And so once again, my son, if I have eschewed the word prophet, I do not wish to attribute to

myself such lofty title at the present time, for whoever is called a prophet now was once called a

seer; since a prophet, my son, is properly speaking one who sees distant things through a natural

knowledge of all creatures. And it can happen that the prophet bringing about the perfect light of

prophecy may make manifest things both human and divine, because this cannot be done

otherwise, given that the effects of predicting the future extend far off into time.

God's mysteries are incomprehensible and the power to influence events is bound up with the

great expanse of natural knowledge, having its nearest most immediate origin in free will and

describing future events which cannot be understood simply through being revealed. Neither can

they be grasped through men's interpretations nor through another mode of cognizance or occult

power under the firmament, neither in the present nor in the total eternity to come. But bringing

about such an indivisible eternity through Herculean efforts (2), things are revealed by the

planetary movements.

Nostradamus