Did Cosmos Get Bruno's Story Wrong?

[GenesisNemesis]

This blogger argues that. On Reddit, I happened to get the chance to ask him some questions. Mainly, what the specific accusations against Bruno were, and how many/which were required for the penalty of imprisonment/execution. These were the accusations:

*holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith and speaking against it and its ministers;
*holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about the Trinity, divinity of Christ, and Incarnation;
*holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith pertaining to Jesus as Christ;
*holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith regarding the virginity of Mary, mother of Jesus;
*holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith about both Transubstantiation and Mass;
*claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity;
*believing in metempsychosis and in the transmigration of the human soul into brutes;
*dealing in magics and divination.
From Luigi Firpo, Il processo di Giordano Bruno ( Napoli, 1949)

Tim said that any one of those accusations would have been sufficient for imprisonment/execution if they were proven. I'd say that kind of weakens the argument that Cosmos oversimplified the story of Bruno; moreover, I highly doubt that the Inquisition adhered to a strict definition of "heresy", and it's plausible that simply "claiming the existence of a plurality of worlds and their eternity;" would have been sufficient. In addition, that would have been seen as a violation of Catholic teachings, so of course Bruno was "holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith". If someone is holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith, all else follows. Also, he mentions Nicholas of Cusa, a theologian, who Bruno drew inspiration from, but does not mention that Nicholas of Cusa was actually charged with heresy by another theologian, though it was not an official charge. He wrote "Apologia doctae ignorantiae", or "The Defense of Learned Ignorance" in response. The reason he wasn't executed was probably because he got lucky.

 

[Underseer]

The guy was tortured and imprisoned for decades. How many of those other charges would even exist if not for his original heresy about the cosmos himself?

 

[Perspicuo]

Cannot know for usre until the letter of the proceedings is read. Luckily others have done that for us. Wikipedia says (with sources) that, citing the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, that "in 1600 there was no official Catholic position on the Copernican system, and it was certainly not a heresy. When [...] Bruno [...] was burned at the stake as a heretic, it had nothing to do with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology."

 

[fta]

According to the Catholic Encylopedia (admittedly not the most impartial of sources):

...Bruno was not condemned for his defence of the Copernican system of astronomy, nor for his doctrine of the plurality of inhabited worlds, but for his theological errors, among which were the following: that Christ was not God but merely an unusually skilful magician, that the Holy Ghost is the soul of the world, that the Devil will be saved, etc.

 

[doubtingt]

*holding opinions contrary to the Catholic faith and speaking against it and its ministers;


This charge alone is so broad that it means that anything that the church authorities feel is "against the Catholic faith" is punishable heresy. That would certainly include his ideas about the Cosmos and his corollary pantheistic notions of an infinite God (which the Cosmos series also talked about as reasons for Bruno's punishments. Besides, all of other theological "crimes" he was charged with were part of and were inferences he drew from his cosmological ideas about an infinite universe, so his cosmology did land him in prison whether directly or indirectly.

Cannot know for usre until the letter of the proceedings is read. Luckily others have done that for us. Wikipedia says (with sources) that, citing the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, that "in 1600 there was no official Catholic position on the Copernican system, and it was certainly not a heresy. When [...] Bruno [...] was burned at the stake as a heretic, it had nothing to do with his writings in support of Copernican cosmology."

That is just silly to claim that the Church felt the need to have an official position that explicitly cites a specific disallowed view before charging heresy. Heresy was anything that was not the accepted view of the Church authorities. If those authorities felt a view was not compatible with their understanding of the faith, then it was heresy one could be killed for, regardless of whether the Church had already made it clear that that particular view was outlawed.
Besides, it is clear that the church was increasingly opposing the Copernican cosmology at that time. Galileo had started teaching it in 1588 and the Church began its attack on Galileo for espousing Copernican theory just 13 years after Bruno's death and the Inquisition formally ruled the theory heretical just 3 years after that. They didn't go from being fine with it to it being formally heretical overnight. It is almost certain that most church authorities informally thought the views heretical when Bruno was espousing them, which would be more than enough to prompt them to execute him for heresy under the extremely vague charges listed above. Besides, Bruno went beyond Copernicus and espoused a view that made the Earth (and thus mankind) seem infinitely less central and important. So even if the church would not have executed at that time just for espousing heliocentrism that doesn't mean they didn't executed him for his cosmology which went beyond heliocentrism.

In the end, Bruno was killed by religious authorities because he espoused an alternative cosmology and inferred the implications of that cosmology. It doesn't matter that Bruno himself was advocating an alternative theology and was not a scientist. He was killed for reasoning about the implications of scientific ideas, and there can be no reasonable doubt that his execution stunted scientific progress by making countless would be scientists to scared to ponder the cosmos and most of the public too scared to consider Copernicus, Galileo and any idea of other scientists not officially endorsed by the Church. The critiques of how Cosmos portrayed it are hair-splitting irrelevant distractions by religious apologists.

 

[fromderinside]

Ever listen to Catholic music from that era. Dominant themes contrition, divinity, music of the spheres.

Case closed.