Of the Angels and Their Orders and Properties
New in 1533Perrone Compagni — Table of Comparison
1533 edition (3:13): new
This chapter, 3:13 (“Of the Angels and Their Orders and Properties”), 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.
According to Perrone Compagni's table of comparison, this chapter is entirely new in the 1533 edition: it has no antecedent in the Würzburg draft (W). Its presence marks one of the conceptual expansions that distinguish K from W — the addition of material reflecting Agrippa's subsequent reading and intellectual development.
The absence of this chapter from the Würzburg draft invites reflection on what prompted its insertion in the mature edition. Agrippa's intellectual biography between 1510 and 1530 — including his engagement with Neoplatonism, Kabbalah, Hermetism, and scholastic natural philosophy — provides the context for understanding such additions. The partial edition A (sigla A in Perrone Compagni) may offer clues about when the material was composed.
Agrippa's Argument
The chapter develops the imago Dei doctrine into an operative magical claim: God's members are 'the ideas and exemplars of our members,' and through rightful conformity of our members to those exemplars we are 'translated into the same image' and made 'true sons of God.' Agrippa draws on the Kabbalistic tradition of Shi'ur Komah (the mystical account of the divine body's proportions) and on the Christian theological tradition of the imago Dei, synthesizing them into a claim that has both contemplative and operative dimensions. The operative dimension: the ritual invocation of divine names and angelic aspects is simultaneously a spiritual discipline through which the magician's body and soul are progressively conformed to the divine nature. Magic is not commanding God or spirits but conforming oneself to the divine image, which then — by the logic of Agrippa's entire cosmological system — draws higher powers to cooperate.
Scholarly Perspectives
Lehrich (2003) reads Book III, Chapter 13 as the culmination of Agrippa's extended treatment of divine names and angelic hierarchies, identifying it as the locus of what the text itself calls the 'great and hidden mysteries' of man as imago Dei. The chapter's central claim — that God's members are the 'ideas and exemplars of our members,' and that through rightful conformity of our members we are 'translated into the same image' and made 'true sons of God' — is, for Lehrich, the positive program toward which the entire ceremonial magic system of Book III has been building. Situating the passage within the Kabbalistic tradition of Shi'ur Komah, the mystical speculation on the measure of God's body, Lehrich argues that the invocation of divine aspects is not reducible to technique for producing worldly effects; it is simultaneously a contemplative discipline through which the magician's body and soul are progressively conformed to the divine nature. This reading intervenes decisively in the historiographical debate over whether Agrippa's magic is instrumental or transformative in its ultimate orientation: against accounts that treat the angelic hierarchies of Book III as a mechanism for commanding spirits, Lehrich insists that the manipulation of names and seals is internally ordered toward spiritual ascent. The chapter appears only in the 1533 final draft rather than the earlier circulated version, suggesting Agrippa himself sharpened this theurgic dimension in his mature redaction.