Mersenne's Critique of Giordano Bruno's Conception of the Relation

between God and the Universe: A Reappraisal

Miguel A. Granada

Perspectives on Science, Volume 18, Number 1, Spring 2010,

pp. 26-49 (Article)

Published by The MIT Press

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Mersenne’s Critique of
Giordano Bruno’s
Conception of the
Relation between God
and the Universe:
A Reappraisal
Miguel A. Granada
University of Barcelona

We re-examine Mersenne’s critique of Giordano Bruno concerning the ques-

tion of the extension of the universe and the plurality of worlds as well as
that of universal animation. For this, it is necessary to distinguish, espe-
cially in the examination of the ªrst question, the strictly cosmological prob-
lem from its metaphysical and theological foundation in which the relation
between God and the universe is resolved. Mersenne’s critique fundamentally
concerns this second side of our problem, according to his conviction that
Bruno repeats the age-old errors of philosophical paganism and reafªrms an
‘impiety’ completely incompatible with Christian doctrine.
Marin Mersenne’s critical reaction to the diverse aspects of Giordano
Bruno’s philosophy that had come to his attention, particularly its cosmo-
logical components and the relationship the Italian philosopher estab-
lished between the universe and God, has been the object of several impor-
tant studies. Setting aside the consideration of the subject in R. Lenoble’s
foundational monograph (Lenoble 1971, pp. 259–264) as well as in other
classical monographs of French authors like J.-R. Charbonnel or H. Bus-
son (Charbonnel 1919; Busson 1933), those who have dealt with it more
continuously have been mainly Italian scholars. From N. Badaloni’s 1958
inaugural study (Badaloni 1958, pp. 489–492) and the quick review
within S. Ricci’s vast study of Bruno’s posthumous fortune which he has
continued discussing in his more recent remarkable study (Ricci 1990,
pp. 86–95; Ricci 1996, pp. 25–29), to A. Del Prete’s successive works
(Del Prete 1998, pp. 139–161; 2000, passim; 2002, pp. 437–440), the
examination of this problem has become sharper and more precise, as the

I thank Ramon G. Mendoza for the English translation of the Spanish original version.

Perspectives on Science 2010, vol. 18, no. 1

©2010 by The Massachusetts Institute of Technology

26
Perspectives on Science 27

complexity of the French author’s reaction to the Italian thinker’s specula-

tive audacities has become increasingly clear. Additionally, in recent years
Claudio Buccolini’s research has made an important contribution not only
by the precision of his analyses but also by his discovery and publication of
some of Mersenne’s unedited manuscripts that attest to his permanent at-
tention to Bruno after the frantic years of apologetics against impiety, that
is, of Mersenne’s intense publicizing activity between 1623 and 1625
(Buccolini 1999, 2000). Having occupied myself cursorily with the prob-
lem (Granada 2000, pp. 131–134),1 my objective in this presentation is to
undertake a reexamination starting from the contributions I have indi-
cated and several other studies on the cosmological, philosophical, and
theological debate of that historical moment with the intention of making
a provisional assessment.

1. Quaestiones in Genesim (1623)

In 1623 Mersenne joins the phalanx ªghting impiety by publishing a
thick volume he began to write two years before: the Quaestiones celeberr-
imae in Genesim. Bruno’s name appears only in the Prologue which was
written for publication in 1623, speciªcally within the frame of a solemn
declaration addressing the Italian novatores (Campanella, Bruno, Telesio),
as well as the European scientists championing a new science (Kepler, Ga-
lileo, Gilbert) to ‘protest’ and proclaim that Catholic doctors and theolo-
gians not be blindly submissive to Aristotle, but follow him only when he
is in agreement with experience and reason, since they only submit to
God, the author of truth (Lenoble 1971, p. 224). Everything seems to in-
dicate that Mersenne still does not know Bruno directly and that his infor-
mation about Bruno’s philosophy proceeds from what he has been able to
learn about it in Kepler’s work (through the critique of the Brunian con-
ception of the inªnite and homogeneous universe and the inªnite worlds
in De stella nova of 1606 and the Dissertatio cum Nuncio Sidereo of 1610) and
also in Campanella’s Apologia pro Galileo, published in 1622. Accordingly,
there is not enough evidence to look for the ªrst act of the critique and
confrontation with Bruno in this work of Mersenne.
Nonetheless, the majority of authors dealing with this subject start by
studying the Quaestiones in Genesim and speciªcally Mersenne’s discussion
of the Quaestio XIX (De mundis) in his two articles: I. “Whether in addi-
tion to this world which we know was completed on the seventh day there
1. In Spain the important essays by C. Gómez 1997a and 1997b must be mentioned.
Recently in France J. Seidengart has devoted a brief, but insightful essay to the subject; see
Seidengart 2003 (for the most part reprinted in Seidengart 2006, pp. 302–316). For an-
other recent contribution in France, see Margolin 2004.
28 Mersenne’s Critique of Giordano Bruno

is some other one unknown to us” (in which Mersenne adduces a series of
reasons in favor of the plurality of worlds); II. “Where it is proven that the
world is only one and objections are answered.” Undoubtedly, the reason
for focusing on these passages is that although Mersenne is not thinking
speciªcally about Bruno and actually had not yet become familiar with his
work, he broaches a fundamental Brunian subject with this question,
which will draw his attention to Bruno’s work in his polemic of 1624 (by
which time he had already read Bruno). However, there is no further rea-
son for regarding these pages as a prelude to a future polemic with Bruno
in place of other passages where Mersenne discusses certain problems that
are going to be the object of his polemic with Bruno as well: the eternity
or the creation of the world in time2 or the existence of the soul of the
world and the earth. I believe it is possible to connect this predilection or
focalization with the fact that the plurality of worlds (connected with the
inªnity of the universe, although logically independent of it) is a central
theme in Bruno and in the scientiªc revolution of the seventeenth century;
Mersenne’s position regarding this, with the nuances and the evolution
that his work manifests since 1623, is an indication of his place in this
process.
Focusing, however, on the question about the extension of the universe
and the plurality of worlds, it is also convenient to specify that the infor-
mation Mersenne has about Bruno in 1623 derived from Kepler and
Campanella seems to be of a strictly cosmological nature. In fact, in their
information about Bruno in the works we have indicated, Kepler and
Campanella expound, with a more or less critical reservation, Bruno’s cos-
mological conception of an inªnite and homogeneous universe consisting
in an inªnite repetition of solar systems (which began with the identiªcat-
ion star-sun) and consequently of ‘worlds’ (in the sense of systems as well
as of heavenly bodies). On the contrary, they made no reference to the rela-
tionship of derivation between the universe, the worlds, and the divine
cause that produced them.3 This conditioning is important because it in-
dicates that for Mersenne, at least in the question De mundis, Bruno ap-
pears as yet another member of the phalanx of those who maintained the
plurality of worlds. It also allows us to understand that the question does
not have a special gravity from a theological point of view, since the fun-
damental principles of Christian theology do not seem to be questioned or
threatened by the defenders of the plurality of worlds, at least not explic-
itly. Moreover, the thesis of the plurality of worlds is presented, in the

2. See the comments in Margolin 2004, pp. 442–444.

3. See, however, a brief reference in Kepler 2006, p. 253, lines 3–8. On this, see also
Granada 2008.
Perspectives on Science 29

opinion of those who stand for it, as perfectly coherent with sound Chris-
tian piety.
The thesis of the plurality of worlds is presented by Mersenne as the
opinion of a personage “mihi charissimus” and “mihi amicissimus” (“my
most beloved and my dearest friend”), who holds it not pertinaciously at
all, but who declares to be ready to “submit himself entirely, should it dif-
fer from the opinion and doctrine of the Catholic Church, in whose bosom
he hopes and has determined to remain until his last breath” (Mersenne
1623, col. 1081 and 1078 [?1086]) With this disposition, the arguments
adduced in favor of the plurality of worlds can be grouped in the following
way: 1) such was the opinion of authorized ancient philosophers; 2) it is
what is due to the inªnite power and goodness of God according to the
principle of plenitude (arguments 3–6);4 3) this is what apparently can be
deduced from Galileo’s telescopic observations and from such heavenly
novelties as the nova in Cassiopeia (1572) and the comets (argument 7). In
this last instance it can be noticed that Mersenne tends to use the word
‘mundus’ in a double sense: on the one hand, as heavenly body or inhab-
ited star, based on the analogy of the telescopic phenomenology of the
moon with our ‘world’ (the Earth) in the light of Kepler’s interpretation in
the Dissertatio or the ªnality of Jupiter’s satellites: the constructions of the
Moon show that it is an inhabited world, and that Jupiter’s satellites, al-
though they are invisible to us, shine for the inhabitants of that region.
On the other hand, ‘world’ means a group of heavenly bodies with sun,
moon, and different animals in either one of them because it is possible
that the stars in the ªrmament are witnesses of other worlds different from
ours, “for which they may be like the sun and the moon” (Mersenne 1623,
col. 1076 [?1084]). In relation to this last usage, it is possible to interpret
the new stars as the one in Cassiopeia (1572) or the comets (whose heav-
enly character has been demonstrated by Tycho Brahe) as messengers from
other worlds.
Mersenne puts the plurality of worlds in the mouth of the advocate
of the conviction—already expressed by Campanella in his Apologia pro
Galileo—that this doctrine is not explicitly condemned by the Scriptures
and by the Church nor has it ever been declared heretical. On the other
hand, it is clear that this poses delicate or even ‘absurd’ problems as, for
example, whether the presence of human beings in the other worlds im-
plies that “the Son of God assumed their nature or has died for them too.”
In any case, it is acknowledged that all these theological difªculties can be
coped with if it is stated that the creation of this or any other world is the
result of a free divine decision, taken in the moment and in the manner ar-

4. Cf. above, footnote 3.

30 Mersenne’s Critique of Giordano Bruno

bitrarily chosen by God: “Verum his omnibus facillime quis occurret, si

responderit Deum hunc, aut illum mundum, vel etiam plures pro libitu creasse,
ubi voluit, quando et quomodo voluit” (Mersenne 1623, col. 1078 [?1086];
our emphasis).
An appeal to the divine free will, besides putting it in the mouth of the
advocates of the pluralist thesis, is in line with Mersenne’s position with
respect to the problem, and is a prelude to the basic premise of his later re-
sponse to Bruno’s necessity argument. This becomes clear in the second ar-
ticle of the quaestio. Here Mersenne reiterates that the oneness of the world
is not a truth of faith, since it is not clearly stated in the Scriptures, nor
has it been deªned as such in any ecumenical council. It is clearly a theme
of theological disputation (“theologia argumentatrix”) and for this reason
the opponent may not be branded as heretic, but at most as ‘temerarious’
(Mersenne 1623, col. 1079 [?1087]).
In any case, Mersenne adduces some counterarguments that in his opin-
ion soundly refute those that have been previously raised in favor of the
plurality. These are counterarguments that function more or less in the
ªeld of theology alone, whereas, practically setting aside the strictly cos-
mological and physical arguments, they also anticipate—as we have
said—the principles of his critique of Bruno’s inªnitism. Thus, with re-
gard to the appeal to the authority of the ancient philosophers (argument
2), Mersenne responds that their afªrmation of an inªnite universe and of
inªnite worlds was founded on a “very confused notion of God and full of
errors” which led them to think that God “acts naturally and necessarily,”
thereby producing an inªnite effect: “for what else did they think could
proceed from an inªnite agent that operates with all its potency other than
something inªnite?” (Mersenne 1623, col. 1090). This, then, shall be ex-
actly Bruno’s theological premise, a premise that also intends to restore
the notion of divinity—in his opinion the correct one, though distorted
by Scholastic theology—a common trait of the ancient philosophy, but
which Mersenne considers heretical5 from his Christian point of view.
Likewise, Mersenne opposes the correct and genuine Christian concep-
tion of God to the arguments 3–6 that functioned from the principle of
plenitude. Since God is a “most free cause” (“causa liberrima”), it makes
no sense to investigate the cause of His actions, because these proceed sim-
ply from His will: “it is most certain that God’s will is the sole cause of
whatever he does” (“certissimum est eorum quae facit, solam causam esse
voluntatem ipsius,” Mersenne 1623, col. 1091). This is nothing but a

5. See Gilson 1913, pp. 149–156 (where Mersenne’s position on divine freedom is con-
nected with St. Thomas); Lenoble 1971, pp. 272–281 (where the indebtedness to nominal-
ism is highlighted) and Dear 1988, pp. 53–62 for a more balanced position.
Perspectives on Science 31

solid and radical afªrmation of voluntarism, which we can relate to Aqui-

nas, but to the Scotist and nominalist traditions as well. To the voluntarist
foundation of creation is added the rejection of the necessity or conve-
nience of the effective realization of possibility. Indeed, the plurality of
worlds is possible for God and his inªnite power, but Mersenne afªrms
that the effective realization does not add anything to God. It sufªces for
the inªnite greatness of God that he can act inªnitely, although de facto
does not act inªnitely. Evidently, although Mersenne never makes it ex-
plicit, his counterargument is based on the Scholastic distinction between
God’s absolute power (potentia absoluta: God can absolutely do everything
that is possible, that is, everything that does not imply contradiction) and
God’s ordained power (potentia ordinata), namely, the absolutely possible
that his free will wants to produce, that is, the effective creation. It is the
absolute power that evidences the divine inªnity: the effective production
adds nothing to God.6
Against the seventh argument (the only one founded on cosmological
considerations, based speciªcally on the heavenly novelties and the evi-
dences of the telescope), Mersenne objects that this is nothing but a ridic-
ulous argument: novae, comets, satellites of Jupiter and so forth, cannot be
in another world since they are in this one. How can they be messengers of
a world that does not exist other than in our imagination?
Finally, by continuing the polemic against the principle of plenitude
and by appealing to the distinction in the divine power, Mersenne insists
that what is possible (from potentia absoluta), does not need to be real (to
exist from potentia ordinata). The selective ªlter of the divine free will
keeps them apart (Mersenne repeats: “The Creator’s will is the only cause
of all things”) and, on the other hand, whatever may be the number of
worlds created by God in virtue of the mere possibility of being, would
necessarily be a small number with regard to God’s absolute, inªnite
power. Evidently, Mersenne takes for granted that the plenitude, in the re-
alization of the worlds, never passes from what is inªnite in potency to
what is inªnite in act. No matter how large the plurality of worlds is, it
would never be an inªnity of worlds and consequently it would always be
null compared to the inªnite God: “whichever quantity and all the other

6. Mersenne 1623, col. 1091: “I say we do not concede properly to God more, when we
declare him author of a plurality of worlds, than when we afªrm that these worlds are pos-
sible to him. That he makes or not what is submitted to his power certainly adds nothing
to his perfection” (“Dico nos non plura Deo proprie concedere, cum plurimorum
mundorum autorem illum facimus, quam dum mundos istos ei possibiles afªrmamus:
nihil siquidem ad eius perfectionem accedit, quod faciat, vel non efªciat, quae eius subsunt
potestati”). On the distinction between absolute and ordained power in the Middle Ages see
Oakley 1984; Randi 1987; Courtenay 1990.
32 Mersenne’s Critique of Giordano Bruno

things outside God are necessarily ªnite; between the ªnite and the
inªnite there is no proportion” (“omnis quantitas, & caetera, quae sunt ex-
tra Deum, ªnita esse necesse est; ªniti vero ad inªnitum proportio nulla
est,” Mersenne 1623, col. 1092). Mersenne does not envision the possibil-
ity of an actual inªnite, since only God is inªnite. Here, too, a frontal op-
position avant la lettre is already set up against Bruno (who considers that
God can only produce and therefore necessarily produces a universe actu-
ally inªnite and an actual inªnite plurality of worlds in its bosom).
Mersenne, in turn, reserves the actual inªnity for God and considers that
God’s actual and necessary production cannot be required ad extra (that is,
along the lines of a creation of a universe external to God, or a plurality of
worlds external to God), because that would be “an inªnite effect equal to
God” (“inªnitum effectum Deo coaequalem”), indeed simply “another
God” (“alter Deus”). We already have this inªnity—even with the charac-
ter of necessity—ad intra, with the three persons of the Trinity, namely,
with God himself.7 In sum, the distinction between the ad intra action of
God whereby the inªnite essence of God necessarily triplicates in the three
Trinitarian persons which nonetheless constitute one single substance, and
the free and contingent creation ad extra, is another theological principle
that binds with the distinction in God’s power and with the voluntarism
or divine freedom to reject the plurality of worlds and very specially its in-
eluctable necessity. But also with this point Mersenne anticipates his radi-
cal opposition to Bruno, whose inªnitist arguments are based—as
Mersenne was about to conªrm right away—on the negation of the dis-
tinction in the divine power and between the ad intra and ad extra levels.
At the same time, we can understand that, for Mersenne, Bruno’s inªnite
universe was inevitably a second God (“alter deus”).

2. The explicit and radical confrontation: L’impieté des déistes of 1624

A) The critique of the necessity of the inªnite universe

As is well known, it is in Mersenne’s second apologetic work, L’impieté des
déistes, athées et libertins de ce temps, published in two volumes in 1624,
7. Mersenne 1623, col. 1092: “if they wish an inªnite effect coequal to God, to such an
extent that the divine power corresponds to the divine nature and essence completely and
inªnitely, shining and being known perfectly from its effects, what else do they demand
than that another God be produced? Certainly, what is coequal to God is God; for that rea-
son the three persons of the Holy Trinity are one God, because they are coequal” (“[. . .] si
desiderent effectum inªnitum Deo coaequalem, ut divina potentia naturae et essentiae
divinae omni ex parte inªnite correspondeat, & in suis effectis perfecte reluceat et
cognoscatur, quid aliud postulant, quam ut Deus alter efªciatur? Quandoquidem illud
Deus est quod Deo coaequale est; eam enim ob causam tres beatissimae Trinitatis personae
sunt unus Deus, quia sint inter se coaequales.”)
Perspectives on Science 33

where he explicitly and very radically confronts Bruno. It was surely in the
period of time stretching between both works that Mersenne read directly
some of Bruno’s works that were circulating in the libertine milieu, and
immediately realized the danger they represented to the Christian reli-
gion. On the other hand, Mersenne confronts Bruno from a purely
theologico-religious perspective of impiety (that is to say, of irreligion in-
cluding atheism) and not from a purely philosophical or cosmological per-
spective, corresponding exactly to the plan and objectives of his work of
1624 (Seidengart 2003, pp. 154, 163).
In fact, it is in the footsteps of Charron, Machiavelli, and Cardano that
Mersenne takes Bruno into account, undoubtedly because of his prestige
and inºuence on the French and Parisian libertine movement he tries to
invoke. Although the Minim friar never got to know Bruno’s moral dia-
logues (especially the Expulsion of the Triumphant Beast and the Cabala del
cavallo pegaseo), the ªrst volume of L’impieté des déistes shows that he had
read two of Bruno’s Latin works which were sufªcient to provoke his in-
dignation and to label Bruno, due to his incompatibility with Christian-
ity, as “one of the worst men who has been on Earth” (“un des plus
meschans hommes que la terre porta jamais,” Mersenne 1624, I, p. 230).
Since this chapter of Mersenne’s critique has been studied very efªciently
by Claudio Buccolini (Buccolini 2000), we shall limit ourselves to gather-
ing only the most important aspects along the lines of our analysis.
Mersenne confronts Bruno because the Nolan did not engage in a dis-
cussion strictly on the grounds of philosophy or mathematics, a terrain
into which Mersenne initially brought back the question about “his
inªnite worlds in the stars” (“son inªnité de mondes estoilés”), in which
case Bruno could be “excusable,” but because “he went well beyond this
and attacked the Christian Truth.”8 This explains Mersenne’s radically
damnatory judgment and his critique.
Thus, Mersenne does not confront Bruno’s inªnitism, although it seems
that he knows of it with at least some accuracy, since he knows that Bruno
intends to demonstrate this inªnitude by proving the necessity of the pro-
cess of divine creation: “he intends to prove that God has no freedom, in
order to persuade of his inªnite worlds” (“il tasche de prouver que Dieu
n’a point de liberté, aªn qu’il persuade ses mondes inªnis,” Mersenne
1624, I, p. 231). To this statement, which shall be the object of a detailed
refutation in the second volume of the work published the same year,
Mersenne already opposes the absolute contingency and arbitrariness of
the ªnite individuals (the earth, its dimensions and distance from the sun)

8. Mersenne 1624, I, pp. 229 f. The critique of Bruno in this ªrst volume runs through
the pages 229–235.
34 Mersenne’s Critique of Giordano Bruno

and above all the fact that God can do many things that he did not want
to do and has not done, that is, the distinction potentia absoluta/ordinata
Dei.9 However, Mersenne ªrst and very quickly confronts the Latin poem
De minimo (1591), in which Bruno had established his atomism. But the
Minim friar does not denounce atomism, which he mentions and passes
over without any problem since it is merely a philosophical question, but
rather confronts the formulation of a doctrine of the soul that is extremely
dangerous and completely incompatible with the Christian religion:
namely the doctrine (in the third chapter of the ªrst book) of the “trans-
migration of souls” and consequently the rejection of the “[transcendent]
immortality of the rational soul,” that is, the doctrine that reduces the hu-
man soul to the same natural dimension as the soul of animals and
plants.10
But the brunt of his critique is directed against a previous Latin work,
the Sigillus sigillorum (1583) and the doctrine of the contractions of the soul
exposed there, where Mersenne avows that Bruno has been “worse than
Cardano,” because he has exceeded all the precautions and limits by reduc-
ing the Christian religion to a merely natural effect, thereby depriving it
of every supernatural and revealed origin. According to Mersenne, this
doctrine has no purpose—and he is not wrong about this—other than “to
undermine the foundations of true religion” (“sapper les fondemens de la
vraye religion,” Mersenne 1624, I, p. 233). It is this element once more,
common to the tradition of the libertine naturalism, that makes Bruno the
object of Mersenne’s critique within the frame of the refutation of impiety,
after the critique of Cardano. Mersenne expresses his indignation at the re-
duction of miracles, prophecy, and faith to purely natural phenomena
(Buccolini 2000, pp. 512–518).
9. Mersenne 1624, I, p. 232: “he could [. . .] have done a thousand of things that he did
not will to do” (“il pouvait [. . .] faire mille choses qu’il n’a pas voulu faire”). As we have
pointed out elsewhere, the formula “Deus potest magis quam vult” (“God can do more
than he wills”) or “Deus potest magis quam facit” (“God can do more than he does”) is usu-
ally mentioned in the Scholastic tradition to illustrate the distinction in the divine power.
See Granada 1994. Similarly, the last chapter of the work reafªrms, without getting in-
volved in the polemic with Bruno, God’s liberty with respect to the creation (radically con-
tingent), and man’s excellence as ªnal cause of the creation: “God had no need [. . .];
brieºy, he could have dispensed with all the creatures for all eternity, but it pleased him to
create them in order that all bodily creatures would serve man, and man God” (“ Il [God]
n’avoit pas besoin [. . .]; bref il se fust aussi bien passé de toutes les creatures, comme il s’en
soit passé de toute éternité: mais il luy a plue de les creer, à ce que toutes les corporelles
seruissent à l’homme, & l’homme à Dieu,” p. 817).
10. Mersenne 1624, I, pp. 230 f. Mersenne has become aware of the fact that Bruno re-
duces man to the level of pure nature, without any prerogative over the rest of creation. Al-
though he does not mention it explicitly, he is already aware of Bruno’s ontological mo-
nism and the identiªcation of God with the inªnite nature.
Perspectives on Science 35

The preface to the reader, placed at the beginning of this ªrst volume of
L’impieté, and written after it was already ªnished, anticipates the content
of the second volume and takes Bruno to task, which in fact will occupy
the largest part of it: “Finally, I will answer the reasons advanced by Bruno
in order to establish the inªnite worlds and the soul of the universe” (“En
ªn ie respondray aux raisons que Jordan Brun met en auant pour establir
l’inªnité des mondes, & l’ame de l’Univers,” Mersenne 1624, I, sig. i ij).
We can infer from it, along with the reference to Bruno’s inªnite worlds,
that Mersenne knows Bruno’s doctrine in these two decisive points when
he is composing the ªrst volume (the dedication to Cardinal Richelieu is
dated June 8, 1624) and that he decides to reserve his refutation for the
‘second part’ of the work which was published a few months later of the
same year. Thus, this is not about a discovery on Mersenne’s part of further
(and more serious, if at all possible) elements of Bruno’s impiety, but
rather about a delay in the refutation, which is certainly brief since the
dedication of this second volume is dated July 9.
In any case, the second volume continues with a condemnation of
Bruno from a theological and religious perspective, but centers now on
two Italian dialogues, the De l’inªnito universo e mondi and the De la causa,
principio et uno. As already indicated (Del Prete 1998, pp. 148f.), Mersenne
does not take into consideration the cosmological aspects of Bruno’s con-
ception of an inªnite and homogeneous universe, which consists in an
inªnite repetition of solar systems, nor the derivation a posteriori of the
inªnitude and homogeneity of the universe, that is, from the “passive po-
tentiality of the universe” (Bruno 2006, p. 17). He leaves all this aside, co-
herent with the programmatic declarations already expressed and with the
theologico-religious objective of his apologetic work, in order to focus on
the decisive point. This point is none other than the theological dimen-
sion of Bruno’s inªnite as far as it is derived from a speciªc conception of
God’s relation to the universe, which is for Mersenne impious and radi-
cally subversive to Christianity. Furthermore, Bruno’s metaphysical doc-
trine of the soul of the universe as a constituting principle along with the
matter of the one and inªnite universe is radically incompatible with the
Christian religion. Mersenne’s interest in his refutation of Bruno is ex-
plained by the fact that the Italian philosopher is the theoretical founda-
tion of impiety (in tune with the preliminary verses of I. Villeneuve and
the explicit declaration of Mersenne himself throughout the work): “He
refutes most wisely / Giordano Bruno’s teaching / on which impiety is
founded” (“Il renuerse fort sagement / de Iordan Brun l’enseigement / sur
qui l’impieté se fonde,” Mersenne 1624, II, preliminary pages non num-
bered), the poet says, to which Mersenne gives his conªrmation: “the lib-
ertines say that he is the most subtle of all who serve as rampart for their
36 Mersenne’s Critique of Giordano Bruno

impiety” (“les Libertins disent qu’il est le plus subtil de tous ceux qui
seruent de rampart a leur impieté,” Mersenne 1624, II, p. 369). Bruno is,
in sum, “an atheist, who has been burnt in Italy for his impieties” (“un
Athee, qui a esté bruslé en Italie pour ses impiétés,” Mersenne 1624, II,
p. 299).
We must start by saying that Mersenne is not particularly worried
about the world being inªnite. He does not believe it is, but he does not
mind if it is, because the inªnity of the universe is simply possible. We do
not have to wait for the correspondence with Jean Rey of 1631–1632 for
Mersenne to accept the possibility of an inªnite universe, although the
conªrmation of this inªnitude is very probably beyond the reach of experi-
ence and human reason (Mersenne 1624, II, p. 321). In the second volume
of L’impieté, Mersenne very clearly afªrms that the inªnite divisibility of
the continuum not only evidences the existence of a potential inªnite, but
also that, contrary to Bruno, an inªnite body can have parts, and these
parts, in turn, can be inªnite. In sum: the inªnite in act (and therefore the
inªnite universe) is possible,11 since it does not imply contradiction, and
contradiction is the only limit to the divine power (obviously not due to
an impossibility a parte Dei, but a parte obiecti: what is contradictory can-
not be done). This is the passage in question, which, on the other hand,
rests directly on the standard conception of the divine potentia absoluta in
the Scholastic tradition and its limit in the principle of contradiction
(even if Mersenne does not say so):
I will only say that up until now I had no reason that proves this
inªnite [in act] is repugnant or is impossible. On the contrary, I
want to deny to the divine power only that which implies and com-
prehends a manifest contradiction (Ie vous diray seulement que ie
ne point eu iusques a present aucune raison, qui demonstre que cet
inªny [en acte] repugne, & soit impossible : or ie ne veux iamais
rien denier a la puissance divine, que ce qui implique, & enferme
une manifeste contradiction,” Mersenne 1624, II, p. 349)
Mersenne’s polemic is directed against the ontological modality which
Bruno attributes to the inªnite universe and its innumerable worlds: the
necessity, extended as well to the temporal level, which ends up by giving
a statute of divinity to creation, reduces most dangerously and impiously
the difference between the divine Creator and his creation, thereby dispos-
ing of the divine prerogatives, God’s absolute sovereignty.
11. Here it seems that Mersenne has undergone a change: the inªnite in act, other than
God, is accepted as possible.
Perspectives on Science 37

Mersenne’s refutation comes directly from reading in a faithful and

complete French translation Bruno’s arguments in the ªrst dialogue of De
l’inªnito, more speciªcally from its second part, where Bruno argues a pri-
ori, that is, from the idea of God itself, or, as he says, “by the active power
of the efªcient” (Bruno 2006, p. 17), “from the circumstances of the ef-
ªcient that must have produced it [the universe] as it is [inªnite] or, to be
more correct, as it always has been” (Bruno 2006, p. 83).12 Mersenne does
not allow any demonstrative value to Bruno’s arguments, which in his
opinion rest on ‘paralogisms’ (Mersenne 1624, I, p. 300), that is, on ºawed
and invalid reasoning, due to the falseness of his premises and presupposi-
tions. The Minim friar’s refutation proceeds basically according to three
axes that were already present in the quaestio of the previous year, which
we now present as concisely as possible.
In the ªrst place, Mersenne points out that the necessity of the inªnite
(and eternal) universe proceeds from the “very false foundation [that] God
acts necessarily” (“fondement [. . .] tres-faux” that “Dieu agissoit nec-
essairement”) that is, that God creates or produces necessarily and hence
that the universe is necessary whatever its spatial extension and temporal
duration may be. This implies reducing God to the rank of a natural and
necessary agent, eliminating His freedom and consequently the complete
autonomy and independence of his sovereign will. Secondly, that God’s al-
legedly necessary creation is inªnite (and eternal) derives from the suppo-
sition (false in Mersenne’s view, who here echoes the Christian theological
tradition) that God proceeds or acts with all his inªnite power, wherefore
its effect is inªnite. Evidently, Bruno argues here from the rejection of the
distinction between God’s absolute and ordained power, a rejection which is
implicit in the Italian dialogue of 1584 and explicit in the De immenso of
1591.13 Mersenne simply reafªrms the distinction, which is based on the
12. On Mersenne’s translation (which basically appears in ch. xv, pp. 281–298) and in
general about his dialogue with Bruno’s text, see Del Prete 2000 and Granada 2000,
p. 132.
13. See the introduction to Bruno 2006, pp. xlix–lx and Granada 1994, 2000 and
2002. Bruno’s rejection of the Scholastic distinction becomes explicit in De immenso, III, 1:
“Neque distinctionem potentiae in absolutam et ordinatam, vel ordinariam introducamus
illo, ubi non libertatem protestetur, sed implicet apertam contradictionem. Est perfectio in
nobis (si ita placet) ut possimus multa facere quae non facimus: blasphemia vero est facere
Deum alium a Deo: voluntatem eius aliam atque alia[m], unam quae currit cum potentia,
aliam quae abhorreat a potentia” (“Let us introduce in God no distinction between his ab-
solute and his ordained or ordinary power, where a manifest contradiction is implied be-
yond protestation of his freedom. It may be perhaps our perfection that we can do many
things that we actually do not. It is, however, a blasphemy to make God different from
himself: his will one and another, one running with power, another abhorring his power,”
Bruno 1879, vol. I, 1, p. 320).
38 Mersenne’s Critique of Giordano Bruno

divine freedom and the supremacy of the will over the power. Accordingly,
Bruno gets it wrong when “he compares God’s determined power to that
undetermined and wants that it extends equally when it is determined
[i.e. ‘ordained’] than when it is absolute and undetermined” (“il compare
la puissance de Dieu determinee, & non determinee, & veut qu’elle
s’estende autant quand elle est determinee, que quand elle est absolue, &
non déterminée,” Mersenne 1624, II, pp. 314 f). This coextension of the
divine potencies is nothing but their identity or indifference, that is, that
such a distinction does not exist and consequently the divine power and
will are coextensive. Mersenne translates Bruno’s position in the following
terms: “we can conclude that will, freedom, and necessity are in him
[God] the same thing; and therefore that to do, to can and to will also are
the same thing” (“on peut conclurre qu’en luy volonté, liberté, & necessité
sont une mesme chose; & en suitte le faire, le pouvoir & le vouloir aussi
une mesme chose.”)14 On the contrary, Mersenne establishes the distinc-
tion and hence the different extension of the divine power (absolute or un-
determined) and of the divine will, this last being the attribute that deter-
mines the action, and its terms in function of God’s absolute freedom:

we should distinguish between God’s power and his will [. . .], in-
asmuch as their objects are different, because the object of God’s
[absolute] power is all that is non repugnant and does not entail
contradiction (the so called possible), whereas the object of God’s
will are the few things which God chooses and he wills to create
from the inªnity of similar and different things that he leaves in
the mere possibility and in the non-repugnance (il faut faire dis-
tinction entre la puissance de Dieu, & sa volonté [. . .] d’autant que
leurs objets sont differens, car l’objet de la puissance divine [abso-
lute] est tout ce qui n’enferme & ne contient aucune repugnance,
ou contradiction (ce qu’on appelle possible), mais l’objet de la
volonté divine est le peu de choses lesquelles Dieu choisit, & qu’il
veut creer entre une inªnité de semblables, & de differentes, qu’il
laisse dans la seule possibilité, & dans la non-repugnance,”
Mersenne 1624, II, pp. 311f)

Whereas for Bruno the identity of power and will in God implies that ev-
erything possible becomes actual in Nature, in Mersenne, God’s free will
14. Mersenne 1624, II, p. 286. Bruno’s text reads: “[. . .] whereby freedom, will, neces-
sity are absolutely the same thing, furthermore, doing coincides with willing, being able
to, and being” (Bruno 2006, p. 89). The ‘postillatore napoletano’ of Bruno’s dialogue,
about whom we shall talk below, but of whom we can already say that he makes the same
Perspectives on Science 39

chooses only “a few things” in order to be in act, leaving the rest in the
mere (absolute) possibility, non-realized in Nature. Consequently, Mer-
senne repeats the traditional formulas that are expressed in Scholastic the-
ology as the separation and distinction of power and will (an attribute to
which Mersenne would gladly give the ‘palm of victory,’ Mersenne 1624,
II, p. 312): “we distinguish action from power in God, who can [do] many
things which he nevertheless does not will to do” (“nous distinguons le
faire, & le pouuoir en Dieu, qui peut beaucoup de choses, lequelles
neantmoins il ne veut pas faire,” Mersenne 1624, II, p. 304); “God can
will to do something different from what he wills to do, inasmuch as he
does not extend his absolute will to all that he could extend it to” (“Dieu
peut vouloir faire autre chose, que ce qu’il veut faire, d’autant qu’il
n’estend pas son vouloir absolu à tout ce qu’il le pourroit estendre,”
Mersenne 1624, II, p. 308); “God can do inªnite things which he never-
theless does not will to do” (“Dieu peut faire une inªnité de choses,
lesquelles neanmois il ne veut pas faire,” Mersenne 1624, II, p. 313).
Mersenne thereby entirely coincides with the critical annotations of the
so-called ‘postillatore napoletano’, a Reformed Italian reader of Bruno’s De
l’inªnito who opposed divine freedom and primacy of will to necessitarism
(Granada 2000, pp. 128–130): “[God] can do many things which he does
not will to do” (“[Deus] potest facere multa quae non vult facere”) an an-
notation by this reader at a particular instance. And before: “if [God] has
not made your inªnite or innumerable [worlds], it is not owing to a defect
of power, but of will, in the same manner as his will has not made this
[world] eternal, but limited in both terms: because it pleased him so. You
compel him to make necessarily inªnite [worlds].” (“si [Dio] non ha fatto
gli vostri inªniti o innumerabili [mondi], non è per mancamento di
potencia, ma di volontà, come anco questa non lo à fatto eterno, ma
terminabile di duoi termini: perche così gli à piaciuto. Voi lo mettete in
necessità de far inªniti”).
Thirdly, Mersenne does not doubt that Bruno’s confusion of divine at-
tributes in the creative operation is due to the confusion, rather than to
the absence of distinction between the ad intra and the ad extra levels of
the divine action, which is equivalent to saying that Bruno does not ac-
knowledge the Trinitarian dynamics in the divine substance (he denies
the Trinity) and perversely and impiously afªrms that the necessary
and inªnite universe is the only (and sufªcient) action of God, with
which ultimately coincides. On the contrary, God—Mersenne afªrms—
undoubtedly acts necessarily and inªnitely, but he does it on the interior

critique and from the same presuppositions as Mersenne, annotates to those lines: “Qualia
monstra!” (“Such monsters!”).
40 Mersenne’s Critique of Giordano Bruno

level of the derivation of the Son (that is, of the Word in which all the ab-
solutely possible inªnites are deposited)15 and of the Holy Spirit who are
consubstantial and coeternal with the Father. In turn, on the exterior level
of the creation of the radically contingent world, God proceeds by actual-
izing the possible ones that he chooses with the absolute freedom of his
will. Although Bruno really rejects the Trinitarian dogma in his concep-
tion of the one and simple God thereby transferring to the universe the
necessity and inªnity of his substance, which in this way becomes the
“unigenita natura,”16 in De l’inªnito he proceeds more carefully, and limits
himself to declaring explicitly (leaving to the attentive reader the full
comprehension of his thought) that “the ad extra and transitive action, in
addition to the immanent one, is convenient that it be just as inªnite as
the other one,” and immediately adding the doubt that “something could
be exterior [to God].”17 Mersenne, nonetheless, has noticed the question,
although he does not accuse Bruno of denying the Trinity:

It is wrong reasoning to put God’s external action (which the Theo-

logians call ad extra) to the very same necessity as the divine being
or power: it is to speak of temporal and free things as if they were
eternal and necessary; it is to mingle and confound the creatures
with the Creator, and invert all kind of reason and of philosophy,
because God’s being, power, and will do not depend from what he
does, but on the contrary, what he does depends on his being,
power, and will; however, what is not dependent can be without
what is dependent. I know that God’s internal act, which is very
simple, unique, and inªnite, is the same thing with his power and
will; but his external act, which is received by the creatures when
he produces and conserves them, is different from the divine power
and will, as a ªnite and dependent thing from an inªnite and inde-
pendent one (C’est mal raisonné de tirer l’action de Dieu exterieure
(laquelle les Théologiens appellent ad extra) à la mesme necessité
que l’estre, ou le pouuoir divin : c’est parler des choses temporelles,
& des libres comme des éternelles, & des necessaires; c’est mesler, &
brouiller les creatures avec le createur, & renuerser toute sorte de
raison, & de Philosophie, car l’estre, la puissance, & la volonté de
Dieu ne dependent point de ce qu’il fait, mais aucontraire, ce qu’il
fait depend de son estre, de son pouuoir, & de son vouloir; or ce qui
15. Concerning this point of Mersenne’s thought and the difference with regard to the
Cartesian doctrine of the creation of eternal truths, see Marion 1981, ch. 9, especially
pp. 174 ff. For a comparison with Kepler’s conception, see Fabbri 2003, pp. 134–140.
16. This absolutely intentional expression appears in Bruno 1996, p. 207.
17. Bruno 2006, pp. 17–19. Cf. our Introduction, pp. lviii–lx.
Perspectives on Science 41

ne depend point, peut estre sans ce qui depend. Ie scay que l’acte
interne de Dieu, lequel est tres simple, unique, & inªny, est une
mesme chose auec son pouuoir, & son vouloir; mais l’externe qui est
recue dans les creatures, quand il les produit, & les conserue, est
distinct de ce pouvoir, & de ce vouloir diuin, comme une chose
ªnie, & dependante de l’inªny, & independant.18
Mersenne’s critique of Bruno’s philosophy of the necessity and plenitude
of the divine creation coincides with the one that Francisco Patrizi had re-
ceived during the 1590s from Roman authorities regarding his discussion
of the subject in his Nova de universis philosophia (Ferrara 1591), resulting
in its prohibition. In spite of adopting a rather traditional position in cos-
mology (geocentrist and ªnitist concerning the physical universe) and re-
serving the inªnitude for the higher ontological rank of the incorporeal
highest heaven, Patrizi had operated in step with the outlines of the Pla-
tonic principle of plenitude, concerning the necessity of an inªnite cre-
ation by God, which was also present in Bruno (Granada 2000, pp. 110–
128). Bruno’s afªnity with philosophical Platonism (and consequently
with its philosophical theology) is perceived by Mersenne the same way
that the Roman Jesuits had reacted to Patrizi’s Platonism (Rotondò 1982;
Granada 2007, p. 278). Thus, Mersenne places his denunciation of Bruno
parallel to the polemic of Zacharias Scholasticus (a sixth century Byzan-
tine theologian) against a disciple of the Alexandrian Platonist Ammonius
(ªfth to sixth centuries) in a work published in Paris precisely at the be-
ginning of 1624:
Would that it please God that I be the last as well as the ªrst man
to ªght against these impieties [. . .] although they say nothing
new, because they only renovate the old errors and the heresies con-
demned long time ago. It is what happens with the errors of
Giordano, because we read almost the same things in that most ex-
cellent discussion which Zacharias Scholasticus had with one of the
disciples of Ammonius, the Alexandrian Philosopher (Pleust à Dieu
18. Mersenne 1624, II, pp. 306 f. Cf. ibid., p. 321 f.: “God communicates himself
inªnitely because the Father communicates all his inªnity and all his attributes and his
Nature to his Son, and to the Holy Spirit; only these divine, internal and inªnite commu-
nications are necessary: the other communications, external and limited, are totally free”
(“Dieu se communique assez inªniment, puisque le pere communique toute son inªnité, &
tous ses attributs, & sa Nature à son Fils, & au S. Esprit; il n’y a rien que ces communica-
tions diuines, internes, & inªnies, qui soient necessaires: toutes les autres communications
exterieures, & limitees sont tres libres”); p. 327 f.: “It is not between the creatures, where
we must look after the divine fecundity, but in the eternal Persons, every one of them be-
ing God himself” (“Ce n’est donc pas dans les creatures qu’il faut chercher la fecondité
diuuine, mais dans les Personnes éternelles, chacune desquelles est Dieu mesme.”)
42 Mersenne’s Critique of Giordano Bruno

que je fusse le dernier aussi bien que le premier, qui eût à com-
battre ces impietez [. . .] encore qu’ils ne disent rien de nouueau,
car ils renouuellent les vieilles erreurs, & les heresies, qui ont esté
condamnees il y a longtemps. Ce qui paroist dans les erreures de
Iordan, car nous lisons choses presques semblables dans cette
excellente dispute qu’eut Zacharie Scholastique auec un des disci-
ples d’Ammonius Philosophe d’Alexandrie).19

Although in L’impieté des déistes, the naïve and well-intentioned deist is

brought back to the fold of faith by the arguments of the Theologian, that
is, of Mersenne, by completely abandoning Bruno’s impieties, Mersenne
continued to be attentive to the Brunian case in the following years.
Claudio Buccolini’s diligence has discovered, in the Suite manuscrite of the
Quaestiones in Genesim written in the immediately following years, the
sketch of a new question on necessity in the divine action (Buccolini 1999,
pp. 168 ff). What is really important in this ampliªcation of the polemic
is that now Mersenne turns his attention to Bruno’s ªnal cosmological
work, the De immenso et innumerabilibus which he did not know in his pre-
vious writings. In chapters 9–12 of the ªrst book, Mersenne found a sys-
tematic and articulate presentation, much more precise and devastating,
of Bruno’s arguments in favor of the necessity of the inªnite and eternal
universe due to God’s simple and immutable nature. In order to proceed
to his refutation Mersenne carefully copied the twenty ‘principia com-
munia’ (or the statements universally accepted) that Bruno brings up in
De immenso, I, 11, plus 10 theses, incompatible with them, which the an-
tagonist (Mersenne in this case) should prove and which Bruno considered
absurd (Buccolini 1999, pp. 173–175). Mersenne envisages an outright
refutation of these statements “in order that no subterfuge would be left
for the impious nor any refuge for impiety” (Buccolini 1999, p. 174).
When I previously studied Mersenne’s critique of Bruno (Granada 2000),
I often wondered what the French author would have said regarding
Bruno’s last argument, in which he comes as close as possible to Spinoza’s
theses. Mersenne put on his gloves and accepted the challenge. It is a pity
that it seems that he did not draw his sword and did not respond to the
Nolan—or at least his response has not been found yet. If his response
were to be ªnally found, it would without a doubt be a great contribution
to Brunian studies.
19. Mersenne 1624, I, Preface. On the De mundi opiªcio contra philosophos disputatio by
Zacharias Scholasticus see Buccolini 2000, pp. 251f. On Ammonius see Saffrey 1994 with
the references indicated there, especially Merlan 1976, where the inºuence on Boethius re-
garding the eternal creation of the world and the Trinity is highlighted. On the philosoph-
ical afªnity between Boethius and Bruno see Granada 2005b.
Perspectives on Science 43

B) The critique of the universal soul

But the naive deist’s derailment due to his contact with Bruno’s impious
doctrine through the libertine circles of Paris does not end here. He was
also exposed—as he himself confesses—to the seduction of Bruno’s con-
ception of the universal soul, which the Italian philosopher had discussed
in the dialogue De la causa, principio et uno.
He personally makes a presentation of this doctrine synthesizing quite
closely Bruno’s exposition in the second dialogue of the Italian’s work.20 A
long-winded exposition more than one hundred pages long continues un-
til the conclusion of the book.21 Mersenne calls Bruno ‘crazy’ (‘fol’) because
of this doctrine (Mersenne 1624, II, p. 368) and immediately asserts its
absolute incompatibility with the Christian religion, attributing to this
work the condemnation and execution of its author: “these are dialogues
for which he has been burnt in Rome, as some persons have assured me”
(“ce sont ces dialogues pour lesquels il a esté bruslé in Rome, comme
quelques vns m’ont asseuré,” Mersenne 1624, II, pp. 363f.).
Mersenne certainly accepts that certain formulations of the doctrine of
the universal soul may be compatible with Christian beliefs. This would
be the case if it refers to one single universal soul for the universe, exclud-
ing man, or coexisting with the particular souls, or conceived as an assist-
ing universal principle—like the intelligences moving the spheres—
which, however, do not constitute the substantial form of the bodies
(Mersenne 1624, II, pp. 427 ff.). Nonetheless, he energetically underscores
that Bruno’s conception of a single universal soul for every individual in-
cluding human beings22 is absolutely impious. Beyond acknowledging
that phenomena of nature do not demand the introduction of a universal
soul, whatever type it may be, it in no way contributes to explaining them
nor does it contribute anything for a loftier conception of God (Mersenne
1624, II, pp. 371–385). Mersenne is especially interested in showing that
Bruno’s conception subverts the principles of the Christian religion: “the
absurdities which follow in theology and in our belief, once this universal
soul is presupposed, are so great, that it is impossible for any article in our
20. Mersenne 1624, II, pp. 358–363; Bruno 1996, pp. 105–141. See the presentation
in parallel in Del Prete 2000, pp. 81–83. The polemic on this point has been studied by
Gómez 1997 and Del Prete 2000, pp. 63–70.
21. Mersenne 1624, II, pp. 363–501, with a digression on pp. 459–470 on Venus and
its movements.
22. Mersenne 1624, II, p. 428 f: “the world has only one soul, which grows in the
plants, perceives in the animals, and reasons in men; there is no need for an essential form
which distinguishes man from animal, or animal from plants” (“le monde n’a qu’une ame,
laquelle vegete es plantes, sent es animaux, & raisonne dans les hommes, sans qu’il soit
besoin d’aucune forme essentielle, qui distingue l’homme d’avec l’animal, ny l’animal avec
les plantes.”)
44 Mersenne’s Critique of Giordano Bruno

faith to subsist” (“les absurditez sont si grandes qui suivent en la Theol-

ogie, & dans nostre creance, cette ame universel estant supposee, qu’il n’y
a pas un article de nostre foy qui puisse subsister,” Mersenne 1624, II,
p. 404). Indeed, it makes impossible—Mersenne declares—the Incarna-
tion of the divine Word in Jesus’ individual person, Eucharistic transub-
stantiation, the same distribution of divine grace according to the individ-
uals, Final Judgment, and the remuneration of human actions according
to an eternal reward or punishment.23
Furthermore, Bruno’s conception of the soul destroys, according to
Mersenne, “the foundations of human life, reason, politics, morals” (“les
fondements de la vie humaine, de la raison, de la police, des moeurs”).24
Consequently, Bruno’s “evil book, in the midst of whose impieties [the
libertines] search repose for their spirits” (Mersenne 1624, II, p. 364),
completely dissolves morality and the social order: it annuls human free-
dom, cancels personal moral responsibility since all men end up being
guilty and innocent at the same time, and justiªes the dissolution of social
order and hierarchy, since there is no reason for the survival of the differ-
ence between the subjects and those who govern them:

Then, if this universal soul informs all, why would the servants
submit to their masters, once this soul gives them a similar right to
command, even much greater, if this soul acts and operates in the
servant more nobly than in the master [. . . ?]. Consequently, we
should dispense with all kinds of Commonwealths, sovereigns and
Kingdoms, and therefore all will go in confusion and in disorder
(Car si cette ame universelle informe tout, à quel propos les
serviteurs s’assujettissent-ils à leur maistres, puis que cette ame leur
donne un semblable droit de commander, voire beaucoup plus
grand, si cette ame opere, & agit plus noblement dans le serviteur
que dans le maistre [. . . ?]: en suite de quoy il faut dire Adieu à
toutes sortes de Republiques, de souverains, & de Royaumes, & par
ainsi tout ira en confusion, & en desordre,” Mersenne 1624, II,
pp. 402f)
23. Mersenne 1624, II, pp. 405 f., 440–459: this is a long development that evidences
the suppression of human freedom (pp. 442–449), the elimination of transubstantiation
(pp. 450–455), and the radical questioning of the death and resurrection of Christ and, at
length, of human beings as well (pp. 455–459).
24. Mersenne 1624, II, p. 402. Cf. p. 397: “we ought to conclude that there would be
no good, no evil, and that moral philosophy would be just a chimera” (“il faudrait
conclurre qu’il n’y auroit plus ny bien, ny mal, & que la Philosophie morale ne seroit
qu’une Chimere”).
Perspectives on Science 45

Evidently, Bruno does not accept that these consequences follow from his
doctrine of the universal soul as the only formal substantial principle of
the inªnite universe that indeed reduces the individual souls to modes and
accidents of the universal principle.25 Mersenne, in turn, who certainly
does not consider the function of the soul within the entire Brunian meta-
physics, does not have the slightest doubt about it. However, although it
is true that many reservations can be had about the appropriateness of
Mersenne’s critique on the moral effects of Bruno’s conception of the uni-
versal soul, we have to acknowledge that he is right to highlight Bruno’s
theological heterodoxy and to contend that identifying the universal soul
with the efªcient cause of the (inªnite) universe (Mersenne 1624, II,
pp. 381 f.) implies the negation of the creation and the afªrmation of na-
ture identiªed with God.26
Bruno’s conception of the universal soul and the principle according to
which divine action pervades merely the inªnite and necessary nature, cer-
tainly imply the elimination of every supernatural action proceeding from
the divinity, as well as the suppression of every special or privileged rela-
tionship of man with it. The result is that in Bruno man loses all
exceptionality with respect to the rest of the animals, which is reºected in
the irrationality of the alleged resurrection of bodies. Mersenne is aware of
these implications (Mersenne 1624, II, pp. 391, 404) whereby Bruno con-
nects with the critique of the Christian religion by the ancient paganism,
for example by Celsus’ critique in his True Discourse. In this sense Bruno
represents, in contrast with Mersenne who is a sincere Christian, a return
to the pagan conception of the world as well as of nature. This is the resto-
ration, in sum, of a program which later on shall be adopted—mutatis
mutandis—by authors like Spinoza, Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. In any
case, coming back to the question of the inªnite universe, Mersenne’s let-

25. See Del Prete 2000, pp. 64 ff. On Bruno’s conception of the hierarchy and inequal-
ity among men, as well as the consequent educational function of religion among the com-
mon people, see Granada 2005a, Introduction.
26. Mersenne 1624, II, pp. 414, 417. Mersenne underlines, in general throughout
chapter xxiii, that Bruno’s conception of the universal soul—according to the exposition in
the second dialogue of De la causa—proceeds from the doctrine of the prisca theologia (of
Orpheus, Platonism, and the Stoa). Nonetheless he strives to establish that the Greek doc-
trine, derived, in his opinion, from Hebrew wisdom, had certainly introduced a remarkable
confusion regarding the pure and true wisdom of Israel with respect to the relationship
between the created universe and its Creator, but had not reached Bruno’s and the liber-
tines’ impiety of deifying nature and rejecting divine transcendence. Thus, Mersenne
strives to save Platonism and Stoicism as compatible with the Christian truth after being
correctly interpreted and puriªed of errors. Del Prete, 2000, p. 68 has correctly indicated
this point.
46 Mersenne’s Critique of Giordano Bruno

ters to Jean Rey of 163127 and 163228 do not necessarily indicate—as it

appears to us—a modiªcation in his attitude towards the problem and to-
wards the Italian thinker himself. It is true that these references do not
show animosity against Bruno, and that the ªrst one includes him in the
group of certain unspeciªed inªnitists. But this neutrality towards Bruno
is due to the fact that Mersenne now looks at the question of the inªnite
from an exclusively cosmological and physical point of view, independ-
ently of the metaphysical and theological dimension of the problem, that
is, in absence of every consideration about the derivation (and even more,
of a necessary derivation) from God. If the question is proposed in these
terms, the reasons for Mersenne’s animosity disappear.
To what “other demonstrations” against the inªnite effect of an inªnite
cause can Mersenne be referring to? What can be the “easy” solution to
these demonstrations? Although we can merely make more or less
founded conjectures in this respect, we believe that it is possible that
Mersenne is referring to the arguments against the inªnite universe in the
Quaestiones in Genesim where, speaking of the plurality of worlds, he had re-
jected an inªnite effect equal to God (“effectum inªnitum Deo
coaequalem”) as far as a second God (“Deus alter”) is implied (Mersenne
1623, col. 1092). After reading and making his critique of Bruno,
Mersenne clearly distinguishes the merely physical (de facto) question
from the metaphysico-theological one which, in Bruno’s version, applies
the attributes and qualities of the divine cause to the created universe,
thereby raising it to a divine level. The ‘easy solution’ to the ‘demonstra-
tions’ against the inªnite universe logically does not consist in accepting
the impious Brunian necessitarism, but rather in acknowledging that just
as the inªnite universe does not necessarily exist, neither is it necessarily
excluded, because it is neither contradictory in itself nor to God. It is sim-
ply a possibility, dependent on the free election of the divine will.
The letters to Rey show that the possibility (of potentia absoluta) of an
inªnite universe, understood as a contingent creature, does not frighten
27. Mersenne to J. Rey (1. 9. 1631): “And Bruno, who ªghts in company of several for
the inªnity of the world, despoils you of the center, that does not exist in the inªnite” (“Et
puis Jordan Brun, qui combat avec plusieurs pour l’inªnité du monde, vous ravit le centre
qui n’est point dans l’inªni”, in Mersenne 1969, p. 187).
28. Mersenne to J. Rey (1. 4. 1632): “As for Giordano, although he uses bad founda-
tions, nevertheless it is probable enough that the world is inªnite, if it can be inªnite.
Then, why do you want that an inªnite cause not produce an inªnite effect? I have pre-
sented in the past several arguments against this, but the solution to them is easy” (“Quant
a Jordan, encore qu’il se serve de mauvais fondemens, neantmoins il est asses probable que
le monde est inªni, s’il le peust estre. Car pourquoy voules-vous qu’une cause inªnie n’ait
pas un effet inªni? J’ay autresfois eu d’autres demonstrations contre ceci, mais la solution
en est aisée,” Mersenne 1969, p. 275).
Perspectives on Science 47

Mersenne. What he cannot accept is the necessity of the inªnite universe

postulated by Bruno, since this is equivalent to the divinity of the uni-
verse and to its identiªcation with God. It seems that in these letters to
Rey he left out this dimension of the inªnite in order to regard it as a pure
question of fact, that is, of potentia ordinata, resulting from the free divine
election and hence as a contingent and voluntary effect of God. In other
words, the letters to Rey presuppose an insertion of the question of the
inªnite universe within a framework acceptable to Mersenne, the frame-
work of the Christian theology. Once Bruno’s metaphysico-theological
framework has been eliminated, the inªnite universe becomes an empiri-
cal problem whose veriªcation is surely impossible, and additionally—as
Mersenne will say in the Questions inouys of 1634—something “very dubi-
ous and perhaps very false.”29

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