 Simultaneously, with the same indignation that Spinoza and Nietzsche would later voice, Bruno impugned the clerical caste. Living parasitically off the labors of others and affecting “a foul-smelling melancholy”, i.e., accidia (BOL II.2,189–190; BOI II, 238–239), they advocated the solitary life and renunciation of this world for the next. Such men had extinguished the divine light that had made the souls of the ancients “heroic and divine”, those very men whom they condemned for their pride (BOI I, 453). If we followed the counsel of these clerics, we would have no temples, no chapels, no hospices, no hospitals, no colleges, no universities (BOI II, 238, 267). Of all peoples, the ancient Romans had best understood the value of “glory” for establishing and maintaining civilization. A true religion, like that of the ancients, extolled men of action, strength of body and mind and worldly glory (BOI II, 267–268). Similar comments on clerical duplicity, glory and religion occur in Machiavelli, whose works Bruno probably read.