this manner. The skull itself is made out of the caul of an ox;[1] and when fashioned into the requisite figure, by means of Etruscan wax and prepared gum,[2] [and] when this membrane is placed around, it presents the appearance of a skull, which seems to all[3] to speak when the contrivance operates; in the same manner as we have explained in the case of the [attendant] youths, when, having procured the windpipe of a crane,[4] or some such long-necked animal, and attaching it covertly to the skull, the accomplice utters what he wishes. And when he desires [the skull] to become invisible, he appears as if burning incense, placing around, [for this purpose,] a quantity of coals; and when the wax catches the heat of these, it melts, and in this way the skull is supposed to become invisible.
Chapter xlii.
The Fraud of the foregoing Practices—their connection with Heresy.
These are the deeds of the magicians,[5] and innumerable other such [tricks] there are which work on the credulity of the dupes, by fair balanced words, and the appearance of plausible acts. And the heresiarchs, astonished at the art of these [sorcerers], have imitated them, partly by delivering their doctrines in secrecy and darkness, and partly by advancing [these tenets] as their own. For this reason, being
- ↑ The Abbe Cruice suggests ἐπίπλεον βώλου which he thinks corresponds with the material of which the pyramid mentioned in a previous chapter was composed. He, however, makes no attempt at translating ἐπίπλεον. Does he mean that the skull was filled with clay? His emendation is forced.
- ↑ Or, "rubbings of" (Cruice).
- ↑ Or, "they say."
- ↑ Some similar juggleries are mentioned by Lucian in his Alexander or Pseudomantis, xxxii. 26,—a work of a kindred nature to Celsus' Treatise on Magic (the latter alluded to by Origen, Contr. Cels. lib. i. p. 53, ed. Spenc), and dedicated by Lucian to Celsus.
- ↑ The word magic, or magician, at its origin, had no sinister meaning, as being the science professed by the Magi, who were an exclusive relgious sect of great antiquity in Persia, universally venerated for their
