Of Agostino Steuco of Gubbio

ON PERENNIAL PHILO-

SOPHY, BOOK

THE FIRST.

PREFACE.

CHAPTER I.

The author, Agostino Steuco (1497–1548), was a Vatican librarian who coined the term "Perennial Philosophy" to describe the universal truths shared by all religions and philosophies since the dawn of time.

Decorative woodcut initial 'V' featuring two cherubs amidst a background of scrolled foliage and floral patterns. Just as there is ONE principle of all things, so reason and the monuments of many nations and literatures testify that there has always been one and the same knowledge concerning it among all people. This knowledge was partly born from the first origin of men and passed down through all ages to posterity; partly acquired from the manifold consideration of things, it has always been celebrated under the name of Philosophy. That this science was complete and absolute in the first men is most clearly proven by the fact that, as they were being born, they perceived themselves being created by God. They beheld all things established by Him shortly before: the Heaven, the Earth, and the Sea brought forth from nothing; the Animals, the Stars, and the greenness of the fields. Once born, they enjoyed the conversation and presence of God; and whatever time passed from the creation until they were driven out of Paradise was a period of knowledge of miraculous things. It is not right to believe that they did not leave the memory of such great things to their descendants. Nor indeed is it probable that the first man was ignorant of his own origin and that of the world, or that he did not knowingly preach it with a clear voice to his sons, or that throughout his whole life he did not commemorate his fall and his former circumstances. And that great sower and parent of the human race lived from his creation until death for one thousand years, less seventy original: "mille annos, demptis septuaginta" — referring to Adam living 930 years according to Genesis 5:5; in which span of time it is necessary that innumerable people were procreated (though few are mentioned), who gazed upon that first leader of their race, created by divine power, and spoke with him, and learned from him the entire account of the created world. Furthermore, the miraculous creation of his mind and body coming from God argues that there was in him a clear and exact knowledge of many things. For we are born from him. But he, whom God created while present and standing by, must necessarily have been most noble in mind and body for many reasons. Therefore, those things which were reported by him were heard by innumerable people, but retained in the minds of a few (those, namely, whom earthly desires and mortal cares had less occupied). These men, knowing both those very things and others which the order of centuries and the succession of age brought forth, passed them on to posterity, whose minds they desired to inflame toward the worship of God through the knowledge of such great matters. Indeed, Noah—whose life proceeded for more than three hundred years after the flood and preceded it by more than five hundred—did not remain silent with his sons about the centuries before the flood and the destruction of the human race, but preached of them greatly and filled the ears of all with this report, as both their integrity and human instinct demonstrate. And that same best and most just man, whose life is said to have passed six hundred years before the great deluge, saw those who were able to have seen the first parent (if indeed the flood occurred more or less in the one thousand five hundredth year from the origin...