Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa
Born	14 September 1486(1486-09-14) Cologne, Germany
Died	18 February 1535 (aged 48) Grenoble, France
Cause of death	Unknown
Occupation	magician, occult writer, theologian, astrologer, alchemist, physician, legal expert and soldier

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (September 14, 1486 – February 18, 1535) was a German magician, occult writer, theologian, astrologer, and alchemist. Cologne (German: , IPA: ; local dialect: Kölle ) is Germanys fourth-largest city after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than... Grenoble (Franco-Provençal: Grenoblo) is a city and commune in south-east France situated at the foot of the Alps where the Drac joins the Isère River. ... The Sorceress by John William Waterhouse Magic, sometimes known as sorcery, is a conceptual system that asserts human ability to control the natural world (including events, objects, people, and physical phenomena) through mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. ... For other uses, see Occult (disambiguation). ... Theology finds its scholars pursuing the understanding of and providing reasoned discourse of religion, spirituality and God or the gods. ... Hand-coloured version of the anonymous Flammarion woodcut (1888). ... For other uses, see Alchemy (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Doctor. ... This article is about a military rank. ... The Sorceress by John William Waterhouse Magic, sometimes known as sorcery, is a conceptual system that asserts human ability to control the natural world (including events, objects, people, and physical phenomena) through mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. ... For other uses, see Occult (disambiguation). ... Theology finds its scholars pursuing the understanding of and providing reasoned discourse of religion, spirituality and God or the gods. ... Hand-coloured version of the anonymous Flammarion woodcut (1888). ... For other uses, see Alchemy (disambiguation). ...

Life

Agrippa was born in Cologne in 1486. In 1512, he taught at the University of Dole in France, lecturing on Johann Reuchlin's De verbo mirifico; as a result, Agrippa was denounced, behind his back, as a "Judaizing heretic." Agrippa's vitriolic response many months later did not endear him to the University. Cologne (German: , IPA: ; local dialect: Kölle ) is Germanys fourth-largest city after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than... Johann Reuchlin (January 29, 1455 - 1522) was a German humanist and Hebrew scholar. ...

In 1510, he studied briefly with Johannes Trithemius, and Agrippa sent him an early draft of his masterpiece, De occulta philosophia libri tres, a kind of summa of early modern occult thought. Trithemius was guardedly approving, but suggested that Agrippa keep the work more or less secret; Agrippa chose not to publish, perhaps for this reason, but continued to revise and rethink the book for twenty years. Polygraphia (1518) — the first printed book on cryptography. ...

During his wandering life in Germany, France and Italy he worked as a theologian, physician, legal expert and soldier. Theology finds its scholars pursuing the understanding of and providing reasoned discourse of religion, spirituality and God or the gods. ... For other uses, see Doctor. ... This article is about a military rank. ...

He was for some time in the service of Maximilian I, probably as a soldier in Italy, but devoted his time mainly to the study of the occult sciences and to problematic theological legal questions, which exposed him to various persecutions through life, usually in the mode described above: He would be privately denounced for one sort of heresy or another. He would only reply with venom considerably later. (Nauert demonstrates this pattern effectively.) Maximilian I of Habsburg (March 22, 1459 – January 12, 1519) was Holy Roman Emperor from 1508 until his death. ...

There is no evidence that Agrippa was seriously accused, much less persecuted, for his interest in or practice of magical or occult arts during his lifetime, apart from losing several positions. It is impossible of course to cite negatively, but Nauert, the best bio-bibliographical study to date, shows no indication of such persecution, and van der Poel's careful examination of the various attacks suggest that they were founded on quite other theological grounds.

It is important to mention that, according to some scholarship, "As early as 1525 and again as late as 1533 (two years before his death) Agrippa clearly and unequivocally rejected magic in its totality, from its sources in imagined antiquity to contemporary practice." Some aspects remain unclear, but there are those who believe it was sincere (not out of fear, as a parody, or otherwise).^[1] Recent scholarship (see Further Reading below, in Lehrich, Nauert, and van der Poel) generally agrees that this rejection or repudiation of magic is not what it seems: Agrippa never rejected magic in its totality, but he did retract his early manuscript of the Occult Philosophy -- to be replaced by the later form.

According to his student Johann Weyer, in the book De praestigiis daemonum, Agrippa died in Grenoble, in 1535. Johann Weyer, aka Wier, Wierus, Piscinarius, first name also Johannes (born between February 24, 1515 and February 24, 1516 — died February 24, 1588) was a Dutch physician, occultist and demonologist, disciple and follower of Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa. ... Grenoble (Franco-Provençal: Grenoblo) is a city and commune in south-east France situated at the foot of the Alps where the Drac joins the Isère River. ...

Famous sayings

He said: "Nothing is concealed from the wise and sensible, while the unbelieving and unworthy cannot learn the secrets." He emphasized: "All things which are similar and therefore connected, are drawn to each other's power." This is known as the law of resonance.

Appearances in fiction

After Agrippa's death, rumors circulated about his having summoned demons. In the most famous of these, Agrippa, upon his deathbed, released a black dog which had been his familiar. This black dog resurfaced in various legends about Faustus, and in Goethe's version became the "schwarze Pudel" Mephistopheles. In witchcraft, a familiar spirit, commonly called familiar (from Middle English familiar, related to family) is a spirit who obeys a witch, conjurer, etc. ... For other uses, see Faust (disambiguation). ... Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (pronounced [gø tə]) (August 28, 1749–March 22, 1832) was a German writer, politician, humanist, scientist, and philosopher. ... For other uses, see Mephistopheles (disambiguation). ...

Mary Shelley mentioned Agrippa in some of her works. In her 1818 gothic novel Frankenstein, Agrippa's works were read and admired by Victor Frankenstein. In her 1833 short story "The Mortal Immortal", Agrippa is imagined as having created an elixir allowing his apprentice to survive for hundreds of years. Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley (née Godwin) (30 August 1797 – 1 February 1851) was an English romantic/gothic novelist and the author of Frankenstein, or The Modern Prometheus. ... This article is about the 1818 novel. ... Victor Frankenstein is the protagonist of the 1818 novel Frankenstein, written by Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley. ... This article is in need of attention. ...

The novel The Fiery Angel (1908) by Valery Bryusov (on which Sergei Prokofiev's opera The Fiery Angel is based), set in the sixteenth century, features a visit paid to Agrippa by the protagonist Ruprecht who is seeking advice on the occult. In novel and opera, Agrippa is presented as being in a dangerous position with the religious authorities: he emphatically denies to Ruprecht that his research is supernatural, stating instead that it is the study of nature itself. Portrait by Mikhail Vrubel Valery Yakovlevich Bryusov (Russian: ) (December 1, 1873 – October 9, 1924) was a Russian poet, prose writer, dramatist, translator, critic and historian. ... Sergei Sergeyevich Prokofiev (Russian: , Sergej Sergejevič Prokofijev; April 27 (April 151 O.S.), 1891–March 5, 1953) was a Russian and Soviet composer who mastered numerous musical genres and came to be admired as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. ...

Agrippa is briefly mentioned in Joyce's 1916 novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, as being known to the protagonist Stephen: "A phrase of Cornelius Agrippa flew through his mind". A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man is a semi-autobiographical novel by James Joyce, first serialized in The Egoist from 1914 to 1915 and published in book form in 1916. ...

In Václav Havel's modern rewrite of Doctor Faustus, Fistula tempts Doctor Foustka to indulge in witchcraft, noting that he has several books by occultists such as Agrippa, Nostradamus, Eliphas Levi, and Papus.^[2] Václav Havel, GCB, CC, (IPA: ) (born October 5, 1936 in Prague) is a Czech writer and dramatist. ... Nostradamus: original portrait by his son Cesar Michel de Nostredame (December 14, 1503 – July 2, 1566), usually Latinized to Nostradamus, was a French apothecary and reputed seer who published collections of prophecies that have since become famous world-wide. ... Eliphas Lévi Eliphas Lévi, born Alphonse Louis Constant, (February 8, 1810 - May 31, 1875) was a French occult author and magician. ... Gerard Encausse (July 13, 1865 - 1916), whose esoteric pseudonym was Papus, was the Spanish-born French physician, hypnotist, and popularizer of occultism, who founded the modern Martinist Order. ...

He is mentioned in Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths in the story "The Immortal", "Like Cornelius Agrippa, I am god, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do not exist." Borges redirects here. ... This article is about the maze. ...

Agrippa is a major character in Alex Comfort's 1980 novel "Tetrarch", supposing that in the last few minutes of his life, he "shamanized" into the world of the novel, became an "adept" and an ally and lover to the central characters of the novel. His treatise "On the Excellence and Preeminence of Women" is particularly mentioned. Alexander Comfort (February 10, 1920 - March 26, 2000) was a medical professional, anarchist, pacifist and writer, best known for The Joy of Sex, which played a part in what is often called the sexual revolution. ...

Agrippa is briefly mentioned in the Harry Potter series, appearing on a Chocolate Frog card. According to his card he was imprisoned for his writings (possibly about magic) because Muggles thought they were works of evil. This article is about the Harry Potter series of novels. ... Chocolate frogs are delicacies in the Harry Potter universe. ...

A medallion accredited to Cornelius Agrippa is used in Mike Mignola's comic book short story Hellboy: The Corpse; it was mentioned as being effective against a vampire cat from Kyoto and proved valuable against a war-god/pig-man.

A fictional architect by the name C. Agrippa was charged to design and construct the great Temple of Agrippa which is one of the five major environments in the alchemy-themed adventure game Zork Nemesis. Zork universe Zork games Zork trilogy Zork I Zork II Zork III Enchanter trilogy Enchanter Sorcerer Spellbreaker Wishbringer Beyond Zork Zork Zero Return to Zork Zork: Nemesis Zork Grand Inquisitor Encyclopedia Encyclopedia Frobozzica Miscellaneous Timeline   Calendar   Magic Double Fanucci Companies Infocom   Activision Zork: Nemesis is a 1996 graphical adventure game...

Cornelius Agrippa is the name of one of the feudal lords and ladies who rule over the lands of Alyria in the text-based MUD, Materia Magica. Materia Magica, originally entitled Moongate Online, is a MUD (Multi-User Dungeon, a type of computer role-playing game). ...

Works

Agrippa is perhaps best known for his books. An incomplete list:

• De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum atque artium declamatio invectiva (Declamation Attacking the Uncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences and the Arts, 1526; printed in Cologne 1527), a skeptical satire of the sad state of science. This book, a significant production of the revival of Pyrrhonic skepticism in its fideist mode, was to have a significant impact on such thinkers and writers as Montaigne, René Descartes, and Goethe.
• Declamatio de nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus (Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex, 1529[1]), a book pronouncing the theological and moral superiority of women. Edition with English translation, London 1670[2]
• De occulta philosophia libri tres (Three Books Concerning Occult Philosophy, Book 1 printed Paris 1531; Books 1-3 in Cologne 1533). This summa of occult and magical thought, Agrippa's most important work in a number of respects, sought a solution to the skepticism proposed in De vanitate. In short, Agrippa argued for a synthetic vision of magic whereby the natural world combined with the celestial and the divine through Neoplatonic participation, such that ordinarily licit natural magic was in fact validated by a kind of demonic magic sourced ultimately from God. By this means Agrippa proposed a magic that could resolve all epistemological problems raised by skepticism in a total validation of Christian faith.

One example of the text, not especially indicative of its broader contents, is Agrippa's analysis herbal treatments for malaria in numeric terms: "Rabanus also, a famous Doctor, composed an excellent book of the vertues of numbers: But now how great vertues numbers have in nature, is manifest in the hearb which is called Cinquefoil, i.e. five leaved Grass; for this resists poysons by vertue of the number of five; also drives away divells, conduceth to expiation; and one leafe of it taken twice in a day in wine, cures the Feaver of one day: three the tertian Feaver: foure the quartane. In like manner four grains of the seed of Turnisole being drunk, cures the quartane, but three the tertian. In like manner Vervin is said to cure Feavers, being drunk in wine, if in tertians it be cut from the third joynt, in quartans from the fourth."

The book was a major influence on such later magical thinkers as Giordano Bruno and John Dee, but was ill-understood after the decline of the Occult Renaissance concomitant with the Scientific Revolution. The book (whose early draft, quite different from the final form, circulated in manuscript long before it was published) is often cited in discussions of Albrecht Dürer's famous engraving Melencolia I (1514). (Note that Philosophy of Natural Magic: Complete Work on Natural Magic, White & Black Magic, 1569, ISBN 1-56459-160-3, is simply book 1 of De occulta philosophia libri tres.)

A spurious Fourth book of occult philosophy, sometimes called Of Magical Ceremonies, has also been attributed to him; this book first appeared in Marburg in 1559 and was certainly not by Agrippa.^{[citation needed]} This article, image, template or category should belong in one or more categories. ... Cologne (German: , IPA: ; local dialect: Kölle ) is Germanys fourth-largest city after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than... A magnet levitating above a high-temperature superconductor demonstrates the Meissner effect. ... Pyrrho (c. ... This article is about the psychological term. ... In Christian theology, several belief systems that hold, on various grounds, that reason is irrelevant to religious faith have been labelled as fideism. ... Michel Eyquem de Montaigne (French pronounced ) (February 28, 1533–September 13, 1592) was one of the most influential writers of the French Renaissance. ... René Descartes René Descartes (IPA: , March 31, 1596 – February 11, 1650), also known as Cartesius, worked as a philosopher and mathematician. ... Johann Wolfgang von Goethe Johann Wolfgang von Goethe (pronounced [gø tə]) (August 28, 1749–March 22, 1832) was a German writer, politician, humanist, scientist, and philosopher. ... This article is about the capital of France. ... Cologne (German: , IPA: ; local dialect: Kölle ) is Germanys fourth-largest city after Berlin, Hamburg and Munich, and is the largest city both in the German Federal State of North Rhine-Westphalia and within the Rhine-Ruhr Metropolitan Area, one of the major European metropolitan areas with more than... The term summa is the Latin word for sum. ... For other uses, see Occult (disambiguation). ... The Sorceress by John William Waterhouse Magic, sometimes known as sorcery, is a conceptual system that asserts human ability to control the natural world (including events, objects, people, and physical phenomena) through mystical, paranormal or supernatural means. ... This article is about the psychological term. ... Neoplatonism (also Neo-Platonism) is the modern term for a school of religious and mystical philosophy that took shape in the 3rd century AD, founded by Plotinus and based on the teachings of Plato and earlier Platonists. ... Look up participation in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... Magiae Naturalis (in English, Natural Magic) is a work of popular science by Giambattista della Porta first published in Naples in 1558. ... Buer, the 10th spirit, who teaches Moral and Natural Philosophy (from the Mathers and Liddell 1995 edition). ... This article or section should include material from Episteme Epistemology (from the Greek words episteme=science and logos=word/speech) is the branch of philosophy that deals with the nature, origin and scope of knowledge. ... Malaria is a vector-borne infectious disease caused by protozoan parasites. ... Species About 500, including: White Cinquefoil Trailing Tormentil Silverweed Hoary Cinquefoil Tall Cinquefoil Canadian Cinquefoil Grey Cinquefoil Alpine Cinquefoil Common Tormentil Shrubby Cinquefoil Pink Barren Strawberry Norwegian Cinquefoil Marsh Cinquefoil Pennsylvania Cinquefoil Sulphur Cinquefoil Creeping Tormentil Rock Cinquefoil Oldfield Cinquefoil Barren Strawberry Spring Cinquefoil Potentilla is a genus of about... The dyestuff folium or turnsole, prepared from the annual plant Crozophora tinctoria (dyers crook carrier, from its use and the curved tip of its spike of florets), was a mainstay of medieval manuscript illuminators from the development of the technique for extracting it in the thirteenth century (Thompson and Hamilton... Binomial name Verbena officinalis L. Verbena officinalis (Common Vervain, Common Verbena, or Holy Herb) is a perennial herb native to southern Europe. ... Giordano Bruno Giordano Bruno (1548, Nola – February 17, 1600, Rome) was an Italian philosopher, priest, cosmologist, and occultist. ... Magic and occultism in the Late Medieval and Renaissance period (15th and 16th century). ... This article is about the period in history. ... Albrecht Dürer (pronounced ) (May 21, 1471 – April 6, 1528)[1] was a German painter, printmaker and theorist from Nuremberg, Germany. ... Hercules fighting the Centaurs , engraving by Sebald Beham Engraving is the practice of incising a design onto a hard, usually flat surface, by cutting grooves into it. ... Albrecht Dürers engraving Melancholia I (originally known by Dürer as Melencolia I) is notable for being an allegorical depiction of the main symptoms of Melancholy, now better known as depression. ... , Marburg is a city in Hesse, Germany, on the Lahn river. ...

(A semi-complete collection of his writings were also printed in Lyon in 1550; arguably more complete editions followed, but none is without serious textual problems.) This article is about the French city. ...

Modern editions of Agrippa's works

• De occulta philosophia libri tres. Ed. Vittoria Perrone Compagni. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1992: ISBN 90-04-09421-0.
• Three Books Of Occult Philosophy. Trans. J. F. Edited by Donald Tyson. St. Paul, MN: Llewellyn, 1993: ISBN 0-87542-832-0.
• Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminence of the Female Sex. Trans. Albert Rabil, Jr. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996: ISBN 0-226-01059-7
• Of the Vanitie and Vncertaintie of Artes and Sciences. Edited by Catherine M. Dunn. Northridge, CA: California State University Foundation, 1974. ASIN: B0006CM0SW

See also

• Pentagram
• Paracelsus

Notes and references

Further reading

• Lehrich, Christopher I. The Language of Demons and Angels. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003: ISBN 90-04-13574-X. The only in-depth scholarly study of Agrippa's occult thought.
• Morley, Henry. "Cornelius Agrippa: The Life of Henry Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim" Vol. I, London: Chapman & Hall, 1856.
• Nauert, Charles G. Agrippa and the Crisis of Renaissance Thought. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1965: ASIN B000BANHI6. The first serious bio-bibliographical study.
• van der Poel, Marc. Cornelius Agrippa, the Humanist Theologian and His Declamations. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1997: ISBN 90-04-10756-8. Detailed examination of Agrippa's minor orations and the De vanitate by a Neo-Latin philologist.
• Yates, Frances A. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. University of Chicago Press, 1964: ISBN 0-226-95007-7. Provides a scholarly summary of Agrippa's occult thoughts in the context of Hermeticism.
• McDonald, Grantley. ‘Cornelius Agrippa’s School of Love: Teaching Plato’s Symposium in the Renaissance’, in Practices of Gender in Late-Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Peter Sherlock and Megan Cassidy-Welch (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), pp. 151-75. An examination of one of Agrippa's university orations, on the subject of love, from a Neoplatonic and Cabalistic perspective.

External links

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Agrippa Von Nettesheim, Henry Cornelius.

Wikisource has original works written by or about: Henry Cornelius Agrippa

• Cornelius Agrippa on Harry Potter Wiki, an external wiki
• "Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim" article by Charles Nauert in the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
• Website devoted to Agrippa's Life
• Astrology & Magic of Agrippa
• Writings of Agrippa
• Article in the Catholic Encyclopedia
• Mary Shelley's The Mortal Immortal
• Agrippa in Upasika (spanish)
• "The Magus as Renaissance Man" (scholar's article about the whole context)