Page:Three Books of Occult Philosophy (De Occulta Philosophia) (1651).djvu/604

 of truth; from this Judaicall ferment of Cabalisticall superstition proceeded (as I suppose) the Ophitane, Gnostican, and Valentinian Hereticks, who together with their disciples, feigned a certain Greek Cabala, perverting all the mysteries of the Christian faith, and by their heretical corruption wresting them to the Greek letters and numbers, by the which they constituted a body of truth (as they call it) and taught, that without these mysteries of letters & numbers the truth could not be found in the Gospel, because that the writings thereof are various, and sometimes repugnant to themselves, and full of parables; that they who see, might not see, and that they who hear, might not hear, and that they who understand, might not understand, and that they are propounded to the blind and erroneous, according to the capacity of their blindness and error; But that the sincere truth lying hid under these things, is committed to the perfect only, not by writings, but by word of mouth, and that this is that Alphabetary and Arithmatical Theology which Christ in private manifested to his Apostles; and which Paul speaketh to the perfect only; for seeing that these are the highest mysteries, therefore they are not written, nor ought so to be, but to be kept in secret amongst wise men; but no man is a wise man amongst them, who knoweth not to refrain the greatest monsters of Heresie.

Of Juggling or Legerdemain. But let us return to that Magick, part of which is an art of jugglings (i.e.) delusions,