Of the Number Six and Its Scale
Revised & ExpandedPerrone Compagni — Table of Comparison
1533 edition (2:9): W, 2: 23 + a short addition at the beginning, a substantial one at the end and insertion of “Scala Senarii”
This chapter, 2:9 (“Of the Number Six and Its Scale”), 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 2:23 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 number-scale chapters — one of the most distinctive structural features of DOP — present Pythagorean-Neoplatonic number theory in the form of comparative tables linking each number to its correspondences at every level of reality. Lehrich (2003) traces the tradition to Iamblichus's Theology of Arithmetic, noting that for Agrippa as for Iamblichus, numbers are not abstract quantities but ontological principles that structure existence from its highest to its lowest levels. Daniels (1964) emphasises the empiricist dimension: the scales are ultimately maps of observed correspondences.