gods”—a name communicated to them because they had power to perform wonders. In this magical sense the true God speaks to Moses: “See, I have made you a god to Pharaoh, and your brother Aaron shall be your prophet.” It was this true knowledge and the title belonging to it that the false serpent offered our first parents: [New translation of the Latin:] “You shall be like gods.” [Vaughan’s English:] “You shall be as gods, knowing good and evil.” But it is not that subtle dragon, but the good serpent—the good, crucified serpent—who can give us both this knowledge and title. For “all things were made by him; and without him nothing was made that has been made.” If he made them, he can also teach us how they were made. I must now turn to Moses, who at his first acquaintance with God saw many transmutations: one in his own flesh, another in the rod in his hand, and a third promised and later accomplished upon water. It is written that he was skilled in all the Egyptians’ learning. I very much question what kind of learning that was, however, since Scripture, through Moses’s own pen, assures me that their wonders were accomplished by enchantments. Their learning was certainly ancient: I find magicians in Egypt more than four hundred and thirty years before Jannes and Jambres. This is

confirmed by Pharaoh’s dream, which his own sorcerers and wizards could not interpret, while Joseph alone explained it. It cannot be denied that some branches of this art, although extremely corrupted, were spread among all nations by tradition from the first human being. More than one testimony shows this. In Canaan, before Israel possessed it, Debir, conquered by Othniel son of Kenaz, was a university, or at least possessed a famous library; hence the Jews called it Kiriath-sepharim. Here I might speak of religion’s universality, for no people ever lacked some confused notion of a deity, however accompanied by lamentable ceremonies and superstitions. Moreover, the religious of all nations have always claimed extraordinary powers, even miracles and the healing of every disease, through secret means unknown to ordinary people. Examine every religion, false or true: none fails to claim something mystical. Certainly, unless people are determined to oppose reason, they must grant that these deviations in matters of faith proceeded from the corruption of inherited principles, just as heretics are merely so many false interpreters.

Nevertheless, even in those errors some marks and imitations of the first truth remained. Hence all parties agree in the action, although not in its object. Israel sacrificed, for example, and the heathen sacrificed; but one to God, the other to an idol. Nor did they correspond only in certain religious rites and solemnities. The heathen also retained hints of the patriarchs’ secret learning and philosophy, as their false magic shows, consisting chiefly of astrological observations, images, charms and characters. But I intend to remain on the road rather than follow these deviations and misfortunes of the art. Still, they have argumentative weight, since the existence of things is proved by their miscarriages as well as their successes. To proceed: during the patriarchs’ pilgrimage, this knowledge was handed from father to child by tradition. It could hardly have been otherwise: what was Israel then but a private family? Yet when God appointed their possession, and this private household multiplied into a nation, the secrets remained with the tribes’ elders, as formerly with the father

of the family. These elders were undoubtedly the Mosaic seventy, forming the Sanhedrin. God selected some from the rest to be stewards and dispensers of his mysteries. I assume no one will resist the truth that Moses knew all Nature’s hidden operations and principles. Scripture plainly shows that the Sanhedrin shared his instruction and knowledge: we read that God took of the Spirit within Moses and gave it to the seventy.