the mystical theology of valentin weigel - DataSpace at Princeton ...

were mobilized to support a non-confessional, irenic project. 520 More interested in
integrating his sources rather than distinguishing them, the common thread in all his
influences is a belief in the “essentially inner spiritual nature of Christian experience”
that finds no expression in one church only, but rather draws on a single pool of
wisdom. 521 In his quest to trace all wisdom back to a single source, Crollius is prepared
not only to link Christian theology and pagan philosophy as Ficino did, but is even
willing to view Christianity as a kind of magic, whose spells are conducted with the
magic Word (Christ) rather than a magic word. 522 As Crollius writes, “es ligt und besteht
alles in der Erkanntnuß, als der gantzen Welt Schatz, sintemal ohne dieselbige niemand
zum ewigen Leben kommen kan.” 523 Most of what heathens wrote is false, but some
pagans, including Hermes, lived with pure hearts before Christ’s time and were
enlightened by the Holy Spirit in the “secret shrine of their hearts” and deserve to be
called “lovers of God” more even than people who call themselves Christians. 524 These
Christians-before-Christ are possible because there is only one true wisdom that
520 Crollius, 3.
521 “Crolls ‘wahre’ Philosophie greift zurück auf die Zeit, bevor das Wort ‘Fleisch’ geworden ist, und
versteht sich dennoch nicht als heidnisch, sondern also christlich.” Crollius, 4.
522 Hannaway writes that “by focusing the Cabalistic magic on the name of Christ himself, Croll could
claim that this magic was nothing other than the fulfilment of St. Paul’s injunction: ‘And whatsoever ye do
in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him’...Croll
envisages both magics, natural and Cabalistic, as devolving from one source, the Word” (21). Interestingly,
Dillon has found similar views on the subject of magic expressed in Origen: “the name of Jesus has power
independent of the virtue of the person using it” and it therefore “has...a truly magical power” because “the
efficacy of a magical incantation is now dependent on the moral state of the person using it, but solely on
the correct performance of the associated ritual” (206). John Dillon, The Magical Power of Names in
Origen and Later Platonism (Rome: Edizioni dell'Ateno, 1985), reprinted in John Dillon, The Golden
Chain: Studies in the Development of Platonism and Christianity (Aldershot: Variorum, 1990).
523 Oswaldus Crollius, Basilica Chymica oder Alchymistische Königlich Klynod (Frankfurt: Gottfried
Tampach, 1623), 27.
524 “Diese Widergeburt haben Hermes und andere, so eines reinen Hertzens und heiligen Wandels gewesen,
eher das Wort Fleisch worden, durch den Heiligen Geist erleuchtet in dem geheimen Schrein ihrer Hertzen
stillschweigent gehabt, unnd besser erkennt, dann viel auß den unsern, welche Christen wöllen genennet
seyn, und viel lieber für Erkenner, als Liebhaber GOttes gehalten werden. Crollius, Basilica, 27-28.
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