Although earlier I set Trismegistus’s authority aside, I could now produce his weapons drawn, like an Italian; but I love no skirmishing, and Truth is so splendid that she needs no feather. [New translation of the Latin:] “What is above,” said Hermes, “is like what is below, and

what is below is like what is above.” This is his mystery, and it is great. The benefit attending its acquisition is no less: [New translation of the Latin:] “You shall possess the glory of the whole world.” [Vaughan’s English:] All the world’s pomp and splendour shall be yours. Isias’s speech echoes this language so closely that, like Euphorbus and Pythagoras, these two might pass for one.

[New translation of the Latin:] Heaven above, he said, heaven below; Stars above, stars below; All that is above, all this below.

Then follows a reward for the understanding: [New translation of the Latin:] “Grasp these things and be fortunate.” [Vaughan’s English:] Understand this, and you are fortunate; you have made yourself very happy. This suffices to prove that magic once flourished in Egypt. No doubt they received its truth from the Hebrews, who lived among them for 430 years. This is plain, for their own native learning was mere sorcery and witchcraft, as Moses testifies when he says their magicians performed miracles through enchantments. Why, I ask, should this instruction seem impossible? Joseph married Asenath, daughter of Potipherah, priest of On; some Egyptian priests, probably his own relatives by marriage,

may for that very relationship have received a better doctrine from him. This is not all I could say about this nation and its secret learning, were I disposed to be its Mercury. I believe no one claiming knowledge of antiquity or philosophy can have failed to see that famous monument Paul III gave his cardinal Petrus Bembus, ever since called the Bembine Table. Undoubtedly its hieroglyphs, if all reduced to letters, would make a volume as ample as it was mysterious. But I do not intend to comment on Memphis: that would mean making bricks and finding the straw as well, for Egypt has no complete table except the world, across which its monuments are scattered. This place, then, was the pitcher to the fountain, receiving its mysteries directly from the Hebrews. But its doctrine, like its Nile, swelled beyond its private channel and eventually overran the universe. In his excellent discourse On the Mysteries, the divine Iamblichus tells us that Pythagoras and Plato received all their learning [New translation of the Latin:] “from Mercury’s pillars”; [Vaughan’s English:] from Trismegistus’s pillars or hieroglyphic monuments. But ancient Orpheus, speaking of God in his poem On the Sacred Word, has these words:

[New translation of the Latin:] No one has seen him, except a certain man Sprung from Chaldaean blood.

[Vaughan’s English:] No one has ever seen God except a certain man descended from Chaldaean blood. This was Moses, of whom it is written that he spoke with God face to face, as one person speaks with another. Afterwards Orpheus gives us a short account or description of the deity, considered through the brooding of his Spirit upon Nature, rather than in his hidden, abstract being. Lastly, he tells us his doctrine’s origin, and truly derives it from the fountainhead.

[New translation of the Latin:] The ancient seers taught us all these things, Which God once handed them on two tablets.

[Vaughan’s English:] The priests or prophets of the ancient fathers taught us all these things, which God formerly delivered to them on two tablets. Thanks be to the God who made a pagan speak so plainly. I need not tell you to whom these tablets were delivered; Cavallero de Epistola can inform you. I cited this passage to show that, although Greek philosophy generally came from Egypt, some Greeks were taught by the Jews, as proved by

testimonies of no small weight. Aristobulus, himself a Jew living in the Maccabees’ days, writes to Ptolemy Philometor, king of Egypt, affirming that the Pentateuch—the five books of Moses—was translated into Greek before Alexander the Great and reached Pythagoras and Plato. Indeed, Numenius the Pythagorean calls Plato [New translation of the Latin:] “Moses speaking in the Attic language”; [Vaughan’s English:] Moses speaking in the Greek dialect. By this he means agreement of principles, not similarity of style. Clearchus the Peripatetic tells a story in the first book of On Sleep; how true it is I do not know, but its substance is this. He presents his master Aristotle describing a meeting with a most venerable, learned Jew. They discussed natural and divine matters at length; Aristotle’s particular confession is that the Jew greatly corrected his opinion of the deity. This may perhaps have happened, but certainly after he wrote the Organon and his other lame discourses, hobbling on logic’s crutch. Ask which Greek ever professed magical principles, and I answer that, excepting Aristotle and his assistant masters—born like insects [New translation of the Latin:] “from putrefaction”; [Vaughan’s English:] from their master’s corruptions—Greece produced

no philosopher who was not magical in some position. If anyone challenges me to demonstrate this, I now promise to do so. For particular examples: Hippocrates was entirely chymical, as I could prove from his own words, though I do not have his works with me now. Democritus, his contemporary, wrote [New translation of the Greek:] Things Natural and Mystical; [Vaughan’s English:] “physical and mystical things”: plainly, natural secrets. Synesius shed his commentary’s light upon this mystical work, dedicating it to Dioscorus, priest of Serapis. In his letters Seneca reports that this Democritus knew a secret cooking of pebbles by which he turned them into emeralds. Theophrastus, a very ancient Greek author, mentions in On Stones another mineral work of his own in which he had written about metals. That discourse is lost; nevertheless his opinion remains on record: he derived metals’ origin from water. His own words confirm this: [New translation of the Greek:] “What is mined is from water, such as silver and gold”. I find them cited in Pico’s book On Gold. That transmutation’s art was sought in his day, and was no recent invention or imposture as some suppose, appears from the attempts and

practice of that age, reported by the same Theophrastus. He mentions Callias, an Athenian, who, attempting to make gold, turned his materials into cinnabar. Recounting everything Greece supplies for my present purpose would be endless labour. I shall close it all in this short summary. No wisdom exists in Nature except what proceeded from God. He made Nature; he first devised and then ordained the very ways and methods of corruption and generation. He communicated some measure of this wisdom and knowledge to the first human being, whose children received it from him and taught it to their descendants. The Jews, possessing the spiritual birthright, inherited this mystery and possessed it entirely: they were the anointed nation upon whom God had poured his Spirit. Through Jewish tradition the Egyptians were instructed; from them these secrets descended to the Greeks. From the Greeks, as we all know, the Romans received their learning and, among other common arts, this magical, mysterious one. Certain proper, genuine effects and monuments confirm this: namely, the flexible, malleable glass produced in

Tiberius’s days, and the miraculous Olybian lamp. But these times I now inhabit and those through which I have passed resemble a tempestuous day, having more clouds than light. I shall therefore enter Christendom, where I shall find the art in infancy. Its cradle is admittedly held in a few private hands; few know where, and many believe it does not exist. The schoolmen make a mighty noise and condemn everything except their own profession. It is Aristotle’s auction: they expose his errors for sale, and this continues a long time. Yet everything, as the Spaniard says, has its “when.” Many years pass; now the child begins to lisp and peers abroad in Arnold’s and Lull’s fustian. I need not tell you how it has since thrived: simply look at its following. Who today does not claim magic, and with such mastery, as though the art’s delights were in his power? I know no dissenters except certain sickly Galenists, whose pale, tallow faces speak more disease than medicine. They complain that their lives are too short and philosophy too tedious, filling their mouths with “art is long, life is short.” “True,” says the Spanish rogue, “for they cure either late or never, making