One of the most extraordinary things to be met with in the history of
ancient times is the oracles. They maintained their reputation for
many successive centuries. The most famous perhaps were that of Delphi
in Greece, and that of Jupiter Ammon in the deserts of Lybia. But they
were scattered through many cities, many plains, and many islands.
They were consulted by the foolish and the wise; and scarcely anything
considerable was undertaken, especially about the time of the Persian
invasion into Greece, without the parties having first had recourse to
these; and they in most cases modified the conduct of princes and
armies accordingly. To render the delusion more successful, every kind
of artifice was put in practice. The oracle could only be consulted on
fixed days; and the persons who resorted to it, prefaced their
application with costly offerings to the presiding God. Their
questions passed through the hands of certain priests, residing in
and about the temple. These priests received the embassy with all due
solemnity, and retired. A priestess, or Pythia, who was seldom or
never seen by any of the profane vulgar, was the immediate vehicle of
communication with the God. She was cut off from all intercourse with
the world, and was carefully trained by the attendant priests.
Spending almost the whole of her time in solitude, and taught to
consider her office as ineffably sacred, she saw visions, and was for
the most part in a state of great excitement. The Pythia, at least of
the Delphian God, was led on with much ceremony to the performance of
her office, and placed upon the sacred tripod. The tripod, we are
told, stood over a chasm in the rock, from which issued fumes of an
inebriating quality. The Pythia became gradually penetrated through
every limb with these fumes, till her bosom swelled, her features
enlarged, her mouth foamed, her voice seemed supernatural, and she
uttered words that could sometimes scarcely be called articulate.
She could with difficulty contain herself, and seemed to be possessed,
and wholly overpowered, with the God. After a prelude of many
unintelligible sounds, uttered with fervour and a sort of frenzy, she
became by degrees more distinct. She uttered incoherent sentences,
with breaks and pauses, that were filled up with preternatural efforts
and distorted gestures; while the priests stood by, carefully recording
her words, and then reducing them into a sort of obscure signification.
They finally digested them for the most part into a species of
hexameter verse. We may suppose the supplicants during this ceremony
placed at a proper distance, so as to observe these things imperfectly,
while the less they understood, they were ordinarily the more impressed
with religious awe, and prepared implicitly to receive what was
communicated to them. Sometimes the priestess found herself in a frame,
not entirely equal to her function, and refused for the present to
proceed with the ceremony.
The priests of the oracle doubtless conducted them in a certain degree
like the gipsies and fortune-tellers of modern times, cunningly
procuring to themselves intelligence in whatever way they could, and
ingeniously worming out the secrets of their suitors, at the same time
contriving that their drift should least of all be suspected. But
their main resource probably was in the obscurity, almost amounting to
unintelligibleness, of their responses. Their prophecies in most cases
required the comment of the event to make them understood; and it not
seldom happened, that the meaning in the sequel was found to be the
diametrically opposite of that which the pious votaries had originally
conceived.
In the mean time the obscurity of the oracles was of inexpressible
service to the cause of superstition. If the event turned out to be
such as could in no way be twisted to come within the scope of the
response, the pious suitor only concluded that the failure was owing
to the grossness and carnality of his own apprehension, and not to any
deficiency in the institution. Thus the oracle by no means lost credit,
even when its meaning remained for ever in its original obscurity. But,
when, by any fortunate chance, its predictions seemed to be verified,
then the unerringness of the oracle was lauded from nation to nation;
and the omniscience of the God was admitted with astonishment and
adoration.
It would be a vulgar and absurd mistake however, to suppose that all
this was merely the affair of craft, the multitude only being the
dupes, while the priests in cold blood carried on the deception, and
secretly laughed at the juggle they were palming on the world. They
felt their own importance; and they cherished it. They felt that they
were regarded by their countrymen as something more than human; and
the opinion entertained of them by the world around them, did not fail
to excite a responsive sentiment in their own bosoms. If their
contemporaries willingly ascribed to them an exclusive sacredness, by
how much stronger an impulse were they led fully to receive so
flattering a suggestion! Their minds were in a perpetual state of
exaltation; and they believed themselves specially favoured by the God
whose temple constituted their residence. A small matter is found
sufficient to place a creed which flatters all the passions of its
votaries, on the most indubitable basis. Modern philosophers think
that by their doctrine of gases they can explain all the appearances
of the Pythia; but the ancients, to whom this doctrine was unknown,
admitted these appearances as the undoubted evidence of an
interposition from heaven.
It is certainly a matter of the extremest difficulty, for us in
imagination to place ourselves in the situation of those who believed
in the ancient polytheistical creed. And yet these believers nearly
constituted the whole of the population of the kingdoms of antiquity.
Even those who professed to have shaken off the prejudices of their
education, and to rise above the absurdities of paganism, had still
some of the old leaven adhering to them. One of the last acts of the
life of Socrates, was to order the sacrifice of a cock to be made to
Aesculapius.
Now the creed of paganism is said to have made up to the number of
thirty thousand deities. Every kingdom, every city, every street, nay,
in a manner every house, had its protecting God. These Gods were
rivals to each other; and were each jealous of his own particular
province, and watchful against the intrusion of any neighbour deity
upon ground where he had a superior right. The province of each of
these deities was of small extent; and therefore their watchfulness
and jealousy of their appropriate honours do not enter into the
slightest comparison with the Providence of the God who directs the
concerns of the universe. They had ample leisure to employ in
vindicating their prerogatives. Prophecy was of all means the plainest
and most obvious for each deity to assert his existence, and to
inforce the reverence and submission of his votaries. Prophecy was
that species of interference which was least liable to the being
confuted and exposed. The oracles, as we have said, were delivered in
terms and phrases that were nearly unintelligible. If therefore they
met with no intelligible fulfilment, this lost them nothing; and, if
it gained them no additional credit, neither did it expose them to any
disgrace. Whereas every example, where the obscure prediction seemed
to tally with, and be illustrated by any subsequent event, was hailed
with wonder and applause, confirmed the faith of the true believers,
and was held forth as a victorious confutation of the doubts of the
infidel.