Non declinabitis ad magos, et hariolos] Utrumque; divinationes
genus est, primum Septuaginta interpretantur engastrimuthous. nostri
ventriloquos appellant, maxime Tertullanius qui de hac re, etiam peculiariter
scribit. Ventriloquae mulieres etiam tempestate nostra vidimus, quibus
sedentibus vocula quaedam, ab earum pudendis excitabutur, respondebatque;
sciscitantibus, ipseque; audire volui nonque ullam fidem his adhiberem,
sed ut daemonum praestigias cognoscerem. Praestigiae certe sunt, et miserarum
genera vanitatu. Nascuntur ex his calamitosi errores et incredibiles calamitates.
Huiusmodi scribunt patres graeci fuisse pythiam cuius impurissimus daemon,
impurissimam et doedissimam elegerat partem, in qua versaretur, et inde
responsa efferet.
Lev. 19.31 Turn ye not unto them that have familiar spirits, nor unto the wizards] These are the kinds of diviners first named engastrimyths by the Septuagint. They are called ventriloquists by our writers, especially Tertullian, who discusses this matter in detail. Even in our own times, we have seen ventriloquist women, seated, from whose private parts a little voice was raised up and responded to questions. I wanted to see them, not because I reposed any faith in them, but in order to gain knowledge of the illusions of these demons. Illusions they assuredly are, and a wretched kind of vanity. From them arise disastrous errors and incredible calamities. The Greek Fathers wrote that the case was the same with the pythia, whose most impure demon chose the most impure and degraded part in which to dwell and from which to give out its responses. Augustinus Steuchus, Recognito veteris testamenti ad hebraicam veritatem,
collata etiam editione Septuaginta enterprete cum ipsa veritate Hebraica...
(Venetiis: Aldus, 1529), p. 139. |