[63] See Book II. chap. xxvi. et seq.
[64] B. J. II., 8. § 6. See also the Church Histories of Neander (i. 61, 83) and Kurtz (i. 65).
[65] The word Ἀβράξας read numerically gives the total of 365 = the number of days in which the sun completes his circle through the twelve signs. In this way it is equivalent to Mithras. These gems often bear the figure of a cock = the sun-bird, not without reference to Æsculapius. They were worn to recover or preserve health.
[66] This reminds one of the somewhat similar introduction to the alchemy of Crates, which speaks of a youth called Rissoures, the scion of a family of adepts, who made love to a maid-servant of Ephestelios, chief diviner in the Temple of Serapis at Alexandria, thus inducing her to steal the book and fly with him. The tradition of discovery is common to both legends, but the Crates has a colour of worldly passion and the Sirr-el-Asrar a shade of ascetic practice which agrees admirably with what we know of the Therapeutae. Crates is probably Democritus. The Arabic version was due to Khalid ben Yezid, and bears the title of Kenz el Konouz, or treasure of treasures. It is found in MS. 440 of Leyden. In a later chapter we shall recur to this subject with the view of showing that alchemy as well as physiognomy owed much to the Therapeutic philosophy.
[67] The printed copy—in fol. Venice, Bernardinus de Vitalibus, s. a. but probably 1501—reads ‘romanam,’ which would be neo-Greek or Romaic.
[68] See on this whole subject the excellent remarks of Foerster in his treatise De Aristotelis quae feruntur Secretis Secretorum, Kiliae, 1888, pp. 22-25.
[69] Wright’s Cat. of the Syriac MSS., Nos. 250 and 366.
[70] Recherches, pp. 117, 118.
[71] Op. cit. pp. 26, 27.
[72] Viz., P. xiii. sin. cod. 6; P. xxx. cod. 29; and P. lxxxix. sup. cod. 76. There is also one at Paris, Fonds de Sorbonne, 955.