Of the Virtue of Proper Names
Perrone Compagni — Table of Comparison
1533 edition (1:59): W, 2: 58 + some very short additions (one still ab
This chapter, De divinatione quae per somnia fit (“Of the Virtue of Proper Names”), occupies a significant place in Agrippa's systematic exposition of occult philosophy. In the 1533 Cologne printed edition (De occulta philosophia libri tres, sigla K in Perrone Compagni's critical apparatus), the text represents Agrippa's mature formulation of the ideas it addresses, the product of over two decades of reading, travel, and revision since the composition of the Würzburg draft.
This chapter corresponds to W 2:58 in the Würzburg draft, with shorter additions in the 1533 text. The core argument is preserved from W, but Agrippa refined it with supplementary passages, qualifying or extending particular points.
The extent of revision in this chapter illustrates the dynamic character of Agrippa's rewriting process. Rather than simply updating facts, he appears to have substantially reconfigured the argument. Comparison with the partial edition A — which represents an intermediate stage — may reveal whether the additions were introduced gradually or in a single later revision.
Scholarly Perspectives
Chapters on names, words, and characters (approximately I:59–I:62) form the language-theory core of Book I. Miles (2008) argues that Agrippa's philosophy of language is far more nuanced than the standard 'magical identification of signifier and signified' allows. Words derive their power not from any inherent property but from 'the occult Divine powers working by them in the minds of those who by faith adhere to them' — a position Miles traces back to this cluster of chapters and which reaches its clearest statement in III:11. Lehrich (2003) reads these chapters as part of the ascending movement from natural signs to divine names.