Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa

Born 15 September 1486Cologne, Germany

Died 18 February 1535 (aged 48)Grenoble, France

Cause ofdeath

Unknown

Occupation magician, occult writer, theologian,astrologer, alchemist, physician, legalexpert and soldier

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (15September 1486 18 February 1535) was a Germanmagician, occult writer, theologian, astrologer, and alchemist.

1 Life2 Appearances in fiction and folklore3 Works

3.1 Modern editions of Agrippa's works4 See also5 Notes and references6 Further reading7 External links

Agrippa was born in Cologne on 15 September 1486. In 1512,he taught at the University of Dole in the Free County ofBurgundy, 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 monthslater did not endear him to the University.

In 1510, he studied briefly with Johannes Trithemius, andAgrippa sent him an early draft of his masterpiece, Deocculta philosophia libri tres, a kind of summa of earlymodern occult thought. Trithemius was guardedly approving,but suggested that Agrippa keep the work more or less secret; Agrippa chose not to publish, perhaps for thisreason, but continued to revise and rethink the book for twenty years.

During his wandering life in Germany, France and Italy he worked as a theologian, physician, legal expert andsoldier.

He was for some time in the service of Maximilian I, probably as a soldier in Italy, but devoted his time mainlyto the study of the occult sciences and to problematic theological legal questions, which exposed him to variouspersecutions through life, usually in the mode described above: He would be privately denounced for one sort ofheresy or another. He would only reply with venom considerably later (Nauert demonstrates this patterneffectively.)

There is no evidence that Agrippa was seriously accused, much less persecuted, for his interest in or practice ofmagical or occult arts during his lifetime, apart from losing several positions. It is impossible of course to citenegatively, but Nauert, the best bio-bibliographical study to date, shows no indication of such persecution, and

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Cornelius_Agrippa

1 of 5 7/27/2012 5:42 AM

van der Poel's careful examination of the various attacks suggest that they were founded on quite othertheological grounds.

According to some scholarship, "As early as 1525 and again as late as 1533 (two years before his death) Agrippaclearly and unequivocally rejected magic in its totality, from its sources in imagined antiquity to contemporarypractice." Some aspects remain unclear, but there are those who believe it was sincere (not out of fear, as aparody, 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 inits 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, in1535.

After Agrippa's death, rumors circulated about him summoning 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 variouslegends about Faustus, and in Goethe's version became the "schwarze Pudel" Mephistopheles.

Agrippa is introduced as a conjuror in The Unfortunate Traveller (1594), by Thomas Nashe. The protagonist, inthe company of his master the Earl of Surrey (a fictionalised version of the English poet), watches him performmagical tricks at Wittenberg. Agrippa is also shown to have met Sir Thomas More and Lord Cromwell (HenryVIII's ministers) and impressed them with his incredible learning (The Unfortunate Traveller, Bk IV).

Mary Shelley mentioned Agrippa in some of her works. In her 1818 gothic novel Frankenstein, Agrippa's workswere read and admired by Victor Frankenstein. In her 1833 short story "The Mortal Immortal", Agrippa isimagined as having created an elixir allowing his apprentice to survive for hundreds of years.

Agrippa is briefly mentioned in Herman Melville's short story "The Bell-tower".

The novel The Fiery Angel (1908) by Valery Bryusov (on which Sergei Prokofiev's opera The Fiery Angel isbased), set in the sixteenth century, features a visit paid to Agrippa by the protagonist Ruprecht who is seekingadvice on the occult. In novel and opera, Agrippa is presented as being in a dangerous position with the religiousauthorities: he emphatically denies to Ruprecht that his research is supernatural, stating instead that it is thestudy of nature itself.

Agrippa is briefly mentioned in Joyce's 1916 novel, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man, as being known tothe protagonist Stephen: "A phrase of Cornelius Agrippa flew through his mind".

In Vclav 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]

He is mentioned in Jorge Luis Borges' Labyrinths in the story "The Immortal", "Like Cornelius Agrippa, I amgod, I am hero, I am philosopher, I am demon and I am world, which is a tedious way of saying that I do notexist."

Agrippa is a major character in Alex Comfort's 1980 novel "Tetrarch", supposing that in the last few minutes ofhis life, he "shamanized" into the world of the novel, became an "adept" and an ally and lover to the centralcharacters of the novel. His treatise "On the Excellence and Preeminence of Women" is particularly mentioned.

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Cornelius_Agrippa

2 of 5 7/27/2012 5:42 AM

Agrippa is a major character in Steve Englehart's series of Max August novels, beginning with The Point Man in1980, and continuing through The Long Man and The Plain Man.

Agrippa is briefly mentioned in the Harry Potter series, appearing on a Chocolate Frog card. According to hiscard he was imprisoned for his writings (possibly about magic) because Muggles thought they were works ofevil.

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

A fictional architect by the name C. Agrippa was charged to design and construct the great Temple of Agrippawhich is one of the five major environments in the alchemy-themed adventure game Zork Nemesis.

Cornelius Agrippa is the name of one of the feudal lords and ladies who rule over the lands of Alyria in thetext-based MUD, Materia Magica.

Agrippa is a key figure in Peter Straub's 2010 novel A Dark Matter.

Agrippa is a character in Frictional Games' 2010 video game Amnesia: The Dark Descent. In the game, his soulis trapped in an emaciated human husk where he was imprisoned by his former pupil, the Prussian BaronAlexander of Brennenburg. He guides Daniel, the protagonist, and informs him of his past work and experiencewith Alexander.

Agrippa is mentioned in chapter 13 of Phantastes, A Faerie Romance by George MacDonald. The character ofCosmo von Wehrstahl has a secret drawer, in which "...lay the works of Albertus Magnus and CorneliusAgrippa... ."

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

De incertitudine et vanitate scientiarum atque artium declamatio invectiva (Declamation Attacking theUncertainty and Vanity of the Sciences and the Arts, 1526; printed in Cologne 1527), a skeptical satire ofthe sad state of science. This book, a significant production of the revival of Pyrrhonic skepticism in itsfideist mode, was to have a significant impact on such thinkers and writers as Montaigne, Ren Descartes,and Goethe.[citation needed]Declamatio de nobilitate et praecellentia foeminei sexus (Declamation on the Nobility and Preeminenceof the Female Sex, 1529[3]), a book pronouncing the theological and moral superiority of women. Editionwith English translation, London 1670[4]De occulta philosophia libri tres (Three Books Concerning Occult Philosophy, Book 1 printed Paris1531; Books 1-3 in Cologne 1533). This summa of occult and magical thought, Agrippa's most importantwork 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 andthe divine through Neoplatonic participation, such that ordinarily licit natural magic was in fact validatedby a kind of demonic magic sourced ultimately from God. By this means Agrippa proposed a magic thatcould 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 of herbaltreatments for malaria in numeric terms:

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Cornelius_Agrippa

3 of 5 7/27/2012 5:42 AM

"Rabanus also, a famous Doctor, composed an excellent book of the vertues of numbers: Butnow how great vertues numbers have in nature, is manifest in the hearb which is calledCinquefoil, 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 inwine, cures the Feaver of one day: three the tertian Feaver: foure the quartane. In likemanner four grains of the seed of Turnisole being drunk, cures the quartane, but three thetertian. In like manner Vervin is said to cure Feavers, being drunk in wine, if in tertians itbe 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 JohnDee[citation needed], but was ill-understood[citation needed] after the decline of the Occult Renaissanceconcomitant with the Scientific Revolution. The book (whose early draft, quite different from the finalform, circulated in manuscript long before it was published) is often cited in discussions of AlbrechtDrer's famous engraving Melencolia I (1514). (Note that Philosophy of Natural Magic: Complete Workon Natural Magic, White & Black Magic, 1569, ISBN 1-56459-160-3, is simply book 1 of De occultaphilosophia libri tres.)

A spurious Fourth book of occult philosophy, sometimes called Of Magical Ceremonies, has also beenattributed to him; this book first appeared in Marburg in 1559 and was certainly not by Agrippa.[citation needed]

(A semi-complete collection of his writings were also printed in Lyon in 1550; arguably more complete editionsfollowed, but none is without serious textual problems.)

Modern editions of Agrippa's works

De occulta philosophia libri tres. Ed. Vittoria Perrone Compagni. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 1992: ISBN90-04-09421-0.Three Books Of Occult Philosophy. Trans. James Freake 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 0-226-01059-7Of the Vanitie and Vncertaintie of Artes and Sciences. Edited by Catherine M. Dunn. Northridge, CA:California State University Foundation, 1974. ASIN: B0006CM0SW

PentagramParacelsus

^ http://www.compilerpress.atfreeweb.com/Anno%20Borchardt%20Magi.htm (p.71)1.^ Temptation: A Play in Ten Scenes (http://books.google.com/books?id=dqP5bogacOoC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq=agrippa) . http://books.google.com/books?id=dqP5bogacOoC&pg=PA23&lpg=PA23&dq=agrippa.

2.

^ http://visualiseur.bnf.fr/Visualiseur?Destination=Gallica&O=NUMM-716923.^ http://www.esotericarchives.com/agrippa/preem.htm4.

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Cornelius_Agrippa

4 of 5 7/27/2012 5:42 AM

Lehrich, Christopher I. The Language of Demons and Angels. Leiden and Boston: Brill, 2003: ISBN90-04-13574-X. The only in-depth scholarly study of Agrippa's occult thought.Morley, Henry. "Cornelius Agrippa: The Life of Henry Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim"(http://books.google.com/books?id=NHjcEr0lsJ4C) 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 andBoston: Brill, 1997: ISBN 90-04-10756-8. Detailed examination of Agrippa's minor orations and the Devanitate by a Neo-Latin philologist.Yates, Frances A. Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic Tradition. University of Chicago Press, 1964: ISBN0-226-95007-7. Provides a scholarly summary of Agrippa's occult thoughts in the context of Hermeticism.McDonald, Grantley. Cornelius Agrippas School of Love: Teaching Platos Symposium in theRenaissance, in Practices of Gender in Late-Medieval and Early Modern Europe, ed. Peter Sherlockand Megan Cassidy-Welch (Turnhout: Brepols, 2008), pp. 15175. An examination of one of Agrippa'suniversity orations, on the subject of love, from a Neoplatonic and Cabalistic perspective.

Cornelius Agrippa (http://www.wikia.com/wiki/c:harrypotter:Cornelius_Agrippa) on Harry Potter Wiki,an external wiki (http://www.wikia.com/wiki/c:harrypotter)Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa von Nettesheim (http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/agrippa-nettesheim) entryby Charles Nauert in the Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyWebsite devoted to Agrippa's Life (http://web.archive.org/web/20091027043443/http://geocities.com/Athens/Agora/7850/)Writings of Agrippa (http://www.esotericarchives.com/agrippa/)Article in the Catholic Encyclopedia (http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/01231c.htm)Mary Shelley's The Mortal Immortal (http://wondersmith.com/scifi/mortal.htm)"The Magus as Renaissance Man" (http://web.archive.org/web/20080516162008/http://www.compilerpress.atfreeweb.com/Anno+Borchardt+Magi.htm) (scholar's article about the wholecontext)Online Galleries, History of Science Collections, University of Oklahoma Libraries (http://hos.ou.edu/galleries//16thCentury/Agrippa/) High resolution images of works by and/or portraits of Agrippa in .jpgand .tiff format.

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Heinrich_Cornelius_Agrippa&oldid=501000447"Categories: 1486 births 1535 deaths 16th-century German physicians 16th-century Latin-language writersChristian Kabbalists German alchemists German astrologers German feminists German occult writersGerman occultists German Renaissance humanists Inventors of writing systems OccultistsPeople from Cologne

This page was last modified on 6 July 2012 at 20:14.Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms mayapply. See Terms of use for details.Wikipedia is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization.

Heinrich Cornelius Agrippa - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Heinrich_Cornelius_Agrippa

5 of 5 7/27/2012 5:42 AM