The Contest of Wisdom with Folly

Ps. 119. 99. Prov. 2. 3. Job. 28. 18. Prov. 4. 6.

data continues from previous page: your commandments I strive to keep, if because I have called upon you, (O sacred Wisdom) and inclined my heart to prudence, for the acquisition of which is better than rubies, if because I extol you with due praises (for you are accustomed to exalt those who trust in you and make them friends of God): if because I venerate, follow, and embrace that true Magic Natural magic, which Fludd distinguished from demonic sorcery, of which you (O blessed rock) are the firm base and foundation, if (I say) because I thirst for your divine laws and long for the living waters from your rock; should I for this reason be infected by the insults and curses of such malevolence of the impious? Therefore be you (O potent virtue) my aid, be to me a firm rock or crag and a fortress: I implore you, make me confident and courageous, so that I may act strenuously and forcefully in this cause of mine, for it is also yours, and that I may deservedly hurl back the stigmata of blasphemy onto the head of the blasphemer himself, who, having spurned your majesty and neglected the virtue stronger than all forces, seems to attribute the entire faculty of true Magic to the devil (no exception being made): as if you, decreasing in your ancient fortitude and growing more and more languid in virtue with every age, should not know how to perform, through your creatures both angelic and others dwelling in heaven and on earth, many things even today greater than the devil knows. For to you alone, not to the devil, pertains the science of true Magic, since you alone are the worker of all miracles. Wherefore, may your (O sacrosanct Sophia) victory and triumph be over Moria a play on the Greek moria, meaning "folly," used here to mock Mersenne, that pretender, and to you be perpetual praise, honor, and glory, Amen.