Sea. By which it is meant that Severus should reign twenty years Here the Oracle reserv'd to it self an obscure meaning to have recourse to in time of need But yet in the times when Delphos was most Flourishing there were never better or more substantial Oracles than these We find nevertheless that Clemens Alexandrinus in his Exhortations to the Gentiles which he composed either under Severus or about that time says very plainly that the Fountain of Castalia which belonged to the Oracle of Delphos and that of Colophon and all the other Prophetick Fountains had at last tho it were late first lost their fabulous Virtues Perhaps in that time these Oracles were fallen into one of those Silences to which they were so subject by Intervals Or perhaps because they were no more in Reputation Clemens Alexandrinus thought fit to say they were totally silenced 'T is certain that under Constantius the Father of Constantine and during the Youth of Constantine Delphos was not yet ruined since Eusebius writes in the Life of Constantine that he said that there was then a Report that Apollo had delivered an Oracle not by the Mouth of a Priestess but from the bottom of the obscure Cavern which said That the Iust Men who were upon Earth were the Cause that he could not speak Truth A very pleasant Reason this Besides the Oracle of Delphos must then necessarily be in a very miserable Condition since it could not maintain one Priestess But this Oracle received a terrible Blow under Constantine who commanded or suffered that Delphos should be pillaged Then says Eusebius in the Life of Constantine they produced in the open view of all the People in the Publick Places of Constantinople those Statues which the Errors of Men had caused to be so long Time the object of Veneration and Worship here Apollo Pythius there Sminthius The Tripodes were exposed in the Circus and the Heliconian Muses in the Palace to the railleries of all the World. But after all this the Oracle of Delphos came into credit once again for the Emperor Iulian sent to enquire of it about the Expedition that he was designing against the Persians If the Oracle of Delphos did continue any longer we cannot however extend its History farther for there is no more spoken of it in any Author But in all likelihood that was the very time when it became silent and its last Words were addressed to the Emperor Iulian who was so zealous for Paganism I cannot therefore well understand how some Great Men could put Augustus in the Place of Iulian and boldly affirm that the Oracle of Delphos ended with the Answer it delivered to Augustus concerning the Hebrew Infant Some Modern Authors who thought Oracles worthy of a Glorious End since they made so great a Noise in the World have contrived one very fit to give them a Reputation They found in Sozomenus and Theodoretus that in the time of Iulian the Temple of Apollo which was in the Suburbs of Antioch called Daphne was set on Fire no Body being able to discover the Author or Cause of it but the Pagans accused the Christians of this Conflagration and the Christians attributed it to Thunder and Lightning thrown by the Hand of God. Theodoretus indeed says that the Lightning fell upon this Temple but Sozomenus says nothing at all of it Now these Modern Authors had a Mind to transplant this Accident to the Temple of Delphos which was indeed far distant from thence And so they write that by the just Vengeance of God it was destroyed by Lightning accompanied with a mighty Earth-quake But there is no mention made of this great trembling of the Earth neither by Sozomenus nor Theodoret in their Relation of the Fire of Daphne though others added it to keep the Thunder Company and to heighten the Prodigiousness of the Accident But it would be a very troublesome thing to give you a History of the Duration of all the Oracles after the birth of Iesus Christ. It is sufficient to consider in what time we find that some of the principal Ones spoke their last But you must always remember that it is not understood that this was the very last time they spoke but that it was the last Occasion Authors had to tell us that they spoke Dion who did not finish his History till the eighth Year of Alexander Severus that is in the 230 Year of Iesus Christ says that in his time Amphilochus delivered Oracles in Dreams He tells us also that there was in the City of Apollonia an Oracle where things to come were foretold by observing the manner how the Fire took hold of the Incense that was cast upon the Altar But it was not permitted to ask this Oracle any Questions concerning Death or Marriage These peevish Restrictions were sometimes founded upon the particular History of the God who in his Life-time perhaps had an Occasion given him of taking an Aversion to certain things Though I am also of Opinion that they might sometimes come from the ill Success which those Answers had that were delivered by the Oracle concerning some particular Matters Under Aurelius towards the Year of Christ 272 the Palmyrenians being revolted consulted the Oracle of Apollo Sarpedonius in Cilicia They consulted likewise that of Venus of Aphaca the Form of which was so very singular that it deserves to be mentioned here Aphaca is a Place between Heliopolis and Biblus Near the Temple of Venus is a Lake like a Cittern And at certain Assemblies that are held there at some particular Seasons there is to be seen a Fire in the Form of a Globe of Lamps And this Fire says Zosimus has continued to be seen even in our Days that is to say about the 400 Year of Iesus Christ. Those that offer throw into the Lake the Present designed for the Goddess of what sort soever they be if she receives them they sink to the bottom if she receives them not they swim on the Surface of the Water though they be of Silver or Gold. In the Year before the Ruin of the Palmyrenians their Presents sunk to the bottom but the Year following every thing swam on the top Licinius having a Design to renew his War with Constantine consulted the Oracle of Apollo Didymaeus and had for Answer two Verses of Homer of which this is the Sense Vnhappy old Man It is not for thee to fight against Young Men thou hast not Strength enough left for old Age pulls thee down A God of no great Reputation named Besas delivered Oracles in Answer to Letters at Abydum a Town in the Confines of Thebais under the Empire of Constantius For there were sent to this Emperor certain Letters which had been left upon the Altar in the Temple of Besas upon which he began to make a very rigorous Prosecution against those who had laid those Letters there and cast into Prison or sent to Banishment a great
believe that they were immediately made by his Hands and therefore he put between them and him this Word as a degree by which the Actions of God might pass down to them The Christians had the like Idea of Iesus Christ And this may perhaps be the Reason why no Heresie has been more generally received and maintained with greater heat than Arrianism This Platonism then which seems to Honour the Christian Religion by countenancing it was very full of Notions about Daemons And thence they easily pass'd into that Opinion which the old Christians had of Oracles Plato said that Daemons were of a middle Nature between God and Man that they were the aerial Genii appointed to hold a Commerce between God and us that altho they were near us yet we could not see them that they penetrated into all our Thoughts that they had a Love for the Good and a Hatred for the Bad and that it was for their Honour that such variety of Sacrifices and so many different Ceremonies were appointed But it does not at all appear that Plato acknowledged any evil Daemons to which might be attributed the management of the illusions of Oracles Plutarch notwithstanding assures us that Plato was not ignorant of them and amongst the Platonical Philosophers the thing is out of doubt Eusebius in his Evangelical Preparations recites a great Number of Passages out of Porphyrius where that Pagan Philosopher assures us that evil Daemons are the Authors of Enchantments Philtres and Witch-Crafts that they cheat our Eyes with Spectres Fantoms and Apparitions that lying is Essential to their Nature that they raise in us the greatest part of our Passions and that they have an Ambition to pass with us for Gods that their aerial and spiritual Bodies are nourished with Suffumigations and with the Blood and Fat of Sacrifices and that 't is only these that imploy themselves in giving Oracles and to whom this Task so full of Fraud is assign'd in short at the Head of this Troop of evil Daemons he places Hecate and Serapis Iamblichus another Platonist has said as much And the greatest part of these things being true the Christians received them all with Joy and have added to them besides a little of their own As for Example that the Daemons stole from the Writings of the Prophets some Knowledge of things to come and so got Honour by it in their Oracles This System of the ancient Christians had this Advantage that it discovered to the Pagans by their own Principles the Original of their false Worship and the Source of those Errors which they always embraced They were perswaded that there was something supernatural in their Oracles and the Christians who were always disputing against them did not desire to confute this Opinion Thus by Daemons which both Parties believed to be concerned in the Oracles they explicated all that was supernatural in them They acknowledged indeed that this sort of ordinary Miracles were wrought in the Pagan Religion but then they ruined this Advantage again by imputing them to such Authors as evil Spirits and this way of convincing was more short and easie than to contradict the Miracle is self by a long train of Enquiries and Arguments Thus I have given you the manner how that Opinion which the first Aâ—es of the Church had of the Pagan Oracles was grounded I might to the three Reasons which I have already brought add a fourth of no less Authority perhaps than those That is That in the Supposition of Oracles being given by Daemons there is something miraculous And if we consider the humor of Mankind a little we shall find how much we are taken with any thing that is Miraculous But I do not intend to enlarge my self on this Reflection for those that think upon it will easily believe me and those that do not will perhaps give it no credit notwithstanding all my Arguments Let us now examine the several Reasons which Men have had to believe Oracles to be Supernatural CHAP. IV. That the surprizing Histories of Oracles ought to be suspected IT is very difficult to give an Account of those Stories and Oracles which we have mentioned without having Recourse to Daemons But the Question is Whether they be true Let us be assured of the Matter of Fact before we trouble our selves with enquiring into the Cause It is true that this Method is too slow and dull for the greatest part of Mankind who run naturally to the Cause and pass over the truth of the matter of Fact but for my part I will not be so ridiculous as to find out a Cause for what is not This kind of Misfortune happened so pleasantly at the end of the last Age to some Learned Germans that cannot forbear speaking of it In the Year 1593 there was a Report that the Teeth of a Child of Silesia of seven Years old dropp'd out and that one of Gold came in the Place of one of his great Teeth Horstius a Physician in the University of Helmstad wrote in the Year 1595 the History of this Tooth and pretends that it was partly natural and partly miraculous and that it was sent from God to this Infant to comfort the Christians who were then afflicted by the Turks Now fansie to your self what a Consolation this was and what this Tooth could signifie either to the Christians or the Turks In the same Year that this Tooth might not want for Historians one Rolandus wrote a Book of it Two Years after Ingolsteterus another Learned Man wrote against the Opinion of Rolandus concerning this golden Tooth and Rolandus presently makes a Learned Reply Another Great Man named Libavius collected all that had been said of this Tooth to which he added his own Opinion In fine there wanted nothing to so many famous Works but only the truth of its being a golden Tooth For when a Gold-Smith had examined it he found that it was only a thin Plate of Gold fixed to the Tooth with a great deal of Art. Thus they first went about to compile Books and afterwards they consulted the Gold-Smith Nothing is more natural than to do the same thing in all other cases And I am not so convinc'd of our Ignorance by the things that are and of which the Reasons are unknown as by those which are not and for which we yet find out Reasons That is to say as we want those Principles that lead us to truth so we have those which agree exceeding well with error and falsehood Some Learned Physicians have found out the reason why Places under Ground are hot in the Winter and cool in the Summer and greater Physicians have since discover'd that they are not so Historical Enquiries are much more liable to this error For when we argue from what is said in History what assurances have we that these Historians have never been byassed nor credulous nor misinform'd nor negligent 'T is necessary therefore that we should look out for
His Oracle of Serapis is reproach'd with the same fault as the Books of the Sibyls that is of being too clear concerning our Mysteries And farther we are certain that this Thulis King of Egypt was not one of the Ptolomyes and what then will become of the whole Oracle if Serapis were a God first brought into Egypt by a Ptolomy who sent for him out of Pontus as many Learned Men pretend from very strange probabilities at least it is certain that Herodotus who has written so plentifully about old Egypt does not mention Serapis and that Tacitus recounts at length how and why one of the Ptolomyes brought from Pontus the God Serapis that was then known no where else The Oracle said to be given to Augustus concerning the Hebrew Child is by no means to be reciev'd Cedrenus cites Eusebius for it but at this day there is no such thing to be found there It is not impossible that Cedrenus should make a false Citation or should cite some work not rightly attributed to Eusebius He has thought fit to relate upon the credit of certain counterfeit Histories of St. Peter which pass'd for currant in his time That Simon the Magician had at his door a great Dog which devour'd all those that his Master would not have enter and that St. Peter coming thither to speak with Simon commanded the Dog to go and tell his Master in Humane Language That Peter the servant of God would speak with him The Dog went and performed that Command to the great Amazement of such as were then with Simon But Simon to shew that he could do as much as St. Peter bid the Dog go and tell him That he might Enter which the Dog immediately did Hence you may see what it is that the Greeks call writing of History Cedrenus lived in an ignorant Age when the liberty of writing Fables was joined with the General inclination of the Greeks towards ' em But tho' Eusebius in some work of his which has not come down to us had effectually spoke of the Oracle of Augustus yet we find Eusebius himself is sometimes deceived of which there are good proofs The first Defenders of Christianity Iustin Tertullian Theophilus Tatian would they have said nothing of an Oracle so much in Favour of their Religion Had they so little Zeal as to neglect a thing of such Advantage but even those that give us this Oracle spoil it by adding that Augustus in his Return to Rome built in the Capitol an Altar with this Inscription This is the Altar of the only Son or Eldest Son of God. Where had he the Idea of this only Son of God of which the Oracle makes no mention In short that which is most observable is that Augustus after the Voyage he made into Greece nineteen Years before the Birth of Iesus Christ never returned to Rome but allowing that he did he was not then in an Humor to erect Altars to any God but himself For he suffered not only the Asian Maids to raise Altars to him and celebrate holy Games in his Honour but also at Rome they consecrated one to Fortune Returning Fortunae reduci that was to say to himself and they were to keep the day of his happy return as a festival The Oracles which Eusebius relates out of Porphyrius appear harder to make out than all the rest for Eusebius would not have charged Porphyrius with Oracles of which he made no mention and Porphyrius who was so addicted to Paganism would not have cited false Oracles concerning the Cessation of Oracles themselves to the Advantage of the Christian Religion For in this Case it seems that the Testimony of an Enemy has a great deal of Credit and Force But on the other side Porphyrius was not so unskilful a Man as to furnish the Christians with Weapons against Paganism without being necessarily engaged to it by the Consequence of some Reasons which does not in this matter appear to be his Case If these Oracles had been alledged by the Christians and Porphyrius owning that they were effectually given had denied the Consequences drawn from them it is certain that they would have then been much to be relied on But it is out of Porphyrius himself that the Christians as it appears by the Example of Eusebius pretend to fetch these Oracles it seems that Porphyrius takes Pleasure to ruin his own Religion and to establish another The Truth is this is suspicious of it self and yet it becomes more so by his pushing the thing so far for they tell us from him of I know not how many Oracles most clear and most positive concerning the Person of Iesus Christ concerning his Resurrection and Ascension In fine the most resolute and knowing amongst the Pagans hath loaded us with Proofs of Christianity we may well suspect so great a piece of Generosity Eusebius believed it a very great Advantage to be able to place Porphyrius at the Head of a Multitude of Oracles so favourable to Religion and he gives them us stripp'd of what ever accompanies them in the Writings of Porphyrius How do we know but that he did refute them According to the Interest of his Cause he ought to have done it and if he did not do it certainly he had some hidden Intention It is to be suspected that Porphyrius was wicked enough to frame false Oracles and present them to Christians with a Design of making Sport with their Credulity if they should receive them for true and endeavour to strengthen their Religion by such like props And then he would have drawn thence such Consequences as would be of greater Importance than these Oracles and with this instance have attacked the whole Religion However at the botom this would have been but a frivolous Argument 'T is very certain that this same Porphyrius who furnisheth us with all these Oracles held as we have seen that they were delivered by lying Spirits it may very well then be imagined that he hath put into Oracles all the Mysteries of our Religion endeavouring to destroy it by rendring it suspected of Forgery as depending on the Testimony of false Witnesses I know the Christians did not take it so yet seeing they could never prove by any Argument that the Daemons were sometimes forced to speak the Truth Porphyrius was always in a condition to make use of his Oracles against them And therefore if we take the Matter right their better way had been to have denied that there were ever any Oracles as we do at this present This appears to me to be a sufficient Reason why Porphyrius was so prodigal of Oracles that were so favourable to our Religion But what would have been the Success of the great debate between the Christians and Infidels we can only conjecture for all the written pieces of their Disputes are not come to our Hands Thus in examining things a little closer than ordinary we find that the Oracles which were reckoned such
word for word from the Inscription At the same time the Oracle made this answer to a Blind Man Named Caius He was bid go to the Sacred Altar and kneel down and Worship there then to go from the Right side to the Left and lay his five fingers upon the Altar and afterwards clap his hand upon his Eyes After all this was done the Blind Man was restored to his Sight as all the People were Witnesses and testifyed the joy which they received in seeing such mighty wonders wrought in the Reign of our Emperor Antoninus The two other Cures are less miraculous for one was of a Pleurisie and the other of a loss of Blood both of 'em very desperate Diseases without doubt but the God prescribed to the Sick Persons some Pine Apples and Honey with Wine and certain Ashes which were things that those Men who are something incredulous will be apt to say are meerly natural remedies These Inscriptions for all that they are in Greek were certainly done at Rome for the form of the Letters and the spelling do not at all seem to be from the hand of some Grecian Sculptor Besides tho' it be true that the Romans made their Inscriptions in Latin yet they made some few in Greek especially when they had some particular reason for it Now it is very probable that no other language but Greek was used in the Temple of Aesculapius because he was originally a Grecian God and brought to Rome in that great plague of which every one knows the Story Thus we see that the Oracle of Aesculapius was not of a Roman institution and I doubt not but that if it were an enquiry worth the while most of the Italian Oracles would be found to be of a Greek Original However it be the smalness of the number of the Italian Oracles and even of those that were at Rome it self makes but a very inconsiderable exception to the generality of the notion which we propose Aesculapius dealt only in Physick and concerned not himself in matters of Government and tho' he had a rare knack at making Blind Men see yet I believe the Senate would have been loth to have depended upon his advice in a case even of the smallest importance Private persons amongst the Romans might give what credit they listed to Oracles but the State had little faith in them Thus the Sibylls Books and the entrails of Beasts governed all And so a vast number of Gods fell into contempt when People took notice that the Masters of the World would not vouchsafe to consult ' em CHAP. VI. The second particular cause of the Cessation of Oracles BUT I meet with a difficulty in this business that I will not conceal For if about the time of Pyrrhus Apollo was reduced to Prose this implies that Oracles began then to grow into discredit and yet the Romans were not masters of Greece till a long time after Pyrrhus and between the Reign of Pyrrhus and the Romans conquest of Greece there were as many Wars and Commotions in that Country as ever and by consequence as many important subjects to consult the God of Delphos about This indeed is true but we must also observe that about the time of Alexander the Great a little before Pyrrhus's days there appear'd in Greece certain great Sects of Philosophers such as the Peripateticks and Epicureans who made a mock of Oracles The Epicureans especially made sport with the paltry Poetry that came from Delphos For the Priests hammered out their Verses as well as they could and they oftentimes committed faults against the common Rules of Prosodia Now those Fleering Philosophers were mightily concerned that Apollo the very God of Poetry should come so far behind Homer who was but a meer mortal and was beholding to the same Apollo for his inspirations It was to little purpose to excuse the matter by saying that the badness of the Verses was a kind of Testimony that they were made by a God who nobly scorn'd to be tyed up to rules and to be confined to the Beauty of a Style For this made no impression upon the Philosophers who to turn this answer into ridicule compared it to the Story of a Painter who being hired to draw the Picture of a Horse tumbling on his Back upon the ground drew one running full speed and when he was told that this was not such a Picture as was bespoke he turned it upside down and then ask'd if the Horse did not tumble upon his back now Thus these Philosophers jeered such Persons who by a way of arguing that would serve both ways could equally prove that the Verses were made by a God whether they were good or bad So that at length the Priests of Delphos being quite baffled with the railleries of those learned Wits renounced all Verses at least as to the speaking them from the Tripos for there were still some Poets maintain'd in the Temple who at leisure turned into Verse what the Divine fury had inspired the Pythian Priestess withal in Prose It was very pretty that Men could not be contented to take the Oracle just as it came piping hot from the Mouth of their God. But perhaps when they had come a great way for it they thought it would look silly to carry home an Oracle in Prose Nay the Gods being willing to keep up the use of Verses as long as ever they could did now and then stoop to borrow a line or two out of Homer whose Poetry it seems was better than their own Of this there are abundance of Examples but both this borrowing of Verses and keeping Poets at standing wages in their Temples may well pass for good arguments that the old natural Poetry of Oracles had mightily lost its reputation But these great Sects of Philosophers enemies to Oracles must needs have done them a more essential prejudice than the bare reducing them to Prose For questionless they opened the eyes of a great many rational persons and even amongst the populace they made the infallibility of those things lie under more suspicion than it had done before For when Oracles first crept out into the World Philosophy had not yet appear'd CHAP. VII The last particular causes of the Cessation of Oracles THE cheats of Oracles were so gross that at last they were discovered by a thousand several accidents I suppose that Oracles were at first entertained with greediness and joy because that nothing could be more convenient than to have Gods always ready at hand to answer every question that might be suggested by uneasiness or curiosity and I fansie that it was with a great deal of reluctancy that People parted with this supposed conveniency and that Oracles would never have come to an end as long as Heathenism lasted if they had not been the most impertinent things in the World. But at last Men were forced to yield to their own experiences and suffer themselves to be disabused To this the Priests