Apollo, fays Suidas, is Jupiter's prophet, and delivers to men the oracles which he receives from him. ὁ ̓Απόλλων ὑποφήτης ἐςὶ τῷ πατρὶς, και παρ' ἐκείνο λαμβάνει τὰς μαντείας, καὶ τοῖς ἀνθρώποις ἐκφέρει. In the Hymn to Apollo, the god fays concerning himself, 132. Χρήσω τ ̓ ἀνθρώποισι Διὶς νημερτέα βελήν. Oraculoque edam hominibus Jovis verum confilium. And in our learned Poet, the Almighty is introduced faying to the Arch-angel Michael, reveal To Adam what shall come in future days, To prophecy is to be adjoined a knowledge of the fecret intentions of men. It feems to be beyond the abilities of any created_being_to know the thoughts of a man, particularly of a man who is agitated by no paffion, and gives no indications of his mind by any outward fign. This is afcribed to God, as his peculiar perfection, in many places of Scripture, and it is faid, that he is a difcerner of the thoughts and intents of the heart, and understandeth all the imaginations of the thoughts, &c. This knowledge God often imparted to the Prophets. Cicero has treated the fubject of Divination in two Books: in the firft he alledges all that can be faid for it, and in the fecond he argues against it. Whofoever will examine his reafons on both fides, may fee, I think, that he has not overfet all the proofs which he has offered for for it. He obferves, that all nations, civil and barbarous, always agreed in this, that there was fuch a thing as divination, or a foreknowledge of events, to be obtained by various indications, as by the ftars, by portents and prodigies, by the entrails of victims, by omens, by lots, by forebodings, by confulting the dead, by oracles, by inspired perfons, by dreams, &c. If there is fuch a thing as divination, faid the Pagans, there must be a Deity, from whom it proceeds, because man by his own natural powers cannot difcover things to come; and if there be a Deity, there is probably divination, fince it is not a conduct unworthy of the Deity to take notice of mortal men, and of their affairs, and on fome occafions to advise and inftruct them. Thus the Pagans argued, and accordingly, for the most part, they who believed a God and a providence, believed divination, they who were atheists denied it, and they who were sceptics decided nothing about it. Divination was a matter of fact, and to be proved like other facts, by evidence, teftimony, and experience: and fome philosophers rejecting all other kinds of divination, as dubious and fallacious, admitted two forts, that by inspired perfons, and that by dreams. In favour of the latter we have the authorities of Socrates, Plato, Xenophon, and Ariftotle. Cicero de Divin. i. 25. Atque dormientium animi maxime declarant divinitatem fuam. Multa enim, cum remiffi et liberi funt, funt, futura profpiciunt, &c. Cicero de Senect. 22. which is taken from Xenophon. When Socrates was in prifon, Crito went to pay him an early vifit, and told him, he was informed by perfons come from fea, that the fhip from Delos would return to Athens that day, the confequence of which was, that Socrates would be put to death on the morrow. Be it fo, faid Socrates, if it please the Gods: yet I think the ship will not be here to-day, but to-morrow. Why fo, dear friend? Because this night a woman of a beautiful and majestic form, cloathed in a white robe, appeared to me in a' dream, and calling me by my name, faid, Ημαζί κεν τριζάτῳ Φθίην ἐρίβωλον ἵκοιο. The third day hall land thee fafe at fruitful Phthia. They are the words of Achilles in Homer, when he proposed to return home. Socrates took it for a prediction of his death, because he judged that to die was to go home to his own country. And his dream was accomplished. Plato's Crito. See Le Clerc on Gen. xii. 7. concerning revelations by dreams. Jofephus has recorded a remarkable dream of Glaphyra, Antiq. xvii. 12. and Bell. Jud. ii. 7. But Noris, in his Cenotaph. Pif. and Le Clerc Bibl. Choif. iv. 60. obferve that it cannot be true, that Archelaus married the widow of Juba; whence it follows, that this dream of Glaphyra, fuppofed to be widow of Juba, and wife of Archelaus, is either entirely, or partly falfe. He He who would fee fome modern accounts of dreams and prophecies, may confult Grotius, Epift. 405. Part ii. or Le Clerc Bibl. Univ. T. i. p. 152. and La Mothe le Vayer, Problemes Sceptiques xxviii. and the life of Ufher by Parr, and the vifions of a strange fellow called Rice Evans, and Bayle's Dict. Majus, not. [D.] Maldonat, not. [G.] where he fays of prophetic dreams, De tels faits, dont l'univers et tout plein, embarrafent plus les Efprits forts qu'ils ne le témoignent. As the Reader may not have the books to which I have referred, it may fave him fome trouble, and give him fome fatisfaction, or amusement, to perufe what follows: Quidam ad Landrefium, in operibus, proximè oppidum cubans, fomnio monitus ut cuniculum hoftis caveret, furrexit. Vix egreffus erat, prorumpit vis tecta, locumque disjicit. At Salmafium fi videris, hiftoriam tibi referet, patre fuo auctore. Ad eum venit quidam Græcæ linguæ plane ignarus. Is in fomnio voces Gracas has audierat; ἄπιθι· ἐκ ὀσφραίνῃ τὴν σὴν ἀψυχίαν; experrediufque Gallicis literis fonum earum vocum perfcripferat. Cum ejus nibil intelligeret, rogatus Senator Salmafius ei verba interpretatur, eft enim filii doctiffimi doctus pater. Migrat homo ex ædibus. Ea notte fequente corruunt. Hoc his adjice que Cicero, Tertullianus, aliique ex omnium gentium biftoriis de fomniis collegere. yder övæg in Aiós is, interdum, contra quàm cenfent Peripatetici. Grotius, p. 870. Le Le Clerc, where he gives an account of this paffage, tells us, that Salmafius the father was Confeiller au Parlement de Dijon. La Mothe le Vayer feems to relate the same ftory that Grotius had from Salmafius, but with fome difference. Un Confeiller du Parlement de Dijon nommé Carré, ouït en dormant qu'on lui difoit ces mots Grecs, qu'il n'entendoit nullement, ἄπιθι, ἐκ αισθάνῃ τὴν σὲ ἀτυχίαν. Ils luy furent interpretez, abi, non fentis infortunium tuum; et comme la maifon qu'il habitoit menaçoit de ruine, il la quitta fort à propos, pour éviter fa cheute qui arriva auffi-tôt aprés. La Mothe probably took his account from common rumour, when the story had undergone fome alteration in paffing from one to another. Ατυχίαν would be a more eligible word than duxiav, if we were at liberty to chufe; but we must take it as Salmafius gives it, and not alter the language of Monfieur Le Songe. As to the oracles which were uttered in Pagan temples, if we confider how many motives both of private gain and of national politics might have contributed to support them, and what many of the Pagans have faid against them, and what obfcure and fhuffling anfwers they commonly contained, and into what scorn and neglect they fell at last, we must needs have a contemptible opinion of them in general; we cannot fix upon any oracles on which we can depend, as upon prophecies which were pronounced and fulfilled; and if there were any fuch, which on the other hand we cannot abso lutely |