GIORDANO BRUNO 



dox teachings of the Church. He believed in the 

 possibility of a perfect peace between Philosophy 

 and Religion, and of a fusion of all religions into 

 one " Since they contained as their foundation the 

 same truth, the same faith, -the same God." His 

 views, held modestly but firmly, seem to have given 

 no offence. 



At the end of the 16th century Bruno found a 

 different atmosphere around the Church. The re- 

 action against the Reformation was at its height. The 

 theories of Copernicus, of Keplar and of others 

 alarmed the Church ; they threatened the stability of 

 the foundation of all Christian teaching, and as Bruno 

 had spread his learning and his books over all Europe, 

 Protestant and Catholic, so was his punishment to be 

 sure and inevitable ; a lesson to the world. It seems, 

 though, that no presentiment of his fate was felt by 

 him on entering Italy. He was so well convinced 

 that his ideas of Philosophy and Religion were right, 

 and that in the latter he was not heretical, that he 

 felt no fear. When he had spent years in prison he 

 was still unchanged, and was willing to die rather 

 than be false to his convictions and recant, as Galileo 

 did. The Metaphysics, Religion and Philosophy of 

 Bruno may be told in his own words : 



" It is recognized as an universal truth that every 

 compound or thing divisible has for its foundation 



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