On the Highest Good, etc. 9

...to teach of wonders, while simultaneously leaving these aside as vain; nevertheless, do not be ignorant of the causes behind them. Indeed, those things which can be done for the benefit of men—to turn away evil events, to destroy sorcery, to cure diseases, to drive away phantoms, and to preserve the skill of life, honor, and fortune—without offending God or injuring religion: who would not judge them to be as useful as they are necessary?

These things Agrippa answers for himself: whom I also commit, along with the others, to the judgment of just judges.

From these things it appears more clearly than the Sun that although these most learned men mix spurious and impure ceremonial matters with pure ones, their entire intention is focused on true Magic original: "Magia," here meaning natural science or divine wisdom, on true and holy Wisdom, and on that true and unique Highest Good of the Philosophers, and not on Wicked Magic original: "Cacomagia," or black magic/sorcery, since they themselves, by unanimous consent, hold wicked magic in hatred (as is right to gather from all their assertions).

But perhaps curious readers will desire to know the reason why these authors were accustomed to mixing spurious, superfluous, and wondrous or necromantic things with true Wisdom and the naked truth. To them I respond: because they did not wish, at first glance, to "cast pearls before swine," nor did they wish for their "roses to be found without thorns." They wrote, therefore, in such a way that they might be understood only by the wise; for the wise man reads one thing and understands another. Whence says Abbot Sigismund:

From column 470.

Although Trithemius possesses characters, numbers, and various modes of conjuration by which Demonic Magic seems to be propagated: nevertheless, under those names he only hides natural secrets, etc. This is also what Agrippa seems to intend: by confessing that although his Philosophy contains vain and superstitious things alongside the truth, he nevertheless warns us to leave the vain things behind, with the caution that we should by no means be ignorant of their hidden causes. He argues that a mystery is contained under a fiction, a spiritual matter under the husk original: "cortex," a common metaphor for the literal or outer meaning of a text or the letter, and a holy character under the name of an angel.

And they did this following the example of the ancient philosophers, among whom Socrates did not wish for the secrets of nature to be committed to the skins of goats and sheep referring to parchment, lest they be understood by any unworthy person. And Aristotle, in his Book of Secrets, says: That man should be held as a breaker of the celestial seal who communicates the secrets of art and nature. And the whole crowd of philosophers agrees on this: that he has hidden nothing in his philosophy except the secret of the art, and he says it is not permitted for him to reveal it to anyone, for if it were done, he would be cursed and would move the indignation of God. And elsewhere he says that he has hidden the mysteries of natural science not from the learned and true sons of the art, but from the unworthy.

To come to the sayings of Roger Bacon (whom Mersenne makes a defendant of wicked magic): Bacon himself calls that man insane who wishes to disclose any secret to the world except through riddles and enigmas, or to commit them to writings by which they might be hidden from the world and scarcely understood by the studious and the wise. And Morienus says: This mystery is covered and hidden, and wherever it may be, it is called by a thousand names; it is also sealed and not open except to the wise, and yet the thing is one, the way of operation is unique and linear.

And that truly wise man Arbatel (even though he is also falsely held to be a wicked magician), speaks thus in his Primordial Aphorism: He who wishes to know secrets, let him know how to keep secrets secretly; let him reveal what is to be revealed and seal what is to be sealed; and do not give that which is holy to dogs, nor cast pearls before swine; observe this law and the eyes of your mind shall be opened to understand secrets. Thus he spoke. And Solomon says: It is the glory of a wise man to conceal a matter. And Christ says: Speak to them in parables, etc.

Here, therefore, judge, O Readers, whether so great a crime is to be imposed upon these good men as Marin Mersenne has published to the world with his outcries, and whether the word "magic" is to be held in such great hatred, if it be considered in its sincere and simple nature.

BB