e emperor nor any one else
could guess what that meant; but his body, or rather his bones, having
been brought to Rome after his death, which happened during his journey,
it was supposed that the oracle had intended to predict his death, and
designate his fleshless bones, which somewhat resemble the branches of a
vine.

It is easy to explain this quite otherwise. If he had returned
victorious, the vine being the source of wine which rejoices the heart
of man, and is agreeable to both gods and men, would have typified his
victory--and if the expedition had proved fruitless, the wood of the
vine, which is useless for any kind of work, and only good for burning
as firewood, might in that case signify the inutility of this
expedition. It is allowed that the artifice, malice, and inventions of
the heathen priests had much to do with the oracles; but are we to
infer from this that the demon had no part in the matter?

We must allow that as by degrees the light of the Gospel was spread in
the world, the reign of the demon, ignorance, corruption of morals,
and crime, diminished. The priests who pretended to predict, by the
inspiration of the evil spirit, things concealed from mortal
knowledge, or who misled the people by their illusions and impostures,
were obliged to confess that the Christians imposed silence on them,
either by the empire they exercised over the devil, or else by
discovering the malice and knavishness of the priests, which the
people had not dared to sound, from a blind respect which they had for
this mystery of iniquity.

If in our days any one would deny that in former times there were
oracles which were rendered by the inspiration of the demon, we might
convince him of it by what is still practiced in Lapland, and by what
missionaries[205] relate, that in India the demon reveals things
hidden and to come, not by the mouth of idols, but by that of the
priests, who are present when they interrogate either the statues or
the demon. And they remark that there the demon becomes mute and
powerless, in proportion as the light of the Gospel is spread among
these nations. Thus then the silence of the oracles may be
attributed--1. To a superhuman cause, which is the power of Jesus
Christ, and the publication of the Gospel. 2. Mankind are become less
superstitious, and bolder in searching out the cause of these
pretended revelations. 3. To their having become less credulous, as
Cicero says.[206] 4. Because prince