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Christian Divination in Late Antiquity Late in Divination Christian EASTERNSOCIAL WORLDS EUROPEAN OF LATE SCREEN ANTIQUITY CULTURES AND THE EARLY MIDDLE AGES Wiśniewski Christian Divination in Late Antiquity Robert Wiśniewski Christian Divination in Late Antiquity Christian Divination in Late Antiquity Social Worlds of Late Antiquity and the Early Middle Ages The Late Antiquity experienced profound cultural and social change: the political disintegration of the Roman Empire in the West, contrasted by its continuation and transformation in the East; the arrival of ‘barbarian’ newcomers and the establishment of new polities; a renewed militarization and Christianization of society; as well as crucial changes in Judaism and Christianity, together with the emergence of Islam and the end of classical paganism. This series focuses on the resulting diversity within Late Antique society, emphasizing cultural connections and exchanges; questions of unity and inclusion, alienation and conflict; and the processes of syncretism and change. By drawing upon a number of disciplines and approaches, this series sheds light on the cultural and social history of Late Antiquity and the greater Mediterranean world. Series Editor Carlos Machado, University of St. Andrews Editorial Board Lisa Bailey, University of Auckland Maijastina Kahlos, University of Helsinki Volker Menze, Central European University Ellen Swift, University of Kent Enrico Zanini, University of Siena Christian Divination in Late Antiquity Robert Wiśniewski Translated by Damian Jasiński Amsterdam University Press The translation of the text for this book was funded by a grant from the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities (Poland) project 21H 18 0098 86. Cover illustration: Oracular ticket from Antinoë discovered on 21 October 1984 at the East Kom (sector D 2 III) and published by Alain Delattre (2017). When found, the ticket was folded and tied with a string visible on the photo. The texts reads: ‘† God of the saint, if you want me to study medicine, answer me.†’ (© Alain Delattre – Mission archéologique d’Antinooupolis). Cover design: Coördesign, Leiden Lay-out: Crius Group, Hulshout isbn 978 94 6298 870 5 e-isbn 978 90 4854 101 0 doi 10.5117/9789462988705 nur 684 © R. Wiśniewski / Amsterdam University Press B.V., Amsterdam 2020 All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this book may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the written permission of both the copyright owner and the author of the book. Every effort has been made to obtain permission to use all copyrighted illustrations reproduced in this book. Nonetheless, whosoever believes to have rights to this material is advised to contact the publisher. Table of Contents List of Abbreviations 7 List of Illustrations 9 Introduction 11 1. Attitudes to Divination 23 2. Prophets 45 3. Take and Read 85 4. Books and Bones 115 5. Divinatory Lots 155 6. Interrogating Demoniacs 173 7. Incubation 201 Conclusions 249 Bibliography 259 Index 283 List of Abbreviations Ep. epistola/ae praef. praefatio prol. prologus s.a. sub anno BA Bibliothèque Augustinienne (Paris: Desclée de Brouwer) BHG Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1895, 19092, 19573), supplemented by Bibliothecae Hagiographicae Graecae Auctarium, ed. by François Halkin (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1969) BHL Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 19492) supplemented by Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina: Novum Supplementum, ed. by Henricus Fros (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1986) BHO Bibliotheca hagiographica orientalis, ed. Paul Peeters (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes, 1910) CCL Corpus Christianorum: Series Latina (Turnhout: Brepols) CSCO Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium (Leuven: Peeters) CSEL Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum (Vienna: F. Tempsky; Berlin: De Gruyter) CSLA Cult of Saints in Late Antiquity database, http://csla. history.ox.ac.uk (Oxford) CTh Codex Theodosianus, ed. by Theodor Mommsen (Berlin: Weidmann, 1905); trans. by Clyde Pharr: The Theodo- sian Code and Novels and the Sirmondian Constitutions: A Translation with Commentary, Glossary, and Bibliog- raphy (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1952). GCS Die Griechischen Christlichen Schriftsteller der ersten [drei] Jahrhunderte (Berlin: Akademie-Verlag) ICUR NS Inscriptiones Christianae Urbis Romae. Nova Series (Rome: Ex Officina Libraria Doct. Befani) ILCV Inscriptiones Latinae Christianae Veteres (Berlin: Weidmann) LCL Loeb Classical Library (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press) MGH AA Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Auctores Antiquis- simi (Berlin: Weidmann) 8 CHRISTIAN DIVINATION IN LATE ANTIQUITY MGH SRM Monumenta Germaniae Historica: Scriptores Rerum Merovingicarum (Berlin: Weidmann; Hannover/ Leipzig: Hahn) PG Patrologia Graeca = Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Graeca (Paris: J.-P. Migne) PGM Papyri Graecae Magicae/Die Griechischen Zauberpa- pyri, ed. by Karl Preisendanz and Albert Henrichs, 2nd ed. (Stuttgart: Teubner, 1973–4). PL Patrologia Latina = Patrologiae Cursus Completus: Series Latina (Paris : J.-P. Migne) PO Patrologia Orientalis (Turnhout: Brepols) SC Sources chrétiennes (Paris: Les Éditions du Cerf) SH Subsidia Hagiographica (Brussels: Société des Bollandistes) Teubner Bibliotheca Scriptorum Graecorum et Romanorum Teubneriana (Leipzig/Stuttgart: B. Teubner; Munich: K.G. Saur; Berlin: De Gruyter) List of Illustrations Table Table 1. The numbers of extant scrolls and codices with the texts of the Hebrew Bible, Greek Old and New Testa- ment, and the Homeric poems 99 Figures Fig. 1. Codex of the Gospel of St. John, known as St. Cuthbert’s Gospel of St. John 100 Fig. 2. The beginning of the Sortes Sanctorum in the ninth- century codex of Metz 116 Fig. 3. A stele with oracular text found in Kremna (modern Çamlık, formerly Girme) in Pisidia 118 Fig. 4. Astragaloi (knucklebones), used, alongside dice, to choose an answer from oracular texts 119 Fig. 5. The Gospel of the Lots of Mary, written in Sahidic (sixth century) 129 Fig. 6. A page from the Codex Bezae with the beginning of the Gospel of St. John 143 Fig. 7. Oracular ticket from Antinoë discovered on 21 Octo- ber 1984 at East Kom 159 Fig. 8. Oracular ticket from Antinoë, still folded and tied with a string 160 Introduction Late antique Christians lived in a world where there was a general conviction that by resorting to special techniques, asking questions in special places or enquiring of special people, it was possible to learn about things that normally lay beyond human cognition. In many cases, this referred to know- ing in advance what was going to happen in the future, but also to unravelling the mysteries of the present day and events that already belonged to the past. The methods in question were also believed to produce advice on what one should do or, more generally, help to discover the truth about the unknown. When talking about the wide array of such techniques the Greeks usually used the blanket term of manteia; the equivalent Latin term for this was divinatio. Among inhabitants of the Roman world, there were an enormous variety of methods applied in divination, including consulting oracles located in widely known as well as not-so-famous sanctuaries, questioning ‘divine men’, entranced magi and mediums, seeking prophetic dreams, observing the flight and singing of birds, examining the entrails of sacrificial animals, watching ripples on water, drawing lots, etc. Almost all of these practices involved an even broader repertoire of specific techniques, which at times required a specialist to perform the consultations and explain their results to the inquirer. The traditional view, most extensively presented in Cicero’s De divinatione, distinguished the divinely inspired natural divination from its artificial counterpart, namely the sort of divination that required special- ized knowledge about the relevant techniques. However, as we shall see, this learned distinction, which in fact was of little significance even to the traditional Greek and Roman practices, was entirely foreign to Christian divination, even on the theoretical side of things. The main question which this book aims to answer is what did the late antique Christians do when they wanted to gain the kind of hidden knowledge that their non-Christian contemporaries gained using traditional Greek, Roman, Egyptian, Celtic and other divinatory practices? The situation of Christians in this respect was complicated. As we shall see, they usually did not deny that pagan divination happened at least to be effective, but at the same time they knew, or at least should have known, that they were not allowed to use it themselves. In practice, they behaved in diverse ways. Some probably renounced any hope of learning the hidden past, present or future. Those people, however, are barely visible in our sources. This is not to say that they did not exist, but the nature of our evidence makes it difficult to prove that a specific person did not use a divinatory practice (it is, for 12 CHRISTIAN DIVINATION IN LATE ANTIQUITY that matter, equally difficult to prove that they did not pray or steal). As a consequence, we cannot say how numerous such people were; in any case, they are not of primary interest in this book. Other Christians did resort to the old practices. There is good evidence showing this, ranging from sermons and other
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