At the dramatic climax of the Dialogues concerning Natural Religion, moments after Demea has asked Philo accusingly ‘[a]re you secretly, then, a more dangerous enemy than Cleanthes himself?’ (D 11.18.87) and left the room, Cleanthes makes the more precise critique of Philo's rhetorical method above. The lengths to which Philo's unsparing abhorrence of superstition and spirit of controversy drive him are indeed strange if detached philosophical moderation is the sole goal of the discourse. Cleanthes is accusing him, in effect, of being unphilosophical in his argumentation, indulging a ‘spirit of controversy’ and ‘abhorrence of superstition’ that betray unphilosophical passions. The contention of this essay is that Philo often argues satirically rather than philosophically, and that this has a bearing that needs careful articulation on Hume's own rhetorical practice. Without regard to constraints (the ‘sacred and venerable’), Philo has railed exorbitantly at superstition, and ridiculed more than debated his target. Whether you think on the balance of probabilities that the judgement of the Dialogues falls on his or Cleanthes’ side, Philo as satirist here carries too much Hume to be merely a butt, a hapless Socratic interlocutor.