Divination

Divination (קֶסֶם ke'sem, a lot [see below], or some kindred term; Gr. μαντεία [but Πυθών, Pytho, in Ac 16:16]; used in the verb form קָסִם, kasam', only of false prophets, etc., e.g. of the Hebrews, De 18:10,14; Mic 3:6-7,11; of necromancers, 1Sa 28:8; of foreign prophets, as of the Philistines, 1Sa 6:2, and Balaam, Jos 13:22; and specifically of the three kinds of divination common among the Shemitic nations, viz. arrows, entrails, and Teraphim, Eze 21:21) is a general term descriptive of the various illusory arts anciently practiced for the discovery of things secret or future. The curiosity of mankind has devised numberless methods of seeking to accomplish this result. By a perversion and exaggeration of the sublime faith which sees God everywhere, men have laid everything, with greater or less ingenuity, under contribution, as means of eliciting a divine answer to every question of their insatiable curiosity: e.g. the portents of the sky and sea (Plutarch, De Superstitione, passim); the mysteries of the grave (νεκρομαντεία and σκιομαντεία); the wonders of sleep and dreams (thought to be emanations from the gods, Homer, Il. 1:63; Hymn in Mercur. 14; Virgil, AEn. 5:838); the phenomena of victims sacrificed (deities were supposed to be specially interested or near at hand; comp. the ἱερομαντεία in Potter's Gr. Ant. 2:14); the motions and appearances of the animal creation (such as the flight of birds, a copious source of superstition in the - ρνιθοσκοπία of the Greeks and the auguriumn of the Latins, and the aspect of beasts); and the prodigies of inanimate nature (such as the ἐνόδια σύμβολα, omens of the way, upon which whole books are said to have been written; the κληδόνες, ominous voices); and the long list of magic arts, which may be found in Hoffmann's Lexicon, 2:97, and Potter on the Occult Sciences (in the Encycl. Metropol. part 5, which contains some thirty names ending in many, or compounds of μαντεία, all branches of the magic art). Nor have these expedients of superstition been confined to one age or to a single nation. The meteoric portents, for instance, which used to excite the surprise and fear of the old Greeks and Romans, are still employed among the barbarians of Africa (e.g. musana of the Manika tribe, Krapf's Trav. in E. Africa, page 115 sq.); and as the ancients read fearful signs in the faeces of animals (Virgil, Georg. 1:469), the savage Bakmains indicate the presence of the terrible alligator with their boleo ki bo, "there is sin" (Livingstone's Trav. in S. Africa, page 225). See SUPERSTITION. This art "of taking an aim of divine matters by human, which cannot but breed mixture of imaginations" (Bacon, Ess. 17), accordingly has been universal in all ages and all nations, alike civilized and savage. It arises from an impression that, in the absence of direct, visible guiding Providence, the Deity suffers his will to be known to men, partly by inspiring those who from purity of character or elevation of spirit were susceptible of the divine afflatus (θεομάντεις, ἐνθουσιασταί, ἐκστατικοί), and partly by giving perpetual indications of the future. which must be learned by experience and observation (Cicero, Div. 1:18; Pliny, 30:5).

(a.) The first kind of divination was called natural (ἄτεχνος, ἀδίδακτος), in which the medium of inspiration was transported from his own individuality, and became the passive instrument of supernatural utterances (Virg. AEn. 6:47; Ovid, Met. 2:640, etc.). As this process involved violent convulsions, the word , μαντική, soothsaying, is derived from μαίνεσθαι, to rave, and alludes to the foaming mouth and streaming hair of the possessed seer (Plato, Tim. 72, B, where the μάντις is carefully distinguished from the προφήτης). But even in the most passionate and irresistible prophecies of Scripture we have none of these unnatural distortions (Nu 23:5; Ps 39:3; Jer 20:9), although, as we shall see, they were characteristic of pretenders to the gift. See SOOTHSAYER.

(b.) The other kind of divination was artificial (τεχνική), and probably originated in an honest conviction that external nature sympathized with and frequently indicated the condition and prospects of mankind-a conviction not in itself ridiculous, and fostered by the accidental synchronism of natural phenomena with human catastrophes (Thucyd. 3:89; Josephus, War, 6:5, 3; Foxe's Martyrs, 3:406, etc.). When once this feeling was established the supposed manifestations were infinitely multiplied, and hence the numberless forms of imposture or ignorance called capnomancy, pyromancy, arithmomancy, libanomancy, botanomancy, cephalomancy, etc., of which there are abundant accounts in Cicero, De Div.; Cardan, De Sapientia; Anton. 5. Dale, De Orig. Idol.; Fabricius, Bibl. Antiq. pages 409-426; Carpzov, App. Crit. pages 540-549; Potter's Antiq. 1, chapter 8 sq. Indeed, there was scarcely any possible event or appearance which was not pressed into the service of augury; and it may be said of the ancient Greeks and Romans, as of the modern New Zealanders, that, "after uttering their karakias (or charms), the whistling of the wind, the moving of trees, the flash of lightning, the peal of thunder, the flight of a bird, even the buzz of an insect, would be regarded as an answer" (Taylor's New Zealand, page 74; Bowring's Siam, 1:153 sq.). A system commenced in fanaticism ended in deceit. Hence Cato's famous saying that it was strange how two augurs could meet without laughing in each other's face. But the supposed knowledge became in all nations an engine of political power, and hence interest was enlisted in its support (Cicero, De Legg. 2:12; Livy, 6:27; Sophocles, Antig. 1055; comp. Mic 3:11). It fell into the hands of a priestly caste (Ge 41:8; Isa 47:13; Jer 5:31; Da 2:2), who in all nations made it subservient to their own purposes. Thus in Persia, Chardin says that the astrologers would make even the shall rise at midnight and travel in the worst weather in obedience to their suggestions. See ASTROLOGER.