Amongst this class of diviners we must place the sacred scribes of Gn 41' and the ' magicians ' of Ex 7", as also the Sibyl of Virgil or the Pytliia of Delphi, and the inspired priests or ' divine kings ' of savages all over the world. All are believed by themselves and their fellow-worshippers to be in- spired by one of their respective national or tribal gods ; and in all eases possession or inspiration is conditioned by some kind of sacrament or com- munion. That communion may take the form either of a sacramental meal or of a sacramental investiture. The worshipper may partake of the substance of the animal or plant in the shape of which his deity habitually manifests himself, and which is sacrificed to the deity : thus the priestess of Apollo Diradiotes at Argos and tlie priestess of Earth at Aegira became inspired by drinking the bloo<l of the animals offereu to tliose deities re- spectively ; the Baccha; of Dionysus obtained in- spiration by tasting the blood of the grape, sacred
to that god ; the Pythia, by eating the leaves ol Apollo's sacred plant, the laurel. Or the wor- shipper may be (like the idol of the god) clad in the skin or smeared \vith the blood or fat of the animal, or the juice or oil of the plant, which is the corporate manifestation of the deity, or be robed in the insignia of the god, and so be 'in- vested ' by the power of the divinity. Possession, then (whether by means of the sacred meal or of sacramental investiture), U one of the licit and subjectively religious ways in which foreknow- ledge of the future may be derived from a super- natural source. It is the way peculiarli^ appropriate to gods which manifest themselves m animal or vegetable form. But it is not the only way : there are deities of earth, air, fire, and water, who may or must be interrogated In another way. In one cult a draught of a sacred stream may have the same effect as a draught of sacred blood in pro- ducing inspiration ; but in another cult the deity of the stream may be consulted by casting offerings into the sacred waters, and inferring that the prayer made at the time will or will not be granted, according as the offering is or is not accepted by the sacred waters. And the ordeal by fire is based on the same principle as this ordeal by water. Divi- nation by a i)Owl or cup of sacred water (Gn 44'), again, has the same origin. The leaves of a sacred tree may be eaten to produce inspiration, but their voice in the wind may speak directly to the wor- shipper, as did the rustling of the leaves of the sacred oaks of Dodona. Or the branches and twigs themselves, being of the substance of the divinity, may be made to give indications of the divine will : our word ' lot,' like the Gr. xX^pos, originally meant simply * a twig.' See Lot. Rhabdomancy or xylomancy (Hos 4") and belomancy (Ezk 21'') are out forms of divining by the aid of a tree-god. StUl more, when a deity liabitually manifests him- self in animal form, may the inward disposition of the deity be augured by the sacrificing priest, ac- cording as the entrails of the victim have or have not anything extraordinary in their appearance (Ezk 21'"). In the same way and for the same reason the flight of a sacred bird may be ' auspici- ous' or ' inauspicious' (Ps 58», 2 K 17" 21«).
The illicit or irreligious forms of divination need not detain us long. They are those in which the supernatural Being consulted is one who is not a
fod of the community, has no bond of lovlng- indness with the community, and is accordingly regarded by it, not merely as a strange god, but as a malevolent and evU spirit. No man consults such a spirit except for purposes which the national gods, as being theguardians of the nation's interests and the national morality, cannot sanction. Com- merce with such a spirit is anti-social as well aa anti-religious ; and the man who is guilty of it is a wizard (Lv 19* 20"), and has alwaysbeen punished as a criminal all over the world by the peoples who believe in the possibility of such commerce.
Necromancy, consulting the spirits of the dead (Lv 19", Is 8" 19"), is a way of obtaining fore- knowledge from a supernatural source which was illicit among the Jews (to whom ancestor-worship was forbidden), but licit amongst all other peoples. Consultation of tlie teraphim (Ezk 21", Zee 10») seems to have persisted amongst the Jews in spite of the fact that it was, strictly speaking, idola- trous : the teraphim were images (1 S 19"), like the altar-stones of the Scandinavians and the clay or wooden idols of the Balonda and Barotse, whicn could be made to prophesy by smearing them with the blood of sacrifice. tor oneiromancy see Dreams. All we need here remark is that it is a form of divination which may be licit (Jg 7") or illicit (Dt 13''), according a.*! the source of the dream Is a divine or an evil spirit. We have now
DIVINATION
DIZAHAB
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