Since these words were written, some of the “apocryphal” verses by the “mythical” Orpheus have also been found copied word for word, in hieroglyphics, in certain inscriptions of the Fourth Dynasty, addressed to various Deities. Finally, Creuzer discovered and immediately pointed out the very significant fact that numerous passages found in Homer and Hesiod were undeniably borrowed by the two great poets from the Orphic Hymns, thus proving the latter to be far older than the _Iliad_ or the _Odyssey_. And so gradually the ancient claims come to be vindicated, and modern criticism has to submit to evidence. Many are now the writers who confess that such a type of literature as the Hermetic works of Egypt can never be dated too far back into the prehistoric ages. The texts of many of these ancient works, that of Enoch included, so loudly proclaimed “apocryphal” at the beginning of this century, are now discovered and recognised in the most secret and sacred sanctuaries of Chaldæa, India, Phœnicia, Egypt and Central Asia. But even such proofs have failed to convince the bulk of our Materialists. The reason for this is very simple and evident. All these texts—held in universal veneration in Antiquity, found in the secret libraries of all the great temples, studied (if not always mastered) by the greatest statesmen, classical writers, philosophers, kings and laymen, as much as by renowned Sages—what were they? Treatises on Magic and Occultism, pure and simple; the now derided and tabooed Theosophy—hence the ostracism. Were people, then, so simple and credulous in the days of Pythagoras and Plato? Were the millions of Babylonia and Egypt, of India and Greece, with their great Sages to lead them, all fools, that during those periods of great learning and civilization which preceded the year _one_ of our era—the latter giving birth but to the intellectual darkness of mediæval fanaticism—so many otherwise great men should have devoted their lives to a mere illusion, a superstition called Magic? It would seem so, had one to remain content with the word and conclusions of modern Philosophy. Every Art and Science, however, whatever its intrinsic merit, has had its discoverer and practitioner, and subsequently its proficients to teach it. What is the origin of the Occult Sciences, or Magic? Who were its professors, and what is known of them, whether in history or legend? Clemens Alexandrinus, one of the most intelligent and learned of the early Christian Fathers, answers this question in his _Stromateis_. That ex‐ pupil of the Neoplatonic School argues: If there is instruction, you must seek for the master.(61)