Of Number and Its Dignity
Revised & ExpandedPerrone Compagni — Table of Comparison
1533 edition (2:2): W, 2: 17 + three additions
This chapter, 2:2 (“Of Number and Its Dignity”), 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 2:17 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
The metaphysical status of number in DOP draws on the Pythagorean tradition as filtered through late antique Neoplatonism. Lehrich (2003) traces Agrippa's sources to Iamblichus's Theology of Arithmetic and Nicomachus's Introduction to Arithmetic, both of which treat numbers not as abstract quantities but as ontological principles — 'the key to all secrets of nature' as Agrippa formulates it. This gives Book II's numerological chapters a philosophical seriousness that purely practical magic manuals lack.