ji MEDIAEVAL RATIONALISM 305 



in the knowledge of God. 1 Neither must we call to 

 the bar of reason what is above reason, summon before 

 our tribunal " cases " of eternity, 2 nor on the other 

 hand must faith be allowed to prejudice the discovery 

 of truth by natural methods : if so, it becomes a danger 

 and a snare. 3 Bruno was therefore a Rationalist only 

 in a limited sense : while he claimed for the philosopher 

 entire freedom of interpretation of religious dogmas or 

 legends, the interpretation was to be governed not by the 

 facts of ordinary knowledge, but by the mystical in- 

 tuition of divine truth, given, in inspired moments, to 

 the heroic soul. There were two types of rationalism 

 in mediaeval philosophy that of Averroes, which 

 sought to supplant the positive religions by a religion of 

 philosophy, and that of Scotus Erigena, which aimed at 

 upholding popular faiths while allowing the philosopher 

 freedom of thought in interpreting the doctrines these 

 faiths involved. Bruno's rationalism is clearly of the 

 second type, although personally he disliked all pre- 

 vailing religions for the reasons already given. 4 All 

 positive religions expressed for him one and the same 

 truth, some more, some less adequately, that the 

 supreme end of human activity is the union of the 

 soul with God, whereby it becomes one with God and 

 is raised above the sphere of sense and reason, above 

 nature, out of the ordinary cycle of human life and 

 human death. That which of all others most nearly 

 approached his ideal was the half-mythical religion of Egyptian 

 the Egyptians, from whom indeed he believed the later Animism, 

 religions, as well as the earlier philosophies, to have been 

 inspired. The Egyptian worship of the gods in the 

 form of living animals was symbolic of the truth that 



1 Loc. cit. p. 99, sub Fides. 2 Ib. 8. Auc tontas ; cf. Causa, Lag. 271. 40. 



3 E.g. Inf. Lag. 378. 16. 4 Cf. Tocco, Conferenza, p. 50 ff. 



X 



