The Contest of Wisdom with Folly

But He reduced and intensified the solar fire to a moderate and harmonic proportion only for the comfort of living things, so that the weather of the year might be disposed for the benefit of creatures, and these things do not seem to be altered in this age except in a miraculous manner, for the punishment of the wicked, to be sure, as in that Phaethontic heat, by which Africa is said to have been once inflamed, of which Ovid sings abundantly in his poetry, and the sulfurous scorching which He rained down upon Sodom and Gomorrah. But we have this confirmed by the sacred Bibles, where the Wise Man speaks thus of the fiery creature.

Sap. 16:14

The creature serving You, who made all things, is intensified for punishment against the unjust, and is relaxed for kindness for those who trust in You.

We conclude, therefore, that it is not the Sun that has done these things, but that divine essence, which placed His tabernacle in the Sun no differently than He made the temple His clay house of man, and consequently we say that He who is clothed with light as with a garment made those separations of the world by means of His vehicle, which He uses. Thus in the Empyrean heaven He is clothed with light as with a garment, in the Ethereal heaven He placed His tabernacle in the Sun, in the Elementary heaven the dense cloud is called His shed, and the Prophet says: The earth shall be opened, and shall bring forth a Savior. We say, therefore, that the Word or the holy Spirit of Wisdom and discipline, existing everywhere (for, as the Wise Man testifies, He fills the world), according to the speech of St. John, Sap. 1 made all things, and consequently that He alone is in the world not only the author of creation, but also of generation, multiplication, and conservation, from whom, to conclude with the axiom of St. Peter (as I began with it), both the earth and the heavens were created, for he adds: Consisting by the word. Wherefore he acknowledges that the Word itself is the general agent in the world, as is most clearly declared from the places alleged above. But indeed, just as all Solar rays, as Hermes Trismegistus testifies, are continuous and indivisible from the Sun, so indeed all Internal forms have received their ray from this eternal fountain of life. In Him (says St. John) was life: And elsewhere.

Acts 17:25

He gives life to all and inspiration and all things.

Isa. 42:5

And the Prophet says: God creating the heavens, extending them, establishing the earth, and the things that germinate in it, giving breath to the people who are upon it, and Spirit to them who walk upon it.

And the Wise Man, understanding concerning this Spirit, says:

Sap. 12:1

The incorruptible Spirit is in all things.

Hence, therefore, let Marinus see that that opinion of Orpheus and the Pythagoreans does not differ much from that of the Sacred Letters, such as those whose opinion it is that all things are full of gods, but indeed they referred all these gods to the one Jupiter. Similarly, any portion of the incorruptible Spirit is present in any creature for its existence. But indeed, all these portions of divine light pertain to the one full, eternal, and infinite Word or the Spirit of eternal Wisdom, as they are no less continuous and annexed in essence to the infinite fountain of divinity than all solar rays are to the solar mass, or parts to their whole: for the divine essence is indivisible. But now, since your ethnic philosophy seems to dissent from this sacred one of mine, do not on that account (O Marinus) judge it foolish and ridiculous, since it is true; for I wish, by the persuasion of the Apostle, to avoid vain and false philosophy, which this of ours certainly cannot be, since it is in every way consonant with the sacred scriptures, nay rather, brought forth by the mouth of the divine oracle itself. For who among Christians has ever dared to deny that the world was made from formless matter, as if from first matter, and that the earth was void and empty or that there was darkness before the creation of the world, or that the heaven and earth were formed from waters as if from second matter, according to the doctrine of St. Peter, and that the Word of God or the Spirit of the Lord, who was borne above the waters, or Wisdom, which was from the beginning and before that creation with God, existed alone and unique as the operator and effector in such a wonderful fabric? These are the foundations of Fludd’s philosophy, so reprobated by the ignorant; these are the bases of his physical doctrine. Come then, therefore (just Readers), have you found any trace of atheism in this discourse of mine? Or from these things brought forth by me in this place, can anyone justly condemn me for heresy or wicked magic? In these foundations which I have produced...