The Name of the Rose

by Umberto Eco

But there is a magic that is divine, where God’s knowledge is made manifest through the knowledge of man, and it serves to transform nature, and one of its ends is to prolong man’s very life. And this is holy magic, to which the learned must devote themselves

“Then we are living in a place abandoned by God,” I said, disheartened. “Have you found any places where God would have felt at home?” William asked me, looking down from his great height.

The powerful always knew this. Acknowledging the outcasts meant reducing their own privileges, so the outcasts who were acknowledged as outcasts had to be branded as heretics, whatever their doctrine.