HISTORY OF ORACLES--THE PRINCIPAL ORACLES OF ANTIQUITY.
Few superstitions have been so famous, and so seductive to the minds of
men during a number of ages, as oracles. In treaties of peace or truces,
the Greeks never forgot to stipulate for the liberty of resorting to
oracles. No colony undertook new settlements, no war was declared, no
important affair begun, without first consulting the oracles.
The most renowned oracles were those of Delphos, Dodona, Trophonius,
Jupiter Hammon, and the Clarian Apollo. Some have attributed the oracles
of Dodona to oaks, others to pigeons. The opinion of those
pigeon-prophetesses was introduced by the equivocation of a Thessalian
word, which signified both a pigeon and a woman; and gave room to the
fable, that two pigeons having taken wing from Thebes, one of them fled
into Lybia, where it occasioned the establishing of the oracle of
Jupiter Hammon; and the other, having stopped in the oaks of the forest
of Dodona, informed the inhabitants of the neighbouring parts, that it
was Jupiter's intention there should be an oracle in that place.
Herodotus has thus explained the fable: there were formerly two
Priestesses of Thebes, who were carried off by Phenecian merchants. She
that was sold into Greece, settled in the forest of Dodona, where great
numbers of the ancient inhabitants of Greece went to gather acorns. She
there erected a little chapel at the foot of an oak, in honour of the
same Jupiter, whose priestess she had been; and here it was this ancient
oracle was established, which in after times became so famous. The
manner of delivering the oracles of Dodona was very singular. There were
a great number of kettles suspended from trees near a copper statue,
which was also suspended with a hunch of rods in its hand. When the wind
happened to put it in motion, it struck the first kettle, which
communicating its motion to the next, all of them tingled, and produced
a certain sound which continued for a long time; after which the oracle
spoke.
THE ORACLE OP JUPITER HAMMON.
This oracle, which was in the desert, in the midst of the burning sands
of Africa, declared to Alexander that Jupiter was his father. After
several questions, having asked if the death of his father was suddenly
revenged, the oracle answered, that the death of Philip was revenged,
but that the father of Alexander was immortal. This oracle gave occasion
to Lucan to put great sentiments in the mouth of Cato. After the battle
of Pharsalia, when Cesar began to be master of the world. Labrenus said
to Cato: "As we have now so good an opportunity of consulting so
celebrated an oracle, let us know from it how to regulate our conduct
during this war. The gods will not declare themselves more willingly for
any one than Cato. You have always been befriended by the gods, and may
therefore have the confidence to converse with Jupiter. Inform
yourselves of the destiny of the tyrant and the fate of our country;
whether we are to preserve our liberty, or to lose the fruit of the war;
and you may learn too what that virtue is to which you have been
elevated, and what its reward."
Cato, full of the divinity that was within him, returned to Labrenus an
answer worthy of an oracle: "On what account, Labrenus, would you have
me consult Jupiter? Shall I ask him whether it be better to lose life
than liberty? Whether life be a real good? We have within us, Labrenus,
an oracle that can answer all these questions. Nothing happens but by
the order of God. Let us not require of him to repeat to us what he has
sufficiently engraved in our hearts. Truth has not withdrawn into those
deserts; it is not graved on those sands. The abode of God is in heaven,
in the earth, in the sea, and in virtuous hearts. God speaks to us by
all that we see, by all that surrounds us. Let the inconstant and those
that are subject to waver, according to events, have recourse to
oracles. For my part, I find in nature every thing that can inspire the
most constant resolution. The dastard, as well as the brave, cannot
avoid death. Jupiter cannot tell us more." Cato thus spoke, and quitted
the country without consulting the oracle.
THE ORACLE OF DELPHOS, OR PYTHIAN APOLLO.
Diodorus Siculus, Plutarch, and several other authors relate, that a
herd of goats discovered the oracle of Delphos, or of the Pythian
Apollo. When a goat happened to come near enough the cavern to breathe
air that passed out of it, she returned skipping and bounding about, and
her voice articulated some extraordinary sounds; which having been
observed by the keepers, they went to look in, and were seized with a
fury which made them jump about, and foretel future events. Coretas, as
Plutarch tells, was the name of the goat-herd who discovered the oracle.
One of the guardians of Demetrius, coming too near the mouth of the
cavern, was suffocated by the force of the exhalations, and died
suddenly. The orifice or vent-hole of the cave was covered with a tripod
consecrated to Apollo, on which the priestesses, called Pythonesses,[16]
sat, to fill themselves with the prophetic vapour, and to conceive the
spirit of divination, with the fervor that made them know futurity, and
foretel it in Greek hexameters. Plutarch says, that, on the cessation of
oracles, a Pythoness was so excessively tormented by the vapour, and
suffered such violent convulsions, that all the priests ran away, and
she died soon after.
CEREMONIES PRACTISED ON CONSULTING ORACLES.
Pausanias describes the ceremonies that were practiced for consulting
the oracle of Trophonius. Every man that went down into his cave, never
laughed his whole life after. This gave occasion to the proverbial
saying concerning those of a melancholy air: "He has consulted
Trophonius." Plato relates, that the two brothers, Agamedes and
Trophonius, having built the temple of Apollo, and asked the god for a
reward what he thought of most advantage to men, both died in the night
that succeeded their prayer. Pausanias gives us a quite different
account. In the palace there built for the King Hyrieus, they so laid a
stone, that it might be taken away, and in the night they crept in
through the hole they had thus contrived, to steal the king's treasures.
The king observing the quantity of his gold diminished, though no locks
nor seals had been broken open, fixed traps about his coffers, and
Agamedes being caught in one of them, Trophonius cut off his head to
prevent his discovering him. Trophonius having disappeared that moment,
it was given out that the earth had swallowed him on the same spot; and
impious superstition went so far as to place this wicked wretch in the
rank of the gods, and to consult his oracle with ceremonies equally
painful and mysterious.
Tacitus thus speaks of the oracle of the Clarian Apollo: Germanicus
went to consult the oracle of Claros. It is not a woman that delivers
the oracle there, as at Delphos, but a man chosen out of certain
families, and always of Miletum. It is sufficient to tell him the number
and names of those who come to consult him; whereupon he retires into a
grot, and having taken some water out of a well that lies hid in it, he
answers you in verses to whatever you have thought of, though this man
is often very ignorant.
Dion Cassius explains the manner in which the oracle of Nymphoea, in
Epirus, delivered its responses. The party that consulted took incense,
and having prayed, threw the incense into the fire, the flame pursued
and consumed it. But if the affair was not to succeed, the incense did
not come near the fire, or if it fell into the flame, it started out and
fled. It so happened for prognosticating futurity, in regard to every
thing that was asked, except death and marriage, about which it was not
allowed to ask any questions.
Those who consulted the oracle of Amphiarus, lay on the skins of
victims, and received the answer of the oracle in a dream. Virgil
attests the same thing of the oracle of Faunus in Italy.
A governor of Cilicia, who gave little credit to oracles, and who was
always surrounded by unbelieving Epicureans sent a letter sealed with
his signet to the oracle of Mopsus, requiring one of those answers that
were received in a dream. The messenger charged with the letter brought
it back in the same condition, not having been opened; and informed
him, that he had seen in a dream a very well made man, who said to him
'Black' without the addition of even another word. Then the governor
opening the letter, assured the company, that he wanted to know of the
divinity, whether he should sacrifice a white or black bull.
In the temple of the goddess of Syria, when the statue of Apollo was
inclined to deliver oracles, it deviated, moved, and was full of
agitations on its pedestals. Then the priests carrying it on their
shoulders, it pushed and turned them on all sides, and the high-priest,
interrogating it on all sorts of affairs, if it refused its consent, it
drove the priests back; if otherwise, it made them advance.
Suetonius says, that, some months before the birth of Augustus, an
oracle was current, importing, that nature was labouring at the
production of a king, who would be master of the Roman Empire; that the
Senate in great consternation, had forbid the rearing of any male
children who should be born that year, but that the senators whose wives
were pregnant, found means to hinder the inscribing of the decree in the
public registers. It seems that the prediction, of which Augustus was
only the type, regarded the birth of Jesus Christ, the spiritual king of
the whole world; or that the wicked spirit was willing, by suggesting
this rigorous decree to the Senate, to depose Herod; and by this
example, to involve the Messiah in the massacre that was made by his
orders of all the children of two years and under. The whole world was
then full of the coming of the Messiah. We see by Virgil's fourth
eclogue, that he applies to the son of the Consul Asinius Pollio the
prophecies which, from the Jews, had then passed into foreign nations.
This child the object of Virgil's flattery, died the ninth day after he
was born. Tacitus, Suetonius, and Josephus, applied to Vespasian the
prophecies that regarded the Messiah.
ORACLES OFTEN EQUIVOCAL AND OBSCURE.
The oracles, were often very equivocal, or so obscure that their
signification was not understood but after the event. A few examples,
out of a great many, will be sufficient.
Croesus, having received from the Pythoness, this answer, that by
passing the river Halys, he would destroy a great empire, he understood
it to be the empire of his enemy, whereas he destroyed his own. The
oracle consulted by Pyrrhus, gave him an answer, which might be equally
understood of the victory of Pyrrhus, and the victory of the Romans his
enemies.
Aio te Aeacida, Romanos vincere posse.
The equivocation lies in the construction of the Latin tongue, which
cannot be rendered in English. The Pythoness advises Croesus to guard
against the mule.[17] The king of Lydia understood nothing of the
oracle, which denoted Cyrus descended from two different nations, from
the Medes by Mandana his mother, the daughter of Astyages; and by the
Persians by his father Cambyses, whose race was by far less grand and
illustrious. Nero had for answer from the oracle of Delphos, that
seventy-three might prove fatal to him, he believed he was safe from all
danger till age, but, finding himself deserted by every one, and hearing
Galba proclaimed emperor, who was seventy-three years of age, he was
sensible of the deceit of the oracle.
St. Jerome observes, that, if the devils speak any truth, by whatever
accident they always join lies to it and use such ambiguous expressions,
that they may be equally applied to contrary events.
URIM AND THUMMIM.
Whilst the false oracles of demons deceived the idolatrous nations,
truth had retired from among the chosen people of God. The septuagint
have interpreted _Urim_ and _Thummim_, manifestation and truth, [Greek:
daelosin is alaetheian]; which expresses how different those divine
oracles were from the false and equivocal demons. It is said, in the
Book of Numbers, that Eleazar, the successor of Aaron, shall interrogate
Urim in form, and that a resolution shall be taken according to the
answer given.
The Ephod applied to the chest of the sacerdotal vestments of the
high-priest, was a piece of stuff covered with twelve precious stones,
on which the names of the twelve tribes were engraved. It was not
allowed to consult the Lord by Urim and Thummim, but for the king, the
president of the sanhedrim, the general of the army, and other public
persons, and on affairs that regarded the general interest of the
nation. If the affair was to succeed, the stones of the ephod emitted a
sparkling light, or the high-priest inspired predicted the success.
Josephus, who was born thirty-nine years after Christ, says that it was
then two hundred years since the stones of the ephod had given an answer
to consultations by their extraordinary lustre.
The Scriptures only inform us, that Urim and Thummim were something that
Moses had put in the high-priest's breast-plate. Some Rabbins by rash
conjectures, have believed that they were two small statues hidden
within the breast-plate; others, the ineffable name of God, graved in a
mysterious-manner. Without designing to discern what has not been
explained to us, we should understand by _Urim_ and _Thummim_, the
divine inspiration annexed to the consecrated breast-plate.
Several passages of Scripture leave room to believe, that an articulate
voice came forth from the propitiatory, or holy of holies, beyond the
veil of the tabernacle, and that this voice was heard by the
high-priest. If the Urim and Thummim did not make answer, it was a sign
of God's anger. Saul abandoned by the spirit of the Lord, consulted it
in vain, and obtained no sort of answer. It appears by some passages of
St. John's Gospel, that in the time of Christ, the exercise of the
chief-priesthood, was still attended with the gift of prophecy.
REPUTATION OF ORACLES, HOW LOST.
When men began to be better instructed by the lights philosophy had
introduced into the world, the false oracles insensibly lost their
credit. Chrysippus filled an entire volume with false or doubtful
oracles. Oenomanus,[18] to be revenged of some oracle that had deceived
him, made a compilation of oracles, to shew their absurdity and vanity.
But Oenomanus is still more out of humour with the oracle for the answer
which Apollo gave the Athenians, when Xerxes was about to attack Greece
with all the strength of Asia. The Pythian declared, that Minerva, the
protectress of Athens, had endeavoured in vain to appease the wrath of
Jupiter; yet that Jupiter, in complaisance with his daughter, was
willing the Athenians should secure themselves within wooden walls; and
that Salamis should behold the loss of a great many children, dead to
their mothers, either when Ceres was spread abroad, or gathered
together. At this Oenomanus loses all patience with the Delphian God:
"This contest," exclaims he, "between father and daughter, is very
becoming the deities! It is excellent that there should be contrary
inclinations and interests in heaven! Poor wizzard, thou art ignorant
who the children are that shall see Salamis perish; whether Greeks or
Persians. It is certain they must either be one or the other; but thou
needest not have told so openly that thou knowest not what. Thou
concealest the time of the battle under these fine poetical expressions
'_either when Ceres is spread abroad, or gathered together_:' and thou
wouldst cajole us with such pompous language! who knows not that if
there be a sea-fight, it must either be in seed-time or harvest? It is
certain it cannot be in winter. Let things go how they will, thou wilt
secure thyself by this Jupiter whom Minerva is endeavouring to appease.
If the Greeks lose the battle, Jupiter proved inexorable to the last; if
they gain it, why then Minerva at length prevailed."[19]
Eusebius has preserved some fragments of this criticism on oracles by
Oenomanus. "I might," says Origen, "have recourse to the authority of
Aristotle, and the Peripatetics, to make the Pythoness much suspected. I
might extract from the writings of Epicurus and his sectators an
abundance of things to discredit oracles; and I might shew that the
Greeks themselves made no great account of them."
The reputation of oracles was greatly lessened when they became an
artifice of politics. Themistocles, with a design of engaging the
Athenians to quit Athens, in order to be in a better condition to resist
Xerxes, made the Pythoness deliver an oracle, commanding them to take
refuge in wooden walls. Demosthenes said, that the Pythoness
philippised, to signify that she was gained over by Philip's presents.
CESSATION OF ORACLES.
The cessation of oracles is attested by several prophane authors, as
Strabo, Juvenal, Lucien.
Lucan, and others, Plutarch accounts for the cause of it, either that
the benefits of the gods are not eternal, as themselves are; or that the
genii who presided over oracles, are subject to death; or that the
exhalations of the earth had been exhausted. It appears that the last
reason had been alleged in the time of Cicero, who ridicules it in his
second book of Divination, as if the spirit of prophecy, supposed to be
excited by subterranean effluvia, had evaporated by length of time, as
wine or pickle by being kept is lost.
Suidas, Nicephorus, and Cedrenus relate, that Augustus having consulted
the oracle of Delphos, could obtain no other answer but this: 'the
Hebrew child whom all the gods obey, drives me hence, and sends me back
to hell: get out of this temple without speaking one word.' Suidas adds,
that Augustus dedicated an altar in the Capitol, with the following
inscription:
"_To the eldest Son of God_."
Notwithstanding these testimonies, the answer of the oracle of Delphos
to Augustus seems very suspicious. Cedrenus cites Eusebius for this
oracle, which is not now found in his works; and Augustus' peregrination
into Greece was eighteen years before the birth of Christ.
Suidas and Cedrenus give an account also of an ancient oracle delivered
to Thules, a king of Egypt, which they say is well authenticated. This
king having consulted the oracle of Seraphis, to know if there ever was,
or would be, one so great as himself, received this answer:--"First,
God, next the word, and the spirit with them. They are equally eternal,
and make but one whose power will never end. But thou, mortal, go hence,
and think that the end of man's life is uncertain."
Van Dale, in his Treatise of oracles, does not believe that they ceased
at the coming of Christ. He relates several examples of oracles
consulted till the death of Theodosius the Great. He quotes the laws of
the Emperors Theodosius, Gratian, and Valentinian, against those who
consulted oracles, as a certain proof that the superstition of oracles
still existed in the time of those emperors.
HAD DEMONS ANY SHARE IN THE ORACLES?
The opinion of those who believe that the demons had no share in the
oracles, and that the coming of the Messiah made no change in them: and
the contrary opinion of those who pretend that the incarnation of the
word imposed a general silence on oracles, should be equally rejected.
The reasons appear from what has been said, and therefore two sorts of
oracles ought to be distinguished, the one dictated by the spirits of
darkness, who deceived men by their obscure and doubtful answers, the
other the pure artifice and deceit of the priests of false
divinities.[20] As to the oracles given out by demons, the reign of
Satan was destroyed by the coming of the Saviour; truth shut the mouth
of falsehood; but Satan continued his old craft among idolaters. All the
devils were not forced to silence at the same time by the coming of the
Messiah; it was on particular occasions that the truth of christianity,
and the virtue of Christians imposed silence on the devils. St.
Athanasius tells the pagans, they have been witnesses themselves that
the sign of the cross puts the devils to flight, silences oracles, and
dissipates enchantments.
This power of silencing oracles, and putting the devils to flight, is
also attested by Arnobius, Lactantius, Prudentius, Minutius, Felix, and
several others. Their testimony is a certain proof that the coming of
the Messiah had not imposed a general silence on oracles.
The Emperor Julian, called the Apostate, consulting the oracle of
Apollo, in the suburbs of Antioch, the devil could make him no other
answer, than that the body of St. Babylas, buried in the neighbourhood,
imposed silence on him. The Emperor, transported with rage and vexation,
resolved to revenge his gods, by eluding a solemn prediction of Christ.
He ordered the Jews to rebuild the temple of Jerusalem; but in beginning
to dig the foundations, balls of fire burst out, and consumed the
artificers, their tools and materials. These facts are attested by
Ammianus Marcellinus, a pagan, and the emperor's historian; and by St.
Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and Theodoret, Sozomen and Socrates,
in their ecclesiastical histories. The sophist Libanius, who was an
enemy of the Christians, confessed also that St. Babylas had silenced
the oracle of Apollo, in the suburbs of Antioch.
Plutarch relates that the pilot Thamus heard a voice in the air, crying
out:--"The great Pan is dead:" whereupon Eusebius observes, that the
deaths of the demons were frequent in the reign of Tiberius, when Christ
drove out the wicked spirits. The same judgments may be passed on
oracles as on possessions. It was on particular occasions, by the divine
permission, that the Christians cast out devils, or silenced oracles, in
the presence and even by the confession of the pagans themselves. And
thus it is we should, it seems, understand the passages of St. Jerom,
Eusebius, Cyril, Theodoret, Prudentius, and other authors, who said,
that the coming of Christ had imposed silence on the oracles.
OF ORACLES, THE ARTIFICES OP PRIESTS OP FALSE DIVINITIES.
As regards the second sort of oracles, which were pure artifices and
cheats of the priests of false divinities, and which probably exceeded
the numbers of those that immediately proceed from demons, they did not
cease till idolatry was abolished, though they had lost their credit for
a considerable time before the coming of Christ. It was concerning this
more common and general sort of oracles that Minutius Felix said, they
began to discontinue their responses, according as men began to be more
polite. But, howsoever decried oracles were, impostors always found
dupes; the grossest cheats having never failed.
Daniel discovered the imposture of the priests of Bel, who had a private
way of getting into the temple, to take away the offered meats, and made
the king believe that the idol consumed them. Mundus, being in love with
Paulina, the eldest of the priestesses of Isis, went and told her that
the god Anubis, being passionately fond of her, commanded her to give
him a meeting. She was afterwards shut up in a dark room, where her
lover Mundus (whom she believed to be the god Anubis,) was concealed.
This imposture having been discovered, Tiberius ordered those detestable
priests and priestesses to be crucified, and with them Iolea Mundus's
free woman, who had conducted the whole intrigue. He also commanded the
temple of Isis to be levelled with the ground, her statue to be thrown
into the Tiber, and, as to Mundus, he contented himself with sending him
into banishment.
Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, not only destroyed the temples of the
gods, but discovered the cheats of the priests, by shewing that the
statues, some of which were of brass, and others of wood, were hollow
within, and led into dark passages made in the wall.
Lucius in discovering the impostures of the false prophet Alexander,
says, that the oracles were chiefly afraid of the subtilties of the
Epicureans and Christians. The false prophet Alexander sometimes feigned
himself seized with a divine fury, and by means of the herb sopewort,
which he chewed, frothed at the mouth in so extraordinary a manner, that
the ignorant people attributed it to the power of the god he was
possessed by. He had long before prepared the head of a dragon made of
linen, which opened and shut its mouth by means of a horses hair. He
went by night to a place where the foundations of a temple were digging,
and having found water, either of a spring or rain that had settled
there, he hid in it a goose egg, in which he had inclosed a little
serpent that had just been hatched. The next day, very early in the
morning, he came quite naked into the street, having only a scarf about
his middle, holding in his hand a scythe, and tossing about his hair as
the priests of Cybele; then getting on the top of a high altar, he said
that the place was happy to be honoured by the birth of a god.
Afterwards running down to the place where he had hid the goose egg, and
going into the water, he began to sing the praises of Apollo and
Aesculapius, and to invite the latter to come and shew himself to men;
with these words he dips a bowl into the water and takes out a
mysterious egg, which had a god enclosed in it, and when he held it in
his hand, he began to say that he held Aesculapius, whilst all were
eager to have a sight of this fine mystery, he broke the egg, and the
little serpent starting out, twisted itself about his fingers.
These examples shew clearly, that both Christians and pagans were so
far agreed as to treat the greater number of oracles as purely human
impostures.
From the very nature of things, much that now serves for amusement must
formerly have been appropriated to a higher destination. Ventriloquism
may be quoted as a case in point, affording a ready and plausible
solution of the oracular stones and oaks, of the reply which the seer
Nessus addressed to Pythagoras, (Jamblichus, Vit. Pyth. xxxiii.) and of
the tree which at the command of the Gymnosophists, of upper Egypt,
spoke to Apollonius, "The voice," says Philostratus (Vit. Ap. xi. 5)
"was distinct but weak, and similar to the voice of a woman." But the
oracles, at least if we ascend to their origin, were not altogether
impostures. The pretended interpreters of the decrees of destiny were
frequently plunged into a sort of delirium, and when inhaling the fumes
of some intoxicating drug or powerful gas or vapour, or drinking some
beverage which produced a temporary suspension of the reason, the mind
of the enquirer was predisposed to feverish dreams:[21] if priestcraft
were concerned in the interpretation of such dreams, or eliciting senses
from the wild effusions of the disordered brain of the Pythoness,
Science presided over the investigation of the causes of this phrenzy,
and the advantages which the Thaumaturgists might derive from it.
Jamblicus states (de Mysterius C. xxix) that for obtaining a revelation
from the Deity in a dream, the youngest and most simple creatures were
the most proper for succeeding: they were prepared for it by magical
invocations and fumigations of particular perfumes. Porphyry declares
that these proceedings had an influence on the imagination; Jamblicus
that they rendered them more worthy of the inspiration of the Deity.
FOOTNOTES:
[16] The responses here were delivered by a young priestess called
Pythia or Phoebas, placed on a tripos, or stool with three feet, called
also cortina, from the skin of the serpent Python with which it was
covered, it is uncertain after what manner these oracles were delivered,
though Cicero supposes the Pythoness was inspired, or rather intoxicated
by certain vapours which ascended from the cave. Some say that the
Pythoness being once debauched, the oracles were afterwards delivered by
an old woman in the dress of a young maid.
[17] This answer of the oracle brings to our recollection the equally
remarkable injunction of a modern seer to Sir William Windham, which is
related in the memoirs of Bishop Newton. "In his younger years, when Sir
William was abroad upon his travels, and was at Venice, there was a
noted fortune-teller, to whom great numbers resorted, and he among the
rest; and the fortune-teller told him, that he must beware of a white
horse. After his return to England, as he was walking by Charing-Cross,
he saw a crowd of people coming out and going in to a house, and
inquired what was the meaning of it, was informed that Duncan Campbell,
the dumb fortune-teller lived there. His curiosity also led him in, and
Duncan Campbell likewise told him that he must beware of a white horse.
It was somewhat extraordinary that two fortune-tellers, one at Venice
and the other in London, without any communication, and at some distance
of time, should both happen to hit upon the same thing, and to give the
very same warning. Some years afterwards, when he was taken up in 1715,
and committed to the Tower upon suspicion of treasonable practices,
which never appeared, his friends said to him that his fortune wan now
fulfilled, the Hanover House was the white horse whereof he was
admonished to beware. But some time after this, he had a fall from a
white horse, and received a blow by which he lost the sight of one of
his eyes."
[18] "When we come to consult thee," says he to Apollo, "if thou seest
what is in the womb of futurity, why dost thou use expressions which
will not be understood? If thou dost, thou takest pleasure in abusing
us: if thou dost not, be informed of us, and learn to speak more
clearly. I tell thee, that if thou intendest an equivoque, the Greek
word whereby thou affirmest that Croesus should overthrow a great
empire, was ill-chosen; and that it could signify nothing but Croesus
conquering Cyrus. If things must necessarily come to pass, why dost thou
amuse us with thy ambiguities? What dost thou, wretch as thou art, at
Delphi, employed in muttering idle prophecies!"--See "_Demonologia, or
Natural Knowledge revealed_" p. 162.
[19] See _Demonologia_, p, 163.
[20] "Among the more learned, it is a pretty general opinion that all
the oracles were mere cheats and impostures; calculated either to serve
the avaricious ends of the heathenish priests, or the political views of
the princes. Bayle positively asserts, that they were mere human
artifices, in which the devil had no hand. In this opinion he is
strongly supported by Van Dale, a Dutch physician, and M. Fontenelle,
who have expressly written on the subject."--_Vide Demonologia_, op.
citat. p. 159.
[21] We learn from Herodotus (iv. 75) that the Scythians and Tartars
intoxicated themselves by inhaling the vapour of a species of hemp
thrown upon red hot stones. And the odour of the seeds of henbane alone,
when its power is augmented by heat, produces a choleric and quarrelsome
disposition, in those who inhale the vapour arising from them in this
state. And in the "Dictionnaire de Médecine," (de l'Encyclopédie
Méthodique, vii, art. Jusquiaume) instances are quoted, the most
remarkable of which is, that if a married pair who, though living in
perfect harmony every where else, could never remain for a few hours in
the room where they worked without quarrelling. The apartment of course
was thought to be bewitched, until it was discovered that a considerable
quantity of seeds of henbane were deposited near the stove, which was
the cause of their daily dissensions, the removal of which put an end to
their bickerings. The same effects that were produced by draughts and
fumigations would follow from the application of liniments, of "Magical
Unctions," acting through the absorbent system, as if they had been
introduced into the stomach: allusions to these ointments are constantly
recurring in ancient authors. Philostratus, in his life of Apollonius
(iii. 5) states that the bodies of his companions, before being admitted
to the mysteries of the Indian sages, were rubbed over with so active an
oil, that it appeared as if they were bathed with fire.