FRIVOLITIES OF COURTIERS AND FOOTPRINTS OF PHILOSOPHERS, Being a Translation of

the First, Second, and Third Books and Selections from the Seventh and Eighth Books of
the Policraticus of John of Salisbury (New York: Octagon Books, 1972)

http://www.constitution.org/salisbury/policrat123.htm

Chapter Twenty-Seven.
Soothsayers, Palmists, Prophets, and the Dethronement of Saul

WHAT shall I say of necromancers, whose impiety, at the instance of God, has already discredited
itself, except that those are worthy of death who attempt to borrow knowledge from death? For it is
a work of supererogation to discuss at length soothsayers, augurs, salisatores, wizards, prophets,
divines, and others so numerous as to be tedious to recount, since none of them appear in public; but
such of them as still exist practice the works of darkness in secrecy.1

For cogent reasons, however, some of their activities must be cursorily treated. Even if
soothsayers hide themselves they still exist in their evil work. It has been stated before that some of
them divine by inspecting the vitals of animals. (All parts covered by the epidermis are called
vitals.) It is clear that those also who prophesy by inspecting the shoulder bones of rams or the
bones of any other animal are to be reckoned among them.

Palmists also boast that they are acquainted with the truth which is hidden in the lines of the hand. It
is unnecessary to attack with reasons an error which has no foundation in reason, although reason
does assail them in that they lack reason.

There is one question which I in all seriousness put to you, if you will but listen to me. What do
these mountebanks, since I doubt not that they are known to you, divulge when questioned with
regard to matters of doubt? When the King's army was preparing to [144] advance against the
Snowdon Welsh,2 in what respect did the soothsayers, when consulted, give you warning to
advance? To be sure the mystery of truth ought not to be required of him who, because of a
chamberlain's compliance, should be regarded as the deviser of lies rather than the interpreter of
hidden truth. In fact when anyone is to be branded as a liar, the common expression used is "a
greater liar than a chamberlain."

Again, what has the palmist to offer when summoned and consulted? For at that crisis each,
whoever he was, who practiced either art was consulted. As a matter of fact after the lapse of a few
days, without warning, you lost your brother-in-law,3 who was your star, the son of morning as it
were. The rest of it, which you know better than I, I purposely pass in silence since they, as a result
of their lies, no longer deserve to be trusted. […]

Chapter Twenty-Eight. Crystal Seers; Malignant Spirits at Times Foresee the Future Because of the
Subtlety of Nature, of Long Experience in Events, and of the Revelations of Higher Powers; They
Often Deceive, Either Deceiving Themselves or Being Deceived; They Follow the Indubitably
Wicked Ways of the Crystal Seers

CRYSTAL seers falsely flatter themselves that they offer no sacrifices, that they harm no one, that
often they are helpful in detecting theft and purging the world of malefactors, and that they seek

1
Rom. xiii. 12.
2
King Henry invaded North Wales in 1157.
3
This brother-in-law, Webb suggests, may have been the son of Henry I and the daughter of a British prince, Rhys ap
Tewdwr.
only truth that is helpful and practical. The wicked are not so.4 "He that gathereth not with me" He
said "scattereth, and he who is not with me is against me."5 In practicing such arts despite the
prohibition of God, what else are the wicked doing than lifting up the heel6 against Him who
prohibits them?

Excessive is the sacrifice that he offers who casts out the Holy Spirit and prostitutes his mind to
idolatry; excessive is the sacrifice of him who solicits with the voice that is consecrated to God the
polluted ears of demons; excessive is the sacrifice that he makes who lends the movement of his
body to the performance of execrable rites. What then has he who has delivered over his brain,
tongue, and body to demons, reserved for his Creator? Has he done no harm to truth who seeks his
perfection in such corruption? Truly in such matters no one may plead ignorance, for it is common
knowledge, [162] or ought to be, that such a stigma on the faith has been upbraided and condemned
by anathema.

The soldier in this world indeed is not exempted from the obligation of his oath, or the ward from
that of his age, or the woman from the infirmity of her sex, or the farmer from the task of cultivation
at which he works for the public weal. For although in loss of property ignorance of law may be
pleaded, in the subversion of the faith no such plea is permissible, the decision being that he who
ignores is ignored, that he who is unwise as the result of guilt shall be instructed by penalty, and
that he who has neglected to learn seemly conduct shall be wisely punished. For how could anyone
have learned to free himself from great distress without effort while he was at the same time
painfully learning the painful lesson of mortal sin? One who is capable of straying from the faith as
result of worry of soul and acts of the body is not able to enjoy tranquillity of faith without great
effort. For whoever indulges in these frivolous superstitions hath denied the faith7 and is worse than
an unbeliever, and although he acknowledge God in word,8 he denies Him in his evil works. It is no
more easy for a man of such character to be steadfast than it is for a corrupt judge who hankers after
gifts and who has recompense in view.

But that which influences the minds of the simple, to wit that the secrets of the future can be made
manifest only by the hand of Him in whose power are times and seasons,9 does not touch the crux
of the matter. For although there is but one Arbiter of the future, who is the Lord God of all, none
the less the future at times becomes known to men through signs.

Why is it strange if they sometimes have foreknowledge10 of things of subtle nature and if, as the
result of long experience and the revelations of superior powers, they are warned with regard to
many matters? If therefore spirit when weighed down by the bulk of body and retarded by its
vestment of clay, whose keenness has been blunted by the corruption of turbulent sensation,
conjectures what [163] is to come from what precedes or from indications derived from certain
things — what prevents spirit, loosed from all bodily ties and unretarded by impeding bulk, from
measuring beforehand the outcome of events impending or to occur after long lapse of time?

Now one who was born, as it were, the day before and is destined to die after a few days, deduces in
the intervening period like from like and draws conclusions as to the future from causes that have
become known to him in the meantime. Will not then one not merely ancient11 but long established

4
Ps. i. 4.
5
Matt. xii. 30.
6
John xiii. 18.
7
1 Tim. v. 8.
8
Titus i. 16.
9
Acts i. 7.
10
Augustine, De Divinatione Daemonum; cf. De Civ. Dei, ix. 22.
11
Dan. vii. 9.
of days, who from the day that he was born12 is full of wisdom and perfect in his ways, be able with
greater ease to do this? Who so dull and egregiously stupid as not to rise to the best of his ability in
such a span of time, to the prophesying of things that are to be? Moreover, propitious powers which
with affection and devoted obedience zealously serve the Lord are indeed able to reveal secrets to
seers and are at times supposed to do so.

Yet it is not forthwith true that discredited seers perceive and predict; rather on occasion they hasten
to announce what they suspect or fear, with the result that they appear to be aware of secrets. For
example, about the time of the birth of our Lord the demons presiding over the temples of Egypt
predicted their abandonment and their own departure. Hence, in the writings of Trismegistus,13 the
words concerning the extermination of the religion of idolatry: "The time will come, Egypt, when
the fables of thy religion shall alone survive."

Often what seers do of necessity and under compulsion they pretend to do of their own accord, as if
wroth with men to whom they feign to be hostile. Often too they lie, either deceiving or themselves
deceived. But at any rate, though what they announce be true, they are either to be repressed or to
be avoided. Hence in Deuteronomy: If there arise in the midst of thee a prophet or a dreamer of
dreams [164] and he foretell a sign and a wonder and the sign or the wonder come to pass, whereof
he spake unto thee, saying: "Let us go and follow strange gods which thou knowest not, and let us
serve them," thou shalt not hear the words of that prophet or dreamer of dreams, for the Lord your
God trieth you that it may appear whether you love him or not.14

From this it is indeed clear that although things happen which are stated by those divining not
according to God, they are not to be accepted in the sense that what is anticipated by them takes
place, or what they worship is worshipped. Nor did the apostle in the Acts of the Apostles spare the
unclean spirit because, in the case of the maid having a spirit of divination, it presented testimony of
the truth to the Apostles and their preaching.15 But nothing is more effective against such a plague
than for one to refuse absolutely to give ear to such deception. I thank God that He held out for my
defense, even in my earliest years, the shield of his gracious purpose. During my boyhood I was
placed under the direction of a priest, to teach me psalms. As he practiced the art of crystal gazing,
it chanced that he after preliminary magical rites made use of me and a boy somewhat older, as we
sat at his feet, for his sacrilegious art, in order that what he was seeking by means of finger nails
moistened with some sort of sacred oil or crism, or of the smooth polished surface of a basin, might
be made manifest to him by information imparted by us.

And so after pronouncing names which by the horror they inspired seemed to me, child though I
was, to belong to demons, and after administering oaths of which, at God's instance, I know
nothing, my companion asserted that he saw certain misty figures, but dimly, while I was so blind
to all this that nothing appeared to me except the nails or basin and the other objects I had seen there
before.

As a consequence I was adjudged useless for such purposes, and, as though I impeded the
sacrilegious practices, I was condemned to have nothing to do with such things, and as often as they
decided to practice their art I was banished as if an obstacle to the whole procedure. So propitious
was God to me even at that early age.

[165] But as I grew older more and more did I abominate this wickedness, and my horror of it was
strengthened because, though at the time I made the acquaintance of many practitioners of the art,

12
Ezek. xxviii. 15, 17.
13
I. e., The Hermetic Books. See Apuleius, Asclepius, xxiv; cf. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, xiii. 1-3.
14
Deut. xiii. 1-3.
15
Acts xvi. 16ff.
all of them before they died were deprived of their sight, either as the result of physical defect or by
the hand of God, not to mention other miseries with which in my plain view they were afflicted.
There were two exceptions. — the priest whom I have mentioned and a certain deacon; for they,
seeing the affliction of the crystal gazers, fled (the one to the bosom of the collegiate church 16 —
the other to the refuge of the monastery of Cluny) and adopted holy garb. None the less I am sorry
to say that even they, in comparison to others in their congregations, suffered many afflictions
afterward.

Now if the consensus of opinion and the authority of the Catholic Church do not suffice to combat
this error, the example of its evils are enough to root it out. Moreover, as no one can drink the
chalice17 of the Lord and the chalice of demons, or serve two masters, God and Mammon,18 so no
one attains the grace of God and practices this type of sorcery. But why, with a prick as of an awl,
do I assail a view inimical to the faith and to morals while I have the power to pierce it with a thrust
of the sword of the Spirit19 plunged to the hilt? Let it therefore be smitten but once with the strong
hand20 and with the arm of Him who divided the Red Sea in sunder to submerge the Egyptians; and
a second time21 there will not be need, for there is none that can deliver out of his hand.22

Therefore let Him unsheath the sword of Moses and lay low the Egyptian abomination and hide
them in the sand of their sterility,23 that they may not appear in the eyes of the faithful. Let Him
speak the word and pronounce sentence of condemnation against errors which we for long now
have been working to drive from His home. His word is indeed a sharp two-edged sword,24 living
and active, [166] sharper than any two-edged sword and piercing even to the dividing of soul and
spirit, of both joints and marrow, and quick to discern thoughts.25

Foolish is he who fears not this threatening sword. And behold, it threatens before the face of the
Church, in sight of all. In fine it is turned against all, for He hath said "For when thou art come into
the land which the Lord thy God shall give thee, beware lest thou have a mind to imitate the
abominations of those nations. Neither let there be found among you anyone that shall expiate his
son or daughter, making them to pass through the fire, or consulteth soothsayers, or observeth
dreams and omens; neither let there be any wizard, nor charmer, nor anyone that consulteth
pythonic spirits or fortune tellers, or that seeketh truth from the dead; for the Lord abhorreth all
these things and for these abominations he will destroy them at thy coming. Thou shalt be perfect
and without spot before the Lord thy God. These nations whose lands thou shall possess hearken to
soothsayers and diviners, but thou art otherwise instructed by the Lord thy God."26

Who therefore can doubt that these, which the words of the prophet, nay of the Holy Spirit,
extirpate with such pains, are wicked practices and not merely a weakening but a destruction of the
faith? In the words of God they are abominations; and man thinks to rise above man by following
their teaching.27 On account of such crimes nations have been blotted out and yet man in his
rashness is confident that he is advanced by them.

16
I. e., a church in which there is a college or chapter of canonics.
17
1 Cor. x. 27.
18
Matt. vi. 24.
19
Eph. vi. 17.
20
Ps. cxxxvi. 12, 13.
21
1 Kings xxvi. 8.
22
Deut. xxxii. 39.
23
Exod. ii. 12.
24
Apoc. i. 16.
25
Heb. iv. 12.
26
Deut. xviii. 9-14.
27
There is a pun in the sentence, as if the Latin word abominationes were abhominationes.