ORACLE, amongst the heathens, was the answer which the gods were supposed to give to those who consulted them upon any affair of importance. It is also used for the god who was thought to give the answer, and for the place where the response was given.
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The credit of oracles was so great that in all doubts and disputes their determinations were held as sacred and inviolable. Hence vast numbers flocked to them for advice about the management of their affairs; and no business of any consequence was undertaken, scarcely any peace concluded, any war waged, or any new form of government instituted, without the advice and approbation of some oracle. The answers were usually given by the intervention of the priest or priestess of the god who was consulted; and were generally expressed in such dark and unintelligible phrases, as might easily be wrested to prove the truth of the oracle, whatever the event should happen to be. It is not, therefore, to be wondered at, that the priests who delivered them were in the highest credit and esteem; and that they managed this reputation so as greatly to promote their own particular advantage. They accordingly allowed no man to consult the gods before he had offered costly sacrifices and made rich presents to them. Nor was this all. To keep up the veneration for their oracles, and to prevent their being taken unprepared, they admitted persons to consult the gods only at certain stated times; and sometimes they were so cautious, that the greatest personages could obtain no answer at all. Thus Alexander himself was peremptorily denied by the Pythia or priestess of Apollo, till she was by downright force obliged to ascend the tripos, when, being unable to resist any longer, she cried out, “Thou art invincible ;” and these words were accepted instead of any further oracle.

When men began to be better instructed by the lights which philosophy had introduced into the world, the false oracles insensibly lost their credit. Chrysippus filled an entire volume with false or doubtful responses. Oenomaus, to be revenged of some oracle which had deceived him, made also a compilation of responses, to show their ridiculous vanity. Eusebius has preserved some fragments of this criticism on oracles by Oenomaus. “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 fol- l lowers an abundance of things to discredit oracles; and I might show 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, having the design of engaging the Athenians to abandon Athens, and to embark on board of their ships, 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 “philippized,” to signify that she was gained over by Philip’s presents.

The cessation of oracles is attested by several profane authors, as Strabo, Juvenal, Lucian, and others. Plutarch accounts for it, by saying that the benefits of the gods are not eternal as themselves are; that the genii who presided over oracles are subject to death; and 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 on Divination; as if the spirit of prophecy, supposed to be excited by subterraneous effluvia, had evaporated by length of time, as wine or other liquors by being long kept.

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 this inscription, “To the eldest Son of God.” But notwithstanding these testimonies, the answer of the oracle of Delphos to Augustus seems very suspicious. Cedre- ;ius cites Eusebius for this oracle, which is not now found in his works; and the peregrination of Augustus into Greece took place eighteen years before the birth of Christ.

Suidas and Cedrenus also give an account of an ancient oracle delivered to Thulis, a king of Egypt, which they assure us is well authenticated. The king having consulted the oracle of Serapis, to know if there ever was, or would be, one so great as himself, received this answer: “First God, next the Word, and then the Spirit with them; they are equally eternal, and make but one whose power will never end; but do thou, mortal, get thee hence, and think that the end of the life of man 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 which were consulted until the death of Theodosius the Great; and he quotes the laws of the Emperors Theodosius, Gratian, and Valentinian, against those who consulted oracles, as affording certain proof that the superstition of oracles still subsisted in the time of those emperors. But others conceive that the opinion of those who believe that demons had no share in the oracles, and that the coming of the Messiah made no change in them, as well as the contrary opinion of those who pretend that the incarnation of the Word imposed a general silence on all oracles, should all be equally rejected. They allege that 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 deception of the priests of false divinities. 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 lies; but Satan still continued his old craft amongst idolaters. All the devils were not reduced to silence at the same time by the coming of the Messiah; it was only on particular occasions that the truth of Christianity and the virtue of Christians imposed silence on the devils. St Athanasius tells the Pagans that they had themselves been witnesses of the sign of the cross having put the devils to flight, silenced oracles, and dissipated enchantments. This power of silencing oracles, and putting the devils to flight, is also attested by Arnobius, Lactantius, Prudentius, Minutius Felix, and several others, whose testimony affords certain proof that the coming of the Messiah had not imposed a general silence on oracles.

Plutarch relates, that the pilot Thamus heard a voice in the air, cryingout, “The great Pan is dead;” upon which Eusebius observes, that the accounts of the death of the demons were very frequent in the reign of Tiberius, when Christ drove out the wicked spirits. Indeed the same judgment 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 that we should understand the passages of St Jerome, Eusebius, Cyril, Theodoret, Prudentius, and other authors, who have said that the coming of Christ imposed silence on the oracles.

As to the second sort of oracles, which were pure artifices and deceptions of the priests of false divinities, and which probably exceeded the number of those which immediately proceeded 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, Minutius Felix observed, that they began to discontinue their responses, according as men began to be more enlightened. But, however oracles were decried, impostors always found dupes, and the grossest cheats almost never failed to deceive.

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 who made the king believe [7:16:516]that the idol had 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 Idaea, the freed-woman of Mundus, who had conducted the whole intrigue. He also commanded the temple of Isis to be levelled with the ground, and her statue to be thrown into the Tiber; but as to Mundus, he contented himself with sending that person into banishment.

Theophilus, bishop of Alexandria, not only destroyed the temples of the false gods, but discovered the cheats of the priests, by showing 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.

Lucian, in discovering the impostures of the false prophet Alexander, says that the oracles were chiefly afraid of the subtilties of the Epicureans and the 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 by whom he was possessed. He had long before prepared a head of a dragon made of linen, which opened and shut its mouth by means of a horse-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 of rain which had settled there, he hid in it a goose egg, in which he had enclosed 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 like 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 hidden 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 show himself to men. At these words, he dipped a bowl into the water, and took out the mysterious egg, which had a god enclosed in it; and when he had 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 show clearly that both Christians and Pagans were so far agreed as to treat the greater number of oracles as purely human impostures. That in fact all of them were so, will perhaps be concluded by those who give equal credit to demoniacal inspiration and demoniacal possession. The most ancient oracle was that of Dodona; but the most famous was that of Delphi, which performs such a prominent part in Pagan antiquity. Another celebrated one was the oracle of Trophonius, in the neighbourhood of Lebadia, a city of Boeotia. It was held in high estimation, and received its name from Trophonius, brother of Agamedes, who lived in a subterranean dwelling near Lebadia, and pretended to possess the faculty of foretelling future events. He died in his cave, and was deified as an oracular divinity. This oracle owed its reputation to one Saon. Those who repaired to this cave for information were required to offer certain sacrifices, to anoint themselves with oil, and to bathe in a certain river. They were then clothed with a linen robe, took a honeyed cake in their hands, and descended into the subterranean chamber by a narrow passage; and here it was that futurity was unfolded to them, either by visions or by extraordinary sounds. The return from the cave was by the same passage; but the persons consulting the oracle were obliged to walk backwards. They generally came out astonished, melancholy, dejected; and hence the proverb iις Tgopwwov μεμαντtυται. The priests, on their return, placed them upon an elevated seat, called the seat of Mnemosyne, where an account· was taken of what they had seen and heard. They were then conducted by their companions to the chapel of good Genius, where, by degrees, they recovered their usual composure and cheerfulness.

Besides these three principal oracles of Greece, it is proper to take notice of that of Amphiaraus at Oropius, in Attica. It was so called from Amphiaraus, the son of 0i- cleus, a man deeply skilled in magic, the interpretation of dreams, and the like, who, after his death, was deified, and delivered oracles in a temple erected to his divinity. Those who applied for information were required to purify themselves, offer sacrifice, fast twenty-four hours, abstain from wine two days, and make an offering of a ram to Amphiaraus; they were then to sleep on the skin of the animal, and to see their destiny in a dream. Near the temple was the fountain of Amphiaraus, which was deemed sacred, the waters of it being forbidden to be used for ordinary purposes.

At Delos there was also an oracle of the Delian Apollo; in Milesia there was that of the Branchidae; and there were others of less note, which do not require particular description, such as that of the camps at Lacedaemon, that of Nabarcha, that of Chrysopolis, that of Claros in Ionia, that of Mallos, that of Patarea, that of Pella, that of Pha-sellides, that of Sinope, that of Orpheus’ head, and a few more, which it is unnecessary to mention.

Although the Romans upon many occasions consulted the Grecian oracles, and had but few in their own country, yet we must not omit mentioning the oracles which were delivered by the Sibyl of Cumae, and enjoyed great celebrity. They have been frequently alluded to by Virgil.

We have hitherto only considered the oracles of false gods, of which there was a far greater number than our limits permit us to enumerate, and before either Greeks or Romans had risen to any distinction. Oracle is in sacred history sometimes used for the mercy-seat, or the cover of the ark of the covenant; and by others it is taken for the sanctuary, or the most holy place, in which the ark was deposited.

Amongst the Jews may be distinguished several kinds of real oracles. They had first oracles which were delivered viva voce, as when God spake to Moses face to face, as one friend speaks to another;^[1. Numb. xü. 8. ] secondly, prophetical dreams sent by God, as the dreams which God sent to Joseph, and which foretold his future greatness;^[2. Gen. xxxvii. ð, 6. ] thirdly, visions, as when a prophet in an ecstasy, being neither properly asleep nor awake, had supernatural revelations;^[3. Gen. xv. I; xlvi. 2. ] fourthly, the oracle of Urim and Thummim, which was accompanied with the ephod or the pectoral worn by the high priest, and which God had endued with the gift of foretelling things to come.^[4. Numb. xü. 6; Joel, ii. 28. ] This manner of inquiring of the Lord was often made use of, from Joshua’s time till the erection of the temple at Jerusalem. Fifthly, after the building of the temple, they generally consulted the prophets, who were numerous in the kingdom of Judah and Israel. From Haggai, Zechariah, and Malachi, who are the last of the prophets any of whose writings remain, the Jews pretend that God gave them what they call Baíhxol, or the daughter of the voice, which was a supernatural [7:16:517]manifestation of his will, and was performed either by a strong inspiration or internal voice, or else by a sensible and external voice, which was heard by a number of persons sufficient to bear testimony to the fact. For example, such was the voice that was heard at the baptism of Jesus Christ, saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear ye him.”^[5. Matth, iii. 17∙ ]

The Scripture likewise affords us examples of profane oracles. Balaam, at the instigation of his own avarice, and fearing to lose the recompense which had been promised him by Balak, king of the Moabites, suggested to this prince the diabolical expedient of making the Israelites fall into idolatry and fornication;^[6. Numbers, xxiv. 14; xxxl. 16. ] by which he assured him of a certain victory, or at least of considerable advantage against the people of God.

Micaiah the son of Imlah,^[7. Kings, xxii. 19, &c. ] a prophet of the Lord, says that he saw the Almighty sitting upon his throne, and all the host of heaven round about him; and the Lord said, who shall tempt Ahab king of Israel, that he may go to war with Ramoth-gilead, and fall in the battle? One answered after one manner, and another after another. At the same time an evil spirit presented himself before the Lord, and said, I will seduce him. And the Lord asked him, how? To this Satan answered, I will go and be a lying spirit in the mouth of his prophets. And the Lord said, Go, and thou shalt prevail. This dialogue clearly proves these two things: first, that the devil could do nothing by his own power; and, secondly, that, with the permission of God, he could inspire the false prophets, sorcerers, and magicians, and thus make them deliver false oracles.

Respecting the cessation of profane oracles, there have been a variety of opinions, some of which we have already noticed. It has been generally held, indeed, that oracles ceased at the birth of Jesus Christ. Yet some have endeavoured to maintain the contrary, by showing that they were in existence in the days of J ulian, commonly called the Apostate, and that this emperor himself consulted them; that history makes mention of several laws published by the Christian emperors Theodosius, Gratian, and Valentinian, to punish persons who interrogated them, even in their days; and that the Epicureans were the first who made a jest of this superstition, and exposed to the people the roguery of the priests. As we suspect most of the facts here asserted should be understood in a qualified sense, we shall endeavour to discuss this point of controversy in as few words as possible, although it is undoubtedly a matter of some consequence.

Isí, The question, properly stated, is not, whether oracles became extinct immediately upon the birth of Christ, or from the very moment when he was born; but, whether they fell gradually into disesteem and ceased, as Christ and his gospel became known to mankind. And that they did so, is most certain from the concurrent testimonies of the fathers, which none can attempt to invalidate, without being prepared to give up the most respectable traditions and relations of every kind.

2dly, But did not Julian the Apostate actually consult these oracles? We answer in the negative. He had indeed recourse to magical operations, but it was because oracles had already ceased; for he bewailed the loss of them, and assigned for their cessation pitiful reasons, which St Cyril has vigorously refuted, adding, that Julian “never could have offered such, but from an unwillingness to acknowledge that, when the world had received the light of Christ, the dominion of the devil was at an end.”

3dly, The Christian emperors do indeed condemn the superstition and idolatry of those who were still disposed to consult oracles; but the edicts of these princes do not prove that oracles actually existed in their times, any more than that they had ceased in consequence of their laws. It is certain that they were for the most part extinct before the conversion of Constantine.

⅛thly, Some Epicureans might make a jest of this superstition; but the Epicurean philosopher Celsus, in the second century, was disposed to cry up the excellency of several oracles, as appears at large from Origen’s seventh book against him.