Oration on the Dignity of Man
¶1 Most esteemed Fathers, I have read in
the ancient writings of the Arabians that Abdala the
Saracen on being asked what, on this stage, so to say, of the world, seemed to
him most evocative of wonder, replied that there was nothing to be seen more
marvelous than man. And that celebrated exclamation of Hermes Trismegistus, ``What a great miracle is man, Asclepius''
confirms this opinion.
¶2 And still, as I reflected
upon the basis assigned for these estimations, I was not fully persuaded by the
diverse reasons advanced for the pre-eminence of human nature; that man is the
intermediary between creatures, that he is the familiar of the gods above him
as he is the lord of the beings beneath him; that, by the acuteness of his
senses, the inquiry of his reason and the light of his intelligence, he is the
interpreter of nature, set midway between the timeless unchanging and the flux
of time; the living union (as the Persians say), the very marriage hymn of the
world, and, by David's testimony but little lower than the angels. These
reasons are all, without question, of great weight; nevertheless, they do not
touch the principal reasons, those, that is to say, which justify man's unique
right for such unbounded admiration. Why, I asked, should we not admire the
angels themselves and the beatific choirs more? At long last, however, I feel
that I have come to some understanding of why man is the most fortunate of
living things and, consequently, deserving of all admiration; of what may be
the condition in the hierarchy of beings assigned to him, which draws upon him
the envy, not of the brutes alone, but of the astral beings and of the very
intelligences which dwell beyond the confines of the world. A thing surpassing
belief and smiting the soul with wonder. Still, how could it be otherwise? For
it is on this ground that man is, with complete justice, considered and called
a great miracle and a being worthy of all admiration.
¶3 Hear then, oh Fathers,
precisely what this condition of man is; and in the name of your humanity,
grant me your benign audition as I pursue this theme.
¶4 God the Father, the
Mightiest Architect, had already raised, according to the precepts of His
hidden wisdom, this world we see, the cosmic dwelling of divinity, a temple
most august. He had already adorned the supercelestial
region with Intelligences, infused the heavenly globes with the life of
immortal souls and set the fermenting dung-heap of the inferior world teeming
with every form of animal life. But when this work was done, the Divine
Artificer still longed for some creature which might comprehend the meaning of
so vast an achievement, which might be moved with love at its beauty and
smitten with awe at its grandeur. When, consequently, all else had been
completed (as both Moses and Timaeus testify), in the
very last place, He bethought Himself of bringing forth man. Truth was,
however, that there remained no archetype according to which He might fashion a
new offspring, nor in His treasure-houses the wherewithal to endow a new son
with a fitting inheritance, nor any place, among the seats of the universe,
where this new creature might dispose himself to contemplate the world. All
space was already filled; all things had been distributed in the highest, the
middle and the lowest orders. Still, it was not in the nature of the power of
the Father to fail in this last creative élan; nor was it in the nature of that
supreme Wisdom to hesitate through lack of counsel in so crucial a matter; nor,
finally, in the nature of His beneficent love to compel the creature destined
to praise the divine generosity in all other things to find it wanting in
himself.
¶5 At last, the Supreme
Maker decreed that this creature, to whom He could give nothing wholly his own,
should have a share in the particular endowment of every other creature. Taking
man, therefore, this creature of indeterminate image, He set him in the middle
of the world and thus spoke to him:
¶6 “We have given you, O
Adam, no visage proper to yourself, nor endowment properly your own, in order
that whatever place, whatever form, whatever gifts you may, with premeditation,
select, these same you may have and possess through your own judgement and
decision. The nature of all other creatures is defined and restricted within
laws which We have laid down; you, by contrast, impeded by no such
restrictions, may, by your own free will, to whose custody We have assigned
you, trace for yourself the lineaments of your own nature. I have placed you at
the very center of the world, so that from that vantage point you may with
greater ease glance round about you on all that the world contains. We have
made you a creature neither of heaven nor of earth, neither mortal nor
immortal, in order that you may, as the free and proud shaper of your own
being, fashion yourself in the form you may prefer. It will be in your power to
descend to the lower, brutish forms of life; you will be able, through your own
decision, to rise again to the superior orders whose life is divine.''
¶7 Oh unsurpassed generosity
of God the Father, Oh wondrous and unsurpassable
felicity of man, to whom it is granted to have what he chooses, to be what he
wills to be! The brutes, from the moment of their birth, bring with them, as Lucilius says, ``from their mother's womb'' all that they
will ever possess. The highest spiritual beings were, from the very moment of
creation, or soon thereafter, fixed in the mode of being which would be theirs
through measureless eternities. But upon man, at the moment of his creation,
God bestowed seeds pregnant with all possibilities, the germs of every form of
life. Whichever of these a man shall cultivate, the same will mature and bear
fruit in him. If vegetative, he will become a plant; if sensual, he will become
brutish; if rational, he will reveal himself a heavenly being; if intellectual,
he will be an angel and the son of God. And if, dissatisfied with the lot of all
creatures, he should recollect himself into the center of his own unity, he
will there become one spirit with God, in the solitary darkness of the Father, Who is set above all things, himself transcend all
creatures.
¶8 Who then will not look
with awe upon this our chameleon, or who, at least, will look with greater
admiration on any other being? This creature, man, whom Asclepius the Athenian,
by reason of this very mutability, this nature capable of transforming itself,
quite rightly said was symbolized in the mysteries by the figure of Proteus.
This is the source of those metamorphoses, or transformations, so celebrated
among the Hebrews and among the Pythagoreans; for even the esoteric theology of
the Hebrews at times transforms the holy Enoch into that angel of divinity
which is sometimes called malakh-ha-shekhinah and at other times transforms other
personages into divinities of other names; while the Pythagoreans transform men
guilty of crimes into brutes or even, if we are to believe Empedocles, into
plants; and Mohammed, imitating them, was known frequently to say that the man
who deserts the divine law becomes a brute. And he was right; for it is not the
bark that makes the tree, but its insensitive and unresponsive nature; nor the
hide which makes the beast of burden, but its brute and sensual soul; nor the
orbicular form which makes the heavens, but their harmonious order. Finally, it
is not freedom from a body, but its spiritual intelligence, which makes the
angel. If you see a man dedicated to his stomach, crawling on the ground, you
see a plant and not a man; or if you see a man bedazzled by the empty forms of
the imagination, as by the wiles of Calypso, and through their alluring solicitations
made a slave to his own senses, you see a brute and not a man. If, however, you
see a philosopher, judging and distinguishing all things according to the rule
of reason, him shall you hold in veneration, for he is a creature of heaven and
not of earth; if, finally, a pure contemplator, unmindful of the body, wholly
withdrawn into the inner chambers of the mind, here indeed is neither a
creature of earth nor a heavenly creature, but some higher divinity, clothed in
human flesh.
¶9 Who then will not look
with wonder upon man, upon man who, not without reason in the sacred Mosaic and Christian writings, is designated
sometimes by the term ``all flesh'' and sometimes by the term ``every
creature,'' because he molds, fashions and transforms himself into the likeness
of all flesh and assumes the characteristic power of every form of life? This
is why Evantes the Persian in his exposition of the
Chaldean theology, writes that man has no inborn and proper semblance, but many
which are extraneous and adventitious: whence the Chaldean saying: “Enosh hu shinnujim vekammah tebhaoth haj''—“man is a
living creature of varied, multiform and ever-changing nature.''
¶10 But what is the purpose
of all this? That we may understand --- since we have been born into this
condition of being what we choose to be --- that we ought to be sure above all
else that it may never be said against us that, born to a high position, we failed
to appreciate it, but fell instead to the estate of brutes and uncomprehending
beasts of burden; and that the saying of Asaph the Prophet, ``You are all Gods
and sons of the Most High,'' might rather be true; and finally that we may not,
through abuse of the generosity of a most indulgent Father, pervert the free
option which he has given us from a saving to a damning gift. Let a certain
saving ambition invade our souls so that, impatient of mediocrity, we pant
after the highest things and (since, if we will, we can) bend all our efforts
to their attainment. Let us disdain things of earth, hold as little worth even
the astral orders and, putting behind us all the things of this world, hasten
to that court beyond the world, closest to the most exalted Godhead. There, as
the sacred mysteries tell us, the Seraphim, Cherubim and Thrones occupy the
first places; but, unable to yield to them, and impatient of any second place,
let us emulate their dignity and glory. And, if we will it, we shall be
inferior to them in nothing.
¶11 How must we proceed and
what must we do to realize this ambition? Let us observe what they do, what
kind of life they lead. For if we lead this kind of life (and we can) we shall
attain their same estate. The Seraphim burns with the fire of charity; from the
Cherubim flashes forth the splendor of intelligence; the Thrones stand firm
with the firmness of justice. If, consequently, in the pursuit of the active
life we govern inferior things by just criteria, we shall be established in the
firm position of the Thrones. If, freeing ourselves from active care, we devote
our time to contemplation, meditating upon the Creator in His work, and the
work in its Creator, we shall be resplendent with the light of the Cherubim. If
we burn with love for the Creator only, his consuming fire will quickly
transform us into the flaming likeness of the Seraphim. Above the Throne, that
is, above the just judge, God sits, judge of the ages. Above the Cherub, that
is, the contemplative spirit, He spreads His wings, nourishing him, as it were,
with an enveloping warmth. For the spirit of the Lord moves upon the waters,
those waters which are above the heavens and which, according to Job, praise
the Lord in pre-aurorial hymns. Whoever is a Seraph,
that is a lover, is in God and God is in him; even, it may be said, God and he
are one. Great is the power of the Thrones, which we attain by right judgement,
highest of all the sublimity of the Seraphim which we attain by loving.
¶12 But how can anyone judge
or love what he does not know? Moses loved the God whom he had seen and as
judge of his people he administered what he had previously seen in
contemplation on the mountain. Therefore the Cherub is
the intermediary and by his light equally prepares us for the fire of the
Seraphim and the judgement of the Thrones. This is the bond which unites the
highest minds, the Palladian order which presides over contemplative
philosophy; this is then the bond which before all else we must emulate,
embrace and comprehend, whence we may be rapt to the heights of love or
descend, well instructed and prepared, to the duties of the practical life. But
certainly it is worth the effort, if we are to form our life on the model of
the Cherubim, to have familiarly before our eyes both its nature and its
quality as well as the duties and the functions proper to it. Since it is not
granted to us, flesh as we are and knowledgeable only the things of earth, to
attain such knowledge by our own efforts, let us have recourse to the ancient
Fathers. They can give us the fullest and most reliable testimony concerning
these matters because they had an almost domestic and connatural knowledge of
them.
¶13 Let us ask the Apostle
Paul . . . .
¶14 Lest we be satisfied to
consult only those of our own faith and tradition, let us also have recourse to
the patriarch, Jacob . . . .
¶15 Let us also inquire of
the just Job . . . .
¶16 Summoned in such
consoling tones and invited with such kindness, like earthly Mercuries, we
shall fly on winged feet to embrace that most blessed mother .
. . .
¶17 Let us also cite Moses
himself . . . .
* * *
¶18 In fact, however, the
dignity of the liberal arts, which I am about to discuss, and their value to us
is attested not only by the Mosaic and Christian mysteries but also by the
theologies of the most ancient times. What else is to be understood by the
stages through which the initiates must pass in the mysteries of the Greeks?
These initiates, after being purified by the arts which we might call
expiatory, moral philosophy and dialectic, were granted admission to the
mysteries. What could such admission mean but the interpretation of occult
nature by means of philosophy? Only after they had been prepared in this way
did they receive ``Epopteia,'' that is,
the immediate vision of divine things by the light of theology. Who would not
long to be admitted to such mysteries? Who would not desire, putting all human
concerns behind him, holding the goods of fortune in contempt and little
minding the goods of the body, thus to become, while still a denizen of earth,
a guest at the table of the gods, and, drunk with the nectar of eternity,
receive, while still a mortal, the gift of immortality? Who would not wish to
be so inspired by those Socratic frenzies which Plato sings in the Phaedrus
that, swiftly fleeing this place, that is, this world fixed in evil, by the
oars, so to say, both of feet and wings, he might reach the heavenly Jerusalem
by the swiftest course? Let us be driven, O Fathers, by those Socratic frenzies
which lift us to such ecstasy that our intellects and our very selves are
united to God. And we shall be moved by them in this way as previously we have
done all that it lies in us to do. If, by moral philosophy, the power of our
passions shall have been restrained by proper controls so that they achieve
harmonious accord; and if, by dialectic, our reason shall have progressed by an
ordered advance, then, smitten by the frenzy of the Muses, we shall hear the
heavenly harmony with the inward ears of the spirit. Then the leader of the
Muses, Bacchus, revealing to us in our moments of philosophy, through his
mysteries, that is, the visible signs of nature, the invisible things of God,
will make us drunk with the richness of the house of God; and there, if, like
Moses, we shall prove entirely faithful, most sacred theology will supervene to
inspire us with redoubled ecstasy. For, raised to the most eminent height of
theology, whence we shall be able to measure with the rod of indivisible
eternity all things that are and that have been; and, grasping the primordial
beauty of things, like the seers of Phoebus, we shall become the winged lovers
of theology. And at last, smitten by the ineffable love as by a sting, and,
like the Seraphim, filled with the godhead, we shall be, no longer ourselves,
but the very One who made us.
¶19 The sacred names of
Apollo, to anyone who penetrates their meanings and the mysteries they conceal,
clearly show that God is a philosopher no less than a seer; but since Ammonius has amply treated this theme, there is no occasion
for me to expound it anew. Nevertheless, O Fathers, we cannot fail to recall
those three Delphic precepts which are so very necessary for everyone about to
enter the most holy and august temple, not of the false, but of the true Apollo
who illumines every soul as it enters this world. You will see that they exhort
us to nothing else but to embrace with all our powers this tripartite
philosophy which we are now discussing. As a matter of fact
that aphorism: meden agan,
this is: ``Nothing in excess,'' duly prescribes a measure and rule for all the
virtues through the concept of the ``Mean'' of which moral philosophy treats.
In like manner, that other aphorism gnothi seauton, that is, ``Know thyself,'' invites and exhorts
us to the study of the whole nature of which the nature of man is the
connecting link and the ``mixed potion''; for he who knows himself knows all
things in himself, as Zoroaster first and after him Plato, in the Alcibiades,
wrote. Finally, enlightened by this knowledge, through the aid of natural
philosophy, being already close to God, employing the theological salutation ei, that is ``Thou art,'' we shall blissfully
address the true Apollo on intimate terms.
¶20 Let us also seek the
opinion of Pythagoras, that
wisest of men, known as a wise man precisely because he never thought himself
worthy of that name. His first precept to us will be: ``Never sit on a
bushel''; never, that is, through slothful inaction to lose our power of
reason, that faculty by which the mind examines, judges and measures all
things; but rather unremittingly by the rule and exercise of dialectic, to
direct it and keep it agile. Next he will warn us of two things to be avoided
at all costs: Neither to make water facing the sun, nor to cut our nails while
offering sacrifice. Only when, by moral philosophy, we shall have evacuated the
weakening appetites of our too-abundant pleasures and pared away, like nail
clippings, the sharp points of anger and wrath in our souls, shall we finally
begin to take part in the sacred rites, that is, the mysteries of Bacchus of
which we have spoken and to dedicate ourselves to that contemplation of which
the Sun is rightly called the father and the guide. Finally, Pythagoras will
command us to ``Feed the cock''; that is, to nourish the divine part of our
soul with the knowledge of divine things as with substantial food and heavenly
ambrosia. This is the cock whose visage is the lion, that is, all earthly
power, holds in fear and awe. This is the cock to whom, as we read in Job, all
understanding was given. At this cock's crowing, erring man returns to his
senses. This is the cock which every day, in the morning twilight, with the
stars of morning, raises a Te Deum to
heaven. This is the cock which Socrates, at the hour of his death, when he
hoped he was about to join the divinity of his spirit to the divinity of the
higher world and when he was already beyond danger of any bodily illness, said
that he owed to Asclepius, that is, the healer of souls.
¶21 Let us also pass in
review the records of the Chaldeans; there we shall see (if they are to be
believed) that the road to happiness, for mortals, lies through these same
arts. The Chaldean interpreters write that it was a saying of Zoroaster that
the soul is a winged creature. When her wings fall from her, she is plunged
into the body; but when they grow strong again, she flies back to the supernal
regions. And when his disciples asked him how they might insure that their
souls might be well plumed and hence swift in flight he replied: ``Water them well
with the waters of life.'' And when they persisted, asking whence they might
obtain these waters of life, he answered (as he was wont) in a parable: ``The
Paradise of God is bathed and watered by four rivers; from these same sources
you may draw the waters which will save you. The name of the river which flows
from the north is Pischon which means, `the Right.'
That which flows from the west is Gichon, that is,
`Expiation.' The river flowing from the east is named Chiddekel,
that is, `Light,' while that, finally, from the south is Perath,
which may be understood as `Compassion.' '' Consider carefully and with full
attention, O Fathers, what these deliverances of Zoroaster might mean.
Obviously, they can only mean that we should, by moral science, as by western
waves, wash the uncleanness from our eyes; that, by dialectic, as by a reading
taken by the northern star, our gaze must be aligned with the right. Then, that
we should become accustomed to bear, in the contemplation of nature, the still
feeble light of truth, like the first rays of the rising sun, so that finally
we may, through theological piety and the most holy cult of God, become able,
like the eagles of heaven, to bear the effulgent splendor of the noonday sun.
These are, perhaps, those ``morning, midday and evening thoughts'' which David
first celebrated and on which St. Augustine later expatiated. This is the
noonday light which inflames the Seraphim toward their goal and equally
illuminates the Cherubim. This is the promised land toward which our ancient
father Abraham was ever advancing; this the region where, as the teachings of
the Cabalists and the Moors tell us, there is no place for unclean spirits. And
if we may be permitted, even in the form of a riddle, to say anything publicly
about the deeper mysteries: since the precipitous fall of man has left his mind
in a vertiginous whirl and and since according to Jeremiah,
death has come in through the windows to infect our hearts and bowels with
evil, let us call upon Raphael, the heavenly healer that by moral philosophy
and dialectic, as with healing drugs, he may release us. When we shall have
been restored to health, Gabriel, the strength of God, will abide in us.
Leading us through the marvels of nature and pointing out to us everywhere the
power and the goodness of God, he will deliver us finally to the care of the
High Priest Michael. He, in turn, will adorn those who have successfully completed
their service to philosophy with the priesthood of theology as with a crown of
precious stones.
* * *
¶30 For these reasons, I
have not been content to repeat well-worn doctrines, but have proposed for
disputation many points of the early theology of Hermes Trismegistus,
many theses drawn from the teachings of the Chaldeans and the Pythagoreans,
from the occult mysteries of the Hebrews and, finally, a considerable number of
propositions concerning both nature and God which we ourselves have discovered
and worked out. In the first place, we have proposed a harmony between Plato
and Aristotle, such as many before this time indeed believed to exist but which
no one has satisfactorily established. Boethius, among Latin writers, promised
to compose such a harmony, but he never carried his proposal to completion. St.
Augustine also writes, in his Contra Academicos,
that many others tried to prove the same thing, that is, that the philosophies
of Plato and Aristotle were identical, and by the most subtle
arguments. For example, John the Grammarian held that Aristotle differed from
Plato only for those who did not grasp Plato's thought; but he left it to
posterity to prove it. We have, in addition, adduced a great number of passages
in which Scotus and Thomas, and others in which Averroës
and Avicenna, have heretofore been thought to disagree, but which I assert are
in harmony with one another.
¶31 In the second place,
along with my own reflections on and developments of both the Aristotelian and
the Platonic philosophies, I have adduced seventy-two theses in physics and
metaphysics. If I am not mistaken (and this will become clearer in the course
of the proposed disputation) anyone subscribing to these theses will be able to
resolve any question proposed to him in natural philosophy or theology on a
principle quite other than that taught us in the philosophy which is at present
to be learned in the schools and is taught by the masters of the present
generation. Nor ought anyone to be surprised, that in my early years, at a
tender age at which I should hardly be permitted to read the writings of others
(as some have insinuated) I should wish to propose a new philosophy. They ought
rather to praise this new philosophy, if it is well defended, or reject it, if
it is refuted. Finally, since it will be their task to judge my discoveries and
my scholarship, they ought to look to the merit or demerit of these and not to
the age of their author.
¶32 I have, in addition,
introduced a new method of philosophizing on the basis of numbers. This method
is, in fact, very old, for it was cultivated by the ancient theologians, by
Pythagoras, in the first place, but also by Aglaophamos,
Philolaus and Plato, as well as by the earliest
Platonists; however, like other illustrious achievements of the past, it has
through lack of interest on the part of succeeding generations, fallen into
such desuetude, that hardly any vestiges of it are to be found. Plato writes in
Epinomis that among all the liberal arts and
contemplative sciences, the science of number is supreme and most divine. And
in another place, asking why man is the wisest of animals, he replies, because
he knows how to count. Similarly, Aristotle, in his Problems repeats
this opinion. Abumasar writes that it was a favorite
saying of Avenzoar of Babylon that the man who knows how to count, knows
everything else as well. These opinions are certainly devoid of any truth if by
the art of number they intend that art in which today
merchants excel all other men; Plato adds his testimony to this view,
admonishing us emphatically not to confuse this divine arithmetic with the arithmetic
of the merchants. When, consequently, after long nights of study I seemed to
myself to have thoroughly penetrated this Arithmetic, which is thus so highly
extolled, I promised myself that in order to test the matter, I would try to
solve by means of this method of number seventy-four questions which are
considered, by common consent, among the most important in physics and
divinity.
¶33 I have also proposed
certain theses concerning magic, in which I have indicated that magic has two
forms. One consists wholly in the operations and powers of demons, and
consequently this appears to me, as God is my witness, an execrable and
monstrous thing. The other proves, when thoroughly investigated, to be nothing
else but the highest realization of natural philosophy. The Greeks noted both
these forms. However, because they considered the first form wholly undeserving
the name magic they called it goeteia,
reserving the term mageia, to the
second, and understanding by it the highest and most perfect wisdom. The term
``magus'' in the Persian tongue, according to Porphyry, means the same as
``interpreter'' and ``worshipper of the divine'' in our language. Moreover,
Fathers, the disparity and dissimilarity between these arts is the greatest
that can be imagined. Not the Christian religion alone, but all legal codes and
every well-governed commonwealth execrates and condemns the first; the second,
by contrast, is approved and embraced by all wise men and by all peoples
solicitous of heavenly and divine things. The first is the most deceitful of
arts; the second, a higher and holier philosophy. The former is vain and
disappointing; the later, firm, solid and satisfying.
The practitioner of the first always tries to conceal his addiction, because it
always rebounds to shame and reproach, while the cultivation of the second,
both in antiquity and at almost all periods, has been the source of the highest
renown and glory in the field of learning. No philosopher of any worth, eager
in pursuit of the good arts, was ever a student of the former, but to learn the
latter, Pythagoras, Empedocles, Plato and Democritus crossed the seas.
Returning to their homes, they, in turn, taught it to others and considered it
a treasure to be closely guarded. The former, since it is supported by no true
arguments, is defended by no writers of reputation; the latter, honored, as it
were, in its illustrious progenitors, counts two principal authors: Zamolxis, who was imitated by Abaris
the Hyperborean, and Zoroaster; not, indeed, the Zoroaster who may immediately
come to your minds, but that other Zoroaster, the son of Oromasius.
If we should ask Plato the nature of each of these forms of magic, he will
respond in the Alcibiades that the magic of Zoroaster is nothing else
than that science of divine things in which the kings of the Persians had their
sons educated to that they might learn to rule their commonwealth on the
pattern of the commonwealth of the universe. In the Charmides
he will answer that the magic of Zamolxis is the
medicine of the soul, because it brings temperance to the soul as medicine
brings health to the body. Later Charondas, Damigeron, Apollonius, Osthanes
and Dardanus continued in their footsteps, as did
Homer, of whom we shall sometime prove, in a ``poetic theology'' we propose to
write, that he concealed this doctrine, symbolically, in the wanderings of his
Ulysses, just as he did all other learned doctrines. They were also followed by
Eudoxus and Hermippus, as
well as by practically all those who studied the Pythagorean and Platonic
mysteries. Of later philosophers, I find that three had ferreted it out: the Arabian, Al-Kindi, Roger
Bacon, and William of Paris. Plotinus also gives signs that he was aware of it in the
passage in which he shows that the magician is the minister of nature and not
merely its artful imitator. This very wise man approves and maintains this
magic, while so abhorring that other that once, when
he was invited to to take part in rites of evil
spirits, he said that they ought rather to come to him, than he to go to them;
and he spoke well. Just as that first form of magic makes man a slave and pawn
of evil powers, the latter makes him their lord and master. That first form of
magic cannot justify any claim to being either an art or a science while the
latter, filled as it is with mysteries, embraces the most profound
contemplation of the deepest secrets of things and finally the knowledge of the
whole of nature. This beneficent magic, in calling forth, as it were, from
their hiding places into the light the powers which the largess of God has sown
and planted in the world, does not itself work miracles, so much as sedulously
serve nature as she works her wonders. Scrutinizing, with greater penetration,
that harmony of the universe which the Greeks with greater aptness of terms
called sympatheia and grasping the mutual
affinity of things, she applies to each thing those inducements (called the iugges of the magicians), most suited to its nature.
Thus it draws forth into public notice the miracles which lie hidden in the
recesses of the world, in the womb of nature, in the storehouses and secret vaults
of God, as though she herself were their artificer. As the farmer weds his elms
to the vines, so the ``magus'' unites earth to heaven, that is, the lower
orders to the endowments and powers of the higher. Hence it is that this latter
magic appears the more divine and salutary, as the former presents a monstrous
and destructive visage. But the deepest reason for the difference is the fact
that that first magic, delivering man over to the enemies of God, alienates him
from God, while the second, beneficent magic, excites in him an admiration for
the works of God which flowers naturally into charity,
faith and hope. For nothing so surely
impels us to the worship of God than the assiduous contemplation of His
miracles and when, by means of this natural magic, we shall have examined these
wonders more deeply, we shall more ardently be moved to love and worship Him in
his works, until finally we shall be compelled to burst into song: ``The
heavens, all of the earth, is filled with the majesty of your glory.'' But
enough about magic. I have been led to say even this much because I know that
there are many persons who condemn and hate it, because they do not understand
it, just as dogs always bay at strangers.
* * *
CRS, 21 November 1994
With many thanks for correction of textual errors by Mr. Pete Grubbs of Penn
State University.