Introduction to the History of Religions Part 24

The persistence of faith in it as a science is an additional ill.u.s.tration of men's demand for visible signs of the intervention of the deity in human affairs;[1626] as often as certain supposed embodiments of the supernatural are discarded, others are taken up. The earlier philosophical views of the relation of the heavenly bodies to human life are now generally abandoned, and such belief in this relation as now exists has no scientific basis, but is founded on vague desire.

In savage and in civilized times eclipses, comets, the appearance of a new star, and earthquakes have been regarded as indications of the att.i.tude of the deity--sometimes favorable, sometimes unfavorable.

+916+. The words and actions of men and their normal peculiarities of bodily form have furnished comparatively few divinatory signs, the reason being, probably, that in early times animals and other nonhuman things arrested the attention of observers more forcibly, while in later times such acts and forms were more readily explained from natural conditions and laws. The palpitation of the eye, which seems sometimes to uneducated man to be produced by an external force, has been taken as a presage of misfortune. A burning sensation in the ear is still believed by some persons to be a sign that one is being talked about; in early stages of culture the sensation was regarded as a warning sent by the guardian spirit or some other superhuman being. Sneezing was once looked on as a happy omen: when Telemachus gave a resounding sneeze Penelope interpreted it as a sign that news of his father was at hand.[1627] An act performed without ulterior purpose may be taken to symbolize some sort of fortune. When the Calif Omar sent an emba.s.sy to the Persian King Yezdegird summoning him to embrace Islam, the angry king commanded that a clod of earth should be brought and that the amba.s.sadors should bear it out of the city, which they accordingly did; and this act was taken both by Arabs and by Persians as a presage of Moslem victory--the invaders had a portion of Persian soil.[1628] An element of magic, however, may have entered into this conviction; the bit of soil was supposed, perhaps, to carry with it the whole land. A chance word has often been seized on as an indication of the future, or a proper name taken as a presage.

+917+. The belief in the sacredness or divinity of the human body has led to the search for divinatory signs in its parts. But it is only the hand that has been extensively employed in this way. The hand has offered itself as most available for divination, partly, perhaps, because of the variety and importance of its functions, partly because of the variety of lines it shows and the ease with which it may be examined. Chiromancy, or palmistry, has been developed into a science and has maintained itself to the present day; but it has largely lost its divinatory significance and has become a study of character, which is supposed to be indicated by the lines of the hand. In its divinatory role it has often been connected with astrology.

+918+. The preceding examples deal with occurrences that present themselves without human initiation. In certain cases the materials for divination are arranged by men themselves. In such methods there is always an appeal to the deity, a demand that a G.o.d shall intervene and indicate his will under the conditions prepared by men, the a.s.sumption being that the G.o.d has prepared the event or thing in question, and that, when properly approached, he will be disposed to give his worshipers the a.s.sistance desired. The casting of lots and similar random procedures have been common methods of divination the world over.

The African Kafir diviner detects criminals by the fall of small objects used as dice. The Ashanti discover future events by the figures formed when palm wine is thrown on the ground, and from the nature of the numbers, whether even or odd, when one lets fall a handful of nuts. In a dispute the Yoruban priest holds in his hand a number of gra.s.s stalks, one of which is bent, and the person who draws the bent stalk is adjudged to be in fault.[1629] The Hebrews had the official use of objects called "urim and thummim" (terms whose meaning is unknown to us), which were probably small cubes, to each of which was somehow attached an answer "yes" or "no," or the name of a person. Thus, when David inquired whether he was to attack the Philistines, the answer seems to have been "yes."[1630] When it was a question who had violated the taboo announced by Saul, the urim and thummim first decided that it was not the people but the royal family; and then, as between Saul and Jonathan, that it was the latter who was guilty.[1631] According to the Book of Ezekiel the Chaldean King Nebuchadrezzar drew lots by arrows to determine what road he should take in a campaign.[1632] The old Arabs employed a species of divination by arrows, which, when thrown down, by their position indicated the will of the G.o.ds; and in the division of the flesh of a beast slaughtered by a clan or group, the portions to be a.s.signed to various persons were determined by the drawing of arrows.[1633] Divination by lot was also largely employed by the Greeks and the Romans.[1634] The method called "sortes vergilianae" is still in vogue; it was and is a custom among pious persons, Christian or Moslem, to learn the course that they are to take in an emergency by opening a Bible or a copy of the Koran at random and accepting the first words on which the eye falls as an indication of the divine will, the deity being supposed to direct the eye.[1635]

+919+. One of the commonest and most important methods of divination in antiquity was the examination of the entrails of animals (haruspication). Of this system there are a few examples among savage peoples,[1636] but it has attained special significance only among the great civilized nations and especially among the Babylonians, the Etruscans, and the Greeks and Romans. The slaughtered animal was generally held to be itself sacred or divine, and, as it was offered to the deity, it was a natural belief that the G.o.d would indicate his will by the character of the inward parts, which were supposed to be particularly connected with the life of the animal. Of these animal parts the liver was regarded as the most important. The liver was for the Babylonians the special seat of thought, whether from its position or its size or from some other consideration we have no means of knowing. The explanation of the form and appearance of the liver became itself a separate science, and this science was developed with extraordinary minuteness by the Babylonians. The whole structure of the liver, together with the gall, bladder, and the ducts, was a.n.a.lyzed, and to every part, every line, and every difference of appearance a separate significance was a.s.signed. Thus hepatoscopy, demanding long training and influencing political action (and, doubtless, calling for ingenuity and tact in interpretations), a.s.sumed great importance in Babylonia and a.s.syria; and it was hardly less important among the Etruscans, the Greeks, and the Romans.[1637] It is held by some scholars that Babylonia was the original home of the developed science, whence it pa.s.sed into Greece and Italy.[1638] It may be recognized in Babylonia in the third millennium B.C., and there is no improbability in the supposition that Babylonian influence was felt in Asia Minor and Eastern Europe; but, in view of the number of possibly independent centers of culture in this region in ancient times and the paucity of data, the question may be left open.

+920+. Other parts of the animal bodies also were employed in divination. Tylor[1639] mentions the examination of the bones of the porcupine among North American Indians, the color giving indications as to the success of hunting expeditions. The shoulder blade, when put into the fire, showed by splits in it various kinds of fortune. The heart was of less significance in ancient thought than the liver, it being of less size, and its function in the circulation of the blood not being known.

The brain also did not come, until a comparatively late period, to be regarded as the seat of the intellect.[1640]

+921+. From these external signs we may now pa.s.s to consider divinatory facts derived from men's inward experience.

_Dreams._ The importance attached all over the world to dreams as presages is a familiar fact. It would appear that among savage peoples a dream is regarded as representing an historical fact, the actual perception of an occurrence or a situation. It is believed that the mysterious inward thing, the soul, endowed with peculiar power, is capable, during sleep, of leaving the body and wandering to and fro;[1641] why, then, in its journeys, should it not be able to see the plans of friends and enemies, and in general to observe the course of events? We do not know the nature of savage logic in dealing with these visions of the night, but some such line of reasoning as this, it seems probable, is in their minds. The soul, they hold, is an ent.i.ty, possessing intellectual powers like those of the ordinary living man--it sees certain things, and its knowledge becomes the possession of the man when he awakes. Thus the soul in dreams is a watchman, on the lookout for what may help or harm the man. Perhaps there is, even in low tribes, a vague feeling that it has extraordinary powers of perception; whether such a feeling, if it exists, is connected with a belief that, during sleep, the soul is freed from the limitations of the everyday corporeal man we are not able with our present data to say.[1642] Savages often follow the suggestions made in dreams[1643] (particularly when they are vivid) and are confirmed in their faith by occasional fulfillments of predictions; the mind, working during sleep on the observations made by day, may sometimes fall on situations that afterwards really appear, and a few such realizations are sufficient to establish a rule or creed.

+922+. This nave conception of dreams as products of the soul's perception of realities survives to a greater or less extent among higher tribes and nations, but finally gives way, when some sort of theistic construction is reached, to the view that they are sent immediately by deities. An approach to this view appears in North America when, for example, a p.a.w.nee Indian sees in a dream some being who gives him important information, though in the folk-tales nothing is said of the source of the dream.[1644] A step in advance appears in the belief of the Ashanti, according to which the existence of a tutelary family deity is indicated in a dream;[1645] it is, however, not clear whether or not they hold that the tutelary deity has himself suggested the dream. In the higher religions a dream is often sent by a patron deity as a prediction or for guidance in a coming emergency. Doubtless it was only in the case of specially distinct dreams and such as related to important matters that attention was paid to them--the deity intervened only in affairs that called for his special direction.

Examples are numerous in the history of the great nations of antiquity.

The Egyptian King Merneptah in a time of great danger had a dream in which the G.o.d Ptah appeared to him and bade him banish fear;[1646] and the Hebrew Yahweh is represented as having sent dreams to a king of Egypt (probably in the interests of the Hebrews) to warn him of a coming famine.[1647] The a.s.syrian Ashurbanipal was favored with special communications from Ishtar, and the G.o.d Ashur in a dream ordered Gyges, King of Lydia, to submit to the a.s.syrian king.[1648] In some doc.u.ments of the Pentateuch Yahweh regularly announces his will in dreams to both Hebrews and non-Hebrews;[1649] and a Hebrew writer of a later time (the third or second century B.C.) represents the G.o.d of Israel as giving Nebuchadrezzar an outline of the history of the rise and fall of the kingdoms of Western Asia and Greece.[1650] A G.o.d might employ a dream for a less worthy purpose: Zeus sends a dream to Agamemnon to mislead him and thus direct the issue of the war.[1651] So important for life did the Greeks conceive the dream to be that, as it would seem, they personified it.[1652]

_Incubation._ Divine direction by dreams was not always left to chance.

The custom arose of sleeping near a shrine (_engkoimesis_, incubation) where, doubtless, after appropriate ritual preparation the G.o.d was expected to signify his will in a dream (his generally friendly feeling was a.s.sumed and the dream would be of the nature of an answer to prayer). This was one of the means employed by Saul when he desired to learn what would be the issue of the impending battle with the Philistines.[1653] In Greece, and later in Italy, the most famous shrine of incubation was that of Asklepios (Aesculapius), which was widely resorted to and came to exert a good moral influence.[1654] The renown of the shrine was doubtless increased by the fact that Asklepios was a G.o.d of healing.[1655]

+923+. As a dream was often obscure the services of a trained interpreter became necessary in order that the dream might be effective.

The interpreters were magicians, priests, or sages[1656]--men in intimate a.s.sociation with deities and acquainted with their modes and vehicles of revelation;[1657] dreams thus became equivalent to oracular responses. An interpreter would become famous in proportion to the number of fulfillments of his interpretations, and his G.o.d would share in the glory of his renown.[1658] Of the particular conditions through which certain men and certain shrines attained special fame we have few details.

Oneiromancy, in unorganized form, was studied in very early periods of religious life. It shared in the general advance of thought, and in the course of time a traditional science of the explanation of dreams arose.

There were records of experiences, particularly of notable fulfillments, and it became possible to make lists of dreams with interpretations;[1659] these were written down and pa.s.sed on from generation to generation, increasing in volume as they went. Such manuals have played no inconsiderable part in the life of the people.[1660]

+924+. _Ordeals._ Divination has played an important part in civil life as a means of determining the guilt or innocence of an accused person.

From very early times ordeals of various sorts have been devised for securing a judicial opinion when ordinary means of investigation have failed. One of the simplest methods is to require an accused person to swear that he is innocent, the belief being that the G.o.d will avenge false swearing with immediate and visible punishment.[1661] This method is employed by the Ashanti:[1662] the accused is required to drink a certain decoction; if he is made sick by it this is proof of his innocence;[1663] and if there be a question between two men, and one after drinking is made sick, the other is regarded as guilty, and executed. On the Lower Congo the accused swallows a pill made of a bark said to be poisonous; if he soon vomits it he is declared innocent, if not, he is adjudged guilty.[1664] A similar procedure was employed in Samoa:[1665] standing in the presence of representatives of the village G.o.d, the suspected person laying his hand on the object wishes that if he is guilty he may speedily die. Among the Hill people of Ceylon also this custom exists. Ordeals in Loango are described by Purchas.[1666]

+925+. Among the ancient nations the earliest example of an ordeal occurs in the code of Hammurabi (about 2000 B.C.). Here the accused is thrown into the sacred water, and if not drowned is declared innocent; he is protected by the deity.[1667] The same principle appears in the old Hebrew ordeal: when a woman was accused of unfaithfulness to her husband the accused was made to drink sacred water; if she was innocent no bad consequences followed; if she was guilty she died.[1668] In India, where various tests by fire, water, and food have been and are employed, the decision is sometimes as in the Hebrew procedure; sometimes (when the accused is thrown into the water) the principle (found elsewhere abundantly) is recognized that it is the innocent person that suffers and the guilty that is uninjured.[1669] The ordeal as a civil process continued in Europe until the Middle Ages. In the submersion in water of a woman suspected of being a witch the principle of decision was the same as is now practiced in Ashantiland and India--if the woman was drowned it was a sign that she was innocent, but if she rose unharmed from the water she was adjudged guilty and was put to death.[1670]

+926+. The imprecation is similar to the ordeal. A man invokes the curse of the deity on his enemy, and it is supposed that such curse will bring its punishment.[1671] A curse was regarded as an objective thing, which reached its object quite independently of guilt or innocence.[1672] In Morocco a conditional curse is p.r.o.nounced and is supposed to become effective if the wrong complained of is not righted.[1673] These ordeals and imprecations were sometimes effective in fixing guilt; the dread of incurring the wrath of the deity sometimes forced a guilty person to confess, or his dread of the punishment produced signs of guilt. On the other hand, it is probable that just as often innocent persons were convicted and punished through such tests.

With all such systems of signs may be compared the Chinese quasi-science called Fung-Shui ('Wind and Water'), which determines proper sites for graves and for temples and other buildings by observations of the influences of the sky (moisture, warmth, wind, thunder), of waters and hills, and of the earth, and by the study of various magical combinations. Thus, it is held, it is possible in important undertakings to obtain the favor and support of the good Powers of the world. The site of a grave, affecting the future of the dead, is of especial significance, and the Fung-Shui interpreters, regularly trained men, levy what contributions they please from surviving relatives, sometimes purposely prolonging their investigations at a ruinous cost to the family of the deceased.[1674] The system sprang from the Chinese conception of heaven and earth as the controlling Powers of the world; but, neglecting the higher side of this conception, it has sunk into a fraudulent trade.[1675]

+927+. _Oracles._ As men went to the tents or palaces of chiefs or kings for guidance in ordinary matters, so they went to the dwelling places of superhuman Powers for direction in matters that were beyond human ken.

Such appeal to divine or quasi-divine beings began early in religious history. In Borneo and the islands of Torres Straits the abodes of skulls are places from which responses are obtained;[1676] speaking heads are found there and elsewhere. The Sunthals of West Bengal have the ghost of a specially revered ancestor as a dispenser of superhuman knowledge.[1677] When local G.o.ds arose every local shrine, it is probable, contained an oracle.[1678] The shrines of the great G.o.ds naturally acquired special prominence, their oracles were consulted by kings and other leaders on affairs of importance, and thus came to exert a great influence on the course of events.[1679] The stars also, though they had no earthly habitations, were consulted through their interpreters. Such astrological oracles, as used by men like Posidonius, the teacher of Cicero, might be morally inspiring; but when, at a later time, the consultation of heavenly bodies fell into the hands of wandering "Chaldeans" (who might be of any nation) it became a system of charlatanry, and thus morally debasing.[1680]

The greater nations of antiquity differed considerably among themselves in regard to the part played in their lives by oracles. In general, the organization of oracular shrines grew in proportion to the rise of manlike G.o.ds--deities whose relation to men was socially intimate. In Egypt such shrines were not of prime importance;[1681] the functions of the G.o.ds were mainly governmental--the most human of them, Osiris, became an ethical judge rather than a personal friend. The pre-Mohammedan Arabs did not create great G.o.ds, and their resort to local divinities was commonly in order to ask whether or not a proposed course of action was desirable; the answer was "yes" or "no."[1682] The famous warrior and poet, Imru'l-Kais, desiring to go to war to avenge his father's death, received at a shrine three times a negative answer, whereupon, hurling abusive epithets at the G.o.d, he exclaimed, "If it were your father, you would not say 'no.'" Such independence was probably rare; most men would have accepted the divine decision. The answer of the Hebrew oracle was, as among the Arabs, "yes" or "no" (by urim and thummim)--the G.o.ds 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, G.o.d of Ekron, whether or not he should recover.[1684] Many Babylonian and a.s.syrian 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 role played by the priestly interpretation of omens, whereby the will of the G.o.ds 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 G.o.d 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 const.i.tution.[1687] The greatest development of oracular service took place in Greece. The Greek G.o.ds, 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 h.e.l.lenistic 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 preeminence 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 role would naturally force on them a certain sense of responsibility. As to the character of the mouthpieces of the G.o.ds 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 h.e.l.lenic world (and beyond it), such as was enjoyed by few persons of the time.[1689] She was invested with special sanct.i.ty 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 G.o.d, 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 att.i.tude 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 a.s.signed in early times to spirits in the administration of human life has been given over to G.o.ds--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 G.o.d) 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 pa.s.sage 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 G.o.ds[1696] 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.ds 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 G.o.ds 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 a.s.sumed, 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 G.o.d 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 G.o.d, 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 cla.s.s and as sometimes employing their arts for purposes contrary to the national religion; various cla.s.ses 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 pa.s.sage just referred to in Deuteronomy probably reveals a.s.syrian influence. While the Egyptian doc.u.ments have much to say of magic, they give little information with regard to the existence of a cla.s.s 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 G.o.ds. 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 G.o.ds, 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 _haruspex_[1714] 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 Graeco-Roman world inspired women played a great role.[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 a.s.sumed 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 G.o.d 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 role of women as representatives of deities is ill.u.s.trated by the character of the priestesses of oracular shrines.[1718] These, like the Dionysiac devotees, are seized and possessed by the G.o.d, 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 G.o.d 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 prophets[1719] 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 G.o.d 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 a.s.sume 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 n.o.ble a figure domiciled in its midst. One line of tradition referred the original Sibyl to the Ionian Erythrae, and when the Sibylline Books were burned in the year 83 B.C., it was to Erythrae 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 c.u.mae.[1724] She was regarded as being very old, and she was probably a permanent diviner of that place. It was from c.u.mae, 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 a.s.sertion that the utterances of the Sibyl were at that time recorded in books. This fact suggests that oracular responses had long been known at c.u.mae, 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 daemones, and cites a pa.s.sage from the Erythraean 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 pa.s.sion 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 Graeco-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 ma.s.s of ill-arranged fragments, with many repet.i.tions, 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 G.o.ds 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 ill.u.s.tration 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 inst.i.tutions its effects have been partly good, partly bad. It belongs to a lower stage of human thought and tends to disappear gradually before enlightenment.

CHAPTER IX

THE HIGHER THEISTIC DEVELOPMENT

+943+. The preceding survey of early religious customs and inst.i.tutions discloses a recognizable unity in diversity. Everywhere we find the same cla.s.ses of sacred objects and the same methods of approaching them.