Henricus Cornelius Agrippa ab Nettesheim: De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum declamatio invectiva

ein, sage mir, lieber Leser, scheinet dir dieses mein Vorhaben nicht eine kühne und rechtschaffene, freche, ja weit über Herculis Kräfte sich erstreckende Tat zu sein, indem ich mir jetzo vornehme, wider den großen und allgemeinen Riesen-Krieg aller Künste und Wissenschaften die Waffen zu ergreifen, und diese starken und mächtigen Jäger aller Gelehrsamkeit rauszufordern? Ich kann mir wohl einbilden, daß der stolze Haufe aller Doktoren, die große Gelehrsamkeit aller Lizeniaten, die Autorität und das gravitätische Ansehen aller Magister, die unterfangende Einbildung aller Baccalaurien und der grausame Eifer aller Schulfüchse, wie auch der Aufstand aller Künstler und Handwerksleute auf mich unerhört schänden und lästern werden. Denn, wenn ich diese anjetzo antaste, so wird es ebensoviel und noch mehr sein, als wenn ich mich unterstünde, den grausamen Nemeischen Löwen mit der Keule totzuschlagen, die Lernäische Schlange mit Feuer zu töten, das große Erymanthische Schwein zu fällen, den Hirsch, der in dem Mänalischen Walde güldene Hörner trägt, zu fangen, die Stymphalidischen Vögel in der Luft zu schießen, den Antäum mit den Ellenbogen zu erdrücken, Grundsäulen in der offenbaren See aufzurichten, den dreiköpfigen Geryonem zu überwinden, starke Ochsen zu bezwingen, über den Acheloum im Duell Meister zu werden, des Diomedis Pferde zu entführen, den Höllenhund Cerberum bei der Kette herumzuführen, die güldenen Hesperidischen Apfel wegzunehmen, und was dergleichen Sachen mehr sind, welche von dem Hercule mit großer Arbeit und nicht geringer Gefahr sind verrichtet worden: fürwahr nicht weniger Arbeit werde ich hier brauchen und größerer Gefahr befinde ich mich unterworfen zu sein, wenn ich diese akademischen Riesen, und diese großen Schulenungeheuer zu überwinden mich anjetzo unterfange.

Denn es deucht mich schon, und ich sehe allbereit für Augen den blutigen und gefährlichen Krieg, in welchen ich mich anjetzo einlasse, indem ich mit einem mächtigen und schrecklichen Heer vielwissender Leute umgeben bin, ei, mit was für Rüstungen werden sie mir entgegenkommen, wie werden sie auf mich lästern und schmähen? Da werden erstlich die superklugen Grammatici herfürtreten und mir Widerpart halten, auch mit ihren Etymologien meinen ehrlichen Namen vergessen; da werden die frechen Poeten mich für ein Lästermaul oder Ägyptischen Bock halten, und mich ın ihren Versen durchziehen; die fabelhaftigen Historienschreiber werden mich über Pausaniam und Herostratum entheiligen und ausschreien; die großsprecherischen Rhetores oder Redner werden mit zornigen Augen, schrecklichem Gesichte, markschreierischer Stimme und üblen Gebärden mich einer Verletzung der Majestät beschuldigen; die wundersame Memoriographi oder Gedächtnisschreiber werden mir mein Gehirne mit einer überzogenen Larve suchen stumpf zu machen; die zänkischen Dialectici oder Vernunftkünstler werden unzählige syllogistische Pfeile auf mich schießen.

Die hin und wieder sich kehrenden Sophisten oder Weltweisheitskünstler werden mich mit Wort-Stricken zu binden und mir ein Gebiß ins Maul zu legen suchen; der ungeschliffene Lulliste, oder der von allen Dingen was herzuschwatzen weiß, wird mit groben, ungehobelten Reden mir den Kopf wüste machen; die Mathematici oder diejenigen, so von der Größe einer Sache Wissenschaft geben, werden mich im Himmel und auf Erden in die Acht erklären; die verwirrten Rechenmeister werden mit ihren wucherischen Konzepten mich zur Rechnung zwingen; der hartnäckige Spieler wird mir den Strick an den Hals wünschen; der unverschämte Pythagorista oder Weissager des Pythagorischen Loses wird mir unglückliche Zahlen vorlegen.

Der künstliche Geomanticus oder Weissager aus der Erden wird mir alles Böse weissagen und allen Dampf antun; bei den vieltonigen Musicis werde ich in allen Schenken die gemeine Fabel sein; sie werden mir mit ihren knarrenden Pfeifen, Posaunen und Waldhörnern mehr als sie auf den Verlöbnissen und Hochzeiten zu tun pflegen, den Kopf vollpfeifen. Die stolzen und prächtigen Weiber werden mich wohl nicht zum Tanze bitten, und die jungen Mägdlein mir schwerlich ein Mäulchen geben; die verwaschenen Mägde werden ein Gespötte aus mir machen, der springende Gaukler und lasterhafte Komödiant wird mich ın ein Nach- und Possenspiel mit hineinbringen.

Der hunderthändige Fechter wird mich linkisch und rechtisch anfallen; der verwirrte Geometra oder Feldmesser wird mich mit seinem Triangel und viereckigen Zirkeln, gleich als mit dem Gordischen Knoten ın Verwirrung bringen und gefangen nehmen; der vorgebliche Bildschnitzer und Maler wird mich garstiger als einen Affen und häßlicher, als der Thersites gewesen, schnitzen und abmalen; der herumschweifende Weltbeschreiber wird mich über die Sauromatas und das glazialische Meer relegieren; der kunstreiche Baumeister mit seinen trefflichen Maschinen und Werkzeugen mir heimlich den Fuß unterschlagen und mich vieler Irrtümer bezichtigen.

Der teuflische Bergmann wird mich in die Goldgruben hinunterstoßen, daß ich weder Sonn’ noch Mond werde zu sehen bekommen; die wahrsagerischen Astrologi oder Sterngucker werden mir den Galgen an den Hals prognostizieren und mit ihrer rumdrehenden Sphära den Weg zum Himmel verwahren; die drohenden Wahrsager werden mir alles Böse prophezeien; der unerträgliche Physiognomus, oder, der von der äußerlichen Statur des Leibes judizieret, wird mich hin und wieder austragen, und der närrische Metoposcopus, oder der es einem am Gesichte ansehen kann, wird mich für einen gehirnlosen Esel ästimieren; der wahrsagerische Chiromantes oder der aus der Hand judizieret, wird mir nicht viel Gutes wahrsagen; der zuvorsagende Aruspex oder, der aus dem Vogelgeschrei seine Taten beweist, wird mir einen traurigen Anfang in meinen Sachen prognostizieren; der wundersame Spekulator oder Spiegelkünstler wird mir des Jupiters Blitz und Flammen zuschicken; der finstere Oniropola oder Gespenstvertreiber wird mich mit Nachtgespenstern erschrecken.

Der wütende Vates oder Wahrsager wird mich mit einem zweideutigen Orakel betrügen; der zauberische Magus wird mich entweder wie den Apulejum, oder wie den Lucianum in einen Esel, jedoch nicht wie jener, der von Golde gewesen, suchen zu verwandeln; der schwarze Goetius oder Teufelsbanner wird mich mit lauter Nachtgeistern verfolgen.

Der kirchenräuberische Theurgus, oder der göttliche Reinigungsbefleißiger wird mir den Kopf in die Kloake hineinstecken; der abgemessene Kabbalista oder jüdische Ausleger der Wörter durch gewisse Zahlen, oder durch Versetzung der Buchstaben wird mir meinen Abgang wünschen; der altväterische Prästigiator oder Verblender wird mir den beschnittenen Acephalum vor die Augen malen. Und, mein, wie werden doch die zänkischen Philosophen mit ihren wider sich selbst streitenden Meinungen in mich wüten und toben; die landstreichenden Pythagorici werden mich zwischen dem Hund und Krokodil gehen heißen.

Die schändlichen und bissigsten Cynici, oder Philosophi, deren Obermeister der Antisthenes gewesen, werden mich gar in ein Faß einschließen wollen; die pestilenzischen Academici werden mir eine böse Frau an den Hals wünschen; die verschwelgerischen Epikureer werden mich mit ihrem Verschwelgen zu Tode saufen; die grundlosen Peripatetici werden mir nach der Seele stehen und mich aus dem Paradies zu verstoßen suchen; die ernsthaftigen Stoiker werden mir alle menschlichen Affekte benehmen und mich in einen Stein verwandeln; die vergeblich redenden Metaphysici oder die Sitten-Tugendlehrer werden mir mit ihrem demogorgonischen (?) Chaos, der doch niemals gewesen ist und auch nicht werden wird, meinen Sinn ganz verkehrt zu machen suchen.

Der politische Legislator oder Gesetzgeber wird mir alle Ämter versagen; der wollüstige Fürst wird mich vom Hofe wegschaffen, und die Großen daselbst werden mich von ihrem Tische verjagen; das verhärtete Volk wird mich auf den Gassen mit lauter Scheltworten plagen, und der grausame erschreckliche Tyrann wird mich zu wilden Tieren einschließen; die zusammengerotteten Regenten werden mich ins Exilium verjagen; der ungestüme gemeine Mann, der wie eine Bestia mit vielen Köpfen ist, wird mich ungehört ins Verderben jagen; die Republik oder das gemeine Wesen wird mich einer Verräterei beschuldigen.

Die geizigen Pfaffen werden mir den Altar und Beichtstuhl verbieten; die verfluchten Heuchler, nämlich die Kutten- und Mönchskappenträger, werden mich von ihrem Predigtstuhl und Kanzel runterwerfen; die allmächtigen Päpste werden mir meine Sünde zum Fegfeuer behalten; die geilen Hurer werden mir die Franzosen an den Hals wünschen; der räuberische Hurenwirt und die versoffene Kupplerin werden mir meinen Beutel suchen zu fegen; die voller Schwären rumstreichenden Bettler werden das Armenhaus vor mir verschließen; die da mit Indulgentien handeln und die Sünde um Geld vergeben, werden mir den heiligen Brand wünschen; der ungetreue Haushalter wird mich in der Garküche verarrestieren. Der gotteslästerliche Schiffmann wird mich in Scyllam und Charybdin hineinführen; der leichtfertige und gewissenlose Kaufmann wird mich mit seinem Wuchern selbst verpfänden.

Der diebische Schösser wird mir nach meinem bißchen Brot trachten; die harten Ackersleute werden mir den Garten und das Feld verbieten; die müßigen Hirten werden mir, daß ich dem Wolf möchte in seine Klauen kommen, wünschen; der wasserschwärmerische Fischer wird mir eine heimliche Angel unterlegen; der schreiige Jäger wird den Stoßvogel und Hunde über mich schicken; der streitbare Soldat wird mich plündern und berauben und mir eine Kugel schenken; die purpurfarbigen Edelleute werden mich ganz degradieren wollen; die schön uniformierten Heraldi werden mir meine sechzehn Ahnen disputerlich machen und die ritterlichen Exerzitia versagen; auch mich für einen verlaufenen Bauer schelten.

Die dreckfressenden Medici werden mir das Harnglas oder den Binkelscherben auf den Kopf gießen; einer, welcher von der Krankheit viel vergeblich Disputierens macht, wird mir alle Mittel versagen, und der verwegene Empiricus alle gefährlichen Experimente an mir versuchen, daß er mich gleich darüber ad Patres liefern möge; und der betrügerische Methodicus wird mir meine Krankheit zu seinem höchsten Nutzen fein lange aufhalten; der unflätige Apotheker wird mich mit seinem garstigen Klistieren besudeln; die knabenverderberischen Barbiere werden mir den Kopf mit scharfer Lauge waschen; die greulichen Anatomici werden mich zu sezieren begehren.

Der unflätige Postillon wird mir die Post versagen und mit Fuhrmannsstaub die Augen zu verblenden suchen; der, welcher andern eine Diät vorschreibt, wird mich Hunger sterben lassen, und der versoffene Koch wird mir einen ungesalzenen Bissen ins Maul stopfen.

Der vertuliche Goldmacher wird mir von seinem Reichtum nichts zukommen lassen und mich in seinen Brennofen stecken; der unüberwindliche Jurist wird mich mit einem Haufen Glossen belästigen, und der unverschämte Zungendrescher wird mich einer Beleidigung der hohen Majestät beschuldigen.

Der prahlende Gesetzlehrer des geistlichen Rechtes wird mich exkommunizieren; der zänkische Kausenmacher wird mir unzählige Schmach antun; der betrügerische Prokurator wird mit meinem Gegenteil kolludieren; der nichtswürdige Amts- oder Gerichtsbote wird Falschheit gegen mich brauchen; der unerbittliche Richter wird mır ein schlecht’ Urteil sprechen und mir bei der Appellation die Apostel, wie man sie nennt, versagen; der gebietende Erzschreiber, der Kanzler, wird mir keinen Befehl auswirken lassen; der halsstarrige Bibellehrer wird mich einer Ketzerei beschuldigen; unsere hochtrabenden Magistri und Lehrer werden von mir einen Widerruf begehren, und die großen Sorbonnischen Doctores und Atlasträger werden mich mit großen Siegeln in die Acht erklären.

Siehst du nun nicht, mein lieber Leser, mit wem ich anjetzo zu tun habe, und was für großer Gefahr ich entgegengehe? Aber ich habe gute Hoffnung, allen diesen Anfällen zu entgehen, wenn du nur der Wahrheit zum Besten Geduld haben und alle Parteilichkeit und Mißgunst ablegen und mit rechtschaffenem, aufrichtigem Gemüte dasjenige, was ich allhier geschrieben, zu lesen dich bequemen wolltest. Überdies habe ich für mich Gottes Wort, womit ich mich wehre; das brauche ich unerschrocken für meinen Schild und Schirm, und wenn es ja sein soll, will ich (indem desselben wegen ich so viel Feinde gegen mich erweckt) gar gerne und viel lieber leiden, als von dieser Sache abstehen.

Und ich wollte, lieber Leser, daß du es vor allen Dingen wüßtest, daß ich dieses zu schreiben weder aus Haß noch aus Ehrgeiz, noch aus einem bösen Vorsatz, noch aus Antrieb eines Irrtums bin bewogen worden. Es hat mich auch nicht eine leichtfertige Begierde, noch ein Ansehen dadurch zu erwecken, sondern die gerechte und wahrhafte Sache dazu getrieben, indem ich erfahren und genugsam gesehen habe, und noch immer sehe und erfahre, daß ihrer viel durch diese irdischen Wissenschaften so stolz und indolent werden, daß sie die Sprache der heiligen Schrift und in derselben die Aussage des heiligen Geistes nur deswegen, weil in denselben keine zierlichen Reden, keine anmutigen Beredsamkeiten und keine neue philosophische Erudition, sondern nur eine einfältige Operation der Tugend und des Elendes zu finden, als eine bäurische Unwissenheit vernichten und gänzlich verächtlich halten.

So sehen wir auch andere, die sich ein wenig gottesfürchtiger zu sein dünken, und zwar Christi heilige Gebote zu billigen sich angelegen sein lassen, jedoch, anderer Gestalt nicht, als wenn sie mit den philosophischen Menschensatzungen können behauptet werden, und teilen also denselben mehr zu, als Gottes heiligen Propheten, Evangelisten und Aposteln, da doch diese von jenen mehr als Himmel und Erde entfernt sind.

So ist auch über dieses fast in allen Schulen so ein verkehrter und leichtfertiger Gebrauch und so eine verdammte Gewohnheit, daß die lernenden Discipul gleichsam durch einen Eidschwur ihren Lehrmeistern zusagen müssen, daß sie dem Aristoteli, oder dem Boëthio, oder dem Thomae, oder dem Alberto als ihrem Schulgott in Ewigkeit nicht widersprechen wollen, ja, welcher nur einen Nagel breit von ihnen dissentieret — den halten sie gleich für einen ärgerlichen Ketzer, und damit durch denselben züchtige Ohren nicht beleidiget werden möchten, so suchen sie ihn gleich auf den Scheiterhaufen zu werfen.

Sich nun, lieber Leser, mit diesen kühnen Riesen habe ich jetzo zu schaffen, und mit diesen Feinden der heiligen Schrift muß ich mich in einen Kampf einlassen, ihre Schlösser und Festungen muß ich dartun und erweisen, wie groß der Menschen Blindheit sei und wie sie mit so vielen ihren Lehrmeistern und Erfindern aller Wissenschaften und Künste allezeit von der Erkenntnis der rechten Wahrheit abweichen.

Denn, mein! was ist es doch für eine grausame Unbesonnenheit und für eine stolze Einbildung, die philosophischen Schulen den Kirchen Christi vorzuziehen, und den Menschentand und ihre ungegründeten Satzungen Gottes heiligem Worte gleich zu achten? Fürwahr, es ist eine unchristliche Tyrannei, die Ingenia der Studierenden gefangen zu nehmen und den Discipuln die Freiheit, der Wahrheit nachzuforschen, zu entziehen.

Welches, weil es alles so klar und offenbar ist, daß es nicht geleugnet werden kann. Also werdet ihr mir für diesmal auch verzeihen, wenn ich etwas freier und vielleicht etwas zu scharf auf eine oder die andere Disziplin, oder auf ihre Professoren meine Rede ergehen lasse. Gehabe dich wohl.
— Vorrede. Herausgegeben von Fritz Mauthner, erster Band, pp. 4-12.

GRIPPA (Henri Corneille), grand magicien, si l’on en croit beaucoup de gens, a été un fort savant homme dans le seizième siècle. Il naquit à Cologne le 14 de septembre 1486, d’une famille noble et ancienne. Voulant marcher sur les traces de ses ancêtres qui, depuis plusieurs générations, avaient exercé des charges auprès des princes de la maison d’Autriche, il entra de fort bonne heure au service de l’empereur Maximilien. Il y eut d’abord un emploi de secrétaire ; mais comme il était aussi propre à l’épée qu’à la plume, il prit ensuite le parti des armes, et servit sept ans cet empereur dans l’armée d’Italie. Il se signala dans plusieurs rencontres, et il obtint en récompense de ses beaux faits le titre de chevalier. Il voulut joindre à ses honneurs militaires les honneurs académiques : il se fit donc recevoir docteur en droit et en médecine. On ne peut nier que ce ne fût un très-grand esprit, et qu’il n’eût la connaissance d’une infinité de choses et de plusieurs langues ; mais sa trop grande curiosité, sa plume trop libre et son humeur inconstante le rendirent malheureux. Il changeait éternellement de poste ; il se faisait partout des affaires, et, pour comble d’infortune, il s’attira par ses écrits la haine des gens d’église. On voit par ses lettres qu’il avait été en France avant l’année 1507, qu’il voyagea en Espagne l’an 1508, et qu’il était à Dôle en 1509. Il y fit des leçons publiques qui le commirent avec le cordelier Catilinet. Les moines, en ce temps-là, soupçonnaient d’erreur ou d’hérésie tout ce qu’ils n’entendaient pas ; comment auraient-ils souffert qu’Agrippa expliquât impunément le mystérieux ouvrage de Reuchlin de Verbo mirifico ? Ce fut la matière des leçons qu’il fit à Dôle, en l’année 1509, avec un fort grand éclat. Les conseillers même du parlement l’allaient entendre. Pour mieux s’insinuer dans la faveur de Marguerite d’Autriche, gouvernante des Pays-Bas, il fit alors le Traité de l’Excellence des femmes ; mais la persécution qu’il souffrit de la part des moines l’empêcha de le publier. Il leur quitta la partie et s’en alla en Angleterre, où il travailla sur les épîtres de saint Paul, quoiqu’il eût entre les mains une autre affaire fort secrète. Étant repassé à Cologne, il y fit des leçons publiques sur les questions de théologie qu’on nomme quodlibetales ; après quoi il alla joindre en Italie l’armée de l’empereur Maximilien, et y demeura jusqu’à ce que le cardinal de Sainte-Croix l’appelât à Pise. Agrippa y aurait fait paraître ses talens en qualité de théologien du concile, si cette assemblée avait duré. Ce n’eût pas été le moyen de plaire à la cour de Rome, ni de mériter la lettre obligeante qu’il reçut de Léon X, et d’où nous pouvons conclure qu’il changea de sentiment. Il enseigna depuis publiquement la théologie à Pavie et à Turin. Il fit des leçons sur Mercure Trismegiste à Pavie, l’an 1515. Sa sortie de cette ville, la même année ou l’année suivante, tint plus de la fuite que de la retraite. Cela paraît par sa lettre XLIX du premier livre comparée avec la LII. Il avait dès lors femme et enfans. Il paraît par le second livre de ses Lettres que ses amis travaillèrent en divers lieux à lui procurer quelque établissement honorable, ou à Grenoble ou à Genève, ou à Avignon, ou à Metz. Il préféra le parti qui lui fut offert dans ce dernier lieu, et je trouve que, dès l’an 1518, il y exerçait l’emploi de syndic, d’avocat et d’orateur de la ville. Les persécutions que les moines lui suscitèrent, tant parce qu’il avait réfuté l’opinion commune touchant les trois maris de sainte Anne, que parce qu’il avait protégé une paysanne accusée de sorcellerie, lui firent abandonner la ville de Metz. Ce qui le poussa à écrire sur la monogamie de sainte Anne fut de voir que Jacques Faber d’Étaples, son ami, était mis en pièces par les prédicateurs de Metz, pour avoir soutenu ce sentiment. Agrippa se retira en son pays de Cologne, l’an 1520, quittant volontiers une ville que ces inquisiteurs séditieux avaient rendue l’ennemie des belles-lettres et du véritable mérite. C’est la destinée de tous les pays où pareil les gens s’impatronisent, de quelque religion qu’ils soient. Il sortit de sa patrie l’an 1521, et s’en alla à Genève ; il n’y gagnait pas beaucoup d’argent, puisqu’il se plaint de n’être pas assez riche pour faire un voyage à Chambéri, afin d’y solliciter lui-même la pension qu’on lui faisait espérer du duc de Savoie. Cette espérance n’aboutit à rien, et alors Agrippa sortit de Genève et s’en alla à Fribourg en Suisse, l’an 1523, pour y pratiquer la médecine comme il avait fait à Genève. L’année suivante, il s’en alla à Lyon, et obtint une pension de François I^er. Il entra chez la mère de ce prince en qualité de médecin ; mais il n’y fit point fortune, et ne suivit pas même cette princesse lorsqu’elle partit de Lyon, au mois d’août 1525, pour aller mener sa fille sur les frontières d’Espagne. On le laissa morfondre à Lyon, et implorer vainement le crédit de ses amis pour le paiement de ses gages. Avant que de les toucher il eut le chagrin d’être averti qu’on l’avait rayé de dessus l’état. La cause de sa disgrâce fut qu’ayant reçu ordre de sa maîtresse de chercher par les règles de l’astrologie le cours que les affaires de France devaient tenir, il désapprouva trop librement que cette princesse voulut l’appliquer à ces vaines curiosités, au lieu de se servir de lui dans des choses plus importantes. La dame prit en mauvaise part cette leçon ; mais elle fut encore plus irritée lorsqu’elle sut que l’astrologie d’Agrippa promettait de nouveaux triomphes au connétable de Bourbon. Agrippa, se voyant cassé, murmura ; pesta, menaça, écrivit, et dit tout ce que son humeur malendurante lui suggérait ; mais enfin il fallut songer à un nouvel établissement. Il jeta les yeux sur le Pays-Bas, et ayant obtenu à Paris, après une infinité de longueurs, le passe-port qui lui était nécessaire, il arriva à Anvers au mois de juillet 1528. Une des causes de ces longueurs fut la brusquerie du duc de Vendôme, qui, au lieu de signer le passe-port, le déchira, en disant qu’il ne voulait point signer pour un devin. En l’année 1529, Agrippa se vit appelé tout à la fois par Henri, roi d’Angleterre, par le chancelier de l’empereur, par un marquis italien et par Marguerite d’Autriche, gouvernante du Pays-Bas. Il choisit ce dernier parti, et accepta la charge d’historiographe de l’empereur que cette princesse lui fit donner. Il publia pour prélude l’Histoire du gouvernement de Charles-Quint, et bientôt après il fallut qu’il fît l’Oraison funèbre de cette dame, dont la mort fut en quelque manière la vie de notre Agrippa ; car on avait terriblement prévenu contre lui l’esprit de cette princesse. On lui rendit les mêmes mauvais offices auprès de sa majesté impériale. Le Traité de La Vanité des Sciences, qu’il fit imprimer en 1530, irrita furieusement ses ennemis. Celui qu’il publia bientôt après à Anvers, de la Philosophie occulte, leur fournit encore plus de prétextes de le diffamer. Bien lui valut que le cardinal Campège, légat du pape, et le cardinal de la Mark, évêque de Liége, parlassent pour lui. Leurs bons offices ne firent pas qu’il pût recevoir un sou de sa pension d’historiographe, et n’empêchèrent point qu’il ne fût mis dans les prisons de Bruxelles l’an 1531. Il n’y demeura pas long-temps. Il fit une visite l’année suivante à l’archevêque de Cologne ; il lui avait dédié sa Philosophie occulte, et il en avait reçu une lettre remplie d’honnêtetés. La crainte des créanciers fut cause qu’il se tint dans le pays de Cologne plus long-temps qu’il aurait voulu. Il s’opposa vigoureusement aux inquisiteurs qui avaient fait arrêter l’impression de sa Philosophie occulte, lorsqu’il en faisait faire à Cologne une nouvelle édition, corrigée et augmentée. Voyez la XXVIe. lettre de son septième livre, et les suivantes. En dépit d’eux, on acheva l’impression ; c’est celle de l’an 1533. Il se tint à Bonn jusqu’en l’année 1535. Alors il eut envie de retourner à Lyon. On l’emprisonna en France pour quelque chose qu’il avait écrit contre la mère de François I^er. ; mais il fut élargi, à la prière de quelques personnes, et il s’en alla à Grenoble où il mourut la même année 1535. Quelques-uns disent qu’il mourut à l’hôpital ; mais, selon Gabriel Naudé, ce fut chez le receveur général de la province de Dauphiné, le fils duquel a été premier président de Grenoble. M. Allard, page 4 de la Bibliothéque de Dauphiné, assure qu’Agrippa mourut à Grenoble, dans la maison qui appartient à la famille de Ferrand, rue des Clercs, qui était alors au président Vachon, et qu’il fut enterré aux Jacobins. Il vécut toujours dans la communion romaine : ainsi on n’a pas dû dire qu’il a été luthérien. Je ne crois point qu’il ait écrit pour le divorce de Henri VIII. Quant à la magie dont on l’accuse, je consens que chacun en croie ce qu’il voudra. Une chose sais-je bien, c’est que les lettres qu’il écrivait à ses intimes amis, sans prétendre qu’elles fussent un jour imprimées, portent toutes les marques d’un homme stylé aux réflexions de religion et au langage du christianisme. Ses accusateurs n’ont pas été bien informés de ses aventures, et cela énerve leur témoignage. On aura lieu d’être surpris de leurs bévues, et de l’effet qu’ils ont produit, nonobstant la négligence avec laquelle ils ont recherché les faits. Après tout, s’il a été magicien, il est une forte preuve de l’impuissance de la magie ; car jamais homme n’a échoué plus de fois que lui, ni ne s’est vu plus souvent que lui dans la crainte de manquer de pain. Les financiers de François I^er. et ceux de Charles-Quint étaient sans doute très-persuadés de son innocence à cet égard, vu la manière dont ils le jouaient quand il s’adressait à eux pour toucher ses gages. Il y a des erreurs de fait dans les moyens dont quelques-uns se sont servis pour faire son apologie. M. Moréri s’est déclaré hautement pour lui, et c’est ce qu’on ne devait pas attendre de sa plume. Ses fautes ne sont pas nombreuses dans cet article. Nous avons déjà marqué les principaux livres d’Agrippa, et nous en parlerons plus en détail dans les remarques. Il suffit d’ajouter qu’il a fait un Commentaire sur l’art de Raymond Lulle, et une Dissertation sur l’origine du péché, où il établit que la chute de nos premiers pères vint de ce qu’ils s’aimèrent impudiquement. Il promettait un ouvrage contre les Dominicains, qui aurait réjoui bien des gens, et hors de l’Église romaine et dans l’Église romaine. Il eut quelques opinions qui n’étaient pas de la routine, et jamais protestant ne parla avec plus de force que lui contre l’audace des légendaires.

Il ne faut pas oublier la clef de sa Philosophie occulte. Il la gardait uniquement pour ses amis du premier ordre, et il l’expliquait d’une manière qui n’est guère différente des spéculations de nos quiétistes. Disons aussi que l’édition de ses œuvres, faite à Lyon, en deux volumes in 8°., est mutilée dans un endroit qui pouvait déplaire aux gens d’église.
— Dictionnaire historique et critique 11e éd., 1820. I, pp. 287-291. Die Fußnoten sind hier fortgelassen.

erman Humanist and theoretician of magic. Agrippa’s family belonged to the middle nobility in Nettesheim, near Cologne. He studied in Cologne from 1499 to 1502, when he received the degree of magister artium, and later in Paris. During his studies in the latter city, Agrippa seems to have taken part in a secret circle or self-help society, the members of which were interested in studying res arcanae, and with whom he tried to remain in contact in later years. In 1508 he traveled to Spain, where he got involved in an adventurous military campaign to seize a fortified castle near Barcelona. From there he continued traveling, by way of Valencia, the Baleares, Sardinia, Naples, Avignon, and Lyon. Agrippa’s family was by tradition in the service of the Roman Emperors, and thus in his early years as well as later he served as a captain in the army of Maximilian I, Holy Roman Emperor, who awarded him the title of Ritter or knight. His irregular career as a university professor began at the university of Dôle (Burgundy) in 1509, where he was given the opportunity to lecture on Johannes Reuchlin’s De verbo mirifico, and wrote his De nobilitate et praecellentia foeminae sexus (On the Nobility and Excellence of the Feminine Sex), partly no doubt in an attempt to win the favour of Margaret of Austria. Agrippa’s lectures attracted much interest and earned him a doctorate in theology, but he was forced to leave the city in 1510, after having been attacked by the Franciscan prior Jean Catilinet for judaizing heresy. His study of Reuchlin’s work first suggested to Agrippa the project of a radical restoration of magic. In the winter of 1509-1510 he discussed this with Johannes Trithemius, to whom he dedicated the first draft of his De occulta philosophia (On the Occult Philosophy), which remained unpublished for the time being. Trithemius – whose own experiences had taught him caution – advised him to persevere with his studies but to ‘talk about arcane secrets only with proper friends’.

Having left Dôle, Agrippa went to London, from where he wrote his Expostulatio super Expositione sua in librum De verbo mirifico (Opera II, 508-518) in an attempt to defend himself against Catilinet’s accusations. He repeated his ideas about Reuchlin’s De verbo mirifico, and affirmed that his Christian faith was in no way incompatible with his appreciation for Jewish thought and exegesis: ‘I am a Christian, but I do not dislike Jewish Rabbis’. While in England, he met the Humanist and Platonist John Colet, with whom he studied the Epistles of Paul; and we know that in the following years he was working on a commentary on the Epistle to the Romans. Having returned to his hometown Cologne, at the Faculty of Theology he gave some religious disputations – unfortunately lost – on religious practices in the contemporary church.

From 1511 to 1518 Agrippa lived in northern Italy, and was involved in the conflict between the French and Imperial armies: first in the service of the Emperor Maximilian and later in the circles of William IX Paleologus. In these years he came into contact with Agostino Ricci and perhaps Paolo Ricci, and deepened his knowledge of the writings of Marsilio Ficino, Giovanni Pico della Mirandola, and the kabbalah. He took part in the schismatic Council of Pisa (1512), but his loyalty to the Roman Church is attested by a letter (Agrippa, Opera II, 710) in which Pietro Bembo, the secretary of Pope Leo X, thanks him and acknowledges his orthodox position. Afterwards he lived for several years in Pavia, where he lectured at the University. His first course was probably devoted to Plato’s Symposium (1512), and in 1515 he lectured on Ficino’s Pimander. Around the same time he composed the Dialogus De homine, which remained unpublished during his lifetime and has survived only in a fragmentary state; based upon Pico della Mirandola’s Heptaplus, it is full of references to the Hermetic literature. Agrippa married his first (Italian) wife in Pavia, and experienced here one of the happiest periods of his life.

As a consequence of the 1515 French victory at Marignano, where the duchy of Milan was reconquered and the imperial army defeated, Agrippa had to flee from Pavia. He had to leave behind many of his manuscripts, which were later recovered by one of his friends. He moved to Casale, where he wrote his Liber de triplici ratione cognoscendi Deum (Book on the triple way of knowing God) dedicated to his protector William Paleologus. As in earlier and later works, he refuted scholastic theology and emphasized faith rather than human reason as the exclusive way to approach God. His Dehortatio gentilis theologiae, probably written in this period, was based upon a convivial talk given by Agrippa to some friends a few years after his course on the Pimander. He significantly warned them, and all intellectuals, not to go too far in their admiration for the Hermetic writings and neglect the primacy of Christian revelation: ‘if, by taking away secretly, so to speak, the rich spoils from their illegal possessors, the Egyptians, and by elevating yourselves with their riches, you enrich the Church of God, then I no longer advise against pagan literature, but I recommend it to you’. In Turin, his last Italian stay, he lectured on the Epistles of Paul in 1516: it was to be his last appearance in a university context.

After a short intermezzo at the court of Charles III, Duke of Savoy, Agrippa was employed in 1518 as public advocate and defense lawyer in the free imperial city of Metz. On the eve of the Reformation the religious and theological debate was explosive. Agrippa and his humanist friends followed the developments with great interest and often with sympathy for the Reformers, without going as far as supporting the schism. It is worth noting in this context how in De peccato originale (1518), as in some other writings, Agrippa addressed the problem of salvation: faith is central, while reason is accorded only a secondary role. Agrippa was quite original, furthermore, in suggesting that original sin had consisted in the act of sexual intercourse, and in holding Adam rather than Eve responsible for the Fall. In this same period he also got into a conflict with the Dominicans, Claude Salin in particular, over his support of Lefèvre d’Etaples’s De una ex tribus Maria. Lefèvre had argued against the popular opinion that Saint Anne had been married three times and had given birth to three daughters: Mary the mother of Jesus, and two other Marys who were considered to be mothers of Apostles. The conflict turned very nasty, with professional teachers sermonizing against Agrippa from the pulpit.

In his capacity of legal advisor to the magistrate of Metz, Agrippa played a crucial role in a famous witch trial in 1519, where he defended a woman accused of witchcraft and, as a result, got into great trouble with the Inquisition. The woman was accused because her mother was considered a witch, and the pact with the devil was believed to be hereditary; but Agrippa argued that the sacrament of baptism was stronger than the pact with the devil. He implicitly accused the inquisitor not only of acting contrary to human decency, the law, and the spirit of Christianity, but also implied that his implicit denial of baptism as a sacrament was heretical. Although Agrippa succeeded in saving the accused’s life, his conflict with the Dominican authorities made his position in Metz untenable and forced him to leave.

Agrippa moved with his wife and child back to Cologne, where he stayed for a year, apparently without regular employment. Here his wife fell ill, and she died soon after, probably during the travel with her husband to Geneva, where Agrippa became a citizen and worked as a physician. He remarried a few months later, with a woman from Geneva who would bear him six children. They traveled to Fribourg early in 1523, where Agrippa continued to work as a physician and gained increasing recognition as a progressive thinker.

He made the mistake of leaving Fribourg in 1524 and accept a position in Lyon, as physician to Louise of Savoy, Queen Mother of France. Agrippa’s expectations were disappointed, for the Queen forced him to write astrological prognostications – a practice he despised – and suspected him of being a partisan of Charles of Bourbon, who was fighting against the King on the side of the Emperor. The Queen’s treasurers refused to pay him his salary, and the court ridiculed him behind his back; at the end of 1527 Agrippa finally left his employment, but his criticisms of the Queen later caused him to be imprisoned for a time. In spite of his troubles in Lyon, Agrippa managed to remain productive. He wrote a commentary to Llull’s Ars Brevis and a declamation De sacramento matrimonii (On the sacrament of marriage); and in september 1526 he completed one of his most important works: the declamation De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum et artium atque excellentia verbi Dei (On the uncertainty and vanity of sciences and arts, and on the excellence of the word of God). Apart from his financial troubles, his wife was ill as well, and De incertitudine certainly reflects his depressed mood at the time.

In 1528 a new and more successful phase in Agrippa’s life began, with his appointment in Antwerp as advisor and historiographer to the governor of the low countries, Margaret of Austria. He wrote speeches, historiographical works and a document with instructions about an expedition to the Turks. Among the increasing number of students who sought him out was Johann Wier (1515-1588), who would study with him for four years. At the Imperial Court Agrippa had an influential friend, Eustache Chapuys, an Erasmian humanist (later Charles V’s ambassador in England) to whom he later dedicated his Querela. The first years in Antwerpen seem to have been relatively peaceful and happy for Agrippa. He was able to devote himself to studies in the occult sciences, and in 1529 managed to publish a volume of collected writings; they contained largely theological writings, but also a text on the treatment of epidemic disease. A second edition published in 1532 also contained treatises on monastic life and on the relics of Saint Antony. In August 1529 Agrippa’s peace was interrupted when his wife died of the plague that was sweeping Antwerp. While most of the town physicians fled the city, Agrippa remained on his post, only to be accused by his colleagues later, for illegal practice.

Agrippa had obtained an Imperial Privilege to publish several of his works, including De incertitudine; but after it had been published, in 1530, Princess Margaret began to suspect him of heterodoxy and solicited the opinion of the Theology Faculty of Louvain. She died in December, before her suspicions could be confirmed by the theologians, but Agrippa’s troubles were not over: Charles V’s brother, Ferdinand, detested the contents of De incertitudine and wrote about it to the Emperor. The inquiry was continued, and the Louvain theologians judged parts of his work heretical. Agrippa wrote an Apologia in his defense, and a Querela against those who were attacking his good reputation with the Emperor; but meanwhile the Sorbonne theologians attacked and banned De Incertitudine as well, for favouring Lutheranism. As a result of this increasing hostility, including accusations of black magic, Agrippa’s position at the court became unstable and he no longer received payment. In August 1531 he was briefly imprisoned for debt in Brussels.

In the same year appeared the first book of his De occulta philosophia, dedicated to the progressive Archbishop elector of Cologne, Hermann von Wied, who played an important role in supporting his work in spite of the opposition. However, the Inquisitor of Cologne, Konrad Köllin, denounced De occulta and its author as heretical before the City Council. In his response to the Council, Agrippa accused the theologians of hindering the reform of the Church with their battle against humanists such as Reuchlin and Erasmus (who in a letter to Agrippa praised De incertitudine, but did not want to get involved in the controversies). Against the witch-hunters, whom he claimed were more interested in their own profit than in matters of faith, he seems to have issued a pamphlet denouncing the dangerous misdeeds of the Dominicans; but we only know of this work thanks to a reference in Sisto da Siena’s Bibliotheca Santa. Finally, Agrippa wrote a preface to a work by a Cistercian monk, Godeschalcus Moncordius, in which he opposed the Cisterciansian methods against those of the Dominicans.

According to Johannes Wier, Agrippa married a third time, but his wife (a woman from Malines) betrayed him and he repudiated her in 1535. From 1532 on he seems to have resided mainly in Bonn. In 1533 appeared the final and complete version of De occulta philosphia, as well as his commentary on Llull’s Ars Brevis. Agrippa’s last surviving letter dates from the middle of 1533, and for the final years of his life we are dependent on Wier’s account. According to him, Agrippa went to Lyon, where he was briefly imprisoned by King Francis, but released thanks to the intercession of friends. He died in Grenoble in 1535 or 1536 and his body is – ironically – buried in a Dominican church.

In spite of his profound religiosity and his deep knowledge, Agrippa was always in danger of being considered a dangerous outsider by the representatives of mainstream Renaissance culture. He lived in an age marked by religious turbulence and neverending wars. While he liked to adopt an attitude of being “above the parties”, Agrippa did not hesitate to criticize Catholics and Lutherans alike. Nominally a Catholic, he appreciated Luther, whose attack against the abuses of the church and initiatives for reformation he claims were never intended to destroy the idea of the Church itself. Agrippa’s epistolary reflects his ambiguity in this regard: in a letter to his friend Campeggi (Opera II, 1010-1012), he expresses his hope that the Church will soon be reunified and ‘freed from the impiety of the heretics and the darkness of the Sophists’ (that is to say: the scholastic theologians). The successive letter, dated 17 September 1532, is addressed to Melanchton and is famous because of its reference to ‘that unconquered heretic Martin Luther’ (a formulation repeated in De incertitudine, but in a less favourable context). Discussing Agrippa’s relation to contemporary Reformation currents, Paola Zambelli (1967) has placed him in the context of the radical Reformation and the spiritualists, nicodemism in particular.

In the De nobilitate et praecellentia foeminae sexus (published in 1529) Agrippa argued, against the traditional misogynic perspective, that women are superior to men, even though the representatives of the public sphere from which they had long been excluded did not accept this point of view. At the beginning of the 15th century a feminist trend had emerged in France, Italy and Spain, contradicting the traditional idea of female inferiority, and the responsibility of woman for original sin; inspired by the Roman de la Rose, it presented women as good, noble and pure. The originality of Agrippa’s treatise lies in his use of kabbalistic and neoplatonic sources, according to which woman is an immediate manifestation of the divine, a principle of original life. For Agrippa all the virtues of Nature were evident in woman, considered superior by him because of her proximity to the divine. The treatise is important for having introduced into France the Platonic and Ficinian cult of beauty, according to which woman is the mediator between the human and the divine. As to the question of why women were excluded, he argued that this had to do with social conditions, education, and the prejudices of the age: obstacles that could be removed.

Agrippa’s most notorious work, his masterpiece, and the one which gave rise to his undeserved reputation as a black magician, is his De occulta philosophia, whose final version in three books was published in 1533. It is a systematic synthesis of “occult philosophy” or “magic” (Agrippa originally wanted to call it De magia): the first book treats of the natural magic relevant to the sublunar or elementary world; the second book discusses number symbolism, mathematics, music and astrology as relevant to the celestial world; and the third book is largely Christian-kabbalistic, focusing on angelology and prophecy as relevant to the highest or intellectual world. Magic emerges from Agrippa’s magnum opus as the most perfect science, by means of which one may come to know both nature and God. Prior to the final version of 1533, Agrippa’s thinking as reflected in De occulta philosophia passed through several stages. The book has been called “a neoplatonic credo”: the influence of Ficino and Pico is evident, but less famous authors such as Lazzarelli play a significant role as well. The first version – an encyclopaedic review rather than a treatise – most clearly reveals Agrippa’s profound dependence on his predecessors, Reuchlin in particular. The final draft, as pointed out by Perrone Compagni, reveals a more mature grasp of the subject and of his claims about spiritual rebirth as necessary for religious reform. The latter should take place step by step: one must progressively remove one’s ties to the blinding theology (scholasticism in particular) that conceals the real meaning of the Holy Scriptures. Through continuous contemplation of divine things, the soul may free itself from the lure of the senses. In his dedicatory letter to Trithemius, Agrippa seeks to explain how magic, which the ancient philosophers considered the highest science, could have fallen into such disrepute; he argues that ‘by a certain corruption of times and men’, many dangerous errors and superstitions crept in, and false philosophers prefixed the title of “magic” to their heresies and wicked practices. It is now necessary to restore magic to its former state of the purest kind of religion; and from the Third Book one can deduce that Agrippa conceived of the latter largely in terms of Christian kabbalah.

In his other great work, De incertitudine, Agrippa seeks to show the relativity of all human knowledge, as compared to God’s word as the only foundation of true certainty, by means of an incisive attack on all the sciences and arts. Echoing Erasmus’ Encomium Moriae, Agrippa satiricizes various beliefs, deploring the superstitions that have ruined the original purity of the Christian Church. The work has been incorrectly interpreted as a revival of Greek scepticism; but actually, Agrippa’s aim was to build a new concept of faith, based on divine revelation more than on Church interpretation, and to expose the blindness and arrogance of the school-theologians. The Bible should be restored to a leading role in Christian belief and practice. Marc van der Poel has located Agrippa within the Ciceronian tradition, and shows how De incertitudine can be considered the culmination of Agrippa’s battle against the scholastic theologians.

There has been much scholarly debate about what might seem to be a contradiction between Agrippa’s defense of the occult sciences in De occulta philosophia, and his description of all human sciences as “vain and uncertain” in De incertitudine. However, the contradiction can be largely resolved by recognizing how sharply Agrippa distinguished between reason and faith: he criticized the scholastics for ignoring this distinction and thereby confusing the study of created things with the study of divine things. The authority of God’s revelation in the holy Scriptures ‘cannot be grasped by any judgment of our senses, by any reasoning of our mind, by any syllogism delivering proof, by any science, by any speculation, by any contemplation, in short, by any human powers, but only by faith in Jesus Christ, poured into our soul by God the Father through the intermediary of the Holy Spirit’ (De incertitudine, in Opera, 299). Divine matters are not a matter for debate but an object of faith; in contrast, we are permitted ‘to philosophize, dispute, and formulate deductions by means of our intellect concerning all created things’, as long as we do not put our faith and hope in them (De originale peccato, in Opera, 553). From that perspective, one understands how the occult sciences can be a legitimate object of study, even though they must be considered “vain and uncertain” as a basis for absolute religious certainty. Accordingly, De occulta philosophia ended with a discussion of how to live a religious life that may make one worthy of receiving divine revelations.

Many unsubstantiated rumours began to circulate about Agrippa already during his life. The most influential portrait was presented by Paolo Giovio (1483-1552) in his Elogia virorum illustrium, which describes him as a man with a powerful mind, through which he tried to destroy the République des lettres. The most enduring part of Giovio’s portrayal concerns Agrippa’s death and the legend of his black dog. Agrippa’s love for animals and his passion for his dog (whom he called “monsieur”) was interpreted by the Italian humanist as proof that the dog was no one else than the devil. Two later authors, Andreas Hondorff and André Thevet, accepted the story and contributed to its diffusion. The legend was disputed by Agrippa’s pupil Johann Wier, in his De praestigiis daemonum ac incantationibus (1563). Wier also attacked the attribution to Agrippa of a magical text known as the “Fourth Book of Occult Philosophy”, the contents of which seemed to confirm his reputation as a black magician. A different literary tradition, influenced by several thinkers from Rabelais to Apollinaire and Thomas Mann, and including Goethe, looks at Agrippa as an archetype of the Faust figure.

As Pierre Bayle wrote in his Dictionnaire, despite his great knowledge Agrippa was considered malheureux because of his great curiosity, his all too free spirit, and his unstable mood. With his restless journeys, he indeed seems to embody the spirit of the Renaissance. It is regrettable, although perhaps not surprising, that this outstanding thinker has gone down in history as little more than a magician, for precisely Agrippa’s ambivalent position with respect to various religious and intellectual issues central to his time, and the very ambiguity of his combination of magic and skepsis in the search for truth, make him a fascinating representative of Renaissance culture. In any case, his De occulta philosophia is considered the standard summa of Renaissance magic, and has exerted an incalculable influence on later magical and esoteric traditions.
— Michaela Valente in: Wouter J. Hanegraaff: Dictionary of Gnosis and Western Esotericism. Leiden: Brill, 2006. pp. 4-8.

either is Henry Cornelius Agrippa of Nettesheim himself to be reckoned of much weight in intellectual history nor is his book on occult philosophy so important a work in the history of magic and experimental science as one might think at first sight. He was not a person of solid learning, regular academic standing, and fixed position, but rather one of those wayward geniuses and intellectual vagabonds so common in the later fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries. In 1509, when not yet twenty-three, he lectured at the university of Dole on Reuchlin’s De verbo mirifico, and had a controversy with a Franciscan who called him a Judaizing heretic on that account. Before this in 1507 he had carried on alchemical experiments at Paris and he resumed them in this same year 1509 at Avignon. From 1511 to 1517 he was in Italy, where in 1515 he lectured at Pavia on the Hermetic philosophy and Marsilio Ficino’s commentary on the Pimander. We find him practising alchemy again at Metz in 1518 and 1519, as well as courageously defending a woman who had been hounded down by the mob and inquisitor as a witch. In 1520 he was at Cologne and at Geneva, where he married a second time. Presently he became municipal physician of Fribourg, although he had no medical degree. He never stayed anywhere long, generally contrived to get into trouble wherever he went, and, like Paracelsus, left in a huff. His interest in the doctrines of reformers and Protestants—in 1519 he corresponded with Jacques Lefevre d’Etaples, in 1525 he possessed books of Luther and Carlstadt—also tended to lay him open to suspicion.

Failing to hold any university teaching position permanently, Agrippa turned to the illicit practice of medicine or to the life of a courtier and office seeker. Having become physician to Louise of Savoy, queen mother of France, while she was at Lyons, he was left behind without pay on her departure, although he was never quite sure whether this was because he had predicted from the stars the success of the duke of Bourbon or because a letter had been brought to her attention in which he told a third person that she abused astrological judgments and was led on by vain hope and superstitious faith. A trip to Paris in an attempt to recover his favor at court was in vain. Next he appears at Antwerp practicing medicine again without a degree during a pestilence. When the plague was over, the local physicians forced him to desist. Birds of a feather flock together, so that we are not surprised to find Agrippa in 1530 addressing to the Grand Council of the Netherlands in session at Malines a defense of Jean Thibault, a contemporary quack and astrologer, against the attack of the physicians of Antwerp, whom he calls envious pigs and defends empiricism against their foolish rational and scholastic medicine. Agrippa would even prefer that mechanical operative medicine which Thessalus said he could teach in six months and which needs no dialectic or mathematics. He asserts that Thibault cured many cases which these doctors had abandoned as hopeless, and that the reason why they did not proceed against him during the epidemic was that they fled from the city at that time.

Agrippa next obtained the post of imperial historiographer, for which he was poorly paid and did little to be paid for. He complained that his work On the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences, now first printed in December, 1530, which aroused against him the faculties of Louvain and the Sorbonne, also lost him the imperial favor. Meanwhile in 1531 the first book of his Occult Philosophy was published at Antwerp and Paris, a quite inconsistent procedure, since in De incertitudine he had specifically recanted the views expressed in this work. But after he had withdrawn to the protection of the archbishop of Cologne, publication was resumed at that place in November, 1532. The inquisitor, Dominicans and theologians of the university of Cologne made difficulties and delayed publication, however, so that the full text of the three books appeared only in July, 1533, without name of place or printer. John Wier, who later wrote against the witchcraft delusion, was with Agrippa at Bonn in 1535 as pupil and amanuensis. The next year Agrippa again resumed his wanderings and met his death. Gesner, writing in 1545, states that Agrippa, a golden knight and doctor of both laws, had died in Grenoble within a decade or thereabouts reduced to extreme poverty. Thus his troubled, chequered career, marked by no particular distinction but by poverty and bickerings, seemed to end in failure. But he had exerted considerable influence during his lifetime by a fairly wide correspondence with learned men, and, while his medical practice and genius had been far inferior to those of Paracelsus, he had succeeded in publishing his chief works before his death as Paracelsus had failed to do. These works rapidly became well known, perhaps more because they were generally prohibited and because they gave vent to two leading intellectual currents of the time, occultism and scepticism, than because of any intrinsic worth.

Before, however, we come to estimate the contents of Agrippa’s De occulta philosophia, let us note further by a thumbing of his letters a few hints that all through his life the occult arts and sciences had been his major interest. Despite the professed recantation in De incertitudine and occasional expressed scepticism as to astrology, he was not untrue to himself in printing, despite strong opposition, as probably his last publication towards the end of his life, this work begun in his youth and of which he had presented a first draft to Trithemius in 1510.

Throughout his life Agrippa was a devotee of the Cabala. On April 30, 1512, he writes from Pavia to father Chrysostom that he sends him the cabalistic book he desired and assures him that “this is that divine science sublimer than all human striving” and that he should conceal in silence in his breast “this wholly sacred and divine art”. Or in May, 1525, a friend promises to bring Agrippa “the cabalistic art with many books of Raymond Lull.” Or in 1532 Agrippa writes to Bernard, majordomo of cardinal Campeggio, that he counts upon him to obtain a copy of the De arcanis of Petrus Galatinus, the Cabala of Samuel, and the ancient Hebrew alphabet. Bernard replies that he is working day and night upon his mystic cabalistic system. He sends greetings to Ludovicus Lucena, from whom he hopes to have more secret light on the significance of the Hebrew letters. Later he writes again from Bologna to Agrippa that he has already sent the Hebrew alphabet attributed to Esdras and is sending from Venice the book of Galatinus. At Padua he met Franciscus Georgius, who has other books in which they are interested but who said that the Cabala of Samuel was disappointing. A Hebrew scholar named Aegidius who died the past month left other books on the Cabala which Bernard will try to procure. All this shows that the unfavorable opinion of the Cabala expressed in De incertitudine was either merely an assumed pose to conform to the sweepingly sceptical character of that work or represented but a passing mood from which in 1532 Agrippa returned again to his former favorite field of study.

On the much less dignified, less difficult, and less divine art of geomancy Agrippa had himself composed a treatise and in 1526 sent to Metz for it and also for the work of Trithemius on steganography. In another letter of April 27, 1530 Agrippa apologizes for his delayed arrival because he knows his correspondent is eager to see a geomantic table of Scepper which he is bringing with him. Apparently Scepper’s Assertion of the Faith Against Astrologers did not keep him from lapsing into a lower form of divination. Nor did Agrippa’s own previous practice keep him from writing in De incertitudine, after listing earlier geomancies by Hali, Gerard of Cremona, Bartholomew of Parma, and a certain Tundinus, “I too have written a geomancy quite different from the rest but no less superstitious and fallacious or, if you wish, I will even say ‘mendacious.’”

Astrological prediction at times irked Agrippa and was called by him an unworthy artifice or idle superstition, but he seems to have done a good deal of it. Rather characteristic is the letter in which he warns a Dominican, Petrus Lavinius, that judicial astrology is a vain superstition and not for a Christian, but at the same time sends him the judgment for which he had asked. He also sent a prognostication to a friend in Chambery “from which you will judge how fine an astrologer I have become”— perhaps an ironic remark—and one to the queen mother of France, Louise of Savoy, and the next year (1527) to the duke of Bourbon. For erecting figures of the sky he preferred Regiomontanus but used the Alfonsine Tables for most other purposes such as the movements and aspects of the stars, although he had tried Bianchini, John de Lineriis, and others. In another letter he calls the Speculum astronomiae of Albertus Magnus a work not praised enough. Late in life he refers to past eclipses, comets, earthquakes, floods and more recent prodigies and signs in the sky as all pointing to one conclusion, and declares that “I predict these things to you, not by doubtful methods of conjecture nor acting under the influence of mental perturbation contrary to true reason but from true arts of vaticination, oracles, prediction and foreknowledge.”

Agrippa’s friends and correspondents looked on him as a fount of information concerning the occult arts. While municipal physician at Fribourg he instructed a number of prominent citizens in such sciences. In 1527 or 1528 a friend asked Agrippa to send him books of chiromancy with which to amuse himself when exhausted by the din of court life. On December 28, 1532, the majordomo of cardinal Campeggio alluded to a mirror that Agrippa had once showed him in which the dead seemed alive. Another correspondent yearned to see Agrippa, to bathe in the waters of occult philosophy, and to unravel the enigmas and secrets of Picatrix and the Cabala. Another wrote to ask for Agrippa’s book of natural magic, which he said he had seen at the university of Pavia. This was what was developed by Agrippa into his three books on occult philosophy. At the time he sent an index or abstract, explaining that it would be sacrilege to publish it to the crowd, and that he preserved the key to it for himself and his friends. Why Prost should interpret this usual profession of esoteric knowledge as showing ironical disbelief in astrology I cannot understand. Again in 1527 came another demand for the work.

As for alchemy, in 1526 the cure Brennonius writes from Metz to Agrippa that “our Tyrius,” whose vocation was clock-making and avocation alchemy, “has discovered a sweet water in which every metal is easily dissolved by the heat of the sun.” It was made from wine, for he separated the four elements and extracted from earth the nature of sulphur. Brennonius, however, had done the same from chelidonia and believed that the water could also be made from anything putrefied—eggs, flesh, bread or herbs of whatever sort. Yet four years later in De incertitudine Agrippa was to declare that alchemy should be prohibited.

Perhaps we can see the reason for Agrippa’s persistence in occult practices despite occasional scepticism or religious qualms in the following passage. “Oh! how many writings are read concerning the irresistible power of the magic art, concerning the prodigious images of the astrologers, the marvelous metamorphosis of the alchemists, and that blessed stone which Midas-like turns all to gold or silver at its touch. All which are found vain, fictitious and false as often as they are practiced literally. Yet they are handed down in writings by great and most grave philosophers and holy men whose traditions who will dare to call false? Nay it would be impious to believe that they have written falsehoods in those works. Hence the meaning must be other than the literal sense indicates.”

Agrippa’s letters also show him interested for a time at least in machines, bridges and military engines, while in De incertitudine he alludes to having once been put in charge of some mines by the emperor and having started to write a book on mining and metallurgy. But he was to a large extent a dabbler and trifler who did not adhere to any given interest for long, just as he did not stay in any one place. Except that always he kept coming back to occult science. Even in De incertitudine he gives information and reveals his knowledge of the field of occult science, devoting a score of its 85 chapters to occult arts and listing past writers on such subjects as chiromancy and natural magic. But it is of course to his De occulta philosophia that we especially turn for his attitude to the occult arts and sciences.

As was implied in beginning, it is a disappointing book. It is not a practical manual or even a general theory of the subject but merely a literary description and review, full of what the author doubtless flattered himself was erudite allusion and humanistic eloquence, but vague, totally lacking in precision, and written in the pseudo-Platonic, mooning style of Iamblichus, Ficino and Reuchlin rather than the direct practical tones of Roger Bacon and Albertus Magnus. Cabalistic matter and manner far exceed any natural magic. Despite the title, there is little philosophy to the work, and the author has nothing new to say on his subject. He has read widely in its past literature and is valuable in a scattering way for its bibliography. Yet even in this respect he has failed to achieve anything like an exhaustive or systematic review. Sometimes past writers are misquoted or misunderstood, as when it is asserted that Aquinas in his third book against the Gentiles admits that the human soul can be joined with the celestial intelligence and work marvels. Or the dubious, if not spurious, De fato is cited to show that Aquinas held that works of art receive a certain quality from the stars, whereas really this is just what he explicitly denies in his works of undoubted authenticity. While the book is diffuse and mystical, a much better and meatier encyclopedia of ancient and medieval magic might have been composed than Agrippa’s, which seems a hasty rather than thorough piece of work, despite the fact that the author had been so long occupied with it.

Sometimes Agrippa’s work may preserve bits from earlier writers that otherwise would not be extant, but this is not often the case. Richard Argentinus, writing in 1563, asserts that Cornelius Agrippa in his Occult Philosophy stole from the libraries of magic of John Torresius of Spain and Bellisarius Petrucius magic characters which he reproduced only faultily because of his ignorance of Syriac.

The work divides into three books corresponding to the three worlds of the cabalists: elemental, celestial or mathematical, and intellectual. Magic is said to embrace the knowledge of all nature. Occult virtues are not of any element but a sequel of a thing’s species and form. They are implanted in the species of things by the ideas from the world soul through the stars, and even individuals of the same species may receive different occult virtues from the stars. Sympathy and likeness are the guiding principle or key in the investigation of these occult properties. Agrippa then treats of the distribution of inferior things under the planets and how through natural things and their virtues we can attract the influences of the heavenly bodies and even penetrate to intellectual, demonic and divine forces. The last dozen chapters or so (58-70) of the first book deal with the magical possibilities of the human mind, soul and words, for although these might be regarded as more intellectual than elemental, they are presumably regarded as sunk and bound in this lower world of the elements and body.

The second book is first occupied with the symbolism and virtues of numbers and letters of the alphabet and then with astrology. If there are great occult virtues in natural objects, much more is this the case with numbers which are more purely form and closely related to the celestial bodies and separate substances. Scales are given for the numbers up to twelve. Take two, for example. For the archetype we have the name of God in two letters, in the intellectual world are angel and soul, in the celestial world sun and moon, in the elemental world earth and water, in the microcosm heart and brain, in the inferno Behemoth and Leviathan. Divination by attributing numerical values to letters, astrological images, geomantic figures, and the names of the planets to be employed in magic incantations are other features of the second book.

In an early chapter of the third book Agrippa hints that such ceremonies as excommunicating worms and locusts to save the crops or baptizing bells are relics of the perverse religions of the Chaldeans, Egyptians, Assyrians, Persians and Arabs of the past. But soon he is immersed in cabalistic lore of divine names. The subsequent discussion of demons lacks unity and is a hodgepodge from previous writers, yet by no means covers the various descriptions and classifications of them to be found in classical, patristic and later medieval writers. After some consideration of necromancy and evoking the souls of the dead, we return again to the power of the human soul, to various forms of divination and to ceremonial observances. The work ends with an injunction of secrecy.

Whatever its defects, Agrippa’s De occulta philosophia gave a more general presentation of the subject than could be found elsewhere, at least in print. Partly on this account, partly because of its daring enunciation of certain suspect doctrines such as that of a world soul, partly because of advertising which it received by being placed on various lists of prohibited books and Indexes, it found a number of editions and readers during the next two centuries. In 1565 or 1567 was added an apocryphal fourth book of an extreme magical character which appealed further to prurient ears, although Wier defended Agrippa from the attribution of it to him. Agrippa became the hero or villain of legendary tales in the handbooks on witchcraft. Delrio and Boquet tell of a pupil of his at Louvain entering the master’s study during Agrippa’s absence and opening a book of adjurations. A demon promptly appeared, and the youth died either of fright or because attacked by the demon. When Agrippa returned and saw the dead body, he in turn invoked the demon, whom he forced to enter the corpse, to take a few turns about the square in the presence of other scholars, and then to leave the body which fell to the ground as if the youth died only then, thus clearing Agrippa of suspicion as the cause of his death. But his flight into Lorraine soon followed. Boquet further asserts that Charles V banished Agrippa and two companions from his court and territories.

Rumor was also rife as to the relations between Agrippa and his dog. Bodin in his Démonomanie of 1580 called Agrippa the greatest sorcerer of his time and Wier not only his disciple but valet and servitor, “drinking, eating and sleeping with him, as he confesses, after Agrippa had repudiated his wife.” Bodin added that Paul Jovius and others had written that Agrippa’s black dog, which he called Monsieur, so soon as Agrippa passed away in the hospital at Grenoble, hurled itself into the river before everyone’s eyes and was never seen again. Bodin concludes that Wier says that it was not Satan in the guise of a dog, as well as that he led it after Agrippa on a leash, and that the dog lay between him and Agrippa. Wier appears to be slandered in this passage as much as Agrippa or the dog. In the passage to which Bodin alludes, Wier refers to the report that Agrippa’s dog was a demon. He states that it was a medium sized black dog called Monsieur with a bitch named Mamselle. Agrippa used to fondle Monsieur excessively, and allowed him beside him at table and in his bed at night, after he had repudiated his wife of Marines at Bonn in 1535. “And when Agrippa and I were eating or studying together, this dog always lay between us.” The fact that Agrippa, without leaving his quarters, knew what was going on in foreign parts was due to letters which he received daily from learned men in various regions, but was attributed by popular report to information received from the dog, acting as his familiar demon. Of Agrippa’s end Wier says merely that he went from Bonn to Lyons where he was imprisoned a while by Francis I for having written against the queen mother. “Freed by the intercession of certain persons, after some months he fell asleep in the Lord at Grenoble in Dauphine. At that time I was in Paris.”

Cardan, in connection with the horoscope of Agrippa, gave an estimate of him which is worth repeating. Born poor, he made a pretense to knowledge. Jupiter endowed him with comradery and urbanity to the point of scurrility. Mercury made him ingenious, versatile, mutable, deceitful, tricky and studious. But the tail of the dragon in the degree of the ascendent made him not apt for disciplines. Cardan regarded his De occulta philosophia, as full of trifles and falsehoods and deserving to be burned. As for De vanitate scientiarum, Cardan thought its main argument bad, and that Agrippa showed his ignorance in treating things of which he knew nothing. “Yet the book pleases many as chaff does asses.” Tycho Brahe referred to Agrippa as “that most worthless fabricator of vanities.”
— Lynn Thorndike: A History of Magic and Experimental Science. V. New York: Morningside Heights, Columbia University Press, 1941. pp. 127-138.

Melius est ergo & vtilius idiotas & nihil omnino scientes existere, & per fidem & charitatem credere, & proximum fieri deo, quam per subtilitates scientiarum elatos & superbientes cadere in possessionem serpentis. Sic legimus in euangelijs, quomodo Christus ab idiotis, a rudi plebecula, & simplici populorum turba susceptus est, qui a principibus sacerdotum, a legisperitis, a scribis, a magistris & rabinis respuebatur, contemnebatur, & ad mortem vsque persecutus est: hinc & Christus ipse apsotolos suos non rabinos, non scribas, non magistros, nec sacerdotes elegit, sed e rudi vulgo iditiotas omnis literaturæ pene expettes [sc. expertes], inscios, & asinos.

It is better therefore and more profitable to be idiots, and know nothing, to believe by faith and charity, and to become next unto God, than, being lofty and proud through the subtleties of sciences, to fall into the possession of the Serpent. So we read in the Gospel, how Christ was received of idiots, of the rude people, and of the simple sort, who was contemptuously rejected, despised, and persecuted even to the death by the High Priests, by the Lawyers, by the Scribes, by the Masters and Rabbis: for this cause Christ himself also chose his Apostles, not Rabbis, not Scribes, not Masters, not Priests, but unlearned persons of the rude people, void well near of all knowledge, unskilful, and asses.

Christus sue natiuitatis testem esse voluit, in hoc a manibus Herodis saluari voluit, atque ipse asinus etiam contactu corporis Christi consecratus est, crucisque signaculo insignitus: nam Christus ipse pro redemptione humani generis triumphaturus ascendens in Hierusalem, testibus euan gelistis, hunc vectorem conscendit […].

Christ would that this beast should be a witness of his nativity, and hereof is a steadfast fame [report]; and in him he would be saved from the hands of Herod; and the ass was consecrated by the touching of the body of Christ, and honoured with the sign of the cross, for Christ ascending to Jerusalem to triumph for the redemption of mankind, as the Evangelists witness, rode upon this beast […].

n De incertitudine Agrippa condemns alchemy as a deceit (fucus) that transforms alchemists into cacochimici, paralysed by exposure to mercury and driven by poverty to counterfeiting (Agrippa von Nettesheim 1531: f. V viii recto). Nevertheless, he also gives a cryptic description of a sweet-smelling Philosophers’ Stone that he says only the «sons of the art» and «initiates of the mysteries» will understand — for he himself has newly been initiated into the secrets of alchemy, and is sworn to secrecy (V viii verso - X i recto). In De occulta philosophia (1533) Agrippa again intimates he is a practising laboratory alchemist when he paraphrases the influential passage from Ficino’s De vita libri tres (3:iii) equating the alchemical quintessence with the spiritus mundi. But here he confesses that, having extracted the quintessence from a given amount of gold, he was unable to produce any increase in the net amount of gold when applying it to another metal. Agrippa explains his failure by stating that the extracted quintessence did not possess the gold’s forma intensa (i.e. the Aristotelian forma intrinseca and its generative power); nevertheless, he does not deny a net increase in gold may be achieved in some other manner (Agrippa von Nettesheim 1992 [De occulta philosophia. Ed. V. Perrone Compagni. Leiden: Brill. rfm]: 113-114). — p. 203. In: Daniela Boccassini e Carlo Testa: Transmutatio, La via ermetica alla felicità, The Hermetic Way to Happiness. Alessandria: Edizioni dell’Orso, 2012.

Quotquot ergo videmus hodie Lucianicos [sic! rfm] homines, qui totam Christi religionem subsannant: quotquot item Epicureos, qui nullo Dei metu ad quamlibet nequitiam se prostituunt.

Agrippam, Villanovanum, Doletum, & similes vulgo notum est tanquam Cyclopas quospiam Evangelium semper fastuose sprevisse. Tandem eò prolapsi sunt amentiae & furoris, ut non modò in Filium Dei execrabiles blasphemias evomerent, sed quantum ad animae vitam attinet, nihil a canibus & porcis putarent se differre. Alii (ut Rabelaysus, Deperius, & Goveanus) gustato Evangelio, eadem caecitate sunt percussi. Cur istud? nisi quia sacrum illud vitae aeternae pignus, sacrilega ludendi aut ridendi audacia antè profanarant?
— Jean Calvin: De scandalis quibus hodie plerique absterrentur, nonnulli etiam alienantur à pura Evangelii doctrina. Genf: Joannes Crispinus, 1551. pp. 76 & 78.