[2564] For Rabanus’ account see Migne, PL 110, 1097-1110; Burchard, PL 140, 839 et seq.; Ivo, PL 161, 760 et seq.; Hincmar, PL 125, 716-29. Moreover, Burchard continues to follow Rabanus word for word for some ten columns after the conclusion of their mutual excerpt from Isidore, while Ivo is identical with Burchard for fifteen more columns. In “Some Medieval Conceptions of Magic,” The Monist, January, 1915, XXV, 107-39, I stated (p. 109, note 2) that I thought that I was the first to point out the identity of these four accounts with Isidore’s.
Since then, however, I have noticed that Manitius (1911), p. 299, notes the identity of Rabanus with Isidore, “Dass Hraban sich auch sonst ganz an Isidor anlehnt, beweist er in der Schrift De consanguineorum nuptiis im Abschnitt de magicis artibus (Migne, 109, 1097ff.) der aus Etym. 8, 9 stammt.” Also Mr. C. C. I. Webb, in his 1909 edition of the Polycraticus notes John of Salisbury’s borrowings from Isidore and Ivo of Chartres. Finally, J. Hansen, Zauberwahn, Inquisition, und Hexenprozess im Mittelalter, 1900, at p. 49 notes that Isidore’s sketch of the history of magic keeps recurring in medieval writings, at p. 71 the dependence of Rabanus and Hincmar upon Isidore, and perhaps he somewhere notes the identity with the foregoing of the accounts of magic in Burchard and the other decretalists, but in the absence of an index to his volume I do not find such a passage. At p. 128, however, he notes that John of Salisbury’s description of magic is in part taken word for word from Isidore and Rabanus.
Professor Hamilton, in one of his papers on Storm-Making Springs, which appeared at about the same time as my article (Romanic Review, V, 3, 1914; but, owing probably to war conditions, this issue did not actually appear until after the number of The Monist containing my article), came near noting the same thing when he spoke (p. 225) of Isidore’s chapter as “quoted at length” by Gratian—who seems to me, however, to give the substance of Isidore’s chapter rather than his exact wording—and further noted that four lines of Latin which he quoted were found alike in Rabanus, Hincmar, Ivo, and the Polycraticus of John of Salisbury.
In my article I also stated: “Professor Burr, in a note to his paper on ‘The Literature of Witchcraft’ (American Historical Association Papers, IV (1890), p. 241) has described the accounts of Rabanus and Hincmar but without explicitly noting their close resemblance, although he characterizes Rabanus’ article as ‘mainly compiled.’” Professor Burr subsequently wrote to me, “That I did not mention the relation in my old paper on “The Literature of Witchcraft” was partly because they borrowed from other sources as well and partly because Isidore is himself a compiler. I hoped to come back to the matter in a more careful study of the whole genesis of these stock passages.”
[2565] See below, chapter 60 on Aquinas.
[2566] Etymol., VIII, 11, 15-17; Differentiarum, II, 14.
[2567] Indeed, Differentiarum, II, 39, he defines astrology as he had astronomy in Etymol., III, 27. In Etymol., III, 25, he ascribes the invention of astronomy to the Egyptians and that of astrology to the Chaldeans.
[2568] Caps. 14 and 27.
[2569] De nat. rer., III, 4; PL 83, 968.
[2570] Ibid., XIX, 2.