Page:Ante-Nicene Christian Library Vol 6.djvu/110

104 of prophetic frenzy, he moves the lamp towards the wall. The drug, however, is burned with considerable splendour. And that a fiery Hecate seems to career through air, he contrives in the mode following. Concealing a certain accomplice in a place which he wishes, [and] taking aside his dupes, he persuades them [to believe himself], alleging that he will exhibit a flaming demon riding through the air. Now he exhorts them immediately to keep their eyes fixed until they see the flame in the air, and that [then], veiling themselves, they should fall on their face "until he himself should call them; and after having given them these instructions, he, on a moonless night, in verses speaks thus:

And while speaking these words, fire is seen borne through the air; but the [spectators] being horrified at the strange apparition, [and] covering their eyes, fling themselves speechless to earth. But the success of the artifice is enhanced by the following contrivance. The accomplice whom I have spoken of as being concealed, when he hears the incantation ceasing, holding a kite or hawk enveloped with tow, sets fire to it and releases it. The bird, however, frightened by the flame, is borne aloft, and makes a [proportionably] quicker flight, which these deluded persons beholding, conceal themselves, as if they had seen something divine. The winged creature, however, being whirled round by the fire, is borne whithersoever chance may have it, and burns now the houses, and now the courtyards. Such is the divination of the sorcerers.