Agrippa

Agrippa, CORNELIUS, a cabalistic philosopher, born at Cologne of the noble family of Nettesheim (1486), was educated at the university there, and early entered the service of the Emperor Maximilian. By him he was sent on a secret mission to Paris (1506), where he joined a theosophistic society, and whence he engaged in a madcap expedition to Catalonia. In 1509 he was invited to teach theology at Dôle, in Burgundy. His lectures on Reuchlin's De Verbo Mirifico attracted great attention, but drew on him the bitter hatred of the monks, and he was obliged to resume a diplomatic career. He was sent, in 1510, by Maximilian to London, where he was Colet's guest. In 1511 he was summoned to join the imperial army in Italy, and for three years followed the camp; in 1515 he lectured at Pavia, and was made doctor both of law and medicine. In 1518 he became town-orator at Metz; but in 1520 he was back in Cologne, having roused the hostility of the Inquisition by his defence of a witch. His old enemies, the monks, persecuted him still in Cologne, so that he went to Fribourg in Switzerland, where he started a medical practice. In 1524 he removed to Lyons, as physician to the queen-mother of France; but here his character of occult philosopher, of semi-Lutheran even, soon furnished pretexts for neglect. He could get no salary; and at last, in 1528, he departed to Antwerp, where he was appointed historiographer to Charles V. He now began to publish his works, De Incertitudine et Vanitate Scientiarum (1530), De Occulta Philosophia (1531-33), and De Nobilitate Feminei Sexus (1532), the last two written more than twenty years earlier. The first displeased both emperor and monks; the second procured him the title of magician. Once more he could get no salary, and was thrown into gaol for debt. Then he retired to Mechlin, and married a third wife, who proved unfaithful; and then, again forced to flee, he set out on the way to Lyons. He had hardly crossed the French border when he was cast into prison for slandering the queen-mother; and though he was soon released, he reached Grenoble only to die (1535). The monkish fables—of Agrippa's black poodle, of his magic mirror, and of his over-curious pupil, who was rent in pieces by demons—have given place to a just estimate of his character as an earnest searcher after truth, who fain would have unlocked Nature's mysteries had he only held the right key. His complete works appeared at Lyons (circa 1550). See his Life, by H. Morley (2 vols. 1856).