is Zabulus reported to invent who was given to unlawfull Arts then Barnabas a certain Cyprian And now in these daies there are carried about books with feined titles under the names of Adam Abel Enoch Abraham Solomon also Paul Honorius Cyprianus Albertus Thomas Hierome and of a certain man of Yorke whose toyes Alphonsus King of Castile Rohert an Englishman Bacon and Apponus and many other men of deplored wit have foolishly followed Moreover they have not made Men onely and Saints and Patriarks and the Angels of God the Authours of such execrable opinions but they boast also that these books were delivered by Raziel and Raphael the angels of Adam and Tobias which books openly betray themselves to him that looks narrowly into them c. Peter in Glement deduces this art from the prevaricating Angels proving how they taught men that the Divels doe obey mortall men according to certaine arts and may be compelled thereunto that is by magicall invocations C ham the sonne of Noah delivered the ill found out discipline of Magick art to a certaine sonne of his called Misraim from whom is derived the race of the Aegyptians Babylonians and Persians him the Nations that then were called Zoroaster the first author of the admired magicall art His master in this vanity was Ayovax or Azovax c. Methodius writeth that in the 340 yeere of Jared there arose the inventors of the evil art men full of all wickedness of the sonnes of Cain as Iabeth and Tholuscoll the sonnes of Lamech who was blind in the time of whose dominion the divel perverted them to all kind of Magicall arts Zabulus and Zamolxis addicted to unlawfull arts first invented or rather propagated it so as that without doubt it might be determined for issuing from their father the Divel There followed their steps Almadal Alchiudus and Hipochus from the root of the Arabians Apuschierus Zaratus and Cobares among the Medes Marmaridius among the Babylonians Zarmocemdas among the Assyrians Abbaris among the Hyperboreant Thespetion among the Aethiopians Arunphis among the Aegyptians Julian among the Chaldaeans called the Thaurgists c. Besides the spurious fictitious and ascriptitious books of Adam Abel Enoch Abraham Moses Aaron Daniel Solomon Zacharias Paul c. St. Augustine oh horrour of blasphemy reports certaine foolish wretched Pagans affected themselves to magicall art to have boasted that they had seen and read books of Magicall art written by Christ himselfe and by an epistolary title directed to Peter and Paul affirming that by the arts therein contained he did all those miracles for which he was so famous But the Father bids shew those books they spake of and askes if they by them can learn to doe as he did and withall proves against them That Christ himselfe wrote no booke at all that he need not write to Peter because he was alwaies with him that he could not write to Paul because he was not called till after his passion and that he would not write of Magick because it was contrary to his doctrine and that even his enemies were thus convinc't how venerable and vertuous the name of Christ was in that they thought and sought to winne the waight of authority to such their execrable arts by commentitiously prefixing his most glorious name Cassandra desperately loved by Apollo and importunately solicited by him would not consent unlesse he would first bestow upon her the gift of Divination Which the credulous lover soon granted but she having already obtained her desire refused to stand to her promise for the satisfaction of his This the divining God could not foresee yet indigning to finde himselfe so deluded because he could not recall such his fatall gift he laid this curse upon it That whatsoever she vaticinated she should not be believed Let it be a curse to the predictors not to be believed surely it is a blessing to Christians not to believe them And believe them who list whose originall endowment was from a lust The first man that themselves confesse to have attained to the skill of a Prophet in Tharsus was a silly Shepheard having only so much wit as taught him to take advantage of the follies of his Countreymen Others say the first Prophet of this kind was found by chance in an old vault in Hetruria without knowledge either of his name his dwelling or the mean that conveyed him thither When began the motions of the Starres and accordingly the genethliacall way to be known was it not after Theatis the Aegyptian or else as some say after Atlas the prop and supporter of the heavens The Originall and foundation of Magicall and Astrologicall arts is yet more dubious and fabulous from the false opinions and impossible about the time of the worlds beginning and computation of the yeeres thereof Apuleius was of opinion that the world and men and arts therein were from eternity And being destroyed by flouds and conflagrations in some parts but not all were repaired but not created The Indians boasted of men living long before Adam and that they could name who was Adams father and master The Aegyptians fained that they had a story in letters comprehending thirteen thousand yeeres The Chaldaeans dotingly gloried that they had monuments of Astrology containing foure hundred and seventy thousand yeeres Plato accounts many thousands of ages to have been past since the existence of the world and induces an Aegyptian Priest talking with Solon and affirming that Athens of the Greekes and Sais of the Aegyptians were built one nine the other eight thousand yeeres before their time The Aegyptians fained that the Starres from their first originall had four times runne their courses and the Stars doe not once absolve their course but in 36000 yeeres and that the Sunne had twice set where it now rises and that their Kings to Ptolomy had raigned there above seventy thousand yeeres and that for more then an hundred thousand yeeres Aegypt had been skilfull in comprehending the way of the Starres The Indians bragd of their historicall monuments that from the time of Liber Pater to Alexander the great there were an hundred fifty and three Indian Kings through the space of six thousand foure hundred and two yeeres and three moneths The Chaldaeans from their first observation of the Starres to Alexanders time number foure hundred thousand yeeres Pliny reports from Eudoxus that Zoroaster lived six thousand yeeres before Platoes death Hernippus saith the same man was five thousand yeeres before the Trojane warre Betwixt Vulcan the sonne of Nilus the Aegyptian and Alexander of Macedon were they say forty eight thousand eight hundred sixty three yeeres in which time there hapned three hundred seventy three Defects or Ecclipses of the Sunne and eight hundred thirty two of the Moon The Aegyptians record in their annals above thirteen thousand ages of yeeres and three hundred and thirty Kings before Amesis Betwixt Osiris and Isis and Alexander of Macedon some reckon ten thousand others twenty three thousand yeers
and condemne himselfe for ever having to doe with it Origen is often cited by Magicians and Astrologers as if he were their own howbeit in his books and especially as Eusebius cites him he plainly and abundantly refutes them And therfore if he were more addicted to them it is certaine enough that he converted from them St. Gyprian sometimes addicted to the study of magick repented of it at his conversion And if that booke de duplici Martyrio be his we have there this his confession They that use Magicall arts have denied Christ and made a compact with the Divell from which evill the mercy of the Lord hath delivered us as it hath also from all the rest in which we were held while we sometimes walked according to the old man St. Augustine confessed that he was very much enclined to the study of Magick and Astrology but after his conversion he utterly abandoned and condemned it And to this purpose relates this story of himselfe A friend of his one Firminus and he walking together both of them being addicted to the constellationall way Firminus askes his opinion of his constellation about a secular businesse he had then in hand St. Augustine somewhat changed in his generall opinion of it told him that he conceived that way to be vaine and ridiculous Firminus insisted and told him a story from his father and his fathers friend two genethliacall Astrologers and so precise observatours as that they calculated the births of the very bruit beasts in their families And it so fell out that his mother bare him and the others mayd brought forth a sonne also in one day houre and minute as neere as could be guest But now these two so born alike proved to be of various and contrary both fortunes and manners in every respect Upon this relation of Firminus Augustine abhorred the falsity of natalitiall prognostications more and more and so resolved to cast it off without all scruple and not onely so but was instant to convince the other of this vanity from his own narration and thus to revoke him from it too As St. Augustine was preaching to the people there was presented before him in the Church a Mathematician Concerning whom he thus spake This man of race a Christian then relapsed is now returned a penitent and being terrified with the power of the Lord he is now againe received to the mercy of the Lord. Seduced he was by the enemy and long continued a Mathematician not onely seduced but seducing as wel deceiving as deceived Many lies hath he spoken against God who gave unto him a power to doe good not to doe evill saying It is not a mans will that makes him commit adultery but Venus nor yet to commit murder but Mars neither doth God make a man just but Iupiter And many other were his sacrilegious sayings How many Christians hath he gulled of their money How many have bought lying predictions of him at a deare rate But now as we believe of him he abhors this lying trade For having enticed others he now perceives himself to be the most ensnared by the devil And now penitent before God and men he is become a true convert For we perswade our selves it onely proceeds from the awfull feare of his heart Did we not rejoyce at that Mathematicians conversion who converted from a pagan although he seemed to doe it for some promotion in the Church But this penitent seeks for mercy onely and therefore is the rather to be commended both to your eyes and hearts Receive him and love him lest Satan again may tempt him Let your testimony and approbation confirm his conversion He was lost but now is found Long did he knock at the doores of the Church ere he was suffered to enter but he is now brought in and hath brought with him his bookes to be burnt by which himselfe might have burned unquenchably that they cast into the fire himselfe might enter into that everlasting refreshing We suffered him the longer to supplicate for the remedy from the schoole of Christ because the art wherein he hath been exercised is to be suspected not onely of falfity in it selfe but of fallacy in good And therefore we delayed him that he might not delude and tempt us But now we have admitted him that he might not be tempted again and deluded himselfe Pray ye therefore to Christ for him for the prayer of his Church is available against all impostures and impieties Iulian greatly corrupted with magicall superstition began a little through present horrour of conscience to look back again to Christianity and lay a while at the Church doores weeping and crying Tread upon me unsauoury Salt But Ecebolius a Magician hindred his true repentance and thorough conversion and brought him back again into that damnable superstition worse then at the first The same Ecebolius after Iulians death fayned the like repentance and is said to use the same words but to as little fruit The same Iulian having received his deaths wound roared and rayled at the Sunne which the Astrologers had made him believe was the auspicious dominator at his birth accusing it for shining so propitiously upon the Persians but not favouring him with any fortunate influence and so died impiously cursing God and the Stars but the Star-gazers and himselfe for adhering to them not undeservedly Wenceslaus sent for a wagon full of Conjurers to play tricks and make sport amongst the rest he called Zyto who comming in with a wide mouth cloven to both his eares swallowed up the chiefe Conjurer and voyds him again downward c. but was himselfe carried away by the divel which so moved Wenceslaus that he thence forwards seriously applied himselfe to the meditation of sacred things Pope Sylvester the second of a Monke became a Magician insinuated himselfe into the familiarity of a Necromanticall Saracene and stole from him a conjuring-Conjuring-book and studying or practising that art obtained by the divels meanes the Popedome Which dignity so soon as he had ascended he dissembled his black art under that holy vestment but kept a brazen head in a secret place from which he sought and received divining answers And enquiring of the divell how long he should live in the Papall dignity he answered aequivocatingly that he should live long if he came not at Hierusalem Now in the fourth yeere of his Pontificate as he was sacrificing in the Church of the holy Crosse in Hierusalem at Rome he was suddenly stricken with a grievous feaver and began to be convinced that thus the divell had deluded him and now he must die Whereupon he began to be penitent and confessing before the people deplored the wickednesse of his magicall errour Exhorting all men avoyding ambition and diabolicall deceits to live well and holily intreating them every one that after his death the trunke of his body torne and dismembred as it justly deserved might be laid upon a Cart and buried in that place whither the horses
friends there came one to the doore with a horse and made him come forth and get up and so carried him up into the ayre invisibly and he audibly crying out as he was carried up and down Another was seized on by the divell while he was presenting the praestigious pageantry of Hector and Achilles Another the divel came into his closet and left him there dead sitting in a chaire with his heart in his hand Pope Benedict the ninth strangled by the divel in a wood Iohn Faustus the divell entring his chamber with a terrible commotion was found dragd out of his bed and his face wrung quite behind him Bladad who not onely practised magicall arts but taught them to the Britaines in confirmation hereof would needs goe fly but fell headlong and was dasht in pieces against the Temple of Apollo in Troynovant Odo Bishop of Baia perished in prison Galeaceus caused a bold peremptory Astrologer to be hanged up Charles the seventh of France hang'd Aegidius the Marshall for his magicall exploits Simon the blind exorcist slain by his own wife possessed with a divell Stuphius taken by Radulph of Habspurge and burnt Methotin slain by the people and his body stak't Reatius killed by one whom he had deluded Hollerus slaine by his own aemulators Oddo drowned for all that he often sailed without a ship Ericus driven to hang himselfe Oluph desperately drowning himselfe Diodorus after all his prestigious evasions at length caught and burnt Iunctin an Italian prognosticating of himselfe as Astrologers rarely can be drawn to doe on the day he feared to be most dismall was knockt on the head by his books in his own study Peter of Pomfret executed for an imposterous traytor A Priest of Norimberge would needs goe conjure for treasure and digging found a hollow cave and therein spyed a chest and a black dogge lying by it which he was no sooner entred but the cave shut its mouth upon him and there he perished At Saltsburg a charmer undertook to enchant all the Serpents within a miles space which while he was effecting a great old serpent among the rest leapt upon him wrapt his taile about him and so drew him into the ditch and there he was drowned Gobrias that assisted Darius in freeing Persia from the Magicians cruell tyranny and execrable treachery a base massie Magician hard and close prest upon him so that one of his fellows durst not smite the villaine for feare of wounding his friend that had buckled with him But he bad not spare to use his sword though it were to the hazzard of himselfe which he rather chose to suffer then that such a miscreant should escape unavenged Alexander a pseudomantist as Lucian was preparing an accusation against him rotted lothsomely and so died miserably eaten up of worms Manes that magicall heretick or hereticall magician was in such favour with the King of Persia that he wrote all his portents for true miacles and his madnesse for divine fury His sonne falling sick he committed him to Manes his art for his cure Who confidently undertook it but faignedly performed it and therefore perceiving him to be worse and worse he fled into Mesopotamia Whence the King caused him to be fetcht back and flead off his skin alive and filled it with chaffe and gave his carcase to the dogs At the taking of Constantinople the Greeks superstitiously bewitched with a prophecy that a mighty enemy should be possessed of the greatest part of the City but should be defeated in the market-place called the Brazen Bull were both carelesse and dastardly in suffering the Turkes to make breaches upon the walls enter the City and arrive at the very place where they were cruelly slain themselves Bellantius the great Astrologer which is said to have given warning to Savanorola to beware of burning was neither able to foretell nor to prevent his own great perill in so plain a manner by the Stars but that he was most beastly murdered 35. Of the reformation of Magick and Astrology as well in Pagan States as Christian Churches with a Caveat in conclusion to English-men for to beware of Astrologicall Magicians or Magicall Astrologers as to redeem the old scandall and prevent the new calumny of their superstitious addiction to Soothsaying Prophecies and predictions NInus vanquished Zoroaster and in a contempt to his Magick and Astrology caused his books to be burnt Numa Pompilius and Dardanus would needs haâ—e their Magical books to be buried with them This might be their diabolicall envy or rather the divels own policy to have them thought and sought as things prizeable but it was indeed Gods providence to have them abolished as things detestable Hermogenes his books were burned by St. Iames the Apostle The Emperours Honorius and Theodosius ordained that such kind of books should be burned in the sight of the Bishops Athanasius speaks of whole volumes that were burnt even by the consent of the Arts greatest admirers Iodocus de Rosa his conjuring books were burnt by a common Councell Belike such a consumption hath alwaies been thought and found to be the best way of reformation and most conformable to that great example Acts 19.19 The Chaldaeans indigning the many oraculous and divining gods that were set up in severall countries and presuming to reform all to their own god Vr or Fire they proposed to divers Provinces that that God which prevailed to confound all the other should be accounted as the only God To this purpose they carry their Idol Fire in a Censer up and down with them and commit it to conflict with the other Idols of Gold Silver Wood Stone c. and it consumes them all The fame of the Chaldean Fire devouring all where it came coming to the eares of the Priest of Canopus an Aegyptian god in whose Temple was taught Magick by Aegyptian letters and not unlike Astrologie too or divining by the Stars since they have a Star also of that name this put him upon a crafty device to save the credit of his god He took a great earthen water pot full of holes and stopped them with Wax and filled it with water and painted it over and set it up instead of his God or rather this water pot was the belly of Canopus himselfe so fashioned In come the Chaldeans and as the two gods are put to the bickering the Wax melts and the water runs out and so the Fire is quenched and now is Canopus accounted for the victor After this comes Theophilus a Christian Priest to contest with him and he by the power and providence of God makes the very creature Fire to consume all in despight of all magicall force or fraud and so works the reformation The Alexandrians not well knowing how to prohibit the Astrologers directly did it subtilly They exacted a yeerly tribute not onely of the Astrologers but of all those that consulted them And this exaction they called 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 〈◊〉 the fooles tribute thinking that either
the charge or the shame of it would thus restrain if not reform it Augustus gathered up here and there all the fatidicall books he could and those that were spread abroad under none or no apt authors he caused them to be all burnt to the number of two thousand and onely retained the Sibylline books and them too with choice commanding that even they should not be lookt into by any others but the Quindecemvirs onely In the too long protraction of the second Punick warre their religion became so distracted by the turbulencies of the times that all sexes ages and degrees of people turned sacrificers and vaticinators Complaint hereof was brought to the Senate and they laid the blame on the inferior Magistrates for not inhibiting them At length the businesse was committed by the Senate to M. Aemilius the Vrbane Praetor who made proclamation that whosoever had any books of vaticination or written Orisons or arts of sacrificing letters c. that they should bring them all to him within such a day And thus he freed them from such confusions as were crept into their religion As they were plowing in the field of L. Petilius the Scribe certain books of Numa were there found in a chest of stone Which Q. Petilius the Vrbane Praetor hearing of sent for them and reading onely the summe or contents of them and observing that they tended to the utter dissolving of religion told L. Petilius that he intended to burn them The Scribe appealed to the Tribunes of the people they referred it to the Senate where it was decreed that the Pretor should keep his vow or resolution and so they were burned by the victimaries or sacrificers themselves in the sight of all the people It being related to the Fathers by Quintilian a Tribune of the people concerning a book of the Sybils which Caninius Gallus a Quindecemvir would have received among the rest of the prophecies Tiberius hereupon sent letters to the Senate severely checking at Caninius who being versed in the ceremonies would admit of an ode or a charm whose authour was uncertain which the masters had not read nor the Colledge approved putting the Fathers in mind of Augustus his edict to carry all such to the Vrbane Praetor and that the Sibylline verses belonged to the care of the Priests to discern which were true and which false And that they should especially acquaint the Quindecemvirs therewith and not transact any thing rashly in a cause of religion Under Valentinian one Hilarius a Car-man was brought before Apronius the praefect of the City because he had committed his sonne to a venefick necromancer or sorcerer to be brought up or traded in such arts as were interdicted by the laws and was therefore condemned Amantius an aruspick was solicited by Hymetius to sacrifice for depraved and maleficall intents which being proved by papers found in his house the consulter was banished and the practitioner condemned Lollianus a very young magician being accused that he had written a book of pernicious arts for feare that Maximinus would banish him appealed to Valentinian who more grievously punished him Palladius a veneficke and Heliodorus a genethliacke or one that interpreted fate by genitures were therefore accused before Modestus the praetorian praefect Palladius impeached Fidustius Praesidatis Irenaeus and Pergamius for their abhominable charms Fidustius confesses his vaticinating malefice and joyns with him Hilarius and Patricius Pergamius accuses many thousands as conscious of the same arts Hilarius and Patricius confesse the sortilegious fact with all the circumstances Wherefore all these and many other Philosophers are punished with fire and sword as Pasiphilus Diogenes Alypius Simonides and others And last of all that no mention might be found of these unlawfull arts innumerable books and volumes are all heaped together and burnt in the Judges sight Under Manuel Commenus one Araon was accused in that there was found in his house the image of a Tortoise and with in it the picture of a man chained and pierced through the breast and that he carried about him the old conjuring book that was called Solomons which while he read it legions of divels would appeare and ask him wherefore he called them and would quickly execute his commands Of which being convicted he had his eyes put out the usual punishment of those times Sicidites about the same time was impeached for casting prestigious mists before mens eyes and for sending out his devils to terrifie and torment men The same man sitting by the water side with some of his companions askt them what they would give him and he would make the Boatman that then passed by with a load of earthen vessels to break all his own wares with his own Oare Something they promised him and he muttered a few words and it came to passe accordingly The man being askt after that why he was so mad as to break his wares answered he thought he saw before him an ugly great Serpent ready to devoure him which still crept neerer to him the more he struck at it and when all his pots were broken in pieces then it vanished For this and other ridiculous pernicious tricks he was served as Araon was sc had his eyes put out an apt punishment for all peepers and Star-gazers In vain was all the Pagan reformation of Magick and Astrologie For they put the Artists or practitioner away with one hand and pull'd them to them with another witnesse the edicts of Augustus Tiberius Nero Vitellius Domitian c. and their own repealing acts and especially the Senate that banished Martha the Syrian prophetesse and yet a little after retained and imbraced Batabacus a predicting diviner The Historian therefore said wel and truly on both parts This kind of men treacherous to Potentates and delusive to all consulters and confiders are alwaies inhibited our City and yet alwaies retained in it I say no more of Imperiall edicts nor of those after the Emperours became Christian nor of provinciall Lawes nor of municipall Statutes nor of generall Councels nor of Ecclesiasticall Canons nor of Fathers sentences c. All these are sufficiently collected against them I onely conclude with an animadversion to our own Countreymen PLiny writing of Magick saith that in his daies the Art thereof was highly honoured by the Britaines and the people of that Nation so deeply devoted thereunto and the practises of it performed with such complements of all ceremonies that a man would think the Persians had learned all their magick skill from them And in truth our own histories report that the first Rulers of this Land were Magicians Astrologers Diviners such as were Samothes Magus Sarron Druis Bardus and that under a colour to teach men the knowledge of the Stars they brought men to the worship of the Stars Yea that they thus begat here their sects of Samotheans Magicians In so much as the Persians have been thought to have borrowed their word magi from hence Sarronides Druides Barditaes or
not plainly and plentifully discovered and acknowledged the vanity and impiety of Magick and Astrology And whether it be not an Argument irrefragable against an Art or operation whenas the Arch-Artists are so far convinc't as to confesse the pravity and obliquity thereof themselves For who can more truly and fully set them forth then they that have given themselves over to study and practise them How many things of old and of late have been spoken either through a spirit of recantation a conscience of conviction or a sury of exclamation by magicians against Magick and by Astrologers against Astrology Hear what one of them saith both against himself and all the rest of what kind or sort soever Whatsoever things have here already and shall afterward be said by me I would not have any one assent to them nor shal I my self any further then they shall be approved of by the unit versal Church and the Congregation of the faithful Magicians and those who were the authors of this Art amongst the Antients have been Chaldeans Aegyptians Assyrians Persians and Arabians all whose Religion was perverse and polluted idolatry We must very much take heed lest we should permit their errors to war against the grounds of the Catholike Religion For this was blasphemous and subject to the curse and I also should be a blasphemer if I should not admonish you of these things in this science Wheresoever therefore you shall find these things written by us know that these things are onely related out of other Authors and not put down by us for truth but for a probable conjecture which is allyed to truth and an instruction for imitation in those things that are true Of Magick I wrote whilst I was very young three large books which I called Of Occult Philosophie in which what was then through the curiosity of my youth erroneous I now being more advised am willing to have retracted by this Recantation For I have heretofore spent very much time and cost in these vanities At length I grew so wise as to understand how and by what reasons I was bound to dehort others from this destruction For whosoever do not in the truth nor in the power of God but in the delusions of Devils according to the operation of theevil spirits presume to divine and prophecy and by magical vanilies exorcisms inchantments love-potions allurements and other devilish works and deceits of Idolatry exorcising prestigious things and making ostentation of phantasms boasting themselves to work miracles presently vanishing all these with Jannes and Iambres and Simon Magus shall be destinated to the torments of eternal fire The antient Philosophers teach us to know the nature of the genius of every man by stars their influx and aspects which are potent in the nativity of any one but with instructions so diverse and differing amongst themselves that it is much disficult to understand the mysteries of the Heavens by their directions c. Cicers following the stoicks affirms that the foreknowing of future things belongs onely to the Gods And Ptolomie the Astrologer saith that they onely that are inspired with a deity foretel particular things To them Peter the Apostle consents saying Prophesying is not made according to the will of man but holy men spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost Take heed that you be not deceived by them that are deceived Neither can the great reading of books direct you here since they are but as riddles How great writings are there made of the irresistible power of magical Art of the Prodigious Images of Astrologers of the monstrous transmutations of Alchimists of the blessed stone by which Mydas-like all mettals that were touched were presently transmuted into Gold or Silver All which are found vain fictitious and false c. Whatsoever the monstrous Mathematicians the prodigious magicians the envious Alchymists and bewitching Necremancers can do by spirits See where their Faith is placed where their hope is reposed who endeavour to subject the Elements Heavens Fate Nature Providence God and all things to the command of one Magician and seek for the preservation of a kingdom from Devils the enemies of publike preservation Saying in their heart with Ochozias there is not a God in Israel let us go and consult Beelzebub the God of Achron c. Are they not delivered over to a reprobate sense who desire the certainty of secret counsels from the Devil the father of lies and hope for victory elsewhere then from the Lord of Hosts All these ungodly follies are wont to bring destruction to the admirers thereof to which truly they who especially confide are made the most unfortunate of all men Surely it is unknown to these Fools and Slaves of the Devil for to finde out things to come and to pronounce truth concerning those things which hang over our heads and are occult and from heaven portended unto men and to effect things which exceed the common course of Nature c. O Fools and wicked Who by these Arts would establish a kingdom by which formerly most potent Empires have fallen and have been utterly overthrown It is now time to speak of the Mathematical disciplines which are reputed to be the most certain of all other and yet they all consist not but in the opinions of their own Doctors to whom much faith is given who also have erred in them not a little Which Alhumasar one of them attests to us saying that the Antients even since Aristotles time have not plainly known the Mathematicks For seeing all these Arts are chiefly conversant about the spherical or round whether figure or number or motion they are forced at length to confesse that a perfect round or spherical is no where to be found neither according to Art nor according to Nature And these disciplines although they have caused heresies in the Church few or none yet as Augustine saith they nothing pertain to salvation but rather induce to errour and recall from God and as Hierome saith are not sciences of piety This Arithmetick vaine and superstitious hath brought forth Geomancy and divination and cogging dicing or chancing and whatsoever is of that sort of sortilegious numerals Although almost all doe adopt Geomancy to Astrologie because of the like judiciall way and because they draw the power thereof not so much from number as motion Of this there have written among the Antients Haly among the moderne Gerardus Cremonensis Bartholomeus Parmensis and one Tundinus I also have written a certaine Geomancy farre different from that of others and yet not lesse superstitions and fallacious or if you will let me say not lesse lying then all the rest Neither do I think that to be passed over which the Pythagoricks did assert and which others think that Aristotle himselfe believed sc that the elements of Letters doe possesse their certain numbers out of which they did divine by the proper names of men the numbers of the letters of every one being collected
of the world of nativities of questions of elections of intentions and cogitations of vertues or powers for the foretelling casting up eschuing or repelling the events of all things future even of the secret dispositions of divine providence it selfe Hereupon the Astrologers doe mart or vent the effects of the Heavens and the Stars from yeers most remote and before all memory of things or the times of Prometheus or as they say from the great conjunctions before the Flood And they affirm that the effects forces motions of all living creatures stones metals herbs and whatsoever things in these inferiours doe flow from these same Heavens and Starres and doe altogether depend upon them and may be searched out by them Verely these are incredulous men and not lesse impious in not acknowledging this one thing that God had already made the Herbs Plants and Trees even before the Heavens and Stars Moreover the most grave Philosophers as Pythagoras Democritus Bion Favorinus Panaetius Carneades Possidonius Timaeus Aristoteles Plato Plotinus Porphyrius Avicenna Averroes Hippocrates Galenus Alexander Aphrodisaeus Cicero Seneca Plutarch and many more who have searched the causes of things from every Art and Science yet never remit us to these Astrologicall causes which although they were causes yet because they plainly knew not the courses of the Stars and their forces which is a thing most known to all wise men they therefore cannot give a certain judgement of their effects Neither are there wanting among them as Eudoxus Archelaus Cassandrus Hoychilax Halicarnassaeus most skilfull Mathematicians and many other modern and most grave Authors which confesse that it is impossible that any thing certain should be found out concerning the science of such judgements both because of innumerable other causes cooperating together with the Heavens which must be attended together for so Ptolomy bids as also because very many occasions doe hinder them as namely customes manners education shame command place geniture blood meat liberty of mind and discipline seeing these influxes compell not as they say but incline Furthermore they who have prescribed the rules of judgements doe for the most part determine such diverse and repugnant things of the same matter that it is impossible for a prognosticator to pronounce any thing certaine from so many and so various and dissonant opinions unlesse there be in him some intrinsicall sense of things future and occult or some instinct of presage or rather occult and latent inspiration of the Devill by which among these he may be able to discerne or may be induced by some other way to adhere now to this now to that opinion which instinct whosoever wanteth he as Haly saith cannot be a Tel-troth in Astrologicall judgements Wherefore now Astrologicall prediction must consist not so much of Art as by a kind of obscure lot or chance of things And as in the books or games of Lottery sometimes such an one is drawn forth as speaks truth and hits right yet not by art but by chance so it is by chance and not by art that vaticinations come forth truely either from the mind or the mouth of an Astrologer To which Ptolomy attests saying the science of the Stars is from thee and from them meaning that the prediction of things future and occult is not so much from the observation of the Stars as from the affections of the mind Therefore is there no certainty of this Art but it is convertible to all things according to the opinion which is collected by conjectures or imagination or an imperceptible suggestion of Devils or some superstitious lot or chance This art therefore is no other then a fallacious conjecture of superstitious men who through the use of long time have made a science of uncertain things in which for the beguiling men of their money they may deceive the unskilfull and may also be deceived themselves And if the Art of these men be true and be understood by themselves whence then bubble out so many and so great errors in their prognostications But if it be not so doe they not vainly and foolishly and impiously to professe a science of things that are not or not understood But the more cautelous of them pronounce not upon futures save obscurely and such as may be applied to every thing and time and Prince and Nation Out of a versatile artifice doe they feyne ambiguous prognosticks and after that any of them shall happen then doe they gather the causes thereof and after the fact or effect then doe they establish old vaticinations with new reasons to the intent they may seem to have foreseen Just as the interpreters of dreames who when they have a dream understand nothing of it for certain but after that something is hapned unto them then doe they adopt the dream to that which hapned Furthermore seeing it is impossible in such a variety of Stars but to finde some of them well some of them ill posited hereupon they take occasion of speaking what they please and to whom they will they predict life health honours riches power victory soundnesse off-spring marriage Priesthood Magistracy and the like but if they be ill affected to any to them they denounce deaths hangings reproaches destructions banishments barrennesse desolation calamities c. not so much out of a wicked art as out of wicked affections drawing on to destruction those men that are credulous to these impious curiosities and oft times committing among themselves both Princes and people in deadly seditions and warres If that Fortune fall in with their prognosticks and among so many ambiguous things if that one or other of them happen to be true it is a wonder then to behold how they bristle being crest-swolne and how most insolently they predicate their own predictions But though they lie daily and be convinced of lying then they excuse it by blasphemy or cover one lie with another saying a wise man ruleth over the Stars when as in truth neither doth a wise man overrule the Stars nor the Stars a wise man but it is God that ruleth over them both or else they say that some ineptitude or incapacity of the receiver hindred the celestiall influxes And they are angry at them who require any further faith or proofe Notwithstanding these circulators finde Princes and Magistrates that believe them in all things and adorn them with publique stipends when as indeed there is no kind of men more pestilent to a Commonwealth then those that spread vaticinations and promise things future from the Stars and inspected Ghosts from dreams and such like artifices of divination Besides they are men alwaies offensive or abominable to Christ and to all that truly believe in him Of whom Cornelius Tacitus complaineth saying The Mathematicians for so they vulgarly named them are a kind of men trecherous to Princes and deceitfull to those that give credit to them they have alwaies been prohibited our City and yet we could never have them expelled thence Yea and
labour and keeping holy day on the Jewish Sabbath seeing it is Saturns day Also they think that the fidelity of every one towards men or towards God and profest Religion and secrets of Conscience may be deprehended from part of the Sun and from the third ninth and eleventh houses of heaven and they delivering many rules of foreknowing the thoughts and as they say the intentions of men And they set up the coelestial configurations as the causes of the very miraculous works of divine omnipotence as namely of the universal flood of the Law given by Moses and of the virgins child-birth and they fable that the death of Christ the Redeemer of man-kind was the work of Mars and that Christ himself in his miracles used the election of hours in which the Jews could not hurt him while he went up to Jerusalem and therefore he said to his Disciples diswading him are there not twelve hours of the day They say moreover that whosoever hath Mars happily placed in a new house of heaven he shall by his sole presence expel devils out of the possessed And he that shall make supplication to God the Moon and Jupiter with the Dragons head being conjoyned in the middle heaven shall obtain all things whatsoever he shall ask And further that the felicity of the life to come is bestowed by Jupiter and Saturn And that if any man in his geniture hath Saturn happily constituted in Leo his soul after this life being freed from innumerable miseries shall passe to heaven the first beginning of its original and be applyed to the Gods But for all this to these execrable fopperies and pernicious heresies Petrus Apponensis Roger Bacon Guido Bonatus Arnoldus de nova villa Philosophers and Alyanensis a Cardinal and a Theologue and divers other Doctors of a Christian name not without an infamy of heresie do subscribe yea and dare testifie and defend that they have experienced these for truth But Johannes Picus Mirandula of late yeers hath written against Astrologers in twelve Books and that in so great copiousnesse that scarce any argument hath escaped him as also with so great efficacy so that hitherto neither Lucius Balnutius an eager propugnator of Astrologie nor yet any other defender of this Art could save it from those reasons that Picus hath brought against it For he proveth by most strong arguments it to have been the invention not of men but of Devils Which self-same thing Firmianus saith by which they have endeavoured to abolish all Philosophie Medicine Laws and Religion to the utter extermination of man-kind For first it detracts from the faith of Religion it extenuates miracles it takes away providence while it teaches that all things come to passe by the force of constellations and that they doe depend by a fatal necessity upon the stars Moreover it patronizes vices excusing them as descending from heaven upon us It defiles and overthrows all good Arts especially Philosophie traducing causes from true reasons to fables and Medicine in like manner turning from natural and effectual remedies to vain observations and perverse superstitions destructive both to body and minde Further it utterly undoes Laws manners and whatsoever Arts of humane prudence while it would have Astrologie onely consulted at what time after what maner and by what means any thing is to be done as if it alone drawing its authority over all down from heaven did hold the scepter over life manners and all both publike and private matters and as if all other things were to be reputed vain that did not acknowledge it for patron Indeed an Art most worthy for devils to professe from the first to the deceit of man and dishonour of God Moreover the heresie of the Manichees wholly taking away all liberty of will flowed not elswhere then from the Astrologers false opinion and doctrine of Fate From the same fountain also sprung the heresie of Basilides who pronounced 365. heavens made of one another by succession and similitude and the oftension of these to be the number of the dayes of the yeer or the number of the days of the yeer to be the oftension of these assigning to every one of them certain principles and vertues and Angels and feigning names for them but the chief of them all is Abraxas which name according to the Greek letters containeth in it 365. which namely are the local positions of those heavens commentitiously divised by it These things are therefore shown that ye may know that Astrology is the begetter of hereticks Furthermore as all the most eminent Philosophers do explode this divinatory Astrologie so Moses Esaias Job Jeremias and all the other Prophets of the old Law do detest it And of the Catholike Doctors Augustin censures it as meet to be expelled Christian Religion Hierome disputes it to be a kinde of Idolatry Basil and Cyprian do deride it Chrysostome Eusebius and Lactantius do refute it Gregory Ambrose and Severianus inveigh against it the holy Toletane Councel forbids and damns it also it was anathematized in the Synod of Martin and by Gregory the younger and by Alexander the third Popes and was punished by the civil Laws of the Emperours Among the antient Romans under Tiberius Vitellius Dioclesian Constantine Gratian Valentinian and Theodosius the Emperours it was prohibited the City ejected and punished and by Justinian himself condemned capitally as is manifest in his Code This place admonishes me to speak of the other Arts of divination which yield vaticinations not so much by observation of the coelestials as of inferiour things having a certain shadow or imitation of the coelestials that they being understood ye may the better know this Astrological Tree from which do fall such fruit and from which as a Lernaean Hydra a beast of many heads is generated Amongst the arts therefore that are hasty to divine for their own gain Physiognomy Metoposcopy Chiromancy Aruspicy the Speculatory the Onirocritical which is the interpretation of dreams and the Oracles of the furious here challenge their seat Now all these artifices are of no solid doctrine neither do consist of any certain reasons but inquire of occult things either by fortuitous lot or agnition of spirit or certain appearing conjectures which are taken up from quotidian observations of long time For all these prodigious arts of divination are wont to defend themselves no other way but by the title of experience and to extricate themselves out of the bonds of objections so often as they teach or promise any thing above faith and beside reason Of all which it is thus commanded in the Law There shall not be found among you any one that maketh his son or his daughter to passe through the fire or that useth divination or an observer of times or an inchanter or a witch or a charmer or a consulter with familiar spirits or a wizzard or a Necromancer For all that do these things are an abomination unto the Lord. Physiognomy following from the
the Temple at Pasiphae that they might dreame The same was done in the Temple of Aesculapius from whom true dreames were thought to be sent forth And the Calabrians consulting Podalyrius the sonne of Aesculapius did sleep neere his Sepulchre in Lamb-skinnes for so doing they were told in their dreames whatsoeuer they desired to know There was formerly at Bura a town in Achaia an Oracle of Hercules constituted by a Chest board where he that went to consult of any thing after he had prayed cast foure Dice the cast of which the Prophet observing did finde written in the Chest-board what should come to passe There was once at Pharis a City of Achaia in the middle of the Market a statue of Mercury where he that went to receive omen did Frankincense being fumed and candles being lighted which was set before it and that Countrey Coyne being offered on the right hand of the statue whisper into the right care of the statue whatsoever he would demand and presently his eares being stopped with both his hands did make baste away from the Market-place which when he was past did presently his eares being opened observe the first voyce he did heare from any man for a certaine Oracle given unto him The Pythagorean Philosophers being taken with desire of Oracles divine praises being celebrated did wash themselves in a river as in a bathe and did put on white rayment and linnen c. In like manner the Brachmanni the wise men of the Indians were wont to wash themselves naked in a fountain which is called Dirce in Boeotia their heads being first annointed with amber drops and odors fit for that purpose then after they were according to custome sufficiently cleane they were to goe forth about noon cloathed in white linnen with a white attire having rings on their fingers and staves in their hands In like manner among the Gymnosophists it was a custom to wash themselves thrice a day and twice in the night in cold water before they entred into the holy place c. The Brachmani did admit none to their Colledge but those that were abstinent from wine from flesh and vices saying that none could understand God but they that emulate him by a divine conversation which also Phraortes in Philostratus taught the lower Indians The Priests of the Athenians who are called in Greek Hierophantae as Hierome reports that they might live the more chastly in their sacred employments and might follow their divine affaires without lust were wont to castrate themselves by drinking of Hemlock Zoroastes the father and Prince of the Magicians is said to attain to the knowledge of all naturall and divine things by the solitude of twenty yeeres when he wrote and did very strange things concerning all the art of divining and soothsaying The like things doe the writings of Orpheus to Musaeus declare him to have done in the desart of Thracia So we read that Epimenides of Crete because learned by a very long sleep for they say that he slept fifty yeeres id est to have laine hid so long Pythagoras also in like manner to have laine hid ten yeeres and Heraclitus and Democritus for the same cause were delighted with solitarinesse The Brachmanni of the Indians the Magicians of the Persians the Gymnosophists of the Aegyptians the Divines of the Greekes and Chaldeans which did excell in divine secrets did apply themselves to divine vowes and prayers and thereby did effect many wonderfull things Abbot Ioachim proceeded no other way in his prophecies but by formall numbers 4. Of the diabolicall originall and obscure and spurious Inventers Authors and Tutors to praestigious Magick and divining Astrologie THe Delphian Oracle was first invented by a Goat and that 's the reason why a Goat is there immolated by the consulters For a goat looking into a great chink or cleft of the earth began to insult with strange voyce and gesture which made the admiring shepheards peepe in too and so were corrupted with fury to prediction The fame of this made it to be adjudged an earthly oracle and so a Tripode was built over it for divination It was first ascribed to Tellus Tellus gave it to Thenus and Thenus to Apollo Tages the nephew of Iupiter the sonne of a Genius or a Divel yea an evill Genius or a Divel himselfe taught the Hetrurians the aruspicinall discipline or the art of divining For as a certaine Plowman was plowing in the Tarquinian field there suddenly starts up from under a clod this Tages in the forme of a little child and spake to the Plowman at which he astonished cried out whereupon in came all the Hetrurians and then he taught them this art or discipline for the space of six houres together and they wrote it from his mouth and so he died or disappeared Some say that this Tages was onely a base obscure fellow and that he grew famous on a sudden from the art of divining Sosipatra a prophetesse the wife of Aedesius the Sophister had two Daemons in the form of old men that taught her the secrets of Magick for the space of five yeeres together A strange old woman came to Tarquin the proud and offered him nine books to sale which she said were divine Oracles and asking him a huge price for them the King laught at her for making so monstrous a demand whereupon she burnt three of them before his face and still asked the same price for the rest at which the King laughed so much the more then burning other three and yet bating nothing of her former price the King conceived there might be some rare thing contained in them and bought the last three at the same rate and so the woman went out and was never seen after by any Now these books they kept as divinatory Oracles to be consulted as occasion served One hath a pretty Apologue to this effect A light giddy huswife Dame vanity stole into the bed of a wilde youth called Sir Curiosity and betwixt them both was begotten a many-faced Elfe called Magick and fearing lest the Lady Truth should cause it to be strangled as soon as it was born for a monster the two sureties of it or guardians Grandsire Impudence and Grandame Superstition having wrapt it up in the mantle of an old crone called Difficulty and her waiting puzzle named Jill Hard-trifle attending upon it they committed it to nurse to a prodigious Hagge that hight Praestigie she carried it up and down to the blind houses of Gaffer Ignorance and Gammer Folly in whose families it has lurkt ever since entertained onely by a fond Gossip called Credulity where it still keeps in like an Owle all the day time of Truth and Peace and never dares to peep abroad but in the twilight of Error and Distraction From the sect of the Grecians have proceeded all these books of Darknesse which Vlpianus the Lawyer calls books disallowed to be read and forthwith appointed them to be destroyed Of which sort the first