The Major Works (English Library) (66 page)
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Authors: Sir Thomas Browne
147
. The next few lines read (in
P
only) thus: ‘That Judas hanged himselfe, tis an absurdity, and an affirmative that is not expressed in the text, but quite contrarie to the words and their externall construction. With this paradoxe I remember I netled an angrie Jesuite who had that day let this fall in his sermon, who afterwards, upon a serious perusall of the text, confessed my opinion, and prooved a courteous friend to mee, a stranger, and noe enemy; These…’
148
. Matthew 27.5 and Acts 1.18. The former provides the ‘doubtfull word’ απήγξατo, meaning ‘hanged himself’ as well as ‘was strangle’ (
M
).
149
. The ‘opinioned’ view is by Josephus,
Jewish Antiquities
, I, iv, 2; the contrary intention is in Genesis 11.4 (‘let us build us… a tower, whose top may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered abroad’).
150
. Acts 12.11, where
angelos
could indeed mean ‘messenger’.
151
. i.e. congregations (R).
152
. i.e. the Koran of the Moslems.
153
. i.e. the Bible.
154
. Philo,
Life of Moses
, II, 3.
155
. St Augustine in
The City of God
, XV, 23, sceptically mentions works ascribed to Enoch.
156
. i.e. the Bible.
157
. Enoch’s Pillars were said to have contained inscriptions of all the achievements to his time; but see previous page,
note 155
.
158
. ‘
Pineda
in his
Monarcia Ecclesiastica
quotes one thousand and fortie Authors’ (Browne marg.).
159
. ‘Gunnes, printing. The Mariners compasse’ (
MSS. marg
.).
160
. i.e. exclamation (literally, ‘Oh that!).
161
. ‘The Samaritan version of the Pentateuch, not printed till 1645, was known to differ slightly from the standard Massoretic version of the Jews’ (R).
162
. i.e. pagan.
163
. i.e. pagan, Jewish, Christian, and Mohammedan.
164
. In
Nicomachean Ethics
, III, 6–9.
165
. i.e. the Christian martyrs.
166
. Corrected from: ‘What false Divinity is it if I say’ (
MSS
.).
167
. ‘Virgilius’ (
MSS. marg
.): Bishop of Salzburg, deprived for a time of his See because his theory of antipodes was thought to imply the existence of another world.
168
. i.e. according to the Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation.
169
. John 2.1–10 and Matthew 4.1–3, respectively.
170
. 2 Esdras 4.5: ‘Then said he unto me, Go thy way, weigh me the weight of the fire, or measure me the blast of the wind, or call me again the day that is past’.
171
. Puzzle.
172
. The next section (#28) was not in
UA
.
173
. Pious frauds.
174
. Daniel 7.9.
176
. In his treatise
The Cessation of the Oracles
. On the background to Browne’s discourse – and to Milton’s version in the
Nativity Ode
(ll. 145 ff.) – see
§ 292
. See also below,
pp. 253
ff.
177
. As above,
p. 79, note 96
.
178
. i.e. Christ’s (Luke 23.44–5).
179
. ‘In his Oracle to
Augustus
’ (Browne marg.), quoted in Browne’s translation below,
p. 254
. The prophecy is attributed to the devil as the inspirer of pagan oracles (as above,
p. 74, note 74
).
180
. Justin, XXXVI, ii, 12.
181
. In Deuteronomy 34.5–8.
183
. ‘A strange kind of
Atheisme
to deny witches!’ exclaimed Alexander Ross in 1645: ‘is there such a strict relation between
witches
and
spirits
, that hee that denies the one must needs deny the other?’ But Browne’s premise is Henry More’s: ‘
No Spirit, no God
’ (
The Cambridge Platonists
, ed. C.A. Patrides [1969], p. 32). See especially above,
p. 27
.
184
. Sexual desires.
185
. Affected.
186
. ‘That lived without meate upon the Smell of a Rose’ (
MSS. marg
.). The ‘Maid’ was the impostor Eva Flegen of Mörs, who claimed to have fasted from 1597 for no less than thirty years (
§244
).
187
. ‘Actives’ are heat and cold; ‘passives’, moisture and dryness (
M
).
188
. ‘A star in the ascendant reveals many things to those who seek the marvels of nature, that is, the works of God’. ‘Thereby’, a marginal note explains, ‘is meant our good Angel appointed us from our nativity’.
189
. i.e. the world soul according to Plato’s
Timaeus
(41d–e), here related to the soul of man as the ‘common Spirit that playes within us’ (
§198
).
190
. ‘The Spirit of God played [‘moved’ in
AV
] upon the waters, Genesis 1.2’ (
MSS. marg.
, quoted in Latin). Cf.
Paradise Lost
, I, 19–22: ‘Thou… Dove-like satst brooding on the vast Abyss / And mad’st it pregnant’.
191
. Inserted here (
MSS.
):
‘Keepe still in my Horizon, for to mee, / Tis not the Sunne that makes the day, but thee’
. The lines occur in the poem below,
p. 156
.
192
. So Diogenes Laertius (VIII, 32) on Pythagoras; and Plato,
Phaedo
, 107d.
194
. The differences notwithstanding, Browne affirms the continuity of the hierarchical universe, in line with the common belief that there is ‘no
vacuum
, or vacuity in the world’ (Michael Sendigovius,
A New Light
, trans. J. French [1650], p. 88). See below,
p. 103, note 205
.
195
. ‘A rational and immortal essence’ (
MSS. marg
., quoted in Latin).
196
. The angels’ ‘intuitive knowledge’ (mentioned later) is also affirmed in Milton’s discrimination between the ‘discoursive’ reason of men, and the ‘intuitive’ of the angels (
Paradise Lost
, V, 487–90).
197
. The ‘specificall difference’ is the innate characteristic of a given species; ‘accidents and properties’ are all external appearances and attributes.
198
. Peculiar.
199
. Being, entity, person; but also ‘person of the Trinity’ (Coleridge) in the sense that the angels intuitively comprehend the relations within the triune Godhead.
200
. So the apocryphal book of Bel and the Dragon, 36 and 39, and Acts 8.39–40; respectively.
201
. Luke 15.10.
202
. ‘Let there be light’ (Genesis 1.3). The ‘great Father’ is St Augustine.
203
. Non-essential quality (
R
).
204
. The angels are the best part of the creation
ex nihilo
(‘out of nothing’). But Browne is probably being as playful as Donne was in ‘Aire and Angels’. See also below,
p. 105
.
205
. ‘God hath joyned all things in the world,
per media
, by middles; as first, hee hath coupled the
earth
and
water
by
slime
; so the
ayre
and the
water
by
vapours
…’ etc. (John Weemes,
The Pourtraiture of the Image of God
[1627], p. 49; in
§95
). Cf. above,
p. 101, note 194
.
206
. Genesis 1.26 and 2.7.
207
. Elevated.
208
. Sir Walter Ralegh detailed at some length the basis of the common claim: ‘because in the little frame of mans body there is a representation of the Universall, and (by allusion) a kind of participation of all the parts therof, therefore was man called
Microcosmus
, or the little world…’ (Ralegh, pp. 126 f.).
209
. See
above, p. 25
.
210
. The negative is added from
P
by Sanna (below,
p. 551
), as required by the sense. ‘Whereof’ refers to the invisible world; ‘the other’, to the visible.
211
. ‘The element of fire’ (
MSS. marg.
) which Moses failed to mention in Genesis 1.
212
. Acts 7.22: ‘Moses was learned in all the wisdom of the Egyptians’.
213
.
Primum mobile
, the outermost sphere of Ptolemaic cosmology.
214
. i.e. earthly (literally ‘below the moon’).
215
. Proverbs 16.4.
216
. i.e. by flood (Genesis 9.9 ff.).
217
. Qualification. The rest of this section was not in
UA
.
218
. i.e. not only generation.
219
. ‘An excellent
Burlesque
on some parts of the Schoolmen, tho’ I fear an unintentional one’ (Coleridge). ‘Omneity’ literally means allness; and ‘nullity’, nothingness.
220
. Genesis 2.7: ‘God formed man of the dust of the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life’.
221
. i.e. the soul’s incorruptibility and immortality.
222
. Plato,
Phaedrus
, 24c; Aristotle,
On the Soul
, II, 4, and III, 5.
223
. In
The Nature of Things
, I.
224
. ‘Traducianism’ proposes that the soul is transmitted by the parents to the children; ‘creationism’, that each soul is created anew at conception or birth.
225
. ‘In creation it is infused, in infusion it is created’. The quotation appears to derive from Peter Lombard,
Sentences
, II, xxvii, 2 (R). Antimetathesis: ‘a figure in Rhetorick where one word is inverted upon another’ (
MSS. marg
.).
226
. Uncertain, dubious.
227
. i.e. not dependent on any bodily organ.
228
. Blend.
229
. i.e. the soul is the instrument of reason, as the body is that of the senses.
230
. The rest of the sentence (to ‘so receive it’) was not in
UA
.
231
. ‘Truly sublime and in Sir T. Brown’s best manner’ (Coleridge).
232
. Corrected from ‘Restauration’ (
MSS.
). Cf.
above, p. 67, note 32
.
233
. Isaiah 40.6.
234
. Made into flesh.
235
. The one was changed into a pillar of salt (Genesis 19.26); the other’s hair was ‘grown like eagles’ feathers, and his nails like birds’ claws’ (Daniel 4.33).
236
. ‘O Adam, what hast thou done?’ (2 Esdras 7.48; cf. Genesis 3.13).
237
. Discussed more fully below, pp. 130 ff.
238
. Corrected from ‘desire death’ (
MSS
.). Also inserted here (
MSS
.): ‘It is a symptome of Melancholy to be afraid of death, and yet sometimes to desire it; this latter I have often discovered in my selfe, and thinke noe man ever desired life as I have sometimes Death;’
239
. Corrected from ‘too carelesse’ (
MSS
.), in line with the emphasis here on hope (cf.
below, p. 133, note 1
).
240
. See
below, p. 454, note 26
. Cf. Browne’s own age (mentioned
below, pp. 112
and
153
).
241
. i.e. being potentially in possession of our three ‘souls’ (as
above, p. 73, note 66
).
242
. ‘That skinne wherein the childe is wrapped in the mothers wombe’ (Cockeram).
243
. Place. St Paul ‘was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter’ (2 Corinthians 12.4).
244
. i.e. refining of gold. Cf. Ben Jonson’s
The Alchemist
.
245
. Inserted here (
P
only): ‘I have therefore forsaken those strict definitions of Death, by privation of life, extinction of naturall heate, separation &c. of soule and body, and have fram’d one in hermeticall way unto my owne fancie;
est mutatio ultima, qua perficitur nobile illud extractum Microcosmi
[i.e. death is the final change, by which that noble portion of the microcosm is perfected], for to mee that consider things in a naturall and experimentall way, man seemes to bee but a digestion or a preparative way unto that last and glorious Elixar which lies imprison’d in the chaines of flesh’.
246
. i.e. to make me less bashful or more bold.
