282 PARACELSUS 



mere imitation of the personal usages of the saints leads 

 to nothing but damnation. The wearing of a black 

 coat, or the possession of a piece of paper signed by 

 some human authority, does not make a man a divine. 

 Those are divine who act wisely, because wisdom is God. 

 A clergyman should be a spiritual guide for others ; but 

 how can a man be a spiritual guide if he merely talks 

 about spiritual things and knows himself nothing about 

 them ? It may be said that the personal behaviour of a 

 clergyman does not affect the truth of what he teaches ; 

 but a clergyman who does not act rightly does not pos- 

 sess the truth, and therefore cannot teach it. He can 

 only, parrot-like, repeat words and sentences, and their 

 meaning will be incomprehensible to his hearers, because 

 he knows nothing about that meaning himself." 



"Belief in opinions is no faith. He who foolishly 

 believes is foolish. A fool who believes unreasonable 

 things is dead in faith, because he has no real know- 

 ledge, and without knowledge there can be no faith. 

 He who wants to obtain true faith must know, because 

 faith grows out of spiritual knowledge. The faith that 

 comes from that knowledge is rooted in the heart. He 

 who ignorantly believes has no knowledge, and possesses 

 no faith and no power.-^ God does not desire that we 

 should remain in darkness and ignorance ; on the con- 

 trary, our knowledge should be of God. We should be 

 the recipients of divine wisdom. God does not rejoice 

 to see fools, blockheads, and simpletons, who are ready 

 to believe anything, no matter how absurd it may be ; 

 neither does He desire that only one wise and learned 

 man should be in each country, and that the other people 

 should follow him blindly, as the sheep follow a ram ; 

 but we should all have our knowledge in God, and take 

 it out of the universal fountain of wisdom. We should 



1 There is a false faith that comes from ignorance {Tamas)^ and a false 

 faith that originates from selfish desire (Eajas) ; but the true faith springs 

 from wisdom (Sattwa), and is itself the way for its attainment. 



