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 "Chaldreans" 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.)
[1. About Astrologers y\ p. 5
. . . (And they (i.e. the Chaldaeans) declare there are
1 This is the beginning of the Mt. Athos MS., the first pages having disappeared. With regard to the first chapter trspl aarpoXoyav, Cruice, following therein Miller, points out that nearly the whole of it has been taken from Book V with the same title of Sextus Empiricus' work, Ylphs Madrj/xaTiKovs, and also that the copying is so faulty that to
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68 PHILOSOPHUMENA
"terms''1 of the stars in each zodiacal sign extending frorh one given part) 2 to [another given part in which some particular star has most power. About which there is no mere chance difference] among them [as appears from their
make sense it is necessary to restore the text in many places from that of Sextus. Sextus' book begins, as did doubtless that of Hippolytus, with a description of the divisions of the zodiac, the cardinal points (Ascendant, Mid-heaven, Descendant, and Anti-Meridian), the cadent and succeedent houses, the use of the clepsydra or water-clock, the planets and their "dignities," " exaltations" and "falls," and finally, their "terms," with a description of which our text begins. It is, perhaps, a pity that Miller did not restore the whole of the missing part from Sextus Empiricus ; but the last-named author is not very clear, and the reader who wishes to go further into the matter and to acquire some knowledge of astrological jargon is recommended to consult also James Wilson's Complete Dictionary of Astrology, reprinted at Boston, U.S.A., in 1885, or, if he prefers a more learned work,