n would have burnt Bruno) that all
Rome would tell him that Bruno died for Lutheranism; but this is because
the Italians do not know the difference between one heresy and another, in
which simplicity (says the writer) may God preserve them. That is to say,
they knew the difference between a live heretic and a roasted one by actual
inspection, but had no idea of the difference between a Lutheran and a
Calvinist. The countrymen of Boccaccio would have smiled at the idea which
the German scholar entertained of them. They said Bruno was burnt for
Lutheranism, a name under which they classed all Protestants: and they are
better witnesses than Schopp, or Scioppius. He then proceeds to describe to
his Protestant friend (to whom he would certainly not have omitted any act
which both their churches would have condemned) the mass of opinions with
which Bruno was charged; as that there {61} are innumerable worlds, that
souls migrate, that Moses was a magician, that the Scriptures are a dream,
that only the Hebrews descended from Adam and Eve, that the devils would be
saved, that Christ was a magician and deservedly put to death, etc. In
fact, says he, Bruno has advanced all that was ever brought forward by all
heathen philosophers, and by all heretics, ancient and modern. A time for
retractation was given, both before sentence and after, which should be
noted, as well for the wretched palliation which it may afford, as for the
additional proof it gives that opinions, and opinions only, brought him to
the stake. In this medley of charges the Scriptures are a dream, while
Adam, Eve, devils, and salvation are truths, and the Saviour a deceiver. We
have examined no work of Bruno except the _De Monade_, etc., mentioned in
the text. A strong though strange _theism_ runs through the whole, and
Moses, Christ, the Fathers, etc., are cited in a manner which excites no
remark either way. Among the versions of the cause of Bruno's death is
_atheism_: but this word was very often used to denote rejection of
revelation, not merely in the common course of dispute, but by such
writers, for instance, as Brucker[71] and Morhof.[72] Thus Morhof says of
the _De Monade, etc._, that it exhibits no manifest signs of atheism. What
he means by the word is clear enough, when he thus speaks of a work which
acknowledges God in hundreds of places, and rejects opinions as blasphemous
in several. The work of Bruno in which his astronomical opinions are
contained i