Introduction to the History of Religions Handbooks on the...

1596 So Teiresias (Odyssey, x, 492 ff.; Œdipus Tyrannus, 92) and Samuel (1 Sam. ix).

1597 Mic. i, 8; cf. 2 Kings iii, 15 (music as a preliminary condition of inspiration).

1598 As among the Hebrews, the Greeks, and other ancient peoples.

1599 Formerly, says Cicero (De Divinatione, i, 16), almost nothing of moment, or even in private affairs, was undertaken without an augury.

1600 For a tabulation of omens and other signs and of forms of divinatory procedure see article "Divination" in La Grande Encyclopédie.

1601 Cicero, De Divinatione, i, 1-4; Diodorus Siculus, i, 70, 81; Maspero, Dawn of Civilization, p. 216 ff.; Steindorff, Religion of the Ancient Egyptians, p. 113 ff. (cf. Gen. xliv, 5, 15, which may point to an Egyptian custom of divination by cup); Jastrow, Religion Babyloniens und Assyriens, and Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria; Hopkins, Religions of India, pp. 256, 328; De Groot, Religious System of China, i, 103 ff.; iii, chap. xii; Buckley, in Saussaye's Lehrbuch der Religionsgeschichte, 2d ed. (China); articles "Divination" in Encyclopædia Biblica, Hastings's Dictionary of the Bible, and Jewish Encyclopedia; Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquité;; articles "Divinatio" and "Haruspices" in Daremberg and Saglio, Dictionnaire des antiquités grecques et romaines; Gardner and Jevons, Greek Antiquities, chap. vii; Stengel and Oehmichen, Die griechischen Sakralaltertümer; Wissowa, Religion der Römer, p. 450 ff.; Fowler, Religious Experience of the Roman People, lecture xiii; Wellhausen, Reste arabischen Heidentumes, pp. 126 ff., 148 ff.; article "Celts" in Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics; Hastings, op. cit., ii, 54 ff.; Saussaye, Religion of the Teutons, Index, s.v. Divination.

1602 Turner, Samoa, Index, s.v. Omens.

1603 These animals were originally themselves divine, and therefore, by their own knowledge, capable of indicating the course of events; cf. § 905, note.

1604 Hollis, The Masai, p. 323 f.; id., The Nandi, p. 79.

1605 Ellis, Tshi, p. 203.

1606 Conolly, Journey to the North of India, 2d ed., 1838, ii, 137 ff.

1607 Tylor, Primitive Culture, i, 78, etc. For South Africa cf. Callaway, The Amasulu, Index, s.vv. Omens, Divination, Diviners; Kidd, The Essential Kafir, Index, s.v. Divining; article "Bantu" in Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, p. 362.

1608 2 Sam. v, 24.

1609 Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria (Eng. and Ger. edd.), in which references to the original documents are given.

1610 ὄρνις, οίωνός. Iliad, ii, 859; xii, 237; xxiv, 219; Hesiod, Works and Days, 826; cf. Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquité, i, 127 ff.

1611Birds, 715 ff.

1612Iliad, xii, 243.

1613 In Borneo, which has an elaborate scheme of omens from birds, prayer is sometimes addressed to them. Furness, Home life of the Borneo Head-hunters, Index, s.v. Omen; Haddon, Head-hunters, p. 344.

1614 The sacrificial animal was regarded as divine, and its movements had the significance of divine counsels.

1615 Terence, Phormio, IV, iv, 25 ff.

1616 Frazer, Totemism and Exogamy, ii, 137; Tylor, Primitive Culture, i, 119 f.; Miss Fletcher, Indian Ceremonies, p. 278 ff.

1617 Jastrow, Religion of Babylonia and Assyria, p. 384 ff.

1618 Turner, Samoa, p. 319; Rivers, The Todas, p. 593; Hollis, The Nandi, p. 100, and The Masai, p. 275 ff.

1619 On the exaggerated range and importance ascribed by some modern writers to early conceptions of the divinatory function of heavenly bodies see above, §§ 826, 866 ff.

1620 Erman, Handbook of Egyptian Religion, pp. 163, 180.

1621 Jastrow, Aspects of Religious Belief and Practice in Babylonia and Assyria, p. 240 ff.; R. F. Harper, Assyrian and Babylonian Literature, p. 451 ff.

1622 Persius, vi, 18.

1623 Cicero, De Divinatione, ii, 42 ff.

1624 The largest planet was brought into connection with the chief god of Babylon, Marduk; the bright star of morning and evening with Ishtar; the red planet with Nergal, god of war, and the others with Ninib and Nebo respectively. The Romans changed these names into those of their corresponding deities, Jupiter, Venus, Mars, Saturn, and Mercury.

1625 Cumont, Les religions orientales dans le paganisme romain, chap. vii, and Eng. tr., The Oriental Religions in Roman Paganism; id., Astrology and Religion among the Greeks and Romans; Bouché-Leclercq, L'astrologie grecque and Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquité.

1626 Medieval belief in astral power is embodied in the English word 'influence,' properly the inflow from the stars (so in Milton's L'Allegro, 121 f., "ladies whose bright eyes rain influence"). An astrologer was often attached to a royal court or to the household of some great person, his duty being to keep his patron informed as to the future.

1627Odyssey, xvii, 541 ff. The fear of a sneeze (which must be followed by some form of 'God bless you!') belongs in a different category; the danger is that a hurtful spirit may enter the sneezer's body, or that his soul may depart.

1628 Muir, The Caliphate, p. 112.

1629 Hastings, Encyclopædia of Religion and Ethics, ii, 362; Ellis, Tshi, p. 202; id., Yoruba, p. 97; cf. Hollis, The Masai, p. 324.

1630 1 Sam. xxiii, 2.

1631 1 Sam. xiv, 38-42 (see the Septuagint text).

1632 Ezek. xxi, 21 [26].

1633Moallakat of Imru'l-Kais, ver. 22.

1634 Bouché-Leclercq, Histoire de la divination dans l'antiquité, i, 195 ff.; iv, 153, 159; Augustine, Confessions, iv, 5: de paginis poetae cujuspiam longe allud canentis atque intendentis; if, says Augustine's friend, an apposite verse so appears, it is not wonderful that something bearing on one's affairs should issue from the human soul by some higher instinct, though the soul does not know what goes on within it.

1635 Cf. Comparetti, Virgilio nel medio evo, i, 64 f. (Eng. tr., p. 47 f.).