We hereby, in these documents, publish, announce, pronounce, sentence, and declare thee the aforesaid Brother Giordano Bruno to be an impenitent and pertinacious heretic, and therefore to have incurred all the ecclesiastical censures and pains of the Holy Canon, the laws and the constitutions, both general and particular, imposed on such confessed impenitent pertinacious and obstinate heretics... We ordain and command that thou must be delivered to the Secular Court... that thou mayest be punished with the punishment deserved... Furthermore, we condemn, we reprobate, and we prohibit all thine aforesaid and thy other books and writings as heretical and erroneous, containing many heresies and errors, and we ordain that all of them which have come or may in future come into the hands of the Holy Office shall be publicly destroyed and burned in the square of St. Peter before the steps and that they shall be placed upon the Index of Forbidden Books, and as we have commanded, so shall it be done..
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- An ecclesiastical court sentenced Bruno as an impenitent heretic and ordered his books destroyed.
- In plain terms
- The church declared him a heretic and condemned his writings to be burned.
- What can you take from it?
- Authorities often suppress dissenting voices through official condemnation.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- Who has the right to judge heresy?
- What happens when ideas clash with power?
Another view
From the court's view, this was maintaining doctrinal order, not mere suppression.
More from Giordano Bruno
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Permalink to quote #50 Thus is the excellence of God magnified and the greatness of his kingdom made manifest; He is glorified not in one, but in countless suns; not in a single eart…
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