Page:History of the German people at the close of the Middle Ages vol1.djvu/126

114 HISTORY OF THE GERMAN PEOPLE to life, call up spirits from the nether world, foretell future events, and discover robberies and thefts through witchcraft. And this notwithstanding that he himself wrote a pamphlet against sorcery and all the vain superstitions condemned by the Church, denouncing alchemists as ' Fools and apes, enemies of nature and contemners of things divine.' 1 He was unsparing in his condemnation of George Sabellicus, the famous apostle of the black art, although the latter was the protege of the nobleman, Franz von Sickingen, of Creuznach, near Sponheim, who went so far as to appoint him school- master. ' Away with you ! ' he writes ; ' vain, presump- tuous men, lying astrologers, deceivers of weak minds ; the stars can teach us nothing concerning our immortal life, neither can they instruct us in natural or super- natural wisdom.' ' The soul of man is free, and not under subjection to the stars ; it is not influenced by them or their orbits, and has no dependence but on the eternal principle of life from which it proceeds and by which it exists. The stars have no dominion over us, and we acknowledge Jesus Christ alone as having con- trol over everything.' Among the literary works of Trithemius there are two which are still indispensable to the student of the past ; the one is the patrologic work on the ' Church writers,' a general biographical lexicon compiled at the instigation of Johannes Heyn- lin, and unique of its kind at that period ; the other, ' A catalogue of the distinguished men of Germany,' written at the suggestion of Wimpheling, 2 and the 1 In our sixth volume we again allude to Trithemius's standpoint upon this subject. 2 This work is of the greatest value in jurisprudence. See Von Savigny, •Geschichte des Romischen Rechtes, iii. 33 34.