquisition coexisted well with scientists in the era of the development of universities and science. Many outstanding minds of the era lived well into old age and died in their bed, never communicating with the Inquisition. Moreover, very few ended their lives at the stake. To be even more precise, the most famous martyr of the Inquisition is Giordano Bruno, whose name, one must assume for lack of other names, has been worn out by atheists to the point of indecency. However, science had nothing to do with it, for the simple reason that Giordano Bruno was not a scientist. More precisely, Bruno was the same scientist as Pavel Globa. He was burned not for his studies in science, but for occultism, heresy and public blasphemy. In a denunciation to the Venetian inquisitor, the magnate Giovanni Mocenigo “I, Giovanni Mocenigo, son of the Most Serene Marco Antonio, report out of conscience and by order of my confessor that I heard many times from Giordano Bruno Nolanza, when I talked with him in my house, that when Catholics they say that bread is transformed into a body, then this is a great absurdity; that he... does not see the difference of persons in the deity, and this would mean the imperfection of God; that the world is eternal and there are infinite worlds... that Christ performed imaginary miracles and was a magician, like the apostles, and that he himself would have had the courage to do the same and even much more than them; that Christ did not die of his own free will and, as far as he could, tried to avoid death; that there is no retribution for sins; that souls created by nature pass from one living being to another; that, just as animals are born into depravity, people are born in the same way. He talked about his intention to become the founder of a new sect called “new philosophy.” He said that a virgin could not give birth and that our Catholic faith is filled with blasphemies against the greatness of God; that it is necessary to stop theological bickering and take away the income from the monks, for they are a disgrace to the world; that they are all donkeys; that all our opinions are the doctrine of asses; that we have no evidence whether our faith has merit before God; that for a virtuous life it is completely enough not to do to others what you do not want for yourself ... "
Moreover, it is to Bruno that we should be partly “grateful” that the Inquisition ultimately condemned the theory of Copernicus (73 (!) years after the death of the Polish scientist himself). He linked it very beautifully with various occultism. If Copernicus had not had such “preachers” as Bruno, the censorship ban would not have been imposed on him.
Copernicus himself never suffered from the Inquisition.
There was also Galileo Galilei. But after his repentance, he also lived quietly under the supervision of the inquisitors in his villa Arcetri.
Apart from him, not a single scientist suffered at the hands of the Inquisition specifically for science.
All the lies about Giordano Bruno June 28th, 2016
We once had a post about whether it really is, and now a little about Giordano Bruno.
Who doesn't know about Jordan Bruno? Well, of course, a young scientist who was burned at the stake by the Inquisition for spreading the teachings of Copernicus. What's wrong here? Except for the fact of his execution in Rome in 1600 - that’s all. Giordano Bruno a) was not young, b) was not a scientist, c) he was not executed for spreading the teachings of Copernicus.
But what was it really like?
Myth 1: young
Giordano Bruno was born in 1548, and in 1600 he was 52 years old. Even today no one would call such a man young, but in Europe in the 16th century, a 50-year-old man was rightfully considered elderly. By the standards of that time, Giordano Bruno lived long life. And she was stormy.
He was born near Naples into a military family. The family was poor, the father received 60 ducats a year (an average official - 200-300). Filippo (that was the boy’s name) graduated from school in Naples and dreamed of continuing his education, but the family did not have money for university studies. And Filippo went to the monastery, because the monastery school taught for free. In 1565 he took monastic vows and became Brother Giordano, and in 1575 he set off on a journey.
For 25 years, Bruno traveled all over Europe. Been to France, Italy, Switzerland, Germany, England. Geneva, Toulouse, Sorbonne, Oxford, Cambridge, Marburg, Prague, Wittenberg - he taught at every major European university. Defended 2 doctoral dissertations, wrote and published works. He had a phenomenal memory - contemporaries said that Bruno knew by heart more than 1,000 texts, ranging from the Holy Scriptures to the works of Arab philosophers.
He was not just famous, he was a European celebrity, met with royalty, lived at the court of the French king Henry III, met with Queen of England Elizabeth I and the Pope.
This wise, learned man hardly resembles a young man looking at us from the pages of a textbook!
Myth 2: scientist
In the 13th century, Bruno would undoubtedly have been considered a scientist. But at the end of the 16th century, all hypotheses and assumptions already had to be confirmed by mathematical calculations. Bruno does not have any calculations or figures in his works.
He was a philosopher. In his works (and he left more than 30 of them), Bruno denied the existence of celestial spheres, wrote about the boundlessness of the Universe, that the stars are distant suns around which planets revolve. In England, he published his main work, “On Infinity, the Universe and Worlds,” in which he defended the idea of the existence of other inhabited worlds. (Well, it cannot be that God would calm down after creating just one world! Of course there is more!) Even the inquisitors, considering Bruno a heretic, at the same time recognized him as one of “the most outstanding and rare geniuses imaginable.”
His ideas were perceived by some with enthusiasm, others with indignation. Bruno was invited to visit the largest universities in Europe, only to be expelled with a scandal. At the University of Geneva he was recognized as an insulter to the faith, put in a pillory and kept in prison for two weeks. In response, Bruno did not hesitate to openly call his opponents imbeciles, fools, and donkeys, both verbally and in his writings. He was a talented writer (author of comedies, sonnets, poems) and wrote mocking poems about his opponents, which only made more enemies.
It’s simply amazing that with such a character and such a worldview, Giordano Bruno lived to be over 50 years old.
Execution on the Square of Flowers
In 1591, Bruno came to Venice at the invitation of the aristocrat Giovanni Mocenigo. Having heard about Giordano Bruno's incredible ability to remember huge amounts of information, Senor Mocenigo was inflamed with a desire to master mnemonics (the art of memory). At that time, many scientists earned money as tutors, Bruno was no exception. A trusting relationship was established between teacher and student, and on May 23, 1592, Mocenigo, as a true son of the Catholic Church, wrote a denunciation against the teacher to the Inquisition.
Bruno spent almost a year in the cellars of the Venetian Inquisition. In February 1593, the philosopher was transported to Rome. For 7 years, Bruno was demanded to renounce his views. On February 9, 1600, he was declared by the Inquisitorial court to be “an unrepentant, stubborn and inflexible heretic.” He was defrocked and excommunicated and handed over to the secular authorities with a recommendation to execute him “without shedding blood,” i.e. burn alive. According to legend, after hearing the verdict, Bruno said: “To burn does not mean to refute.”
On February 17, Giordano Bruno was burned in Rome in a square with the poetic name “Place of Flowers.”
Myth 3: execution for scientific views
Giordano Bruno was executed not at all for his views on the structure of the Universe and not for promoting the teachings of Copernicus. The heliocentric system of the world, in which the Sun was in the center, and not the Earth, was not supported by the church at the end of the 16th century, but it was not denied either; supporters of the teachings of Copernicus were not persecuted and were not dragged to the stake.
Only in 1616, when Bruno had been burned for 16 years, Pope Paul V declared the Copernican model of the world to be contrary to Scripture and the astronomer’s work was included in the so-called. "Index of Banned Books".
The idea of the existence of many worlds in the Universe was not a revelation for the church. “The world that surrounds us and in which we live is not the only possible world and is not the best of worlds. It is just one of an infinite number of possible worlds. He is perfect to the extent that God is reflected in him in some way.” This is not Giordano Bruno, this is Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274), a recognized authority of the Catholic Church, the founder of theology, canonized in 1323.
And the works of Bruno himself were declared heretical only three years after the end of the trial, in 1603! Then why was he declared a heretic and sent to the stake?
The mystery of the verdict
In fact, why the philosopher Bruno was declared a heretic and sent to the stake is unknown. The verdict that reached us says that he was charged with 8 counts, but which ones were not specified. What kind of sins did Bruno have that the Inquisition was even afraid to publicize them before his execution?
From the denunciation of Giovanni Mocenigo: “I report out of conscience and by order of my confessor that I heard many times from Giordano Bruno when I talked with him in his house that the world is eternal and there are infinite worlds... that Christ performed imaginary miracles and was a magician, that Christ he did not die of his own free will and, as far as he could, tried to avoid death; that there is no retribution for sins; that souls created by nature pass from one living being to another. He talked about his intention to become the founder of a new sect called “new philosophy.” He said that the Virgin Mary could not give birth; monks disgrace the world; that they are all donkeys; that we have no proof whether our faith has merit before God.” This is not just a heresy, this is something completely beyond the boundaries of Christianity.
Intelligent, educated, undoubtedly a believer in God (no, he was not an atheist), well-known in theological and secular circles, Giordano Bruno, based on his picture of the vision of the world, created a new philosophical doctrine, which threatened to undermine the foundations of Christianity. For almost 8 years the holy fathers tried to persuade him to renounce his natural philosophical and metaphysical beliefs and were unable to do so. It is difficult to say how justified their fears were, and whether Brother Giordano would have become the founder of a new religion, but they considered it dangerous to release the unbroken Bruno into the wild.
Does all this diminish the scale of Giordano Bruno's personality? Not at all. He truly was a great man of his time, who did a lot to promote advanced scientific ideas. In his treatises, he went much further than Copernicus and Thomas Aquinas, and expanded the boundaries of the world for humanity. And of course he will forever remain a model of fortitude.
Myth 4, last: justified by the church
You can often read in the press that the church admitted its mistake and rehabilitated Bruno and even recognized him as a saint. This is wrong. Until now, Giordano Bruno, in the eyes of the Catholic Church, remains an apostate from the faith and a heretic.
Vladimir Arnold, academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences and honorary member dozens of foreign academies, one of the leading mathematicians of the 20th century, when meeting with Pope John Paul II, asked why Bruno had not yet been rehabilitated? Dad replied: “When you find aliens, then we’ll talk.”
Well, the fact that in the Square of Flowers, where the fire broke out on February 17, 1600, a monument to Giordano Bruno was erected in 1889, does not mean at all that the Roman Church is happy about this monument.
