8o GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



and had read their books from curiosity merely, although 

 there were others, as those of Raymond Lully, which 

 he had kept by him because they treated of matters 

 Aquinas, philosophical. Saint Thomas Aquinas, on the other 

 hand, he had always esteemed and loved as his own 

 soul ; had his writings always by him, read, studied, and 

 pondered over them ; and had spoken of Aquinas in 

 one of his works as " The Honour and Light of all 

 the race of theologians, and of Peripatetics among 

 philosophers." * When he had spoken of good works 

 as necessary for salvation, he had in his mind not 

 Catholicism, but " the reformed religion, which is in 

 fact deformed in the extreme/' One by one Mocenigo's 

 charges were read, and denied, except that as to his 

 contrasting the apostles' method of spreading the Gospel 

 with that of the Catholic Church, this charge he evaded. 

 When the grossest of all, however, was read, alleging 

 him to have said the apparent miracles of Christ and 

 the apostles were due to the black art, and that he 

 himself could equally well do them all he could not 

 restrain himself; "raising both hands, and crying, 

 * What is this ? Who has invented these devilries ? I 

 never said such a thing, it never entered my imagi- 

 nation ; oh God ! what is this ? I would rather be dead 

 than that such a thing should have been uttered by 

 me ! ' His references to women he admitted an 

 error, but they had been spoken in lightness amid 

 company and during talk of things " otiose and 

 mundane. " Threatened with extreme measures if he 

 refused to confess his errors with respect to the Church, 

 Bruno promised to make a greater effort to recall all 

 he had said and done against the Christian and Catholic 

 faith, protested the sincerity of all he said, and was left 



1 De Monade (Op. Lat. i. 2. p. 415). 



