NOSTRADAMUS' PREFACE TO CESAR, 1555
© Allan Webber April 1st 2010.

PREFACE BY MICHEL de NOSTREDAME TO HIS PROPHECIES

To Caesar Nostradamus my son Long life and happiness .

Your late arrival, Caesar Nostredame my son, has caused me to spend a great deal of time in continuous nightly vigilance followed by writings that will be for you the memory that will outlast the bodily death of your father. For the common benefit of humans it is about the divine essence by which the astronomic revolutions have given me cognizance.

And since you cried to the immortal God as you came into natural light and this earthly shore, and do not want to be told of the years that we will be together, but in these Martial months you are unable to receive in your feeble mind that which will constrain you after my destined days when it will not be possible for me to let you know by writing, that which will be insulted over time, obliterated: because the hereditary word of the occult prediction will be shut inside my stomach: whereby the defined adventures become uncertain. And the whole thing is regulated and governed by the power of inestimable God, inspired not by bacchanalian fury nor by lymphatic movement, but by astronomical assertions. (Latin:Only divine will generates prophetic spirit and particular predictions).

How long that time in which I have several times predicted long before each [event ] happened, and their particular regions too attributing all as being made factual by divine inspiration. And other favourable and sinister adventures promptly accelerated are events I could have pronounced. But because of the climate of the world which wanted to silence [me] and [cause] neglect due to their insults, not only in the present time, but also the greater part of the future I put them in writing.

PCE2. Human Mutations - Reasons for Obscurity(PCF2)

This is because kingdoms, sects, and regions will change to the diametric opposite of that seen in the present day. If I had drawn up events as they will happen the people of that realm, sect, religion and faith, would find it so bad that they would listen to fantasies and come to damn that which future centuries will know through seeing and perceiving.

Consider also the maxim from the true Saviour: (Lat: 'Do not give what is holy to the gods or cast pearls before swine, lest they trample them under their feet, turn upon you and tear you in pieces' - Matthew 7:6,).

Which has caused me to stop speaking to the popular [media] and putting pen to paper. But now I want to reach out and declare happenings of common interest through incomprehensible and perplexing sentences about future causes. The most urgent are those in which I perceive some human mutation and for which I must find a way that is inoffensive to the weakest ear so all must be written under a more nebulous figure than that of the ancient prophets who proclaimed (Lat: You have hidden these things to the wise and prudent, that is from the mighty and the kings and in its plainness its little bits seem insignificant.)

And by the Prophets and by means of immortal God and the good angels I have received the spirit of vaticination [Lat: prophecy] by which is seen distant things and I have come to predict future events. However nothing can be perfect without him whose power is so great and the goodness to his sub jects [is such] and while the spirit remains in them it always effects other sub jects since the similarity of the cause of their good genius gives the seer's heat and power approaching us as that of the rays thrown out by the Sun , thereby influencing bodies that are elementary and not elementary.

As for us who are human, we can know nothing via our natural cognizance and inclination of our mechanisms that lets us know the deepest secrets of God the creator. (Latin: Because he does not know about our times, or dates, etc.)

However it is also possible that present happenings and personalities exist that God the Creator chooses to reveal by imaginative impressions some of the secrets that are [about] to happen. This accords with judicial-astrology [astronomy] where as in the past certain powers and voluntary faculties come to them like flames of fire that appear inspiring that person to judge human and divine inspirations. Because these divine works are to be absolutely complete, God comes to perfect them and while the normal is the work of the angels the third [class delivers] the bad.

But my son I speak to you a little too deeply however the hidden prophecies that I received were by the subtle spirit of fire, which sometimes comes from restless understanding while attentively contemplating the stars above, the surprise of which leads me to write pronouncements without fear or expectation of shameless loquacity and what emerges is the product of the great eternal God's divine power from which all goodness proceeds.

Although my son, I have inserted the name of Prophet, I do not assign such sublimity to myself for the present, since Prophetâ dicitur hodie, olim vocabatur videns -I Samuel 9:9 (Latin: The Prophet of today was once called a seer) because my son a Prophet is properly one who sees things beyond the natural cognizance of every creature. And in the event that the Prophet through the perfect light of prophecy clearly appears to be divine as well as human, then it can't be, since the effects of future prediction extend very far.

For the incomprehensible secrets of God and their efficient virtue depends on the long expansion of natural knowledge, deriving their origin from free will. They bring about the appearance of causes which of themselves could not attract enough attention to be known, neither by human augury, nor by any other hidden knowledge or virtue comprised under the concavity of heaven, even from the present fact of all eternity, which comes in itself to embrace all time. But through some indivisible eternity and by means of Hiraclienne agitation the causes are made known alongside the celestial movement.

I do not say, my son, that the knowledge of this matter cannot impress itself upon your feeble brain, nor do I say that very distant future causes are not knowable by a reasoning creature. If they are simply the creation of a goodly creature's intellectual soul out of current events, then they are not too greatly hidden from him nor, on the other hand can they be said to be revealed at all.

But the perfect causes cannot be acquired without divine inspiration since all prophetic inspiration receives its prime motivating force from God the Creator, then from happiness and nature. Wherefore causes that are indifferent are produced indifferently the presage only partly comes true where it has been predicted. Because where human understanding is created intellectually it cannot see hidden things except by the voice coming from limbo via the thin flame, showing in what direction part of the future causes will be inclined.

And also my son, I beg you never to apply your mind to things such as reveries and vanities that drain the body and put the soul into perdition thereby giving way to the foible of a vanity that is worse than the abominable magic that was first condemned by the holy Scriptures and the divine cannons. The chief exception to this is the judgment of judicial Astrology (=astronomy) whereby with inspiration, divine revelation and continual calculation, our prophetic script has been written.

And how is it that occult philosophy was condemned. I have never wanted to present their frantic persuasions [to the public], so many of volumes [on these topics I] have hidden from the long centuries that my own works cover. Doubting that some of [my predictions] will happen because of acts that might follow I presented the literature to Vulcan. Nevertheless as [the god] came to devour them, the flame rendered an unusual clarity to samples of the air. Clearer than a natural flame of fire, a clytre of dazzling lightning suddenly illuminated the house, as if it was in a sudden conflagration. Wherefore in the end what happened was that there was a violent explosion, striking perfectly the transformation in the same way as salt is formed from solitary incorruptible metals and occult waves that are converted to ashes.

But when judgment  comes to perfection with the celestial judgment that you wish to show: you will gain knowledge of future causes. Rejecting distant fantasies from the imaginations that will happen limits this feature [of future-seeing] to the premises suited to supernatural divine inspiration. And giving celestial figures, places, and the time the property held by a hidden virtue lies in this power and divine understanding. In the presence of these the three times comprise eternity because the revolution that causes them is the past, present and future: quia omnia funt nuda and aperta, etc. (Latin: because all are naked and exposed)

In this way, my son, you can easily understand, not-withstanding your tender brain, that things that need to happen, can be prophesied by the nocturnal and Celestial lights, that are natural objects, and by the spirit of prophecy: Not that I wish to attribute to myself either the name or the role of a prophet, but (rather rely on) inspired revelation, like any man whose senses are no less distant from heaven than his feet are from the ground.

'Possum non errare falli decipi' [Latin: 'I am able not to err, fail or be deceived']. I am a sinner no greater than anyone of this world and subject to all human afflictions. But being surprised at how sluggishly time flows, I have made long calculation and during the time of night's sweet odours I have composed books of prophecies each containing a hundred quatrains of astronomic prophecies, which I have intentionally arranged a little obscurely. They contain perpetual predictions for (the period) from now until the year 3797.

Which will possibly cause some people to raise their eyebrows on seeing such a long extension; but under the concavity of the moon we have the place and the intelligence and this, my son, shall be known everywhere by all the earth as its causes. For if you live (to) the natural human age you shall see in the area of your own native clime and stars, these future events take place.

How is it that the eternal God is the only one that knows the eternity of its light, proceeding from himself? And [in response] I say frankly that is to those whom he wants to reveal his long inspired melancholy in all its immeasurable, incomprehensible magnitude, that are subject thereof to hidden causes manifested divinely.

They are mainly of two major causes, which are confined to the mind of the inspired one who prophesies. One of these allows the clarity of the supernatural light to infuse the character who predicts by the doctrine of the stars and the other enables the prophesies to become inspired revelation. All of which is certainly the participation of the divine eternity, by means of which the Prophet comes to judge that his divine spirit has been given to him by means of God the creator, and a natural incitement.

But in order, my son, that I may not wander too deeply for the future capacity of your mind, and also because I find that letters shall undergo such a huge and incomparable loss, I find that so many deluges and such deep floods shall befall the world before the universal conflagration that there shall not be scarcely any land. And this will be for such a long time that except for enographies and topographies all would be lost. Also, both before and after these floods, the rains in many countries shall be so slight, and there will be so much fire and white-hot rock shall fall from the sky, that nothing shall remain that is not consumed. And all this is to occur, in a brief period before the final conflagration.

For now that the planet Mars is perfectly completing its cycle, and is at the end of its most recent period, so it shall take it up again - but with some grouped in Aquarius for several years, and others grouped in Cancer for longer and more continuous periods. And - given that we are now conducted by the moon thanks to the omnipotence of God eternal, before it has perfected its full circuit, the sun shall come and then Saturn.

For according to the signs in the sky the reign of Saturn shall return, as everyone calculated. The world is approaching, an anaragonic revolution [2105 precession of Polestar] and from the present [1555] I write here that [From the aforesaid event] before a hundred and seventy seven years three months plus eleven days [2282CE] there will be pestilence, long famine, and wars. And by worldwide floods between here and the term I have fore-stated, and before and after it by several times, will [the world] be so diminished, and so few people will there be found that want to take to the fields which will become free for as long as their prior owners have held them.

And with respect to this celestial judgment which is still seen, we are in the seventh number of the millennium that perfects it all and we are approaching the eighth, where is located the firmament of the eighth sphere and which has a latitudinal dimension. This is where the great Eternal God will come to perfect the revolution whereby celestial images will return to their [usual] moves and this upper movement makes the land stable and firm non inclinabitur in saeculum saeculi (Latin: not ever moving). To off set this his will must be accomplished but not otherwise,

How then do these ambiguous opinions exceeding all Mahommedan dreams arise by natural reasons, when God the Creator is timeless; it is by the minister of his messengers of fire. The missive is in their burning flame which comes to offer us external reference. Similarly our eyes then become causes of future prediction, signifying future cases that must occur to him that presages.

Because the exterior light which brings the presage infallibly judges its parts, so truly [is it judged] that the parts seem to use the eye for understanding, which is the purpose of this imaginative lesion. The reason for this is too obvious, since all is predicted by god's outflow, and it is by means of Angelic spirit that the man prophesying is inspired. This means that the prophecies are illuminated in layers starting with the emotions at the front of his fantasies. By various nocturnal visions it is prophesied and made certain by conjoint astronomical calculations administered in the day. Thereby this is a sanctified prediction of the future with no consideration from elsewhere that is based on free will.

The time comes my son, to hear that it is by my revolutions, which accord to revealed inspiration, that we know the mortal sword approaches with plague and a war due to the lives of three men that is more horrible than there has ever been. And the famine, which will fall to Earth, will return whilst the stars agree with the revolution. And [until that time] it is also said (Latin:I will visit their iniquities with a rod of iron, and strike them with lashes) because God's mercy will be scattered to a time, my son, when most of my prophecies will have been completed, and this will also be when the revolution is accomplished.

Then there are many times during these sinister tempests that the Lord will say, [Latin: 'I will trample and break them, and will have no mercy' and many other things shall come to occur through the floods and continual rains, as I have set out more fully in writing in my other prophecies which are written out at length in soluta oratione [Latin: 'in plain prose'], limiting the places, times and the pre-ordained period. All this is as future human beings shall see it, knowing that these adventures have happened infallibly, just as we have noted in the other [preface/prophecies] in clearer parlance notwithstanding that their intelligence has been packaged under a cloud "sed quando sub movenda erit ignorantia'[Latin:but when the time comes for the removal of ignorance] the instance shall become clearer.

To bring this to a close then, my son, take this gift from your father M. Nostradamus, who hopes to explain to you every one of the prophecies set out in these quatrains.

Praying God immortal that he will grant you long life, in good and prosperous happiness.

From Salon, this 1st of March 1555.