These three papyri are an attempt to show how John Dee might have explained (at a private meeting, in June 1564, with his Queen, Elizabeth I) his ruse to discover if any other European scholar knew the perfect way to reform the Christian calendar. He did this by using Theorem XI of his newly published treatise Monas Hieroglyphica, with its opening challenge to scholars that “those who understand nothing of it should keep silent and study”, implying the converse that “anyone who understands any of its 24 theorems should shout it from the rooftops.”

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© 2016 Simon Cassidy

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