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For Numa himself also, to whom no prophet, of God, no holy angel
was sent, was driven to have recourse to hydromancy, that he might see
the images of the gods in the water (or, rather, appearances whereby
the demons made sport of him), and might learn from them what he ought
to ordain and observe in the sacred rites. This kind of divination,
says Varro, was introduced from the Persians, and was used by Numa
himself, and at an after time by the philosopher Pythagoras. In this
divination, he says, they also inquire at the inhabitants of the
nether world, and make use of blood; and this the Greeks call
nekromanteian. But whether it be called necromancy or hydromancy it is
the same thing, for in either case the dead are supposed to foretell
future things. But by what artifices these things are done, let
themselves consider; for I am unwilling to say that these artifices
were wont to be prohibited by the laws, and to be very severely
punished even in the Gentile states, before the advent of our
Saviour. I am unwilling, I say, to affirm this, for perhaps even
such things were then allowed. However, it was by these arts that
Pompilius learned those sacred rites which he gave forth as facts,
whilst he concealed their causes; for even he himself was afraid of
that which he had learned. The senate also caused the books in which
those causes were recorded to be burned. What is it, then, to me,
that Varro attempts to adduce all sorts of fanciful physical
interpretations, which if these books had contained, they would
certainly not have been burned? For otherwise the conscript fathers
would also have burned those books which Varro published and dedicated
to the high priest Caesar. Now Numa is said to have married the
nymph Egeria, because (as Varro explains it in the forementioned
book) he carried forth water wherewith to perform his hydromancy.
Thus facts are wont to he converted into fables through false
colorings. It was by that hydromancy, then, that that over-curious
Roman king learned both the sacred rites which were to be written in
the books of the priests, and also the causes of those rites, which
latter, however, he was unwilling that any one besides himself should
know. Wherefore he made these causes, as it were, to die along with
himself, taking care to have them written by themselves, and removed
from the knowledge of men by being buried in the earth. Wherefore the
things which are written in those books were either abominations of
demons, so foul and noxious as to render that whole civil theology
execrable even in the eyes of such men as those senators, who had
accepted so many shameful things in the sacred rites themselves, or
they were nothing else than the accounts of dead men, whom, through
the lapse of ages, almost all the Gentile nations had come to believe
to be immortal gods; whilst those same demons were delighted even with
such rites, having presented themselves to receive worship under
pretence of being those very dead men whom they had caused to be thought
immortal gods by certain fallacious miracles, performed in order to
establish that belief. But, by the hidden providence of the true
God, these demons were permitted to confess these things to their
friend Numa, having been gained by those arts through which necromancy
could be performed, and yet were not constrained to admonish him rather
at his death to burn than to bury the books in which they were written.
But, in order that these books might be unknown, the demons could not
resist the plough by which they were thrown up, or the pen of Varro,
through which the things which were done in reference to this matter
have come down even to our knowledge. For they are not able to effect
anything which they are not allowed; but they are permitted to
influence those whom God, in His deep and just judgment, according
to their deserts, gives over either to be simply afflicted by them, or
to be also subdued and deceived. But how pernicious these writings
were judged to be, or how alien from the worship of the true
Divinity, may be understood from the fact that the senate preferred to
burn what Pompilius had hid, rather than to fear what he feared, so
that he could not dare to do that. Wherefore let him who does not
desire to live a pious life even now, seek eternal life by means of
such rites. But let him who does not wish to have fellowship with
malign demons have no fear for the noxious superstition wherewith they
are worshipped, but let him recognize the true religion by which they
are unmasked and vanquished.
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