Cliff Castles and Cave Dwellings of Europe

by S. Baring-Gould

Although the oracles had ceased to speak in the pagan temples and caves, yet the desire remained to question the spirits and to inquire into the future, and for this purpose throughout the Middle Ages either wizards were had recourse to that a look might be taken in their magic mirrors, or else the churches were resorted to and the sacred text received as the response of God to some question put by the inquirer. When Chramm revolted against his father Clothair, he approached Dijon, when, says Gregory of Tours, the priests of the cathedral having placed three books on the altar, to wit the Prophets, the Acts of the Apostles, and the Gospels, they prayed God to announce to them what would befall Chramm, and by His power reveal whether he would be successful and come to the throne, and they received the reply as each opened the book.

Gregory also says that Meroveus, flying before the wrath of his father Chilperic, placed three books on the tomb of S. Martin at Tours, the Psalter, the Book of Kings, and the Gospels; he kept vigil all night, and passed three days fasting. But when he opened the books at random, the responses were so alarming that he despaired, and left the sepulchre in tears. [Footnote: For many more instances see Lalanne (L.), Curiosités des Traditions, Paris, 1847.]

The councils sought to put an end to this superstition. The sixteenth canon of the Council of Vannes, held in 465, forbade clerks, under pain of excommunication, to consult these sortes sacræ, as they were called. This prohibition was extended to the laity by the Council of Agde in 506, and by that of Orleans in 511. It was renewed repeatedly, as, for instance, in the Council of Auxerre in 595, by a capitulary of Charlemagne in 789, and by the Council of Selingstadt in 1022, but always in vain. If inquirers might not seek for answers in the churches, at the tombs of the Saints, they would seek them in the dens of necromancers. In spite of this condemnation, consultation of the divine oracles even formed a portion of the liturgy; and at the consecration of a bishop, at the moment when the Book of the Gospels was placed on his head, the volume was opened, and the first verse at the head of the page was regarded as a prognostication of the character of his episcopate. There are numerous accounts of such presages in the chronicles. Guibert of Nogent relates, for instance, that when Landric, elected Bishop of Noyon, was receiving episcopal unction, the text of the Gospel foreshadowed evil—"A sword shall pierce through thine own soul also." After having committed several crimes, he was assassinated. He had, as his successor, the Dean of Orleans; the new bishop on being presented for consecration, there was sought, in the Gospel, for a prognostication concerning him, but the page proved a blank. It was as though God had said, "With regard to this man I have nothing to say." And in fact he died a few months later.

The same usage was practised in the Greek Church. At the consecration of Athanasius, nominated to the patriarchate of Constantinople by Constantine Porphyrogenetos, "Caracalla, Bishop of Nicomedia, having brought forward the Gospel," says the Byzantine historian Pachymeros, "the people were alert to learn the oracle of the opening of the volume. The Bishop of Nicomedia having perceived that the leading words were 'prepared for the devil and his angels,' groaned in his heart, and covering the passage with his hand, turned the leaves and opened at these words, 'and the birds of the air lodged in the branches of it,' which seemed to have no connection with the ceremony. All that could be was done to conceal the oracles, but it was found impossible to cover up the fact. It was said that these passages condemned the consecration, but they were not the effect of chance, because there is no such thing as chance in the celebration of the divine mysteries." When Clovis was about to attack the Visigoths and drive them out of Aquitaine, he sent to inquire of the oracles of God at the tomb of S. Martin. His envoys arrived bearing rich presents, and on entering the church they heard the chanter recite the words of the psalm, "Thou hast girded me with strength unto the battle: Thou shalt throw down mine enemies under me. Thou hast made mine enemies also to turn their backs upon me: and I shall destroy them that hate me" (Ps. xviii. 39, 40). They returned with joy to the king, and the event justified the oracle.

I might fill pages with illustrations, but as these have no immediate reference to cave oracles, I will quote no more. It is obvious that recourse to churches and the tombs of the saints had taken the place of inquiries at the temples of the gods, and the grottoes dedicated to Fawns and Nymphs. So also it was by no means uncommon for recourse to be had to churches in which to sleep so as to obtain an oracle as to healing, as it had been customary for the same purpose to seek pagan temples. This was called Incubation.

The dreams produced were often the result of inhaling a gas that escaped in some of the caves, or through fissures in the floors of the temples. At Hierapolis in Phrygia was a cavern of Cybele. At the close of the fifth century, when the temple of the goddess had been completely abandoned through the interdiction of paganism, the philosopher Damascius, who had remained faithful to the old beliefs of his country, descended, along with a companion, into the Charonion in spite of the danger attending it, or was supposed to exist. He came forth safe and sound, according to his own account, but hardly had he reached his home before he dreamt that he had become Attys, the lover of Cybele, and that he assisted at a festival held in his honour. There were other such caves. In the visions seen by those sleeping in them, the divinities of healing appeared and prescribed the remedies to be taken by those who consulted them. Pilgrimages to these resorts— temples and caves of Æsculapius, Isis, and Serapis, were common events. Those who desired to consult Serapis slept in his temple at Canope. When Alexander was sick of the malady whereof he died, his friends went thither to learn if any cure were possible. "Those who go to inquire in dream of the goddess Isis," says Diodorus Siculus, "recover their health beyond expectation. Many have been healed of whom the physicians despaired." The temples were hung with ex-votos. At Lebedes, in Lydia, the sick went to pass the night in the temple of the Soteri, who appeared to them in dreams. It was the same in a temple in Sardinia. So also in one of Ino in Laconia. In the Cheronese, the goddess Hemithæa worked the same miracles as did Isis. She appeared in dream to the infirm and prescribed the manner in which they might be healed. In the Charonion of Nyssa it was the priest who consulted the gods in dream. In the temple of Æsculapius near Citheræa, a bed was always ready for incubation. Christianity could not uproot so deeply founded superstitious convictions and practices.

The Emperor Constantine consecrated to the archangel Michael two churches near Byzantium, one was at Anaplous, on the Bosphorus, the other on the opposite shore at Brochoi. This second church replaced a temple that had, according to tradition, been founded by the Argonauts, and was called the Sosthenion. According to John Malala, Constantine slept in the temple and asked that he might be instructed in dream to whom the church which was to replace it should be dedicated. Great numbers from Byzantium and the country round had resort to these churches to seek the guidance of the archangel in their difficulties and a cure when sick. Sozomen, the ecclesiastical historian, relates an instance of a cure effected in one of the churches of S. Michael. Aquilinus, a celebrated lawyer, was ill with jaundice. "Being half dead, he ordered his servants to carry him to the church, in hopes of being cured there or dying there. When in it, God appeared to him in the night and bade him drink a mixture of honey, wine and pepper. He was cured, although the doctors thought the potion too hot for a malady of the bile. I heard also that Probian, physician of the Court, was also cured at the Michaelon by an extraordinary vision, of pains he endured in his feet." "Not being able to record all the miracles in this church, I have selected only these two out of many." [Footnote: Hist. Eccles., ii. 3; see for many illustrations Maury (A.), La Magic, Paris, 1860. Part II., chap. i.]

That which took place at the Michaelons on the Bosphorus occurred elsewhere, in churches dedicated to SS. Cosmas and Damian. At Ægae in Cilicia was a shrine of Æsculapius, and incubation was practised in his temple. It afterwards became a church of Cosmas and Damian, and the same practices continued after the rededication. The chain of superstitious practices continued after the change in religion without any alteration. In the church of S. Hilaire in France is to be seen the saint's bed, "to which they carry insane persons, and after certain prayers and religious rites, they lay them to sleep in the bed, and they recover." [Footnote: Jodocus Sincerus, Itin. Galliae, 1617.]

In my "Book of South Wales" I have shown that the same usage continued as late as the beginning of the nineteenth century in the church of Christchurch near Caerleon, on the gravestone of one John Colmer, and have reproduced a print of 1805, representing a man lying there to get cured.

We have accordingly a series of customs beginning in caves dedicated to heathen deities, transferred to their temples, then to churches under the invocation of Christian saints and of angels.