Introduction to the History of Religions / Handbooks on the History of Religions, Volume IV

by Crawford Howell Toy

[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 association 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 god 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 passed 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 god 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 god, 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 pronounced 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 gods arose every local shrine, it is probable, contained an oracle.[1678] The shrines of the great gods 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 gods—deities whose relation to men was socially intimate. In Egypt such shrines were not of prime importance;[1681] the functions of the gods 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 gods, 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 god, 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 gods 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, god of Ekron, whether or not he should recover.[1684] Many Babylonian and Assyrian 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 rôle played by the priestly interpretation of omens, whereby the will of the gods 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 god 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 constitution.[1687] The greatest development of oracular service took place in Greece. The Greek gods, 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 Hellenistic 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 preëminence of his oracular shrine. In many cases, however, the grounds of the choice of a particular deity as oracle-giver escape us.