Amongst nineteenth-century investigators Goettling argues—not, however, without self-contradiction—the point of view that the college of priests, to which every request had to be submitted a considerable time in advance, carefully supplied the reply and merely had it enunciated by the Pythoness. “What the Pythoness said was the outcome of mature consideration.”1 Why then did she often speak words hard to understand?
Goettling tries, it is true, to clear her of the imputation of fraud:
Even if, therefore, these Delphic oracles were attributed to a god, Apollo, as his revelations, this was a profound and beautiful thought the complete truth of which is inherent in man’s nature; for our own moral will, as it emerges after earnest, conscientious reflection, is also God’s will. It is his revelation.2
In spite of all the fair words in which Goettling clothes these facts they nevertheless remain a deception if the Pythoness uttered in a well-simulated state of inspiration oracles previously dictated to her by the priests. It is difficult to reconcile such trickery with the high moral regard in which the oracle was generally held.
The sentences attributed by literature to the Delphic oracle have to the best of my knowledge been merely collected3 and not subjected to any critical study, so that the genuine ones really emanating from Delphi have not been distinguished from the false.
Wilamowitz attributes a high value to some of these utterances. Of the Delphic ones, “of which we possess not a few genuine examples from the sixth century onwards,” he remarks:
This poetry, the foundation of which is and remains Homeric, but which declines into patchwork imitation from imperial times onwards, is in part of high merit, and the periphrasis and typical turns of speech or metaphors (such as the introduction of animals, wolf, bull, dragon) have exercised a marked influence on lyric poetry and tragedy. In this domain also the Greeks, starting with Homer, invented a fixed style and maintained it for a thousand years.1
Amongst the oracles of later times is found one of no less standing than the poem on Plotinus (A.D. 204–270) which Porphyry gives in the twenty-second chapter of his biography. According to him the poem was uttered in reply to the question put by Amelius as to where the soul of Plotinus had gone since his death. Such a work cannot naturally be the interpretation of senseless words uttered by the Pythoness; it presupposes, moreover, a real knowledge of the works of Plotinus and their meaning. If authentic, it shows to what heights, both ethical and spiritual, the Delphic priesthood had attained at this epoch (third century A.D.). It must, however, be added that this authenticity is contested on the grounds of the length of the poem.
The importance of Delphic possession from the point of view of politics and civilization has often been proclaimed.
The foundation of colonies, one of the most magnificent achievements of the Greek nation, was especially directed by the Delphic priesthood. The institutions and laws of the states were under the protection of the oracle. Generally speaking, nothing of importance was undertaken without consulting the gods; thus before the beginning of a war counsel was sought almost regularly. But the influence of this oracle on worship and the religious life was no less felt; Delphi was at all times the highest authority in these matters. Art and poetry also, and generally speaking all the higher aspects of civilization, owed to the oracle progress in manifold directions.2
Curtius goes even further.
All that European Hellas became from the ninth century (B.C.) onwards, and all that happened there, the stamp of national character imprinted on every manifestation of intellectual life, on religious and moral outlook, the constitution of states, architecture and sculpture, music and poetry, was essentially the outcome of the influence of Delphi as was also the deliberate opposition to the barbarians.3
For the most part the authority of Delphi was undisputed. It is highly remarkable that Plato himself recognizes this oracle and considers it as invested with the highest authority. He believes in its divine nature as in that of the other oracles.
… We owe our greatest blessings to madness () if only it be granted by Heaven’s bounty (). For the prophetess at Delphi, you are well aware, and the priestess of Dodona, have in their moments of madness done great and glorious service to the men and the cities of Greece, but little or none in their sober mood.1
Other thinkers, particularly the Stoics and Neo-Platonists, have adopted the same point of view. Chrysippus even gathered together a vast collection of Delphic oracles.2
At the time when the Roman Republic came to an end the oracle was no longer accredited.3 As regards the past, however, the genuineness of Delphic prophecy appeared indubitable.
This, therefore, remains and cannot be denied unless we falsify the whole of history, that during many centuries this oracle was genuine.4
In his De divinatione Cicero makes his brother Quintus say that unlike what happened in the olden days the oracles uttered at Delphi no longer prove true:
Never would this temple of Delphi have been so celebrated, so illustrious, and so loaded with gifts by all peoples and kings, if the whole world had not proved the truth of its oracles. For a long time past all this has changed and its glory has diminished because the truth of the oracles has grown less, whereas without their great truth it would never have enjoyed such fame.5
In another place where he himself, who does not believe in the oracle but holds it to be a deception of the priests, is speaking, we read:
… for … the oracles of Delphi have ceased to be given, not only in our day but for a long time past, since nothing could be more despised.6
In imperial times the fame of Delphi flourished once more. How general the recognition of the oracle had become in later times is shown by the fact that Celsus (c. A.D. 178) was in a position to reproach the Christians with the lack of belief in it as a grave shortcoming.
They set no value on the oracles of the Pythian priestess, of the priests of Dodona, of Clarus, of Branchidae, of Jupiter Ammon, and of a multitude of others; although under their guidance we may say that colonies were sent forth and the whole world peopled.”1
The oracle seems to have fallen into desuetude at the time of Constantine and was officially closed by Theodosius in A.D. 390. Under Nero, who, it is said, had men slain over the sacred gulf, it had already discontinued its activity for some time.2
It seems as if at a later date the Adyton, the preservation of which would have been of supreme interest to us, fell victim to the destructive fury of the Christians—
… thoroughly and apparently deliberately destroyed, so that in spite of unusually deep excavations nothing has been established as to the actual seat of the oracle. The statement of Pausanius, however, that the prophetic spring in the Adyton was fed from the spring Kassotis seems to be corroborated; the channels visible to the south of the temple served to regulate the discharge of the water.3
It would nevertheless be completely erroneous to believe that the Christians regarded the oracles as priestly trickery or morbid psychic exaltation; there can be no question of this. Like the non-Christians they believed them to be inspired, but held that the spirit who produced inspiration was not divine but a demon. With these reservations belief in oracles had sprung up once more amongst them with the rehabilitation of the oracle’s reputation in imperial times. Since Christianity conceived the spiritual powers behind the oracle as of a demoniacal and fiendish nature, it consequently identified them with the demons of the and the insane, with the result that all mental afflictions once more appeared as provoked by demons.
Friedländer4 makes the following general statement:
The Christian writers also, who asserted that with the advent of the Saviour into the world the might of the false gods had been destroyed, that sorcery, by means of which they had so long lent speech to images of wood and stone, had lost its power and its oracles were silenced:1 even they were obliged to recognize that the demons in the temples of the oracles once more uttered true prophecies and wholesome warnings and also
worked cures; but truth to tell, only in order by these apparent benefits to do the greater injury to those whom they turned aside from seeking the true God by the insinuation of false ones.2
They explained the fact of demons knowing the future by stating that as former servants of God they were acquainted with his designs.3
Again it was in possession that the ancient religious beliefs found such strong support that the Christians could not get away from it except by refusing to recognize these gods as such and designating them as evil demons. Thus Minucius Felix makes Octavius say:
Saturn, Serapis, Jupiter, and whatsoever demons you worship, when overcome by pain confess what they are; they certainly would not lie and bring disgrace upon themselves, especially when any of you were present. You may believe their own testimony that they are demons, when they confess the truth about themselves; for when adjured by the only true God, against their will, poor wretches, they quake with fear in men’s bodies, and either come forth at once or gradually disappear, according as the faith of the sufferer assists or the grace of the healer inspires.4
Apollo and the Muses also seem to have spoken occasionally by the mouth of the possessed and confessed themselves as demons, which was rejoicingly hailed by the Christians as confirmation of their non-divine character.5
There exist certain wandering unclean spirits who have lost their heavenly activities from being weighed down by earthly passions and disorders. So then these spirits, burdened with sin and steeped in vice, who have sacrificed their original simplicity, being themselves lost, unceasingly strive to destroy others, as a consolation for their own misfortune; depraved themselves, they strive to communicate error and depravity to others; estranged from God, they strive to alienate others by the introduction of vicious forms of religion. Poets know these spirits as “demons” …6
Now these unclean spirits, the demons, as the magi and philosophers have shown, conceal themselves in statues and consecrated images, and by their spiritual influence acquire the authority of a present divinity. At one time they inspire the soothsayers, at another take up their abode in the temples, sometimes animate the fibres of the victims’ entrails, direct the flight of birds, control the lots, compose oracles, enveloped in a mist of untruth. For they both deceive and are deceived; being ignorant of the pure truth, to their own destruction they are afraid to confess that which they do know. Thus they weigh down men’s minds and draw them from heaven, call them away from the true god to material things, disturb their lives and trouble their sleep; stealthily creeping into men’s bodies, thanks to their rarefied and subtle nature, they counterfeit diseases, terrify the imagination, rack the limbs, to compel men to worship them; then, sated with the fumes from the altars and the slaughter of beasts, they undo what they have tied themselves, so as to appear to have effected a cure. They are also responsible for the madmen, whom you see running out into the streets, themselves soothsayers of a kind but without a temple, raging, ranting, whirling round in the dance; there is the same demoniacal possession, but the object of the frenzy is different.1
Tatian (second century) also has not the slightest doubt as to the genuineness of the Pythoness’ inspiration. In his eyes, however, Apollo is no “god”but a “demon,” and thus a creature of evil.2
The Christian writer Theophilus even shares the belief in possession amongst the poets and holds it to be not divine but demoniacal. Homer, Hesiod, and the other Greek poets—
… spoke according to imagination and delusion, inspired not by a pure but by a deceitful spirit. This was clearly demonstrated by the fact that other persons controlled by a demon often and up to the present time are exorcised in the name of the true God, and that then the deceitful spirits themselves confess that they are demons who were once active in those poets.3
Thus Origen (b. 185) holds the Greek oracles—even in contradistinction to certain other pagan conceptions—to be not fraud but purely and simply the work of evil spirits. There are certain aspects of the state of possession which he refuses to recognize as divine and to which he attributes a demoniacal character. The believer in oracles bases his belief on the supernormal and prophetic nature of the utterances, as well as on the involuntary manner in which they are made by the prophetess. Origen, on the contrary, cannot get beyond the alleged manner, incompatible with Christian modesty, in which Apollo enters into the Pythoness and her general derangement of mind. The facility with which the demons can be expelled from the possessed also seems to him evidence of the demoniacal character of the oracles, an argument in which the identity of the states of the with those of the Pythoness is assumed, whereas it should certainly be subject to prior demonstration. The exorcisms, however, applied only to the possessed and not to the inspired givers of oracles, and it should also be noted that inspired Christians likewise suffered from grave mental troubles. Origen here shows a surprising ignorance of the psychological character of these states; is it possible that he never saw anyone under the influence of inspiration? His arguments run:
… it would be possible for us to gather from the writings of Aristotle and the Peripatetic school not a few things to overthrow the authority of the Pythian and the other oracles. From Epicurus also, and his followers, we could quote passages to show that even among the Greeks themselves there were some who utterly discredited the oracles which were recognized and admired throughout the whole of Greece. But let it be granted that the responses delivered by the Pythian and the other oracles were not utterances of false men who pretended to a divine inspiration; and let us see if, after all, we cannot convince any sincere inquirers that there is no need to attribute these oracular responses to any divinities, but that, on the other hand, they may be traced to wicked demons—to spirits which are at enmity with the human race, and which in this way wish to hinder the soul from rising upwards, from following the path of virtue, and from returning to God in sincere piety. It is said of the Pythian priestess, whose oracle seems to have been the most celebrated, that when she sat down at the mouth of the Castalian cave, the prophetic spirit of Apollo entered her private parts; and when she was filled with it, she gave utterance to responses which are regarded as divine truths. Judge by this whether the spirit does not show its profane and impure nature, by choosing to enter the soul of the prophetess not through the more becoming medium of the bodily pores which are both open and invisible, but by means of what no modest man would ever see or speak of. And this occurs not once or twice, which would be more permissible, but as often as she was believed to receive inspiration from Apollo. Moreover, it is not the part of a divine spirit to drive the prophetess into such a state of ecstasy and madness that she loses control of herself. For he who is under the influence of the Divine Spirit ought to be the first to receive the beneficial effects; and these ought not to be first enjoyed by the persons who consult the oracle about the concerns of natural or civil life, or for purposes of temporal gain or interest; and, moreover, that should be the time of clearest perception, when a person is in close intercourse with the Deity.
Accordingly we can show from an examination of the sacred Scriptures, that the Jewish prophets, who were enlightened as far as was necessary for their prophetic work by the spirit of God, were the first to enjoy the benefit of the inspiration; and by the contact—if I may say so—of the Holy Spirit they became clearer in mind, and their souls were filled with a brighter light, and the body no longer served as a hindrance to a virtuous life; for to that which we call “the lust of the flesh”it was deadened. For we are persuaded that the Divine Spirit “mortifies the deeds of the body,” and destroys that enmity against God which the carnal passions serve to excite. If, then, the Pythian priestess is beside herself when she prophesies, what spirit must that be which fills her mind and clouds her judgment with darkness, unless it be of the same order with those demons which many Christians cast out of persons possessed with them? And this, we may observe, they do without the use of any curious acts of magic, or incantations, but merely by prayer and
simple adjurations which the plainest person can use. Because for the most part it is unlettered persons who perform this work; thus making manifest the grace which is in the word of Christ, and the despicable weakness of demons, which, in order to be overcome and driven out of the bodies and souls of men, do not require the power and wisdom of those who are mighty in argument, and most learned in matters of faith.1
As regards the classification of Apollo amongst the demons, the Christians as a rule no longer made any distinction between the states of inspiration of the Pythoness and those of the possessed in the New Testament sense. Justin Martyr classes both together amongst the evidence for the survival of individual consciousness after death:
… Let these persuade you that even after death souls are in a state of sensation; and those who are seized and cast about by the spirits of the dead, whom all call demoniacs or madmen; and what you repute as oracles, both of Amphilochus, Dodona, Pytho, and as many other such as exist.2
It is not surprising that St. Augustine shared the general Christian conception.3
The attitude of the Pythian oracle towards Christianity and Christ himself is not uninteresting. In Augustine’s work, De Civitate Dei, we find on the occasion of a polemic by the author against Porphyry the text of an oracle which had been vouchsafed to a man in answer to the question of how he might recall his wife from Christianity.
You will probably find it easier to write lasting characters on the water, or lightly fly like a bird through the air, than to restore right feeling in your impious wife once she has polluted herself. Let her remain as she pleases in her foolish deception, and sing false laments to her dead God, who was condemned by right-minded judges and punished ignominiously by a violent death.4
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