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

The answer of the Hebrew oracle was, as among the Arabs, "yes" or "no" (by urim and thummim)—the gods were remote, and the oracle, whose minister was a priest, gradually yielded to the prophet, the human interpreter of the deity.1683 The Philistines appear to have had well-organized oracles; when King Ahaziah was sick he sent to inquire of Baalzebub, god of Ekron, whether or not he should recover.1684 Many Babylonian and Assyrian deities gave oracular responses;1685 it is not known whether the shrines were resorted to by the people at large, and their importance was probably diminished by the great rôle played by the priestly interpretation of omens, whereby the will of the gods was held to be clearly revealed. The Romans under the republic were practically independent of oracles at shrines: in household affairs they had a family god for every department and every situation, and for State matters they found the Sibylline oracles sufficient.1686 Later, with the widening of the horizon of religion, the resort to Greek and other oracular shrines became general—a departure from the old Roman constitution.1687 The greatest development of oracular service took place in Greece. The Greek gods, with their anthropomorphically emotional characters, entered intimately and sympathetically into human life, communal and individual.

The great shrines of Zeus at Dodona and Apollo at Delphi were centers of Hellenistic religious life, and there were others of less importance.1688 Zeus, as head of the pantheon, naturally took a distinguished place as patron of oracles; and Apollo's relation to music and inspiration may account in part for the preëminence of his oracular shrine. In many cases, however, the grounds of the choice of a particular deity as oracle-giver escape us.

The human demand for divine guidance long maintained the influence of oracles everywhere, and it is not improbable that in general they furthered what was good religiously and socially. They were bonds of union between communities, and their authoritative rôle would naturally force on them a certain sense of responsibility. As to the character of the mouthpieces of the gods and the material on which they based their answers to questions we have not the means of forming a definite opinion. There can be little doubt that the official persons were sometimes sincere in the belief that they were inspired—such is the testimony of observers for both savage and civilized communities—and many modern instances bear out this view. On the other hand, there is reason to suppose that pretense and fraud often crept into the administration of the oracles. When the questions were known beforehand the responses may have been based on information that came from various quarters and on insight into the particular situation about which the inquiry was made. When the questions were not known beforehand we are in the dark as to the source of the answers. Sometimes, doubtless, they were happy or unhappy guesses; sometimes they were enigmatical or ambiguous in form, so that they could be made to agree with the events that actually occurred. In most cases the authorities would know how to explain the issue in such a way as to maintain the credit of the oracle. The best-known and the most impressive of the utterers of oracles is the priestess of Apollo at Delphi, the Pythia.

She occupied a commanding position in the Hellenic world (and beyond it), such as was enjoyed by few persons of the time.1689 She was invested with special sanctity as the dispenser of divine guidance to the Western world (to nations and individuals). It was required of her that she be morally and ceremonially pure, and she had to undergo a special preparation for the delivery of her message. The manner of her revelation did not differ from that of similar officials in noncivilized communities—she spoke in a condition of ecstasy; she is the best representative of the intimate union of the diviner and a great god, a union that tended to give dignity and wisdom as well as authority to the oracular utterance.1690 She was, thus, in the best position for exerting a good influence on the world of her time. How far the oracles of Apollo and other deities furthered the best interests of religion it may be difficult to say—the data for an exact answer are lacking. Socially they were useful in maintaining a certain unity among peoples, and they may sometimes have upheld justice and given judicious advice, but they were always exposed to the temptation of fraud.

Necromancy. While in ancient times the dead were everywhere placated by gifts and were sometimes worshiped, the consultation of them for guidance seems to have been relatively infrequent. The attitude of existing lower tribes toward ghosts varies in different places,1691 but the predominant feeling seems to be fear; these tribes have not accomplished that social union between themselves and the departed without which, as it appears, the living do not feel free to apply to the latter for information concerning things past, present, and future.1692 Savage and half-civilized peoples depend for such information on divination by means of common phenomena (omens) and on the offices of magicians and soothsayers, and references in published reports to necromantic usages among them are rare and vague. But among civilized peoples also application to the dead is not as frequent as might be expected; there is still fear of ghosts, and the part assigned in early times to spirits in the administration of human life has been given over to gods—family divinities and the great oracular deities supply the information that men need. There are few signs of dependence on necromancy in China, India, Persia, and Rome. The Babylonian mythical hero Gilgamesh procures (through the aid of an Underworld god) an interview with his dead friend Eabani in order to learn the nature of the life below;1693 this story points, perhaps, to necromantic usages, but in the extant literature there are no details of such usages.

Application to the dead is certified for the old Hebrews not only by the story of Saul's consultation of Samuel (which, though a folk-story, may be taken to prove a popular custom) but by a prophetic passage condemning the practice.1694 Teraphim were employed, probably, for divination, but there is no proof that they were connected with necromancy.1695 After the sixth century B.C. we hear nothing of consultation of the dead by the pre-Christian Jews. Among the Greeks also such consultation seems not to have enjoyed a high degree of favor. There were oracles of the dead (of heroes and others), but these were inferior in importance to the oracles of the great gods1696 and gradually ceased to be resorted to. Where the practice of incubation existed, answers to inquiries were sometimes, doubtless, held to come from the dead, but more commonly it was a god that supplied the desired information.

The stages in the history of necromantic practice follow the lines of growth of psychical and theistic beliefs. There was first the era of spirits when men were doubtful of the friendliness of ghosts, and held it safer in general to trust to soothsayers for guidance in life. Then, when the gods took distinct shape, they largely displaced ghosts as dispensers of knowledge of the future, and these latter, standing outside of and in rivalry with the circle of State deities, could be approached only in secret—necromancy became illicit and its influence was crippled. And when, finally, in the earlier centuries of our era, the old gods disappeared, the rise of monotheistic belief was accompanied by a transformation of the conception of the future of the soul; it was to be no longer the inert earthly thing of the old theories but instinct with a high life that fitted it to be the companion of divine beings and the sharer of their knowledge and their ideals.1697 This conception led to the belief in the possibility of a nonmagical friendly intercourse with the departed, who, it was assumed, would be willing to impart their knowledge to their brethren on earth. Saints have thus been appealed to, and it has been attempted in recent times to enter into communication with departed kin and other friends.

928. The office of diviner, though it has always been an influential one, has followed in its development the general course of social organization, becoming more and more specialized and defined. In the simplest religions the positions of magician and diviner are frequently united in one person. In Greenland the Angekok, acting as the interpreter or mouthpiece of a supernatural being from whom men learn how they may be fortunate, foretells the condition of the weather and the fortunes of fishing.1698 A similar combination of the offices is found among the Ainu, and apparently among the Cakchiquels, among whom the divining function is said to have related particularly to war.1699

929. There was, however, as is remarked above, a tendency to invest the priest with the function of divination. The Arabian kahin was a soothsayer, the Hebrew kohen was a priest.1700 The Yorubans have a special god of divination whose priest is the soothsayer of the community. In Ashantiland priests and priestesses, who are exceedingly influential and powerful, owe a great deal of their importance to their ability to explain signs and omens, especially to discover guilt and to foretell events.1701 In the elaborate divinatory ceremonies of the Ahoms of Southeastern Asia, the conductors, who are highly considered in the community, are priests; these people are partly Hinduized, but probably retain much of their ancient religious forms.1702 A noteworthy specialization of functions is found among the Todas of Southern India, who distinguish the diviner from the magician, the prophet, and the dairyman. The diviner is inspired by a god, gives his utterances in an ecstatic state, and for the most part limits himself to the explanation of the origin of misfortunes.1703 It would be a matter of interest to trace, if it were possible, a history of this specialization, but the early fortunes of the Toda religion are without records and can only be surmised. In ancient Gaul the diviner, it is said, was distinguished from the priest and the prophet.1704 Where divination is the duty of the priestly body, there is sometimes a differentiation within this body, some persons devoting themselves specifically to soothsaying; so among the Babylonians, where this function was most important.1705

930. Among the old Hebrews the soothsaying function is connected not only with priests but also with prophets.1706 The priest was the official diviner, employing the urim and thummim. Prophets and dreamers are mentioned together as persons of the same class and as sometimes employing their arts for purposes contrary to the national religion; various classes of diviners are mentioned as existing among the Israelites in the seventh century B.C., but the distinctions between them are not given.1707 From a statement in Isaiah ii, 6, it may perhaps be inferred that some form of divination was imported into Israel in the eighth century or earlier from the more developed Philistines and from the countries east of the Jordan;1708 and the passage just referred to in Deuteronomy probably reveals Assyrian influence. While the Egyptian documents have much to say of magic, they give little information with regard to the existence of a class of diviners; but it appears, according to a Hebrew writer,1709 that the art of divination might belong to any prominent person—Joseph is represented as divining from a cup.

931. The greatest development of the office of the diviner in ancient times was found among the Greeks and Romans.1710 The Greek word mantis appears to have been a general term for any person, male or female, who had the power of perceiving the will of the gods. The early distinction between the mantis and the prophetes is not clear. Plato, indeed, distinguishes sharply between the two terms:1711 the mantis, he says, while in an ecstatic state cannot understand his own utterances, and it is, therefore, the custom to appoint a prophetes who shall interpret for him; some persons, he adds, give the name mantis to this interpreter, but he is only a prophetes. We find, however, that the terms are frequently used interchangeably; thus the Pythia is called both mantis and prophetis. Whatever may have been the original sense of these terms, the office of diviner in Greece was in the main separate from that of priest. It is found attached to families and was hereditary. It was recognized by the State from an early time and became more and more influential. According to Xenophon Socrates believed in and approved divination.1712 Plato held that it was a gift of the gods, and that official persons so gifted were to be held in high esteem.

932. In Rome, in accordance with the genius of the nation, soothsaying was at a comparatively early period organized and taken in charge by the State. There were colleges of augurs,1713 standing in various relations to political and social life, having their heads (chief augurs)—thus in their organization similar to the priesthood, but standing quite apart from this. The same sort of organization was established in the Etruscan office of haruspex1714 when this was introduced into Rome. The members of these colleges were at first Etruscans and, as such, looked down on; but gradually Roman youth of good family and education were trained for the duty, and in the time of the Emperor Claudius the social difference between augurs and haruspices seems to have been almost eliminated.1715

933. Sibyls. In the old Græco-Roman world inspired women played a great rôle.1716 The belief in such personages goes back to the old conception of the possession of human beings by a supernatural being, which, as we have seen, was common in early forms of religion. This idea assumed various shapes in Greece, and in the course of time the inspired women were connected with various deities. In the Dionysus cult the orgiastic rites (in which women took a chief part) seem to have grown up from old agricultural ceremonies in which the spirit or god of vegetation was invoked to give his aid. Such ceremonies naturally coalesced here as elsewhere with the license of popular festivities. The legends connected with the Dionysus cult introduced savage features into the rites, as, for example, in the story of Pentheus.1717 But whatever may have been the case in Thrace, whence the cult came to Greece, it was not so in historical times in Greece, where the celebrations were controlled by the State. These exhibit then only the natural frenzy of excited crowds without the element of divination.

934. The development of the rôle of women as representatives of deities is illustrated by the character of the priestesses of oracular shrines.1718 These, like the Dionysiac devotees, are seized and possessed by the god, and speak in a state of frenzy. But their frenzy is controlled by civilized conditions. It exists only as a preparation for divination; it is the movement of the god in them laboring to express himself, and his expression is couched in intelligible human language. The priestess is a part of an organized and humanized cult and, as such, represents to a certain extent the ideas of a civilized society. The Dionysiac woman yields to an excess of animal excitement, without thought for society; the priestess feels herself responsible to society. A similar progress in civilized feeling appears among the old Hebrews; the incoherency of the earlier prophets1719 gives way to the thoughtful discourses of the ethical leaders.1720 The manner and the expression of revelation always conform to existing social usages.

935. Of a still different character is the figure of the Sibyl, created by the Greeks and adopted by the Romans.1721 She, too, is possessed by a god and sometimes, at least, raves in ecstasy; but she does not officiate at a shrine and is not controlled by any official body. She dwells in a cave or a grotto, has her life in the open air, and gives her answers on the leaves of the forest. She represents the divine voices that are heard by early men everywhere in the world; in the myth, when she displeases Apollo she is condemned to fade finally, after a long life, into a voice.1722 She is not, like the Pythia, an actual human being—she is never seen except in legends and myths. She is a creature of Greek imagination, the embodiment of all the divine suggestions that come to man from the mysterious sounds around him.

936. The historical origin of the fully developed figure of the Sibyl is obscure.1723 In the literature she appears first in the sixth century B.C. along with the Pythia, but she was then thought of as well established and ancient. She is not mentioned by Homer or Hesiod, but their silence is not proof positive that the conception of the character did not exist in their time; they may have had no occasion to mention her, or the figure may have been so vague and unimportant as not to call for special mention. For such a figure it is natural to assume a long development, the beginnings of which are, of course, enveloped in obscurity. However this may be, the Sibyl appears to have received full form under the religious impulse of post-Homeric times, under conditions the details of which are not known to us.

937. In the scant notices of the figure that have been preserved the indications are that there was originally only one Sibyl—she was the mythical embodiment of divine revelation, as the muse was the embodiment of intellectual inspiration. At a later time many sibyls came into being; Varro reckons ten and other authors give other numbers. Apparently a process of local differentiation went on; when the idea of the revealer was once established and the historical beginnings of the figure were unknown, many a place would be ambitious to have so noble a figure domiciled in its midst. One line of tradition referred the original Sibyl to the Ionian Erythræ, and when the Sibylline Books were burned in the year 83 B.C., it was to Erythræ that the Romans sent to make a new collection of oracles. Whatever the original home of the figure, one of the most famous of the Sibyls was she of Cumæ.1724 She was regarded as being very old, and she was probably a permanent diviner of that place. It was from Cumæ, according to the legend, that the Sibylline Books came to Rome. The story of how they were first offered to King Tarquinius Priscus, who refused to pay the price, how three of them were destroyed and then three more, and how finally the required price was paid for the remaining three, points to a belief that the material of the oracles had once been larger than that which came to Rome. There is also the assertion that the utterances of the Sibyl were at that time recorded in books.

This fact suggests that oracular responses had long been known at Cumæ, and that some persons, of whose character and functions we know nothing, had from time to time written them down, so that a handbook of divination had come into existence.

938. In whatever manner the oracles were first brought to Rome it is certain that they were accepted by the Romans in all good faith, and they came to play a very important part in the conduct of public affairs. They were placed in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus under the charge of two men (duumviri), and later a college was established for their guardianship. They were used in Rome especially for guidance in national calamities: when the existence of the city was threatened by the victorious career of Hannibal, it was the Sibyl who prescribed the importation of the worship of the Phrygian Great Mother. It is certain that the books were manipulated by political and religious leaders for their own purposes, old dicta being recast and new ones inserted as occasion required;1725 but probably this procedure was unknown to the people—it does not appear that it affected their faith. Even Augustine speaks of the theurgi as dæmones, and cites a passage from the Erythræan Sibyl as a prediction of Christ.1726

939. To the poetical books which have come down to us under the name of Jewish Sibylline Oracles no value attaches for the history of the Sibyl except so far as they are an indication of the hold that the conception kept on men's minds.1727 They are a product of the passion for apocalyptic writing that prevailed among the Jews and Christians in Palestine and Alexandria, from the second century B.C. into the third century of our era. The fame of the Græco-Roman Sibyl was widespread, and to the Jews and Christians of that time it seemed proper that she should be made to predict the history of Judaism and Christianity; possibly it was believed that such a prophetess must have spoken of this history. Naturally the Jewish Sibyl has a Biblical genealogy—she is the daughter of Noah.

940. Her utterances, given in heavy Greek hexameters, have been preserved for us in a great mass of ill-arranged fragments, with many repetitions, indicating them as the work of various authors. What we have is clearly only a part of what was produced, but the nature of the whole body of pseudo-predictions is easily understood from the material that has been preserved. They follow the history down to the author's time, giving it sometimes an enigmatical form, and the future is described in vague phrases that embody the guesses or hopes of the writer. It seems certain that all of the existent material of these oracles is from Jewish and Christian hands. Even when Greek mythical stories are introduced, as in the euhemeristic description of the origin of the Greek dynasties of gods in the third book, the whole is conceived under the forms of Jewish or Christian thought. The Sibyllines are quoted by Josephus and by many Christian writers from Justin Martyr to Augustine and Jerome and later. They give a picture of certain Jewish and Christian ideas of the period and of the opinions held concerning certain political events, but otherwise have no historical value. An illustration of the fact that the belief in them as real inspired prediction continued to a late time is found in the hymn Dies Irae, in which the Sibyl is cited along with David as a prophet of the last judgment. The whole history of the figure is a remarkable illustration of the power of a written record, held to be a divine revelation, to impress men's minds and control their beliefs and actions.

941. While divination has played a great part in the religious history of the world, it has rarely brought about important political or religious results.1728 The exceptions are the great Greek oracles of Dodona and Delphi and the Roman Sibylline Books; to these last, as is observed above, the Roman people owed the introduction of some important religious cults. But for ordinary procedures priests and other officiators everywhere were disposed to give favorable responses, especially to the questions of prominent men; and military and other political enterprises were usually in such form that they could not conveniently be modified in accordance with unfavorable omens—the omen had to be favorable. There were exceptions, but this was the general rule. The science of divination, however, did good service in fostering the observation of natural phenomena, and especially in the development of astronomy and anatomy. In connection with these observations it called into being bodies of men—corporations that in process of time became centers of general culture.

942. On the ethical side it may be doubted whether divination has been an advantage to society. It has produced much deceit, unconscious and conscious. Whether diviners believed or did not believe in their science, the result was bad. If they did not believe, they fostered a system of deceit. Whether there was real belief or not, the practice of divination encouraged false methods and turned men's minds away from immediate appeals to the deity, and in general from a spiritual conception of religion. On the other hand, it helped to maintain the external apparatus of religion, which for ancient life was an important thing. Like all great institutions its effects have been partly good, partly bad. It belongs to a lower stage of human thought and tends to disappear gradually before enlightenment.