Book of Eight Questions (composed 1508; printed Oppenheim 1515)

The Liber octo quaestionum records Trithemius’s answers to eight theological questions put to him by the Emperor Maximilian I, who had a lively interest in prophecy, genealogy and the occult. The book was printed at Oppenheim in 1515, the year before the abbot’s death, with an imperial privilege protecting it from reprinting. The questions concern faith and reason, the faith necessary for salvation, whether unbelievers can work miracles, the authority of Scripture, the reprobate and sorcerers, the power of witches, divine permission of evil and divine providence. Trithemius’s replies are important for the history of witchcraft belief because they set out, in compact form, the learned demonology of a respected humanist churchman. He holds that witches are real servants of the devil, that their power operates only by God’s permission, and that rulers have a duty to suppress them; his tone is harsher than that of many contemporaries. The work thus sits alongside his Antipalus Maleficiorum as evidence of the paradox that the most famous ‘magician-abbot’ of the age was also a vigorous opponent of sorcery, eager to distinguish his own learned natural and angelic philosophy from diabolical magic. The online transcription gives the preface and the first five questions in full, with the beginning of the sixth, from the 1515 printing.

What it contains

Preface addressed to Emperor Maximilian I
On faith and understanding, and the faith needed for salvation
Whether unbelievers can perform miracles
On the authority of Holy Scripture
On the reprobate and on sorcerers
On the powers of witches, divine permission and providence