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Trithemius, Vindicator of Himself

Trithemius, His Own Defender, or an apologetic defense of the Steganography of the man Johannes Trithemius, formerly of Sponheim, ...

Johannes Trithemius

Ingolstadt, 1616

Foundation of the Works of C. G. Jung, Zurich

Shelf Mark: Online

Persistent Link: https://doi.org/10.3931/e-rara-7107 Johannes Trithemius, etc.

JOHANNES TRITHEMIUS

free and noble in every science: to hear, to understand, to write, to speak, etc.

JOHANNES TRITHEMIUS, first abbot of Sponheim, and afterward abbot of St. James in the suburb of Würzburg. Most excellently learned in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew letters. Poet, orator, philosopher, theologian. Most accomplished master of natural magic, as, among his other writings, his Steganographia and Polygraphia especially show.

He was born in the village of TRITENHEIM on the banks of the river Moselle, in the diocese of Trier, in the year 1462. At last he died in the year 1516, in the not yet completed fifty-fifth year of his age, on the very day sacred to St. Lucy, not without the grief and lamentation of all great men, princes, and learned men.

TRITHEMIUS, THE VINDICATOR OF HIMSELF: or, An Apologetic Defense of the Steganography of the very reverend, most learned, and highly ingenious man JOHANNES TRITHEMIUS, first abbot of Sponheim, and afterward most deserving abbot of St. James in the suburb of Würzburg.

Collected almost entirely from Trithemius himself, and made public property.

BY THE VERY REVEREND AND MOST RELIGIOUS FATHER, AND MOST DISTINGUISHED PRELATE AND LORD, LORD SIGISMUND, abbot of the celebrated monastery of SEON in Bavaria, of the Order of St. Benedict.

There has been added at the end a Fragment of Questions by the same Trithemius.

With the permission of superiors.

INGOLSTADT, from the Ederian press, at the shop of Elisabeth Angermaria, widow. In the year 1616.

On Trithemius, the Vindicator of Himself After Death

Is it so, then? Do we not allow buried spirits to find rest, nor pious ashes to lie softly? Trithemius is said to have practiced the ill-omened arts of Erebus, and gods whom it is not lawful to worship. Yet great Trithemius stands forth in noble arms, and himself vindicates his own reputation. Plainly, uprightness has no need of foreign arms; for it holds strong enough weapons in itself. Most beautiful virtue has no need of camps pitched high; it is enough that it has not lain too deeply hidden. Yet scarcely, Trithemius, do you clear away the arts charged against you, nor by this art do you escape the mark of a grim name. For he whose ashes, whose urn, we have known, who now lies in his own tomb, an ancient shade, will he go again, as though alive, against opposing enemies? Will he wage posthumous wars with unconquered hand? Will that bony Mars again stand in noble arms? Who would not say that this man was a great Magus?

To the Reader

It will perhaps seem strange to someone that I, entangled in household affairs and having long since turned my mind away from the most beautiful studies of the liberal arts, should now suddenly, after setting aside the turmoil of business, undertake to defend the cause of Johannes Trithemius, a man long since dead and taken from human affairs more than ninety-nine years ago. But if that person considers more deeply the reason for my plan, he will not only say that I am doing nothing foreign to my purpose, but will affirm that I have entered into this apologetic writing for the most just causes.

In the year 1499 Johannes Trithemius composed, and then some years later dedicated to Philip, Count Palatine, prince-elector and duke of Bavaria, at whose persuasion and encouragement he had begun this work, or, as Johannes Duraclusius says, to Joachim, Margrave of Brandenburg, prince-elector, that wonderful and laborious work, the Steganographia. In that book he transmits the most certain art of safely and securely disclosing the will of one’s mind to absent persons through hidden writing.

And lest so great and important a secret come to the ears of the common crowd of the untrained or of wicked men, he assigns offices, orders, distinctions, properties, prayers, and various operations of spirits of every kind; through the understanding of these, all the secrets of this science are closed and opened.

Some persons, offended by such operations and names of spirits, among whom there have also been very serious, learned, and religious men, taking the words just as they sound, have drawn some bad and sinister suspicion about Trithemius. They silently thought that the said books had been written contrary to natural principles, were filled with superstition, were crammed with forbidden magic, and therefore should be reckoned among the books prohibited by the Church. As for them, just as, with charity preserved, I have always opposed them as best I could in familiar conversation and in disputation, so I thought that I would do both a welcome service to the sacred Benedictine Order and something not foreign to my own purpose if I undertook to defend in writing, just as I had done orally, so great a man as Trithemius, who had deserved so well of the Catholic Church itself, a religious man defended by one who is no less religious, an abbot by an abbot, from so great a stain and disgrace.

Moreover, I have taken nothing, or very little, of my own for this apologetic defense, but almost everything from Trithemius himself, so that so great and learned a man, Trithemius, might seem not to need my assistance, strong enough with his own sword and destined to be the vindicator of his own innocence.

And so that it may more easily be clear who Trithemius was, and how far removed he was from every superstition, I shall first give the letter of Johannes Duraclusius, his disciple, to Nikolaus Hamerius Emelanus, setting forth the life and writings of Trithemius; then a few things on behalf of the steganographic author and his third book; finally those things which Trithemius himself, as though foreseeing the future...

Not ignorant of the future, he set forth here and there, scattered through his books, statements on behalf of his Steganography; these I shall bring into the open. From all these things it will shine out clearer than daylight that Johannes Trithemius was not a magician, but a most obedient, most submissive, and most humble son of the Church; and that all the things he wrote in the Steganography rest upon physical and natural principles, and therefore are by no means to be condemned under the name of forbidden magic. Read, friendly reader; weigh, and judge.

Farewell.

An Apologetic Defense of the Steganography

Johannes Trithemius, abbot, was born in the village of Trittenheim, in the diocese of Trier, on the banks of the river Moselle, on the first day of the month of February, at the eleventh hour and thirtieth minute after midday, in the year of the Lord’s Nativity 1462, in the tenth Roman indiction: his father was Johannes de Heidenberg, and his mother was named Elisabeth de Longo Vico, that is to say, in the year when the city of Mainz, captured in the quarrel between two pontiffs, lost its liberty and found servitude, many of its citizens having been driven into exile; in the fourth current year of Pope Pius II of that name, and the twenty-second of Emperor Frederick III.

In the year of the Lord 1482, in the monastery of Sponheim in the diocese of Mainz, namely on the first day of February, on which he had once been born, he laid aside the secular habit and there took up the monastic habit under the rule of the blessed Father Benedict, according to the observance newly introduced. In the following year, which was 1483, after Abbot Johannes de Colenhufen had been transferred to Seligenstadt by canonical postulation, Johannes Trithemius, by the common election of the brothers, was advanced and adorned as abbot of the aforesaid monastery of Sponheim on the fourth day before the Kalends of July, and presided for twenty-three years, one month, and nineteen days. When these had passed, not without many labors, provoked by the rashness of certain rivals, he accepted the abbey of St. James at Würzburg, which was being offered to him, and of his own free will resigned Sponheim, which was full of useless cares.

In both places he wrote many small works, and from among them he recently listed for me, in his own hand on a sheet, the following. Since you, as a friend, ask me for their titles, I gladly assent to your wishes, so that, from consideration of such great labors of his, you may hold in closer memory our common friend and teacher.

And first I shall record the titles of those works which he laboriously composed while serving as abbot at Sponheim.

He wrote first:

THE CONSTITUTIONS OF HIS ORDER, WHICH WERE MADE IN THE PROVINCIAL CHAPTERS BY ORDER OF THE PRESIDENTS, one book.

On the Visitation of Monks, one book.

On the Manner of Holding a Provincial Chapter, one book.

On the Rule of St. Benedict, two books.

Homilies and Exhortatory Sermons to His Monks, two books, which he dedicated to his predecessor.

On the Temptations of Cloistered Persons and Their Remedies, two books.

To Nicolaus, priest of Mernich, On the Priestly Life, one book.

On the Vanity and Misery of This Life, one book.

A Penthic Work, that is, a mournful work, On the Ruin of His Order, one book.

On the illustrious men of his order, four books.

Praises of the order of the Carmelites, two books.

To Gerlach, abbot of Deutz, On the Praise of Hand-copyists, one book.

To Johann Dalberg, bishop of Worms, On Ecclesiastical Writers, one book.

To the questions of Rutger Sicamber, canon of Dumetis, one book.

Chronicle of the monastery of Sponheim, a volume of no small size, one book.

Chronicle or Annals of the monastery of Hirsau, two large volumes.

Chronicle of the succession of the dukes of Bavaria and the counts palatine, addressed to Philip, count palatine and prince-elector, one book.

Life of Saint Hirmina, nun and first abbess in the horreum at Trier, one book.

On the Misery of Claustral Prelates, two books.

Praises of Saint Andrew the Apostle, one book.

Praises of Saint Benedict, Abbot, one book.

Praises of Saint Joseph, foster-father of the Lord, one book.

Praises of the Monastic Life, one book.

Praises of True Penitence, one book.

Praises of the Study of the Divine Scriptures, one book.

Monologue of a Man Devoted to God Addressed to Himself, one book.

On the miracles of Saint Mother Anne, one book.

To Ulrich, canon of Cologne, on questions in the Gospel of John, one book.

To the same, on questions concerning the Psalms, one book.

To the presidents of the annual chapter, concerning the Bursfeld observance, he abridged the statutes of that same union, one book.

The Spiritual Exercise of Monks, one book.

Epitome or breviary of the same, one book.

On the Ecclesiastical Computus, one book.

On the Illustrious Writers of Germany, addressed to Jakob Wimpfeling of Schlettstadt, one book.

Letters from Sponheim to various persons, four books.

Orations delivered in chapters and elsewhere, twenty-four in number, which make one book.

Sermons to the people on feast days, one book.

He wrote forty very beautiful sermons to his brothers of the Sponheim monastery, one book.

Several supplicatory prayers to God and the saints, one book.

From the Greek language he translated into Latin Maximus the Abbot, On the Incarnation of the Lord.

Also the Anathemas of Saint Cyril, archbishop of Alexandria, promulgated against the heretics in the third Synod of Ephesus.

For the edification of monks, a notable work which he entitled On the Threefold Region of Claustral Persons, three books.

He also wrote certain other smaller works, whose titles he did not indicate to me.

These, Nicholas, dearest brother, are the Trithemian works which, during the twenty-three years in which he was abbot, he labored over at Sponheim for the honor of God, amid cares and the continual occupation of household affairs: reading or writing day and night, whenever he was able to steal leisure for himself. During the years in which he was in charge, he brought into the library of Sponheim a very great treasury of books in every faculty, not only by the art of printing but also of manuscripts. For when I was with him for the space of one year to learn Greek and Hebrew letters from him, he counted two thousand volumes in the library, of which at least eighty had been handsomely written with the pen on parchment and paper. I often heard from his own mouth that he had spent more than two thousand florins on books, which he had not taken from the substance of the monastery, which had always been very meager, but, since he was known and dear to many princes, he spent for the most part on books the gifts with which he was honored by them. For he is the greatest lover and cultivator of books, beyond all whom I know living in the flesh today. It is said by many, moreover, that his successor, who is now abbot at Sponheim, has alienated very many volumes; whether this is true, I certainly do not know in the least. In the year of the Lord 1504, when a fierce war had arisen between the kingdom and Philip, count palatine, Trithemius, fearing the enemy, withdrew with his library and the possessions of the monastery to Kreuznach, the nearest town, and I likewise returned to my own affairs.

But in the year 1506, in the month of October, Trithemius himself, stirred by the envy of certain men, accepted the abbacy of Saint James at Würzburg and resigned that of Sponheim. There various There, at rest, he writes various works; when asked, he recently sent me these titles of them:

To Maximilian Caesar he published an admirable work, which he entitled Polygraphia, in six books.

To the same, the key to that same Polygraphia, one book.

Replies to eight questions of the same Caesar, one book.

To the same, On the Seven Intelligences Moving the Spheres, one book.

To Joachim, Margrave of Brandenburg and Prince-Elector, Various Questions, Orations, and Propositions, twenty books.

To the same, On Foreknowledges Permitted to a Christian and Not Permitted, two books.

To the same he wrote that admirable and laborious work of Steganography, in eight books, which that reckless Bovillus, not understanding it, criticized most ignorantly and most falsely.

To the same prince, Letters, one book.

To the same, Against Malefactors and All Arts and Superstitions Forbidden by the Church, five books.

To the same, On the Causes and Cure of the Falling Sickness and of Malefactors, three books.

To Jacob Trithemius, his brother, An Itinerary of His Life, two books.

To Burkhard of Horneck, physician, On the Property of Nuns, one book.

He wrote a History, or Annals, On the Origin, Kings, and Deeds of the People of the Franks and Germans, three large volumes, beginning the narrative from King Marcomer, who in the four hundred thirty-third year before the incarnation of the Lord led the people from the borders of Scythia into Germany, to the mouths of the Rhine, down to the thirty-eighth and ninth year of Maximilian Caesar.

To Lorenz, Bishop of Wurzburg and Duke of Eastern Francia, he wrote an epitome, or breviary, of the histories in those same three volumes, in three books.

To the same, On the Dukes and Bishops of the Franks of Wurzburg, one book.

On the miracles shown at the memorial of Our Lady Saint Mary at Dettelbach, two books.

On the miracles of the same shown in the nettle-field near Heilbronn, six books.

An Apologeticum against Charles Bovillus, who slanders what he has not understood, one book.

On the Origin and Kings of the Franks, one book.

A Chronicle of his monastery, over which he now presides, Saint James at Wurzburg, one book.

To Albert, of the Margraves of Brandenburg, Archbishop of Mainz and Magdeburg, The Life of the Divine Rabanus, archbishop, three books.

On the transfer of the same man from Mainz into Saxony, one book.

To the same, The Life of Saint Maximinus the Bishop, one book.

To Johann, Count Palatine of Bavaria, Duke, and Count in Sponheim, residing at Simmern, On the Origin, Kings, and Dukes of the Bavarians, together with the Counts Palatine and the Counts of Sponheim, four books.

He has in hand a laborious work On Demons and Profane, Magical, and Superstitious Arts, which will have twelve books; in them he denounces, confounds, and overturns all the ravages of the diabolical arts.

Letters from Wurzburg, which he wrote in that abbey, four books.

He also wrote several other smaller works suited to his own devotion and that of his friends, such as:

A Course, a Rosary, a Missal, an Office, and various prayers, together with his own prose sequences on Saint Anne, grandmother of our Savior.

He also wrote praises, prayers, and a rosary on Saint Mary Magdalene.

On Saint Joseph, foster father of the Lord, a Rosary.

On Saint Peter the Apostle, a Rosary.

On Saint John the Evangelist, a Rosary.

At the request of Johann, Archbishop of Trier, a sequence on Saint Anne, which begins: Jesu caelorum Regis, to the melody: Ave praeclara.

Another, to be sung on her feast, which begins: Exultent in hac die, etc.

A third, to the provincial of the Carmelites at Augsburg, and it begins: Jubilemus in honore.

A fourth, on Saint Hildegard, virgin, which begins thus: Laus tibi domine rex aeterna, etc.

A fifth, on Saint Rupert, Duke of the people of Bingen, which begins: Exultent in hac die.

A sixth, on Saint Joseph, foster father of the Lord, and it begins thus: Cantemus inclyti.

A seventh, on Saint Rabanus, archbishop.

An eighth, on the wounds of Christ, which begins thus: Iesum Christum adoremus, etc.

A ninth The ninth, on the compassion of the Blessed Mary ever virgin, and it begins thus: “Come, let us weep with devout mind, sharing the compassion of Blessed Mary,” under the melody, namely, “Ave praeclara.”

The tenth, on Saint Joachim, father of our Lady, which begins thus: “Let us adore the Trinity, let us praise together the Unity,” etc.

The eleventh, on the proper good angel of each person.

The twelfth, in the proper Mass of each priest.

The thirteenth, on Saint Maximus, bishop of Mainz.

The fourteenth, on Saint Martha, Christ’s hostess.

The fifteenth, on Saint Mary Magdalene.

The sixteenth, on Saint Mary of Egypt.

The seventeenth, on Saint James the Greater, apostle.

The eighteenth, on Saint Andrew, apostle.

The nineteenth, on Saint Benedict, abbot. The twentieth, on all saints.

And for each of the named memorials and saints he composed individual new offices of the Mass, in conformity with the divine Scriptures.

He also wrote a little work of meditations and prayers on the Lord’s incarnation, nativity, life, passion, and death, suitable for devotion, in two books.

The Mirror of Heavenly Doctrine, of no small service for compunction of mind, one book, which begins thus: “The beginning of human salvation,” etc.

He also composed many most devout meditations and prayers, on our Lord Jesus Christ, on his most holy Mother, the Virgin Mary, and on various saints, with beautiful variety, together with a vast number of other works, which all devout posterity will see and marvel at.

These, my dearest Nicholas, are the volumes of our abbot Trithemius, which for nearly thirty-two years he labored over in continual study, apart from those which, not yet perfected, are still in his hands under the file, unknown to me. Farewell from my house at Dürnstein, on the fifth of the month of October, in the year of our salvation one thousand five hundred fifteen.

Thus far he. For my part, considering the matter more deeply, I cannot grieve enough that so great a man, one so well deserving of letters and learned men, and of the Catholic Church itself, has fallen into such suspicion, as though he had written and committed to public light something contrary to the holy and orthodox faith, harmful to the Christian commonwealth, and unworthy of a religious conscience. Yet from the very title prefixed to the Steganography, as from the end that the author set before himself as his sole aim, it is clear that nothing else is contained in that book than a definite art of disclosing the intention of one’s mind to absent persons through hidden writing. For the use of this, as is easy to see in the Key prefixed to that work, there is certainly no need of a magical and diabolical art, but only of a physical and natural one. But lest these secrets, whether art or science, should come to the knowledge of the common-

[Marginal note: Why Trithemius used names of spirits, numbers, figures, and signs in his Steganography. Note: through hidden writing.] wealth or to the ears of wicked men, Trithemius judged that it was no small part of his duty to wrap it in mysteries, since it teaches mysteries that one who does not understand them cannot grasp, so that no one from the number of the unskilled, no one except the most studious, would be able by his own power to penetrate perfectly and fully to the author’s intention into the secret of this science, unless through reception from a teacher. Nor, says Trithemius, would the knowledge of this most secret art, if divulged among the wicked and reprobate, do less harm to the commonwealth than it would do good among the good. For just as good men, and those devoted to virtues, use all discoveries for good and for the common benefit, so the wicked and reprobate hunt for occasions not only from evil things but even from good and most holy institutions, by which they may become worse.

Something similar can happen to this most secret discovery, otherwise useful to the commonwealth and entirely honorable: just as for good and most holy men it offers itself as an instrument for the best purposes, ... so it may offer to perverse and impious men a service for crimes. For just as a good man and lover of honor can, for a private or common good, make known and convey and express at any distance of places the secret of his will to another who knows this art, whenever and as often as he wishes, secretly, securely, and without any suspicion by any mortal, perfectly, copiously, and quite fully, through letters visible to all, open or closed, so that no one, however learned or curious, can suspect anything about the sender’s secret, nor, even if he suspects it, detect it; so also any perverse, wanton, or malicious person, even one previously wholly ignorant of the Latin language, as soon as he has acquired this art, which with a master teaching he can acquire in two days at the longest, will thereafter write letters in Latin, with proper composition, clear in any narrative, elegant and sufficiently ornate, to a friend skilled in this art. In these letters he will wrap the secret of his will, accessible to that friend alone, in such great mysteries that they cannot be penetrated at all by anyone, however studious or learned, without the aid of this art. Thereafter the learned and the unlearned, man and woman, boy and old man, good and bad, chaste and lascivious, would write throughout all regions of the world, in Latin or in whatever language known to them, Latin, Greek, or barbarous letters free from all suspicion, by which they would show one thing openly to those ignorant of the art, and another secretly to those who knew it. Nor, once this science had been made public to the reprobate, would the fidelity between spouses, contracted by sacrament, remain safe thereafter, when a wife, though hitherto ignorant of Latin, now sufficiently instructed through chaste, honorable, and most holy words of any language or idiom, could most fully understand the evil and shameless mind and intention of an adulterous lover or fornicator, even while her husband carried the letters and praised them as excellent, and could send back her own desire to him in the same way, as broadly and copiously as she wished, most securely in the same or other letters, in a beautiful and quite ornate sequence.

Indeed, although this science is in itself excellent and quite useful to the commonwealth, nevertheless, if it came to the knowledge of the wicked, which God forbid, the whole order of the commonwealth could over time be considerably disturbed, public trust endangered, all letters, legal instruments, written documents, and finally the very speech of men turned into the gravest suspicion. No one would then trust letters, however holy and honorable, without fear, but only rarely would anyone give credence to epistles. For however honorable and chaste the words might be, deceit, fraud, and deception would always be thought to lie beneath them, and people would become fearful in everything, and for the most part suspicious no less of friends than of adversaries.

Therefore, to remove all these inconveniences that I have mentioned, and so that this science, in itself physical, natural, and lawful, should not create such great evils and inconveniences if it came to everyone’s knowledge, Trithemius not without reason used numbers, signs, and foreign names, as of spirits and others, by which, as by mysteries, he wrapped that art, so that it would be readily accessible to no one except one who knew that art, that is, to an honorable and pious man, but would remain forever hidden from the perverse and malignant. And we have learned that the most ancient wise men, whom in the Greek language we call philosophers, once did this too; for it is the opinion of the most learned that, if they had discovered any secrets either of nature or of art, they concealed them in various ways and figures, lest they come to the knowledge of wicked men. The more learned among the Jews also confirm that Moses, the most famous leader of the Israelite people, in describing the creation of Heaven and Earth, covered ineffable secrets of mysteries with simple words. Hence in many places of Sacred Scripture, besides the literal sense, the allegorical, tropological, and anagogical senses also have been received by theologians. Saint Jerome, the most learned among our own, affirms that almost as many mysteries lie hidden in the Apocalypse of John as there are words. The Greeks and Egyptians, certainly, in concealing their sacred and divine matters, always used figures and obscurities. Hence Socrates Socrates in Plato gives the warning that the mysteries of sacred things must be veiled, so that they may be kept apart from the unworthiness of the common crowd. Elsewhere Plato advises that it is altogether unworthy and foul for the mysteries of hidden things to be opened to the people, since those things are handled with polluted hands by the human race, though it is lawful for them to be treated only by persons initiated into the sacred rites of philosophy. Nor do the Hebrews neglect this in treating the sacred laws.

And, to say a little more about the signs of the ancients, they certainly used marks, strokes, and single letters in place of writing, both to write more briefly and to depart from the common form of writing. Thus they signified civem Romanum by C R, oportere by O P, duntaxat by D T, ab urbe condita by A B V C, and de isto lapide invenies aurum by D I L I A. This obscurity of words and sentences may be seen in almost all branches of knowledge. In books of law the ancients denoted calumniae causa by the two letters K K, dolum malum by D M, and iudex esto by I E. They also signified a condemned man by the letter K, but an acquitted man by A. Thus, concerning a recuperatory judgment, it was customary in the old signs and formulas for the masters of signs to write as follows: QERE, TPIRD, TQPDTDDPF. “For as much as that matter shall be worth, for so much money I shall grant a recuperatory judgment, and I shall give the power of publicly summoning only ten witnesses.” Although the emperor Justinian later decreed that these legal signs were to be abolished from the books of law, nevertheless these figures still remain even now, § and ff., of which the one designates paragraphs, the other the Digests.

Mathematicians too, especially astrologers, retain these remnants of obscurity and figures. For they depict the planets, and likewise their Zodiac, or twelve celestial signs, with individual characters; for example, the Moon from its waxing and waning horns, Gemini from their embrace, Sagittarius from an arrow, etc. So too they mark their aspects, triplicities, and configurations of the eighth sphere. Thus * signifies a hexagon; □ a square; △ a triangle. The conjunctions of the planets, moreover, are expressed by such a sign, and oppositions by this mark.

The chemical art also uses such signs, so that chemists may describe simples obscurely. For chemists mark sal ammoniac with the sign Δ, arsenic with ∞.

Likewise musicians have devised various characters and notes to denote time and measure, as may plainly be seen in their books. And it is certainly remarkable that by musical notes of this kind the thoughts of the mind can be signified secretly to others.

In the military art too, to pass over the special stratagems of our own men and the various methods of signifying secretly, there are distinctive signs among the ancients. For in the short lists in which the names of soldiers were contained, there was a proper usage by which commanders could examine the number of soldiers, how many of them survived and how many had fallen in disasters. For those who survived were marked with T, tau, at the beginning of the little verse; those who had fallen, however, with o, theta.

Now what shall I say about the faculty of oratory and its practitioners, who, for the highest adornment, use this kind of obscure mode of speaking not only in words but also in whole sentences and in the sequence of discourse? For what are metaphor, metonymy, amphiboly, allegory, and so forth, to say nothing of enigma, other than figures by which the sense is transferred from proper speech into something obscure and plainly hidden? Certainly wise chymists wove their writings together with these coverings, I mean allegory, as we find Hermes, Geber, Raymond, and all the ancient Pythagoreans to have spoken.

I pass over the most learned poets, who, devoting their labor to composing fables, by the skillful invention of a single narrative sequence handed down one thing to the unlearned and another to learned men.

Therefore, since, as is clear from what has been said, almost all branches of knowledge have adopted characters proper to themselves, by which the materials of the sciences might be transmitted, if not more briefly, at least more secretly, Trithemius too not undeservedly handed down his precepts in such a way that they would not be accessible to everyone, especially since understanding them was not even advantageous for everyone. Nor does it matter that Trithemius Nor does it matter that Trithemius, in order to veil the secret, used conjurations in almost all the chapters. For in them there is nothing other than hidden steganographic secrets; and Trithemius himself warns, in the triple General Key which he himself wrote and communicated to lovers of this art who would show gratitude and keep it secret, that all of them must first be examined by means of each of the steganographic methods.

The same judgment must be made about the arithmetical numbers. He employed them not in order to attribute any magical power to them, but so that, however many of them you find, you would know that they signify so many meaningful letters, while the O denotes nothing; this is clear without difficulty to one who reads and understands those methods. Indeed, I freely and willingly admit that letters, whether Latin or Greek or written in any language whatever, can be read and understood in their own way, and even, what is more, can be written and composed according to rules and good syntax by someone who, provided he knows the alphabet, has never studied either grammar or syntax. At first sight this is so astonishing a thing that it draws every sense and the common understanding of human beings into wonder. Yet Trithemius’s works, the Steganography and the Polygraphy, teach that this can be done easily and without any forbidden and demonic magic. For if prohibited magic is defined as a faculty or art by which, through the force of a pact entered into with demons, certain marvelous things surpassing the common understanding of human beings are accomplished, but the most religious man and most perfect master of natural magic, Johannes Trithemius, never entered into any pact with demons in his steganographic work, as will later be clear from his own declarations, but used lawful, natural, and physical means as a lover of the more secret philosophy, then it is readily evident that the Steganography must not be counted among magical books.

The third book alone causes difficulty. Because we cannot understand it for want of a Key, many criticize it as suspect under the mark of superstition, or at least as a supposititious offspring.

But I, precisely because we do not understand it, judge that that book should rather be approved than condemned, rather retained with all our strength than removed from the remaining books. For who is so unfair an assessor of things that he would dare to judge something evil, when nevertheless in his own understanding he finds it neither good nor evil, and therefore does not understand it? Certainly, in doubtful matters the safer and better side must be chosen; moral theologians as well as scholastics teach this. For, says Trithemius, he shows himself a rash judge who pronounces sentence on a case before he has learned its truth. But if they assign a reasonable cause for their criticism, if they certainly and evidently convict Trithemius of forbidden magic, if they bring forward from that book something impious and contrary to the faith of the Roman Church, then at last I would believe it to be a supposititious offspring and altogether unworthy of the name of Trithemius.

Note well. Considered externally and according to the literal sense of the verses, the Steganography can perhaps seem superstitious; but not so according to the author’s intention and according to the kernel lying hidden within.

But they press the point and say: That someone far absent can be made aware of my thought, and that within the space of twenty-four hours, indeed without letters and without a messenger and at whatever distance, far exceeds the powers of nature, since a physical agent does not act upon something distant except through an intervening medium; and therefore that book is not supported by physical reasons and means.

I hear them. But do you not remember that we are dealing here with magic which, by its own agility, dexterity, subtlety, and created, not supernatural, power, produces marvelous and unusual effects whose explanation surpasses sense and the common understanding of human beings, and that it is a certain part of the more secret philosophy, or, as Pererius defines it, a faculty by which human beings accomplish unusual and admirable things by a certain hidden, that is, natural, principle unknown to other people? Do you not recall the first two books, which, though Trithemius certainly wrote them physically, he nevertheless wrapped in such great and such blind mysteries and darkness that not even all the people of the whole world could understand them, if the Key left by Trithemius...

left behind, supplied them with help? Certainly I would believe that I could more easily extricate myself from labyrinthine windings, advances, and retreats than, without the Key, disentangle myself from steganographic intricacies. Do you not think that, just as in the earlier books, so also in this book he made use of mysteries? Can it not be that by “motion” he meant the operation itself, and by the space of twenty-four hours the twenty-four letters, or alphabet? Therefore the words must be taken not as they sound, but in a mystical sense; nor should one believe that here a physical agent acts at a distance without an intervening medium, which certainly seems to be the case to those who do not know and do not understand the words.

For I pass over the fact that it is not necessary for the agent always to be present to the patient according to its own substance, or by contact of the subject, but that it suffices if it is present to the patient virtually, or by contact of power. I say nothing about sympathies and antipathies. I omit what some bring forward against this philosophical maxim concerning the remora, or echeneis, and the torpedo fish; of these, the former, though small in body, nevertheless so halts huge ships that sometimes sailors can make no progress at all, while the water meanwhile is by no means still, as Pliny reports, book 31, chapter 1, and others commonly; while the latter makes the hands and arms of fishermen grow numb and torpid, though the net itself does not become numb, as Aristotle testifies, History of Animals 9, chapter 37. I pass over in silence the marvelous force and power of the magnet, which draws iron without drawing the medium placed between, as daily experience teaches. Finally, I pass over the fact that an agent sometimes acts more strongly upon a remote patient than upon one nearby, as is clear from fire, which heats water in the upper part of a vessel more violently than water at the bottom; indeed, according to Aristotle, section 15, problems 4 and 8, the bottom of the vessel is much colder than the water above, which nevertheless is farther from the acting fire.

All these things, I say, as contributing little to this magic with which we are dealing, I set aside; and I firmly affirm that Trithemius, a man of proven virtue and the highest learning, both in this book and in the earlier ones, made use of natural means, and therefore did nothing contrary to physical reasons, however suspect he may seem to some. For why did he introduce arithmetical numbers in this book? Why does he so carefully divide motion, that is, operation, into proper, direct, retrograde, mixed, confused, and so forth? Why does he wish the operator to use encaustic? Are not all these physical and natural means?

But, to say more, reader, do you believe that it is contrary to physical reason that the thoughts of the mind can be made known, without words, without books, and without a messenger, to an absent friend? What reasons would those be? I myself will show you by experience that, through the art which I have drawn from Trithemius, I can make known to a friend sitting at my table or standing by whatever he wishes, and that through thirty, fifty, or a hundred words, indeed through words fixed and prescribed by you; yet to that friend, whoever he may be, I shall neither speak a word nor send a messenger, and, if you wish, I shall not even look at him; and this physically and naturally. What of the fact that at night, by showing a torch, I can signify the thoughts of my mind even to a full mile or more, as far indeed as sight can carry, and that not only within the space of twenty-four hours, but even within a single quarter-hour? But if this can be done, why not also that? Against what physical reasons does it fight?

Indeed Trithemius himself explains himself clearly enough: namely, how the will can be made known to any distance whatsoever without a messenger and without letters. For he wishes that distance of places to be so constituted that it is nevertheless regulated by speech. But I can make my thought known without a messenger, that is, with the bearer knowing, but entirely not knowing the secrets that he carries, as Trithemius intends in the same place; this is very true and very easy. And understand “without letters” to mean without visible letters, but perhaps with invisible ones, namely either of the dermatical, hyphasmatic, or aleotic kind, as the same Trithemius will teach below, or by some other hieroglyphic sign. Nor is there any reason why those conjurations placed in this book should be suspect to you. For entirely as with conjurations in he used in the earlier books for veiling the secret, so he uses these as well in the same way. Therefore, if it were permitted, while preserving the judgment of others, to give my opinion about this book, I would indeed say, supported by the preceding causes and reasons, that this whole third book contains within itself a method of disclosing the secret of one’s mind to a friend, not indeed by open and visible letters, but either by arithmetical numbers, of which sort Trithemius has many numerical dances in place of letters in his Polygraphia, or, as I would more readily believe, by those invisible methods of which he speaks in his Polygraphia when discussing Bedan artrology and dactylogy, in these words: “And who could set forth all the methods of the ancients for writing secretly? For some had familiar owls called Philophoti set over the service of the art; others called upon Mysophoti, others both, by art in practice. Again, others transposed the known letters of the common alphabet; others, under the appearance of foreign peoples, fashioned their own characters for themselves. Again, others likewise, by the service of letters, used visible letters, writing with vermilion or common encaustic; but others formed invisible characters at their own discretion and command. The methods of visible characters for secret writing are exceedingly many and altogether innumerable; to mention them all is neither within our intention nor within our ability. But of invisible letters there are three kinds more commonly used among mortals today.

The first is called Dermatic, by which a certain artificial writing is made on the backs of messengers through the washing of a certain fluid, visible only in a particular way; no one can penetrate it who does not know the secret of the art. The second is called Hyphasmatic, by which something is written on cloth with certain substances; when dried it cannot be seen at all, until, when moistened in cold water, it is perceived. The third kind is called Aleotic, which is manifold and varied, both in form and in matter, and has almost innumerable methods of writing secretly. Its writing is made on paper or without paper, with nemilua and cala, with raphocam lapolce, and with various other things. Letters are likewise written and hidden in various ways and places: under race tabulata, under rofiri lacubior, in leopi, in necoflas, in ceocali, locubat, in ratera, in lispilia, and in other similar things almost infinite, etc.

See, reader, in how many ways you can announce the conception of your mind to an absent friend, even without letters, and without the knowledge of the very person who performs the office of messenger. This is perhaps what Trithemius meant when, in this book, he maintains that letters can be sent without a messenger, as we also noted above. And hence Trithemius, in the said third book, on the varied motion of the planets and the interpretation of tables, almost at the end, wishes the operator to use encaustic, not the common kind, such as he mentioned before when speaking of visible letters, but one prepared, as he says, “in our manner” for this purpose. That incaustum, or encaustic, is a kind of painting made by the application of fire, namely with burnt colors and wax dissolved by fire, Calepinus reports from Apuleius and Pliny. Hence Trithemius says in the letter to Bostius, to whom he writes what steganography teaches, in these words: with these words; we shall reproduce that whole letter below: “The second book” (I plainly think this is the third, for he had begun eight books on this subject, which now, with his plan changed, he reduces to four) “contains many more marvelous things. By fire, namely (see, by fire), in this art I can make the conception of my mind known to one who knows my art, at any distance whatever, at a hundred miles or more, securely, without words, without writings, without signs, through any messenger whatever. If he is seized on the road, if he is questioned even under the harshest tortures, he can confess nothing about my message, because he knows absolutely nothing about it. Whatever happens, my message will always remain hidden; nor, if all the men of the whole world were gathered together at once, could they trace it out by natural power,” etc. See below in the letter to Bostius. And let this be the judgment concerning the third book of the Steganography.

The third book of the Steganography imperfect.

But if someone should say that this book was left by its author to posterity imperfect and defective, and that therefore it is no wonder if, especially in the absence of the key, we cannot arrive at its understanding, he would in fact have said this neither beside the point nor contrary to Trithemius’s meaning. For Trithemius himself, writing to Rogerius Sicambrus, who had asked for the titles of Trithemian works, wrote among other things as follows: “After these things I set about writing a great and very difficult Steganographic work of marvelous invention, to be divided into eight books. The first and second books of it I brought all the way to completion; but the third I left defective, and all the rest I have left entirely buried down to the present day, persuaded by many considerations, since the labor is great and the reward perhaps small. Let it therefore remain imperfect as it lies, until usefulness persuades otherwise.” He says almost the same thing in the letter to Nicolaus Phorcensis, and elsewhere throughout his letters to friends. And indeed, how wavering he was, and how persuaded by many considerations not readily to allow the Steganographic work to come forth into public, is clear not only below from the preface of the Polygraphy

Trithemius uncertain about the publication of his Steganography.

addressed to Emperor Maximilian, but especially from the letter to Johannes Capellarius, the Parisian mathematician, to whom he writes as follows: “As for my Steganography, the first two books of which you saw at Cologne, I do not know whether I shall ever publish it, for three reasons. The first reason that holds me back from publishing it is consideration of the future and the very likely fear of evil, which could occur through the abuse of wicked men, since wicked men would use our inventions for evil no less than good men would use them for good. The second is the undertaking of very great labor and the small return of reward. For, as you saw, the work is difficult and of the keenest speculation, and cannot be completed without the greatest labor. And what return is there for such labor, except perhaps a little weight of gold, which is transitory and for that reason rather to be despised by a Christian monk? It has never been my intention to labor for temporal reward, since I see that I have been called into the vineyard of the everlasting King. The third cause is the judgment of the unlearned common people, by which they ascribe to evil arts everything that they do not understand. I have as yet written nothing about which anyone could deservedly marvel; I have done nothing astonishing; and yet I suffer the opinion of the crowd, since many think me a MAGICIAN, asserting that I have raised the dead, summoned demons from the underworld, foretold the future, brought back thieves by incantations, and bound robbers. All these things are INVENTED and FALSE; I have never done them, nor have I ever thought of them.” And a little later: “What do you think the foolish rashness of unlearned men in the future will suppose about me, when I have brought the Steganography into the light, since it has fabricated such lies about me when it has not yet seen any secret? Although, with my conscience as witness, I do not regard these prattlings of the ignorant as important, nevertheless I do not intend to give occasion for evil suspicion, so far as possible.”

And see how conscious of right his mind was, and how much good Trithemius feared for himself, lest by this work of his he offend anyone, especially the unlearned and inexperienced, who dare to pass an unfavorable judgment on such good and holy studies.

judgment, although they have by no means grasped them with understanding. But now let us pass to the uses of these books.

The uses of the Polygraphic and Steganographic books.

Indeed, what uses and advantages can arise from this kind of writing, when rightly employed, Trithemius himself teaches most beautifully, though in part obscurely, in his preface to the Polygraphia addressed to the Emperor Maximilian. And although he refers most of those uses to the Polygraphia, they can nevertheless also be applied, not unsuitably, to the Steganographia.

The first use, therefore, says Trithemius, is that a complete understanding of this work gives to one who needs it an easy method of making known the secret of your mind safely, secretly, and without any suspicion on the part of anyone watching, to one who knows the practice of the art, as widely as there may be need, across any distance of places, by regulated speech. What lies hidden in these matters the work of the Steganographia brings out; it requires neither letters nor a messenger who knows the secrets he carries. Do not take the matter otherwise than it is. The second use is that by the service of this work, in a short space of time, you will teach a man ignorant of the Latin language, provided only that he knows how to read and write letters in his mother tongue, to write in the Latin language, as you wish, elegantly or suitably, and to conceal and hide all the secret mysteries of his will, and to announce them to one who knows the art as broadly as he pleases, safely, secretly, and without suspicion. Again I warn you beforehand not to understand us as promising anything other than what we promise.

The third use is that, if you apply the duty of your office prudently, you will teach one unskilled in the Roman language, not only in a few hours to write and read what we promise, but also to understand it; and this we have decided, not without reasonable cause, to keep reserved. For the pupil of the new art will write a language he had not known, and he will understand Latin speech composed under regulated instruction, and, if you order him, he himself will interpret it sufficiently word for word. Finally, this instruction can be extended to all the affairs and business of the world. How these things will be able to be done, if anyone wishes to learn from me, let him remember first of all to show himself such that he deserves to receive it. For not all things are owed to all people, but one person is to be preferred to another.

The fourth use is that, through the enlargement of the likeness of the thing received, all these things can be extended into any language, when the instituting binary has been reduced to unity. This, however, not just anyone at random can do, but only the man whom, with God going before by his special grace, art and nature have made worthy.

The fifth use is that, by imitation of likeness, we can communicate to one who knows the art of our invention any secrets of our mind whatever, as abundantly, manifoldly, and broadly as you wish, in various ways that can neither be known nor observed by anyone else. Here there is given a manifold speech without voice, through which, safely, securely, very broadly, with every suspicion removed, we shall be able to indicate most fully to those who know the art all the conceptions of our mind, however difficult they may be. And this wonderful invention has innumerable progressions, capable of all mysteries.

The sixth use is that, through an understanding of this work, you will be able to discover any regulated metathesis or transposition of letters whatever, and nevertheless to form it in such a way that it remains subject only to those who know the art, and to absolutely no one else in the world. And the form and operation of metathesis together have great power; it both has many modes and is varied in many ways.

The seventh use is that, through an understanding of this volume, a very great capacity is given to those who wish to enlarge the memory without labor, whenever the seeds of minutiae are placed in their proper degrees. For the sake of goodness, all things lie hidden, wrapped in the secrets of words and figures; if anyone desires to understand them more fully, let him call to mind that relentless labor conquers all things. For it will have been enough for me to have discovered the principles of the art, and to have handed down a rough and deliberately unformed method of writing symbolically. For there was neither time nor reason for our discoveries to be formed in a more polished way.

Lest honey produce vomiting in those who are nauseated, or truth hatred in those who are indignant. Every time must be valued according to its own merits; and swine are not to be adorned with pearls, nor laden with precious gems. All things are untimely when they do not agree with the customs and the age of the mortals upon whom they are thrust. There have been many very noble talents of men in unfitting times, and many new things are found almost daily in times not their own.

What profit did the wondrous invention of nautical art bring to the excellent sail-maker Bartholomaeus under Pope Innocent VIII, which in a certain little book he offered for sale at one hundred thousand ducats, when neither the supreme Pontiff himself, nor the Venetians, nor the Genoese, to whom he proposed selling his matter, deigned to come to terms with him even for a modest price? For he promised that for thirty months, by his art, he could keep a ship unharmed in the midst of the sea, repair it when broken, and without danger recover whatever had been cast into the deep. But no one cared.

Nor does it escape me that many, with Naso, have perished by their own genius. It is therefore better to set a limit to knowledge than, without profit, to expose oneself to the hatred and detraction of many, to whom it is more familiar to despise any knowledge whatever than to have learned it. These are the words of the Polygraphic Author concerning the uses of Polygraphy and Steganography.

But come forward at last, Trithemius, come forward, and as avenger yourself defend your cause from so great a stain and so atrocious an injury. The most reverend and most learned man Johannes Trithemius, while still alive and before he gave the often-named work of Steganography to the public light, began to be so bitten by the teeth of certain envious, or rather ignorant, men, especially a certain Bovillus, that he even published an apologetic work in his own defense (would that it were at hand, for it would contribute not a little to this Apologetic Defense), and resolved to commit that Steganographic work entirely to darkness. Trithemius narrates the whole matter thus in the Polygraphic preface

Apologia of Johannes Trithemius against Charles Bovillus, rashly defaming those things which he did not understand.

to Emperor Maximilian: At the urging, he says, of the aforesaid prince and lord elector, Philip, Count Palatine and Duke of Bavaria, I, Johannes Trithemius, now abbot of the monastery of St. James at Wurzburg, but then of St. Martin the Bishop at Sponheim in the diocese of Mainz, began to write eight books of mysteries in Steganography. But while I was already continuing my lucubration in the third book of the same work, something happened which I shall now tell briefly, if I can. In the year of the Lord’s Nativity 1499, in the second Roman indiction, when Arnold Bostius, a Carmelite of the town of Ghent, asked by letter what new thing I was publishing, and with what studies I was occupied, on the second day of Palms I wrote back to him, as to a friend, through merchants, that I had under the hammer a new and wondrous work of Steganography, and I disclosed in order what was contained in each book, in these words: I now have in hand a great work, which, if it is ever published,

Words of Trithemius. In the letter to Bostius.

which may God forbid, the whole world will marvel at; the title of its first book is STEGANOGRAPHY. There will be four books, and each will be divided into at least one hundred chapters. I began this work at the urging of a certain great prince, whom there is no need to name. You ask what this work teaches? It teaches the greatest things, astonishing and incredible to all who do not know them, things that have never been heard from the beginning of the world. For the first book contains more than one hundred ways of secretly writing whatever you wish, without any suspicion, without transposition of letters, without any fear, so that there is no man in the world who by natural industry could know, or even suspect, what is contained in my letters, except the one who knows the art from me, or from the one whom I have taught. The words are plain and familiar, lacking every suspicion, but no one without the art will ever be able to perceive my intention, however learned he may be; and it is a truly astonishing thing. The second book will contain much more marvelous things. For through fire, namely, in this art I can make the conception of my mind known to one who knows my art, at any distance whatever, at a hundred miles or more, safely, without words, without writings, without signs, through any messenger. If he is seized on the road, if he is questioned even under the harshest tortures, he can disclose nothing about my message, because he knows absolutely nothing about it. Whatever happens, my message will always remain hidden, nor could all the men of the whole world, if they were gathered together, track it down by natural power, etc.

I can also indicate my will to one sitting in prison, if he knows the art, even though I am far away, however closely he is guarded, even if he were sitting three miles underground. And all these things, as broadly and universally as I wish, whenever and as often as I wish, I can do naturally, without any superstition or aid of any spirits whatsoever. They are marvelous things, I admit; but hear still more marvelous things.

The third book teaches an art by which I can take an unlearned man, knowing only his mother tongue,

Trithemius promises so much.

who has never known a word of the Latin language, and in two hours teach him to write, read, and understand Latin, as ornately and eloquently as he wishes, so that all who see his letters will praise the words and understand that they are composed in Latin.

The fourth book contains many astonishing experiments, but purely natural ones. Namely, I can indicate my mind to one who knows my art while eating or sitting with others, without words, without nods, as broadly as I wish, even while speaking, preaching, playing the organ, or singing, without any hindrance to whatever other action is being performed. Thus, while preaching good and holy things, I may indicate, not by words, not by signs, not by nods, to anyone who knows the art, as fully as I wish, whatever I wish, even with my eyes closed. And the fourth book contains many other secrets that are not to be brought into public.

All who hear these things marvel at them; among them are many noble and most learned men, who suppose that these things are either impossible or wholly supernatural.

To them I answer, as I have answered many, that many things are possible by nature which, to those ignorant of the powers of nature, seem impossible, or even supernatural. And behold, I speak before my God, who knows all things: the marvels I have foretold are far more excellent, deeper, and greater than I can write or you can believe, and yet all are purely natural, without any deception, without superstition, without magical art, without the invocation or service of any spirits whatsoever.

I have said these things so that, if perhaps some rumor should ever reach you that I either know or can do marvelous things, you would not, I say, think me a magician, but a philosopher. For what happened to Albertus Magnus, that most profound investigator of natural things, namely that because of the marvels he performed by the hidden power of nature he was regarded by the common people as a magician, I am certain can happen to me in the same way.

Behold, before God, because I do not lie: I have taught these things to no one yet, although many have often asked me, promising great things, except one prince.

I am writing to that prince, whom I made more certain of the possibility of the art by plain proof. Nor is it fitting that anyone should know these things except princes; otherwise many evils would be done through them: betrayals, deceptions, fornications, and whatever else wicked men might wish. But those who use the art well could accomplish many good things for the commonwealth through it. Moreover, I can teach all these things in every language of the whole world, even one I have never heard. I wished to tell you these things, Bostius, so that you would not think me idle, etc.

But, Trithemius continues, before this letter of mine had reached Ghent, Bostius departed this life to Christ during the Easter season. The prior of that place received the letter, opened it, read it, and, astonished, as I suppose, by the novelty of the promises, shared it with many others who asked to read and copy it. From this it happened that this letter of mine, in a short time spread through almost all Germany and Gaul, and often copied out by many, brought many very learned men into amazement and admiration, to such an extent that what they ought truly to think of me, they hesitated. Among them were some who firmly asserted that the promises I made in the said letter were frivolous, impossible, and false, and had been shamelessly devised by me for the sake of empty glory. Others said: “This Abbot Trithemius promises great and wonderful things; if he can do them, he can do so only by the ministry of demons, since he is plainly seen to exceed the limits of nature by far. But if he cannot, who will doubt that he is a liar, and deservedly to be refuted by all good and learned men?” But let both charges be far from me, since what I promised was natural.

Of all those who rashly judged matters of mine unknown to them, the most rash and most unjust appraiser of things at last burst forth openly: Carolus Bouillus, a Picard by nationality. After he had traveled through the upper parts of Alsace and had come to me at Spanheim for lodging, intending to return to France by way of Trier, I treated him with all the courtesy I could, and showed him every kindness of hospitality for as long as he was with me, and with a cheerful face. And since, as commonly happens among friends, especially those devoted to literary study, I had shown my most welcome guest everything of mine for him to see, among the rest there also presented itself the noteworthy work of the Steganography, not yet completed at that time. Bouillus saw it and read it cursorily, his mind occupied elsewhere; he said that he admired the invention, praised it, and did not trouble himself about how it was to be understood. Hence, since he did not ask for the key of understanding, he deserved to hear or perceive nothing of the things contained in that lucubration of ours.

After this, having returned to France, he repaid us evil for good and shamefully violated the covenant of Christian friendship. For when he was asked by Lord Germain de Ganay, a mutual friend, later Bishop of Orleans, what he had found and seen with me at Spanheim, he wrote back falsehoods for truths and lies for benefits, condemning and rashly judging things that he was in no way able to comprehend with his understanding. For since he believed that, through envy and lying, the palm of learning would be conferred on him, he wrote back to the aforementioned most learned man a letter full of falsehood, lies, wrongs, and many insults; in it, making mention of the Steganography that he had not understood, he falsely, mendaciously, and with exceedingly injurious rash presumption proclaimed me devoted to depraved arts, a magician, and a necromancer.

To his most mendacious injuries and blasphemies, by God’s mercy, I shall shortly reply in such a way that all posterity may understand both that I am innocent and that Bouillus, in this matter, is impious, cruel, rash, and a liar. I firmly affirm, I speak truthfully, and I confidently swear upon my soul that I have never had any commerce with demons, or with depraved and pernicious magical or necromantic arts; but that all and every thing which I have either written or promised that I would write is pure, sound, natural, and in no respect at all contrary to the Christian faith. Hence I do not fear to submit my promises for examination before good and learned men, whenever and as often as there shall be need; to their determination I in no way intend to resist. There was a reasonable cause why I inserted this history of Bouillus’s rashness into this preface of mine: so that all may understand that it was done with mature counsel that the work of the Steganography has until now remained buried in darkness, not because I fear the rash judgments of Bouillus, but lest I seem to give more people of the same sort cause to suspect similar things about me.

Indeed, as far as I am concerned, I would rather placate my rivals by silence than irritate them by letters, or provoke them to madness by writings. For I judged it better to condemn all these wondrous inventions to perpetual silence than to incur, even by the false estimation of men, the mark of pernicious magical or necromantic superstition. Let the Steganography therefore lie hidden in darkness, and let it not become common to the lying Bouillian company, which is accustomed to judge matters unknown to it and to corrupt the reputation of a good man by the mere lust of depravity. Nevertheless, at the urging of friends, so that our rivals may understand, together with Bouillus, how rash and false...

...a false injury he has done us (the Steganography remaining within its own limits), we consent to publish the following work, which we call the Polygraphy, divided into six books. Let those who wish read it, and let friends read this volume without irritation; when they have understood all its hidden mysteries, let them themselves be judges, without envy, whether they are natural or superstitious. For I know and am certain that all things are sincere, pure, natural, and removed from every pursuit of evil superstition. Whenever the discourse is more obscure, this is done for this reason: that a madman should not misuse the sword of defense for destruction, while a man sound in mind and understanding carries it for his own protection. Yet nothing evil is contained in it on that account, since perverse people misuse even good things for evil. But whoever presumes to condemn this edition of ours is himself conscious and witness that he has never truly understood it. The mysteries are concealed under enigmas, lest the secrets of good men should in any way be made manifest to fools.

If anyone delights to know these things, let him approach as a reader with envy set far aside. For I am a Christian, I am a priest, and also a monk under the rule of the divine Father Benedict; I love Christ and, devotedly, with whatever sincerity of mind I can, I always adore him. I have no dealings with demons, have had none, and, God being my protector, shall have none; no pursuits, no occupations, no teachings in magical, necromantic, or profane arts. Whoever thinks otherwise of me thinks wrongly, does me injury, and defends Bouillus’s open lie.

Likewise in chapter 32, or the last chapter, of the first book of the Steganography, toward the end, he says: “Indeed the great mysteries of this art can be penetrated only by the most studious men: namely, those whom love of secrets and nature prompt to investigate, and who, from desire to obtain knowledge, refuse no honorable and possible labor. But sluggish men, dull in intellect, and those whom neither love kindles to the study of the secrets of wisdom nor nature assists, when they have been unable to understand this most secret art of our invention, will understand that this is not to be imputed to us, but rather ascribed to their own dullness, sloth, and malice, since they either, having their intellect immersed in the pleasures of the flesh and worldly cares, cannot devote themselves diligently to examining these things, or, already considering themselves wise or most learned, they despise our compositions as unworthy of their reading. There will also be some so accustomed to rely on old and foreign traditions that whatever they have not learned in them they judge either impossible or superstitious. Nothing is more unfit for the knowledge of this profound art than those who either do not wish or are unable to contemplate its deepest matters. But those who are both fit and willing to study this art, if any such there shall be, we have resolved to admonish briefly at the end of this book, so that they may be able to make progress. First of all, they must be admonished to keep the art itself always hidden, lest it penetrate into the hands and knowledge of the wicked, who would commit many execrable crimes through it. For although the art itself is truly good in itself, nevertheless its practice would conduce no less to evil through the impious than to good through the good. Therefore let that remain a secret among the good which, if made public among the wicked, would do harm. Yet good people ought not on that account to despise this knowledge because it helps the wicked toward evil, just as one does not despise the sword because it strikes a man down.

And lest this great secret,” he says in the preface to the key of the Steganography, “come to the ears of the unskilled or of wicked men, whoever you are who will be the reader, by our Lord Jesus Christ, the Savior of faithful souls, I warn you, I ask you, and I adjure you not to disclose this knowledge of writing to anyone unworthy, immodest, carnal, or old in malice, because many evils could be done through it among men: adulteries, fornications, murders, and betrayals, if, God forbid, it should be revealed. For just as a good and honorable man can make known and express the secret of his will to another to one who knows the art, whenever necessary, for private or common advantage, safely and without any suspicion from anyone; so too a perverse, shameless man, blinded by carnal love, can signify to a person consenting to his pleasure, however shamelessly, basely, and lustfully, his evil desire under honest, modest, and holy words, determining the place, time, and manner of meeting, as broadly as he can without any suspicion.

But someone might object to me, Trithemius says in the same place a little before the end: “If you wanted this science of yours to be hidden, why did you wish to commit it to writing?” To him, if an answer must be given, I say that I neither ought nor was able to hide this science from the best prince, by which he may be able to free his clients, of whose number I am one, from many dangers, if the case should occur. Likewise, in the preface to the second book of the Steganographia, he says: “But since I shall again have to mention spirits, I think I must again state beforehand: that in this art of ours there is nothing frivolous, nothing contrary to evangelical tradition or to the Catholic faith, nothing at all superstitious handed down. For all the things that we have either said in the preceding volume or shall say in those that follow rest upon natural, lawful, and honorable principles; and the mystery, veiled only by foreign instructions, and words wrapped in the names of spirits, require a learned reader. For we use the service of a spirit to veil a secret which, if made public, would harm the reprobate,” etc.

You speak excellently, Trithemius; excellently you plead your case; excellently you defend yourself not only from the biting Bovillus, but also from every malevolent tongue, whether present or future. But let us hear what you say finally in the proem to the first book of the Steganographia.

“And lest any future reader of this work, when in the course of it he often encounters the names, offices, orders, distinctions, properties, prayers, and any other operations of spirits, through whose intelligences all these secrets of this science are closed and opened, should believe or suppose me to be a necromancer and magician, or to have entered into a compact with demons, or to have used or be using any other superstition, I have deemed it necessary and appropriate to preserve my reputation and name from so great a stain, injury, fault, and blemish, by vindicating them truthfully in this prologue with a solemn protestation. Therefore I say, and before almighty God, from whom absolutely nothing can be hidden, and before Jesus Christ, his only-begotten Son, who will judge the living and the dead, I say, swear, and protest in truth: all and singular the things that I have said or shall say in this work, and all the properties, methods, figures, operations, traditions, receptions, formations, inventions, institutions, mutations, alterations of this science or art, and everything that pertains, in part or in whole, to its speculation, invention, attainment, operation, and practice, and all the things that are contained in this volume of ours, rest upon true, Catholic, and natural principles. All and singular these things are done with God, with a good conscience, without injury to the Christian faith, with the integrity of ecclesiastical tradition, without any superstition, without idolatry, without any explicit or implicit compact with malignant spirits; without fumigation, adoration, veneration, worship, sacrifice, or offering to demons; and without any fault or sin, whether venial or mortal. All and singular these things are done with truth, rectitude, sincerity, and purity, so that the science and practice of this invention, for good use, would not be unworthy of a wise man, a good and faithful Christian.

For I too am a Christian, and voluntarily devoted to the monastic way of life, and I desire not to live and conduct myself otherwise than befits a true Christian and a monk professed under the rule of Saint Father Benedict. I received that very Catholic faith, according to the tradition of the Holy Roman Church, from the cradle, baptized in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,” which, together with that same universal Church of Christians, I hold and believe; and, so long as I shall live, with God's help, firmly preserving it always inviolate, I shall hold it in heart, mouth, and deed, nor do I ever intend to depart from it on any occasion. Far be it from me, therefore, either to learn or to teach anything that is contrary to the Christian faith and its purity, harmful to holy morals, or in any way opposed to my regular profession. I fear God, and in his worship I have sworn; from him neither while alive, nor, as I trust, when dead, shall I be separated. Not without cause have I set this protestation of mine before this whole work of ours, because I know there will be many who, when they cannot understand the things we have written, will turn to insults and attribute our good and holy studies to evil arts or superstitious inventions.

Since such men will exist, we earnestly beg both them and all who will read these synthemata of ours that, if they understand this secret tradition of ours, they should keep it hidden forever and not pour forth into public view mysteries so wonderful. But if they do not understand it, which we know will happen to many, let them learn before they condemn. For truly he shows himself a rash judge who gives sentence on a matter before he has learned the truth of the case. Learn this art first, and then judge it. If you cannot understand it, condemn not the art itself, since it is good, but your own dull wits. For I know and am certain that no one of sound mind can censure this work of ours unless he happens to be wholly ignorant of it. As for those to whom it is more familiar to despise wisdom than to have learned it, I neither hope nor would wish that they should penetrate these mysteries of ours. Thus Trithemius in his own defense.

I believe you have heard, whoever you are who accuse Trithemius of magical superstition, whether tacitly or expressly: you have heard this solemn protestation of his, plainly worthy of a Catholic man; you have heard his defense; you have heard how much he asks, how much he insists, that you should not believe him to be a magician or necromancer, or to have made use of any superstitions. He certainly would not do this so often and so anxiously if he had ever been devoted to such depraved arts. Therefore let no one do injury to a dead man who, while alive, did injury to no one. Let each person consider that everything and every individual point handed down rather obscurely by Trithemius was handed down for definite and often-named reasons; and let him beware lest, together with Bovillus and others who did not know this art and had already long ago rashly condemned it, he deserve Trithemius's just censure. And let it suffice to have set forth these things which Trithemius himself, as advocate, had to say in his own defense. From our cloistered dwelling, in the year 1615.

Fragment from Trithemius’s Eight Questions to Emperor Maximilian

[OCR-damaged duplicate title page; title supplied on page 80.] The very reverend and most learned Father Johannes Busaeus, theologian of the Society of Jesus, laments, dear reader, in the dedicatory letter of his Trithemian volume to the most reverend and most illustrious prince, the Archbishop of Mainz, Archchancellor of the Holy Roman Empire throughout Germany and Prince-Elector, etc., that although, by his own and others' efforts, through many libraries, both nearby and distant, he searched them out, he nevertheless could not obtain all the writings of Trithemius which either Trithemius himself accurately listed in the Catalogue of Ecclesiastical Writers, the Chronicle of Sponheim, and his Letters, or his disciple Johannes Drach, one year before his death, in a letter sent to Nicolaus Hamerius. And certainly it is most greatly to be lamented it is especially to be lamented that so many excellent writings of Trithemius, within scarcely a single century, have been so destroyed and lie buried in such a way that almost no trace of them now seems to survive. Yet not long ago I came upon a certain Trithemian fragment, which I call a fragment precisely because, through the injury of time, it does not survive complete: that is, Responses to the Eight Questions of Emperor Maximilian, which Johannes Duraclusius, Trithemius’s disciple, had also listed in the catalogue of Trithemius’s books. Since this fragment is of rare and pleasing subject matter, and since neither Father Busaeus, who gathered Trithemius’s spiritual works into one volume, nor before him Marquard Freher, Palatine Councillor, who comprised Trithemius’s historical works in two tomes, added it to their volumes, it has pleased me, learned reader, to set it here before you to be read and discussed, so that I might both rescue it from destruction and at the same time give you the pleasure of an agreeable reading.

Farewell, and enjoy it.

On the Reprobate and Witches

The fifth question.

Question Five

The fifth question of your most serene Highness was this: Why can impious, evil, and reprobate people in matters of faith, such as those women whom we commonly call witches, command malignant spirits, when good men and the most zealous observers of the Christian faith can command neither good spirits nor always malignant ones?

I remember that I formerly answered this question as follows. In all the works of the divine majesty, the sequence and order of beauty belong to an inviolable equity, by which each thing, fittingly disposed, persists in the rank it has received. For, without its proper order, the freedom of will that the Creator of all gave to human beings is driven by no violence of power so as not always to remain in the order that the first human being received from the beginning of his creation. Therefore no one among mortals is good unless, assisted by the counsel of his own will, he is made so through the grace of the merciful God; and no one is evil unless, by his own choice, he is deprived of grace because of the obstacle of sin.

By uprightness of will, however, we are made like the good spirits, if we prove the piety of the faith that we have in Christ by holy and necessary works. And just as the perfection of a good will makes good men equal to angelic spirits, so the perversity of the impious makes them like demons. Hence, the more evil and perverse people have been corrupted by the malice of their own will, the more they become like demons in disposition. But likeness introduces the familiarity of friendship, and from this there gradually arises the confidence of the lesser toward the greater, and command, whether it is real or feigned by trickery. Thus, if there seems to be any command of wicked people over demons, it arises from the magnitude of their depravity, namely when their disposition is so corrupted that, by a reprobate will, they either surpass or equal the malice of the demons associating with them.

For not all demons are equal in malice or intelligence, but one is much craftier than another in swiftness of understanding, and far worse in corrupted affection. For those who, having fallen from the lofty seats, are more closely joined to the earth and inhabit caverns and caves are certainly duller than the rest, even to such a degree that they fear swords and rods and seem to be moved by the threats of people who terrify them, as one may observe in those whom we call demoniacs. But demons who dwell farther removed from the earth are of a subtler nature and more rarely meet with human beings. Yet the more people full of malice advance in perversity of will, the more like demons they become; and once admitted by them into familiarity, they thereafter become bold and receive command over the demons whose familiarity they use, not by violent power but by feigned simulation.

For demons, in order to keep those people whom they have once received into their submission willing participants in their depravity, gladly subject themselves to them as though moved by a simulated domination; and what they do of their own accord, they pretend to do as if compelled to obedience. For no one obtains true command over demons except the person whom faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, through the merit of holiness, has made acceptable and a friend to God. For thus Scripture says concerning those who truly believe in the Lord Jesus: “And he gave them power over all demons.” Therefore evil people command demons because malevolence has made them like them, likeness has made them familiar with them, and familiarity has made them their own and subject to them. Just as, if some servant born in a humble station, joined by daily familiarity to a great prince, as often happens, is said to command him from whom he has everything he obtains, without contradiction, everything he has asked for, so that he himself seems rather to rule his lord than to be ruled by him. In accordance with this comparison, wicked and reprobate people are admitted by demons into their familiarity, and through a more prolonged confidence they become very bold. They receive a simulated, not a true familiar, command over them, which they have merited by the likeness of a most depraved will. Hence whatever they request from demons who cooperate with them by an implicit or explicit pact, they receive, except when, being prevented by divine ordinance, the demons are unable to provide what is asked. Yet they do not cooperate in this way indiscriminately with all the reprobate and wicked, but only with those with whom, by the intervention of some pact, they have entered into covenants, such as sorcerous women, who have paid homage to the devil, and those invokers of demons whom the common people call by the usual term necromancers.

There are two kinds of people who can lawfully command demons. The first is that of those people who, beloved by God through the merit of holiness, have received from him the power to trample on the head of the ancient serpent. Such were the apostles in the primitive Church, and their followers and disciples, of whom the Lord says in the holy Gospel: In my name they will cast out demons, and they will take up serpents. The second kind is that of those people to whom, by reason of their order in the Church of God, it is granted to drive demons from human bodies by the received power of their ministry. And this ministry is entrusted to exorcists in the Church of God, when, that is, they are ordained by the bishop.

Again, there are two kinds of people who desire to command demons, and the most wicked conditions show how unlawfully they presume to do this. The first and most destructive kind is that of sorceresses, who enter into pacts with demons and, after a solemn profession has been made, hand themselves over to some demon as a perpetual right of property and obedience. How great are the evils this most destructive kind of people commits in your empire, most wise Caesar, there is no one who can express it. For first denying God, the faith of Christ, and holy baptism, they offer themselves in mind and body to demons; by their sorceries they sicken, injure, and kill human beings and beasts. There is no disease that, with God permitting it, they cannot bring on, because when they present themselves to demons as servants in observance of the pact they have made, in comparison with them they dare whatever they wish. Hence they are not to be tolerated anywhere, but rather to be utterly exterminated in every place, as God the Creator of all commands: You shall not suffer sorcerers to live.

Some sorceresses call demons by spells, others entice them by prayers and sacrifices, and the rest, provoking them with unspeakable things and ceremonies, draw them into the aid of their impiety. Therefore it is no wonder that a sorceress seems to command demons, since through the piety of a perverse will they have been made like them, and by mutual association they are united for the evil of the human race. The second kind of depraved people who wish to command demons is that of those whom people commonly call necromancers. They profess arts full of curses, by which they promise that they can summon demons into a circle, or show them plainly visible when enclosed in crystal or some other vessel. These most destructive people, full of falsehood and superstitions, commit evils so great that no good person could imagine them. For in order to entice demons into their service, they very often use most shameful sacrifices and enter into an explicit pact with them. They carry around many various little books full of filth, impiety, and falsehood, and falsely inscribed with the names of ancient philosophers and sages; by displaying these they deceive many unwary and curious people and drag them with themselves into the pit of demons. They promise great and utterly incredible things, and by the hearing of these they deceptively hold people in wonder. With rings, pentacles, images, exorcisms, and conjurations, they say Questionum: They say that they can constrain malignant demons, so that they appear visibly in a circle, or in a crystal, or in some other receptacle, and answer distinctly to all questions asked. All of them indeed promise this, but in our times very few are found whom the malignant spirits obey in this way, even among the wicked, since God, for a most just reason, does not permit it, lest human curiosity, prone to novelties, should despise the religion of Christ and in time of need seek help from demons. But all those whom malignant spirits, summoned by the conjurations of necromancers, obey, have without doubt passed into their fellowship through an explicit or implicit pact. Yet the greater number are the others, whom the malignant spirits disdain to obey, although they are never afraid at any time to busy themselves in the profane arts of necromancers. And because in our own times especially iniquity has begun to abound, and the charity of many has grown cold, these accursed and most deceitful men have gained too much strength; and although they are despised by demons, nevertheless, persisting in their pernicious doctrines, they deceive many. Believe me, Caesar: this most deceitful race of men is very harmful to your sacred empire, and therefore must be utterly exterminated no less than the source of witches. They promise great things, and they lie about everything. For indeed all the things promised in their books are empty and false, and they give believers nothing other than tricks, frauds, and most subtle deceptions. But if at any time they seem to display what they have promised, it is manifest to everyone that this happens only through the cooperation of demons, from whose fellowship one must flee no less than from the most savage torments of hell. For demons very often come to these necromantic operations, and, in order to keep their invokers stubborn in the treachery they have begun, grant them what they ask if they can. Sometimes, however, when invoked by conjurations, they disdain to appear, and nevertheless they have led astray the minds of those invoking them.

Questionum. 83 There is also another class of people, no less foolish than superstitious: namely, those who do not wish to have any commerce with demons, and nevertheless use, in empty operations, things appropriated to demons, and for that reason wholly unlawful. For they think that great and hidden power inheres in characters, and therefore they commit various errors against the faith of Christ. But because this is not the time to recount their madness, let us pursue our purpose. Why good and just people do not obtain command over demons must be stated briefly.

Just as likeness of wills makes wicked and impious people equal to demons, so unlikeness of wills renders the good and just wholly opposed to them. Between opposites and dissimilar things there can be no familiarity; rather, continual resistance and hatred prevail. But where no familiarity contracted through likeness of wills is found, neither confidence

[Marginal note:] Magical characters are demonic according to Trithemius. [Marginal note:] The good are hated by demons, not familiar with them.

can exist from one toward another, nor any mutual cooperation in the working of marvels. Nor do you, glorious Caesar, since you are a man, the great governor and prince of men, admit anyone into familiarity with you who is wholly opposed and unlike you in morals, and who continually resists your will. But because good and upright men always oppose the most depraved will of demons, they can in no way pass into fellowship with those with whom they neither wish nor consent to be familiar; rather, they flee and detest their encounter with all their strength. And therefore they do not obtain that fictive command over them of which we have spoken. For nowhere is familiarity secure when no likeness of wills has preceded it; nor can there be concord between opposites, nor friendship stand firm between those of unlike will. Yet demons do not obey all evil and reprobate people indiscriminately, but only those with whom they are bound by pacts and acts of service; and when invoked they willingly come to those whom they cannot otherwise have as faithful servants, although though they falsely claim that they are being compelled. It is therefore no wonder, most excellent Caesar, that malignant spirits sometimes seem to obey depraved and perverse human beings, whom, as we have said, malevolence has made like themselves and destructiveness toward the human race has made to be in agreement with them. But let it be far from every Christian to wish to command demons through a wicked likeness of will, since if anyone in this life has begun to have fellowship with malignant spirits, in the life to come he will burn with them without end.

But why are good and just people unable to command the holy angels of God, into whose likeness they have passed by good will? I think that, from what has been said above, the solution of this question would easily be given, if the difference of intellects were recalled to mind. For although there are many people established in the Church of God whose justice helps many toward salvation, nevertheless in our times very few advance so far that, by the merit of holiness, they are either feared by demons or received into the fellowship of familiarity by angels. Hence it comes about that people of our time neither command malignant spirits by the merit of holiness, nor deserve to be familiar with the holy angels. But if any have advanced to that degree of holiness in which, performing miracles in the Church, they have advanced as the saints once did, then they can both command demons powerfully and have the familiar fellowship of blessed spirits. For it is certain that holy people beloved by God in the primitive Church of Christians once bestowed greater benefits on mortals through the working of good spirits than the impiety of depraved people could ever have inflicted as harms by the ministry of demons. For whoever is a true worshiper of God, if he has become like the holy angels, can do many wondrous things by prayers.

On the Power of Witches

Question Six

The sixth question of your most invincible Majesty was: whence comes this so great power in witches, who can accomplish so many, varied, and wondrous things even in a single hour, things such and so great that none of the good could accomplish them in his whole life?

If we wish to answer this question briefly, we must necessarily say that all power is from the Lord God, without whom no creature can do anything. For Christ says in the holy Gospel: Without me you can do nothing. Hence it is manifest that all power of doing anything is granted to human beings by the Lord God, and from nowhere else, whether people do good or do evil. Thus the most holy bishop Augustine says: The will of God is the first and highest cause of all bodily forms and motions, and nothing comes to be in this most extensive and immense commonwealth of the whole creation, visibly, unless it is either commanded or permitted from the inner, invisible, and intelligible court of the supreme Emperor, according to the ineffable justice of rewards and punishments. Hence there is no doubt, Caesar, that that power of little witches, by which they produce wondrous and horrendous effects with the cooperation of demons, is granted by the Lord God, whose will no one can resist, and without whose influence a human being cannot even move his hand. For the holy doctors conclude that neither demons nor witches can do anything, whether to harm a human being or a beast of burden, unless almighty God wills, consents, and grants the power that they may do what they have already determined by a perverse will. Unless God consents and wills, no creature can do anything. Otherwise, if something could happen when he did not will and consent to it, it would necessarily follow that God was utterly weak, since he could not prohibit what, against his will, he would be forced to permit. But since every human being, man, insofar as he is a creature, depends on God and can do nothing without the will of him from whom he has both the will and the power. Therefore whatever witches do is done by God's permission; without his will they can do nothing, because, unless God grants that they can do what they wish, they will obtain it neither from themselves nor from demons. Thus every power is from the Lord God, in whom all things exist and are moved, as in the first cause of all things, since from him from whom we have received freedom of choice we also have the ability to do what we will.

But since the understanding of witches is very confused, they perpetrate the evils they do not by human art, but by the cooperation of demons. Nature has made demons subtle, and long experience has made them swift in producing marvels. For the wondrous effects of witches are not caused by such means as they use for witchcraft, such as heads of the dead, toads, serpents, characters, images, and things of this sort, but by the devil who instituted these signs; since he is most proud, he desires to seem comparable to God in all things. Indeed, just as almighty God has instituted certain sacraments in his Church, which, when worthily administered and with his assistance, signify and produce a saving effect, he who instituted them bringing about salvation, so also the devil, who desires nothing more than to be regarded as equal to God, has instituted certain signs as if they were sacraments. When he is invoked by those with whom the malignant worker has been allied by pacts, he is present; and whenever God permits it, he effects the evil that is asked. If God does not permit it, he does absolutely nothing.

For the devil is the agent of all necromantic effects and of witches' effects; through the application of the means which he himself previously instituted, he produces the desired work in the matter subjected to him, sometimes in reality, sometimes only in appearance. But witches, women who have already been transferred by depraved will and by consent into the fellowship of demons through pacts, receive from them certain marks and symbolic signs, by which, once summoned, the demons immediately appear. In these pernicious operations of the demon nothing is stronger than the foolish credulity of witches, which is increased by pacts and vows; for the firmer the faith they have placed either in demons or in their signs, the more swiftly they attain the operation through their cooperation.

For the exceedingly savage depravity of witches' will in a certain way turns them into frenzy; when this has taken possession of the mind, the demons immediately attach themselves to the raging women and, invited by pacts and signs, with God's permission, furnish to the madwomen the effect of their request. Plato related something similar in the book On Poetic Frenzy, saying: Just as Bacchant women, when not of sound mind, draw honey and milk from rivers, but when of sound mind cannot draw them. This is brought about by their spirit, carried outside itself into fellowship with an evil demon. We have it as an established fact that witches have drawn butter from stirred-up rivers at times, something that can in no way happen otherwise than by the ministry of a demon. In the same way, when they have been turned to hatred against some person or beast of burden, and are breathing out its destruction, they are driven by a most grievous frenzy, thinking of nothing in their mind except revenge. They have recourse to witchcrafts known and familiar to them, invoke demons, display the signs instituted by them, and at the same time the characters; and what they cannot accomplish by their own power, they obtain through the demons' ministry.

But another person, who is not subject to demons by pact and surrender, even if he knows the things suitable for witchcraft and also the manner of working, and although he displays the signs, nevertheless rarely obtains the effect, because he is not counted among the demons' familiars. For the devil, swollen with pride, imitates the Church of Christ to such a degree that, just as one who is not ordained cannot consecrate the body of Christ, however much he may pronounce the words of consecration, so also the demon, however much someone invokes him and displays signs or characters, either never or rarely comes to the aid of one whom he does not know to be subject to him by pact. For if he made himself available everywhere to all who invoked him without pacts if he came indiscriminately to all who invoked him, without pacts being set between them, he would not possess so many witches dedicated to him by right of ownership. Hence it is that many who are devoted to profane arts labor to summon demons to a circle, to a mirror, or to any other receptacles by dreadful conjurations, and obtain no effect: because either God’s command stands in the way, or the devil despises the curious person who has not been devoted to him by homage.

For three things are required for witchcraft, without which it is clear that none is perpetrated: a witch raging in spirit and of depraved will, the cooperation of a familiar devil, and, before all else, divine permission. For if one of these does not concur, she will not be able to perpetrate witchcraft. For if God did not permit it, neither the devil nor the witch could do anything. And if the devil did not meet the will of the wicked woman, she would perpetrate no witchcraft. Again, if the witch were lacking, the devil would by no means bring witchcraft to completion. For the devil uses the will of the raging witch as a craftsman uses an instrument for working, without which he could not inflict witchcraft.

And just as demons differ from one another in power and in sharpness of subtlety, so the power of witches is not one and the same in all, but differs in individuals according as they are joined by demons of subtler or grosser nature. For there are many kinds of demons, and they stand apart from one another in fixed ranks by reason of the places into which, when they fell at the beginning, they were thrust down.

The first kind of demons is called fiery. It roams about the higher air, and is never plunged down to lower regions before the day of judgment; rather, remaining continually beneath the lunar regions, they have no intercourse with human beings on earth. That they remain beneath the moon is attested by Saint Augustine in the work On the Christian Combat, saying thus: Demons do not dwell in the heaven where the sun and stars are, but all move about beneath the lunar region. Moved by this, as I think, Apuleius said that demons are fiery animals, because Aristotle affirmed that in burning furnaces certain small animals have rather often been seen flying about, fitted with little wings, which pass their whole life in fire, since they arise with fire and are extinguished with it, and, vanishing, return to their own place whence they had come. They have no association with witches, since, because they dwell in fire, on account of their subtlety they cannot put on a gross or aerial body.

The second kind is called aerial, which wanders in the air and dwells near us. These indeed can descend to the lower regions and, having assumed bodies from the denser air, sometimes appear visibly to human beings. With God permitting, they quite often disturb the air, stir up thunder and storms, and all together conspire for the destruction of the human race. After the manner of human beings they are moved by the affections of passions, especially pride and envy, and are touched by continual disturbances; and they are neither clothed in a customary body, nor do they remain in one place. Nor do they all have one form, but many, and these they change rather often according to the variety of the affections by which they are either summoned by witches’ charms or driven by disturbance to do harm. For they have an altogether violent and furious disposition, full of agitation; hence, when they have been greatly injured and disturbed, they contrive sudden ambushes for the most part, and while they carry out their attacks, they partly wish to remain hidden and partly inflict violence.

Witches supported by the cooperation of these demons are the more powerful for practicing witchcraft, the higher the order of the demon they have obtained as their associate. In the Life of Saint Antony, the blessed Athanasius said that the air is full of demons, which Mercury, called Thrice-Greatest, had said before: namely, that no part of the world is without the presence of demons. The holy bishop Ambrose also says: The world is full of holy powers, because it is full of wickednesses. Hence the Platonists have reported that demons flying in the air, in the manner of very dense fiery snow, are visible to those who desire it.

visible, if for some time, while the sun is shining, they continue to gaze toward the sky with unflinching eyes. But I do not know whether the object is produced in the air from a real substance, or whether rather the checked motion of the eyes presents false images; nevertheless I have made trial of what was promised, not without some slight harm to the sense of sight.

We call the third kind of demons terrestrial, whom we do not at all doubt to have fallen from heaven to earth according to their deserts. Concerning these, the most holy bishop and martyr of Christ, Theophorus, once Ignatius, wrote thus in a certain letter to the Ephesians: Nothing is better than to have peace, in which every weapon of the aerial and terrestrial spirits alike is made void. Of these demons, some dwell in woods and groves and set snares for hunters; others live in open fields and make travelers wander astray at night; some remain in hidden places and caves; the rest, less furious and disturbed than the others, take delight in dwelling with human beings in obscurity.

They are not led by one passion, but by various ones, since some are less depraved than others, although all are full of evil disturbances. Of these, some delight in frightening human beings only with illusions; others wish, by predictions of future things, to draw their hearers into admiration of themselves. Some, however, labor with the greatest effort to terrify, injure, or kill human beings who are disturbed by irrational fury or raging with melancholy; we have learned by experience that this has often happened. Hence Saint John Chrysostom says in the third book On Providence, to the monk Stagirius: More powerful for doing harm than every diabolical action is the greatness of sorrow, because whomever the demon overcomes, he overcomes through sorrow. If you remove it, no one will be able to be harmed by a demon.

This kind of demon is rarely familiar to witches, because of the inconstancy of their passions and the levity by which they delight in frightening many people rather than being subject to the command of one little woman. Yet at times, as they promise to the insane, they dwell in glass, crystal, or a mirror, and, stirred up by charms, they give answers to women; and if anyone who is coming has spoken ill of them, they announce it beforehand on the road.

And this kind of witch sometimes differs greatly from the rest, since what the others make infirm by sorcery, these women promise to cure. But because for the most part they repel sorcery by sorcery, access to them is forbidden by the Church to every Christian.

The fourth kind of demons is called aquatic, since, immersing itself in waters, it dwells around lakes and rivers. It is full of anger, disturbed, restless, and deceitful; it stirs up storms at sea and, sinking ships into the deep, takes life from many in the waters. And whenever these demons assume a visible body, they more often appear in the female sex, and are seen more rarely in the male, because they frequent moist places and follow a softer course of life, nor can they easily assume a common form by the habit of the others.

Hence antiquity long ago named the Naiads and Nereids, nymphs of the waters, not in the masculine sex but in the feminine. Among our people, moreover, they are called by the common term aquatic women, that is, Wasserfrauen. But those who live in drier and somewhat arid places, whenever they appear bodily to human beings, transform themselves visibly into men. They also assume the forms of various beasts, according as they are touched by various passions. Holy angels, however, since they never vary in passion, always appear uniformly in male form. For we nowhere read it written that a good spirit was seen in the form of a woman or of any beast, but always in male appearance. Yet demons have very often been seen around rivers and springs in the appearance of women, sometimes dancing in choruses, sometimes loosening their hair in the manner of women, and at times speaking with human beings and practicing various deceptions. And this kind of demon is not accustomed to have dealings with acts of sorcery.

The fifth kind is called subterranean, because it dwells in caves and caverns and in the remote hollows of mountains. These demons are of the worst disposition, and they especially attack those who dig wells and mines, and those who seek treasures hidden in the earth, being most ready for the destruction of the human race. They make openings in the earth, stir up flame-spewing winds, and shake the foundations of buildings. Sometimes at night they go out from the mountains in bands and lead strange and astonishing dances in the fields; and, as if fearing the command of a single leader, they suddenly vanish at a sign and return to their own hiding places. At times the sound of bells is heard among them, and they sometimes falsely claim that they are the spirits of people who have died. They seek nothing more than human fear and amazement. Hence we have found that they have sometimes led some of the simpler sort of people into their hiding places in the mountains, showing astonishing spectacles to those who marvel at them, and, as if there were dwellings of the blessed there, they falsely pretend to be friends of the living. Among these demons, too, some are guardians of treasures, which the avarice of mortals has hidden in the earth; and, lest they should again come into human use, they withdraw them, steal them, guard them, and sometimes move them from place to place. This kind of demon is not accustomed to have any commerce with women’s acts of witchcraft.

The sixth kind of demons is called light-fleeing, because they greatly abhor and detest the light: for they never appear by day, nor can they assume a body in any way except at night. This is the business that walks about in darkness, an inscrutable and utterly dark kind of demon, stirred by cold passions, malicious, restless, and disturbed, which violently oppresses people it meets during the hours of night, and quite often, with God’s permission, kills them either by a certain breath or by touch. This kind of demon does not associate with acts of witchcraft, nor can it be constrained by charms, because it flees both light and human voices, and likewise every tumult. The aerial kind is especially accustomed to attend the witchcraft of women, since it is subtler than all the others and of the boldest rashness. Some of the terrestrial demons also, as has been said, serve certain acts of witchcraft; yet, being of a lower rank, they cannot at all bring about those greater acts of witchcraft. It is therefore manifestly clear that the whole power of acts of witchcraft, in which they do such astonishing things, is granted to demons in limited measure by the Lord God; and when he does not permit it, they accomplish nothing.

On Divine Permission

Question Seven

The seventh question of your Most Serene Majesty was this: Why does God, since he is just and the avenger of evils, permit such great acts of witchcraft to be done for the destruction of the human race, by which not only sinners, but also many innocent people perish after being gravely tormented?

Why God Permits So Many Evils and Acts of Witchcraft

I remember that, when I was once placed before your Majesty, I answered this question in the following way. The best God, just and upright, gracious and merciful, permits justly whatever he permits, because he is just and there is no iniquity in him; rather, all things that occur, he either does or permits by true judgment. Therefore, when it is asked why God permits evils to be done, we answer: he permits them because he is just. Does the answer we have given seem absurd to your Majesty, O Caesar? For it in no way prejudices the divine goodness that he permits evils to be done by the most just reasoning; indeed it would prejudice it instead if he did not permit evils to be done in the present world. For if he did not permit evils to be done, then man could not sin; he would certainly be incapable of sin, which does not befit his nature, to which the Creator of all things gave free will from the beginning. For since man is a creature and not the Creator, he is necessarily capable of being turned to good as well as to evil, since his existence depends on the supreme Maker of creatures, of all things, just as every caused thing depends upon the cause of its being. But to create has been reserved to God alone, who is incorruptible and everlasting; every corruptible thing necessarily fails, yet it is preserved by the goodness of the creator so long as it does not lose the influence of its cause. Hence it neither could nor ought to have happened that man, by the condition of his own nature, should be created incapable of sinning. That belongs naturally to God alone, the maker of all things, who is unchangeable and everlasting. But whenever it is granted to a human being that he seems unable to sin, the freedom of choice is not taken away, nor is the possibility simply removed; rather, the will is confirmed in the good. And whenever this gift is conferred upon a creature, it is a gift of grace, not of nature. For Scripture says: God created man from the beginning, and left him in the hand of his own counsel. For, properly speaking, it cannot be that mortal man, conceived in original displeasure, should both have free choice and be unable to commit sin. For the most holy bishop Augustine says: The first freedom of the will was to be able not to sin; the last, in glory, will be much greater: not to be able to sin. Therefore, if man could not sin, he would not have dominion over his own will. Hence, although almighty God does not will sin, nevertheless he justly permits human beings to sin and to do evil, so that, while freedom of choice remains, both the virtue of a good work may receive its merit and voluntary depravity may receive the evil it has done. For no one either does good or sins unwillingly. Therefore almighty God justly permits human beings to sin and to do evil, since he granted them freedom of choice from the beginning. Now there are many reasons, long ago assigned by the holy Doctors, why the Almighty permits such great acts of sorcery to be done through the cooperation of demons; of these we shall necessarily make brief mention in order.

The first is so that the excellence of the divine majesty may be made manifest, for he alone is unchangeable and far above every condition. But every mutable creature has no comparison with the unchangeable creator. Hence it is read in Numbers: God is not like a man, that he should lie, nor like a son of man, that he should change. In Isaiah also it is said: God is faithful, without iniquity, just and upright. It is also written in the book of Tobias: You are just, Lord, and all your judgments are true, and all your ways are mercy, truth, and judgment. And in the book of holy Job we read: Far be impiety from God, and iniquity from the Almighty. For he will render to a man his work, and will repay each according to his ways. Therefore every man who rightly understands his own ignorance and weakness plainly recognizes how he stands in comparison with his creator. For God justly permits man to sin, so that freedom of choice may be continued and the excellence of the great God may become known to human beings.

The second reason is so that the unsearchable wisdom of God may become known to mortals, since it knows how to draw good from our evils, when it makes one person’s sin become another’s merit for the increase of virtue. For if evil were not permitted to happen, which of us would understand the good? For God makes and ordains the good; but evils he does not make. Rather, when they have been done by the wicked, he himself disposes them so that they do not come about in a disorderly way. The malice of human beings does not hinder the will of God, nor can a person do anything that God does not permit.

The third cause is that the Almighty permits acts of sorcery to be done in order to manifest his most merciful goodness toward those who have sinned and done penance; he could not show this in any way if he did not permit the creature to sin. For if there were no sinner, God could not be merciful. But because in many things we all offend, everywhere God finds something to forgive; everywhere God meets something in which, as a loving creator, he may show his mercy. Hence the holy bishop Augustine says: If the disease were slight, the physician would be despised and not sought; the disease would not be brought to an end. Therefore, where sin abounded, grace also abounded, by which alone he distinguishes the redeemed from the lost, whom he gathers together into one.

...the mass of perdition, drawn from the origin of creation, preserves as one. Therefore the mercy of the Lord is over all his works.

The fourth reason for divine permission is that the Creator’s justice may be declared against those who have sinned and have not done penance; for if all did good and no one sinned, God’s justice would have nothing to punish. Therefore, so that justice may have a place, the creature sins by divine permission. For the Lord is just, and he will render to each according to the works of his own will.

The fifth reason is the dignity of the human condition: for if God did not permit man to sin, he would seem worse off than the brute beasts, which, with no violence driving them, freely use the motions of nature. For although brute beasts lack reason, nevertheless they have a free motion of nature which they follow; by comparison with them man would seem of a lower condition if he did not have free choice of will. But God permitted man a free will, over which neither kings nor princes rule.

The sixth reason is the praise of the merit of constancy in human virtue, when we praise a just man for this reason: because, although he could have transgressed, he did not transgress, but, with the grace of God helping him, remained in the good constancy of his will.

The seventh reason why almighty God permits demons to do such great works of harmful magic through the agency of witches is this: that those who, having despised truth, take delight in falsehood may be seduced by the devil, the inventor of falsehood, and be utterly deceived. For it is fitting that enchanters and witches, who disdain to follow the saving teachings of Christ, should all be deceived by demons and plunged down to hell, there to be punished forever. They seek aid from demons, the enemies of the whole human race, and they despise the Savior of the world, whom alone they ought to have adored. For it is just that one who, abandoning truth by his own will, clings to falsehood should be hurled by the devil into destruction.

The eighth cause is the manifestation of divine power, whose power and strength is over every creature. Indeed, when almighty God sometimes permits great things to the devil and denies certain small things, he makes manifest in all things how weak the enemy of the human race is, and how subject to the divine majesty. For the devil can do nothing by himself; rather, all the things he does, he does with God permitting them. Therefore the first cause of all, on account of which almighty God permits works of harmful magic to be done, is justice, by which he preserves, in inviolable order, the liberty which he once bestowed upon the creature from the beginning. But because the power of every creature dependent on its Creator is restrained and limited, it is clear that neither the devil can do everything he wishes, nor a man, however depraved in will. The will indeed is free, but power is limited by fixed and necessary degrees. For indeed, if demons could do everything they wished, nothing among human affairs would remain safe, but they would overthrow everything. The story of holy Job shows by a manifest example that the power of demons is bound: Satan did not dare to tempt him any further than had been permitted to him by divine dispensation. For no one in the present world, however just or strong, could resist the fury of demons if, at their own discretion, they could always use a free power to harm. Before the Lord’s Passion, however, they used greater freedom of power than afterward; but when Christ tasted death for us on the altar of the cross, from then on their power was greatly changed, as the Savior says in the Gospel: “Now the prince of the world will be cast out.” For the humility of Christ and the perseverance of the saints greatly restricted the boldness of demons, so that they can rightly be called instigators of evils, but by no means drivers. Nor would the devil gain strength against us unless he received his strength from our sins. Hence Scripture admonishes us, saying: “Resist the devil and he will flee from you.” And again: “Do not give place to the devil.” Therefore, bringing this discourse to a conclusion for the understanding of the proposed question, why God permits so many evil works to be done...

I believe the reasons why he permits harmful acts of magic have been made sufficiently clear. For even if the will of demons is always wicked, their power can never be unjust, since what it wickedly wills it has from its own free choice, but what it is able wickedly to do it has only from God. And these things have been said with regard to those who do evil.

But why does almighty God permit demons, through the agency of witches, to harm people who have been baptized in the name of the holy Trinity and faithfully believe in his only-begotten Son, our Lord Jesus Christ? For if they could harm only the wicked, the perverse, and unbelievers in body and goods, but were restrained from approaching and injuring the good and faithful, the permission would rightly seem to be a just judgment. But now the good and innocent are more often made sick by the harmful magic of demons, and sometimes are even deprived of life, to pass over in silence the loss of temporal goods which those bewitched often suffer. Thus it comes as a scruple to many why the Almighty permits these things, since he permits nothing unjustly.

For this proposed question I shall set out in order, as briefly as I can, the necessary reasons, no others than those I have received from ancient and Catholic doctors. The first reason is the testing of Christians’ faith and the proving of their integrity, so that, when scourged by the harmful works of demons, they may learn in the sufferings of the flesh what faith and love toward God they have hidden in the mind. It is not difficult to be patient in prosperity; but in adversity, with humble patience, to await help from the Savior of the faithful belongs not to the soft, but to the strong and truly faithful Christians. In his tribulation most holy Job learned how great a constancy of faith toward God he had, he who previously in tranquility had preserved piety without the dart of temptation. Here it must also be noted that those whom harmful acts of demons or of men have in any way made sick, and who, to recover health, either approach or consult any sorcerers and enchanters, whether by themselves or through others, act against the commandments of God and of the Church, and have neither true faith in God nor love. For they prefer the health of mortal flesh to God, and seek salvation not from Christ, but from the devil and his minister. They prefer to live healthy, but unhappily, in the name of the devil, rather than suffer a little here for the love of Christ and afterward rejoice with him forever. But one who does not approach sorcerers because God has forbidden it, preferring to live with observance of God’s commandments in poverty and sickness rather than against God in riches and bodily health, truly loves God and rightly preserves the integrity of the Christian faith. Among Christians, O most sacred Caesar, men corrupt in mind and reprobate concerning the faith must not be tolerated: those who cure the bewitched by harmful magic, who reveal thefts and adulteries by the ministry of demons, who foretell future things by inspection of stones or mirrors. Do not listen, I pray, to those who, ignorant of the divine laws, think ministers of demons of this kind useful to your rule because one skilled in harmful magic knows how to undo harmful magic; for this pernicious healing of bodies brings death to souls, and makes human beings withdraw from God, the creator of all things, and cling to impious apostate demons, with whom after death they will be damned forever.

The second reason why almighty God permits the innocent to be harmed by harmful magic is the increase of merits, so that, once their patience has been tested in tribulation, they may deserve a more worthy crown of glory in heaven. For, as holy Augustine says, a person is unknown to himself as to what he can bear and what he cannot bear. At times he fears that he cannot bear what nevertheless he can. When temptation approaches like a certain interrogator, a person is discovered by himself, who before, hidden, did not know himself. The divine chief apostle Peter, before temptation came upon him, was hidden both from himself and from others as to how inconsiderate and weak he was; that temptation approached, and it became apparent The weakness that had lain hidden appeared. Therefore temptation is the greatest test of a person, as sacred Scripture bears witness: “The furnace tests the potter’s vessels, and the trial of tribulation tests righteous people.” Patience is easy in prosperity, because no adversities strike the mind. But the tribulations of the righteous are many, and from all of them our Lord Jesus Christ will deliver them.

The third reason for divine permission is the guarding of humility, so that a faithful and righteous person may always fear God and never rely on his own strength or righteousness. Hence Scripture says of the reprobate: “They are not in the labor of men, and they will not be scourged with men; therefore pride has held them fast. They are covered with their iniquity and impiety; their iniquity has come forth, as it were, from fatness.” It is the mercy of God that he sometimes permits good and righteous people to be shaken by adversities, when he knows that they cannot be humbled in prosperity. For tribulation has made many humble whom favorable circumstances would have made proud. Finally, the fearful imagining of acts of sorcery makes a good person fear his God and diligently call upon his help; fortified by that help, he can trust that he is safe against the assaults of demons. But no proud person, presuming on his own powers, should think himself safe from the sorceries of demons, because the person whom God’s protection abandons when he is swollen with pride undoubtedly lies open to the sorceries of demons.

The fourth reason is that there may be a distinction between the good and the evil. For Scripture says in the Acts of the Apostles concerning good people beloved by God: “Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God.” And holy Paul, lover of Christ, says in a certain epistle: “All who wish to live piously in Christ will suffer persecution.” Likewise the most wise King Solomon says in Proverbs: “The Lord corrects the one whom he loves, and, like a father, takes pleasure in his son.” It is a most glorious thing for a Christian to endure adversities patiently for the love of God, whether they are brought upon him by wicked people or by demons. For power is given to the devil and his ministers to harm good and righteous people, not for their confusion, as the Petrones suppose, but rather for the very great and certain consolation of the soul. Indeed, when a righteous person lives well, harms no one, offends no one, does injury to no one, loves, fears, and venerates his God with his whole heart, keeps his commandments with all diligence, and nevertheless is afflicted by sorcerers, whether in body, in possessions, or in both, that person is truly blessed: for when he has been tested he will receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him. Everyone who lives rightly in the unity of the faith of the Catholic Church of Christians, and, receiving evils in this world, patiently endures them for the love of God, has a sure sign that he perseveres in the grace of God and will be saved. Therefore we read this written concerning the wicked and reprobate: “Why do the impious live? They have been lifted up and strengthened with riches. Their houses are secure and peaceful, and the rod of God is not upon them. They spend their days amid good things, and in a moment they descend to hell.”

For it is a manifest sign of damnation if a person lives here badly in sins and vices, contrary to God, and is prospered in the goods of fortune and in bodily health.

The fifth reason why the Almighty permits good and righteous people to be afflicted by the wicked and reprobate is for the complete purification of the mind. For, as Scripture says: “There is no righteous person on earth who does good and does not sin.” But since God lets no sin pass unpunished, in his mercy he has ordained temporal penalties for righteous people for their offenses, but eternal penalties in his justice for the impious and reprobate. Therefore in his mercy he changes the eternal penalty for the penitent into a temporal one, which they must necessarily suffer either in this world or after death in purgatory. But because the torments of purgatory are dreadful and very severe, merciful God is accustomed to purge in this life, in various ways, the penitents whom he loves, through the inconveniences of different tribulations in body and possessions. For acts of sorcery are beneficial to the impious ...of wicked men are a remedy for good and just people, but for those who inflict them they lead to damnation.

The sixth reason is that a person harmed by the assaults of demons may be called back to repentance and may resolve in his heart upon the necessary amendment of life. For almighty God does not immediately send vengeance when we sin, but awaits our amendment until the appointed time. But if we have neglected to do penance, the avenger of evils comes to us when we do not expect it; and we who, as sinners, disdained to acknowledge him by repenting in tranquillity, will at last, though late, acknowledge him in tribulation. Hence the holy prophet speaks in the person of God, saying: “If his sons forsake my law, and do not walk in my judgments, and do not keep my commandments, I will visit their iniquities with a rod, and their sins with scourges; but my mercy I will not scatter from them, nor will I do harm in my truth.”

The seventh reason why almighty God permits the sorceries of demons to prevail against the good and innocent is so that an excessively licentious occasion for sinning may be cut off from them. For there are many poor and infirm people pleasing to God, good, devout, and humble, whom want and bodily sickness preserve in the love of God. If they were rich and raised up with honors, they would quickly flow down from their purpose of holiness into the depth of vices. It is not expedient for everyone’s salvation to have honors and riches together with health; nor does a longer life always make a person better. Therefore almighty God, wishing to show his mercy toward those whom he has chosen, permits the good, the just, and the innocent to be subject to various calamities; and sometimes through demons, sometimes through evil people, sometimes by various other ways and means, he takes away from such people riches and honors, which he foreknew they would use badly, so that they may preserve humility in poverty and low estate, which, if placed in wealth and high rank, they would by no means have preserved. He also quite often permits many great illnesses to befall them, because cheerful bodily health would have brought upon them the greatest sickness of mind. Finally, he permits certain people to be driven to death by sorcery, so that the license for sinning may be cut off from them, which they would have abused if allowed to live longer. Hence Scripture says of the just man: “He was snatched away lest wickedness alter his understanding, and lest deceit beguile his soul.”

The eighth reason for divine permission is that people may venerate the sacraments of the Church, which have great power against all the sorceries of malignant spirits. For a person is rarely harmed by the sorceries of demons if he venerates the sacraments and rites of the Catholic Church with due honor. And we have very often heard, from the witches’ own confession, that hearing Masses and using things blessed by the Church greatly weakens the powers of demons. For they are not blessed in the Church of God in vain, but so that they may be fearsome signs which show demons the protection of divine protection.

Concerning boys and infants, however, who, having been reborn in Christ, are sometimes killed by the sorceries of demons or of human beings, we do not doubt that divine providence permits this to happen for their salvation, for it knows how to order all things for the better for mortals. Yet it often happens that infants perish by sorceries because of the sins of their parents.

A Celebrated Medicinal Powder of Trithemius

Many have always praised this powder of Trithemius, very useful for the brain for students, down to the present. For quite a few, by using it, have reached the point that they could easily disregard those examiners of urine, arteries, tongues, and excrement. Many have prolonged robust age almost to the hundredth year; finally, they have attained such sharpness of memory that they easily surpassed anyone, even the greatest. And this without pills, clysters, poultices, ointments, plasters, electuaries, chewing preparations, gargles, little bags, fumes, preserves, syrups, waters, theriacs, and the like.

Recipe: Calamus aromaticus, Gentian, Cumin, Mountain siler, Anise, Medicinal Powder

Of anise, caraway, ammi, parsley seed, spikenard, of each ʒ s.

Of red coral; of pearls, or unpierced pearls, ʒ v.

Of white ginger, bitter-sweet (Chamepyt), leaves of hay; of burnt tartar, of each ʒ v.

Of mace, cubebs, of each ʒ ij.

Of cloves, ʒ vij.

Let a powder be made according to art.

Its dose is ʒ s., to be taken morning and evening, in broth or wine, for the first month. In the second month, only in the morning; in the third month, in the morning three times a week; and so thereafter it is to be continued for life. For it is effective against many illnesses and is a most tested Medicinal. 127

and efficacious powder. It strengthens the stomach, purges the brain, clears the eyes and sight, sharpens the memory, consumes bad and superfluous humors throughout the whole body without danger, soothes and opens constriction in the chest, drives away nausea, prevents excessive fatness, preserves from epilepsy and apoplexy, dissolves the material of stone without pain, and does not permit it to harden into a stone; it does not allow chiragra, podagra, or sciatica to prevail. When Paulus Scalichius wished to give this powder for use to the Duke of Prussia, whose councillor he was at that time, the prince’s physicians forbade it; from this there arose a dispute among them, in which the case for and against that powder was fought out in writings. That dispute is extant in Scalichius’s own Philosophical Satires.

END.