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Hippolytus · Book IV · Chapter XLI

Making a Skull Speak

Page 65 of 526

But putting a skull on the ground, they make it speak in this manner. The skull itself is made out of the caul of an ox;271 and when fashioned into the requisite figure, by means of Etruscan wax and prepared gum,272 (and) when this membrane is placed around, it presents the appearance of a skull, which seems to all273 to speak when the contrivance operates; in the same manner as we have explained in the case of the (attendant) youths, when, having procured the windpipe of a crane,274 or some such long-necked animal, and attaching it covertly to the skull, the accomplice utters what he wishes. And when he desires (the skull) to become invisible, he appears as if burning incense, placing around, (for this purpose,) a quantity of coals; and when the wax catches the heat of these, it melts, and in this way the skull is supposed to become invisible.

Notes

  1. 271

    The Abbe Cruice suggests epipleon bolou, which he thinks corresponds with the material of which the pyramid mentioned in a previous chapter was composed. He, however, makes no attempt at translating epipleon. Does he mean that the skull was filled with clay? His emendation is forced.

  2. 272

    Or, "rubbings of" (Cruice).

  3. 273

    Or, "they say."

  4. 274

    Some similar juggleries are mentioned by Lucian in his Alexander, or Pseudomantis, xxxii. 26,—a work of a kindred nature to Celsus' Treatise on Magic (the latter alluded to by Origen, Contr. Cels., lib. i. p. 53, ed. Spenc.), and dedicated by Lucian to Celsius.

Ante-Nicene Fathers, Volume 5, ed. Alexander Roberts, James Donaldson and A. Cleveland Coxe (1885–96). Public domain. Text from the Christian Classics Ethereal Library.