and gravity in thy words and actions; fly worldly things; seek celestial; learn not many things, but much; invoke me in the day of tribulation, and I will hear thee-but all ignorance is tribulation of mind; invoke the Lord, therefore, in thy ignorance, and he will hear thee. Let the Sacred Scriptures be in thy hands by day, and yet by night a magician ought to be a pious man, good and constant in words and actions, firm of faith towards God, and avaricious of nothing except wisdom *." Such is the style of all these writers. The Chiromancians alleged Scripture for their science, and cited the words, "Qui in manu omnium hominum signat, ut noverint singuli opera sua +." Cornelius Agrippa says, that a true magician must be pure, and holy, and devout. Yet, while his general language might be mistaken for that of a cloistered ascetic, while he lifts up the soul, and seems to guide it heavenward with words and images of inspiration, bearing his scholar as with the wings of the Spirit into regions above the earth, every now and then, amidst these beautiful sentences and solemn prayers, some expression occurs to startle one-some dark letter -something of pure Paganism, as it were a cloven foot peeping from under the religious habit. Thus, after saying that the mind must be purified and expiated by cleanness, abstinence, penance, and alms-suddenly, as if forgetting his part, he cites the authority of the Indian Brahmans, and prescribes the use of cabalistic words. He even recommends the practice of confession, to procure that purity of conscience which is requisite for such studies; and then he lets escape that the object in view has been obtained by the ancient philosophers, who, by solitude and keeping aloof from all human affairs, were enabled to converse with sacred and celestial beings. Strangely at variance with the sanctity of his rules is his mention of the forms familiar to the spirit of Saturn-a bearded king riding on a dragon, an old bearded man, an old woman leaning on a staff, a pig, an owl, a black vest, a juniper. The atrocious cruelty of some of his prescriptions is also enough to awaken suspicion. Thus he says, when you collect the tongue of a frog, you must not kill the creature, but send it back alive into the water; and Arbatel de Magia. similarly, in extracting the eye or tooth of a wolf, you must not kill the animal *. Then, as if warmed by the subject, he seems in some parts to throw off the disguise, and shows how men are to compose the book of spirits, or order for invocation, written on virgin parchment: it is to be carefully preserved, and never opened excepting under the proper circumstances; it is to be consecrated, by invoking to a circle all the spirits inscribed within it: the book is to be placed without the tircle, in a triangle, and they are then charged to ratify and confirm it. For this operation the book of spirits is placed between two tablets, on the inside of which are written the sacred pentacula of the Divine Majesty, from the first chapter of the Apocalypse. Then, on a serene night, before twelve o'clock, the book is carried to a circle at the juncture of three ways, and there the spirits inscribed are conjured thrice, by the bonds of the book, to come to that place at the end of three days. Then the book is wrapped in clean linen and buried in the midst of the circle, which is afterwards effaced. One departs before sunrise. On the third day, before midnight, one returns, makes the circle, prays on bended knees, opens the foss with a quoit, takes up the book, and, without opening it, departs. About to invoke bad spirits, he says, "You must prepare a table in the place covered with clean linen, on which are four loaves and water, or milk, in new earthen vessels, with new knives; and you must sit at the head of the table, leaving seats round it for the spirits; but if you fear them, describe a circle round your own seat and part of the table, while the rest is without it." But somewhat too much of this. John Trithemius, in his apologetic preface to his books, De Steganographia, addressed to Philip, Duke of Bavaria, describes various kinds of magicians, and recommends the prince to extirpate them. "The demons," he says, "in order to keep voluntarily in their service the men who have made a pact with them, pretend that they are subject to them, and feign to obey them by constraint. What evils this pernicious race causes in your empire no one can express. The necromancers profess arts worthy of all execration, by which they can call demons to a circle, and bind them with a pact. They use shameful sacrifices, and write books full of turpitude and lies, falsely citing the names of ancient philosophers and wise men, to deceive the curious." To all occult sciences the philosophy of the clean of heart was essentially opposed, on the very ground of their being occult. St. Augustin applies the command, "take no purse with you," to the duty of having no secret wisdom. "What is a purse?-money shut up, that is, occult wisdom. A fountain ought to be in you, not a purse-whence you may diffuse, not where you may confine ✶ " St. Hilary, commenting on our Lord's words, "Quod dico vobis in tenebris," says, "We do not read that our Lord was accustomed to discourse by night, and to deliver his doctrine in darkness; but he used this expression because all his sentences are darkness to the carnal mind, and his word is night to infidels t." It was opposed to these sciences, too, on the ground of their vanity; and this is shown by Dante, when Grifolino of Arezzo relates how he had told Albero of Sienna that he had learned to wing his flight in air; for he adds, "And he, admiring much, as he was void Of wisdom, will'd me to declare to him It was opposed to them, also, on the ground of the misery which they entailed on men; for the church had yearly to lament some intellectual wreck, and cry, 66 this is to be a mortal, And seek the things beyond mortality." It was opposed to them, above all, from a deep sense of their guilt; which Dante also indicates in that passage where he shows diviners and prophets among the spirits whelmed in woe : 'A tribe that came along the hollow vale, Each wondrously seem'd to be revers'd At the neck-bone, so that the countenance * Serm. 42, De Sanct. Hell. xxix. + Comm. in Matt. x. Was from the reins averted. Lo! how he makes The breast his shoulder, and who once too far See next the wretches who the needle left, Finally, it was opposed to them, as feeling that to the clean of heart who beheld God their light was as darkness. Men without the church have, in all ages, been addicted more or less to errors and vanities, which on their conversion to it they learned to despise. St. Augustin confesses ingenuously that he used to take pleasure, before his conversion, in the study of judicial astrology, but that he abandoned all faith in it when he returned to religion. Cardan says, that a great chest could not contain all the letters he had received from the English demanding predictions, from the Germans demanding calculations, from the Italians asking for medicines, and from the French requiring moral discourses. But towards the end of his life he discerned their vanity; so that he says, “I destroyed many of my books, which had cost me great labour; for whatever did not conduce to the salvation of the human race, if it could also injure, I resolved not to leave existing; and though it might have been better not to have written, yet it is with writers as with animals, which cannot live without leaving traces t." How many converts, in modern times, have similarly been corrected and induced to give up a thousand prejudices and singularities which had once charmed them. The neighbourhood of the Moors in Spain contributed to develop the taste for the study of occult sciences, but men were not wanting to oppose it with learning and ability. The work of John Francis Picus of Mirandula, entitled De Rerum Prænotione, furnished a curious and able refutation of superstition; and the work of his great uncle against astrologers was still more remarkable. The holy Fathers and the schoolmen had acquired a deep • XX. + De Libris Propriis. insight into the different superstitions of the world, with a view to war against them. "I have given my heart to know prudence and doctrine, and errors and folly: it is of true devotion, therefore," adds Richard of St. Victor, "to contemplate both good and evil, to investigate, discuss, and subsequently to judge all things. True devotion, consequently, from investigation and inquiry, has something in common with the wise men of Babylon; so that, deservedly, it may be said to be of their college. Nevertheless, they differ by the intention; for true devotion investigates vain and perverse doctrines, not for the sake of adhering to them or of placing any confidence in them, but that, by judging, it may disprove and condemn them *? "We read some books,” says St. Ambrose, “in order that they may not be read; we read lest we should not know what they were; we read not to approve, but to condemn, and that we may learn on what ground these proud men exalt their hearts +." This was conformable to the text which saith, "The disciple of wisdom knows ancient things, and conjectures the future; he knows the turning of words and the solution of enigmas; signs and prodigies he foresees, and the events of seasons and times ." St. Dunstan, amidst his multifarious learning, is said to have been conversant with the magic songs and incan tations of his Pagan forefathers. The abbot Trithemius, himself a man exceedingly well read and profited in strange concealments, shows that, in order to refute them, it was lawful to read hastily the books of the astrologers. Among his own writings he enumerates five books to John Marquis of Brandenburg, contra maleficos et omnes artes vanos superstitiosas et Christianæ religioni contrarias, twenty books, naturalium quæstionum; and two books against Boville. "Without learning, without having studied their own science, how could my uncle Picus of Mirandula," says John Francis, "have written that admirable work against the astrologers? St. Jerome says, if any one were to write against the mathematicians without having studied ma * De Eruditione Hom. Inter. p. i. lib. ii. c. 7. + Expos. Evang. Luc. i. 2. Sap. vii. 17. |