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| Concerning the Hydromancy Through Which Numa Was Befooled by Certain Images of Demons Seen in the Water.
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Chapter 35.—Concerning the
Hydromancy Through Which Numa Was Befooled by Certain Images of
Demons Seen in the Water.
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 νεκρομαντείαν. 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 Cæsar.294
| 294 Comp. Lactantius, Instit.
i. 6. | Now Numa is said to have married
the nymph Egeria, because (as Varro explains it in the
forementioned book) he carried forth295
water wherewith to perform his
hydromancy. Thus facts are wont to be 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.E.C.F. INDEX & SEARCH
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