Puritanism,Science and Capitalism: William Harrison and the Rejection of Hermes Trismegistus

Casaubon I. , De rebus sacris et ecclesiasticis exercitationes XVI (London, 1614), 70–87; Pattison M. , Isaac Casaubon (Oxford, 1892), 335–6; Hermetica, ed. by Scott W. (4 vols, Oxford, 1924–36), i, 41–43; and especially Yates F. A. , Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic tradition (London, 1964), 1–19, 398–403. Casaubon's originality is accepted even by those who diminish the importance of Hermeticism for ‘Hermetic’ thinkers, e.g., Westman R. S. , “Magical reform and astronomical reform: The Yates thesis reconsidered”, in Westman R. S. McGuire J. E. , Hermeticism and the Scientific Revolution (Los Angeles, 1977), 10, and by those who emphasize the differences between Hermeticism and scientific methodology, like Heilbron J. L. , Introductory Essay in John Dee on astronomy: Propaedeumata aphoristica, ed. and trans. by Shumaker W. (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1978), 40–41. General works, such as Burke P. , The Renaissance sense of the past (London, 1969), 62–63, concur, but more recently Purnell F. , “Francesco Patrizi and the critics of Hermes Trismegistus”, The journal of medieval and Renaissance studies, vi (1976), 155–78, has shown that Gilbert Genebrard published arguments similar to Casaubon's in 1580. I am grateful to Dr D. P. Walker for this last reference.

McGuire J. E. also distinguishes Hermeticism from Neoplatonism in “Neoplatonism and active principles: Newton and the Corpus hermeticum” in Hermeticism and the Scientific Revolution (ref. 1), 95–133. Heilbron contrasts modern scientific methodology with Hermetic denigration of reason and emphasis on individual inspiration and secrecy, and on an animism which neglected regularity in nature (Propaedeumata aphoristica (ref. 1), 37–40). This paper reinforces Heilbron's argument.

The “Chronology” is now Trinity College Dublin MS 165 (hereafter cited as TCD MS 165). The relationship between these two works is discussed in Parry G. J. R. , “William Harrison and Holinshed's Chronicles”, forthcoming in The historical journal. The “Chronology” was talked of in Gabriel Harvey's circle; see Parry , “William Harrison and ‘The great English chronology’: Puritanism and history in the reign of Elizabeth” (unpublished Cambridge Ph.D. dissertation, 1981), 124–30, 107.

He praised the great classical grammarians and condemned barbarous scholastic Latin which distorted the Scriptures (TCD MS 165, ff. 124'r. 221r, 350v).

Yates , Bruno (ref. 1), 159–68. But her argument can only apply to Erasmus, and may not even be true of him; see below.

Walker D. P. , “The prisca theologia in France”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xvii (1954), 205–59, reprinted in Walker , The ancient theology (London, 1972), 63–131, on Catholic syncretism, in which the French were more cautious than the Italians.

Life of John Picus Erle of Myrandula, trans. by More Thomas [1510?], now Derry Diocesan Library shelf-mark A.ii.g.8.

Ficino Marsilius , De vita coelitus comparanda (Basle, 1532), Derry shelf-mark K.h.17. See below on Harrison and talismans.

Yates , Bruno (ref. 1), 14–17 on the argumentum and its genealogy of wisdom, referred to by Harrison, TCD MS 165, ff. 38v, 42v; see below for further proof that Harrison used Ficino's edition.

Parry , “Puritanism and history” (ref. 3), 16–21.

Ibid., 16–21. Rede's “collection” is now Bodleian Library MS Digby 176. On Ashenden, TCD MS 165, f. 337v.

Bale J. , Index Britaniae scriptorum, ed. by Poole R. L. Bateson M. (Oxford, 1902), 96, 200, 223, 411; Johnson F. R. Larkey S. V. , “Robert Recorde's mathematical teaching and the anti-Aristotelian movement”, Huntington Library bulletin, vii (1935), 59–87, esp. pp. 77 and 82–83; Taylor E. G. R. , The mathematical practitioners of Tudor and Stuart England (Cambridge, 1954), 167, 313; TCD MS 165, ff. 212r, 302r, the latter a reference to Recorde's attempts to collate the MSS of Roger Hoveden and Simon of Durham.

Leonard Digges was deeply implicated with the Brookes in Wyatt's rebellion ( Loades D. M. , Two Tudor conspiracies (Cambridge, 1965), 50, 81); Digges T. , A perfit description of the caelestiall orbes according to the most aunciente doctrine of the Pythagoreans, appended to A Prognostication everlastinge … published by Leonard Digges, gentleman. Lately corrected and augmented by Thomas Digges (London, 1576). Harrison perceived the Copernican system within a closed universe, not the infinite cosmos proposed by Digges (TCD MS 165, f. 215v), but anyway “the accesse and recesse of the first movable, the alterations of the severall latitudes of the pianettes” and the movement of winds and tides counted against Copernicus (ibid., ff. 108v, 117r).

Cobham was not Dee's only patron, but see Autobiographical tracts of Dr John Dee, ed. by Crossley J. (Manchester, 1851), 10–12; The private diary of John Dee, and the catalogue of his library of manuscripts, ed. by Halliwell J. O. (London, 1842), 33–34, 40–41, and Calendar of state papers domestic 1591–4, ccxlviii, no. 121, p. 513; French P. J. , John Dee, the world of an Elizabethan magus (London, 1972), 56, 188–99, 163; Parry , “Puritanism and history” (ref. 3), 99–139, passim; Taylor , Mathematical practitioners (ref. 12), 166; Library Bodleian , Corpus Christi College Oxford MS 191, f. 83v. On Dee and Holinshed, Stow, Harvey and Camden, see French , Dee, 133–7, 203–5.

Harrison only cited the first aphorism, and his amanuensis garbled the title (TCD MS 165, f. 142v; cf. Shumaker , Propaedeumata aphoristica (ref. 1), 35–36, and Heilbron's Introduction, passim). The latter shows that Dee's growing Hermeticism paralleled his declining contribution to scientific knowledge.

Even at his most liberal Augustine emphasized that whatever in Platonism conformed to faith had been stolen from Israel, and that attempting to reach God through contemplating Nature led to idolatry like that of Hermes Trismegistus (De civitate Dei, VIII.9–19 and Walker , Ancient theology (ref. 6), 63–131).

Walker , “Prisca theologia” (ref. 6), 210–12, and Ancient theology (ref. 6), 70–73.

Intent on establishing Hermes's authority, Frances Yates devoted barely two pages to this fundamental criticism (Bruno (ref. 1), 157–9) — The corollary is her unrecognizable picture of the theological climate of Elizabethan England (187–8).

Harrison's autobiography, written on an end-leaf of Bale's Scriptorum illustrium maioris Brytanniae catalogus (Basle, 1559), Derry shelf-mark D.ii.d.7. On the following, see Parry , “Puritanism and history” (ref. 3), 236–52.

Fallen man could only achieve an imperfect reformation. See Parry G. J. R. , “William Harrison and the Two Churches in Elizabethan Puritan thinking”, forthcoming in The journal of ecclesiastical history, on how these concepts guided Harrison's ideas on Church reform.

This reversed the Hermetic interpretation of the genealogy of prisci theologi from Hermes to Plato, as found in Ficino ( Yates , Bruno (ref. 1), 14–15). Pico G. F. believed the prisci theologi constituted a genealogy of superstition mixing truth stolen from Israel with idolatrous religion and diabolical magic, to which the Florentine Platonists were damnable heirs. The Protestant Johan Wier viewed the prisci theologi within an apocalyptic interpretation similar to Harrison's, and thus more vehemently criticized their degenerate Egyptian magic, which like Plato's teaching he regarded as entirely separate from Moses's true theology ( Walker D. P. , Spiritual and demonic magic from Ficino to Campanella (London, 1958), 146–51, 152–6).

See Parry , “Puritanism and history” (ref. 3), 382–7, and my article forthcoming in The journal of ecclesiastical history (ref. 20).

E.g., “Some wishing well to [Ptolemy] because thei reverens and honor his lerning do dreame that he was a christien”, but indeed his learning itself prevented him from accepting Christianity (TCD MS 165, f. 148v).

He took the B.D. in 1571 but never completed the exercises for the D.D. ( Parry , “Puritanism and history” (ref. 3), 51–53). The Gentiles had been preoccupied with “curious pointes of Gramer, Rethorike, Logike, and Vaine fables of false goddes” (TCD MS 165, f. 147r). We should not take this remark out of its intensely evangelical context, elsewhere he condemned the deliberate destruction of Gentile arts and sciences, because they indirectly derived from God (ibid., f. 180v), and Gentile learning could produce some social improvement (ibid., f. 124'v).

Ibid., ff. 334r, 108r, 110v, 113r, 148v.

Ibid., f. 1v and Parry , “Puritanism and history” (ref. 3), 244–6 on his selective approach to Augustine.

TCD MS 165, f. 42v; cf. De civitate Dei, VIII. 19–26, XVIII.39, and Scott , Hermetica (ref. 1), i, 339–41.

As in Yates , Bruno (ref. 1), 187 and its curious comments on John Foxe.

Casaubon , De rebus sacris (ref. 1), 72. Ironically even as he wrote historical scholarship was undercutting his dogmatic position, establishing the priority of Gentile knowledge.

De civitate Dei, XVIII.39; in Harrison's “Chronology” Atlas is noted at 1640 B.c. (TCD MS 165, f. 38v).

Ibid., f. 42v.

On Troy , ibid., f. 61v. Ibid., f. 42v; cf., Purnell , “The critics of Hermes Trismegistus” (ref. 1), 162–3, who shows that Gilbert Genebrard later made the same point in Chronologia (1580). See Scott , Hermetica (ref. 1), i, 235.19, and Corpus hermeticum, ed. by Knock A. D. Festugière A.-J. (4 vols, Paris, 1945–54), i, 182.19. Harrison first mentions the Sibyls at 1147 B.c. (TCD MS 165, f. 63r-v), but he knew the corpus was not so old — See Parry , “Puritanism and history” (ref. 3), 325–30.

TCD MS 165, f. 42v; cf. Scott , Hermetica (ref. 1), i. 359, and Cicero , De natura deorum, III. 22. Harrison registered Asclepius at 1268 B.c. (TCD MS 165, f.56v). The Asclepius also mentioned the Latin language, which Harrison believed was published by Latinus in 1199 B.c. (ibid., f. 60v).

Ibid., f. 42v.

Ibid., f. 42v; cf. f. 103v and Purnell , “Critics of Hermes Trismegistus” (ref. 1), 163–4 on the textual history of this passage. See also Casaubon , De rebus sacris (ref. 1), 73, 86 and Scott , Hermetica (ref. 1), i, 276.4.

Parry , “Puritanism and history” (ref. 3), 412–16 on the creation of TCD MS 165. Harrison's failure to name Genebrard may mean his information was verbal. He cited Genebrard's Chronographia in duos libros distincta (Paris, 1567) at TCD MS 165, f. 34v (Chronographia, Sig. A3r), f. 48v (Sig. A3v), f. 126v (Sig. C2r) and could hardly have missed Genebrard's initial doubts about Hermes at Sig. C1r (not “fol. C.” as in Purnell , “Critics” (ref. 1), 160), but one cannot say whether this started Harrison off on his independent critical examination.

Parry , “Puritanism and history” (ref. 3), 37–45, 402 n. 132, on Harrison's radical Protestant connections; see my article forthcoming in The journal of ecclesiastical history (ref. 20).

Walker D. P. , “Orpheus the theologian and Renaissance Platonists”, Journal of the Warburg and Courtauld Institutes, xvi (1953), 100–20, p. 100; Walker , Ancient theology (ref. 6), 22–24. Renaissance scholars knew that the Orphica dated from several periods (Ancient theology, 29; “Orpheus”, 104).

TCD MS 165, f. 56r-v. In reality Harrison's reasoning about Scripture was far less obedient to revelation than he thought ( Parry , “Puritanism and history” (ref. 3), 249–57).

Castellio S. , Orthodoxographia theologiae sacrosanctae ac syncerioris fidei doctores numer LXXVII ecclesiae columina luminaeque clarissima (Basle, 1555); Harrison's copy, Derry shelf-mark A.i.g.2, acquired in 1571, includes his identifications of the succession of Roman emperors prophesied by the Sibyls (ibid., 1468–1522, esp. 1497), though the Sibylline understanding of Scriptural prophecy was “even as thei that lie bounde in spelnica Platonis have the divine similion of those thinges that perteine to true felicitie” (TCD MS 165, ff. 10v-11r).

French , Dee (ref. 14), 22, 74, 105–7; Pythagoras was allegedly indebted to Hebrew mathematicians, whose true faith limited their application of mathematical knowledge (TCD MS 165, f. 96v); Harrison William , The description of Britain, in Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), 28, and Parry , “Puritanism and history” (ref. 3), 142–64, on Harrison's change of mind over Bodin's numerology.

The adjective shows he could distinguish the Jewish and Christian versions (TCD MS 165, ff. 75v, 46v).

Yates , Bruno (ref. 1), 92–110. Harrison dismissed Pico's reference to Enoch's book of dimensions in his commentary on the Cabala, “because I have redde of it in none other author, so farre as I now remember” (TCD MS 165, f. 4r); Yates , Bruno, 145–6, claimed Johannes Trithemius's Steganographia, ostensibly a handbook of cryptography, was used for Cabalist angel magic, but perhaps because he was alienated by Cabala Harrison did not see this, merely condemning the book for its dubious political uses (TCD MS 165, f. 131r).

Eitzinger M. , Pentaplus regnorum mundi (Antwerp, 1579), 35–36; TCD MS 165, f. 8v; and see De civitate Dei, XXII. 30.

Eitzinger therefore continued a genealogy of wicked knowledge; TCD MS 165, f. 2v; cf. Trithemius Johannes , De septem secundeis, id est, intelligentiis, sive spiritibus orbes post deum moventibus (Frankfurt, 1545). Harrison's list of Trithemius's planetary angels corresponds to that in his Steganographia, rendered inaccurately in Yates , Bruno (ref. 1), 145 n. 3. Harrison's horror of this doctrine was shared by Erastus Thomas ( Walker , Spiritual magic (ref. 21), 158).

TCD MS 165, ff. 132v, 109v.

Ibid., f. 226v; contrast Yates , Bruno (ref. 1), 147–50.

The quotation is from Yates , Bruno, 150–1; cf. Harrison , who spoke from extensive knowledge of medieval alchemical treatises, not Renaissance Paracelsian alchemy (TCD MS 165, ff. 341r, 343v); he criticized a contemporary alchemical chaplain in the Tower, one Brocke (ibid., f. 93r-v).

Ibid., ff. 28r, 1v.

Ibid., f. 91v; typically, these false prophets promised peace and plenty where God's prophets threatened sword and famine as punishment for sin.

Here Christian liberty exposed limitations in the godliness of the Merton School: Rede's “collection” once owned by Harrison contained John Ashenden's treatise on conjunctions of 1357 and 1365, of which “our frantike astrologiens did prognosticate many thinges as thoughe the lord god direct all his doinges here in erth after the courses of the planetes and sterres” (Bodleian MS Digby 176, f. 34ff; cf. TCD MS 165, f. 339'v and Gunther R.T. , Early science in Oxford (15 vols, Oxford, 1920–67), ii, 58–59, and above in the present article).

TCD MS 165, f. 160r; Parry “Puritanism and history” (ref. 3), 312–18.

On Erastus see Walker , Spiritual magic (ref. 21), 156–8; Harrison , The description (ref. 41) (1587), 128–31, prefers natural explanations of superstitious folklore.

TCD MS 165, ff. 198r, 282v, and Buell L. M. , “Elizabethan portents: Superstition or doctrine”, in Essays critical and historical dedicated to L. B. Campbell (London, 1950), 27–41.

Citing Camerarius Joachimus , Norica sive de ostentis libri duo (Wittenberg, 1532), a reaction to Halley's comet of 1531 emphasizing the malevolent significance of natural phenomena. Camerarius was a prestigious advocate for occult sciences, and Harrison found his work “sometimes mere superstitious” (TCD MS 165, ff. 65v-66r; cf. Baron F. , “Camerarius and the historical Doctor Faustus”, in Joachim Camerarius (1500–1574), ed. by Baron F. (Munich, 1978), 202–15.

Inevitably reason had a larger part to play than Harrison acknowledged in the determination of legitimate knowledge.

“Artificers” was here not a social slur but referred to unlearned magicians; TCD MS 165, f. 230r-v. Cf. Yates , Bruno (ref. 1), 138, for similar exclusiveness in Agrippa's De occulta philosophia, elaborating on elitist sentiments in the Asclepius and Ficino's work.

TCD MS 165, f. 230r-v; cf. Champier Symphorien , Liber de quadruplici vita (1507), which referred to “suffumigations” to show disapproval of Ficino's incense-wreathed astrological music (quoted in Walker , Spiritual magic (ref. 21), 167–8).

TCD MS 165, f. 230v, citing Aquinas , Summa theologica, “Secunda Secundae quest. 97[sic for 96]”, Art. ii, which acknowledges occult powers in natural bodies but condemned astrological images as tacit compacts with demons, made explicit by invocations. Champier echoed this and Aquinas's conclusion that talismans were effective through demonic rather than astral influences ( Walker , Spiritual magic (ref. 21), 167–8); Johan Wier also followed Aquinas in classing talismans as demonic magic (ibid., 153) while Erastus stigmatized all magical effects as demonic delusions (ibid., 158). See also De civitate Dei, VII.5.

TCD MS 165, ff. 149v-150r. For “no man can require to see or be present at soche toies without the high offens of god and just desert of his wrath and indignation, except it be to reprove the doers, deterre them from their lewdnesse or hange them up for their iniquities for as none but curious heddes are inquisitive after soche ungodly practizes so none hath power to practize this develish knowledg but reprobates and castawaies or at the lest wise soche as stand upon the brinkes of destruction and mine” (ibid., f. 232v), an extremely radical criticism of conjuring (cf. Thomas K. , Religion and the decline of magic (London, 1971), 256), which may refer to Hermetic ‘magical’ effects.

TCD MS 165 f. 233v.

Thabil ben Coral de tribus imaginibus magicis (Frankfurt, 1559); cf. Carmody F. J. , The astronomical works of Thabit B. Qurra (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1960), 167–97, and Scott , Hermetica (ref. 1), i, 103–5. Porphyry's Letter to Anebon usually accompanied Iamblichus's reply, De mysteriis, and was printed in Iamblichi Chalcidensis ex Coele-Syria de mysteriis liber (Oxford, 1678).

Perhaps following a corrupt MS, Harrison believed Thabit (c. AD. 835–901) flourished c. A.d. 1208 (TCD MS 165, f. 303v). Thabit's works were the product of a ‘Hermetic’ Chaldean sun cult, parallel to but not really related to the Greek Hermetica ( Carmody , Thabit (ref. 62), 15, 167–8).

Carmody , Thabit, 168–9; cf. Book of Numbers (Bible) 21.4–9 and TCD MS 165, f. 46v. The Geneva Bible, Harrison's Bible, did not recognize the brazen serpent as an astral talisman, though it did have magical effects; it cross-references to 2 Kings 18.4 and Hezekiah's destruction of the serpent after it was “abused to idolatrie”, another example of the degenerative process Harrison tried to reverse. Cf. TCD MS 165, f. 84v.

Ibid., f. 230r-v; cf. De civitate Dei, Books X and XI, and VIII.16–26.

TCD MS 165 f. 230r-v, cf. Opus epistolarum Des. Erasmi Roterodami, ed. by Allen P. S. (12 vols, Oxford, 1905–58), i, 45–46 and Bainton R. H. , Erasmus of Christendom (London, 1969), 109, 292. Erasmus turned against Johannes Reuchlin when his energetic promotion of Cabbalistic studies raised the spectre of a religious revival based on Judaic ceremonialism ( Zika C. , “Reuchlin and Erasmus; Humanism and occult philosophy”, Journal of religious history, ix (1977), 223–46).

Harrison did not see the pursuit of natural philosophy according to Elect criteria as a means of achieving, or as a substitute for, Scripture's detailed revelation of saving faith. He merely sought to resurrect that Elect knowledge which was an adjunct of their true faith.

Walker , Spiritual magic (ref. 21), 147, 153.

TCD MS 165, f. 243v; cf. Allen D. C. , Doubt's boundless sea (Baltimore, 1964), 52, 76.

TCD MS 165, f. 285r and see for example f. 144v; ibid., f. 145v quotes the preface to Natural magic, for which see Natural magick by John Baptista Porta (London, 1658), facs. ed. by Price D. J. (New York, 1958). On ivy, see ibid., bk 18, ch. iv; on the magnet, see bk 7, ch. xlviii. Porta's magical explanations of natural events conflict with his rational conclusions from careful experiments in this work.

Natural magick, 18.iv; cf. Cato , On agriculture (London, 1934), Aphorism cxi.

TCD MS 165, f. 18v contr. Cato , On agriculture, cxi: “a vessel of ivy wood will not hold wine”.

TCD MS 165, f. 18v and Harrison , Description (ref. 41) (1577), f. 117r; (1587), 239; cf. Porta , Naturall magick, 18.iv. The 1587 Description underlined that there were no exceptions to this law.

He gave no details, but presumably his experiments paralleled Porta's in Naturall magick (ref. 70), 7.xlviii. The idea derived from a misreading of Pliny's “alio” for another lodestone, as “allio” for garlic (cf. Pliny , Historia naturalis, XXXVI.25). See Gilbert W. , De magnete (London, 1600), 2 and ch. 1, passim.

Morgan J. , “Puritanism and science: A reinterpretation”, The historical journal, xxii (1979), 535–60, quoting Edward Dering on p. 552. We have independently come to the conclusion that Puritan divines placed strict limits on the use of reason in the investigation of Nature; see TCD MS 165, f. 117r on the futility of human speculations about the cosmos.

Abraham Fleming, editor of Holinshed's Chronicles (1587), similarly interpreted the rainbow (A treatise of blazing sterres in generall (London, 1618), Sig. D3v), and Harrison's radical colleague George Withers made it explicit in An A BC for la yemen (London, 1585), Sig. 17v; see the onetime presbyterian Fulke W. , A most pleasant prospect into the garden of naturall contemplation (London, 1602), Sig. E5v, who differed slightly in his view of the rainbow, but affirmed it must now be seen as a sign of the covenant and the fulfilment of God's promises.

See Merton R. K. , “Science, technology and society in seventeenth century England”, Osiris, iv (1938), 360–632, esp. pp. 439–70, and Hill C. , “Puritanism, capitalism and the Scientific Revolution”, in Webster C. (ed.), The intellectual revolution of the seventeenth century (London, 1974), 243–53, also Hill C. , Intellectual origins of the English revolution (London, 1965). Recent critics of the thesis include Rabb T. K. , “Puritanism and the rise of experimental science in England”, Journal of world history, vii (1962), 46–67, and “Religion and the rise of modern science”, in Webster , intellectual revolution, 262–79, and Greaves R. L. , “Puritanism and science: The anatomy of a controversy”, Journal of the history of ideas, xxx (1969), 345–68, but especially Morgan , “Puritanism and science” (ref. 75), who gives an exhaustive bibliography (pp. 535–40).

TCD MS 165, f. 137v on the economic threat of an alchemical invention such as unbreakable glass, and Harrison's criticisms of enclosures in Description (ref. 41) (1587), 205. I hope to discuss the godly commonwealth in a future monograph.

TCD MS 165, ff. 68v, 90r, and see The work of William Perkins, ed. by Breward I. (Abingdon, 1970), 72–76 for similar sentiments in Perkins and many evangelicals.

TCD MS 165, ff. 113r, 156r, 109r.