The same is met with again in Ezekiel, xxi. 21, 22. where the prophet says: For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way, at the head of the two ways, to use divination; he made his arrows bright; or, as St. Jerome renders it, he mixed his arrows; he consulted with images; he looked in the liver.
If it be the same kind of divination that is alluded to in these two passages, Rhabdomancy must be the same kind of superstition with Belomancy. These two, in fact, are generally confounded. The Septuagint themselves translate חצים of Ezekiel, by ῥαβδος, a rod; though in strictness it signifies an arrow. So much however is certain, that the instruments of divination mentioned by Hosea are different from those of Ezekiel. In the former it is עצו etso, מקלו maklo, his wood, his staff: in the latter חצים hhitism, arrows. Though it is possible they might use rods or arrows indifferently; or the military men might use arrows and the rest rods.
By the laws of the Frisones, it appears that the ancient inhabitants of Germany practised Rhabdomancy. The Scythians were likewise acquainted with the use of it: and Herodotus observes, lib. vi. that the women among the Alani sought and gathered together fine straight wands or rods, and used them for the same superstitious purposes.
Among the various other kinds of divination, not here mentioned, may be enumerated: Chiromancy, performed with keys; Alphitomancy or Aleuromancy, by flour; Keraunoscopia, by the consideration of thunder; Alectromancy, by cocks; Lithomancy, by stones; Eychnomancy, by lamps; Ooscopy, by eggs; Lecanomancy, by a basin of water; Palpitatim, Salisatio, παλμος, by the pulsation or motion of some member, &c. &c. &c.
All these kinds of divination have been condemned by the fathers of the Church, and Councils, as supposing some compact with the devil. Fludd has written several treatises on divination, and its different species; and Cicero has two books of the divination of the ancients, in which he confutes the whole system. Cardan also, in his 4th Book de Sapientia, describes every species of them.
ORACLE.
The word oracle admits, under this head, of two significations: first, it is intended to express an answer, usually couched in very dark and ambiguous terms, supposed to be given by demons of old, either by the mouths of their idols, or by those of their priests, to those who consulted them on things to come. The Pythian[[36]] was always in a rage when she gave oracles.
Ablancourt observes that the study or research of the meaning of Oracles was but a fruitless thing; and they were never understood until they were accomplished. It is related by Historians, that Crœsus was tricked by the ambiguity and equivocation of the oracle.
Κροισος Άλυν διαβας μεγαλην αρχην καταλνσει. rendered thus in Latin:—
Crœsus Halym superans magnam pervertet opum vim.