1 30 GIORDANO BRUNO PART 



Hebrew sages, who attribute body to the omnipotent 

 God, calling him c a consuming fire ' " : below Him 

 were innumerable Gods, flames of fire, and spirits of air ? 

 which were subtle, active, mobile bodies : souls too were 

 spirits that is, subtle bodies ; and Bruno adds, " We 

 do not pursue this mode of philosophising, but are far 

 from despising it, nor have ever thought that a wise 

 man should think it contemptible." l The theology or 

 Egyptian theosophy of the Egyptians is praised in the Spaccio? 



theosophy. . IT- i r -n 



" The magical and divine cult of the Egyptians, who 

 saw divinity in all things, and in all actions (each 

 manifesting divinity in its own special way) ; and knew 

 by means of its forms in the bosom of nature how to 

 secure the benefits they derived from it as out of the 

 sea and rivers it gives fish, out of the deserts wild 

 beasts, and out of mines metals, out of trees fruits, and 

 out of certain parts of nature, certain animals, certain 

 brutes, certain plants, are gifted certain fates, virtues, 

 fortunes, or impressions. Divinity in the sea was 

 called Neptune, in the sun Apollo, in the earth Ceres, 

 in the deserts Diana, and diversely in each of the other 

 species of things : as divine ideas, they were diverse 

 deities in Nature, and all were referred to one deity of 

 deities, one source of Ideas above Nature." The 

 passage- shows clearly the connection between the 

 revived enthusiasm for the old pagan cults and the new 

 but dark beginnings of independent study of nature, in 

 Magic, Divination, Alchemy, and Astrology : equally 

 close was the connection of both with the revival of 

 Pantheism, the conception of nature as a single whole 

 throbbing with one life, springing from one single 

 Hebrew source. So of the Hebrew Cabala, Bruno writes, " its 

 wisdom (whatever it be in its kind) derives from the 



1 Op. Lot. i. 2. 409. 2 Lag. 532. 



