Early 16th Century German Macro & Micro Analogy

Tritemius’ De Septum Secundeis  (1508) makes more sense understood as part of the genealogy of the macrocosm and microcosm analogy, discussed in my post the "15th Century Florentine Use of Micro-Macro Analogy," because he insists that seven celestial spheres are secondary causes, which are metaphysical causes, but not one of Aristotle's four causes: material, formal, efficient, and final. Instead, secondary causes are caused by intelligent agents, who are responsible for this or that action. Accordingly, if the seven celestial spheres are intelligent agents who influence and determine human affairs, then Tritemius has pushed the macrocosm and microcosm analogy to the status of secondary cause, which would mean the link between macrocosm and the microcosm, would be deliberate on behalf of that ruling celestial sphere. Tritemius is transforming the Florentine metaphysical macrocosm and microcosm analogy into an astrological fatalism grounded upon secondary causes. Tritemius’ position is completely different from Pico, who stipulates that whatever happens above happens below in equal number and rank, because secondary causes do not require such pre-existing order.

On Tritemius's view, these celestial intelligences can do whatever they desire without any regard to God’s preconceived order, because they are their own causes to terrestrial events. Tritemius would also not have to respect the pre-existing order of rank between celestial and terrestrial objects, such as hierarchy of celestial spheres and metals. Celestial spheres would cause whatever they want in the lower world, because they are free agents. In fact, Tritemius has the convenience of writing astrology backwards (i.e., explaining the past, instead of predicting the future ), so he is an equally a free agent to write whatever he wants about the effect of these celestial spheres as secondary causes had on the past.

The 15 century Florentines (Ficino and Pico) would regard Tritemius’ work as dubious, but his work shows how macrocosm and microcosm analogies are not only understood metaphysically by the pre modern mind, but that the pre modern mind has a rational space to transform them into secondary causes. Tritemius is a German pre modern, who tries to pull off the “alchemical” transformation of metaphysical analogy to secondary cause. While the course of human history is governed by the seven celestial spheres without any interference or established order by God, Tritemius at the end of his dubious document “that in all these things delivered, I believe nothing, nor admit to anything except what the Catholic Church holds: the rest, refute and contemn as vain, feigned, and superstitious” (Tritemius, 41). Ironically, his work is exactly what he wants to refute “vain,” “feigned” and “superstitious,” because his work is no better than a Chaldean superstition, which removes God’s hierarchical order from the cosmos, and installs celestial secondary causes as the rulers of man’s history and future. 

Agrippa and Paracelsus’ use of the macrocosm and microcosm analogies are very distinct from 15th century Florentine use. A distinctive German pre modern use of macrocosm and microcosm analogy emerges from its roots in Neo-Platonic and Hermetic Florence. Any Hermetic idea of Premodernity has its roots in Florence, but is altered by the early 16th century German usage. Agrippa is an astrological fatalist like his teacher Tritemius, but does not apply any independent spiritual intelligence as secondary causes. Instead, he sets forth a rather deterministic system, which does not allow Pico’s free will, but involves macro-micro analogies between the heavens and earth which repeat eternally. Paracelsus shares Calvin’s doctrine of predestination, but differs from the latter in that the former believes that God creates and destroys universe ad infinitum, which is again a form of fatalism. This current cosmos is a microcosm of God’s macrocosm, Mysterium Magnum (the collective cosmoses destroyed by God) (Paracelsus, 207). 

Agrippa and Paracelsus inherit Tritemius’ fatalism, but conform more to the Florentines in their execution of their fatalism. They never ignore metaphysical resemblances between celestial and terrestrial realms which are organized under the assumption of pre-existing order. They do not, like their teacher, throw out the sacred resemblance between the rank and number of the celestial spheres and the terrestrial metals. Thornburg and others have regarded Agrippa as a far more radical figure than Tritemius, but Agrippa’s Three Books of the Occult Philosophy is trying to mix Florentine Neo-Platonic and Hermetic ideas and the radical implications of Tritemius’ crazy transformation of metaphysical analogies to secondary causes. Paracelsus will try to work out Tritemius’ fatalism in alchemy. Agrippa and Paracelsus’ usage of the macrocosm and microcosm analogy is a mean between the extremes of Tritemius’ fatalism and Florentine Hermetic Neo-Platonism. 

In Three Books of Occult Philosophies (1510), Agrippa uses the number two to explain the microcosm of man: the number two is “number of man and the lesser world [microcosm]” (Agrippa, 245), because man is divisible by two sexes (male and female), capable of good and evil, strife and opposition, discord and confusion, misfortune and uncleanness, because “two is evil” (Agrippa, 245). Agrippa draws a macrocosm and microcosm between the number two (micro) and the great deluge (macro): “God commanded that all unclean animals should go into the ark by couples, because as I said, the number two, is the number of uncleanness” (Agrippa, 245). His discussion of macrocosm and microcosm analogy may appear strange, but add Tritemius’ remarks about the great deluge, his remarks may become clearer.

According to Tritemius, the deluge of earth occurred under governance of the angel Samuel of Mars, which is the fifth governor of human history. Humans were under the influence of Mars and “under whose Empire and Government men imitated the nature of Mars, also under the dominion of this Angel, the Universal deluge of water happened Anno Mundi 1656, as evidently it appeared by History out of Genesis” (Tritemius, 10). Under the influence of Mars, man was constantly at war and opposition with one another, so the great deluge occurred to clean the earth of these unclean men. Only Noah and his family were saved from the great deluge under governance of Mars and all current men are descendants of Noah. Ergo, Agrippa uses the measurements of Noah’s body as the microcosm of construction of ark and post deluge man and his civilization."God himself taught Noah to build the ark according to the measurements of man’s body, and God made the whole fabric of the world [post flood] proportional to man’s body; from hence it is called the great world [macrocosm], man’s body the less [microcosm] (Agrippa, 345).                                                                                                                

Agrippa’s usage of the macrocosm and microcosm analogy is tied to the number two (opposition and violence) and using the proportions of Noah’s body as the microcosm to recreate the world (macrocosm) after the great deluge. Furthermore, Agrippa is very consistent in his usage of Noah as the foundation of the macro-micro analogy, because he uses Noah in both accounts of the macro and micro analogy. Agrippa is very detailed on how the proportions of the man (microcosm) reflect the macrocosm of the post deluged world. As Agrippa says, “some who have written of the microcosm, or a man, measure the body by six feet, a foot a degree, every degree by five minutes; from hence are numbered sixty degrees, which make three hundred minutes, to the which are compared so many geometrical cubits, by which Moses describes the ark” (Agrippa, 345). Agrippa draws convenientia analogy of the second usage between the resemblance Tritemius’ fifth governor of human history (Mars), who caused the great Deluge, and the number two (micro and macro analogy), combines, and generates the number seven, which means to him a new cosmos. In this new cosmos, man is the measure of all things in miniature; he is the mirror which reflects the entirety of the world. “There is no member of man who hath not correspondence with some sign, star, intelligence, divine name, sometimes God himself the Archetype” (Agrippa, 345).

It is evident that Agrippa’s usage of macro and micro analogy is not only metaphysical, but also fatalistic. Agrippa’s association of Noah with the micro-macro analogy is not accidental, but based upon Tritemius’ belief that under the governance of Mars, the great deluge occurred due to man’s natural violence due to the influence of this planet. God, however, subsequently recreated the world in the resemblance and proportion of Noah’s body. Agrippa’s is not pushing and trying to transform micro and macro analogies into secondary causes, but he may believe that they have their origin from a secondary cause: the Great Deluge. Agrippa’s usage of macro and micro analogy in this particular case is clearly closer to his teacher Tritemius than the Florentine Hermetic(s), because of his correlation of the macro-micro analogy with the great deluge. 

“Book Two of the Occult Philosophy” contains Tritemius’ fatalistic view of the macro micro analogy, but “Book Three of the Occult philosophy” contains a more Florentine Hermetic view of the macro and micro analogy. He does not refer to Noah, but refers explicitly to Trismegistus Hermes at the outset: “The most abundant God (as Trismegistus saith) hath framed two images like himself viz. the world and man, that in one of these he might sport himself with certain wonderful operations; but in the other, that he may enjoy his delights” (Agrippa, 579). Nature is the mirror of Gods operations. Man is the mirror of God’s delights. Agrippa is clearly using Ficino’s language of his translation as carefully as Lazzarelli, because of his explicit use of “mirror.” The language of images involving the macro and micro analogy is evoked as with Ficino’s translaton of Trismegistus’ usage of the analogy: “God also created man after his image; for as the world is the image of God, so man is the image of the world” (Agrippa, 579). His syntax is plain. X is image of G, Y is the image G, and so X is the image of Y. The linking mechanism is God, which links man to the world. Again, this is classic Hermetic thought, because links between subjects are transitive. Just as the world has a soul (anima mundi) and body, so man has a soul and body. “The world is a rational creature, immortal; man in like manner is rational, but mortal, that is dissolvable; for (as Hermes saith)” (Agrippa, 578).

Agrippa is suggesting that man is a part of the world and his death dissolves him back to the world, so man goes back to his origin (the world) in the cycle of generation and degeneration. Pico, Ficino, and Lazzarelli would not share this mortalism, because they believe in the immortality of the soul. Agrippa’s explicit reference to mortalism is less romantic than Florentine picture, but is shared by Pietro Pomponazzi, who writes in his Commentary to the De anima (1511) about mortalism: “if the human soul is dependent in all its operations on some organ, it is inseparable and material; but in all its operations it is dependent on some organ; hence it is material” (Pomponazzi, 305). Anything made of matter will return to the world.      

In the End of the Birth, and Consideration of the Stars (1525), Paracelsus begins his cosmology by employing the Hermetic micro and macro analogy. He uses the typical language of “image” and he uses it to man, the world, and the cosmos. His usage conforms to the typical syntax of Hermetic macro and micro analogy: just as x is to g, so y is to g, so x is to y. Unlike Agricola, Paracelsus relates this cosmology to his alchemical concept of quintessence, not natural magic. As Paracelsus tells us, “From the mas man was afterwards. Hence man is now a microcosm, or a little world, because he is an extraction from all the stars, and planets of the whole firmament, from the earth and the elements; and so he is their quintessence” (Paracelsus, 289). Paracelsus believes that everything contained in the cosmos is contained in man, because he is made of quintessence, which is the essence of all creation.

A substance (quintessence) is the universal link between man, the world, and the cosmos. Quintessence is above Empedocles’ four elements, because the four elements only apply to the terrestrial, while quintessence is in the celestial as well as terrestrial. Man is beyond the four elements, because, unlike minerals, metals, plants, and animals, because he is more than the four elements, but also the fifth (quintessence). Man is an extraction not only of Empedocles’ four elements but also of the stars and planets. “The four elements are the universal world, and from these man is constituted. In number, therefore, he is fifth, that is, the fifth or quintessence, beyond the four elements out of which he has been extracted as a nucleus” (Paracelsus, 289).           

Paracelsus goes onto say that macrocosm and the microcosm is great range divisible by form, image, and species. “But between the macrocosm and the microcosm this difference occurs, that form, image, species, and substance of man are diverse” (Paracelsus, 289). Accordingly, a form, or image, or species, or substance is the subject of a macro and micro analogy. A man’s body conforms to the “form” of the world, because just as man’s body contains veins and arteries carrying blood, so the earth has rivers carrying water though out its body. Accordingly, this micro and macro analogy links the form of body and element (or substance) water to man and the world related strictly to form and Empedocles’ element of water. On Paracelsus’ view, the four elements sustain man’s body: “that man is sustained from the four elements, and that he takes from the earth his food, from water his drink, from fire his heat, and from air his breath (Paracelsus, 290). So we can draw micro and macro analogy by “species”: just as the anima mundi (world soul) generates and degenerates species in the world by the four elements, so man generates and degenerates due to the four elements. 

Unlike Agrippa and Pico’s heavenly man, Paracelsus regards man as something between the terrestrial and the celestial. He does not believe that man can transcend completely from elemental world, because his body is not sustained by the celestial, but by the terrestrial. This is what Paracelsus means by “between the macrocosm and microcosm this difference occurs.” Paracelsus, on the other hand, does not believe that man is completely reducible to the four elements, because his mind is sustained by the celestial and angelic. Even though man may be from terrestrial and sustained by it, man has a quintessence which makes him not reducible to the terrestrial. “There is within him the intellect which does not, like the complexion, come from the elements, but from the stars” (Paracelsus, 290).

Accordingly, man is the perfect little mirror of the created cosmos, because he reflects through his body the terrestrial and through his intellect the celestial. Neither the terrestrial nor the celestial reflect the entirety of the created Cosmos as well as man, because the celestial is only quintessence and terrestrial is only the four elements. Only man is both. All the arts and ideas of man are contained in the stars to sustain man’s intellect: “and the condition of the stars is this, all the wisdom, intelligence, industry, of the animal, and all the arts peculiar to man are contained in them (Paracelsus, 290). Not only man’s intellect, but also animal intellect is contained in the stars, which suggests animals who think have quintessence too. Paracelsus’ subsequent inclusion of animals to quintessence is a confusion of his earlier restriction to man. Quintessence is the material of the mirror which reflects the little world and great world. 

In the Archidoxies (1524), Paracelsus argues that since man’s body is a microcosm of the earth, then substances from earth, such as animals, plants, minerals, and metals can help heal the body. His application of the microcosm is specifically applied to medicine: “The subject of the microcosm is bound up with medicine and ruled by it, following it none otherwise than a bridled horse follows him who leads it, or a mad dog bound with chains” (Paracelsus, 5). Galenian physicians and Empirics are “abusing us and depreciating the mysteries of Nature and of philosophy, about all of which they utterly ignorant” (Paracelsus, 5). These fools are not guide my the mystery of micro and macro analogy between man’s body and the earth. They do not understand the resemblances and links between certain illness and certain minerals, metals, plants, and animals as cures those illnesses, because they do not know how the human body corresponds to the earth. All knowledge commences resolving the mysteries of nature and uncovering her secrets. “It is to learn the mysteries of nature, by which we can discover what God is and what man is, and what avails a knowledge of heavenly eternity and earthly weakness” (Paracelsus, 4) Micro and macro analogy is a preordained mystery of the cosmos which illuminates specific resemblances and links between God, the world, and man. Ergo, the microcosm leads all understanding of medical problems, not the works of Galen or recipes of Empirics.

Paracelsus provides us with various specific medical micro and macro analogies, which correlate a) celestial sphere, b) metal to c) an organ, and to d) mental illness. On his system, epilepsy comes from heart, which corresponds to sun and gold. So a cure for epilepsy should involve the metal gold and plants under the governance of the Sun. A lunatic is disturbed in brain by the moon, and requires a cure from the metal silver and plants under the governance of the Moon. Syphilis causes madness due to the effect by Venus upon the brain to contract the illness from some wench. A cure for such madness would involve copper. Insanity comes from the bile and gall and usually involves an opposition between the two organs, because insanity is under mars, which means opposition, so a cure should involve the metal iron. Mania comes from the liver and usually involves a cure from mercury. Melancholy comes from the spleen and usually influenced by Saturn and cured by lead. Obsession comes from conflict between the Lungs and Liver. Unity between the two organs comes from tin.

 Just as the alchemist operates upon nature through the twelve alchemical operations to reveal her secrets and perfect nature, so God operates alchemical operations in his various creations of the cosmoses. This micro and macro analogy is the Mysterium Magnum (or great secret). Paracelsus’ Mysterium Magnum is a myth of the eternal return, which is perpetual cycle of generation and degeneration of cosmos(s). The myth of eternal return is Tritemius’ legacy to Paracelsus: “all creatures, together the great mystery itself perish, are wiped out and reduced like some wood which burns down to a small heap of ashes” (Paracelsus, 259). From this alchemical operation of destruction, another cosmos is born. “But out of those ashes is made a little glass; the glass is made into a small berly” (Paracelsus, 259). If this were the end of myth, God would be perfecting his creation, like Agrippa and Tritemius’ great Deluge. Paracelsus could have left it at that and preserved his Mysterium Magnum, because God was performing an alchemical operation to perfect his creation, purifying his creation by water. He goes onto to say “the beryl passes away into the wind. In the same way shall we consumed, passing from one thing to another, until nothing more of us any longer survives” (Paracelsus, 259).

God will eternally reduce creation until nothing is left, because He created from nothing, and He will do this ad infinitum. God will create from nothing, “distill” it to nothing, and then the “calcination” of a new cosmos will emerge only to be “dissolved” to nothing again. This madness goes on for eternity. “So, assuredly, all creatures [plants, animals, man, celestial spheres, and angels] will be reduced to their primeval state, that is, nothingness” (Paracelsus, 259). Why does God do this eternal act of creation and destruction? God has reasons which are beyond our grasp, because “to know the sum total whereof surpasses the scope of human intelligence” (Paracelsus, 259). Paracelsus’ myth of the eternal return will influence Jacob Boehme and Nietzsche. Paracelsus’ mad myth will not disappear, unlike much of pre modernity, and is deeply rooted in the Hermetica Corpus: “In dissolving all things, the cosmos renews them, and when things have been dissolved in this way, the cosmos offers them renewal through the same process of change that moves the cosmos” (Hermetica IX: 6).