<1r>

is omitted by the Egyptians because of servitude. And his wife Venus, a woman who was a benefactor to the Egyptians and held in honour by the eastern Nations. She was called Astarte, Astaroth, Attyrgates, Attyr, A{ss}yr; and hence Assyria, Tyrus ἀστηρ and the festival of this Planet, Esther. She gave her name to the next Planet. The grandsons of Cham follow, and first Mercury the eldest, who imposed his name on the next Planet, then Orus who reigned at that time with his mother Isis, and is considered to be the last of the Egyptian Gods, and his name was given to the Sun[Editorial Note 1] the lowest of all the Planets. The Moon[Editorial Note 2], which is a secondary Planet and yet rivals the Sun in apparent size, is usually held to be his sister, and therefore was dedicated to Bubaste, the Sister of Orus. This is why Thoth, who founded the Astronomy of the Egyptians soon after the flood, numbered the planets in a continuous order from Saturn to the Sun, and placed the Earth[Editorial Note 3] in the fourth position, as is the case in the Pythagorean system.

[After the Egyptian Gods were diffused to the other nations, their names were transferred to other persons, and the one who in each the nations was held in highest honour was called Jupiter. Thus the Chaldaeans and the other Arabic nations regarded their common father Chus as Jupiter Belus, and the Assyrians worshipped Ninus the founder of their Empire under that name. And the father of Jupiter was always called Saturn and his son was always called Mars. This is what Xenophon wrote in his Aequivoca.[Editorial Note 4] And hence the Chaldaeans understood Cham by Saturn and in order that Noah not be omitte{d}, made Coelus the father of Saturn. But the Assyrians understood Chus and Cham by Saturn and Coelus and made Hypsuranius the father of Coelus in order to designate Noah. And when the Arabs conquered Babylonia and Assyria at the beginning, it came about that their Jupiter was the most celebrated throughout the east. For it is he who is depicted with the thunderbolt of war and expelled his father from his kingdom and divided the world between himself and his brothers Neptune and Pluto, and was called Baal and Jupiter Belus par excellence throughout the east. Moreover the Greeks and Phrygians and the neighbouring nations transferred the same Gods to their own ancestors as well, and hence it came about that that the sons of Cham (called by the Greeks Atlas, Menes, Prometheus and Epimetheus) were regarded as the sons of Iapetus, and that all the Gods lived in Asia, Greece, Italy and the neighbouring islands. Thus in the end several Saturns were fashioned, several Jupiters, Mars’s and Hercules’s, several Venus’s, Mercuries and Apollos. Furthermore several names were given to the same God, and all the individual names finally turned into so many Gods, as into Saturn and Janus, Mars, Hercules and Bacchus, Vulcan and Prometheus Neptune and Atlas, and Antaeus Osiris and Menaelius or M{ena}ves, Isis and Astraea. And when the Sun and the Moon were worshipped in addition to the other gods, the pagan superstition in the end transferred nearly all their Gods and Goddesses to the Sun and the Moon. And so much confusion arose in pagan Theology from all of these factors that it is exceedingly difficult to examine the origins of things.]

There is also another argument by which the antiquity of the Pythagorean System can be proved. / Elsewhere neither dur[Editorial Note 5]

Macrobius writes bk. 2 Somn. Scip. ch. 1[Editorial Note 6], that Pythagoras had at one point observed that larger hammers ~ ~ and strings that are stretched by the attachment of weights give out deeper sounds in proportion to their weights, and from this he conceived the idea of the harmony of the spheres <1v> In this manner it must be said that larger spheres give out a deeper[Editorial Note 7]

From the experiment with hammers it has to be affirmed that larger spheres will give out a deeper sound, but the proportion is not clear from it. If the radii of the spheres correspond to the lengths of the string by which all the tones are heard in the octave ( for Pythagoras seems to imply this when he measures the intervals of the spheres by the tones in the octave), and if the weights by which the same string is stretched in order to produce all those tones correspond to the powers by which equal Planets are driven, the powers by which equal Planets are driven will be reciprocally as the square of their distances from the sun. For the radii of the spheres will be as the lengths of the chord 12. 916. 35. 23. 34. 56. 89.1, and the weights by which the strings are stretched to produce the same sounds will be reciprocally in a double ratio to the lengths of those strings. The octave string resonates with a four-fold weight; the octave and the fifth with a nine-fold, and so with the rest. These things are to be understood as if the orbits were solid and produced sound by mutual friction, and the radius of the sun were 12, and hence the tone were to the orbit, i.e. 116, by which the radius of the orbit becomes 916 and so on. They are not real but meant figuratively. It comes to the same thing if with the Pythagoreans we adapt mystical discourses to the opinion of the common people by locating the earth in the centre of solid orbits and by counting a tone from Earth to Moon, a semitone from there to , etc. By these means the mystical Philosophers toyed with the unskilled masses. The fiction about Apollo and the nine muses is of the same kind; these Muses are the voice of the starry heaven as well as the eight voices by which the seven harmonic tones of the Planets are completed



and that[Editorial Note 8] the same thing occurs in strings which are stretched by attaching weights to them, and on the basis of these experiments he developed an argument about the harmony of the spheres. From the hammers it follows that larger spheres move with deeper tones in some specific ratio as above; and from the string stretched by various weights it follows that the forces by which the Planets are impelled are reciprocally in a double ratio of their distances from the Sun. For the forces by which a string is stretched and moved are the attached {wei}ghts, and these weights are reciprocally in a double ratio of the harmonic numbers by means of which Pythagoras (counting the intervals of the spheres by tones and semitones) laid out the distances of the Planets from the centre of the System{.} For the harmonic number 12 yields the octave, 23 the fifth, 34 the fourth 56 the minor third 89 the tone; the same consonances are heard as a result of the weights 41, 94, 169 3625 8164, which are reciprocally as the squares of those numbers. And therefore the powers by which the planets are impelled in the harmonic distances 1 and 2, 2 and 3, 3 and 4, 5 and 6, 8 and 9 are reciprocally as the squares of the distances 4 and 1, 9 and 4, 16 and 9, 36 and 25, 81 and 64. And so with the rest

[Editorial Note 9] <2v>

Pythagoras[Editorial Note 10] called the Principles numbers, and their symmetries he called harmonies, and the elements composed of both, he called geometrical. Among the principles he placed unity and unlimited duality. The former of these plays the efficient, causal, formative role; and this is Mind, God. The latter plays the passive and material role, and is the visible World. Plutarch. de placit. Phil. bk. 1, p. 876[Editorial Note 11]. Hence the Pythagorean harmony is between God acting harmoniously and matter reacting harmoniously, and the geometrical elements, which are composed of numbers and their symmetry, are the whole of nature.     Hence in Lucian (βίων πράσις, p. 362{)}. Pythagoras says you will come to know God himself, who is number and harmony[Editorial Note 12]. In the same sense Xenocrates called it number moving itself, and Pythagoras and Philolaus called it harmony (Macrobius somn. Scip bk. 1, ch. 14[Editorial Note 13]. For none of the wise doubted that the soul consisted of musical harmonies (Macrob. ib. bk. 1, ch. 6)[Editorial Note 14]. They say that Plato came to Italy to make acquaintance with the Pythagoreans, and that there he came to know, among many others, Architas[Editorial Note 15] and Timaeus, and imbibed all the Pythagorean doctrine; and in the first place he not only wrote about the eternity of Souls in the manner of Pythagoras, but also adduced reasons in support of it (Cicero, Tusc. bk., p. 121)[Editorial Note 16]. He also said that the Soul is οὐσίαν νοητην ἐξ εἁυτῆς κινητὴν, κατ᾽ ἀριθμὸν εναρμόνιον κινουμένην, thinking substance, which is self-moving and which moves in accordance with musical number (Plutarch de placit. Phil. bk. 4, ch. 2.[Editorial Note 17] < insertion from lower down f 2v > ‡ Because of this harmony the Pythagoreans taught that the soul consists of numbers, and that the tetrad[Editorial Note 18] most closely approximates perfection. This is generated by adding up 1, 2, 3, 4, and these numbers contain all the consonances – the fourth, the fifth, the octave and the disdiapasôn – and together they make up the number ten in which all numeration is ended and contained. Macrobius too (bk. 2 Somn. Scip. ch. 2)[Editorial Note 19], in explaining that Plato, a disciple of the Pythagoreans in this respect, taught that the soul of the world is made up of such numbers, and that cons.[Editorial Note 20] < text from f 2v resumes > Macrobius too in explaining that Plato, a disciple of the Pythagoreans, taught that the soul of the world is made up of these and certain other numbers and that musical consonances arise from those numbers, adds: Wherefore the soul of the world which puts this body of the visible universe in motion, being interwoven with the numbers that create a musical harmony of themselves, must necessarily produce musical sounds from the motion which it generates by its own impulse, and it finds the origin of these in the fabric of its own structure[Editorial Note 21].

<2r>

From {all} these things I seem to extract {the original} views of the Ancients.

1. That the Sun and the Planets are animate.

2. That every soul, whether it be God or a created substance moves in accordance with a harmonic number.

3. By the harmony of the spheres is to be understood the harmonic movement of the soul of the sun by which the planets are impelled in their spheres by the Sun.

4. A deeper tone in a greater sphere marks a more languid movement in the same sphere. Therefore the movement of a soul in a greater sphere is more languid in accordance with its harmonic number.

5. The harmonic number in accordance with which a soul moves is the number harmonically proportional to the motion.

6. Since the Pythagoreans measure the intervals of the spheres by tones and semitones, the magnitudes of the spheres will correspond to the lengths of the strings in the octave, i.e. to the harmonic numbers, and therefore are to be understood by means of these numbers.

7. Therefore the soul of the Sun moves in the harmonic ratio of the spheres, and in moving drives the Planets in the same ratio, and it is in this motion that the famous harmony of the spheres consists. And this is exactly as if the weight[Editorial Note 22] were said to be harmonically proportional to the orbits.

6. The magnitudes of the spheres are to be understood in terms of the harmonic numbers. For when the Pythagoreans measure the intervals of the spheres in terms of tones and semitones; and insist that the sounds arise from the magnitudes of the spheres as if from hammers, the magnitudes of the spheres will correspond to the lengths of the strings in the octave.

[Editorial Note 23] <4r>

in naming the last place they tacitly implied the Earth itself, and thus they gave the number of the Planets as eight, which are the eight Gods of the Egyptians in the first place, then by adding the four elements and by implying Earth in addition in the last place as a fifth essence composed of all things, they completed the celebrated tally of twelve Gods, from which the celestial signs and the months are said to have been named in earliest times, and which were disseminated from the Egyptians to other nations and gave the origin to Idolatry and were called the Gods of the major nations, the select gods, the Dei consentes[Editorial Note 24], and the ever heavenly Gods; while the rest, who were raised to heaven later from among men because of their deserts, were called the minor Gods, the Gods of the lesser nations and Demi-gods, Indigetes and Semones. Ennius surveys the twelve Gods in a distich:

Iuno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars,

Mercurius, Iovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo[Editorial Note 25].

In place of Saturn whom Manetho in Eusebius counts among the first Egyptian Gods, Ennius here [-us occupies the hemisphere of heaven, and Juno the lower][Editorial Note 26] has Vesta who, by the evidence of Herodotus,[Editorial Note 27] was not an Egyptian Goddess. Ceres is the same as Isis and therefore signifies Earth. By Minerva Philosophers understood air, and by Juno earth as opposed to sky or the element of air, i.e. the element of earth. In the names of the rest there is no obscurity. If we were to argue here at greater length about the origin of the Gods, one might show[Editorial Note 28] that the first Mercury or Thoth Saturn was old[Editorial Note 29] <5r> Jupiter or Hammon was still flourishing in the vigour of his age, Osiris was dead and Isis was reigning, Venus in the flower of her youth and of great beauty had a small son, Mercury had just graduated from the ephebes[Editorial Note 30] and Apollo or Orus was still beardless] that the Egyptians[Editorial Note 31]

If we were to argue here at greater length about the origin of the Gods, one might show that the first Mercury[Editorial Note 32] or Thoth a little bit after the death of his father Osiris and the war of the Gods while Isis was still ruling in Egypt, and the bronze age was coming to an end[Editorial Note 33], wrote a work on the sacred and philosophical matters of the Egyptians and taught them to conceal them in the hieroglyphics which he had devised himself, and that at the same time he endowed the Planets with the names of his ancestors and blood relatives who were alive at that time, and also expressed their ages in their Hieroglyphics. Whence ✝ < insertion from f 4v > < text from f 5r resumes > < insertion from f 4v > Hence it comes about that the ages of the Gods remain consistent with the same time even today. Saturn the eldest of them all is portrayed even today as a decrepit and sour old man, his son Jupiter still flourishes in the vigour of his age, and he is king despite the fact that later he grew old and was expelled from his kingdom. Hercules (for this is what the Egyptians called Mars) still bears the club with which in the war of the gods and against the beasts he had fought down to that time, though later he used a sword. The planet of Mars equally as[Editorial Note 34] Venus still has a young son and is in the flower of her youth and beauty, Mercury ever remains a young man, changeable, Apollo remains beardless and Diana an unmarried girl. Because Osiris alone was dead at that time, he is in charge of the dead, being the same as Serapis who for us is Pluto and Aidoneus or Hades, and the river Nile in which he had been drowned a little bit earlier is consecrated to him as King of the dead, and becomes the Styx of the ancients. < text from f 5r resumes > One might also show that those Egyptian Gods are Cham together with his father and sons and Egyptian[Editorial Note 35] Grandsons; and that their names {have been given to} the Planets according to the age of each one depending on their distances from the Sun. The name of Saturn, the oldest in age, was given to the highest {Plane}t of all of them, the name of Jupiter, the next in age, to the second Planet. This is Jupiter Hammon or Cham. Mars the son of Jupiter by Juno is assigned to the third of the Planets, and he is Chus the fi{rs}t-born of Cham, and Chus is the father of a nation which was exceedingly fierce and the most warlike of the eastern nations, and he was the first warrior. For after the war of the Gods in Egypt, having conquered the peoples of the east, he settled his sons all around the Persian sea, as Bochart has taught, where in a time of wars the nations were scattered and the languages divided. Then with his son Nimrod he set out on a longer journey, and founded the empire of the Assyrians. x < insertion from f 4v > x For this is that king of the Arabs, Ariaeus (i.e. Αρης or Mars), who assisted Ninus the first king of the Assyrians in defeating the nations in war, as Diodorus says. Cyril calls him Arbelus the father of Ninus, i.e. lord Mars. Hyginus (Fab. 274)[Editorial Note 36] speaks makes the following mention of him: the Africans, he says, and the Egyptians first fought with clubs (undoubtedly in the war of the Gods), later Belus son of Neptune made war with the sword, which is why it is called bellum.[Editorial Note 37] Because of his dominion the east called him Belus and Moloch and Melicartus, i.e. lord[Editorial Note 38] and king, and they called the King Hercules. For Hestiaeus, a very ancient writer, Belus is Ζεὺς ἐνυάλιος, i.e. Mars, and the star of mars was called Moloch and the star of Hercules by the Egyptians. < text from f 5r resumes > Fourth in age is Misraim or Osiris, second son of Cham; but when he died, the name of his wife Isis, who was queen of the Egyptians at that time, is given to earth as the fourth Planet. The third son of Cham, Phut or Python and with a reversal of the letters Typhon, the Egyptians regarded with hatred. This is the father God of the Africans, Neptune. Fourth is Chanaan, Chna for Sanchoniatho. Whence Chana Baal-Chana, Vulcan who is undoubtedly the Husband of the Goddess Syria and on that acount father of the Syrians. After he was conquered he fabricated thunderbolts of war for Mars, who was the Jupiter of the Arabs and Chaldaeans and therefore by the Egyp[Editorial Note 39]

<5v>

After all these were dead from whom the planets had received their names, their souls and the qualities of their souls were translated to the sky by those who came after them and given to the Stars. The malignant soul of Saturn shines in the planet which received his name and still exudes his character. Hence the planet is considered to be malignant and cold, and presides over chastisements and prisons. The soul of Jupiter renders its Planet temperate and kindly. The Planet of Mars is fiery and still presides over wars. The Planet of Venus is kindly and rules love affairs. And the Planet of Mercury is changeful, and assists all the Planets and cheers those with whom it is associated and presides over crafts and Commerce. The kindly Soul of Orus shines in the Sun, and the soul of Isis residing on the Earth is taken as the soul of the world. The soul of Osiris[Editorial Note 40] The souls of the others were translated to the fixed stars, for example the soul of Osiris to the star Syrius and the Souls of the daughters of Atlas to the Pleiades and Hyades; of these the Hyades (because of the women’s tears) are said to bring on rain. By a similar fiction the stars of Orion, Arcturus and the Kids[Editorial Note 41], being dedicated to warlike men, bring on storms. Hence arose those ancient doctrines about the transmigration of souls, and about the stars seeing and ruling all human affairs. Hence the arts of astrology and the worship of the stars and Elements. Furthermore the soul of Osyris migrates into an ox and the souls of others migrate into other beasts and even into plants and unshaped stones and finally into statues and graven images of all kinds. Hence the worship of animals and of meteoric rocks and pillars and statues and all the arts of fortune-telling, magic and necromancy, by which the souls of the dead are believed to be enticed into statues and from them {illeg} {illeg} [Editorial Note 42] and are commanded to be present or absent at will and to carry out commands and to reveal the future.

From these beginnings the transmigration of souls and Astrology and the worship of the stars began to be introduced.

And thus Astrology and pagan Theology introduced by crafty priests to promote and augment the study of the Stars

And other nations applied the names of the gods which the Egyptians had accepted to their own ancestors, and thus there came into being many Saturns, many Jupiters, many Hercules’s and many other gods{.} Those who for the Egyptians are and , are Coelus[Editorial Note 43] for the Chaldaeans, and for the Assyrians Hyps. Coelus and Saturn. The Greeks {endow} different men with the same names. Moreover different names for the same God have eventually morphed into separate gods.[Editorial Note 44] And that is how massive confusion has arisen in the names, genealogies and histories of the Gods, as in the case of Saturn and Janus; in Hammon and Sydic; in Mars, Hercules, Belus, Silenus & Bacchus, in Venus Attergates & Semiramis, in Vulcan and Prometheus; in Neptune, Atlas, Antæus Ericthonius, Typho & Briareus, in Osyris Hypemon and Menætius, Isis, Astræa, & Themis. And when Sun and Moon.[Editorial Note 45]

<3r>

in[Editorial Note 46] naming the last place they tacitly implied the Earth itself, and thus they gave the number of the Planets as eight, which are the eight Gods of the Egyptians. Then by adding the four elements, they completed the celebrated tally of twelve Gods, from which the Signs of the Zodiac and the Months are said to have been named in earliest times, and which were disseminated by the Egyptians to other nations and gave the origin to Idolatry and were called the Gods of the major nations, the select gods, the Dei consentes[Editorial Note 47], and the ever heavenly Gods; while the rest who were raised to heaven later from among men because of their deserts, were called the minor Gods and the Gods of the lesser nations, Demi-gods, Semones and Indigetes. Ennius surveys the twelve Gods in a couplet:

Iuno, Vesta, Minerva, Ceres, Diana, Venus, Mars,

Mercurius, Iovis, Neptunus, Vulcanus, Apollo[Editorial Note 48].

In place of Saturn whom Manetho (in Eusebius) counts among the first Egyptian Gods, Ennius here has Vesta, who, by the evidence of Herodotus, was not an Egyptian Goddess. Ceres is the same as Isis and therefore signifies Earth. By Minerva Philosophers understood air, and by Juno earth as opposed to Sky or air, i.e. the element of earth. In the names of the rest there is no obscurity.

If we were to argue here at greater length about the origin of the Gods, one might show that Thoth, whom we call Mercury, a little after the death of his father Osiris and the war of the Gods, while Isis was still ruling in Egypt, and the bronze age of the Gods was coming to an end, taught that the funeral rites of Osiris were to be celebrated every year by those who came after, and by composing a work on Astronomical and sacro-philosophical matters, he taught them to celebrate and conceal them in the hieroglyphics which he had devised himself; and that at the same time he endowed the Planets with the names of his ancestors and blood relatives who were alive at that time, and he has also expressed their ages in their Hieroglyphics. For it is from these that it comes about that all those gods are related by blood, and are said to have lived at the same time, and that their ages down to this day expressed in hieroglyphics, are the same as appear to have been taken from the effigies of them made from the life at one and the same time. Saturn the eldest of all is portrayed even today as a decrepit and sour old man, his son Jupiter still flourishes in the vigour of his age, and is king despite the fact that later he grew old and was expelled from his kingdom. Hercules son of Jupiter (for this is what the Egyptians called Mars) still bears his club even though later, as the age of iron came in, he used a sword. Venus the sister of Mars still has a young son and is in the flower of her youth and beauty. Mercury bastard son of Osiris ever is a young man, and servant <6r> of the Gods and carrier of the caduceus,[Editorial Note 49] although he became an old man later, reigned in Egypt and held the sceptre. Moreover he depicted himself with the caduceus, because he had been recently sent as Legate from the Egyptians to the Africans and had reconciled those warring serpents. Finally Apollo son of Osiris and Isis is even to this day a beardless youth and his sister Diana an unmarried girl. Osiris because he was dead at that time is in charge of the dead, and is annually venerated with funeral lamentation in the form of an ox, being the same as Serapis who is Pluto; and the river Nile in which he had perished is dedicated to him and becomes the Styx of the ancients. These therefore are the symbols of the Gods as if they had been drawn up by Mercury at the time when Saturn had grown old, his son Jupiter was at an advanced age, and Mars and Venus his grandsons were flourishing in the highest vigour of their age and his great-grandchildren Mercury, Apollo and Diana had graduated from the ephebes[Editorial Note 50], and only Osiris had died.

Besides one might show that those Egyptian Gods are Cham together with his father sons and Egyptian grandsons; and that Mercury gave their names to the planets proceeding from the older to the younger in accordance with their distances from the Sun. The name of Saturn, the oldest in age, was given to the highest Planet of all of them, the name of Jupiter, the next in age, to the second Planet. This is Jupiter Hammon or Cham, and his first-born son Chus is Mars from whom the third Planet took its name. For the latter was the father of a nation which was the most warlike of all among the eastern nations and after the war of the Gods in Egypt when he had served as Hercules with a cudgel, he fought in the East with a sword, and after conquering the peoples there he settled his sons all around the Persian sea, as Bochart has shown us, (where in a time of wars the nations were scattered and the languages divided). But he himself settled in Susiana which is called Κίοπα by the Greeks, Chuzestan by the Persians x < insertion from f 3v > x, that is, the province of Chus is called Chus by the inhabitants and by Josephus, the land of Chush by Moses and Cuth by the Chaldaeans. < text from f 6r resumes > then he made a long journey with his son Nimrod and founded the empire of the Assyrians. For this is the famous king of the Arabs, Ariaeus (i.e. ᾽Αρης or Mars), who assisted Ninus the first king of the Assyrians (i.e. Nin-rad or Nimrod) in defeating the nations in war, as Diodorus says. Cyril of Alexandria calls him Arbelus, i.e. Mars Belus or lord Mars, and says he was the father of Ninus. < insertion from f 3v > ✝ So too Suidas: Baal in the language of the Assyrians signifies Mars who presides over wars. And Hyginus[Editorial Note 51]: the Africans and the Egyptians first fought with clubs, later Belus son of Neptune made war with the sword, and that is why it is called bellum.[Editorial Note 52] He set off for the East in order to fight there with the sword; For Pausanias makes Belus the first Egyptian man. < text from f 6r resumes > Hyginus (Fab 274)[Editorial Note 53] metions him thus: the Africans and the Egyptians first fought with clubs, later Belus son of Neptune made war with the sword and that is why it is called bellum.[Editorial Note 54] Because of his dominion the East named him Belus and Moloch and Melicartus, i.e. lord[Editorial Note 55] and king, and they called the King Hercules; for Histiaeus, a very ancient writer, Belus is Ζεὺς ἐνυάλιος, i.e. Mars, and the star of Mars was once called by the Egyptians and Chaldaeans the star of Hercules and by the Egyptians Moloch. <7r> Fourth in age is Misraim or Osiris, the second son of Cham, but when he died, the name of his wife Isis, who was queen of the Egyptians at that time, is given to this Earth as the fourth Planet because of the high rank of the woman. The third son of Cham is Phut, father of the Africans, whence Python, and with a reversal of the letters Typhon, a name hateful to the Egyptians. For this is that Typhon who killed his brother Osiris and made war on the Egyptians. Fourth is Chanaan, Chna for Sanchoniatho. Whence Baal-Chana, Volcanus. For since Vulcan was the son of Jupiter and Juno and the husband of Venus, and she is the same as Attergates, a Phoenician woman, he will also be Phoenician and the father of the Phoenicians, Chanaan. And since he was a servant to his brothers, he was passed over as ignoble, and his wife Venus, a woman who was a benefactor of the Egyptians and held in honour by the eastern Nations, gave her name to the fifth Planet. After the sons of Cham and their wives, the next step is his grandsons, the eldest of whom is Mercury, and he gave his name to the sixth Planet. Orus, the next in age, reigned with his mother and is considered to be the last of the gods and his name was given to the Sun, the brightest of all the Planets and the last. He is Pathros the son of Misraim, called by the Septuagint Φαθώρης and Παθούρης, i.e. Phut-Orus, Apollo Pythius. The Moon which is a secondary Planet and yet rivals the Sun in apparent magnitude and therefore is regarded as his sister, received the name Bubaste from the sister of Orus. Thus Mercury assigned the three most distinguished Bodies, Earth Sun and Moon, to the lords of Egypt and to his particular friends, Isis Orus and Bubaste, in order to honour them. But the most significant thing is that he numbered the Planets in a continuous order from Saturn to the Sun and he set Earth in the fourth place as in the Pythagorean System.

After all were dead from whom the Planets had received their names, their souls were translated to the sky by those who came after them and placed in the Stars. The soul of Saturn shines in the planet which received his name and still exudes his character. Whence the Planet is considered to be cold and malignant and presides over chastisements and prisons. The soul of Jupiter renders its Planet temperate and kindly. The Planet of Mars is fiery and presides over wars. That of Venus is kindly and rules love affairs. That of Mercury is versatile and presides over crafts and commerce. The kindly soul of Orus reigns in the Sun, and the soul of Isis residing in this Earth is regarded as the soul of the world. The souls of the others were translated to the fixed stars, for example the soul of Osiris to the star Sirius and the souls of the daughters of Atlas to the Pleiades and Hyades, of whom the Hyades are said to bring on <8r> the rains because of the weeping of dying women. And by a similar fiction the stars of Orion, Arcturus and the Kids[Editorial Note 56], being dedicated to warlike men, stir up storms. It is by virtue of their souls that the stars are declared to pursue their courses in the heavens and watch all human affairs like the celestial Gods. And thus Astrology and pagan Theology were introduced by crafty priests to promote the study of the stars and to magnify the priesthood and were finally disseminated throughout the world. Other nations applied the names of the Gods which the Egyptians had accepted to their own ancestors, and thus there came into being many Saturns, many Jupiters, many Hercules’s and many other Gods. Those who are Saturn Jupiter and Mars for the Egyptians, are Coelus, Saturnus and Jupiter for the Chaldaeans, and for the Assyrians Syrians and Atlantians,[Editorial Note 57] Hypsuranius, Coelus and Saturn. The Greeks and Latins sometimes understand other men by the same names. Furthermore the various names of the same god have quite commonly morphed into separate Gods. And since the Sun and the Moon were the most worshipped, it finally came about that the worship of all the Gods and Goddesses were superstitiously transferred to these two. From all of this massive confusion has arisen in the names, genealogies and histories of the Gods, but it can largely be avoided by distinguishing between the Egyptian, Chaldaean, Assyrian and Greek Theologies. In the Assyrian Theology Saturn expelled Coelus from his kingdom and Venus was born from his cut off testicles. In the Chaldaean Theology the same story is told of Jupiter and Saturn. This is that Jupiter who is so famous for his adulteries, and who wages war with a thunderbolt and divided the world with his brothers Neptune and Pluto. We do not find these things in the Egyptian theology but Venus is the daughter of Jupiter and Juno, just as Homer and Diodorus write. The position of all of them is the same, since Cham the father of Venus is Jupiter for the Egyptians, Saturn for the Chaldaeans and Coelus for the Assyrians. And many other contradictions are reconciled in the same manner.

A good many other superstitions were consequent upon the worship of the stars. For the souls of the dead are believed not only to have migrated to the Ox Apis and other animals, but also into plants and unshaped rocks and finally into statues and graven images of all kinds. Hence the veneration of sacred animals and plants and the worship of meteoric rocks and of pillars and statues and the various arts of fortune-telling, magic and necromancy, by which the souls of the dead are believed to be enticed into statues and are pretended to be evoked from them, and are commanded to be present or absent at will and to carry out commands and to reveal the future.

However we should not believe that religions began with transmigration of souls and the worship of the stars and the elements. For there was another religion more ancient than these <9r> For there was another religion more ancient than these,[Editorial Note 58] in which a fire burned perpetually at the centre of a sacred place for the purpose of performing sacrifices. For the Vestal worship was the most ancient of all. The Tyrrhenes who (on the evidence of Marsilius Lesbius) supposed that they alone were indigenous in Italy, and had inhabited their regions from the time of the flood and the golden age; they produced many evidences of their antiquity, i.e. Gods, rituals, customs, letters, laws. All this is in agreement with what the better Greek historians tell us. For they write that only the Tyrrhenians were very ancient in Italy, and are not immigrants like the rest, but indigenous in their own region; since they differ in their most ancient Gods, not only from the other peoples of Italy but also from their neighbours of Croton and Perusia in front of them and the adjacent people of Phaluscia behind them, between whom they lay. For all the Tuscans the Gods and goddesses were Jupiter and Juno; only the Tyrrhenes worshipped Janus and Vesta, whom in their language they called Vadymon and Labith Horchia. And the Romans themselves admitted that the Hetrusci were the most ancient people, and originated in the age of gold, and that early Italy received from them altars, rituals, divinations, colonies and doctrines. So Lesbius in his book on the origin of Italy and the Tyrrhenians[Editorial Note 59]. And Dionysius of Halicarnassus writes[Editorial Note 60] that the sacred things of Vesta had been carried from Ilium to Italy by the ancestors of Romulus and that they were all accustomed to establish the building for the public hearth[Editorial Note 61] in the most important part of their city, and that the old Alba was the sanctuary of Vesta, and that Romulus dedicated a hearth next to each hall of assembly[Editorial Note 62] in accordance with a custom which was preserved right down to the time of Dionysius in the most ancient cities of the Greeks. For in these halls of assembly were the sacred things, and the care of them belonged to the supreme magistrate. And Numa left in place the hearths that were located in every assembly hall, and established an additional hearth that was common to all, and assigned its custody to virgins in the traditional Latin manner. So Dionysius. This therefore was the most ancient cult of all, since the cult of images was not received in Italy until after the time of Numa. In a similar religious cult the Persians worshipped Mithras from very ancient times in the open air on their Pyretheia which, on the evidence of Strabo[Editorial Note 63], are large enclosures in the centre of which is an altar, with a perpetual fire. They clung pertinaciously to this ancestral institution and turned their backs on the Egyptian Gods and statues and the worship of the dead. Nor did they build Temples, but always retained the simplicity of their earliest institution <10r> and merely surrounded the altar with an enclosure. Theophrastus (in Euseb. Praep. Evang. bk. 1, ch. 9)[Editorial Note 64] testifies that the Egyptians kept the same religion in these words. A wholly infinite amount of time seems to have passed since the Egyptians began to perform holy sacrifice to the heavenly Gods ἐφ᾽ ἑστίας[Editorial Note 65] at a vestal fire. – For they also preserved a perpetual fire for the gods in their temples, because it seemed most akin to them. Moses retained the same cult purged of the superstitions which the Egyptians had introduced, namely that before the Tabernacle and the Temple a perpetual fire should burn on the altar in the centre of the court of the priests. Moreover the fire was so holy that Nadab and Abiu were destroyed because they offered incense at another fire. I infer that Abraham too maintained the same cult of a perpetual fire from the fact that when he was intending to sacrifice his son, he carried fire with him into the land of Moriah on a three-day journey. < insertion from f 9v > I also infer from their Theology, in which they made Vesta the wife of Coelus, that the Assyrians too and the Syrians and the Chaldaeans kept the same ritual from of old. There are those who give the same interpretation of the Chamanim of the people of Israel Levit 26.30 and the Nergal of the people of Cuth 2 Paralip 17[Editorial Note 66] & Ur of the Chaldees Gen 11. < text from f 10r resumes > Hestiaeus, a very ancient writer, says a similar thing in Josephus (Antiq. bk. 1 ch. 5)[Editorial Note 67] about Noah and his sons in these words: The Priests say that the survivors of that disaster [namely the Flood] made it to Senaar in Babylonia carrying the sacred vessels of Jupiter Enyalius. And as I think, this cult was prevalent among all men from the earliest institution of sacrifice, so that anyone who performed a sacrifice did not use just any fire; he used the sacred fire, and to this end that fire was kept alight perpetually.

Now the thinking behind this institution was that the God of Nature should be worshipped in a temple that symbolises Nature as in a mirror of the Deity. < insertion from f 9v > The whole world is called the temple of God by Cicero because of those who think that God is nothing other than the heaven itself. All that appears to human view he called the temple of him who is conceived by the mind alone, so that anyone who venerates these things as temples, owes a great debt of worship to their creator, and whoever is granted access to this temple must live in the manner of a priest. So Macrobius bk. 1, ch. 14[Editorial Note 68]. That this true temple of God is symbolised by temples made with hands and that its mysteries, which were to be revealed only to the worthy, are concealed in their rituals, is a very rational religion. In the Greek mysteries, says Clement (Strom bk. 5, p. 582)[Editorial Note 69] in the first place come expiations, as well as washing among those who are outside; after these there are the lesser mysteries, which contain some rudiments of Doctrine and of preparation for what is to come. But the great mysteries are concerned with the Universe. One no longer has to learn, one can see and grasp with one’s mind the nature of things. Seneca too (Epist 90):[Editorial Note 70] In her[Editorial Note 71] Eleusinian initiations it is not not a local shrine that is revealed but the great temple of all the gods, the Universe itself, whose true image and appearance she has put out there for the mind to grasp. The physical eye is too feeble to see such sights. < text from f 10r resumes > All agree that a Pyrethum with the fire in the centre was an emblem of the system of the world, and the only point on which they disagree is that some maintain that it is the Sun, others the Earth, that is symbolised by the fire. The Persians always worshipped the Sun in that fire, and therefore the view of the Magi was that it was the Sun which was symbolised. Numa Pompilius and the Pythagoreans took the same view, as Plutarch reports in his Numa. They say, he says[Editorial Note 72], that Numa built a circular shrine of Vesta around the sacred fire, symbolising not a representation of earth, as if Vesta were earth, but of the whole universe in the centre of which the Pythagoreans place the seat of fire and call it vesta[Editorial Note 73] and unity. And they do not think that the earth is stationary or holds the centre of the circuit[Editorial Note 74] <11r> but is suspended in a circular orbit around the fire. Moreover Plutarch records this instruction from Numa[Editorial Note 75]: You should twirl around as you worship the Gods, and sit down when you have worshipped them; then he adds: The turning of the worshippers is said to be an image of the orbit of the world. In the same sense the Greeks called man a Microcosm. They implied that by turning about the central fire we men are revolving in the true system of the world. Similarly Josephus teaches that the Temple at Jerusalem was constructed in the image of the world and that whenever the priests went up to the altar, they proceeded in a circle around the fire before they descended. This fire was constructed in the common centre of the two courts, the inner and the outer, and proceeding from that centre one ascended by seven lamps (which were symbols of the Planets) into the holy of holies as if into the highest heaven where God sat among the Cherubim. Now if the Mosaic Rites were derived from the Egyptian Rites, as Spencer[Editorial Note 76] has proved at length, and the Egyptians had received them by tradition from father Noah and this religion is the most ancient of all religions as well as the truest, it would have to be said that Pyretha[Editorial Note 77] have been presented from earliest times as a symbol of the system of the world; and therefore that if this symbol is not merely vulgar but involves something mystical, the Pythagorean system has been adumbrated from the earliest institution of sacrifice and was known to the wise. The true system of the world has been presented in this symbol to everyone from the beginning, so that anyone of keen mind from every people might gather the truth from it, and thus come to know God from his works by means of their own religion. And such a religion Noah seems to have received from the ancestors and to have transmitted to those who came after him.

But after the Egyptians and the other nations who had been taught by them had corrupted the truth and fashioned new Gods from the transference of the souls of their own ancestors to the sky, it came about not only that the animate centre of the world, whether it be the Sun or the earth, was worshipped in Pyretha under the names of Vesta and Mithas and other Gods but also that the fictitious God whom each nation held in the highest honour was exalted to the throne of the supreme God, and under his name he usurped the worship due to him alone. For since the name of God is derived taken from his nature, he is called Jehovah and thence ἰαω by the Greeks and Ιου-piter by the Phrygians and Latins, i.e. ὁ ὢν as by Plato; they assigned <12r> this name to their dead so that they might worship them as supreme God in the Pyretha. So Ham or Hammon became Jupiter Hammon, and Chus became Jupiter Casius (for the Greeks ἰαὼ χοὺς, ἴακχος; for the Phrygians Ιὀυα Χὸυς Bacchus). Similar compounding results in Dio-nysius, Jupiter Belus, Jupiter Melichius, Jupiter enyalius, Jupiter Feretrius, Jupiter Martius, Jupiter Serapis, Jupiter Stygius (i.e. Pluto), Jupiter, and by these and many other epithets the supreme God is divided into very many Deities. For the human race is extremely prone to superstitions. And hence the truth of the Mosaic religion is evident, since it purged the Egyptian religion of all such corruptions, and rejecting all their false Gods, it ordained that one God alone was to be worshipped in the ancient manner. For I think that the Mosaic religion agrees with that of Noah so far as the manner of sacrificing is concerned, since Noah offered holocausts and maintained a distinction of animals into the clean from which sacrifices were made and unclean from which they were never made.

< insertion from f 11v >

So Ham became Jupiter Hammon or Jehova Ham, and Chus became Jupiter Casius, for the Greeks Ιἀὼ Χοὺς, Ιἄκχος, for the Phrygians and Latins Ιὸυα Χοὺς, Bacchus. For also from the same origin comes Dio-nysus. He is that Jupiter to whom Hebe and Ganymede served Nectar in the banquets of the Gods, and Bacchus is he who led an army to India; of him Macrobius (bk. 1, ch. 10) says: Father Liber is proved to be powerful in wars because they declared him to be the originator of the triumph. He is that lord of the heavens who wages war with the thunderbolt and divided the world between himself and his brothers Neptune and Pluto, and whom the Arabs worshipped as the sky, the Phoenicians as Baalsemin or lord of the sky, and practically the whole of the east as Jupiter Belus or Jehovah Baal. For when Hestiaeus attributes the most ancient and greatest rites of all to Jupiter Enyalius, he gives us a pretty clear indication that the cult of the supreme god was offered to him in the Pyretha. Plutarch too recorded that Venus was worshipped with the same rites as mistress and queen of the sky, for after saying that Semiramis was a Syrian handmaid and that Ninus was finally killed on her orders, he adds Ἠ δὲ Βελεστία etc. And was not Belestia a barbarian woman whose temples and shrines the Alexandrians maintain under the name of Venus Belestia. So Plutarch in his Amatorius, near the beginning[Editorial Note 78]. Therefore Semiramis, Venus, Beltis and the Chaldaean Vesta were the same in the minds of the ancient Egyptians, and Astar or Attergatis was not the mother of Semiramis but Semiramis herself, since it was from her as queen of the east that the Assyrian region, or Attyria, were named as well as the city of Tyre.

< text from f 12r resumes >

Consequent on the corruption of that ancient religion many corruptions occurred in the philosophy which that religion adumbrated. x < insertion from f 11v > x Vesta is taken by the ignorant vulgar for the earth, and hence the false idea that it is the fire in the centre of the earth that the Vestal fire may represent. < text from f 12r resumes > Vesta is taken by the ignorant vulgar for the earth, and by the vestal fire they insist that it is not the Sun that is signified but some invisible and fictitious fire in the centre of the Earth. They take literally the discourses of Philosophers about the celestial spheres giving out harmonious sounds by mutual friction, and believe that the heavens are not fluid but that the Planets and fixed stars inhere in solid spheres. This opinion was first introduced by Eudoxus a bit before the time of Aristotle. ✝ < insertion from f 11v > ✝ And they either believe that there is a harmony of such spheres, or in sober earnest reject it and argue the contrary. < text from f 12r resumes > In addition they insist that the spheres are moved by intelligences, that is, by the souls of the dead whom the nations worshipped in the Planets as Gods. And privileging the earth and the Sun to the other planets, they believe that their souls are the most powerful of all and some venerate the soul of the Earth or soul of the world as the second or third of the Gods. ‡ < insertion from f 1v > ‡ Because of the solidity of the spheres they locate Comets beneath the orbit of the Moon and insist that they are meteors. < text from f 12r resumes > Taking literally the order of the Planets which had been mystically posited by the Egyptians and Chaldaeans – Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Sun, Venus, Mercury, Moon – they locate the Orbit of Venus inside the orbit of the Sun and the orbit of Mercury within the orbit of Venus. Others who have learned the following order – Saturn, Jupiter, Mars, Venus, Mercury, Sun, Moon Fire air water earth – locate the spheres of Venus and Mercury above the sphere of the Sun and maintain that the element of fire is beneath the sphere of the Moon above the region of air. Hearing that the sublunary world is composed of the four elements, they not unreasonably assume that the elements are the visible parts of this world, ✝ < insertion from f 11v > ✝ which mystical Philosophers included with the Planets to complete the complement of twelve Gods, and especially that they are the first principles of things, of which, mingled with the minima[Editorial Note 79], all sublunar things are composed in accordance with the four primary qualities[Editorial Note 80] And the fifth essence, which for Philosophers was the incorruptible essence, immutable and immortal, diffused throughout the universal heavens, ἡ ὀυσία, Ὁ ὠν, these they take for the incorruptible matter of the heavenly spheres. Finally since in the {Ptolemaic} system[Editorial Note 81] < text from f 12r resumes >

<13r>

From Herodotus, Clement of Alexandria, Eusebius and Dio Cassius, we have shown that sacred Philosophy had its origin in Egypt. Lucian confirms the same in his dialogues from his observation of the Temples and the teaching of the Syrian priests. I write, he says, as an Assyrian myself, and some of the things I tell you I have seen for myself with my own eyes, others I learned from the priests. The Egyptians then are said to have been the first of men we know about to have grasped a knowledge of the Gods and to have established temples and groves and to have held religious gatherings. They were the first to have understood the sacred names and give holy discourses. Then not much later the Assyrians received the doctrine of the Gods from the Egyptians and erected shrines and temples in which they both placed images and dedicated statues. In ancient times there were also temples among the Egyptians without statues and images. And also in Syria there are temples not much later in age than the Egyptians, of which I have myself seen very many. Thus Lucian in his Dea Syria.[Editorial Note 82] He also tells us in his tract de Astrologia[Editorial Note 83] that the Egyptians were taught by the Ethiopians. First, he says, the Ethiopians discovered the motions and properties of the wandering stars and taught men Astrology, and soon after they taught the imperfect art to their neighbours the Egyptians who developed it substantially. – And not much later the Libyans too tackled this art. – The Babylonians also were skilled in this kind of thing; indeed they claim that they were the first of all men to learn it. But I think that this science came to them much later. The Greeks however did not learn anything about Astrology from either the Ethiopians or the Egyptians; but Orpheus son of Oneagrus[Editorial Note 84] and Calliope first revealed those things.

<14r>

Furthermore ancient Philosophers in teaching the transmigration of souls, not only gave the names of their ancestors to the stars and constellations but also taught that their souls migrated to the heavens and shone in the stars dedicated to them. So Plutarch writes in his Isis[Editorial Note 85] that the souls of Isis, Orus and Typho shine in the sky and are stars; for the soul of Isis is called the dog by the Greeks, Sothis by the Egyptians; the soul of Orus is Orion, and the the soul of Typho is the bear. In the same book Plutarch also says[Editorial Note 86] that on the last day of the month Epiphi when the sun and the Moon are in a perfectly straight line the Egyptians celebrate the birthday of the eyes of Orus; because they take the view that not only the Moon but also the sun are the eye and light of Orus. And they say that Typho tore out the eye of the god Orus and swallowed it and restored it to the Sun. The soul of Orus therefore migrated to the Sun and shines there and surveys all things, according to the Theology of the Egyptians. Hence Zeno in Stobaeus says that the Sun and the Moon and each of the other stars is intelligent and wise fiery fire[Editorial Note 87]. And the Stoics (on the evidence of Augustine bk. 4 de Civ. Dei ch. 11)[Editorial Note 88] say that all the stars are parts of Jupiter and they are all alive and have rational souls and therefore are indisputably Gods. Philo in his book on dreams, following the Platonists, says that the Stars are animate beings and very pure minds, and elsewhere in the same book he calls them incorruptible and immortal souls[Editorial Note 89]. And [1] Plotinus: Because of its soul this world is a God, but the Sun too is a God because it is animate, and for the same reason the stars in reality are Gods. Plotinus also (En. 5, bk. 1, ch. 2{)} Plotinus, Enneads, 5.1.2. teaches that human souls[Editorial Note 91]



are of the same kind as the soul of the world and therefore are similarly venerable. So too Iamblicus (De Mysterijs Aegyptiorum sect 8 ch. 6)[Editorial Note 92] tells us from the sacred writings of Mercury that man has two souls, one from the first intelligible [or supreme god] which shares the power of the creator, the other implanted in us from the circuit of the celestial [worlds, that is, from the celestial spheres ‡ < insertion from f 14v > ‡ celestial] to which [circuit] the soul returns to see God [after our death]. This soul which comes to us from the worlds, obeys the motions of the worlds [i.e. the Planets or heavenly Gods]. Iamblicus, Sect 1 ch. 17 and 19[Editorial Note 93] and elsewhere, teaches the same thing, following the view of the Egyptians that the Gods conspicuous in the heavens are connected with incorporeal substances. Aristotle[Editorial Note 94] taught the same thing by means of the intelligences belonging to the celestial orbs. Julian too taught the same thing through the notion of the intelligent sun the greatest God, whom the supreme God made absoluely like himself and different from the visible Sun and third corporeal orb; whose light he says is without body, and in the opinion of the Phoenicians, is the immaculate activity of the pure solar mind. So Julian, Orat. 4 near the beginning[Editorial Note 95]. The same point is also made by the pagan fable a[2] that the seventh of the Pleiades, by name Electra, which now no longer appears, refused to be seen any more after the fall of Troy, because Dardanus founder of the Dorian Nation had been born from Electra, and by their traditionb[3] that two Comets rose into the heavens from the places where the daughters of Orion died. Relevant too is the fact that the new star that shone in the Sky on the death of Julius Caesar was regarded by the pagans as the soul of Caesar. < text from f 14r resumes > The same point is also made by the pagan fable a[4] that the seventh of the Pleiades, by name Electra, refused any longer to be seen after the fall of Troy because Dardanus founder of the Dorian Nation had been born from Electra, and b[5] the tradition that two Comets rose into the heavens from the places where the daughters of Orion died. Relevant too is the fact that the new star that shone in the Sky on the death of Julius Caesar was regarded by the Pagans as the soul of Caesar.

Moreover the Pagans taught that the souls of the dead migrated not only into the stars from which they were said to have descended at the beginning but also into Animals and statues. This is quite abundantly clear from the very well-known doctrine of the Egyptians about the transmigration of souls and from the religious practice of the Romans, who at the start of any war uttered certain invocations to summon forth the Gods of the enemy from their temples and cities. Since Osiris invented the plough and crops, the Egyptians worshipped this God as an ox and <15r> as they claimed that the soul of Osiris had migrated into an ox they called that ox the beautiful soul of Osiris, And in very much the same manner they worshipped other Gods in other animals.

[Editorial Note 1] ‘Sol’.

[Editorial Note 2] ‘Luna’.

[Editorial Note 3] ‘Terra’.

[Editorial Note 4] This is Xenophon of Grypho, De Aequivocis. It is included in Antiquitatum Variarum volumina XVII by Joannes Annius. An edition of 1502 is online in the Hathi Trust Digital Library. Xenophon’s work is in Liber IIII, Fo. XXXIIII. Most of the works in the Antiquitatum have long been generally considered to be spurious.

[Editorial Note 5] The text breaks off here.

[Editorial Note 6] Macrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, bk. 2, ch. 1 (2.1.9 ff.). Macrobe, Commentaire au Songe de Scipion, ed. and tr. M. Armisen-Marchetti (Paris : Les belles lettres 2003). Macrobius, Commentary on the Dream of Scipio, tr. W.H. Stahl (New York: Columbia University Press 1952). Newton owned Macrobius, Opera, ed. I. Pontanus (Leyden 1628).

[Editorial Note 7] The text breaks off here.

[Editorial Note 8] This sentence lacks a beginning.

[Editorial Note 9] Apart from page numbers, all the material on f. 2 is written upside down; it seems likely that f. 2r is intended to follow f. 2v.

[Editorial Note 10] On Pythagoras see Oxford Classical Dictionary, 3rd. edn. revised, ed. Simon Hornblower and Antony Spawforth (Oxford: Oxford University Press 2003), pp. 1283-5, sv Pythagoras (1), Pythagoreanism. Oxford Classical Dictionary henceforth abbreviated as OCD; also available online. I have also used Brill’s New Pauly: encyclopedia of the ancient world, ed. H. Cancik and H. Schneider; English edition ed. C.F. Salazar and D.E. Orton, 15 vols. (Leiden/Boston: Brill 2002- ); also available online.

[Editorial Note 11] pseudo-Plutarch, De placitis philosophorum [On the Opinions of the Philosophers], which has come down to us in Plutarch’s Moralia (Treatise 51), but is now attributed to Aëtius. (It is not printed in the Loeb edition of Plutarch’s Moralia). Newton owned two editions of the Opera of Plutarch. Harrison 1330, 1331.

[Editorial Note 12] Lucian, Philosophies for Sale, §4. In Lucian, ed. and tr. A. M. Harmon et al., 8 vols., Loeb Classical Library (1913-2004), vol. 2.

[Editorial Note 13] Macrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, 1.14.19.

[Editorial Note 14] Macrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, 1.6.43.

[Editorial Note 15] Now spelled ‘Archytas’: see OCD sv, p. 150.

[Editorial Note 16] Tusculan Disputations, 1.16.39; modern editions of Cicero read ‘sensisse’ for ‘scripsisse’ [‘held the same views as Pythagoras’].

[Editorial Note 17] pseudo-Plutarch, De placitis philosophorum [On the Opinions of the Philosophers], 4.2.

[Editorial Note 18] Or ‘tetractys’.

[Editorial Note 19] Macrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, 2.2.19.

[Editorial Note 20] the text breaks off here.

[Editorial Note 21] Macrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, 2.2.19.

[Editorial Note 22] ‘gravitas’.

[Editorial Note 23] ‘Folio 3r has been transcribed where it belongs, immediately before f. 6r; the material on f. 3v consists of two passages marked for insertion on f. 6r.’

[Editorial Note 24] See the article ‘Consentes Di’ in OCD, p. 377; with this passage cf. Yahuda 17.2, insertion from f. 21r.

[Editorial Note 25] These lines may be found in Remains of Old Latin, ed. and tr. E.H. Warmington (Cambridge, Mass/London), 1935), vol. 1, p. 22-3, ‘Ennius’, lines 60-1. They were preserved in Martianus Capella, ‘De nuptiis philologiae et Mercurii’, bk. 1, sect. 42 in Martianus Capella, ed. F. Eyssenhardt (Leipzig: Teubner 1866), p. 17. Both books are online on ‘openlibrary’.

[Editorial Note 26] this fragment appears to be a meaningless relic of all the erasures on this page, which interrupts the sentence.

[Editorial Note 27] Cf. Herodotus, 2.50.

[Editorial Note 28] The names ‘Minerva, Venere, Mercurio, Apoline (sic) ac Diana’ appear to have no grammatical connection with the surrounding words.

[Editorial Note 29] This final line of the folio is disjointed

[Editorial Note 30] Young men of the age for military training; cf. sv ephēboi in OCD, p. 527-8.

[Editorial Note 31] the text appears to break off here.

[Editorial Note 32] On the two Mercuries see Yahuda 17.2, f. 5r.

[Editorial Note 33] taking ‘ad finem vergeret’ from the parallel passage in f. 3r below.

[Editorial Note 34] these words about Mars seems to float without attachment to the rest of the sentence; they do not occur in the corresponding passage on f. 6r.

[Editorial Note 35] cf. the passage where this sentence recurs in f. 6r.

[Editorial Note 36] Hyginus, Fabulae 274.22. For Hyginus, Fabulae or Genealogiae, see OCD, sv Hyginus 3 (a), p. 735. The ‘Fables’ are numbered 1-277; Newton’s numbers appear to agree with those in modern editions. Hygin, Fables, ed. J-Y. Boriaud (Paris: Les belles lettres 2003). An English translation is available on the website, ‘Theoi, e-texts Library’. Newton owned: Mythographi Latini. C. Jul. Hyginus [etc.] … Amstelodami 1681. Harrison 1139.

[Editorial Note 37] ‘war’.

[Editorial Note 38] ‘dominum’.

[Editorial Note 39] the text breaks off here.

[Editorial Note 40] This seems to be an unconnected fragment.

[Editorial Note 41] ‘Haedi’.

[Editorial Note 42] cf. ‘evocari fingantur’ in f 8r ad fin. below ‘are pretended to be evoked’.

[Editorial Note 43] Sky, Heaven.

[Editorial Note 44] Conjecturally reconstructing this mutilated passage from the similar passage at f. 8r: ‘ijsdem nominibus Graeci homines alios in{dunt}. Quinetiam varia Dei ejusdem nomina in varios deos tandem abierunt.’

[Editorial Note 45] the text appears to break off here.

[Editorial Note 46] Cf. f. 4r above.

[Editorial Note 47] See the article ‘Consentes Di’ in OCD, p. 377; with this passage Yahuda 17.2, insertion from f 21r.

[Editorial Note 48] See fn. 40 above.

[Editorial Note 49] A wand entwined by two serpents carried by Mercury.

[Editorial Note 50] See fn. 45 above.

[Editorial Note 51] Hyginus, Fabulae, 274.22.

[Editorial Note 52] ‘war’.

[Editorial Note 53] Hyginus, Fabulae, 274.22. See fn. 53 above.

[Editorial Note 54] ‘war’.

[Editorial Note 55] ‘dominum’.

[Editorial Note 56] Haedi

[Editorial Note 57] For the Atlantians see Diodorus, 3.56.1-2. Cf. Yahuda 16.2, f 37r (or thereabouts); the folio numbers are difficult to follow there.

[Editorial Note 58] repetition in MS.

[Editorial Note 59] This may perhaps be Marsilius Lesbius, de origine Italiae, with other books translated from the Greek by Domitius Calderinus (Venice 1498). I found the reference online in F.W. Wagner, ed., Grundriss der classischen Bibliographie (Breslau 1840), p. 224, sv Pausanias.

[Editorial Note 60] Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Antiquities of the Romans, 2.65-6. Newton owned Dionysii Halicanassei scipta, quae extant, omnia, et historica, et rhetorica … cum Latina versione … Opera et studio F. Sylburgii. Lipsiae 1691. Harrison 522.

[Editorial Note 61] Greek hestia.

[Editorial Note 62] ‘curia’; in Greek prytaneion.

[Editorial Note 63] Cf. Strabo, Geography, 15.3.13-15. The Greek is πυραιθεῖον, plural πυραιθεῖa.

[Editorial Note 64] Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, 1.9.7-9. Eusebius, Preparation for the Gospel, translated by Edwin Hamilton Gifford, 2 vols. (1903; reprinted, Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House 1981). Eusèbe de Césarée, La Préparation Evangélique, ed. J. Serinelli and E. des Places, 9 vols. (Paris : Les éditions de Cerf 1974-87). Newton owned Eusebius, Praeparatio Evangelica. F. Vigerus recensuit, Latinè vertit, notis illustravit. Ed. nova. (Greek and Latin) Coloniae, 1688. Harrison 591.

[Editorial Note 65] ‘as’ which is in both the Latin transcript and MS does not seem to make sense.

[Editorial Note 66] 2 Kings 17:30.

[Editorial Note 67] 1.119 in Loeb edition. Josephus, Antiquities of the Jews, ed. and tr. R. Marcus, 9 vols. (Cambridge, Mass 1998). Newton owned Josephus, Opera quae extant omnia … (Coloniae 1691). Harrison 861, and Josephus, Works … (London 1693). Harrison 862.

[Editorial Note 68] Macrobius, Commentarii in Somnium Scipionis, 3.5. In a note on this passage M. Armisen-Marchetti, Commentaire, vol. 1, p. 170-1 refers to Cicero, Republic 6.15, 22 and Laws 2.26-7. Cf. fn. 14 above.

[Editorial Note 69] Clement, Stromata, bk. 5. Clément d`Alexandrie, Les stromates, Stromate V, ed. A. Le Bouellec, tr. P. Voulet, 2 vols. (Paris: Éditions du Cerf 1981). Newton owned Clemens Alexandrinus, Opera Graece et Latine quae exstant, ed. F. Sylburgius (Paris 1633). Harrison 398..

[Editorial Note 70] Seneca, Epistulae morales, 90.28. Newton possessed five editions of Seneca, including an edition of the complete works by A. Schottus, Geneva 1626. Harrison 1486-90.

[Editorial Note 71] Seneca is referring to Wisdom.

[Editorial Note 72] Plutarch, ‘Numa’ 11.1-2. Plutarch’s Lives, ed. and trans. Bernadotte Perrin, 11 vols., Loeb Library (1914-26).

[Editorial Note 73] In Plutarch’s Greek this is ἑστία, hestia, ‘hearth’.

[Editorial Note 74] In Plutarch’s Greek ἐν μέσῳ τὴς περιφορᾶς, en mesō tēs periphoras, ‘in the middle of the circular motion’.

[Editorial Note 75] Plutarch, ‘Numa’ 14.3-4.

[Editorial Note 76] This looks like John Spencer, De legibus Hebraeorum ritualibus et earum rationibus, libri III (Cambridge 1683-85). Harrison 1545.

[Editorial Note 77] ‘Pyrethum’ and ‘Pyretha’ (pl.) appear to be variant spellings of ‘Pyretheion’ and ‘Pyretheia’.

[Editorial Note 78] Plutarch, Amatorius, 753D-F. – Plutarch’s Moralia, 15 vols., ed. and trans. Frank Cole Babbitt et al., Loeb Library (1922-69). Amatorius is in vol. 9 under the title, ‘The Dialogue on Love’. Cf. MSS. Temp. 3. Miss., f. 7.

[Editorial Note 79] ‘the smallest things’.

[Editorial Note 80] I have rearranged the text here to insert ‘sed maxime pro … componantur’ in the lacuna indicated by dashes in the MS. It follows on syntactically from ‘cum Planetis connumerabant’, and ‘sed’ provides the link.

[Editorial Note 81] translating ‘in systemate Ptolemaico’; ‘Ptolemaico’ is written at the foot of the page as if it should be the first word on the following page, although it does not appear on the following page.

[Editorial Note 82] Lucian, On the Syrian Goddess, 1. In Lucian, ed. and tr. A. M. Harmon et al., 8 vols., Loeb Classical Library (1913-2004), vol. 4. Cf. Yahuda 16.2, insertion from f 2v in f 3r.

[Editorial Note 83] Cf. Lucian, On Astrology, 3-10. In Lucian, ed. and tr. A. M. Harmon et al., 8 vols., Loeb Classical Library (1913-2004), vol. 5.

[Editorial Note 84] Sic in MS, but Orpheus’s father is usually spelled ‘Oeagrus’.

[Editorial Note 85] Cf. Isis 21. 359D. Plutarch, ‘Isis and Osiris’ may be found with English translation in vol. 5 of Plutarch’s Moralia, 15 vols., ed. and trans. Frank Cole Babbitt et al., Loeb Classical Library (1922-69). Newton owned two copies of Plutarch’s complete works: Harrison, 1330, 1331.

[Editorial Note 86] Cf. Plutarch, Isis, 52, 372B and 55, 373E.

[Editorial Note 87] For this fragment of Zeno (SVF 1.120) see A.A. Long and D. Sedley, The Hellenistic Philosophers, 2 vols. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press 1987), vol. 1, p. 275 (46D) and vol. 2, p. 273 (46 D). The final words in Newton’s quotation of it are corrupt. Long and Sedley translate: ‘Zeno says that the sun and the moon and each of the other stars are intelligent and prudent and have the fieriness of designing fire’.

[Editorial Note 88] Augustine, On the City of God, 4.11 (F) in S. Aurelii Augustini, De civitate Dei contra Paganos libri xxii, ed. J.E.C. Welldon, 2 vols. (London: SPCK 1924, vol. 1, p. 167-8. Newton owned an edition of the Opera of Augustine. Harrison 101.

[Editorial Note 89] Both of these quotations appear to be from Philo, On Dreams. Philo, ed. and tr. F.H. Colson and G.H. Whitaker, 11 vols. (Loeb Classical Library).

[1] ✝ p 483[Editorial Note 90]

[Editorial Note 90] Plotinus, Enneads, 5.1.2.

[Editorial Note 91] Although there is a small gap between this and the next line, the text runs straight on.

[Editorial Note 92] Iamblichus, On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, 8.6.  Iamblique, Les mystères d’Égypte, ed. and tr. E. des Places (Paris : les belles lettres 1966).

[Editorial Note 93] Iamblichus, On the Mysteries of the Egyptians, 1.17, 19.

[Editorial Note 94] I believe this statement is based on such passages as Metaphysics, Lambda, § 8 (1073a26-b1), as amplified in scholastic philosophy.

[Editorial Note 95] Cf. Julian, Oration 4 ‘Hymn to King Helios’, 132C ff. Newton`s quotation about the light of the sun is at 134A. The Works of the Emperor Julian, ed. and tr. W.C. Wright (Cambridge, Mass 1913), vol. 1, p. 358 ff. Loeb Classical Library.

[2] a Hyginus in Poet. Fab. 192 & Astronom. ubi de Tauro. Avienus in Arateo, & Ovid in Fastis l. 4 v. 175.[Editorial Note 96]

[Editorial Note 96] Hyginus, Fabulae or Genealogiae, 192. Hyginus, Poetica astronomica, otherwise known as De Astronomia, 2.21, the section headed ‘Taurus’. See Hygin, L’astronomie, ed. A. Boeuffle (Paris : Les Belles Lettres 1983). Newton owned: Mythographi Latini. C. Jul. Hyginus [etc.] … Amstelodami 1681. Harrison 1139. Avienus, Aratea, 576 ff.; see OCD, sv Avienus or Avienius …, Postumius Rufus Festus in OCD, p. 226 and Rufus Festus Avienus, Les phènoménes d`Aratos, ed. J. Soubiran (Paris: Les belles lettres 1981). Ovid, Fasti, 4.177-8 in modern editions. Newton possessed several editions of Ovid: Harrison, 1221-25.

[3] b Antoninus Liberalis in Metamorph. c. 25.[Editorial Note 97]

[Editorial Note 97] Antoninus Liberalis, Collection of Metamorphoses, 25. A mythographer of the second or third century AD. Antoninus Liberalis, Les Métamorphoses (Paris: Les belles lettres 1968). Mythographi Graeci, vol. 2, part 1 (1896).

[4] a Hyginus Fab. 192 & in Poet. Astronom. ubi de Tauro. Avienus in Arateis, & Ovid in Fastis lib 4 v. 175.

[5] b Antonini Liberalis in Metamorph. c. 25.

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