Of the Kinds of Sacrifice and Their Virtues
Perrone Compagni — Table of Comparison
1533 edition (3:45): W, 3: 30 + an addition at mid-text
This chapter, De vaticinio et furore (“Of the Kinds of Sacrifice and Their Virtues”), 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 3:30 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 ritual and preparatory chapters of Book III describe the moral and procedural conditions that the magician must satisfy before undertaking higher operations. Van der Poel (1997) emphasises that this material reflects genuine religious conviction rather than mere formulaic piety: for Agrippa, ritual purity and moral transformation are constitutive of magical efficacy, not merely customary preliminaries. Miles (2008) reads the detailed ritual instructions as setting up the retraction-paradox of the epilogue: by providing full procedural detail, Agrippa enables — and then appears to withdraw — access to the most powerful operations.