Arcana Mundi: Magic and the Occult in the Greek and Roman Worlds by Georg Luck

Author:Georg Luck [Luck, Georg]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780801883460
Google: g7EKsAdHdL4C
Barnesnoble:
Published: 2007-04-04T15:17:04+00:00

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IV

DIVINATION

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Introduction

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Foretelling the future, interpreting the past, and, in general, discovering hidden truth (by way of clairvoyance, precognition, telepathy, and other such phenomena) was called divinatio by the Romans. The noun is derived from the verb divinare ‘to predict’, which is no doubt related to divinus ‘divine’ in the sense of ‘‘pertaining to a god or to the gods.’’ The linguistic evidence in antiquity shows that the gift of predicting future events or grasping things by extrasensory perception was something that came from the gods, and this is confirmed by myth. According to Aeschylus ( Ag. 1203√.), Cassandra had been given her prophetic powers by Apollo to win her love. Similarly, Tiresias was endowed with the gift of prophecy, either by Zeus or by Athena, to compensate him for the curse that had made him blind.

The Greek word for ‘‘prophetic power’’ or ‘‘gift of divination’’ is manteia; the word for ‘‘prophet’’ or ‘‘prophetess’’ is mantis. The Greeks were probably right in connecting these two words with mainomai ‘to be mad’ and mania ‘madness’, but of course they were not thinking of permanent insanity; rather, they meant an abnormal state of mind that lasted for a short time. The word ekstasis also is used to describe this abnormal state; it means ‘‘stepping out of one’s self ’’ and is best understood today as

‘‘trance,’’ though in antiquity it could mean a form of ‘‘possession.’’ The association of prophetic powers with ‘‘madness’’ seems to be a very old idea among the Indo-European tribes, as the etymology shows, ∞ and the descriptions of prophetic trance [ nos. 87 and 90] stress this particular aspect. It should be said, however, that this is only one form of divination; there are forms (e.g., the interpretation of dreams, or astrological forecasts) that do not require—in fact, they preclude—an abnormal state of consciousness.

Something should be said about the original meaning of the words prophet, prophecy, and the like. In Greek, prophetes literally means ‘‘a person who speaks for someone else,’’ and that someone else is usually a god, 285

Arcana Mundi

though in Delphi the priests who interpreted the obscure utterances of the Pythia were also called prophetai. The Pythia was the mantis, directly inspired by Apollo, but her message from the god had to be put into comprehensible form, into verse, for those who consulted the oracle.

These prophetai were not directly in touch with the god; they were one step removed. Plato ( Timaeus 72A) says that the term prophetes should be reserved for those priestly interpreters who translated the frenzied utterances of the ecstatic seer ( mantis) into intelligible Greek. But, in general, prophetes is a person who speaks for a god, or through whom a god speaks and reveals his plans. This is true for the prophets of the Old Testament, for John the Baptist, for Jesus—for anyone who proclaims a divine message with a special sense of mission.

Divination had its roots in Mesopotamia. The gift of prophecy and the status it confers were taken for granted in the Old Testament.

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