Commentary on the First and Second Chapters of the Thirtieth Book of the Natural History of Gaius Plinius Secundus

books were composed, which Ulpian the jurist calls disapproved reading, and immediately decreed they should be consumed. But they consider the others laudable, to whom they assign Theurgy, although both are constrained by the deceptive rites of demons and the names of angels. For Porphyry also promises a certain purification of the soul through Theurgy, though hesitantly and in a somewhat shameful discussion, yet he denies entirely that a return to God is afforded to anyone by this art. That blinded and impious man thinks that through certain Theurgic divine ritual consecrations, which they call Teletas initiations/rituals, one becomes suitable and apt for the reception of spirits and angels to see them. But that which is properly called Magic is believed to be perfect and the highest power of science, since in the language of the Persians, a Magus wise man/sorcerer is called almost nothing else than an interpreter and worshiper of divine things. Everyone avoids the Goëtia, about which we spoke a little earlier; but every most wise man receives, venerates, and cultivates the magic of which we treat here, as it is a higher and holier philosophy from which the outstanding clarity of letters flows. For it is a constant opinion that Pythagoras, Empedocles, Democritus, and also Plato sought it out solicitously, having undertaken a journey and indeed a dangerous one. As if the parents of this, they celebrate Zamolxides, whom later Abaris the Hyperborean is said to have imitated, and Zoroaster—not the one popular opinion accepts, but the son of Oromasdes. Plato certainly testifies more openly in the Alcibiades that the magic of Zoroaster seems to him to be nothing other than the knowledge and worship of divine things, by which the sons of the Persians are imbued, so that they may learn to administer their own Republic after the image of the worldly Republic. Therefore, M. Tullius Cicero writes in his Divination that no one among the Persians possesses royal majesty who has not imbibed the science of magic. For this teaches the consensus of natural things, which we call compassion or Sympathy. We shall treat this a little more extensively. Albert, surnamed the Great, also approves of this magic. Furthermore, one may deduce this distinction of magic from Jerome—