Diotimos Reading Desk

Tap the page, move to the top or bottom edge, swipe down, or press Tab to reveal reading controls. Use the arrow keys or swipe sideways to turn pages.

← ExitMagia Adamica

Reading language

The Defence of Magic

Magia Adamica, or The Antiquity of Magic, and so forth.

Coelum Terrae (Heaven of Earth), and so forth.

For me to profess magic in this discourse, and defend its practitioners as well, is impiety to many, but religion to me. It is a conviction I have learned from authors greater than myself, and from Scriptures greater than either. Magic is simply the Creator’s wisdom revealed and planted in the creature. As Agrippa says, its name is [New translation of the Latin:] “not unwelcome to the Gospel itself”; [Vaughan’s own English rendering:] “not distasteful to the very Gospel itself.” Magicians were the first attendants our Saviour encountered in this world, and the only philosophers

who acknowledged him in the flesh before he himself disclosed it. I find God communicating with them as he formerly did with the patriarchs. He directs their travels with a star, as he directed the Israelites with a pillar of fire; he warns them of future dangers in their dreams, so that, having first seen his Son, they might next see his salvation. This makes me believe they were [New translations of the Latin terms:] “sons of the prophets” as well as “sons of the art”: men acquainted with the very mysteries through which the prophets had acted before them. To reconcile this science and its masters with the world is an undertaking more plausible than possible: prejudice is so great that neither reason nor authority can outweigh it. If I were to persuade a Jew of my principles, I could do it in two words: [New translation of the Hebrew:] “The sages have said.” [Vaughan’s own English rendering:] “The Hachamim, or wise men, have said it.” Give him the authority of his fathers and he immediately submits to its seal. Truly our first Galileans—I mean those Christians whose lamps burned close to the Cross and burial—were most concise in their initiations. In those days a convert was confirmed with a simple [New translation of the Greek:] “Believe”—[Vaughan’s own English rendering:] “Believe”—and nothing more. Indeed, the solemn force of this brief introduction was such that Julian made it the theme of his apostasy: [New translation of the Greek:] “Nothing beyond ‘Believe.’” [Vaughan’s own English rendering:] “You have

nothing more than your creed, he said, on which to establish your religion.” Such was the simplicity of those first times: [New translation of the Latin:] “while Christ’s blood was still warm”; [Vaughan’s own explanation:] while his wounds were still before their eyes and his blood warm at their hearts. But alas, those holy drops are frozen. Our salvation has been transferred from the Cross to the rack, and dismembered in Aristotle’s Inquisition-house. Do not be angry, Peripatetic: what else should I call your schools, where Scripture is so earnestly murdered, for and against, by different sects and factions? Resentment, first bred and then promoted by disputes, has minced one truth into a thousand heretical fancies through its damnable divisions and distinctions. Yet the breach goes unconsidered: theology remains mere chaff unless sifted by the engine, unless it performs on the hobby-horse of demonstration. Thus zeal poisoned with logic breathes out contentious fevers, and faith, abandoning her wings and telescope, leans on the reed of a syllogism. I still cannot conceive how reason can judge principles [New translation of the Latin:] “whose truth depends solely on the authority of the one who reveals them”; [Vaughan’s own explanation:] whose certainty depends wholly on God, and consequently cannot be demonstrated without the Spirit of God. But even if I granted what I shall always deny, true faith consists not in reason

but in love. For I receive my principles and, having received them, believe them [New translation of the Latin:] “solely through love for the one who reveals them”; [Vaughan’s own English rendering:] only out of my affection for him who reveals them.

Thus our Saviour wished the Jews to believe him first for his own sake, and, when that failed, for his works’ sake. But some theologians believe only for Aristotle’s sake: if logic makes a tenet probable, it becomes creed; otherwise it is the Koran. Nevertheless Aristotle himself, who first peddled this merchandise and might take precedence over Ignatius for sophistry in his own conclave, has left us this concession: [New translation of the Greek:] “Opinion and reasoning, for example, admit falsehood.” [Vaughan’s own English rendering:] “Reason is subject to error as well as opinion.” Philoponus, explaining these words of his—[Original marginal note:] “That is, we say that not only science, but also its principle, is something through which we understand the terms”; [New translation of the Latin:] “We say that there is something, not only knowledge but also a principle of knowledge, by which we recognise the terms”—makes this excellent Christian observation: [New translation of the Greek:] “Taking intellect as the principle of knowledge—not our own, but the divine intellect above us—and the terms as intelligible and divine forms.” [Vaughan’s own English rendering:] “Taking the mind as the principle or first cause of knowledge, not our own mind but God’s, which is above us; and taking the terms as intellectual and divine forms.” Thus, according to Aristotle—if you trust the commentator—the divine mind is the first cause of knowledge. For if this mind unfolds itself and sheds its light upon us, we

shall apprehend the intellectual forms or patterns of all things within it. He very properly calls these forms [New translation of the Greek:] “terms” because they determine or bound all things. Through them the creature is defined and receives its individuation—or, in Scotus’s language, its haecceity—by which it is this and not that. This is the demonstration we should seek: the expansion or opening of the divine mind, rather than a syllogism that perhaps goes on all fours. Once admitted to this communion of light, we shall be able, with the Apostle, to give a reason for our faith; never without it. Now understand that God does not unfold himself [New translation of the Latin:] “unless the great heaven has first been opened”; [Vaughan’s own English explanation:] unless the heaven of man has first been unfolded. [New translation of the Latin:] “Therefore remove the veil from your understanding.” [Original marginal citation: C. Agrippa.] [Vaughan’s own English rendering:] “Cast off the veil before your faces, and you shall no longer be blind.” God is no distant God, but a God close at hand. “Behold,” he says, “I stand at the door and knock.” Open yourselves, then, for it is written: “If anyone opens, I will come in and sup with him.” This is the inward mystical supper, rather than the outward figurative supper; and this is spiritual baptism with fire, rather than elemental baptism with water. Truly two things greatly comfort me. First, magic supplied the earliest professors of Christianity,

43.The two headings, Magia Adamica and Coelum Terrae, both appear on printed page 1. They introduce the two subjects announced by the volume’s title. The second is retained here as printed; the appended discourse itself begins later, within printed page 78.

44.Vaughan defines magic as wisdom revealed in creation, then appeals to the Magi of Matthew 2. The English word magicians makes his intended connection visible; it does not identify the visitors with every later practice called magic.

45.The phrase attributed to Agrippa is followed in the original by Vaughan’s own English explanation. Both are represented here: a new rendering of the Latin and the modernised historical rendering.

46.Hachamim means sages or wise men. Vaughan’s appeal to Jewish ancestral authority belongs to his Christian account of transmission; his generalisation about what will persuade a Jewish reader should be read as his polemical claim.

47.“Believe” renders the Greek imperative pisteuson. The phrase attributed to Julian contrasts this demand with argument. Vaughan reports the saying as part of his defence of the earliest Christian faith; the edition does not independently authenticate Julian’s exact words.

48.The guiding star, warning dream and pillar of fire draw on Matthew 2 and Exodus 13. “Sons of the prophets” and “sons of the art” connect biblical discipleship with philosophical initiation.

49.Peripatetic designates an adherent of Aristotle. The rack, Inquisition-house, engine and hobby-horse form an extended attack on argumentative theology; they should not be mistaken for a literal account of activities in every school.

50.Calentures are fevers. Perspective here means an optical viewing instrument: the image gives faith both wings and a means of distant sight before it is reduced to leaning on a fragile logical reed.

51.The Latin turns on love directed towards the revealer. Vaughan gives the person revealing a truth priority over the formal demonstration of its content. His position in this passage is stated in his own voice, rather than supplied as an editorial account of all faith.

52.The reference to Ignatius and a conclave probably alludes to the satirical world of John Donne’s Ignatius His Conclave, in which religious controversy is projected into hell. For the early printed work see the Folger catalogue: https://catalog.folger.edu/record/409459 . The identification of an allusion remains interpretive.

53.Vaughan explicitly makes his claim about Aristotle depend on a commentator. The move from logical “terms” to divine intellectual forms belongs to the interpretation he attributes to Philoponus; it should not silently become a neutral paraphrase of Aristotle.

54.The English words printed in the margin before the Latin quotation are part of the historical text. They are retained as an original marginal note, alongside the new Latin translation and Vaughan’s subsequent rendering of the Greek.

55.Haecceity is “thisness”: the distinguishing principle by which a thing is this individual. Vaughan himself connects the term with Scotus. Its role here is to explain individuation through forms.

56.The syllogism on all fours is a mocking image of faulty reasoning, contrasting with the opening of the divine mind. The paragraph’s scriptural allusions include giving a reason for hope in 1 Peter 3:15, God near at hand in Jeremiah 23:23 and the door and supper of Revelation 3:20.

57.The source credits C. Agrippa in the margin. The modern reading keeps that attribution visible without making it a claim that the edition has traced every surrounding proposition to a separately verified Agrippa passage.