i BRUNO'S CREED 77 



truth according to the faith may be impugned. In this 

 universe I place a universal providence, in virtue of 

 which everything lives, grows, moves, and comes to and 

 abides in its perfection. It is present in two fashions : 

 the one is that in which the spirit is present in the body, 

 wholly in the whole, and wholly in any part of the 

 whole, and that I call nature, the shadow, the footprint 

 of divinity ; the other is the ineffable way in which God 

 by essence, presence and power, is in all and above all, 

 not as part, not as spirit or life, but in an inexplicable 

 way. Then in the divinity, I regard all attributes as 

 being one and the same thing. With theologians and 

 the greatest philosophers I assume three attributes 

 power, wisdom, and goodness, or mind, understanding, 

 and love ; through these, things have, first, existence by 

 reason of mind ; then an ordered and distinct existence 

 by reason of understanding ; third, concord and sym- 

 metry by reason of love. Distinction in divinity is thus 

 posited by way of reason, not of substantial truth." 

 God in Himself is one ; but three aspects of this unity \ { \ 

 may be distinguished, Mind (Will or Force or Power), 

 Understanding (Knowledge, the Word), and Love or 

 Soul. These three aspects correspond, of course, to the 

 three Persons of the Godhead, the Father, the Son, and 

 the Holy Spirit respectively. Bruno confesses, however, 

 to have doubted, from the philosophic point of view, 

 the becoming flesh of the Understanding or Word of 

 God, although he did not remember giving definite 

 expression to this doubt ; and as to the Spirit, he did 

 not think of it as a person, but rather as the soul or life 

 in the universe. 1 "From the Spirit, the life of the 

 universe, springs, in my philosophy, the life and soul 



1 Bruno refers to the Pythagorean doctrine, quoting the Mneid, vi. 724 ff. : Prln- 

 cifio catlum . . . mens agitat molem. 



