Just going through the archives I noticed this for yet another take on
the Preface by RJ Stewart:
But for further insights into the prophetic method, we can hardly
improve upon Nostradamus own description, written for his infant son.
Preface A Mon Fils
The Preface Of Michael Nostradamus To His Prophecies
To Caesar Nostradamus his son, life and felicity. Thy late arrival,
Caesar Nostradamus my son, has made me bestow much time, through
nightly vigils, to leave you in writing a memorial to refer to, after
the corporal extinction of your progenitor, that might serve for the
common profit of mankind, out of what the Divine Being has permitted
me to learn from the revolution of the stars. And since it has pleased
the immortal God that thou shouldst come into the natural light of
this terrene abode, and shouldst say that thy years are not yet
calculated astronomically, and thy March months are incapable to
receive in their weak understanding what I must necessarily record as
to happen after my time: - seeing also that it is not possible to
leave thee in writing what might suffer injury and be obliterated by
time; for the inherited gift of occult prediction will remain confined
to my own bowels: - considering that events of human proposal are
uncertain, while all is governed and directed by the incalculable
power of Heaven, guiding us, not by Bacchic fury, nor yet by Lympathic
motion, but by astronomical assertion - 'Soli numine divino afflati
pręsagiunt et spirito prophetico particularia.' ['Such alone as are
inspired by the divine power can predict particular events in a spirit
of prophecy.']
Although for years past I have predicted, a long time in advance, what
has afterwards come to pass, and in particular regions attributing the
whole accomplishment to divine power and inspiration, also other
unfortunate and fortunate occurrences have been pronounced with
accelerated promptitude which have since happened in other parts of
the world - for I was willing to maintain silence and to pass over
matters that might prove injurious if published not only as relates to
the present time, but also for the most part of future time, if
committed to writing, since kingdoms, sects, and religions will pass
through stages so very contrary, and, as regards the present time,
diametrically opposed - that if I were to relate what will happen in
the future, governors, sectaries, and ecclesiastics would find it so
ill-accordant with their auricular fancy, that they would go near to
condemn what future ages will know and perceive to be true.
Considering also the sentence of the true Saviour, 'Nolite sanctum
dare canibus neque mittatis margaritas vestras ante porcos, ne forte
conculcent eas pedibus suis, et conversi dirumpant vos' [Matt. vii.
61.
This it is which has led me to withold my tongue from the vulgar, and
my pen from paper. But, later on, I thought I would enlarge a little,
and declare in dark and abstruse sayings in consideration of the
vulgar advent the most urgent of its future causes, as perceived by
me, be the revolutionary changes what they may, so only as not to
scandalize the auricular frigidity (of my hearers), and write all down
under a cloudy figure that shall essentially and above all things the
prophetical. Although 'Abscondidisti hoec ą sapientibus, et
prudentibus, id est, potentibus, et regibus, et enucleasti ea exiguis
et tenuibus.' [thou hast hidden these things from the wise and
prudent, i.e., from the powerful and from kings, and hast revealed
them to the small and weak.' This is Nostradamus's gloss upon Matt.
xi. 25.1 By the grace of God and the good angels, the Prophets have
had committed to them the spirit of vaticination, by which they see
things at a distance, and are enabled to forecast future events. For
there is nothing that can be accomplished without Him, whose power and
goodness are so great to all His creatures as long as they put their
trust in Him, much as they may be exposed or subject to other
influences, yet on account of their likeness to the nature of their
good guardian angel that heat and prophetic power draweth nigh to us,
as do the rays of the sun which cast their influence alike upon bodies
that are elementary and non-elementary. As for ourselves personally
who are but human, we can attain to nothing by our own unaided natural
knowledge, nor the bent of our intelligence, in the way of deciphering
the recondite secrets of God the Creator. 'Quia non est nostrum
noscere tempora, nec momenta,' Acts i. 7. Although, indeed, now or
hereafter some persons may arrive to whom God Almighty may be pleased
to reveal by imaginative impression some secrets of the future, as
accorded in time past to judicial astrology, when a certain power and
volitional faculty came upon them, as a flame of fire appears. They
grew inspired, and were able to judge of all inspiration, human and
divine, alike. For the divine works, which are absolutely universal,
God will complete; those which are contingent, or medial, the good
angels direct; and the third sort come under the evil angels.
Perhaps, my son, I speak to thee here a little too occultly. But as to
the hidden vaticinations which come to one by the subtle spirit of
fire, or sometimes by the understanding disturbed, contemplating the
remotest stars, as being intelligences on the watch, even to giving
utterance to declarations being taken down in writing declare, without
favour, and without any taint of improper loquacity, that all things
whatsoever proceed from the divine power of the great eternal Deity
from whom all goodness emanates. Further, my son, although I have
inserted the name of prophet, I do not desire to assume a title of so
high sublimity at the present moment. For he who 'Propheta dicitur
hodie, olim vocabatur videns', ['He who is called prophet now, once
was called seer,'] for, strictly speaking, my son, a prophet is one
who sees things remote from the knowledge of all mankind. Or, to put
the case; to the prophet, by means of the perfect light of prophecy,
there lie opened up very manifestly divine things as well as human;
which cannot come about, seeing that the effects of future prediction
extend to such remote periods. Now, the secrets of God are
incomprehensible, and their efficient virtue belongs to a sphere far
remote from natural knowledge; for, deriving their immediate origin
from the free will, things set in motion causes that of themselves
could never attract such attention as could make them recognized,
either by human augury, or by any other knowledge of occult power; it
is a thing comprised only within the concavity of heaven itself, from
the present fact of all eternity, which comes in itself to embrace all
time.
Still, by the means of some eternal power, by an epileptic Herculean
agitation, the causes by the celestial movement became known. I do not
say, my son, in order that you may fully understand me, that the
knowledge of this matter cannot yet impress itself upon thy feeble
brain, that very remote future causes may not come within the
cognizance of a reasonable being; if they are, notwithstanding, purely
the creation of the intellectual soul of things present, future things
are not by any means too hidden or concealed. But the perfect
knowledge of causes cannot be acquired without divine inspiration;
since all prophetic inspiration derives its first motive principle
from God the Creator, next from good fortune, and then from nature.
Wherefore the independent causes being independently produced, or not
produced, the presage partially happens, where it was predicted. For
the human understanding, being intellectually created, cannot
penetrate occult causes, otherwise than by the voice of a genius by
means of the thin flame showing to what direction future causes
incline to develop themselves. And further, my son, I implore you
never to apply your understanding on such reveries and vanities as dry
up the body and bring perdition to the soul and disturb all the
senses. In like manner, I caution you against the seduction of a more
than execrable magic, that has been denounced already by the sacred
Scriptures, by the divine canons of the Church - although we have to
exempt from this judgement judicial Astrology. By the aid of this it
is, and by divine revelation and inspiration, united with deep
calculations, we have reduced our prophecies to writing. And,
notwithstanding that this occult philosophy was not reproved by the
Church, I have felt no desire to divulge their unbridled promptings.
Although many volumes have come before me, which had laid hidden for
many ages. But dreading what might happen in the future, after reading
them, I presented them to Vulcan, and as the fire kindled them, the
flame, licking the air, shot forth an unaccustomed brightness, clearer
than the light is of natural flame, resembling more the explosion of
powder, casting a subtle illumination over the house as if the whole
were wrapped in sudden conflagration. - So that at last you might not
in the future be abused by searching for the perfect transformation,
lunar or solar, or incorruptible metals hidden under the earth, or the
sea, I reduced them to ashes. - But as to the judgement which perfects
itself by means of the celestial judgement, that I am desirous to
manifest to you: by that method you may have cognizance of things
future, avoiding all fantastic imaginations that may arise, and
limiting the particularity of the topics by divine and supernatural
inspiration; harmonizing with the celestial figures these topics, and
that part of time, which the occult property has relation to, by the
potential virtue and faculty divine, in whose presence the three
aspects of times are clasped in one by eternity - an evolution that
connects in one causes past, present, and future - 'quia omnia sunt
nuda et operta', [For all things are naked and open.']
From all which, my son, you can easily comprehend, notwithstanding
your tender brain, the things that are to happen can he foretold by
nocturnal and celestial lights, which are natural, coupled to a spirit
of prophecy - not that I would assume the name or efficacy of a
prophet, but, by revealed inspiration, as a mortal man the senses
place me no farther from heaven than the feet are from the earth.
'Possum non errare, falli, decipi,' albeit I am the greatest sinner in
this world, and heir to every human affliction. But being surprised
sometimes in the ecstatic work, amid prolonged calculation, and
engaged in nocturnal studies of sweet odour, I have composed books of
prophecies, containing each one hundred astronomic quatrains of
forecasts, which I have tried to polish through obscurely, and which
are perpetual vaticinations, from now to the year 3797. It is possible
that this figure will make some lift up their forehead, at such a vast
extent of time, and variety of things to take place under the concave
journey of the moon; and this universal treatment of causes, my son,
throughout the earth, which, if you reach the natural age of man, you
will see in your climate, under the heaven of your proper nativity, as
things that have been foreseen.
Although the everlasting God alone knows the eternity of the light
proceeding from Himself, I say frankly to all to whom He has decreed
in long and melancholy inspiration to reveal His limitless magnitude,
which is beyond both mensuration and comprehension, that by means of
this occult cause divinely manifested, principally by two chief
causes, comprised in the understanding of the inspired one who
prophesies. One is that which comes by infusion, which clarifies the
supernatural light, in him who predicts by astral process, or
forecasts by inspired revelation, which is practically a participation
in the divine eternity, by which means the prophet comes to judge of
that which his share of divine spirit has given him, by means of
communication with God the Creator, and the natural endowment accorded
him. It is to know that what is predicted is true, and has had a
heavenly origin; that such light and the thin flame is altogether
efficacious; that it descends from above, no less than does natural
clearness; and natural light renders philosophers quite sure of their
principles, so that by means of the principles of a first cause they
have penetrated the profoundest abysses and attained the loftiest
doctrines.
But to this end, my son, that I may not wander too profoundly for the
future capacity of thy senses, and also because I find that letters
shall suffer great and incomparable loss, and that I find the world
before the universal conflagration, such deluges and deep submersion,
that there will remain scarcely any land not covered with water, and
that for so long a period, that everything will perish except
Ethnographies and Topographies. Further, after and before these
inundations, in many districts the rains will have been so slight, and
there will fall from heaven such an abundance of fire and incandescent
stones, that scarcely anything will remain unconsumed, and this will
occur a short time before the last conflagration. Further, when the
planet Mars completes its cycle, at the end of this second period, he
will recommence his course. But some will gather in Aquarius through
several years, and others in Cancer, which will be of still longer
duration. Now that we are conducted by the moon, under the direction
of the Creator, and before she has finished her entire circuit the sun
will come, and then Saturn. Now, according to the celestial signs, the
reign of Saturn shall come back again, so that, all calculated, the
world is drawing on towards its anaragonic revolution.
From the time I was writing this, before 177 years 3 months and 11
days, by pestilence, long famine, and wars, and more still by
inundations, the world between this day and that, before and after,
shall be diminished, and its population so reduced that there will
hardly be hands enough to attend to agriculture, and the lands will be
left as long without culture as they have been under tillage. This, so
far as celestial judgement manifests, that we are now in the seventh
millenary, which completes all and introduces us to the eighth, where
is the upper firmament of the eighth sphere, which, in a latitudinary
dimension, is where the Almighty will come to complete the revolution,
where the celestial figures will return to their courses, and the
upper motion which renders the earth stable for us and fixed, 'non
inclinabitur in seculum seculorum,' ['Whence it shall not deviate from
age to age,'] unless His will be accomplished, and not otherwise.
Although by ambiguous opinions exceeding all natural reason by
Mahometical dreams, also sometimes God the Creator by the ministry of
angels of fire, and missive flame, presents to the external senses,
even of our eyes, the causes of future predictions, that indicate the
future event which must manifest itself to him who presages anything.
For the presage which is made by the exterior light comes infallibly
to judge partly with and by means of the exterior flame; although
truly the part which seems to come by the eye of the understanding
springs only from the lesion of the imaginative sense.
The reason is too evident, the whole is predicted by the afflatus of
divinity, and by means of the angelic spirit inspired to the man
prophesying, rendering him anointed with vaticinations, visiting him
to illuminate him, and, stirring the forefront of his phantasy by
divers nightly apparitions no less than daily certitude, he prophesies
by astronomic administration conjoined with the holiest future
prediction, taking nothing into his consideration but the hardihood of
his free courage.
Come at this hour to understand, my son, that I find by my
revelations, and which are in accordance with revealed inspiration,
that the sword of death is on its way to us now, in the shape of
pestilence, war (more horrible than has been known for three
generations of men), and famine, that shall fall upon the earth, and
return upon it at frequent intervals. For the stars accord with such a
revolution, and with the written word, 'Visitabo in virga ferrea
iniquitates eorum, et in verberibus percutiam eos.' ['I will visit
their iniquities with a rod of iron, and with blows will strike
them.'] For the mercy of God, my son, will not be spread abroad for a
time, till the major part of my prophecies shall have been
accomplished, and have become by accomplishment resolved. Thus
oftentimes in the course of these sinister storms the Lord will say,
'Conteram ego, et confringam, et non miserebor.'I And a thousand other
accidents will come by waters and continual rain, as I have more fully
and at large set forth in my other Prophecies, which are drawn out at
length, in solutā oratione; (in these I) designate the localities,
times, and terms prefixed, that all men who come after may see,
recognizing the circumstances that come about by infallible
indications. As we have marked by the others where we speak more
clearly, for although they are covered with a veil of cloud, they are
clear enough to be comprehended by men of good intelligence: 'Sed
quando submoventa erit ignorantia,' the total will stand out with
greater clearance still. Making an end here, my son, take now this
gift of thy father, Michael Nostradamus, hoping to expound to thee
each several prophecy of these quatrains here given, beseeching the
immortal Father that He will endue thee with a long life of happy and
prospering felicity.
From Salon this 1st of March 1555
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