Appearance      Marker   

 

<<  Contents  >>

Hippolytus

Footnotes

Show All Footnotes

Show All Footnotes & Jump to 168

Introductory Notice to Hippolytus.

[158] Sextus uses almost these words.

[159] Or “lodgment” (Sextus), or “deposition.”

[160] Or, “attendants of physicians.”

[161] Or, “make.”

[162] Or, “vanishes.”

[163] Not in Sextus Empiricus.

[164] The passage is more clearly given in Sextus.

Chapter IV.—Impossibility of Fixing the Horoscope; Failure of an Attempt to Do This at the Period of Birth.

[165] Or, “the cold atmosphere.”

[166] Or, “manifestation.”

[167] Or, “manifestation.”

[168] Or, “reasonable.”

[169] Or, “but the motion…is whirled on with velocity.”

[170] This rendering of the passage may be deduced from Sextus Empiricus.

Chapter V.—Another Method of Fixing the Horoscope at Birth; Equally Futile; Use of the Clepsydra in Astrology; The Predictions of the Chaldeans Not Verified.

[171] The text is corrupt, but the above seems probably the meaning, and agrees with the rendering of Schneidewin and Cruice.

[172] Or, “view.”

[173] The clepsydra, an instrument for measuring duration, was, with the sun-dial, invented by the Egyptians under the Ptolemies. It was employed not only for the measurement of time, but for making astronomic calculations. Water, as the name imports, was the fluid employed, though mercury has been likewise used. The inherent defect of an instrument of this description is mentioned by Hippolytus.

[174] Literally, “twisting, tergiversating.”

[175] This seems the meaning, as deducible from a comparison of Hippolytus with the corresponding passage in Sextus Empiricus.

[176] Omitted by Sextus.

[177] The Abbe Cruice observes, in regard of some verbal difference here in the text from that of Sextus, that the ms. of The Refutation was probably executed by one who heard the extracts from other writers read to him, and frequently mistook the sound. The transcriber of the ms. was one Michael, as we learn from a marginal note at the end.

Chapter VI.—Zodiacal Influence; Origin of Sidereal Names.

[178] This was the great doctrine of astrology, the forerunner of the science of astronomy. Astrology seems to have arisen first among the Chaldeans, out of the fundamental principle of their religion—the assimilation of the divine nature to light. This tenet introduced another, the worship of the stars, which was developed into astrology. Others suppose astrology to have been of Arabian or Egyptian origin. From some of these sources it reached the Greeks, and through them the Romans, who held the astrologic art in high repute. The art, after having become almost extinct, was revived by the Arabians at the verve of the middle ages. For the history of astrology one must consult the writings of Manilius, Julius Firmicus, and Ptolemy. Its greatest mediæval apologist is Cardan, the famous physician of Pavia (see his work, De Astron. Judic., lib. vi.–ix. tom. v. of his collected works).

 

 

 

10 per page

 

 

 Search Comments 

 

This page has been visited 0196 times.

 

<<  Contents  >>