“I have taught nothing directly against Catholic Christian religion,
although [I may have done so] indirectly; as was judged at Paris,
where, however, I was allowed to hold certain disputes under the title
of _One Hundred and Twenty Articles against the Peripatetics and Other
Vulgar Philosophers_ (printed with permission of the superiors); as it
was permitted to treat them by the way of natural principles, without
prejudice to the truth according to the light of faith, in which manner
the books of Aristotle and Plato may be read and taught, which are in
similar fashion, indirectly contrary to faith,--nay, much more so than
the articles propounded and defended by me in the manner of philosophy:
all these can be known from what is printed in my last Latin books
from Frankfort, entitled _De Minimo_, _De Monade, de Immenso et
Innumerabilibus_, and in part in _De Compositione Imaginum_. In these
particularly you can see my intention and what I have held, which is,
in a word, I believe in an infinite universe,--that is, the effect of
infinite divine power; because I esteemed it unworthy of the divine
goodness and power that, when it could produce besides this world
another, and infinite others, it should produce a single finite world:
so I have declared that there is an infinite number of particular
worlds similar to this of the earth, which, with Pythagoras, I consider
a star, like which is the moon, other planets, and other stars, which
are infinite; and that all these bodies are worlds, without number,
which make up the infinite university in infinite space, and we call
this the infinite universe, in which are numberless worlds: so that
there is a double infinitude, that of the greatness of the universe,
and that of the multitude of the worlds,--by which indirectly it is
meant to assail the truth according to faith.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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