Ter novies carmen magico demurmurat ore.
Jam ciet infernas magico stridore catervas,
Jam jubet aspersum lacte referre pedem.
Cum libet, haec tristi depellit nubila coelo;
Cum libet, aestivo provocat orbe nives."
_Ovid. Metamorph._ 14.

[178]
"Nais nam ut cantu, nimiumque potentibus herbis
Verterit in tacitos juvenilia corpora pisces."

[179]
"Vipereo generi et graviter spirantibus hydris
Spargere qui somnos cantuque manque solebat,"

CHAPTER XV.

OF THE PAGAN ORACLES.

If it were well proved that the oracles of pagan antiquity were the
work of the evil spirit, we could give more real and palpable proofs
of the apparition of the demon among men than these boasted oracles,
which were given in almost every country in the world, among the
nations which passed for the wisest and most enlightened, as the
Egyptians, Chaldeans, Persians, Syrians, even the Hebrews, Greeks, and
Romans. Even the most barbarous people were not without their oracles.

In the pagan religion there was nothing esteemed more honorable, or
more complacently boasted of.

In all their great undertakings they had recourse to the oracle; by
that was decided the most important affairs between town and town, or
province and province. The manner in which the oracles were rendered
was not everywhere the same. It is said[180] the bull Apis, whose
worship was anciently established in Egypt, gave out his oracles on
his receiving food from the hand of him who consulted. If he received
it, say they, it was considered a good omen; if he refused it, this
was a bad augury. When this animal appeared in public, he was
accompanied by a troop of children, who sang hymns in his honor; after
which these boys were filled with sacred enthusiasm, and began to
predict future events. If the bull went quietly into his lodge, it was
a happy sign;[181] if he came out, it was the contrary. Such was the
blindness of the Egyptians.

There were other oracles also in Egypt:[182] as those of Mercury,
Apollo, Hercules, Diana, Minerva, Jupiter Ammon, &c., which last was
consulted by Alexander the Great. But Herodotus remarks that in his
time there were neither priests nor priestesses who uttered oracles.
They were derived from certain presages, which they drew by chance, or
from the movements of the statues of the gods, or from the first voice
which they heard after having consulted. Pausanias says[183] that he
who consults w