Liber Octo Quaestionum ad Maximilianum Caesarem

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Legible fragments: "…these twelve [questions]… of [the] Castle [Castellum]… of your brief booklet… you remember… the solutions of those [questions] which… which seemed to me…"

Epigram of Richard Sbrulius of Forum Julii.

Who would deny that there is a God, parent of heaven and earth? No one is so savage as to deny that there is a God. God himself is everywhere venerated throughout the whole world, but he is nevertheless sought by a different path. The barbarian worships him as moving all things by fixed law; the Turk denies the holy Son and Spirit. The Hebrew boasts that he holds the true doctrines, and thinks that, with Moses as guide, he is the race of God. But the people of Christ, who took their name from his name, steadfastly proclaim that God is triune. The greatest Maximilian, who presides over the empire, continually aids the cause and honor of Christ. He asks, as it is right for an august king to ask such things, why the highest God permits there to be so many sects; why he does not show himself equally to all mortals; why he wished many things to lie hidden under hard signs. In order, Father Trithemius unfolds all things to the King, he the leader and glory of the hooded flock. Whoever you are who used to doubt concerning the holy faith, read this: soon you will be a sure pupil of Christ. The end.

On [unclear]

I. On Faith and Understanding. First Question.

The first question of your Most Serene Majesty was this: why almighty God wished to be believed by mortals rather than known and understood, that is, by the mode of cognition and understanding by which he is known and understood by the holy angels.

I remember that I answered this question, posed before me by your most sacred Majesty, as follows. Almighty God, who is without beginning, pure intellect, eternal and unchangeable, existing above every [unclear], far more perfect than we are with infinite perfections, by his most ample will created from nothing two intellects in the beginning, namely the angelic and the human. The angelic intellect, at the beginning of its condition, was made in the actuality of all things [unclear], and moved all things. The human intellect, however, at first consists indeed in the potentiality of all things, but is ignorant of all things. In the end, however, through many and continual actions, it will again become like the angelic, knowing both God and all things that pertain to the cognition of the aforesaid cognition and understanding.

The angelic and human intellects differ as any two opposites do: namely as act and potency, light and darkness, knowledge and ignorance, possession and privation, beginning and end, immobile and mobile, substance and accident, truth and likeness, nature and art, health and infirmity, whole and part. For the angelic intellect is as act, light, knowledge, possession, beginning, immobile, immediate, simple, substance, truth, nature, whole. The human, however, is as potency, darkness, ignorance, privation, end, mobile, mediated, composite, accident, likeness, art, part. Hence whatever belongs to the angelic intellect from the beginning, these same things afterwards belong to the human from the end, when it has laid aside the burden of flesh; for just as the beginning, nature, perfects the angelic, so the end, art, after many exercises, raises the human upward.

Wherefore, between these two intellects there is the greater inequality from the beginning; yet in the end they are at last made equal, where the human intellect will be as great by art as the angelic had previously been by nature. Hence it is clear that the angelic intellect, as soon as it was created, from the beginning, without any action or motion of its own, immovably and substantially by nature knew all things that it can understand, and that in an instant, created full and perfect with the knowledge of all things, it came forth. But the human intellect, because it was created in the ignorance and privation of all things, and was temporally destined, for its exercise, into the body, must by continual action, motion, and art arrive at knowledge of God and of all things. It will finally equal the angelic, the end changing its potentiality into act, and making it, as it passes from the merely potential and possible into essence, full from empty, perfect from imperfect, possessing from deprived, luminous from dark, diurnal from nocturnal, solar from lunar, from earthly [unclear] cannot, that is, as Christophilus Paul says: as long as we are in the flesh, we are absent from the Lord, to know God [continues].

To Emperor Maximilian.

The intellect is pure, simple, and perfect; but the human intellect, so long as it remains in the body, is impure, mixed, unstable, and imperfect, and for this reason, without faith, wholly ignorant of the knowledge of God and of heavenly things. The object of both intellects, namely both the human and the angelic, is the same: that highest and unchangeable good, God, the single principle of all things, to which they return by a natural desire for knowledge. But if the angelic intellect is compared with the human, it is as nature is to art, and as intellect simply speaking is to reason, which touches upon the principles of the disciplines; reason, however, runs from principles to conclusions. Hence it is manifest that the angelic intellect apprehends its proper object immovably; toward that object the human intellect, by means of the angelic, after many exercises of itself, as has been said, at length, by reasoning, prepares assent for itself.

The human intellect, however, is separated, by the mediation of the angelic, from the perfection of knowledge of its natural object, and therefore necessarily becomes movable, returning by means of it to its own principle. For every motion proceeds from an extreme through a mean to an extreme. But where there is no mean, the extremes are already immediate, proximate, and for that reason immovable. The human intellect, set as it were in a dark prison, so long as it is held in the body, is moved by sense and reason toward understanding, although confusedly, imperfectly, and less fully; and therefore it admits between itself and God the mean that we have called angelic, bearing the body as the greatest impediment to its destined perfection, just as indeed the lover of wisdom said: “The body that is corrupted weighs down the soul; the earthly dwelling depresses the sense that thinks many things.” Therefore it was altogether necessary for us to believe God rather than to know or understand him, because it is utterly impossible for that super-divine and uncircumscribable majesty to be comprehended by us, who understand nothing without the service of the senses and the discourse of reason.

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

But God, existing far above every position, remains subject neither to the senses of mortals nor to reason, as he is read to have said to Moses: “Man shall not see me and live.” Hence also the divine evangelist John says: “No one has ever seen God.” Nor is it any wonder: for since God is the first and everlasting intellect, most pure, most simple, most perfect, immovable, creator, incomprehensible, highest, and far beyond every position, immeasurable and uncircumscribable, he could not be comprehended by the human intellect, which is impure, subject to composition, imperfect, movable, created, comprehensible, lowest, and established under the measure of position.

To that question, however, which seemed to arise from the first, whether God, since he is omnipotent, could have made himself knowable to the human intellect as to the angelic: I say that God can do all things; no one of sound mind has ever denied it. But those things that imply contradiction we say God cannot do, because they are contrary to the order of the wisdom of the immutable one who disposes all things, just as destruction is not doubted to be contrary to the construction of the whole at the same time, and, if I may say so, utterly opposed. For it was neither fitting, nor could it in any way have happened, that God should be comprehended by the human intellect, since if mortal man, under the guidance of nature, comprehended immortal God, certainly he would no longer seem to be called man or mortal, but an angel, and either man would be made comparable to God, or God to man. For so long as the angelic intellect stands between, it does not [unclear].

To the Emperor Maximilian.

The human [intellect] cannot understand God, [unclear] until the death of the flesh, by which the mind, [unclear] natural freedom, will pass out wholly equal to an angel. You now see, I believe, Emperor, that it is manifest that it neither befitted nor was possible that the human intellect should comprehend the divine: the created comprehend the creator, the temporal the eternal, the changeable the unchangeable, the weak the omnipotent, since, as a certain philosopher says, there is either no proportion at all of the finite to the infinite. Therefore it is necessary for mortals to believe God immortal, things which we manifestly can comprehend by no reasoning. Although the order of the whole universe declares that providence is the author of all things, and we understand that nothing produced exists without a beginning except him, nevertheless what God is and how he is the human mind cannot grasp, since, being far above all things that we can understand concerning him, or that any mortal can, he is far outside and above every affirmation, as holy Dionysius says: inasmuch as he is neither soul nor sense, nor has imagination, or opinion, or reason, or understanding; nor is he reason, nor understanding; nor is he spoken, nor understood; nor is he number, nor multitude, nor order, nor magnitude, nor smallness, nor equality, nor likeness, nor unlikeness; nor does he stand, nor is he moved, nor does he act in repose; nor has he power, nor is he power; nor is he light, nor does he live, nor is he life; nor is he substance, nor age, nor [unclear], nor has his spiritual [unclear] been made; nor is he form, nor truth, nor kingdom, nor wisdom, nor one, nor deity, or goodness; nor is he spirit, so far as we ourselves can know; nor is there denomination of son or of father, nor any other thing among those things which has ever been known to us or to another in the world; nor is he anything of those things which are not, nor of those things which are; nor do the things which are know him as he is; nor is there speech of him, nor name, nor knowledge; nor is he darkness, nor light, nor error, nor truth; nor is there any affirmation of him at all, nor removal. For, as the perfect and singular cause of all things is above every affirmation, so the excellence of him, namely of him who, simply absolved from all things, is above all things, is above every removal.

Therefore we say, Dionysius says, that, since as the cause of all things he is above all, he is neither without substance nor without life, nor lacks reason or mind; nor is he body, nor figure, nor form, nor has quality or quantity or death; nor is he in a place, nor is he seen, nor has sensible touch; nor does he sense, nor is he sensible; nor is he subject to rashness or disturbance, stirred by fleshly passions; nor is he weak, subject to sensible accidents; nor is he deprived of light; nor does he admit alteration, or corruption, or division, or flux; nor is he or has he anything else among sensible things. Hence, since he is far above every affirmation, excelling beyond what is supposed, he could not be comprehended by a created being which necessarily uses the senses for understanding, just as the true Peripatetic said: nothing is in our intellect unless it has first been in the senses. Therefore God, who is not subject to the senses of mortals, far exceeds the human intellect; according to affirmative affirmation he truly is altogether in all things; according to negative removal, the nearer he is approached, he is none of all the things that are subject to the knowledge of mortals. Indeed, since he is above all things, he can be none of the things that are subject to him. Therefore beautifully simili-

To Maximilian Caesar.

[unclear] Empedocles gave a likeness, saying: God is a sphere whose center is everywhere, whose circumference is nowhere. Let the human intellect now raise itself as much as it can; and let him who strives to comprehend God comprehend, if he can rightly understand it, the center of this imagined sphere and, at the same time, its circumference ending nowhere. But if he is not equal to understanding this by the proposition of a proper likeness, why does he strive to investigate the essence of God, which exists above every position?

Let it not weary you, most unconquered Caesar, to hear another likeness concerning God from Cusanus, a priest of the Roman Church, cardinal, my fellow Mosellan, a man most learned in those times, who says: God is a straight line of infinite length, which makes a circle. Let us therefore now consider. If the line is straight, how does it make a circle? Or, if it makes a circle, how is it straight? For a circle and a straight line are naturally opposed. Nevertheless, a line of infinite length, since it has neither beginning nor end, necessarily makes a circle, although it is proposed to be imagined not as curved but as straight.

Since, therefore, God is infinite, greatest without quantity, best without quality, all things in all without circumscription, above all things without an excluding position, it was not possible that he should be comprehended by the circumscribable human intellect, which uses the ministry of the senses for understanding, and that what is promised to it when purified, at last in the homeland, should be granted to it while confused and impure on the way. But afterward, when our mind, at last released from the flesh, has escaped clean, simple, pure, perfect, and consummated to the highest center, which is God, having been made equal to the angels, we shall know God perfectly, and all things, just as also Saint Christophilus says to the Corinthians: We now see through a mirror and in an enigma; then face to face.

For this reason we said that the angelic intellect adheres immovably to the beginning given to its nature, because it is pure act and habit, which, since by condition it is naturally simple, cannot be impeded by any commerce of composition. But the human intellect, which has now sufficiently been shown to be potentiality and privation, is impure because of its commerce with its body; yet it is not held back from act forever, but only until, at last released from the flesh, it shall have passed over into the fellowship of likeness with the angels, then for the first time to be admitted to the true knowledge of God.

But if, meanwhile, the affection of love necessary for salvation is joined to present Christian faith and to future divine knowledge, the same everlasting blessedness prepared with the holy angels will be given to the worshippers of God. But if a depraved mind, through too much commerce with its flesh, has scorned the love of God, the intellect, once released from its prison, will indeed escape to the measure of sublime knowledge competent to it by nature, but it will be the more miserable in proportion as, by evil will, it is found to be more like the demons.

Therefore, to conclude, as far as I have been able, the solution of the proposed question, I say that it is not possible for almighty God to be understood perfectly by us so long as we, mortal, are living in the flesh.

Eight Questions of Johannes Trithemius.

On Fi-

To Maximilian Caesar.

On Faith Necessary for Salvation.

The Second Question.

This was the second question of your unconquered Majesty: since only a small part of the world today is subject to the laws of the Christian faith, whether that opinion of very many persons seems admissible without injury to the truth, who think that each person, in the religion which he believes to be true and salutary, as a worshipper of the one God, can be saved outside the Christian faith and without Baptism, provided nothing is known concerning the religion of Christ.

I judged it superfluous to answer this question simply according to the common intention, since I know that today there are many among Christians whom an impious piety, for the salvation of lost men, makes cruel toward God. But because a reason of just consideration moved your most serene Highness to ask these things, not because you do not know what must be held in this Catholic proposition, but so that you might have something with which to set the truth against those who attack it, I shall answer the questions asked as briefly as I can. If anyone could be saved outside the Christian faith, Christ, the Son of almighty God, would seem to have been made man superfluously and without cause. For if there is salvation outside Christ, Christ is not the savior of all. But because it was necessary, according to the Scriptures, that the only-begotten Son of God, for the salvation of the human race, be born as a man in the world, suffer, die, and rise again on the third day, he did not come into this world in vain, nor superfluously, nor without cause. Since this is so, whoever asserts that anyone can be saved outside the faith of Christ shows himself to be not a Christian but an adversary of the faith and a deserter of Christ. For whoever does not believe in Christ, the Son of God, promises himself eternal salvation in vain. For he who is Truth, Jesus Christ, says in the holy Gospel: “He who has not believed will be condemned.” And again: “He who does not believe has already been judged, because he does not believe in the name of the only-begotten Son of God.” And again, a little later, he says, adding: “He who believes in the Son has eternal life; but he who is unbelieving toward the Son will not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him.” Saint [Christophilus?] also says: “Without faith it is impossible to please God.”

The solution to the proposed question is now plain to all who truly believe in Christ: because salvation is through him, the Savior of the world, and whoever does not believe in him cannot be saved. Nor is it lawful for a Christian in any way to overstep the boundaries of his religion, so as to presume to correct this question otherwise than Christ taught. But whoever goes beyond this norm of faith by asserting the contrary plainly demonstrates that he does not think rightly concerning Christ, the savior of the faithful. For whoever promises salvation to anyone outside Christ wishes to declare Christ a liar. But we, confirmed by the most sacred ordinances of the Gospel, firmly believe and pronounce without doubt that no one can be saved outside the faith of Christ, however holy or justly he may live, however much he may trust in his paternal or another religion. Christ is salvation; outside the Christian faith no one will be saved. For to what end did Christ, God’s

[unclear]

12. Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

...and those whom he foreknew would turn aside to evil, he would not bring forth, in so great a multitude, to destruction. For it would seem better not to be than to be badly.

To this question let him answer, if anyone thinks himself God’s counselor. Who am I, that I should expound the cause of the divine will? For all things whatsoever the Lord willed he did in heaven and on earth, and there is no one who can resist his will. Hence a certain wise man says to God: Who will charge it against you if the nations that you made have perished? The Almighty established for things an order of vicissitude, which he will never revoke by any fullness of change. For just as he permits his sun to rise upon the good and the wicked, so also until the end of the age he has caused human beings to be conceived, born, and to grow, both pious and impious. In God there are not the thoughts of human beings, nor does he change his counsel according to time; but since he is unchangeable and [unclear], willing all things together and at once and always, he has from eternity preordained them invariably. God speaks once, as sacred Scripture bears witness, and adds that whatever he wills, he wills immovably, and admits no change. Therefore that human beings should be born good and evil, pious and impious, faithful and faithless, sinners and saints, to be saved and to be damned, God permits by a most just reason, he who assigned this order to all things. Nothing perishes to God, who is Lord of all, and he everywhere holds firm dominion no less over wicked human beings and spirits than over good ones. Christ Jesus, God from God the Father without time, and man from the Virgin in time, appointed mediator of God and human beings, is himself the one through whom we have access to God; he himself is the Savior of all the faithful, concerning whom you think wrongly, who suppose that without the Christian faith anything can...

To Maximilian Caesar.

... rashly concedes that he can be saved. The omnipotence of God has regard to the order of things which he established; according to the inviolable sequence of its rectitude, no one will be saved without faith in Christ, no one who does not believe in the Son of God will be justified. Therefore they are moved by vain and most foolish piety who think that anyone in the whole world and in any sect whatever is to be saved outside the faith of Christ, since this is manifestly contrary to his sentence. Let them hear the Savior himself again saying in the Gospel: No one comes to the Father except through me; for I am the way, the truth, and the life. If no one comes to the Father except through the Son, certainly no one will be saved except through him. Who will save the Jew and the pagan, since no one can be saved except through Christ? But Christ will undoubtedly save only those who in heart, speech, and deed believe in him. He will not save the Jew, not the Saracen, not the pagan, not any other unbeliever, because they do not believe in him, but despise his teaching, scorn the faith, and, blaspheming his holy name, hold it cheap all day long. For he himself said in the Gospel: Whoever is ashamed of me and of my words, I also will be ashamed of him before my Father and his holy angels. Tell me now, you who worship Christ and contend that someone can be saved in his own sect, which he thinks true, outside the Christian faith: do you believe the Gospel of Christ to be true or false? If true, why do you think contrary to it? For Christ says: he who does not believe in the Son of God, the wrath of God remains upon him, and he has already been judged and will be condemned. And because no one comes to the Father except through me. But you, led astray by I know not what rashness, press the contrary, saying that a man outside the faith of Christ, trusting in his paternal religion, which he believes to be true and pleasing to God,

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

or living innocently according to the law of nature, and especially since perhaps he has never heard anything at all about the faith of Christ, is to be saved in his confidence. Christ did not say this, but: Whoever has believed in the only-begotten Son of God will be saved; but whoever has not believed will be condemned. He excepted no one, he adds no condition. Since he had come to suffer for all, he had provided for salvation through faith alone. If faith in the Savior is lacking, now no confidence will save the unbeliever. For the holy prelate Augustine said in On Faith to Peter: Hold most firmly, and by no means doubt, that not only all pagans, but also all Jews, heretics, and schismatics who end this present life outside the Catholic Church, will go into the eternal fire prepared for the Devil and his angels. You now perceive where foolish pity drags you, who, measuring God by human laws, so that in all things you may make his only-begotten Son, our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, merciful, do not fear to judge him a liar. But Christ is truthful, who says that those not believing in him are to be damned. But we are rash and liars, who trust that anyone can be saved outside his faith. Whoever truly believes in Christ in no way permits anyone at all outside the unity of the Catholic Church of Christians to be said to be saved; whoever says the contrary shows that he is not a true and good Christian. For this is the immovable sentence of Catholic tradition, which the Lord Jesus himself defined in the holy Gospel: namely, that no one is to be saved outside his faith, which he himself established, taught, and confirmed with his own blood. Therefore whoever [unclear] a man to be saved

…who has affirmed that a man in any sect outside the faith of Jesus Christ, or has believed it in his heart, is not a good Christian, but rather an apostate and a disciple of Antichrist; and unless he comes to his senses, let him know that he will be tormented forever in the lower world with him. For he is Antichrist, not a Christian, who says that one who does not believe in the Lord Jesus is to be saved without the Savior. Therefore, most wise Caesar, let no one appear in the sight of Your Majesty, let no one perceive you as adhering to him, who thinks that men outside the faith of Jesus Christ are to be saved. For everyone who has believed that anyone is to be saved outside the faith of Christ has denied both Christ and his Gospel. But that we say that all who are not Christians are to be condemned is an indication not of cruelty but of truthful piety. For it is better to believe firmly in the truth than falsely to agree with a man. That all Jews, pagans, gentiles, Saracens, schismatics, heretics, and unbelievers are without doubt to be condemned with the demons is attested by the Church of the saints, which took and confirmed this judgment from nowhere other than from the words of Christ. For thus he said: He who believes in the Son has eternal life; by this are designated Christians who are good in faith and work. But he who is unbelieving toward the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. Here are denoted all Jews, pagans, Saracens, gentiles, and whoever do not believe in our Lord Jesus Christ. Concerning schismatics and heretics, however, the judgment of Christ is clear, when he says in the Gospel: Whoever refuses to hear the Church, let him be to you as a heathen and a publican. Heathens are gentiles, and publicans are manifest and public sinners; concerning their condemnation, most certain among the saints, the Church does not doubt. For who among Christians would have doubted that gentiles and enormous sinners, manifest and public, are to be condemned? Why then do schismatics

16 Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions

and heretics, all of whom despise the Church of the saints, being most rightly said on account of their offenses to be like the gentiles and publicans who are to be condemned for their crimes, justly undergo punishments of eternal damnation equal with them? Behold, those whom the just sentence of Christ the Savior condemned, the foolish compassion of men, not to say impious cruelty, presumes are to be saved. They desire to be merciful toward lost men; they do not fear to show themselves cruel toward God, whom he through justice assigned to death: these men, with the worst presumption, by recalling them assert that they are to be brought to life. It is neither good nor useful for a Christian, whether seriously or in jest, to contradict Christ; he is impious, not a Christian, whoever says that unbelievers are to be saved. When Adam, the first man, perished, we all sinned; the wrath of God remained upon the whole human race from the beginning of the world until Christ. Christ came, born of a virgin, who, God and man, innocent of sin, voluntarily underwent the death of the cross; having been made mediator between God and man, he removed the wrath due to original guilt from those who believe in him. For thus he says: He who believes in the only-begotten Son of God has eternal life; but he who is unbelieving toward the Son shall not see life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. Indeed, without faith in Jesus Christ no one will be saved, however much he may seem to live justly and holily in his own religion. For almighty God can save a believer without material baptism, but he cannot make a denier saved without faith. Let no one be saved unwillingly, because no one believes except willingly; for God knows who are his, since those who believe in the Son he has through repentance, but unbelievers he condemns through the equity of justice.

Hence, when access was barred, a new question struck the mind: what

To Maximilian Caesar.

what is to be thought concerning the infants and the simple-minded of unbelieving pagans and Jews. To this one must reply: just as the infants of Christians, baptized in the faith of their parents, are saved, so the children of all unbelievers, not baptized, will be damned in the unbelief of their parents. The judgment concerning the simple-minded of either religion is similar: just as we believe without doubt that baptized simple-minded Christians are to be saved, so we say without doubt that those of unbelievers are to be damned.

Again it is asked here what is to be held in Catholic belief concerning those people who inhabit the islands newly discovered in the great sea, of which no mention is made among the ancient cosmographers, and who, as we have been informed, have never heard anything at all of the Christian religion. A brief answer, conformable in all respects to what has been set forth, is given: since Truth exempts no unbeliever at all from damnation, neither [unclear] of the islands, nor one contiguous to our world, nor anyone else dwelling either near or far, but has concluded all without distinction, without defining persons, saying: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned”; “the wrath of God remains upon him.” Who removes the wrath of God from man, except our Lord Jesus Christ, who is the mediator of God and men? By what means, except through faith formed in him, who, though innocent, tasted death? Since, therefore, without faith no one can [attain?] salvation, those who are known not to have the piety of faith in him [unclear]. Accordingly we must necessarily say that all are to be damned who do not believe in the Son of God, whether they have heard of him or are wholly ignorant of him.

One thing, however, we grant: that if there were any among those who are ignorant of Christ who lived well according to the law of nature, invoking the one God, even if they sometimes sinned, provided they had done penance before death, they were damned, or are to be damned, less gravely than those who either hear of Christ and despise him, or in either case have lived wickedly and foully. For God is just; he does injury to no one, but renders to each according to his works. Yet the wrath of God remains upon everyone who does not believe in his only-begotten Son, on account of the original sin of the first man, from which no one is justified except through faith and baptism of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

If original sin alone is present in a person, as in little children, unless it is removed through Christ, it condemns the one who has it only to the punishment of loss, whereby, namely, he is barred forever from the vision of God and the enjoyment of the blessedness of the saints. But an adult who sins mortally will be punished after death with a twofold punishment, namely of loss and of sense, so that he both does not see God and, feeling the pains of Gehenna without end, never escapes. Jews, Saracens, and all the rest who, hearing the faith of Christ, despise it are without doubt damned to the punishment both of loss and of sense, whether otherwise they live innocently according to the law of nature or the contrary. But among those who have never heard of Christ, if any should live innocent according to the law of nature up to death, I do not think that they have furnished cause for being said or believed to be damned to the punishment of sense, although they are deprived forever of the vision of God, which theologians have called the punishment of loss; for no one will behold the face of God the Father almighty unless he has been reborn through faith in Christ.

Now let us conclude with a judgment against those who, when we assert these things in Catholic fashion according to Christ’s doctrine, object with weighty consideration.

that almighty God, since he is supremely good, wished to create so many thousands of human beings whom from eternity he foreknew were to be damned. For if a comparison is made of Christians with unbelievers, scarcely a twentieth part of the people of the whole world today believes in our Lord Jesus Christ. The immense curiosity of this question has often greatly troubled [unclear]; if faith in Christ were firm in them, and devotion fervent in love, they would not seek such [unclear] difficult matters. For what man of such learning or sanctity is found among mortals that, apart from God himself, he could disclose to us the cause of the divine will? For the cause of the will of God is incomprehensible, since he himself is the cause of his own most righteous will. The eternal order is inviolable; as I said in the preceding matter, God does injury to no one. Was it not the case that, when God judged the flood of the whole world upon the earth, only eight persons were saved in the ark, while all the rest perished in the inundation of waters? The cause of their perishing was sin. But that they were created had no other cause than the uncircumscribable goodness of God. That few are saved while many perish was prefigured by the mystery of Noah’s ark, the sacrament of the Christian faith. For just as all outside Noah’s ark perished in the flood, so now all who are outside the unity of the Catholic Church of Christians will without doubt perish eternally in their sins, Jews as well as pagans, heretics together with schismatics. The justice of God damns those whom his goodness created; but mercy saves those whom grace has confirmed. For, as the holy Apostle says, it is not of him who wills nor of him who runs, but of God who shows mercy, since he has mercy on whom he wills, and whom he wills he hardens. If we weigh human freedom of will rightly in this way, we shall know the will of God to be just.

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions

On the Miracles of Unbelievers

Third Question

[unclear]

The third question of your most serene Majesty was: if no one is saved outside the faith, whence come miracles among unbelievers? For we have learned from the reports of many that astonishing things occur even among unbelievers.

The solution of this question, as it seems to me, will not be difficult if we apply both faith in the Scriptures and the necessary consideration of the natural powers of the soul. Now a miracle is a new and unusual occurrence, which, because of [unclear], happens and draws people into wonder. Hence good Christians work miracles in one way, the wicked in another, and unbelievers in another. Good Christians indeed work miracles through public justice, but the wicked through signs of public justice; unbelievers, however, through private contracts with demons, that is, whether implicit or explicit. Concerning the good, indeed, the Lord said in the holy Gospel: “These signs shall follow those who believe: in my name they shall cast out demons; they shall speak with new tongues; they shall take up serpents; and if they drink anything deadly, it shall not harm them; they shall lay hands upon the sick, and they shall be well.” But concerning wicked Christians who work miracles in the name of Jesus Christ, it is written thus in the Gospel:

To Maximilian Caesar.

We read in the Gospel: “Many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not cast out demons in your name, and in your name do many mighty works? And then I shall declare to them: I never knew you; depart from me, all you who work iniquity.” But outside the Church of God, where the name of our Lord Jesus Christ is not invoked, if any marvels occur beyond the usual course of nature or of human art, no good Christian doubts that they are done by the cooperation of demons. And works of this kind your Imperial Serenity judges, by discernment of their power, should rather be called marvels than miracles. Nor does this judgment of truth depart from reason, insofar as there should be a necessary distinction between prodigies of light and of darkness. I find four agents of marvels, but I recognize principally one alone, God, who performs true miracles, as the cause of all good things.

Therefore the first and greatest agent of all marvelous things is God, who, filling the whole world with signs, miracles, and powers, has illumined it; with him none of the others is to be compared. He created heaven and earth, the sea and all things that are in them; he alone is omnipotent, just, holy and upright, good, incomprehensible, greatest, glorious, immense and everlasting. All other things are beneath him. For whatever can happen marvelously in this world is certainly less than the whole world itself, which he was able to create from nothing. Likewise every miracle that can be performed through a human being is less than the human being himself, since God, creator of all things, formed him in the beginning to his greatness and likeness. And although the miracles of God among visible natures have, through the constancy with which mortals see them, now almost become cheapened, nevertheless, if we examine them wisely, then they will appear greater and rarer than all things that are unusual.

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

But the manner of performing miracles in God is the immutable will of God, who, since he is omnipotent, does all things whatsoever he has willed in heaven and on earth. For he spoke, and they were made; he commanded, and they were created. The will of God is ordered and everlasting; therefore his miracles are incomparably greater than the rest. For greater than all the miracles of this world is that we behold the whole universe, and whatever is contained in it, created by the will of God. The immutable divine will, persisting, works all things, since it lacks both beginning and end; but whatever God wills, he always wills, because, since willing and being able are the same in him, it does not belong to the immutable to labor. Hence all the universal miracles that the maker of all things performs he has offered for both good and evil people to behold. And after the general miracles, which have now grown common by use among mortals, he has also displayed, in almost individual creatures, infinite things specially worthy of wonder.

The second agent of miracles is the good angel, who very often works marvels for mortals both by natural power and by divine authority. For those most blessed spirits are sent by divine ordinance in ministry to the faithful, and they provide to both good and evil people those things that are benefits of nature. But to those alone who believe in God and in our Lord Jesus Christ they administer the gift of saving grace. Hence there is no doubt that those miracles which are done in the Church of the saints by invocation of the divine name are exhibited by their ministry and cooperation; but the marvels of the unbelievers, if any are either done today or are read to have been done formerly, are either fabricated or falsely claimed, or are prepared by the mockery of demons. For it cannot happen that mini-

by the ministry of good angels any unbelievers perform miracles: for where Christ Jesus, the Son of God, is not believed in, no signs of grace are displayed through good spirits to impious and reprobate men. Indeed, since they are obstinate in the error of false religion, if in their own estimation they have obtained anything miraculous, there is no doubt whatever that it is done through the ministry of demons. For since they are wholly unlike the good angels, they obtain no familiarity with them. For no despiser of the Christian faith can please God; but whoever is proved displeasing to almighty God is without doubt deprived of the familiarity of the holy angels. Yet by this we do not withdraw from anyone every good spirit assigned to him, by whose ministry, even if he is unbelieving toward the Son of God, he may receive the benefits of nature, although he does not attain to the gifts of grace. But upon those who believe in our Lord Christ they confer not only the benefits of nature, but also minister the gifts of grace. It is therefore manifest that, if any miracles are done among unbelievers, they cannot be done by the gift of God or by the ministry of the holy angels, since all who are placed outside the unity of the Church cannot work signs by public justice when they are impious. For God, as has been said, does not remove his original wrath from man except through faith in Jesus Christ; but everyone who is unbelieving toward the Son of God will not see eternal life, but the wrath of God remains upon him. Therefore everyone upon whom the wrath of God remains will not be able to please God; and so the wonders that are done at his prayers should be believed to be performed not by the power of God nor by the ministry of angels, but rather by the intervention of demons. The third worker of wonders is the devil, who, like an ape, tries to imitate whatever he sees, and deceives the minds of men, especially unbelievers, with various illusions,

24 Joh. Trithemius, Eight Questions

and seduces those who believe him by a certain likeness of miracles. For I do not judge it difficult for demons to be able to delude the senses of men, since it is agreed that by nature they were created more subtle than all mortals. But they cannot know the thoughts of mortals except by a certain conjecture, since of course by nature we make our inward matters manifest by certain signs. Demons foretell future things, and sometimes speak the truth, sometimes are deceived in conjecturing and deceive. From the beginning of the world they have known certain signs antecedent to events; by experience and use of these they sometimes foretell truly what is to come. And when they have seen signs known to them that precede an event, they immediately conjecture what is in a man’s thought; yet very often they deceive, because they themselves are deceived. For when they are asked about some matter which they do not know, as, for example, whether a messenger sent far away is going to return soon, or on what day, they immediately, in the blink of an eye, reach the place where they know him to be. When they have seen that he has already begun the journey to return, they carefully count the days, and, having suddenly returned to the one who asked, confidently affirm that the absent man will come on a fixed day. But if he has delayed on the road or has turned aside elsewhere, then certainly the demons, already deceived in their judgment, must be mistaken. They gladly insert themselves into prophecies, and are ready enough to foretell future things to men for the sake of the honor and esteem which they most greatly desire to have, as being worthy of admiration. They seek divine honors, and greatly long to be feared by mortals. Just as boys hiding in a hidden place, or running about masked, suddenly bursting out from their hiding places, strike with unexpected terror their companions who suspect nothing hidden, and again, lest they be recognized

To Maximilian Caesar.

[unclear] they hide themselves again; and when they observe the ignorant to be terrified, they boast as though they seemed to have obtained from this some great honor. Demons of this kind, indeed, more fastened to the earth and those who move about among human beings, are very restless; the ancients called them [Bacuaeos?]. They terrify people at night, and seek nothing more from mortals than the esteem of divinity. Hence, in the presence of those with whom they are permitted to be by reason of likeness, they sometimes perform various mockeries, and, as chance allows, present themselves in minds as terrifying. As often as they can, they gladly assume the likeness of a human body, but they do not always find suitable material of air with which to be clothed; for this reason they rather often appear monstrous and horrible, because they have not had suitable [unclear] or vapors for the perfection of the appearance desired. Moreover, the more they are fastened to earthly dwellings, the more by chance they have become dull with respect to the material of their making. Hence, because of the ignorance which they contracted through disobedience, the predictions of demons are frequently false, although by divine permission they are sometimes even verified. For, as that most holy John Chrysostom says, it has been granted to the devil sometimes to speak truth, so that he may commend his lie by a rare truth. For if he never spoke truth, he could deceive no one, and his seduction would by no means suffice for tempting. It is therefore no wonder if demons sometimes seem to foretell true things to unbelieving people, since they once were able to present prophecies in the idols of the gentiles. Nor is it any wonder if they sometimes provide care to the sick, since they know the natures of diseases, and can remove diseases which they had previously brought on, or withdraw for a time from the senses those which chance has inflicted.

But almighty God, by the right of his sovereign majesty, uses the ministry of all beings, even demons, both for the testing of the faithful and for the punishment of the impious. Since they are perverse in affection, obstinate in their rebellion, and proud, they especially desire divine estimation and honors; and for that reason they gladly come to the invocations of unbelievers, which they are accustomed to pour forth to their gods, as though they themselves were gods. Among unbelievers they sometimes seem to raise the dead back to life, and they show marvelous things to curious people, so that by what are like miracles they render them, confirmed in their former error, stubborn against the Lord. Yet they do not truly raise the dead, but deceive human senses in various ways, since either they themselves enter the corpses of the dead and carry them around there for a time as though alive, or, after those bodies have been removed to a more distant place, they present to the spectators for viewing some image in the semblance of the dead person’s life. Just as the experience of certain people has informed us, we believe it evident that demons can show in a certain false likeness all the things whatever that the saints do as miracles in truth. All the miracles of demons are either phantasms or things done by a certain natural skill. For if people experienced in the more hidden mysteries of nature, by some combination of matter concealed from others, bring forth unusual and marvelous effects into form, just as [unclear] from the dew of heaven, bees from the flesh of [unclear], serpents from certain roots of herbs, and many other things of this kind, if I do not wish to mention greater ones, as proof in many cases has made you experienced, who would deny that demons, of a subtler nature and greater experience, can work naturally more marvelous things which are manifest to no human beings?

To Maximilian Caesar.

The fourth worker of miracles, however, is man, who works marvelous things in four ways, which to those who know neither their cause nor their manner do not seem human.

And first, by invocation of the divine name, when, in the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ, the merit of accepted holiness is joined with it. In this way the holy apostles and their imitators, by the power of God and at the same time by the merit of holiness in the unity of faith, performed miracles. But unbelievers cannot perform miracles in this way, because they do not walk the necessary path of faith unto salvation. For although many of them believe in one Lord, yet because they refuse to believe in the mediator between God and men, they have gone very far away from God’s mercy. But, as the holy Gospel promises, all things are possible to those who believe in God and our Lord Jesus Christ: namely, to those who adorn right faith also with holy works. For just as without faith it is impossible to please God, so also faith without works is dead. Almighty God would grant us all things that we ask in the faith of Christ, if we did all things according to the faith as we ought. Believe firmly and work faithfully, and you will always obtain all things.

Secondly, man performs miracles by likeness to angelic purity. For the purer our mind, confirmed in the faith of Jesus Christ through love, has become, the more, having been made like the holy angels, it attains their greater familiarity. For whoever has altogether attained the familiarity of the holy angels, when he wishes, by God’s bounty, he will shine forth in miracles. For the holy angels reveal to pure men, fervent in the love of God, secrets hidden from others, and by the Creator’s command they make many things manifest to him. For the Lord is near to those who call upon him in truth. The Lord will do the will of those who fear him, and he will hear their prayers and save them. For whoever has been united with Christ through grace is refreshed by the frequent visitation of angels, and often, when necessity demands it, is illumined by their ministry, and often also by their powers. Hence it is that even those weighed down by various illnesses betake themselves to the intercessions of the saints and, recalling the Lord’s promises to a friend, obtain by the merits of others what they cannot by their own; their holy devotion in the faith of Christ receives health from the Lord, when, aided both by the purity of its own conscience and supported by the merit of another’s holiness, it rises not rashly into certain hope.

In the Church of God, however, miracles are performed by divine power with a threefold consideration or means. For sometimes almighty God works a miracle by the ministry of angels, solely through the merits of the one working it, as Saint Martin healed a blind man and a lame man against their will. Sometimes miracles are performed through the merit of the sufferers alone, as we read that many were cured by bad Christians, because the sick believed them to be excellent in the faith. Thirdly, there is no doubt that healings of this kind are performed through the merit of both, namely of the sufferer and the worker together, as Christ says to someone in the holy Gospel: “If you can believe, all things are possible to one who believes.” For faith is required for a miracle to such an extent that our Lord Jesus Christ, coming into his own country, wondered that he could not do any mighty work there because of their unbelief. But none of these things is done among unbelievers, where neither holiness is found in the worker nor orthodox faith in the sufferer.

Thirdly, therefore, man performed miracles by means of coope—

by the cooperation of diabolical depravity. And this can happen in three ways: namely by the manifest invocation of demons, by implication, and by supposition.

By manifest invocation necromancers, and little women whom we commonly call witches, do wondrous things; they, corrupted by a likeness of will, have passed into fellowship with demons. For just as in the Church of God the sacraments are signs of the invisible grace of the Holy Spirit, so in the school of demons certain characters, invocations, and methods are the marks of a depraved man and a malignant spirit. Hence, when witches display the signs of demons, the malignant spirits invoked are accustomed willingly to come to them and to exhibit horrible and at the same time wondrous acts of witchcraft.

But witches and necromancers produce wondrous effects by the invocation of demons in different ways. Witches are subjected to demons by a certain kind of profession; by their service they disturb the air, raise storms, devastate crops, make men and beasts ill, carry on foul commerce with demons in most filthy pleasure, and by destructive charms call back from below into sight whomever they have wished. Their deeds are not to be called miracles, but rather witchcrafts, deservedly to be punished with the ultimate penalty.

Necromancers, however, not by manifest profession but by an implicit condition, promise to compel demons to appear visibly in a circle by the display of characters, and also by sacrifices, fumigations, and vows. Their crimes are infinite, since it is manifest that all enter into fellowship with demons, either implicitly or explicitly. Although not all necromancers are equal either in art or in practice, nevertheless all agree in their own destruction through damnable curiosity, by which, with the aid of demons, they desire to attain what they cannot discover by nature. All their works and books are full of superstitions and impiety, and for that reason must be driven far from the borders of believers.

There is a great multitude of enchanters and necromancers in the East, who by their illusions miserably deceive the human race, and have turned away almost all of greater and lesser Asia from the faith of Christ. Illusions can occur in three ways: by the service of demons, by the operation of nature, and by the deception of human art. No true Christian will doubt that the miracles of those unbelievers occur in that way, where the determined root of the worker is placed. But today there are very many among Christians who are devoted to the works of demons: enchanters, witches, reprobates in matters of faith, who deceive many by excessive curiosity and by their arts promise impossibilities.

By implication of demons, moreover, wondrous things sometimes happen: namely whenever a man not sufficiently rightly confirmed in the faith does or wishes something otherwise than befits a Christian, even if he believes it to be no sin. Since this ought not to happen, nevertheless the Devil, intruding himself, very often supplies the desired effect. Such is that which the [unclear] commonly use: on the holy day of Parasceve, during the office, they make a ring of whatever metal, which they thereafter always wear on the ring finger. These things are utterly vain and have no root of truth at all. Yet I have seen certain persons cured by the same [unclear]

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions

[unclear] by [unclear] herbs [unclear] [unclear] [unclear] I saw, [unclear] effects [unclear] [unclear] [unclear] figures, [unclear] often [unclear] deserved [unclear] rather [unclear] [unclear] [unclear] mortal [unclear] [unclear] [unclear] whatever [unclear] [unclear] holy [unclear] Christ [unclear] [unclear] variously [unclear] impulse [unclear] [unclear] [unclear] [unclear] all [unclear] faithless [unclear] of whom

To Emperor Maximilian

I cannot deny that [they were freed?] from a spasm. Likewise, I know that someone opened [locks?] by words and very powerful herbs; this I think was done neither by the power of God nor by the force of the things applied. I could bring forward countless similar things that I have seen and heard, whose effects, if they are manifest, are surely nothing other than certain miracles of demons. For some men, excessively curious, stubbornly placing faith and trust in characters, slips of paper, rings, figures, necklaces, and unknown words, often obtain astonishing effects; these, we do not at all doubt, the devil has supplied, not by merit of holiness nor granted by God’s mercy, but rather through treacherous credulity. For demons, having the greatest envy of the human race, readily come to meet the vain operations of the impious, in order to destroy the souls of mortals. What else are characters and interpretations of hidden names than certain foods and drinks of demons? Whoever places faith in characters promising marvelous effects has implicitly denied both the faith of Christ and the Church of the saints. Alas, how many Christians today, how many clerics, how many priests, to spare greater men, use many and various superstitions in their daily actions, by which they follow the entangled passions of demons, to the disgrace of the Christian faith and to their own condemnation. And because these evils have now multiplied too greatly among Christians, the Almighty has withdrawn his hand and handed them over into the power of destroyers, so that they may feel as exactors of punishments those whom, by imitation, they will stubbornly have served, not the living and true God, but vain superstitions.

3: The Eight Questions of Johannes Trithemius

By the substitution of demons, moreover, we know plainly, if we inquire more diligently into the truth, that astonishing things are done. For the Jews, Saracens, pagans, or gentiles, who do not believe in God our Lord Jesus Christ, if they perform any miracles, we believe that these are done not by the power of God, not by the ministry of angels, not by merit of holiness, but by the substitution of demons. For whenever they invoke almighty God, in whose only-begotten Son they do not believe, for mercy in regard to some marvelous effect, then the devil, coming in, who is not false to sinners, and because the Most High does not hear unbelieving sinners, in order that they may persist in errors, secretly applies himself in place of the God invoked and, if he can, the Lord permitting, grants to [their] prayers what is requested. The devil uses this substitution the more freely, the less he is hindered by the faith of Christ and the sacraments of the Church. For the wrath of God remains upon all unbelievers who do not believe in his only-begotten Son, and [he] was in the power of the devil. And therefore he enters, for those invoking him, in the place of God. Hence, blinded in their errors, while the innocent God, in whose Son they do not believe, fails to hear those remaining in wrath, the devil comes as a false worker of miracles. Therefore those who scorn believing the true miracles of God believe the deceits of the devil. They receive from demons false miracles suited to their errors, those who, by believing, have not chosen to follow the truth, that is, Christ. There have been many among the unbelievers who, worshiping the one God, creator of all things, do not adore idols and firmly believe that they will be saved in their own faith. But because they fail to believe the mystery of the Lord’s incarnation, the wrath of God remains upon them; and in their follies they vanish away, thinking that God is near, in whom they do not rightly believe; [they are] subjected to the demon.

To Maximilian Caesar.

[unclear], in whose false miracles, when they place faith, they are confirmed by falsehood in their errors. It should not displease us, O Caesar, to introduce an analogy for this matter. There was a certain swineherd who had enclosed in his staff a little slip containing the name of the holy martyr Blasius; he ascribed so much trust to it that, when the staff was fixed in the ground in the midst of the herd, he believed every wolf was kept from coming near. When this foolish confidence had at last been strengthened by long experience, the man went safely wherever he wished, leaving the pigs in the wood without danger, since no wolf now had any access. It happened that one passing by saw this in the shepherd’s absence; and, observing that demons were keeping guard over the herd, he said to one of them: “What are you doing here, wretch?” He answered: “I am guarding these pigs.” But the other said: “Who entrusted you with the care of the pigs?” Again he answered: “The shepherd’s foolish confidence. For, thinking a certain slip enclosed in a staff to be of great power, by which through the merits of some Blasius wolves are kept from the gates, he has sinned against his own law and follows our vanities. But since the one invoked does not appear, I, lest the man lose his confidence, guard his pigs, and willingly put myself in the place of Blasius.” Thus, he says, mortals trouble us with vain conjurations, so that, unless we wish to lose all esteem and honor for ourselves among them, it often becomes necessary for us to answer their foolish invocations. By the likeness of this event demons deceive wretched unbelievers: the miracles which they ask of God in prayer they very often obtain through the substitution of malignant spirits. For in those things which concern either the worship or the honor of God, demons readily insert themselves; since they cannot obtain open honors, they plainly take delight in hidden ones.

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

At the same time it must be noted that, from the beginning of the world, miracles have never been lacking to any religion or sect of principal excellence, although not all have been done from one principle. For whatever miracles have been done in the true religion have been done from no other source than from God. The law of nature had its miracles; the written law had them; grace now has them likewise. Almighty God, who gave religion, himself also works miracles. But in false religions, where truth is not worshiped, if any miracles are done, not God but the devil works them. For since God is truth, he did not institute false religions, and therefore he has never adorned a lie with his miracles. Muhammad, who was full of an evil demon and instituted a false religion, adorned it with false miracles not from God, but by the cooperation of demons. For the demon who gave the cause of error could also, when the occasion had been accepted, display a false miracle to the deceived. Hence, if miracles had been wholly lacking to Muhammad when he was persuading a rude people of a new religion, perhaps no one would have given him credence. For he too showed the peoples certain marvels, both by subtlety of intellect and by the cooperation of the devil, so that he might seem to have confirmed a new doctrine with new miracles as well. Miracles were not lacking even to the pagan idolaters, if we do not deny credence to the histories. The Jews, however, before the incarnation of the Son of God, receiving his law through Moses, were frequently illumined by divine miracles. But after the Lord’s resurrection, when the Mosaic law had been emptied of force, those who do not believe in the only-begotten Son of God remain under the wrath of his indignation, and all miracles of truth have ceased among them. Hence, if today they do any marvelous things, they are works of demons and manifest indications of error. For demons labor especially with zeal to

To Maximilian Caesar.

those men whom they have once made to wander from the way of truth, which is Christ, they make, by the continuance of fraud, obstinate in error even to death. For indeed, when God for just reason withdraws his grace from unbelievers, their deceiver, the malignant spirit, approaches unrecognized; and, seeing that salvation is far away, he seduces the minds of the ignorant by false miracles, as though the Lord were near. Therefore whatever miracles belong to unbelievers are works of demons. For just as outside the unity of the Christian faith there is no salvation for mortals, so without Christ the most holy power of wonders is not granted. For now demons, lurking in ambush, long since conquered and confounded by the trophy of Christ, fear to appear openly as they did before the incarnation of the Lord, and therefore among unbelievers they falsely present themselves as good spirits.

There are also those who add a fourth to the three modes set down above, saying that the mind or spirit of the man himself can naturally do wondrous things, provided it knows how to recall itself from everything adventitious into itself, above the senses, into unity. For those who ascribe such things to nature promise that it can do wonders, foretell the future, disclose the secrets of men, remove diseases, and suddenly change a man’s counsels. But this mode of miracles cannot be simply natural, certain, common, and infallible; for if it is true, something I have not experienced, it is necessary that some external power also come in and that either a good angel or an evil spirit in part occupy the one thinking. But if no external powers intermingle, the one prophesying must form his beginning either from conjectures or from a bold presumption of speaking, and pronounce a judgment sometimes true, sometimes false. For indeed, as long as the spirit dwells in the body, by its nature it naturally understands nothing without the service of the senses.

The Eight Questions of Johannes Trithemius.

Hence I would not altogether resist, if they grant that our confused and crude understanding is aided by a like service. For we see in the case of those who very often, through the desire of inward love for Jesus, pass in contemplation beyond the measure of the flesh, that they are lifted upward from the earth into the air; and we think that they overcome the bodily weight not merely by their own keenness of mind, but no less by divine power. Therefore the three aforementioned principles of opinion, unknown to many, satisfy, in my judgment, few, as the mind is placed in the body. I speak of a thing experienced. When as a young man I was pursuing the studies of letters, four of us were sleeping in one bed on a certain night. One of my own age rose from my side and, asleep as he was accustomed to be in dreams, with eyes closed and with the moon on its fifteenth day shining in, walked about as if awake; he climbed walls and surpassed a squirrel in his agility. While asleep he also crossed over the bed a second and a third time; he trod on all of us with his feet, and we felt his weight no more than if a tiny mouse had touched us. Wherever his sleeping body moved, suddenly all the fastenings of doors opened of themselves. He very swiftly penetrated the higher buildings of the house and clung to the roofs in the manner of a sparrow. I speak of things seen, not heard by vague report. These seem to be functions of the soul, not of the body; the soul uses its natural power, so to speak, almost freely, when, the senses of the flesh being bound, it wanders outside the dwelling of the body. But since the matter does not in every respect suit the proposed question, concerning the causes of these wonders to another

[unclear]

To Emperor Maximilian.

But let us defer the discussion to another time. For we do not believe that these things are wonders to wise men, who have understood very well the power and nobility of the human mind, since, hindered only by the interposition of the body, it is in some respect reckoned equal to the angels. Finally, I pass over the various modes and kinds of fascinations, by which a frenzied person produces very wondrous effects upon external things. The very strong imagination of a confident person can also do much toward producing wonderful effects, whether upon a true object or upon one merely supposed.

Therefore, since there are so many kinds and modes of working wonders, it is no wonder if Jews, Saracens, pagans, gentiles, and all other unbelievers established outside the faith of Christ, who cannot perform miracles through public justice, enact wonders either by the support of demons or by artful industry. Nor does it escape me that, by the same reasoning, the miracles of the saints are attacked by the impious, as if they were not done by the power of the Creator, but rather by the entanglement or substitution of the devil. Whoever truly believes that the Christian faith alone is true does not doubt that the miracles of all unbelievers have been accomplished by the cooperation of demons. But if anyone rashly and stubbornly thinks the contrary, he shows himself to be an unbeliever, not a Christian.

On Sacred Scripture.

Question Four.

The fourth question of your Most Serene Majesty was this: why almighty God did not give Holy Scripture, containing the mysteries of our faith, of both the New and the Old Testament, as open and manifest, uniform in all things, and plainly sufficient for all things, but rather as wrapped up and, in many places, full of riddles. For many things necessary for the perfection of faith are not found sufficiently expressed in the divine Scriptures.

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

To this question of your Most Sacred Majesty it seems that one must answer: every Scripture divinely inspired is a perfect work of divinity, ordered and preordained before all time, written in time in no other way than God willed, who inspired men that it should be written. For all the works of God are perfect. And therefore, since the Scripture of which we speak is the work of God, it is necessary to confess that it is perfect in all things. For God, the supreme judge, whose works are all perfect, gave to his Scriptures the order he willed and the one he willed, and without doubt infused into those receiving them how they should write. For almighty God bestowed such authority and majesty upon Sacred Scripture that, in comparison with it, all the words of this world fail, since divine things cannot properly be comprehended in human speech. Therefore divine Scripture, which on the surface of its words appears confused to the ignorant, seems manifest to those who know it, because unless it is read in that spirit by which it is believed to have been infused into men, one by no means arrives at its understanding. The learned man who burns with the embrace of the flesh and with vain desires reads it in one way, and the understanding man, whom the love of God truly inflames after he has been stripped of pleasures, reads it in another. Hence it is no wonder if men wise according to the flesh do not understand the divine Scriptures, who, blinded by the pleasures of the flesh, the sweetness of the Spirit of God [unclear].

To Maximilian Caesar.

[unclear] they have never perceived. Just as, if you show to a boy learning the first elements of letters any written volume whose character is unlike that in his own little book, when he cannot read the writing he will at once cry out that it is bad and not properly formed. In the same way, men who approach the reading of the divine Scriptures, wise only in a fleshly manner, and who do not grasp those things that are of the divine Spirit, burdened by vices and rashness, when they ought to have blamed their own ignorance and unworthiness, reproach as holy the Scriptures which they do not understand. For it is not lawful for everyone everywhere to interpret the divine Scriptures, lest the beast, touching the mountain, be overwhelmed with stones.

Many now arise in a reversed order, who have spent the whole time of their life on humane letters; having become older men, they wrongly interpret the divine Scriptures, which they have never learned, and do not explain them but confuse them, examining them according to their own sense. Hence all who do not understand the sacred Scriptures by that Spirit by which they were breathed into those who wrote them have over their hearts the veil of ignorance and rashness, spread out after the manner of the Jews; from there they very often drink the poison of destructive error, from which those who approach humbly in the Spirit of God have received the cup of salvation.

For heavenly doctrine is not contained in the words of the Scriptures, but in their meaning; not on the surface of the words, but in the understanding; not in the leaves of ornate speech, but in the hidden place of mystical inspiration. Hence the divine Pope Gregory says: Sacred Scripture far surpasses all the sciences of this world in the manner of its speech, since in one and the same discourse, while it recounts the text, it reveals a hidden mystery; just as it refreshes the simple on the surface, so it exercises the wise with mystery. For it has in public that from which it may nourish little ones; it preserves in secret that by which it may suspend the minds of the lofty in wonder at its sweetness, like a certain marvelous river in which both the simple little lamb may walk and the great elephant may swim.

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

And St. Augustine says on Genesis: Divine Scripture speaks in such a way that by its height it mocks the proud, by its depth it terrifies the attentive, by its strength it feeds the great, and by its affability it nourishes little ones. For the authority of sacred Scripture is greater than all the perspicacity of human talent. Therefore, in order that one may come to their true understanding, above all the mind must be cleansed of every carnal affection, and the aid of divine goodness must be diligently implored with humility, so that by his Spirit he may illumine the understanding of the learner.

For all necks of powers must be subjected to the authority of the divine Scriptures. And, as the divine Jerome says, one must never flatter a man in such a way that the truth of the holy Scriptures is neglected; in the whole of both Testaments it is true in its narration of deeds, right in its admonitions, certain in its promises, and terrifyingly to be feared in its threats. Therefore it has not been given to all to be able to penetrate the mysteries of the divine Scriptures, but it is permitted in some measure only to those in whom love makes study continuous, and to whose purified minds the Spirit of God grants true understanding.

But whoever is foul with the darkness of vices, whoever walks with a swollen mind, proud; whoever doubts the truth of the Scriptures of God, whether in part or in whole, let him never trust that he can attain to their understanding. For the authority of Scripture itself says that unless you have believed, you will not understand. The slowness of our talent is ours, and so too the impurity of our desire, whenever we do not rightly understand the divine Scriptures, namely when the veil of pernicious occupation

To Maximilian Caesar.

... remains spread over our hearts, which does not permit us to arrive at true understanding. Hence it happens that we do not understand the sense which the Holy Spirit has poured into the divine Scriptures, but, seizing the bare words of the writers, we twist them into another sense. Indeed, if our minds were purged of carnal vices, if through the continual pursuit of sobriety the intellect were stirred up in the Scriptures, if belief and reverence were applied as their dignity requires, every student would understand more clearly than light that in the sacred readings there is nothing confused, nothing misshapen, nothing unsuitable, nothing absurd, or inserted without the most just reason. For all the passages of divine Scripture are full of mysteries; and whenever anything in them seems to have been set down obscurely, this has been done by divine providence, so that the studious mind may have the necessary exercise of piety, and the faith of the simple may not lose the place of due reverence. Therefore not by chance, but by eternal providence, he willed the holy Scriptures to be obscure in many places, so that it might abound in as many mysteries as senses in which, by the inspiration of the Spirit of God, it is explained in Catholic fashion by the doctors. For, as holy Augustine says, the obscurity of divine Scripture is useful and very profitable, because it begets many meanings of truth and brings them forth into the light for human beings; for when one man draws out this sense, and another that sense, while expounding it in Catholic fashion, it becomes known how lofty and deep it is. Therefore let no man swollen with secular learning suppose that he understands sacred Scripture, unless he first lays aside the veil of pride and of every disordered desire. For secular learning is of more value for exercising the intellect than for illuminating the understanding toward true wisdom. Therefore without doubt divine Scripture is, to minds purified through the continual exercise of the fear of God and frequent study of reading, both manifest and clear, though to filthy minds, confused by secular wisdom, it seems obscure.

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

Hence he understands the holy Scriptures well and rightly who, with purified affection, being frequent in the study of them, expounds them as did the one who wrote. For if they are read in another spirit than that by which he is believed to have inspired them to be written, the mind must necessarily be wholly shut away from true understanding. But when we encounter some discordance in them, let us understand that it is only of words, not of meanings; and it arises not by chance but by the ordering providence of God, so that the mind, exercised longer in the Scriptures, may be strengthened and not become altogether sluggish. For the counsel of God cannot be deceived; but the divine Scriptures were written by the counsel of his will. It follows necessarily that they are true and in no way false. They were men by whom the divine [Scriptures] came to us. You who are devoted to secular wisdom, say of the divine Scriptures of the New and Old Testament, which the Church of Christians has received and venerates as true, authentic, and holy Scripture: whence do you believe it was received, from God or from men? If from God, why do you not believe it? For everyone who attacks the Scripture which he believes to be inspired most openly resists the divine ordering. But if it is from men, why do you hope for the eternal salvation promised in it, which man cannot give? Unless perhaps, madmen, you go on to say that all things are fabricated, and that nothing remains after fate except ashes, and that the mind together with the body undergoes

To Maximilian Caesar

destruction, a profession which would show you to be no less insane than foolish. For if you truly believe in our Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, you will necessarily say that the divine Scriptures were inspired by the Holy Spirit; but if, having fallen with the apostates into a reprobate sense, you say that they were [composed?] by men, you impiously show how far you are from true wisdom, wandering in darkness, and you openly reveal yourselves to be unskilled and rash judges, since you condemn Scripture which you do not understand. But because it is more familiar to you to despise wisdom than to learn it, it is not the purpose of this work to weary the mind longer against the rashness of emperors. This one thing I want you to know: that no one understands unless he receives; but because you set the filth of your affections in the way, so that you may not receive, therefore you do not have the understanding of true wisdom. For almighty God deigns, through grace, to be present as illuminator to those who, stripped of carnal desires, burn with the fire of inward love, who desire nothing in this world except for God. The Spirit of God brings help by his presence to those whom he has found rooted in the love of truth, and, having been cleansed from every extraneous thing, he leads them into the knowledge of all things. For to those who truly love God all things are open, all things naked, all things manifest, since whoever, through love, beholds in the faith of Jesus Christ him who creates and governs all things, knows all things that are necessary for his salvation. But, on the contrary, the illumination of God dwells very far from the slothful, the wicked, gluttons, the envious, the avaricious, [incubonibus], the filthy, the lustful, murderers, the impious, the proud, and those alien to piety, leaving them to the discretion of the avenging demon, who, driving in the sharp point of savage fire, afflicts sense and mind, and more and more arms and drives the impious to perpetrate crimes, so that, guilty of a more shameful fault, they may also be liable to a sharper punishment.

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions

Whence, entangled in vices and worldly desires, they not only cannot penetrate the divine Scriptures with understanding, but, neglecting themselves, do not even know themselves. Since, therefore, sacred Scripture is the perfect work of God, we must so confirm the mind, Caesar, that we believe it true, right, complete, solid, divinely inspired, and most abundantly sufficient for all who understand it for the confirmation of the Christian faith. Indeed, unless divine Scripture is believed to be true, holy, perfect, and complete in all things, the Christian faith would be deprived of its foundation. Therefore every Christian must take the greatest care that, by scrutinizing the divine Scriptures more than is expedient, he not go beyond the bounds of piety, because the author of the Scriptures is not man, but the Holy Spirit; and whoever resists the integrity of God’s Scriptures is proved to resist his ordinance. Moreover Scripture, by God’s ordaining, is usefully interwoven with parables, enigmas, likenesses, and comparisons of figures, so that readers may be exercised toward understanding and, once the inward sweetness has been tasted, the mind may be confirmed in piety. And so, if with purified minds we attend to the sense of Scripture, not the words, we shall understand how rightly and properly all things have been ordered. For it was not fitting that the sacred Scriptures, in which the knowledge of the divine majesty is handed down, should be so completely full and manifest that they would everywhere be understood by all; what is proposed to be understood is only for the good and holy, not also for evil, filthy, and polluted minds. Hence indeed it is written: “the beast that touches the mountain shall be overwhelmed with stones.” What is designated here by the beast, if not men who, in imitation of brute animals, live without the love of God in pleasures

To Maximilian Caesar.

pleasures of the flesh. And what is expressed by the mountain, if not the height of the divine Scriptures? When a beast approaches this holy mountain, it is overwhelmed with stones, because a man impure in mind, or weak in regard to the faith, who strives to search out the height of the divine Scriptures without a teacher handing it down, is wounded by various and pernicious errors as by blows of stones. For just as all things are clean to the clean, so all things seem profane to the profane. Therefore God placed his hiding-place in the height of the Scriptures, which is so inaccessible and closed to the reprobate that nevertheless it always lies manifestly open to the saints.

But why almighty God did not give Holy Scripture as sufficient and manifest for all things that concern the Christian faith, we answer briefly. There are two things that the Most High provided for believers for the confirmation of the Christian faith, namely the Church and Scripture, so that what is declared in one may be supplied in the other. Hence if we find anything in the Holy Scriptures concerning the rules of faith expressed less sufficiently, we at once have recourse to the Church; and where the Church, in saving instruction, has need of help for piety, it immediately betakes itself to Scripture. Nor would the Church have authority without Scripture, nor Scripture faith without the Church, so that from the two there may be one judgment. For Augustine says: I would not believe the Gospel unless the authority of the Church compelled me. But Johannes Gersonensis says: I would not believe the Church unless the Gospel compelled me. The Church confirms Holy Scripture, and it likewise is confirmed by Scripture. The Church abounds whenever Scripture is lacking. And if at any time the Church is in doubt, it has recourse to the counsel of Scripture. For there is one Holy Spirit of God, who founded the Church in the faith of Jesus Christ, the very same almighty one who alone inspired Scripture. And this is the threefold cord, which is not easily broken, where divine Scripture is joined by the Holy Spirit to the authority of the Church to such a degree that the Church commends Scripture, and Scripture in turn commends the Church.

Thus, as it seems to me, O Caesar of unconquered majesty, we have assigned a sufficient reason for the question proposed. For if all things that concern the piety of faith were manifestly expressed in the Holy Scriptures, holy mother Church would not appear to be of such great authority, and the merit of saving obedience would in large part be emptied away. At the same time I think a sufficient answer has been given to the principal question, where certain people suppose Sacred Scripture in very many places to be confused and imperfect; yet if they read it with due purity of mind, they would indeed find it perfect and solid. Great is the authority of the Catholic Church, which alone, in doubtful matters concerning the faith, has the right to interpret the Scriptures; to it the necks of all powers must be subjected. If anyone by rash daring departs from its definition, he has denied the Gospel of Christ. There is one congregation of the faithful, the mother of Christians, the holy Church; outside its unity no one will be saved. And although in morals it may sometimes seem weak, nevertheless in faith it has always remained constant and has never erred, by the preserving mercy of Christ.

Concerning re-

To Emperor Maximilian 47

On the Reprobate and Witches

Fifth Question

The fifth question of Your Most Serene Highness was this: Why can impious, evil, and reprobate persons 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 neither command good spirits nor always malignant ones?

I remember that I formerly answered this question as follows: In all the works of the divine majesty there is an order and sequence of beauty, of immovable equity, by which individual things, suitably disposed, persevere in the rank which they have received. For without its proper order nothing subsists. In the world, in this order, the freedom of will which the Creator gave to all human beings is driven by no violence of power so as not always to remain in the order which the first man received from the beginning of his creation. Hence no one among mortals is good except by the counsel of his own will, assisted by the grace of a merciful God; and no one is evil except of his own accord, deprived of grace because of the obstacle of sin. By rectitude of will we are made like good spirits, if we prove the piety of the faith which we have in Christ by holy and necessary works. And just as the consummation of a good will makes good men equal to angelic spirits, so the perversity of the impious renders them like demons. Hence evil and perverse people, the more they have been depraved by the malice of their own will,

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions 48

the more they become like demons in disposition. By likeness, moreover, the familiarity of friendship is introduced, from which mutual confidence is gradually generated. From the confidence of the lesser toward the greater, command arises, whether it is true or feigned by cunning. Therefore, if there seems to be any command of wicked people over demons, it arises from the greatness of their wickedness: namely, when their disposition is depraved to such a degree that, by a reprobate will, they either surpass or equal the malice of the demons joining with them.

For demons are not all equal in malice or intelligence; rather, one is much more cunning than another in quickness of understanding, and far worse in depraved affection. For those who, having fallen from the high seats, dwell nearer the earth and inhabit caverns and caves, are certainly duller than the rest, to such a degree that they fear swords and rods, and seem to be moved by the threats of men who terrify them. This may be observed in those whom we call energumens. But demons who dwell farther removed from the earth are subtler by nature and meet with human beings more rarely. People full of malice, however, the more they advance in perversity of will, the more like demons they become; admitted by them into familiarity, they thereafter become bold, and receive command over the demons whose familiarity they use: a command not of violence, but of pretense. For demons, in order to keep willing in their depravity those people whom they have once received into surrender, gladly subject themselves to them, as though moved by a feigned dominion; what they do voluntarily, they pretend that they are compelled to do in obedience. For no one obtains true command over demons except one whom faith in the Lord [unclear].

To Maximilian Caesar.

... has made our Lord Jesus Christ, through the merit of holiness, acceptable and a friend to God; for thus Scripture says of those who truly believe in the Lord Jesus: “And he gave them power over all demons.” Evil men therefore command demons, whom malice has made like to them; likeness made them familiar, and familiarity made them their own and subject.

It is as if some servant, born in a humble station, were said to command a great prince, which often happens, because he has been joined to him by long familiarity; through this he obtains without contradiction everything he has asked, so that he seems rather to rule his lord than to be ruled by him. According to this likeness, evil and reprobate men, who are admitted by demons into their familiarity and become very bold through more prolonged [unclear] confidence, receive a counterfeit, not to say familiar, command over them, which they have deserved by the likeness of a most depraved will. Hence whatever they have sought to receive from demons for themselves by an explicit compact, with [unclear] concurring, they receive, except whenever, being forbidden by divine ordinance, they are unable to furnish what is asked. Yet they do not thus present themselves indiscriminately to all reprobate and evil persons, but only to those with whom, through the intervention of some compact, they have entered into treaties, as are sorcerous women who have done homage to the Devil, and invokers of those same demons, whom the common people call by the customary term necromancers.

There are two kinds of men who may command lawfully.

The first indeed is of those men who, beloved of God by the merit of holiness, have received from him the power of trampling the head of the ancient serpent, such as in the primitive Church were the Apostles and their followers and disciples, concerning whom the Lord speaks in the holy Gospel: “In my name they will cast out demons,” and “they will take up serpents.”

The second kind, however, is of those men to whom, by reason of their order in the Church of God, it is granted that they drive demons out of men’s bodies by the power of the ministry received. And this ministry is entrusted to exorcists in the Church of God, namely when they are ordained by the bishop.

Again there are two kinds of men who desire to command demons; with what unlawful presumption they do this, they show by their most wicked conditions.

The first and most pernicious kind is that of sorceresses, who enter into pacts with demons and, after a solemn profession has first been made, hand themselves over to some demon as property and for perpetual service. How many evils this most pernicious kind of human beings commits in your empire, most wise Caesar, there is no one who can express. For first of all, denying God and the faith of Christ and holy Baptism, they offer themselves, in mind and body, to demons; by their sorcery they make human beings and beasts sick, harm them, and kill them. There is no disease which, if God permits it, they cannot bring on, because, when they present themselves as servants to demons in observance of the compacted treaty, by comparison with them they dare whatever they wish. Hence they are nowhere to be tolerated, but rather in every place are to be utterly exterminated, as God, creator of all, so commands: “You shall not suffer sorcerers to live.” Of sorceresses, some summon demons by spells, others entice them by prayers and sacrifices, the rest by unspeakable things and ceremonies

To Maximilian Caesar 51

Summoning them, they draw them into the assistance of their own impiety. It is therefore not to be wondered at that witches seem to command demons, to whom they have become similar through the impiety of a perverse will, and, by mutual association, are united for the harm of the human race.

The second kind of wicked men who wish to command demons is that of those whom we commonly call necromancers. They profess arts full of execrations, by which they promise that they can summon demons into a circle, or show them openly visible, enclosed in crystal or some other vessel. These most pernicious men, full of falsehood and superstitions, commit evils so great that no good man could think them up.

For, in order to entice demons into service to themselves, they generally use most shameful sacrifices and enter into an express pact with them. They circulate many and various little books, full of filth, impiety, and falsehood, and deceitfully inscribed with the names of ancient philosophers and wise men; by displaying these they deceive many unwary and curious persons, and draw them with themselves into the pit of demons. They promise things great and altogether incredible, and by the hearing of these they falsely hold men suspended in wonder.

They say that by rings, pendants, images, exorcisms, and conjurations they can constrain malignant demons so that they appear visibly in a circle or in crystal, or in some vessel, and answer distinctly to all questions asked. All of them indeed promise this, but in our times very few are found to whom malignant spirits, even for evil purposes, are obedient in this way, since God, for a most just reason, does not permit it, lest the curiosity of men, prone to novelties, con-

[unclear]

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

Demons obey, but only those with whom they are allied by pacts and acts of service; and when invoked by those whom they cannot otherwise keep faithful, they gladly come, although they falsely claim that they are compelled. It is therefore no wonder, most excellent Caesar, that malignant spirits sometimes seem to obey depraved and perverse men, whom, as we have said, both likeness in malice and the destruction of the human race has made to be in agreement. But far be it from every Christian to wish, through a depraved likeness of will, to command demons. For if anyone in this life has begun to have fellowship with malignant spirits, in the future he will burn with them without end.

But why good and righteous men cannot command the holy angels of God, though they have passed into their likeness of good will, I think the solution of this question would easily be given from what has been said above, if the difference of intelligences is recalled to mind. For although in the Church of God there are many men established whose righteousness benefits many unto salvation, yet in our times very few make such progress that, by reason of the merit of holiness, they are either feared by demons or received by angels into the fellowship of familiarity. Hence it comes about that men of our age neither command malignant spirits by merit of holiness nor deserve to be familiar with the holy angels. But if any have advanced to that degree of holiness by which, working miracles in the Church, they have advanced as the saints once did, then they can both powerfully command demons and have the familiar fellowship of blessed spirits. For it is certain that holy men beloved by God in the primitive Church of the Christians once provided greater benefits to mortals through the cooperation of good spirits than

To Emperor Maximilian.

... which the wickedness of depraved men, through the ministry of demons, could ever have brought upon [unclear]. For every true worshipper of God, if he has become like the holy angels, can do many wondrous things by prayers.

On the Power of Witches.

Sixth Question

Your invincible Majesty’s sixth question was: whence comes this so great power in witches, by which they are able to perpetrate so many, various, and wondrous things, even in a single hour, of such a kind and magnitude as none of the good could accomplish 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 every power of doing anything is granted to human beings by the Lord God, and from nowhere else, whether men do good or evil. Hence the most holy prelate Augustine says: the will of God is the first and highest cause of all bodily forms and motions, and nothing is done visibly in this most ample and immense commonwealth of the whole creation which is not 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, Caesar, it must not be doubted that that power of the witches, in which, with the cooperation of demons, they produce wondrous and horrible effects, is granted by the Lord God, whose will no one can resist, and without whose influence a man 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 it, consents to it, and grants the power that they may do what they have already resolved upon with perverse will. Unless God consents and wills, no creature can do anything; otherwise, if anything could be done without his willing and consenting, it would necessarily follow that God is weak, since he could not prevent what, against his will, he would be forced to permit to be done. But since every human being, insofar as he is a creature, depends on God, he can do nothing without the will of him from whom he has both willing and being able.

Whatever, therefore, witches do, God permitting it thus, without whose will they could do nothing, since, unless God granted it, they would obtain neither from themselves nor from demons the ability to do what they wish: therefore all power is from the Lord God, in whom all things exist and are moved as in the first cause of all things, since from the one from whom we have received freedom of will, from him also we 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, whom, just as nature has made subtle, so long experience has made swift in producing wonders. 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 similar to these, but by the Devil who instituted these signs; since he is most proud, he desires in all things to be seen as comparable to God. For truly, just as almighty God instituted certain sacraments in his Church, which [unclear] worthily [unclear] signify [unclear] perpetrating [unclear] he seeks [unclear], which [unclear] as [unclear] with these [unclear] assists, he says it is evil. [unclear] applies all [unclear] in matter [unclear] some [unclear]. Woman [unclear], and [unclear] from the very ones [unclear] occur [unclear] demon [unclear] because [unclear] to demons [unclear] faith [unclear] those [unclear] of things [unclear] with [unclear] then [unclear] dangerously [unclear] brought in [unclear] in [unclear] dumb [unclear] of entrances [unclear] neither [unclear] demon [unclear] and witches [unclear].

To Maximilian Caesar.

... for those who minister worthily, with him assisting, they signify and produce a saving effect, he who instituted them working salvation. Thus the devil, who desires nothing more than to be thought equal to God, has instituted certain signs as if they were sacraments; when he is invoked by those with whom he has entered into covenants by pacts, the malignant agent assists and, as often as God has permitted it, brings about the evil that is asked; if he has not permitted it, he does absolutely nothing. For the devil is the agent of all the necromantic effects of witches; by applying the means that he himself first instituted, he produces the desired work upon the subject matter, sometimes in reality, sometimes only in appearance.

But women witches, who, with their will now depraved, have passed by consent into the fellowship of demons through pacts, receive from them certain symbolic marks; when summoned by these, the demons immediately appear. In these pernicious operations of demons nothing is stronger than the foolish credulity of witches, which is increased by pacts and vows; when this has preoccupied the mind, the more firmly they have put faith at once in the demons’ signs, the more swiftly, with those demons cooperating, they obtain the operation. For the excessively savage depravity of the witches’ will in a certain way transforms them into [unclear], and when the mind permits this, they serve those who are raving. Plato related something similar in the book On the Poetic, saying: just as bacchant women, with unsound mind, are not able to draw [unclear]. Their spirit, carried outside itself into the fellowship of an evil demon, brings this about.

We have ascertained that witches, in times of swollen rivers, have drawn out butter, which can in no way happen otherwise than by the ministry of a demon. In like manner, when they have been brought into hatred of some man or beast and desire his destruction, they are driven by the gravest fury, thinking of nothing in their mind except vengeance. They take things familiar to them, known for witchcraft; they invoke demons; they show the signs instituted by them, together with characters; what they cannot accomplish by their own power, they achieve by the ministry of those demons.

But another person, who is not subjected to demons by a pact of surrender, even if he knows the things suitable for witchcraft and likewise the manner of working, although he displays the signs, rarely obtains the effect, because he is not counted among the familiars of the demons. For the devil is so lifted up with pride that he emulates the Church of Christ: just as one who has not been ordained cannot consecrate the body of Christ, however much he may utter the words of consecration, so also the demon, however much signs or characters are shown to him by one who invokes him, if he does not know that person to be subject to himself by pact, either never or rarely cooperates. For if he came everywhere to all who invoked him, without pacts having been interposed, he would not possess so many witches dedicated to him by right of ownership.

Hence it is that many who are given over to profane arts, laboring with dreadful conjurations to summon demons to a circle, to a mirror, or to any other receptacles, obtain no effect, because either the command of God stands in the way, or the devil despises the curious man not dedicated 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 depraved in will; also the cooperation of a familiar devil; [unclear].

To Maximilian Caesar

[unclear]: and, before all else, divine permission. But if one of these does not concur, the evil deed cannot be perpetrated. For if God did not permit it, neither the devil nor the witch could do anything. And if the devil did not meet the wicked woman’s will, she would perpetrate no evil deed. Again, if the witch is lacking, the devil will in no way consummate the evil deed. For the devil uses the will of the raving witch, like a craftsman using an instrument for working, without which he cannot inflict the evil deed. And just as demons differ from one another in power and in keenness of subtlety, so the power of witches is not one and the same in all, but is diverse in each individual, according as demons of a subtler or grosser nature concur with them. For there are many kinds of demons, and they are separated from one another by fixed degrees, 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 wanders about the upper air and is never cast down to the lower regions before the day of judgment, but, remaining continually beneath the lunar regions, has no intercourse on earth with human beings. That it remains beneath the moon, Saint Augustine bears witness in the work On the Christian Combat, saying thus: demons do not dwell in 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 confirmed that in burning furnaces certain small animals, furnished with little wings, have rather often been seen flying about; they spend their whole life in fire, since they are born with fire and are extinguished with it, and, vanishing, return to the place from which they had come. They have no associations with witches, because, since they dwell in fire, on account of their subtlety they cannot put on a gross or aerial body.

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions

The second kind is called aerial, which, wandering in the air, dwells near us. Indeed they can descend to the lower regions and, having assumed bodies from the thicker air, sometimes appear visibly to human beings. With God permitting, they quite often disturb the air, stir up thunder and storms; all together they conspire for the destruction of the human race. They are moved, in the manner of human beings, by the affections of the passions; they are touched especially by pride and envy and by continual disturbances. They are not clothed with a solid body, nor do they remain in one place, nor do they all have one form, but many, and they change these rather often according to the variety of the affections by which, either summoned by the incantations of witches, they come to meet them, or, driven by disturbance, they move to do harm. For they have an altogether violent, frenzied character, full of disturbances; hence, when greatly agitated by evil-working, they very often devise sudden ambushes. While making their attacks, they partly wish to lie hidden, partly they inflict violence. Witches, supported by the cooperation of these demons, are so much the more powerful for evil-working, the higher in that order the one who assists them is whom they have obtained. In the life of Saint Anthony, Saint Athanasius said that the air is full of demons, which Mercury, thrice-greatest, had said before: namely, that no part of the world is devoid of the presence of demons. The holy prelate Ambrose also says: the world is full of holy powers, because it is full of wickednesses. Hence the Platonists [say that] demons flying in the air in the manner of a very dense

To Maximilian Caesar.

[unclear] of fiery snow have been handed down as visible to those who desire them, if for some time, while the sun is shining, they have continued their gazes toward the sky with eyes not struck back; but I do not know whether the object is produced in the air from a real consistency, or whether the interrupted motion of the eyes represents false images, not without harm to the sense. Yet I have made a slight experiment of the things mentioned above.

The third kind, however, we call terrestrial demons, whom we do not at all doubt to have fallen from heaven to earth for 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 lay snares for hunters. Others live in open fields, and make travelers wander at night; some abide in hidden places and caves; the rest, less furious and disturbed than the others, delight to dwell with human beings in darkness. They are not led by one disposition but by a varied one, since some are less depraved than others, although all are full of evil disturbances. Of these, some rejoice in terrifying human beings by illusions alone; others desire, by predictions of future events, to draw their hearers into admiration of themselves. Some, however, labor with the greatest effort to this end: that they may terrify, harm, or kill people disturbed by irrational madness or raging with melancholy, which we have recognized by experience to have happened rather often. Hence Saint John Chrysostom, in the third book On Providence to the monk Stagirius, says: “More powerful than every diabolical action for doing no harm is the greatness of sorrow, because the demon overcomes whomever he overcomes through sorrow; if you take this away, no one will be able to be harmed by a demon.” This kind of demons, however, is rarely familiar to witches, because of the inconstancy and lightness of its affections, whereby they rejoice in terrifying many rather than in being subject to the command of one little woman. Yet they sometimes dwell with, or make promises to, mad women, in glass or in crystal or in a mirror; and when stirred up by incantations they give replies to women, and if someone who is to come has cursed them on the road, they announce it beforehand. And this kind of witches differs in some respects greatly from the rest, since what the former make sick by witchcraft, these promise to cure. But because for the most part they repel witchcraft by witchcraft, access to them is forbidden by the Church to every Christian.

The fourth kind of demons is called aquatic, since, immersing itself in liquids, it dwells about lakes and rivers, full of anger, disturbed, restless, and deceitful. In the sea it stirs up storms, 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 more rarely seen in the male, because they live in damp places and follow a softer course of life; nor can they easily assume a base form by the custom of the others. Hence antiquity long ago named the Naiads and Nereids, nymphs of the waters, not in the male but in the female sex. By our people, however, they are called by the common term aquatic women, that is, Wasser Frawen. Those, however, who dwell in drier and rather arid places, whenever they appear bodily visible to human beings, transform themselves into men.

To Maximilian Caesar.

[unclear] they also assume forms of beasts, according as they are touched by various emotions. But the holy angels, since they are never altered by emotion, always appear uniformly in male form. For nowhere do we read it written that a good spirit was seen in the form of a woman or of any beast whatsoever, but always in male appearance. Yet demons have often been seen around rivers and springs in the appearance of women, sometimes dancing, sometimes letting down their hair in the manner of women, and sometimes indeed speaking with human beings and practicing various deceptions. And this kind of demon is not accustomed to have dealings with witches.

The fifth kind is called subterranean, because it dwells in caves and caverns and in the remote hollows of mountains. And these demons are the worst in disposition, and they especially attack those who dig wells and mines and who seek treasures hidden in the earth, being most ready for the destruction of the human race. They make chasms in the earth, and [unclear] flame-spewing winds; suddenly they vanish at a sign and return to their hiding places. At times the sound of little bells is heard among them, and they sometimes falsely claim that they are spirits of men deceased from life. They seek nothing more than the fear and wonder of human beings. Hence we have found by experience that they sometimes led certain of the simpler sort of men into their mountain hiding places.

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

They led them, showing astonishing spectacles to those who marveled, and they falsely claim to be friends of the living, as if the dwellings of the blessed were there. Among these demons also some are incubones of treasures which the avarice of mortals has hidden in the earth; and lest they come again into the use of men, they withdraw them, steal them, guard them, and sometimes transport them from place to place. And this kind of demon is not accustomed to have any dealings with female witches.

The sixth kind of demons is called light-fleeing, because they especially dread and detest the light, since they never appear by day, nor can they assume a body in any way except by night. This is the business that walks about in darkness, an unsearchable and utterly dark kind of demon, agitated by cold passions; malicious, restless, and disturbed, which violently presses upon people it meets in the hours of night, and more often, God permitting, kills certain persons either by breath or by touch. This kind is not suited to witches, nor can it be driven by incantations, because it flees light and the voices of human beings, and at the same time every disturbance of the air. It is especially accustomed to attend upon the witchcraft of women, since it is more subtle than all the rest and of the most audacious rashness. Some of the terrestrial demons also, as has been said, serve witches, who nevertheless, being held in a lower rank, are by no means able to bring about those greater acts of witchcraft. It is therefore plainly evident that the whole power of witches, by which they do such wondrous things, is granted to demons under limitation by the Lord God; and when he does not permit it, they accomplish nothing.

On Per-

To Maxim. Caesar.

65

On Divine Permission

Seventh Question

The seventh question of Your Most Serene Majesty was this: why almighty God, since he is just and the avenger of evils, permits such great misdeeds to be done to the destruction of the human race, by which not only sinners but also many innocent persons perish, grievously tortured.

To this question, when I was formerly placed before your majesty, I remember that I answered as follows. Almighty God, just, upright, kindly, merciful, whatever he permits, permits justly, because he is just; there is no iniquity with him, but in true judgment he either does or permits all things that are done. Therefore, when it is asked why God permits evils to be done, we answer: he permits them because he is just.

Let not the answer we have given seem absurd to Your Majesty, O Caesar, since it in no way prejudices the divine goodness that he permits evils to be done for a most just reason; rather, it would prejudice it if he did not permit evils to be done in the present world. For indeed, if he did not permit evils to be done, then man could not sin; he would certainly be impeccable, which does not befit his nature, to which from the beginning the creator of all things gave free will. For since man is a creature and not the creator, he is necessarily as capable of being turned to good as to evil; his being depends upon the supreme maker of all creatures, just as every caused thing depends upon the cause of its being. But to create has been left to God alone, who is incorruptible and eternal; everything corruptible necessarily fails, but 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 nature, should be created impeccable; naturally this is enjoyed by God alone, the maker of all things, who is immutable and eternal.

But whenever it is granted to man that he seems unable to sin, neither is the freedom of will taken away, nor is the possibility simply removed, but the will is confirmed in good. And whenever this gift is conferred on a creature, it is a gift of grace, not of nature. For Scripture says: God created man from the beginning; he left him in the hand of his own counsel. For, properly speaking, it cannot be that mortal man, conceived in original displeasure, should have free will and yet be unable to commit sin. For most holy Augustine says: the first freedom of the will was to be able to sin; the last freedom in glory will be much more [unclear], he would not have dominion over his own will. Therefore, although almighty God does not will sin, he nevertheless justly permits men to sin and to do evil, so that, while freedom of will remains, 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 men to sin and to do evil, to whom from the beginning he granted freedom of will. But there are many reasons long since assigned by the holy doctors why the Almighty permits such great crimes to be done through the cooperation of demons; of these we shall briefly make mention in order as necessary.

The first is so that the excellence of the divine power may be manifested, since he alone is immutable above every [unclear].

[unclear]

To Maximilian Caesar

[unclear]. But every mutable creature has no comparison with the immutable Creator. Hence in Numbers it is read: God is not like a man, that he should lie, nor like a son of man, that he should be changed. In Isaiah too it is said: God is faithful, without iniquity, just and upright. In the book of Tobit also it is written: Just are you, O Lord; all your judgments are true; 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 openly recognizes how he is nothing when compared with his Creator. For God justly permits man to sin, so that, since the freedom of choice is preserved, the excellence of the great God may become known to men.

The second reason is that the inscrutable wisdom of God may become known to mortals, which 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 he did not permit evil to be done, which of us would understand the good? For the good of God orders; but evils he does not do, but, when they have been done by the impious, he himself disposes them so that they may not come about in disorder. Nor does the malice of men hinder the will of God, nor can man do anything which God does not permit.

The third cause is that the Almighty permits wicked deeds to be done in order to manifest his most merciful goodness toward those who have sinned and have done penance, which he could in no way show if he did not permit the creature to sin. For if there were no sinner, neither could God be merciful; but since in many things we all offend, everywhere God finds something to forgive, everywhere a guilty person presents himself, in whom the pious Creator may show his mercy. Hence the holy bishop Augustine: If the disease were slight, the physician would be despised and would not be sought; if the physician were not sought, the disease would not be ended. Therefore where sin abounded, grace also abounded, which alone distinguishes the redeemed from the lost, whom the mass of perdition, drawn from the origin of creation, gathers together into one. Therefore the mercy of the Lord is over all his works.

The fourth reason of divine permission is that the justice of the Creator may be declared against those who have sinned and have not done penance, since if all did good and no one sinned, the justice of God 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 will.

The fifth reason is the dignity of the human condition, because if God did not permit man to sin, he would seem worse than the beasts, which, with no violence impelling them, freely use the motions of nature. For even if brute animals lack reason, nevertheless they have the free motion of nature, which they follow; in comparison with them man would seem of an inferior condition if he did not have the free choice of the 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, since we praise a just man for this reason: that, although he could have transgressed, he did not transgress, but, with the grace of God helping him, remained in the constancy of a good will.

The seventh reason why Almighty God permits [unclear].

To Emperor Maximilian.

[unclear] demons to perform such great evil deeds through the intervention of witches, is so that those who, having despised the truth, delight in falsehood may, seduced by the devil, the inventor of falsehood, be utterly deceived. For it is fitting that enchanters and witches, who disdain to follow the saving teachings of Christ, deceived by demons, should all be plunged down to hell to be punished forever: they seek help from demons, the enemies of the whole human race, and they despise the Savior of the world, whom alone they ought to have worshiped. For it is just that he who, abandoning the truth of his own free will, clings to falsehood should be cast headlong by the devil into destruction.

The eighth cause is the manifestation of divine power, whose mighty virtue is above every creature. Indeed, when almighty God sometimes permits the devil great things and denies him certain small things, he makes manifest how weak the enemy of the human race is, subject in all things to the divine majesty. For the devil can do nothing of himself, but everything that he does, he does by God’s permission. Therefore the first cause of all, on account of which almighty God has permitted acts of witchcraft to be done, is justice, by which he preserves in inviolable order the freedom that he once bestowed upon the creature from the beginning. But since the power of every creature dependent on its creator is restricted and limited, it is clear that neither can the devil do everything he wills, nor can man, however depraved in will. The will indeed is free, but power is limited by certain necessary degrees. For if demons could do everything they wish, nothing among human affairs would remain safe, but they would overthrow everything. The bound power of demons, however, the history of holy Job clearly demonstrates by example:

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions

Satan did not dare to tempt him 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 they could always use a free power to harm according to their own judgment. Before the Lord’s passion, however, they used a greater freedom of power than afterward. But when Christ tasted death for us on the altar of the cross, their power was thereafter greatly diminished, 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 restrained the audacity of demons, so that they can rightly be called instigators of evils, but by no means drivers. Nor would the Devil prevail against us unless he received strength from our sins. Hence Scripture admonishes us, saying: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you”; again, “Do not give place to the devil.” Therefore, in concluding the discourse for the understanding of the proposed question, why God permits so many acts of witchcraft to be done, I believe the reasons have been sufficiently made clear. For although the will of demons is always wicked, nevertheless their power can never be unjust, since what they wickedly will they have from their own choice, but what they can do wickedly they have only from God. And these things have been said as far as concerns those who do evil.

But why does almighty God permit demons to injure, through the agency of witches, human beings 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 injure only the evil, the perverse, and unbelievers in body and in possessions, but were restrained from approach to, and injury of, the good [unclear]

[unclear] of silver [unclear] effected [unclear] concerning the innocent [unclear] when [unclear] of earthly things [unclear] is changed, [unclear] thus he permits [unclear].

Of this [unclear] ancient [unclear] I shall be able [unclear] confirmation [unclear]. And first [unclear] of [unclear] demons [unclear] than not [unclear] is brought together [unclear] and difficult [unclear] [unclear] is, but [unclear] Didicius [unclear] both in school [unclear] in passing [unclear] danger beyond [unclear] for God [unclear] made [unclear] with rough mind [unclear] they approach [unclear] against God [unclear] intemperately [unclear] indeed [unclear] to [unclear] against [unclear]. Malatius [unclear] thinking

To Maximilian Caesar.

...of [unclear] and of the faithful, the judgment of permission would rightly seem to be just. But now, more often, the good and innocent are weakened by the harmful arts of demons, and sometimes are even deprived of life, to pass over in silence the loss of temporal goods which those bewitched often suffer. It troubles many why the Almighty permits these things, he who permits nothing unjustly.

For this proposed question, I shall set forth in order, as briefly as I can, the necessary reasons, no other than those I have received from the ancient and Catholic doctors.

And the first reason is the testing of the faith of Christians and the experience of their integrity: that, scourged by the harmful arts of demons, they may learn, in the sufferings of the flesh, what faith and love toward God they possess in the hidden place of the mind. In prosperity it is not difficult to be long-suffering; but in adversity, to await help from the savior of the faithful with humble patience 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, who before, in tranquillity, had preserved piety without the dart of temptation. Hence it must also be noted that those whom the harmful arts of demons or men have in any way made ill, who, in order to recover health, either approach or consult any sorcerers and enchanters, whether by themselves or through others, act against the precepts of God and of the Church, and have neither true faith in God nor love, seeking health not from Christ but from the devil and his minister. For they prefer to live healthy, but unhappily, in the name of the devil, rather than to suffer a little here for the love of Christ and afterward to rejoice with him forever.

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

But he who does not approach sorcerers on these grounds, 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, most sacred Caesar, men corrupt in mind and reprobate concerning the faith are not to be tolerated: those who cure the bewitched by harmful arts, who reveal thefts and adulteries by the ministry of demons, who foretell future things by inspection of stones or mirrors. Do not hear them, I pray, who, ignorant of divine law, would wish ministers of demons of this sort to exist under your command, because they know how to undo spells by spells; for such pernicious treatment of bodies brings about the death of souls, and makes men withdraw from God, the creator of all things, and adhere to impious apostate demons, with whom after death they will be damned forever.

Secondly, the reason why almighty God permits the innocent to be injured by witchcraft is the increase of merits, namely that their patience, proved in tribulation, may deserve a worthier crown of glory in heaven. For, as holy Augustine says: man is unknown to himself, as to what he can bear and what he cannot; sometimes he thought he could not bear what nevertheless he can. When temptation comes, as if some interrogator, a man is found by himself, who before, lying hidden, did not know himself. The divine chief apostle Peter, before temptation came upon him, was hidden both from himself and from others, how inconsiderate and weak he was; he received it, and the weakness that lay hidden appeared. Therefore temptation is the greatest testing of man, as sacred Scripture bears witness,

To Emperor Maximilian.

The furnace tests the potter’s vessels, and the temptation of tribulation tests righteous men. Patience is easy in prosperity, when no adversity strikes the mind. But many are the tribulations of the righteous, and from all these our Lord Jesus Christ will deliver them.

The third reason for divine permission is the guarding of humility, so that the faithful and righteous man may always fear God and never presume upon his own strength or righteousness. Hence Scripture says of the reprobate: “They are not in the labor of men, and with men they shall not be scourged.” Therefore pride held them; they were covered with their iniquity and impiety; their iniquity comes forth as though from fat. It belongs to God’s mercy that he sometimes permits good and righteous men to be shaken by adversities, whom he knows cannot be humbled in prosperity. For tribulation has made many humble whom favorable circumstances would have made proud. Finally, the fearful imagining of evildoers makes the good man fear his God and diligently invoke his help, strengthened by which he may trust that he is safe against the assaults of demons. But let no proud man, presuming on his own powers, think himself safe from the harmful arts of demons, since the man whom, swollen with pride, God’s protection abandons, without doubt lies open to the harmful arts of demons.

The fourth reason is that there may be a distinction between the good and the wicked. For Scripture says of good men, beloved by God, in the Acts of the Apostles, that through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God. And Saint Paul, lover of Christ, says in a certain epistle: “All who wish to live piously in Christ will suffer persecution.” The most wise King Solomon also says in Proverbs: “The Lord corrects the one whom he loves, and as a father in the son [unclear].”

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

he is pleased with him. It is a matter too glorious for a Christian patiently to endure adversities for the love of God, whether they are brought on by wicked men or by demons. For power is given to the devil and his ministers to harm good and righteous men, not for their confusion, as the petitioners suppose, but rather for the greatest and sure consolation of the soul. Indeed, when a righteous man lives well, harms no one, offends no one, does injury to no one, loves, fears, and venerates his God with his whole heart, keeping his commandments with all care, and nevertheless is troubled by evildoers, whether in body or in possessions or in both, that man is truly blessed, because when he has been tested he will receive the crown of life, which God promised to those who love him. Everyone who lives rightly in the unity of the Catholic faith of Christians and patiently endures the evils he receives in this world for the love of God has a sure sign that he has persevered in the grace of God to be saved. On the contrary, we read this written of the wicked and reprobate: “Why do the impious live, exalted and strengthened by riches? Their houses are secure and at peace, and the rod of God is not upon them; they pass their days in good things, and in a moment descend to hell.” For it is a manifest sign of damnation if here you live wickedly in sins and vices, opposed to God, and prospered in the goods of fortune and the health of the body.

The fifth reason why the Almighty permits good and righteous men to be troubled by the wicked and reprobate is for the complete purification of the mind. For, as Scripture says, there is no righteous man on earth who does good and does not sin; but since God lets no sin pass unpunished, through mercy he ordains temporal punishments for righteous men for their offenses, but through justice eternal punishments for the impious and reprobate.

To Emperor Maximilian.

[unclear]. Therefore, out of mercy, he changes for the penitent eternal punishment into temporal punishment, which they must necessarily suffer either in this world or after death in purgatory. But because the torments of purgatory are dreadful and most grievous, merciful God is accustomed to purge in this life, in various ways, the penitents whom he loves, through the hardships of diverse tribulations in body and in possessions. For the malice of the impious benefits good and just men as a remedy, but for those who inflict it, it leads to damnation.

The sixth reason is that a man bewitched through the assaults of demons may be called back to repentance and may set in his heart 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 neglect to do penance, the avenger of evils comes to us when we do not expect it; we sinners who have disdained to acknowledge him by repenting in tranquillity shall at last acknowledge him, late, 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, if they do not keep my commandments, I shall visit their iniquities with a rod and their sins with scourges; but my mercy I shall not scatter from them, nor shall I do harm in my truth.

The seventh reason why almighty God permits the witchcrafts of demons to prevail against good and innocent persons is so that an excessively licentious occasion for sinning may be cut off from them. For there are many poor, sick, good, devout, humble persons pleasing to God, whom poverty and bodily illness preserve in the love of God, and who, if they were rich and raised to honors, would quickly fall away from the purpose of holiness into the abyss of vices. It is not beneficial 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; sometimes through demons, sometimes through evil men, sometimes in diverse other ways and by other means, he takes away from such persons riches and honors, which he foreknew they would use badly, so that they may keep humility in poverty and abasement, which they would certainly not have preserved if placed in wealth and exaltation. He also often permits them to fall into many great illnesses, for whom glad health of the flesh would have brought the greatest sickness of mind.

Finally, he permits certain persons to be driven to death by witchcraft, so that the license for sinning may be cut off from them, which they would have abused had they been allowed to remain longer in life. Hence Scripture says of the just man: He was snatched away, lest malice change his understanding, or deceit deceive his soul.

The eighth reason for divine permission is so that men may venerate the sacraments of the Church, which have great power against all witchcrafts of malignant spirits. For one who venerates with due honor the sacraments and rites of the Catholic Church is rarely harmed by the witchcrafts of demons. And especially the hearing of witches and the use of things blessed by the Church greatly weaken the powers of demons. For they are not blessed in the Church of God in vain, but so that they may be feared by demons as signs that display the protection of divine defense. But concerning infant children

To Maximilian Caesar.

As for infants who, reborn in Christ, are sometimes killed by the evil arts of demons or of men, we do not doubt that divine providence permits this to happen for their salvation, since it knows how to order all things for the better for mortals. Yet it often happens that infants perish by evil arts because of the sins of their parents.

On the Providence of God. Question Eight.

This was the eighth question of Your Serenity: whether it can be proved by natural reason, as also by the holy Scriptures, that God has care for human affairs and actions, and a certain and infallible providence over all and each of those things which are done in the world.

I remember that I answered this question as follows. The whole world, heaven and earth and all things that are in them, are subject to divine providence, by whose will and command they were brought forth into being from the beginning. For there is nothing in the whole universe that is not governed by the providence of the Creator. Let us prove this opinion first, indeed, from the Scriptures, and afterward by arguments, as briefly as may be allowed. In the book of Judith we read: “All your ways are peaceful, and you have placed all judgments in your providence.” And in Ecclesiastes the most wise King Solomon speaks thus: “Do not give your mouth so as to cause your soul to sin, nor say before the angel, ‘There is no providence,’ lest perhaps the Lord, angered against your words, scatter all the works of your hands.” The clearest testimonies to providence are confirmed in the holy Gospel, when our Savior says to his disciples: “Are not two sparrows sold for an as, and one of them does not fall upon the earth before God?” A great commendation of divine providence, which has care not only for men, but also for tiny birds. Indeed, if the Almighty cares for such small things, who would not believe that he has care for great things? “Look,” he says, “at the birds of heaven, which neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and your heavenly Father feeds them.” And a little later he adds, saying: “If God so clothes the grass of the field, which is today and tomorrow is cast into the oven, how much more you, of little faith?”

Almighty God, because he created all things and brought them forth into being when they did not exist, rules and governs the universe, lest it slip away and flow into dissolution. This could in no way happen if he did not have providence and care for all things. For if providence is removed, it is necessary that the ordered continuity of the whole universe be thrown into confusion. But the providence of the Creator cares for all things, since he who feeds the birds and gives their food to the beasts of burden, and fills every living creature with blessing, and clothes the grass of the fields, adorning violets and lilies with beautiful comeliness, cannot forget man, whom he created from the beginning in his own image. He cares for all things, who governs all things; and he bears providence not only for man, but also for all beasts of burden, in whose dominion all things are placed, and there is no one who can resist his will in anything.

Let us now, therefore, consider this immense structure of the whole universe, how in its original arrangement and motion it always persists, ordered in the highest degree, and how that divine and unchangeable providence, unless we stray shamefully in mind, preserves, directs, and governs these things by the clearest reason [unclear].

To Maximilian Caesar 79

[unclear] we shall understand: Then let us contemplate all earthly things, how in the most orderly fashion each and every thing is born and proceeds in its natural disposition; this cannot happen by chance, but they must be moved by the will of him by whose power they were made and created. Next, indeed, the earth placed in the middle of the world, like a point or center that unfolds the circle, equally distant from the whole universe: nothing more beautiful, nothing more adorned, nothing, finally, more delightful to the sense could have offered itself for contemplation.

In this point of an immense mass, enclosed wondrously by that very mass, we see all things ordered, and that nothing can be left unordered, so that we may know for certain that all things which at times seem to us somehow to drift are subject to order: by the simple and wholly unchangeable nod, the whole structure of the entire universe, assembled from so many diverse and movable things, conspires and is governed in the most orderly way. Certainly we see, in those things that present themselves to our sense, that the greater the intelligence and power that arises with time in any governor, the less can anything unordered happen there by chance. Since, therefore, that supreme intellect, creator of all things, preserver and ruler, almighty God, rules and governs the world by his unchangeable providence, holding all things under his command, surely no place is ever left to rash chance, which might hinder the will of so great a majesty.

Therefore the whole of what is anywhere, or can be, is comprehended under the command of one divine mind, whose infallible judgment nothing can escape. To us, however, unexpected events occur, because we are changeable and are changed almost daily, having no determinate knowledge of future things.

John Trithemius, Eight Questions 80

But that best maker of all things, God, since he is altogether unchangeable, knows all things, beholds all things, understands all things together and at once: his providence is not deceived; his will is never varied; his power is not broken; his ordering is not violated; his counsel is never intercepted, even if at times his sentence seems to be changed. Hence, if we attend carefully, we plainly understand that the ends of things and of motions will declare that all these lower things are made, preserved, disposed, and moved by divine providence; from its command nothing at all is alien.

For God himself, ruler of all things, understands both all things and individual things, not dispersed into many things after our manner, but abiding in himself as one indivisible thing; by gazing upon himself as the exemplar of the whole universe and the cause of causes, and through causes beholding the cause of all things, he cares for all things by beholding them, and provides for individual things, directing them to a good end by an eternal order. Come now, most wise Caesar, so that we may understand divine providence, governing all things, let us use reasons, as briefly as we can, for a more attentive [unclear]. And so, if God's action is his own proper intelligence, which no wise man fails to admit, as at once most eminent and most inward, as much as he acts, just so much does he understand, and conversely. But he acts in individual things, not only in great things but also in the smallest. Therefore he understands individual things. Indeed, from the first Being, through individual things that are beings in whatever way, following in fixed orders, there is the most ample influence; and those things which act after him are everywhere moved and act by his power.

Either, therefore, God understands or acts nothing outside himself, which is false; or, by acting, he also understands all things and individual things.

To Emperor Maximilian.

also understands those same things, which is true. For nothing would ever come to be unless first, to speak in our customary way, it were understood by God himself, who makes these things, just as things are not made by the sun which are not looked upon by it. But because the Almighty understands each and every thing that he makes, there is no doubt that he disposes, rules, and orders all things that he has made; from him things have not only that they exist, but also that they are certain causes of other things. And so, if things have from God that they are causes, from him also they have received the proper office of a cause, that is, according to their powers to preserve and care for what they have made. Therefore, if all causes have this property from the first cause, insofar as they are certain causes, rightly does that first cause naturally have this goodness and providence, so that it cares for all things, each thing that it has made, insofar as it is especially the cause of all and each of them. Indeed, unless these are guarded individually by him who makes them, the common things which are preserved in individuals will never be guarded. For the whole, which consists of parts, will not be preserved if the parts themselves are neglected. Therefore from the intention of the first and greatest common intelligence proceeds the universal distinction of things. But it is distinguished of itself from others, and distinguishes the rest among themselves by the rule of its knowledge. Hence, just as God knows each and every thing most distinctly, so he most distinctly rules, moderates, and cares for them. Therefore, most clement Emperor Maximilian, I think it is clear and sufficiently shown that the providence of God, the supreme ruler, embraces, disposes, rules, and moderates all lower things, each and every one; otherwise, without the provident disposition of one who watches over them, they would in no way continue this most beautiful order which we perceive. Nor does it escape me how variously the wise men of this world once held opinions about providence.

The Eight Questions of Johannes Trithemius.

Of these, some thought that this world was made not by providence but by chance. If their opinion were true, no place would be left for providence, but all things would necessarily drift uncertainly, since the world could perish by the same chance by which it was made.

Against their false opinion others taught that the world could neither have been made without reason, nor certainly stand unless it were ruled by the highest providence of its maker. Hence Boethius, a most Christian man, said: “O you who govern the world by eternal reason, begetter of earth and heaven, who command time to proceed from eternity, and, remaining unmoved, grant that all things be moved.” And again he said: “The generation of all things and the whole progress of mutable natures, and whatever is moved in any way, receive their causes, order, and forms from the stability of the divine mind.”

Others, however, thought that God cared only for incorruptible things, such as heavenly things, separated substances, and likewise the species of things, but that he did not know all the rest and utterly neglected them. But these men erred shamefully, since the Almighty has providence and care not only for incorruptible universals, but also for corruptible particulars. Hence holy Boethius again says: “Meanwhile the high creator sits, and ruling all things bends the reins: king, lord, source, origin, law, wise arbiter of justice. This is the common love of all things, and they seek to be held by the end of the good, because they cannot otherwise endure, unless, by love turned back again, they flow back to the cause that gave them being.”

Others, however, unable to bear that they themselves would be neglected, exempted man, because of the preeminence of his intellect, from the number of corruptible things, saying that God has care and providence for human beings, but the rest of earthly

To Maximilian Caesar.

to despise all earthly things. Against their false opinion I think enough has been said, and to bring forward many more things would be wholly superfluous. For Scripture says: “Men and beasts you will save, O Lord.” And in another place a certain wise man said: “The Lord made the small and the great, and he has care equally for all.” Therefore the providence of the divine majesty orders, rules, disposes, and cares for all and each of the lower things, great and small, corruptible and incorruptible; its most powerful will produces all things from nothing, as sacred Scripture again declares: “But your providence, Father, governs all things from the beginning.” Therefore let men corrupted in mind, impious and reprobate concerning the Christian faith, blush: men who, puffed up with vain talkativeness, take away the providence of him who knows all things, and do not consider how great an injury they do to God. For what, to use the judgment of Firmianus, is so worthy and so proper to almighty God as providence? But if he foresees nothing, if he neglects lower things, if he does not care for mortal things, he has already lost all dignity. But it is impossible, as holy Anselm attests, for God to lose his honor, since, as the Peripatetic says, in eternal things there is no evil, nor corruption, nor sin. Therefore he who removes providence removes the whole substance of God; and what does he say except that God does not exist?

But now let those who deny that God’s providence cares for lower things tell me. If God neglects lower things, let them consider what necessarily follows. If God knowingly neglects and despises us, there is thereafter no reason why we should pursue him with worship or venerate him with religious devotion as a benefactor; indeed rather, being neglected and despised, let us ourselves neglect him too. But if, not knowing, he despises and neglects us, there is now utterly no reason why we should worship one who does not know us and for that reason is unable to confer any good, or invoke him with prayers.

Johannes Trithemius, Eight Questions.

For if God does not care for human affairs, whether knowingly or unknowingly, every cause of piety ceases, since there is no hope of salvation. What consideration of piety can there be among mortals, what hope of the salvation of souls, if God does not care for human affairs? Indeed, if providence is removed, whom do we worship, whom do we adore? If there is no providence for mortals with God, certainly he neither bestows benefits on human beings nor imposes punishments on deserters, nor can or will he help mortals, nor does he care at all, nor notice what we do, and he hears neither the entreaties nor the prayers of anyone. But why do we offer him any worship, why honor, why prayers, or why do we so greatly fear or dread a God who does not know us, who, with us neglected and despised, can do us neither good nor ill? For with providence removed, neither holiness nor religion will remain; and when these have been extinguished, the greatest disturbance of life and a dreadful confusion will follow. With piety toward God removed, what will the commonwealth then be, except everlasting confusion? Public trust among human beings will necessarily perish, and the fellowship of the human race, and all justice will vanish and perish at once. What is to be thought of the Christian faith, if God does not care for human affairs? What, finally, of the Savior of all, our Lord Jesus Christ, except that the whole will be regarded as an empty fable and a fiction, if there is no providence of God caring for mortal things? Surely whatever good we do in this life, whatever evil we endure for the love of God, is wholly vain and useless to us, if he has no care for us at all.

Let those now see and shudder who [unclear] the providence of God

[unclear] of God, when they behold as the end of their opinion the worst despair of all. Therefore let no one, led by the vain talk of secular philosophers, train himself to contempt of God; let no one take away the providence of the supreme and unchangeable good; let no one corrupt the dignity of the creator of all things. For all who deny divine providence show themselves both unworthy of, and ungrateful for, the benefits of the most merciful Savior.

For it must be firmly believed, and in no way doubted, that this whole world, both visible and invisible, and all and each of the things that are either in heaven or on earth and in the sea, are ruled and governed by divine providence, and that absolutely nothing in the whole universe is foreign to his care. For the crops and all the other things that the earth brings forth, and also the storms and the variations of times and the changes of the sky, by which all things that the earth naturally produces grow to maturity, divine providence supplies to the human race; and it provides for all things and each thing, not only the great, but even the very least, to such a degree that not even the slightest leaf of a tree falls to the ground without the will of almighty God the Father, who created it and rules and cares for it. But if anyone thinks that this so great magnitude of the whole universe cannot be ruled and governed by the one God, who alone exists, he is greatly deceived, and is shown not to know how great is the power of divine might. For indeed, he who was able to bring the whole world from nothing into being can also govern forever, most wisely, what he made. For he knows all things, understands all things, can do all things, who alone, omnipotent, created all things.

We therefore, believing the holy Gospel, should above all venerate divine providence, and should also lift up our minds, with whatever strength we can, from those things that are perishable; and, brought back to ourselves, we should be united, so that we may faithfully understand the majesty of God, present everywhere. Since it is altogether uncircumscribable, it holds all things, fills all things, embraces all things, surpasses all things, and sustains all things. Yet it does not sustain on one side and surpass on another, nor fill on one side and encompass on another; rather, by encompassing it fills, and by filling it encompasses; by sustaining it surpasses, and by surpassing it sustains all things. He is nowhere through the bulk of a body, nowhere absent through his uncircumscribable substance; he is not seen by the eyes of flesh, but is seen through faith in purity of heart. O inexplicable power, O incomprehensible loving-kindness, O ineffable wisdom, O uncircumscribable divinity, which does not consist of parts like a body, is not separated by affections like a soul, does not underlie forms like all other things that were made through you, who are in all things, above all things, ruling and governing the universe most wisely.

By these testimonies, therefore, most sacred Caesar Maximilian, it has been sufficiently proved, as I think, that this whole world is governed by the providence of God. Since he is pure intellect, simple, uncreated, and everlasting, he knows all things, understands all things, foreknows all things; and since he is of an omnipotent nature, being all-powerful, he can do all things. Nothing is difficult for him, nothing impossible; he created such wondrous things by his power, established them in truth, perfected them by reason, sustains them by virtue, illumines them by goodness. To him be praise, to him honor, to him glory, who lives and reigns, God glorious and exalted, forever and ever. Amen.

The Author’s Protestation to the Emperor.

These are the things, most unconquered Caesar Maximilian, that seemed to me necessary to say in response to the eight questions proposed by your majesty. For you wished to have my judgment too, in writing, concerning them, making an estimate of me beyond the truth; for I am not to be compared in talent with those whose opinion you heard before me. Let pardon make me worthy, if I have said anything less appropriate, because, a traveler set upon the road, at the command of your loftiness, I dictated, as I could, at intervals, whatever occurred to me that should be answered. But I say from my heart and openly declare that I, a sincere confessor of the Christian faith, wish to remain in union with the most holy Roman Church until death. Therefore, if anything should be held to have been said or written, either in these or in other matters, otherwise than that Church holds, thinks, believes, and teaches, as a true son of obedience I declare by the attestation of the present writing, and I simply wish it to be

to be and to be regarded as forever revoked. Therefore, most wise Caesar, I humbly ask and urgently admonish your Majesty that, before you cause my replies to come to the knowledge of those for whom they are destined and kept, you have them approved by the judgment of many. For the greatest care must be taken that nothing be set before those for whose salvation your Serenity keeps watch, unless it is sound, tested, clear, and lawfully confirmed by the opinion of very many wise men in the Catholic faith. May almighty God by his providence direct and preserve you always, to the praise of his name, Maximilian, greatest of emperors. From the city of Neumarkt, on the tenth day of the month of July, in the Christian year one thousand five hundred and eight.

Johannes Trithemius, Abbot.

[Source illegible — OCR-damaged or non-textual material; the source page image is the authoritative witness.]