and to prove
his superiority in knowledge over S. Thomas and all the theologians, was
Bruno's cherished scheme. He did not believe in the punishment of sins;
but held a doctrine of the transmigration of souls, and of the
generation of the human soul from refuse. The world he thought to be
eternal. He maintained that there were infinite worlds, all made by God,
who wills to do what he can do, and therefore produces infinity. The
religious orders of Catholicism defile the earth by evil life,
hypocrisy, and avarice. All friars are only asses. Indulgence in carnal
pleasures ought not to be reckoned sinful. The man confessed to having
freely satisfied his passions to the utmost of his opportunities.

On being questioned before the Inquisitors, Mocenigo supported these
charges. He added that when he had threatened Bruno with delation, Bruno
replied, first, that he did not believe he would betray his confidence
by making private conversation the groundwork of criminal charges;
secondly, that the utmost the Inquisition could do, would be to inflict
some penance and force him to resume the cowl. These, which are
important assertions, bearing the mark of truth, throw light on his want
of caution in dealing with Mocenigo, and explain the attitude he
afterwards assumed before the Holy Office.

Mocenigo's accusations in the main yield evidences of sincerity. They
are exactly what we should expect from the distortion of Bruno's
doctrines by a mind incapable of comprehending them. In short, they are
as veracious as the image of a face reflected on a spoon. Certain gross
details (the charges, for example, of having called Christ a _tristo_
who was deservedly hung, and of having sneered at the virginity of Mary)
may possibly have emanated from the delator's own imagination.[107]

[Footnote 107: They remind us of the blasphemies imputed to Christopher
Marlowe.]

Bruno emphatically repudiated these; though some passages in his
philosophical poems, published at Frankfort, contain the substance of
their blasphemies. A man of Mocenigo's stamp probably thought that he
was faithfully representing the heretic's views, while in reality he was
drawing his own gross conclusions from skeptical utterances about the
origin of Christianity which he obscurely understood. It does not seem
incredible, however, that Bruno, who was never nice in his choice of
language, and who certainly despised historical Christianity, let fall
crude witticisms upon s