Philosophumena; or, The refutation of all heresies, Volume I
David Hume · en
[Footnote 2: Αἰγυπτίων δόγματα ... ὡς ἄρρητα διδαχθείς.]
[Footnote 3: M. Adhémar d’Alès in his work _La Théologie de St.
Hippolyte_, Paris, 1906, argues that the existing text of Book
IV contains large fragments of the missing Books II and III. His
argument is chiefly founded on the supposed excessive length of Book
IV, although as a fact Book V is in Cruice’s pagination some 20
pages longer than this and Book VI, 10. Apart from this, it seems
very doubtful if any author would describe the arithmomantic and
arithmetical nonsense in Book IV as either μυστικά or δόγματα ἄρρητα,
and it is certain that he cannot be alluding, when he speaks of the
Βαβυλωνίων ἀλογίστῳ μανίᾳ δι’ ἐν(εργί)ας δαιμόνων καταπλαγείς, to the
jugglery in the same book, which he there attributes not to the agency
of demons but to the tricks of charlatans.]
BOOK IV
DIVINERS AND MAGICIANS
(The first pages of this book have been torn away from the MS., and we
are therefore deprived of the small Table of Contents which the author
has prefixed to the other seven. From the headings of the various
chapters it may be reproduced in substance thus:--
1. The “Chaldæans” or Astrologers, and the celestial measurements of
the Greek astronomers.
2. The Mathematicians or those who profess to divine by the numerical
equivalents of the letters in proper names.
3. The Metoposcopists or those who connect the form of the body and the
disposition of the mind with the Zodiacal sign rising at birth.
4. The Magicians and the tricks by which they read sealed letters,
perform divinations, produce apparitions of gods and demons, and work
other wonders.
5. Recapitulation of the ideas of Greek and Barbarian on the nature of
God, and the views of the “Egyptians” or neo-Pythagoreans as to the
mysteries of number.
6. The star-diviners or those who find religious meaning in the
grouping of the constellations as described by Aratus.
7. The Pythagorean doctrine of number and its relation to the heresies
of Simon Magus and Valentinus.)
[Sidenote: p. 53.] [1. _About Astrologers_.[1]]