passed to the wizards of Alexandria, who enriched them still more
and crowned them with all the pure gold bequeathed to Greece by
Pythagoras and his disciples, with whom the forces of the air
conversed familiarly. Wherefore, gentlemen, it is convenient to
explore the books of the Hebrews, the hieroglyphics of the Egyptians
and those treatises of the Greeks which are called Gnostic precisely
because they possessed knowledge. I reserve for myself, as is quite
equitable, the most arduous part of this extensive work. I apply
myself to decipher those hieroglyphics which the Egyptians used to
inscribe in the temples of their gods and on the graves of their
priests. Having brought over from Egypt a great number of those
inscriptions, I fathom their sense by means of a key I was able to
discover with Clement of Alexandria.

"The Rabbi Mosaide, who lives in retirement with me, works on the
re-establishment of the true sense of the Pentateuch. He is an old
man very well versed in magic, who has lived seventeen years shut up
in the crypt of the Great Pyramid, where he read the books of Toth.
Concerning yourselves, gentlemen, I intend to employ your knowledge,
in reading the Alexandrian MSS. which I have collected myself in
great numbers. There you'll find, no doubt, some marvellous secrets,
and I do not doubt that with the help of these three sources of
light-the Egyptian, the Hebrew and the Greek--I'll soon acquire the
means I still want, to command absolutely nature, visible as well as
invisible. Believe me I shall know how to reward your services by
making you in some way participators of my power.

"I do not speak to you of a more vulgar means to recognise them. At
the point I have reached in my philosophical labours, money is for
me but a trifle."