Pseudodoxia epidemica, or, Enquiries into very many received tenents, and commonly presumed truths. / By Thomas Brown Dr. of Physick. The fifth edition. With marginal observations, and a table alphabetical. Whereunto are now added two discourses the one of urn-burial, or sepulchrall urns, lately found in Norfolk. The other of the Garden of Cyrus, or network plantations of the antients. Both newly written by the same author.

  • Thomas Browne
Date:
1669
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Pseudodoxia epidemica, or, Enquiries into very many received tenents, and commonly presumed truths. / By Thomas Brown Dr. of Physick. The fifth edition. With marginal observations, and a table alphabetical. Whereunto are now added two discourses the one of urn-burial, or sepulchrall urns, lately found in Norfolk. The other of the Garden of Cyrus, or network plantations of the antients. Both newly written by the same author. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    k Of Marius, Alexander, Koma Sotter- ranea, 'Wherein the lower part is fone what: longer, as de- ‘fined by Zp- ton, De ftudis wilitart , and Johames de Bada Axvreo , cum Comment, elart{]. «om dottiff Bil] ez, ® Cafal. de Rivas. Bofio xelia Triovfante Croce, ® Decaffatio épfa jacatdum ac peraiiee uum c0nfpen étum preouit, Curt., Hers, l? 6.. ‘Cyrus's Garden; ‘or; The Quincunx: eyrological Hiftories deliver hid death by the general name of a Crofs, and Hippolyews will have him fuffer by the Sword ; we fhould have enough: to make out the recerved Crofs of that Martyr.Nor fhall we urge the Labarum and famous Standard of ConfPantine, ot makefarther ufe thereof, then as the fir{t letters in the Name of our Saviour Chrift, inufe among Chriftians be- fore the days of Con/tanrine, to be obferved in (&) Sepulchral Monuments of Martyrs in the Reigns of Adrian and Antoninus, and to be found in the Antiquities of the Gentiles before the Advent of Chriff, as in the Medal of King Prolemy figned with the fame Characters, and might be the beginning of fome word or name which Antiquaries have not hit on. We will not revive the myfterious Croffes of e£gypr, withCircles on their heads, in the Breaft of Serapis, and the hands of their Genial {pirits , not unlike the Character of Venas, and looked on by ancient Chriftians with relation unto Chrift - fince,how-ever they firft began, the eA gyptians there- by expreffed the procefs and motion of the Spirit of the World, and the diffufion thereof upon. the Celeftial and Elemental nature , implied by a Circle and right-lined Interfection.; a Secret in their Telefms and magical Chara&ters amongthem, Though he that confidereth the ” plain Crofs upon the head of the Owl in the Laterane Obelisk, or the (m) Crofs ere- éted upon aPitcher diffufing freams of water into Bafins with {prinkhng Branches in them, and all defcribed upon a tivo-footed Altar, as in the Hieroglyphicks of the brazen Fable of Bemsbis, will hardly. decline all thought of Chriftian=fignality in them. We fhall not callin the Hebrew Tenapha, ot ceremony of their Obla- tions waved by the Prieft unto the four Quarters of the World, after the form of aCrols; asin the Peace-offerings. And if it. were clearly made out, what is remarkably delivered from’the Traditions of the Rabbins, thar as the Oil was poured coronally ot circularly upon the head of Kings, fo the High-Prieft was anointed decuffatively or in the form ofan X ; though it could not efcape.a typical thought of C hri/? from myftical Confideratonrs, yet being the conceit is Hebrew, we fhould rather expect its verification from Analogy in that Language, then to confine the fame unto the uncon- cerned Letters of Greece, or make it out by the charadters.of Cadmus or Palamedes. . Of this Quincuncial Ordination the Ancients practifed much; difcourfed little ;. and the Moderns have nothing enlarged : which he that more near- ly confidereth in the form of its {quare Rhomebss and Decuffation , with the feveral commodities, myfteries, parallelifims andrefemblances both in Art and Nature, fhall eafily difcern the elegancy of this Order, That this wasin fome ways of praGtice in divers and diftant Nations , hints or deliveries there are from no flender Antiquity. In the hanging- Gardens of Babylon , from Abydenus 5 Exfelaus, and others, \(») Curtins defcribeth this rule of Decuflation. In the memorable Garden-of A/cinonsy anciently conceived an original phancy fiom Paradife, mention there iS —- ef wel the em athe, And 4 fifty (0) That opel I were mltake afingul {vered allocont That the cot (q) Mi Th this yards yudic whol fettin red t had ne Anc tafily to hig Whole the e the e in Bo of N elcape no fin fice « at alf Wh ved no ther at bty M Onloger this Wy Pel thas,