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Text source: Isis, Vol. 70, No. 3, (Sep., 1979), pp. 385-393
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ermet ic
Geocentricity
J o h n
D e e s
e l e s t i a l
g g
By J. Peter Zetterberg*
IN
THIS PAPER
I
will
reconsider
John
Dee's opinion
of the
Copernican hypothe-
sis, especially
the claim that Dee's
Hermeticismpredisposed
him
toward heliocen-
tricity.
I
grant at the outset that Dee may have been a Copernican,
since
it is
always
possible that
he
may have held
in
private
what he would not advocate
in
print.
However,
I
believe that Dee never
accepted Copernican cosmology.
And
I
will
argue
that he
never accepted
it because he
was instead deeply committed-and
the
commit-
ment
was Hermetically inspired-to what
he
believed
to
be
the
geocentric cosmology
of
the
ancient
magi.
Not
until
1573,
when
Thomas
Digges,
in
his Alae seu scalae
mathematicae,
accepted
the
Copernican system
as
a
physical theory,
did
any Englishman
openly
defend the new
system
as
something
more than a useful
mathematical device
or,
as
Osiander had
cautioned,
a
hypothesis,
which need not be
true
nor even
probable. 1
Robert Recorde had
included a brief discussion of the Copernican system in his
Castle of Knowledge (1556), letting any examination of the cosmology of the theory
passe tyll some other
time, 2
and several of
Recorde's
English contemporaries
were
undoubtedly
familiar with the work of
Copernicus.
But as a
physical
theory,
the
novel
hypothesis
of De
revolutionibus generated no debate
in
England prior to
Digges' work. Even Dee, who
tutored Digges
in
mathematics and astronomy, never
expressed
an
opinion
regarding
the
cosmology
of the new
system.
Despite Dee's silence, a number of historians have speculated that
Dee may have
been a true
Copernican.
As
evidence
they commonly
cite the
laudatory
references to
the mathematical achievement of De
revolutionibus
that
Dee makes
in
his earliest
extant work, a preface to John Feild's Ephemerisanni 1557 (London), and also Dee's
association with
Digges. Lynn
Thorndike,
for
example, grudgingly
concedes that Dee
may
have
quietly accepted
the
Copernican cosmology, although
he adds that Dee
believed
in
so
many things
that were
wrong,
that we could not
give
him
personally
any high credit,
even
if in
this one
instance
he believed
in
something
that
happened
to
be
right. 3
More
recently
Peter French has drawn attention to another factor that he
regards
as
relevant
to the
question
of
Dee and the
Copernican hypothesis-Dee's
Hermeti-
*Department
of History, Saint
Louis
University,
Saint
Louis, Missouri 63103.
1 To the Reader Concerning the Hypothesis of this Work, trans. Edward Rosen, in ThreeCopernican
Treatises (New York:
Dover, 1959),
p. 25. On Digges
see F. R.
Johnson and S. V.
Larkey, Thomas
Digges, the
Copernican
System, and the Idea of
the Infinity of the
Universe in
1576, Huntington
Library
Bulletin, 1934, 5:69-117.
See also F.
R. Johnson,
Astronomical Thought in
Renaissance
England (1937;
reprint New York:
Octagon Books,
1968), Chs.
5
and
6.
2Castle of
Knowledge (London,
1556), pp. 164-165.
3A
History of
Magic
and Experimental
Science, Vol.
VI
(New
York: Columbia
University
Press, 1941),
p. 26. On Dee
and the Copernican
hypothesis
see also, e.g.,
Johnson, Astronomical
Thought, p.
135 and
Richard Deacon, John
Dee (London:
Frederick Muller,
1968), pp. 36-37.
ISIS, 1979, 70 (No.
253)
385
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386
J.
PETER ZETTERBERG
cism. French
believes
that Renaissance magi like
Dee, far from
retardingthe rise of
science in
the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries, may actually
have stimulated
the
movement.
He cites
Dee's supposed Copernicanism
in support of this view,
arguing
that
...
magic did not impede the acceptance
of heliocentricity.
Indeed, the Renaissance magus
was ready and willing
to embrace the Copernican
hypothesis. Dee apparently
did so, but
without fanfare. Thus, we come
to the conclusion that, although
the Renaissance magus
worked his magic within a geocentric
system,
he had a spiritual affinity with
heliocentric-
ity....
In
this case,
then, scientific
advance was spurred by
the renewed interest in the
magical Hermetic religion
of the world.4
As
I
will
demonstrate,
the
geocentric
system
in
which Dee worked his magic was
far
from conventional.
According
to Dee, ancient magi had
known the true
structure
of the heavens
and
preserved
their
knowledge
for
subsequent generations
in
the
common planetary signs that they carefully designed not only to represent the
heavenly
bodies but also
to reveal cryptically
what was true of them. In
the Monas
hieroglyphica (1564),
his
principal
Hermetic work, Dee claims
to have
discovered
the
truth of geocentric cosmology by
deciphering
these ancient
signs
and other hiero-
glyphs and symbols.
In
this ancient
cosmology,
the sun
occupies
a
very special place.
Indeed, the
sun may well be the body
about which
one planet turns, for
Dee suggests
in
a
veiled
way
that Mercury's deferent
is sun-centered.
The sun itself, however, orbits
the earth,
which
retains its position as
the true center
of the universe.
When
Dee
first
learned of the work
of
Copernicus
is not
known;
however,
it
must
certainly have been no later than May of 1547, when he traveled to the Continent to
study
with Gemma Frisius
among
others.
Frisius,
in his
Epistola
to
the
Ephemer-
ides
novae
(1556)
of Joannes Stadius,
was among
the first
to comment
favorably
on
the
work
of
Copernicus,
although
he
never
accepted Copernican
cosmology.5
Dee's first published
reference to
the work of Copernicus
was
in
1557,
several years
after his returnto England.
In
1555
he had been arrested
with
John
Feild
and
charged
with
endeavoring by
enchantmentes
to
destroy Queen Mary. 6
Feild was
planning
an
ephemeris,
and
Dee, evidently
during
their confinement
together, suggested
that
he base
it on the work
of Copernicus
and Reinhold.
Feild
accepted
the
suggestion
and
asked Dee
to write a
preface
to the work.
The preface itself is brief. Dee begins by explaining that there were many errors in
the old astronomical
tables-a
theme
of the
Epistola
of
Frisius,
who
like Dee cites
errors
in
the
position
of
Mercury
as an
example.
These had been
corrected
by
the
Herculean
labors
of
Copernicus,
Reinhold,
and
Rheticus,
whom he lauds
as
restorers
of the
heavenly discipline,
especially
the
god-like Copernicus,
whose
splendor
blinds
the
eye. 7
Dee
concludes
by urging
his
countrymen
to use the
work
4Peter
French, John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul,
1972), p. 103. French shares this view with Frances Yates; see her Giordano Bruno and the Hermetic
Tradition (London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1964), Ch. 8. See also Yates, The HermeticTradition
in
Renaissance Science, in Art, Science, and History in the Renaissance, ed. Charles S. Singleton (Balti-
more: Johns Hopkins Press, 1967), pp. 255-274.
5See Grant McColley,
An
Early Friend of
the
Copernican Theory:
Gemma
Frisius,
Isis, 1937, 26:
322-325. On Frisius see also John D. North, The Reluctant Revolutionaries,
in
Studia Copernicana,
Vol. VIII: Colloquia Copernicana
III
(Wroclaw: Ossolineum, 1975), p. 173, and Owen Gingerich, The
Role of Erasmus Reinhold and the Prutenic Tables
in
the Dissemination of Copernican Theory,
in Studia
Copernicana, Vol.
VI:
Colloquia Copernicana
II
(Wroclaw: Ossolineum, 1973), pp.
51-52.
6This is how Dee recalls the charge
in
his Compendious Rehearsall,
in
Autobiographical
Tracts
of Dr.
John Dee, ed.
J.
Crossley (London:
Chetham
Society, 1851), p.
20. The official
charge
was
lewde and
vayne practices of calculing and conjuring (Acts of the Privy Council,
Vol.
V, p. 137).
7Ephemeris anni 1557, sigs.
Aiir-Aiiv.
On
Frisius and the
Mercury problem
see
McColley,
Gemma
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JOHN DEE'S
CELESTIAL EGG
387
of these
reformers, noting
that
it
was he who had convinced Feild
to base his
tables
on their
work. Dee
does
speak highly
of the work
of
Copernicus.
However,
he
defers
from any discussion of
the heliocentric hypothesis, claiming that
the
preface
is not the
proper place to consider
such things. Dee's support
of
Copernican
planetary
theory
is
thus qualified and limited, as it is also in his proposal for calendar reform, which was
written
twenty-five years
later
and contains
his
only
other
significant
reference
to
Copernicus.
It
was at Queen Elizabeth's request in
1582 that
Dee
submitted a proposal for
calendar
reform.
In the
proposal
he relies on what he
regards
as
the
most
accurate
astronomical data
available:
the
Calculationand
Phaenomenies of
Copernicus
and
the
Prutenic Tables
of
Reinhold. As
in
the
preface
to Feild's
Ephemeris,
Dee
accepts
the
work
of
Copernicus
in
this
proposal,
but
again only
in
a
qualified
way.
For after
acknowledging
his
dependence
on the Calculation and
Phaenomenies
of
Coperni-
cus,
Dee
hastens to
add
that this is
excepting
his
Hypotheses
Theoricall:
not
here
to
be brought in
question. 8
The works
considered above contain
Dee's only discussions
of
Copernican plane-
tary theory.
In
neither
is there any indication that he
accepted
the
heliocentric
hypothesis as
anything more than a useful
mathematical fiction. Both works
deal
with
practical concerns,
and
in
both the
Prutenic
Tables of
Reinhold,
who
never
accepted
heliocentricity,
are as
much
the
object
of
Dee's
support as
the
planetary
theory used in their
computation.9
Dee and
Digges
were closely associated as master and pupil for
a period of time
after Dee had written his
preface to Feild's
Ephemeris and well before he
composed
his calendar reform proposal. That Dee's qualified acceptance of Copernican theory
is
markedly similar
in
both works
suggests that Dee did not share his
student's
enthusiasm
for
heliocentric
cosmology.
So too do
the known facts of their
associa-
tion,
the
decisive event of which
was the
appearance of a supernova in the
constella-
tion
of
Cassiopeia
in
November of 1572.
Both
studied the
nova carefully and established that it was
a phenomenon
located
in
the
supposedly unchangeable celestial
region of the universe. Dee's
contribution to
the
literature
on
the nova
was a book of
trigonometric
theorems for use
in
determin-
ing
stellar
parallax.10
Among Dee's unpublished treatises is
another work on
the
nova,
now
lost,
in
which he evidently
discussed the star's diminishing
appearance.'1
Frisius, p. 323. Dee lists
among his
unpublished
works
Mercurius
caelestis,
which
he
claims to have
written while
at
Louvain
in
1549 and is now lost.
Perhaps
Dee
explored
the
problem
of
calculating
Mercury'sorbit in this
work. It is item 17
in
Dee's
unprinted Bookes and
Treatises, which he included
in
A Letter
Containing a
most
briefe Discourse
Apologeticall,
in
Autobiographical
Tracts,
p. 74.
8Quoted
in
Robert Westman,
Magical Reform and
Astronomical Reform: The Yates
Thesis
Reconsid-
ered,
in
Hermeticism
and the
Scientific
Revolution
(Los Angeles:
William
Andrews Clark
Memorial
Library,
1977), p. 47. The best
discussion of this proposal is
by I. R.
F. Calder
in
his
unpublished doctoral
dissertation
John
Dee
Studied
as an
English Neoplatonist
(University
of
London, 1952),
pp. 725-733.
90n
the
importance of the
Prutenic Tables
in
the
early years of the
Copernican Revolution see
Gingerich, The Role of Erasmus Reinhold and the Prutenic Tables. Gingerich also explores at length
Reinhold's
cosmological
beliefs
(esp. pp.
55-62).
From what little
Dee
says,
his
interpretation
of
Coperni-
can
planetary theory
seems
similar
to the
conservative
interpretation
of the
Melancthon
circle,
which
tended
to
ignore
the cosmological
implications
of De
revolutionibus. See Robert
Westman,
The Melanc-
thon
Circle,
Rheticus,
and the
Wittenberg
Interpretation
of
the
Copernican
Theory, Isis, 1975,
66:
165-193.
10Parallaticae commentationis
praxeosq; nucleus
quidam
(London, 1573).
On Dee, Digges, and
their
study
of the nova
see
Johnson, Astronomical
Thought, pp.
154-160.
1
1
De stella
admiranda in
Cassiopeiae
Asterismo, coelitus demissa ad orbem
usque Veneris,
iterumque
in
coeli penetralia
perpendiculariter retracta
(1573).
This is item 37 in
Dee's list
in
his A
Letter
Containing
a
most briefe
Discourse
Apologeticall, p. 76.
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J. PETER
ZETTERBERG
The title of this work indicates that he believed the nova to be moving perpendicu-
larly away from the earth ( in coeli penetralia perpendiculariter retracta ). Digges
parted company with
Dee on this
issue and
considered another
possibility.
In
the
Alae
he
wondered
whether the
motion of the Earth set forth
in
the
Copernican
theory is the sole reason why this star is diminishing in magnitude. 12His attempts to
verify
this
supposition
were inconclusive
and
confused.13
Nonetheless, Digges
was
clearly willing to treat the heliocentric hypothesis
as a
physical theory,
while
Dee,
who from
all
indications
left the earth
at rest and assumed instead
that the star
was
moving, was evidently not.
Several years after his
work
on
the nova, Digges published an English translation
of the
principal sections
of
the first book of
De
revolutionibus.'4 Included with the
translation were arguments offered by Digges
in
support of heliocentric cosmology.
Digges gives no indication in either of the works in which he defends the Copernican
system that Dee shared his
views. References to Dee are limited to an apology to him
in
the Alae,
in
which
Digges explains why he is issuing his work on the nova prior to
Dee's Parallaticae commentationis, and a note of indebtedness to Dee, whom Digges
refers to as his second
parent
in
Mathematics and Astronomy. '5
As in both of the works
in which Dee briefly refers to Copernicus, nothing in his
association with
Digges justifies the conclusion that he was a true
Copernican.
Nor
does a remark by
the
Elizabethan Richard Forster
in his
Ephemerides meteorogra-
phicae (1575)
lend itself to such a conclusion:
Astronomy,
which
in
England,
first
began to revive and emerge from
darkness
into
light through
the
efforts
of
John Dee,
Keen
champion of new hypotheses and Ptolemaic Theory, will, as a result of the
interference of unskilled persons, go to ruin with the heavens of Copernicus and
Rheinhold unless Dee again
interposes
his
Atlantean shoulders. '6 The remark is
admittedly ambiguous,
but
it
seems to be based
on
nothing
more than what Dee
says
in
his preface to Feild's Ephemeris. To resolve the general ambiguity that surrounds
the
question
of
Dee's
cosmological
views
it is
necessary
to
leave his works
on
practical science
and
turn instead to his occult interests.
For
only
in
his
occult works,
in
particular the Monas
hieroglyphica,
the
subject of
which is
alchemy, does
Dee
reveal a
cosmology.
In
the Mathematicall
Preface,
the
work
in
which
Dee's interest
in
both
practical
and occult science is evident, Cosmographie is defined to be thewhole and perfect
description
of the
heavenly,
and also
elementall
parte
of the
world,
and
their
homologall application, and
mutuall
collation necessarie. '7
With
other
Renaissance
alchemists,
Dee believed that there was a
direct
correspondence
between
celestial
bodies and
terrestrial
bodies,
and
he
claimed
to
have a
Globe
Cosmographical
that
demonstrated
this
by
matching Heaven,
and the
Earth,
in
one
frame,
and
aptly
applieth parts Correspondent. '8
Through study
of
the
relations
among
celestial
12Quoted
in
Johnson, Astronomical Thought, pp. 158-159.
130n
the confused nature of Digges' argument see John L. Russell, The Copernican System in Great
Britain,
in
Studia Copernicana, Vol. V: Colloquia Copernicana
I
(Wroclaw: Ossolineum, 1973),
pp.
192-193.
14 A
Perfit Description of the Caelestial Orbes according to the most aunciente doctrine of the
Pythagoreans,
Latelye revised by Copernicus and by
Geometricall Demonstrations approved (1576). This
was
included as a supplement
to a
revised edition
of
his
father's
(Leonard) Prognostication
Everlasting.
15AIae, sig. Aiir.
16Quotedin Deacon, John Dee, p. 37.
17 MathematicallPreface to The Elements of
Geometrie of the Most Aunciente Philosopher Euclide of
Megara, trans. Henry Billingsley (London, 1570),
sig. biiir.
18Ibid.
Dee
deals
with
these correspondences most fully in his Propaedeumata aphoristica (1558), a work
on astrology. N. H. Clulee explores the sources and
character
of
Dee's astrological physics
in
Astrology,
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JOHN
DEE'S CELESTIAL EGG
389
bodies,
one
could
learn of the
relations
among
terrestrial
bodies.
In
particular, one
could
learn
of alchemical
processes through
study of the
heavens,
provided that the
correspondences between
the celestial
and terrestrial
realms
were known. As
defined
by
Dee,
cosmography
was,
in
part, the
study of such
correspondences, and
hence
cosmological considerations play an important part in the Monas hieroglyphica and
its alchemical
mysteries.
In
the Monas
Dee
claims to disclose
the
secrets of alchemy
by means of a
special
hieroglyph:
the
hieroglyphic
monad (Fig.
1).19
Throughout the work he
analyzes
this
hieroglyph
mathematically,
magically,
cabbalistically, and
anagogically,
as he
outlines his
scheme
in
a
subtitle.20 Dee
cautions the
reader
in
a
prefatory
letter that as
there is
a differ-
ence
between a
body and its
shadow, so
too is there a
difference
between
what
words and
symbols
appear to mean
and what
they
really mean. He adds: The ignorant, rash, and presumptuous
apes grasp mere
shadows,
naked and
inane, while the
wiser
philosophers enjoy
the solid
doctrine and
very pleasing
effects of
the
[real] bodies. '21
Students of
the
Monas are thus advised
by
Dee
to search
deeply for
the mysterious
truths
that he claims
to
reveal.
The
caution to
readers of
this difficult and
abstruse work
applies not
only to the work
itself but
also to
all symbols and
,.
signs
in
it.
They too
may have
multiple, hidden
meanings.
In-
deed, at least one
thing is
clear
in
the
Monas, and that
is Dee's
Figure
1.
Dee's
belief that the common planetary signs have hidden meanings.
monad.
They are
cryptic representations of cosmic
truths,
carefully crafted by
ancient magi
to
preserve
God-given truths
through
time. According
to Dee, to
understand the
universe
one need
only decipher the
signs
of the
heavenly bodies, for
the
common
astronomical
symbols
of the
planets
(instead
of
being dead,
dumb,
or
up to the
present hour at
least,
quasi-barbaric
signs) .
.
. [are
really]
characters imbued
with
immortal life
and
should now
be able to
express
their especial
meanings most
eloquently
in
any
tongue
and
to
any nation. 22
Dee demonstrates
in
the Monas that
the
planetary
signs
are
each
composed
of
[elements derived from] the symbols of Moon [ )] and Sun [0] and [from] the
hieroglyphic
sign[s]
of the elements
[+]
and of Aries
[T]. 23
These are the
four
special signs
or
symbols
that
combine to form
the
hieroglyphic
monad. The
powers,
virtues,
and
place
of each
planet
in
the
universe are
supposedly
evident
in
the
symbols
of which
it
is made.
Jupiter (2t),
for
example,
is
somehow under
the
influence
of the
moon
and Venus
( y)
the
sun,
since
the former contains
the
symbol
of the
moon,
the
latter that
of
the
sun.
Magic, and Optics:
Facets of John
Dee's Early
Natural Philosophy,
Renaissance
Quarterly,
1977, 30:
632-680.
19C.
H.
Josten,
A Translation of John
Dee's 'Monas Hieroglyphica'
(Antwerp, 1564),
With an
Introduction
and Annotations,
Ambix, 1964,
12:84-220,
p. 206. This
symbol, which appears
throughout
the Monas hieroglyphica,
also
appears
on the title page
of the Propaedeumata
aphoristica.
On the
symbol
and
its
subsequent
history see
Josten's introduction,
pp.
90-99.
All
subsequent
references
to the Monas
are
to Josten's
translation (pp.
112-219),
and unless otherwise
indicated
all brackets are
his.
2OIbid.,p.
155.
21Ibid., p.
145.
22Ibid., p. 121; brackets
are
mine.
23Ibid., p.
161.
I
have added the symbols;
the other
brackets are
Josten's.
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JOHN
DEE'S CELESTIAL
EGG
391
which he
scolded those who
merely
looke
upon
the
Heaven,
Sterres,
and
Planets,
as
an Oxe and an Asse doth.
The heavens are
instead
a
cryptic
message
to man
from
God,
who made the
Sonne,
Mone,
and
Sterres,
to be to
us,
for
Signes....
I
wish
every
man
should
way
this
word, Signes. 28
But neither Dee's
view that
the
heavens
are a cosmic hieroglyph nor the reverence for the sun that, to some degree at least, is
evident
in
the
Monas
is
in
any
way proof
of
heliocentric convictions on
his
part.
Dee
may have
had a
spiritual
affinity
with the
sun,
but
that does not
mean,
as
French
argues,
that he had a
spiritual
affinity
with
heliocentricity. 29
Both Ficino
and
Fludd,
for
example,
while
singing
eulogies
to the
sun,
were
perfectly
content
with
its
traditional
place
in
the middle
of the
heavens,
which
they regarded
as
special.30
This
seems to have
been Dee's
position,
although
he
gave
a
unique
rationale
for
the
traditional
ordering of
the
planets
and made
the
sun's
place
in the
center of
the
heavens an even
more
special one.
Dee's
cosmological diagram in the Monas is a curious celestial egg (Fig.
2).31
The
egg,
which
represented the
primordial chaos
out of
which
the ordered
world had
emerged,
was a
favorite
symbol of
alchemists.
In
the
Monas
the
egg
in
which
Dee
places the
planets
serves as a
reminder t
to the
reader that
knowledge of the
heavens must
precede
...
.....
knowledge of
alchemical
mysteries-that,
as Dee
teaches,
celestial
astronomy
is like a
parent and
teacher
to Astro-
;'
nomia
inferior [sc.
alchemy]. 32
t is more
than a
reminder,
however. It
is this
diagram of the
heavens
that
supposedly
will
reveal
alchemical
truths to
those who
can
decipher it,
*
/
and therefore the cosmology expressed in it cannot be re-
garded as
merely
conventional.
Indeed, the
diagram, al-
though
geocentric, has
unique
features.
In
Dee's
figure
the sun,
moon, and
planets
circle the
earth,
Figure
2.
Dee's celestial
as
clearly indicated
by
the
dotted lines
depicting
their
orbits.
egg.
The
cosmology
revealed is
geocentric
and
consistent with
the
first
three
theorems of
the
work. The
sun is in
the
middle of
the egg, in
the center of
the
yolk. This,
and not
the
center
of the
universe, is its
special
place.
Planets
most subject
to a lunar
influence-as
indicated by
the
(D
) in
their
symbols-are placed in
the white
of the
egg with the moon; those most subject to a solar influence-as indicated by the (0) in
their
symbols-are
placed
in
the
yolk of the
egg
with the sun.
After
presenting
his di-
agram,
Dee
addresses other
alchemists.
May
those
very
inexperienced
imposters, in
their
desperation,
hereby
understand
what is the
water
of the white
of eggs,
what the
oil
from the
yolks,
[and]
what
the chalk
of
eggs [sc.
egg-shell],
and many more
things
like
these. 33
He
explains that
the
white of the
egg is the
aqueous
moisture
of the
Moon and that
the
yolk is the
fieryliquid
of the
Sun, both
of which
infuse
their
corporeal
virtues into all
inferior
bodies. 34
The
rationale for
the order of
the planets
within
the
white
and the
yolk, as
explained above,
is
clear, and their
orderfrom
moon
outward
to
Saturn is
the
usual one,
needing no
explanation. Only
the
eggshell or
chalk is left
unexplained, although
Dee
does hint at
an
interpretation.
28 Mathematicall
Preface,
sig.
biiv.
29John
Dee, p. 103.
30See
Westman,
Magical
Reform and
Astronomical
Reform, pp.
15-18
(Ficino)
and
pp.
59-68
(Fludd).
3IMonas,
p.
174.
32Ibid., p.
175.
33Ibid.,
p.
177.
34Ibid.,
p.
181.
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JOHN DEE'S CELESTIAL
EGG
393
celestial
and terrestrial realms. Such a
geocentric
cosmology, unique
in
its
features,
and not
heliocentricity,
is,
I
contend,
the
revelation of the Monas
hieroglyphica,
a
revelation
from the
ancient magi who, according to
Dee, devised the planetary
signs
to be cryptic
messengers of such truths.41
In a prefatory letter to the Monas, Dee ridiculed the strenuous labors of the
common
astronomer,
writing
of
the geocentric
cosmology he was to reveal:
And will
not the astronomerbe
verysorry or the cold he suffered nder he
opensky, for
[all his]
vigils
and
labours,
when
here,
with
no discomfort o be
suffered
rom
the
air,
he
maymost exactly
observewith
his
eyes
the orbitsof theheavenly
bodiesunder hisown]
roof, with windows
and doors shut on all sides, at
any given time,
and withoutany
mechanical nstruments
made of wood or brass?42
It
was
in
ancient
signs and
symbols,
not
in
the
naked heavens, that
Dee,
the
Hermetic
magus, searched for cosmological truths. And I would argue, in conclusion, that the
geocentric
cosmology
he claimed
to have
discovered
by deciphering
the
planetary
signs-a
Hermetic
activity-was the one which he
believed
in
throughout his life. For
the Monas
hieroglyphica was the work
Dee was most
proud
of. He
seems never to
have lost faith in the
truths he
claimed
to have revealed
in
this
work.
In
the
Compendious
Rehearsall
(1592),
a
rambling
autobiographical
account of his
achievements,
Dee
singled
out the
Monas as the most
significant product of
his
active
and
diverse
career,
even
though
it
was never
appreciated
by
his
countrymen,
includ-
ing, he lamented,
University graduates
of high degree, and other
Gentlemen who ...
dispraysed
it
because
they
understood
it
not. 43
As Robert Westman has argued, there is no indication that Hermeticphilosophers,
with the
exception
of
Bruno, accepted a heliocentric
cosmology, although
some like
Dee
did
appreciate the work of
Copernicus and did
welcome
the
derivative Prutenic
Tables
of
Reinhold.44
In
Dee's
case, at
least,
Hermetic interests seem on
the
contrary
to
have reinforced a belief
in
geocentric
cosmology. And,
importantly,
Dee's ex-
pressed
reverence for
the
sun, even granting it to have been
deep and
Hermetically
inspired, was in no way
incompatible with this
geocentric cosmology. For the
sun,
the
center of the
yolk
of
Dee's celestial
egg,
was not denied
its
very special place.
41Dee's views regarding the planet Mercury are deserving of further study. The interpretation I have
given,
which Dee certainly
suggests,
is complicated
by one fact.
Throughout
the Monas, Dee
refers to two
Mercuries. One
of these, which Dee
represents
with the usual
planetary sign
( ),
is the hieroglyphic
messenger ;
the
other, which Dee represents
with an obscure sign
(Y ), is the uterine
brother of the
first
(p.
165-on the latter
sign see
Josten's remarks,
p.
1
10n). With
regard
to alchemy the
presence of two
Mercuries (or
forms of mercury) is
readily explainable.
The
uterine brother
is common
mercury;
the
hieroglyphic
messenger
is
philosophical mercury
or the stone.
With
regard to astronomy,
the
presence
of two Mercuries
is
problematic.
Dee may
have
dealt with these
matters in his
Mercurius
caelestis
(see
above, n. 7).
42Monas,
p. 131.
43 Compendious
Rehearsall, p.
10. Dee also speaks
highly
of the Monas in
A
Letter, Containing
a
most briefe Discourse
Apologeticall
(1595),
pp. 77-78.
As Josten notes,
this letter demonstrates
that
some thirty
years after the
first publication of the
Monas
Hieroglyphica,
to Dee the
message
of
that work
had lost none of its importance (Monas, p. 97).
44 Magical
Reform
and Astronomical
Reform.
Westman,
who does not
consider the Monas
hierogly-
phica
in
his
brief discussion
of
Dee (pp.
45-47), concludes:
It
seems
that
Elizabethan
England's
greatest
magus [Dee]
had no need
of a heliocentric
system,
whether magical
or astronomical
(p. 47).
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