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10. Diagrams of coiled sheep intestines on a Babylonian clay tablet. Every turn had a special prophetic significance.
though experts on the history of hepatoscopy are still arguing this point. For, though we know 700 Mesopotamian tablets con- taining hepatoscopic prophecies, none of them gives any clear indication about the origins or the extraordinary importance which was attributed to that method. Hepatoscopy continued to be the fashion even when, in about 2000 b.c, medical opinion had begun to look upon the heart, rather than the liver, as the real seat of life. The liver remained the centre of vegetative existence, though all passions, both in man and in animals, were now said to come from the heart. It was only in about 500 b.c, that physicians first began to recognise the significance of the brain and, particularly under the influence of the Greek physician Hippocrates, to look upon it as the seat of mental activity. But neither heart nor brain took the place of the liver in ancient divination; at best secondary predictions were derived from them. The liver retained its predominance until the late Roman period, i.e. for a full three thousand years.
Perhaps it was for reasons of convenience that the liver attained and preserved its position. The liver is not only easily located, but it can be separated very easily from the rest of the organs. And this was important, for the liver had to be removed and consulted on the altar of the particular god who controlled and predicted man's future. In Mesopotamia hepatoscopy was a solemn act of state, for great matters were involved, and only kings and nobles were entitled to use this form of divination.
SHORT HISTORY OF THE ART OF PROPHECY
55
From the shape, the number of lobes, the blood vessels, and the processes of the liver, experts could predict the dates and out- comes of future wars and revolutions. The bdru, i.e. the seer, would inspect the liver very carefully before he submitted a written report about its condition and his interpretation of it. Hepatoscopy was a highly respected art, though not without its dangers, for its prophets had often to pay dearly for their mistakes.
But the seers understood their business. Hepatoscopists — just like the dream interpreters and later the astrologers — made sure of couching their interpretations in the most ambiguous possible terms, and of stressing the impending difficulties — with the rider that the King and his councillors would be sure to avert the danger once they had been warned in good time. As a rule, the prophets were patriotic and enterprising men, who lent their masters courage. They were usually familiar with internal and external politics and above all with the King's temperament — for if they were not, their prophetic career was likely to be short-lived.
Like all prophetic methods, hepatoscopy gradually became mere routine. As early as Babylonian times, seers had clay models of sheep's livers on which pupils could be taught to practise the art systematically. The earliest finds of this kind probably date back to the First Babylonian Dynasty (ca. 2000 B.C.), but some others from Hattus, the ancient capital of the Hittite empire, from Magiddo, from Palestine, and above all from Tell Hariri on the Eu- phrates may well be older still. ^
To Mesopotamia we also owe the art of reading the future from the intestines of animals. Great seers would claim that n. clay model of a liver they could judge the position of used by Babylonian diviners, an animal's intestines by the ani- ( British Museum. )
^ M. Rutten: 32 modules de foies en argile inscrits, provenant de Tell- Hariri. Revue d'Assyriologie XXXV (1938) pp. 36-70.
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mal's appearance. What accounts we have on this subject sound utterly fantastic and do little to enhance our faith in the powers of observation of the "seers" concerned. Thus, one text tells us that the intestines of a sheep with small ears and with a black nose and feet, and also of a sheep with a thick neck and red eyes, have 14 turns, and those of a sheep with black ears, a black nose and black feet only 10 turns. Particularly large and squinting animals were said to have no intestinal turns at all.^ The very fact that such claims, which could have been refuted on the spot by anyone prepared to cut open a sheep, could be put forward at the time, shows to what level professional prophets were pre- pared to stoop and to what kind of quackery Babylon had descended.
Even though solemn prophecies applied only to the great of the land, more humble men did not need to feel completely left out of things. There existed a host of prophetic maxims for domestic consumption, and though some were rather far-fetched, e.g. "if a snake coil up in a man's bed, his wife will roll up her eyes and sell her children for money," others were common- places or primitive medical predictions. Large quantities of ants were considered a bad omen, the flight of birds a good or a bad omen according to whether the bird flew straight ahead, or crossed one's path from left to right, and so on.
People were afraid of all kinds of abnormalities and even twins were often considered to be evil omens. Twin brothers were thought to forebode catastrophes, mixed twins indicated strife, and twin sisters were thought to spell the collapse of their parents' house. ^ In the rather Machiavellian tract If a Town, which tells by way of prophecies how a good city must be run, we can read that the city will perish if many twins are born to its citizens. In the selfsame tract we are also told that the city will perish if it has too many sages and seers, and that it will prosper if it has many doves and fools. ^
All the Babylonian and Assyrian prophecies which we have
^ B. Meissner: Omina zur Erkenntnis der Eingeweide des Opfertiers.
Archly fur Orientforschung IX (1933-1934) pp. 118-122.
2 Ch. Fossey: Presages tires des naissances. Babylonia V, Paris (1912-
1913) p. 11 fF.
^ F. Notscher: Haus- und Stadt-Omina der Serie: Shummu dlu ina
mele sbakin. Orientalia, Rome, Fascic. 31 (1928) p. 47.
SHORT HISTORY OF THE ART OF PROPHECY 57
discussed so far have something in common: their completely irrational and mystical procedure. With the exception of pseudo- prophecies which were, in fact, no more than moral prescriptions, all their predictions lacked any perceptible causal connection between the prophetic omen and the prophetic substance. Why should the outcome of the next war be reflected by the appear- ance of a sheep's liver? What possible influence could an abnormal dog have on the future welfare of Babylon.'' No doubt, not even the Babylonians believed that there was any logic in the whole business. The omens simply had to be believed because they had occasionally been proved right and because the priests claimed that they had been sent by the gods.
Chaldean astrology
It was a tremendous step ahead when prophets began to consult the stars and the planets. The stars moved so uniformly and with such magnificent regularity, that they, as well as the gods which moved them, were thought to have a direct effect on terrestrial affairs. This thought was daring in the extreme, for the sky was unlike anything on earth. Up there everything was lucid and regular, while on earth everything was confused and arbitrary, or, in any case, not directly determinable. Perhaps the sky might hold the key to all mysteries, particularly since every- thing in it moved in perfect circles. If only one observed the motions of a given star long enough and kept exact records, one could easily predict where it would be in a month's or even in a number of years' time, and by associating its position with observed terrestrial processes, one might then be able to predict the future much more logically and reliably than by any other prophetic method.
It seems unlikely that the Babylonian astrologists had much idea of the real size and mass of the stars or that they assessed their effects on the earth and its inhabitants accordingly, since even the Greeks, who had much greater astronomical know- ledge, were extremely ill-informed on this subject. Thus when Cleanthes, a Stoic philosopher, maintained in about 300 b.c. that "the sun was larger than Peloponnesus", few people believed
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him. To the Babylonian astronomers, the stars were still small luminous spots large enough to allow the gods to rest there, but in no way comparable with the earth in size. But despite their smallness, a tremendous force emanated from them over im- measurably great distances, and it was this telekinetic effect which was said to give astrological prophecies the rational basis that other methods of prophecy lacked. Astrology was based, at least intellectually, on the assumption of causal connections — the omens read in the stars were not mere warnings from the gods, they were real causes of the terrestrial events which astrologers deduced from them.
Admittedly this claim, too, was a mere assumption, though even laymen could be shown its relevance to meteorological pro- cesses. In fact, the oldest astrological predictions had to do with the weather — rain, storm, drought, etc., and represented a special class of Babylonian astrology: adad, named after the ancient weather-god who ruled over storm, lightning and rain from the great heights in which he dwelt.
However, the moment particular weather phenomena were related to particular stars, the door was opened wide to fantasy, since it is only the sun that can have any measurable effect on our weather. Unfortunately, the Babylonians were moon rather than sun worshippers, and the Sumerian city of Ur on the Euphrates, half way between Babylon and the Persian Gulf, was the centre of their lunar cult. Here people paid homage to Sin, the lunar deity, whose son was Shamash, the Sun — a singularly strange belief, since it meant not only that the moon was the ancestor of the sun but, mythologically speaking, his superior in strength. The calendar was based on the moon, and all good things, particularly fertility and rain, were her direct attributes. The sun, on the other hand, filled the inhabitants of an arid country with great fear — ^not so much Shamash, the friendly sun of the dawn, as the blistering mid-day sun which brought drought and pestilence and was therefore in league with Nergal, the god of war (see Plate HI).
But though the astrologers of the Ziqqurat — the tapering tower which stood by the side of the Temple, as Italian bell- towers, the campaniles, stand by the side of great churches — usually observed the night sky, they also studied the motion of the sun, and its changes of colour and its eclipses. From this it
SHORT HISTORY OF THE ART OF PROPHECY 59
was only a step to the Babylonians' greatest astrological feat — the discovery of the Zodiac, the imaginary belt, based on a pro- jection of the apparent orbit of the purely ideal "sphere" of the fixed stars in the course of a year. By dividing the Zodiac into twelve "houses", they provided the framework for describing the constellations of the stars, even though the latter were not thought to be of great astrological importance. Astrological predictions are, by and large, based on the motion of the planets, and the invention of the Zodiac was, therefore, merely an astro- logical afterthought, possibly due to Greek influence. In any case, the oldest Babylonian astrological tables make no reference to a complete Zodiac belt.^
Apart from the sun and the moon, which were looked upon as planets, the Babylonians also knew Jupiter, Mercury, Mars, Saturn, and Venus, which they called bibbu — "wild goats" — in contradistinction to the fixed stars which were thought to be "tame". These five bibbu, small though they looked, were said to have a tremendous influence on human fate. All were the seats of different gods, and each had a characteristic effect on the earth. Four of these gods were male and one was female — Ishtar Astarte, the goddess of sexuality and fertility. Jupiter, the brightest of them all, was the seat of the main Babylonian deity — Marduk, the beneficent. Mercury was the seat of Nabu, the son of Marduk who, though capricious, was generally well disposed towards men. But Mars which spread the heat of the sun, and Saturn, were the seats of Nergal and Ninurta, two war gods, and Ishtar (the sun) was quarrelsome in the extreme.
The military note thus introduced into astrology reflected the wishes and needs of the astrologers' chief clientele — the ruling princes. Quite naturally, kings were concerned not only with the next harvest, but also with the outcome of their future campaigns and with their enemies' plans. Astrology had proved itself in meteorology, and had now to show its mettle in politics. And in fact, astrologers proved that they were in no way inferior to the hepatoscopists. "If the moon appeareth on the fifteenth day" an astrological report of the time tells us, "Akkad will prosper and Subartu fare ill; if the moon appeareth on the sixteenth day, Akkad and Ammuru will fare ill and Subartu will prosper ; if the ^ G. Contenau: La Divination, p. 308,
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moon appeareth on the seventeenth day Akkad and Ammuru will prosper, and Subartu fare ill."
Hundreds of such predictions are known, but only a handful could be called horoscopes in the modern sense, and these came from a later period, when the fame of Greek astrology had reached Mesopotamia. But despite their inability to predict man's individual future from the stars, it was the Babylonians who laid the foundations to astrological prophecy. We do not know when they began, or the names of the pioneers, for though the oldest known text dates back to 2000 b.c, we know that the Babylonians had begun to read the future from the stars 1000 years earlier. So widespread was their fame throughout the ancient world that the term Chaldean — the biblical word for Babylonian — became synonymous with astrologer.
From the mere fact that astrology continued to exist side by side with older branches of prophecy, we must conclude that no individual method fully satisfied the Babylonians' thirst for knowledge. True, astrologers were generally more circumspect in their predictions than their great rivals, the hepatoscopists, but they too blotted their copybook by trying to give more than was in their power.
The Lo-King
Babylonian astrology must have reached the Far East, possibly along the well-trodden smugglers' route which led through the whole of ancient Asia, for though the Chinese Zodiac uses a different set of stars and terms from the Babylonian, the two systems have so many similarities that they cannot have arisen independently. There is no doubt that the Chinese were the pupils and the Babylonians, who were better observers, shrewder mathematicians and clearer thinkers, the teachers.
Chinese astrology probably goes back to 3000 b.c, though the oldest Chinese astrological documents are much more recent. What alone seems to be quite certain, is that the Chinese have attached great significance to the heavenly signs since early antiquity. Thus Kung-tse (Confucius, 551-478 b.c.) asserted that predictions from the planets were not only possible, but
SHORT HISTORY OF THE ART OF PROPHECY 61
12. Ancient Chinese Zodiac-plate.
necessary: "Heaven sends down its good or evil symbols, and wise men act accordingly. "^ And this is precisely what they did. Chinese, like Babylonian astrology, was a solemn business and continued to be directed by a court astronomer until the 18th century. The state has priority even in heaven; the "permanent" constellations were related to the imperial offices, and the other professions had to content themselves with less glittering stars.2 (Plate VIII).
What did the Chinese ask the stars? At first, just as in Babylon, they consulted them about the weather, and about
1 Appendix to the Book of Ji. — ^J. J. M. de Groot: Untversismus (Berlin 1918) p. 341.
2 Ernst Zinner: Sternglaube und Sternforschung (Freiburg-Munich, 1953) p. 33.
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eclipses of the moon and the sun, the better to assuage the wrath of the gods by sacrifices and castigations. Astronomy at that time was an honourable but a very risky profession. In one report, we are told that two court astronomers, Hi and Ho, were sen- tenced to death because they had failed to predict an eclipse of the sun.^ In later times, however, eclipses came more and more to be blamed on the people rather than on the astrologers, and on one occasion — this was something altogether unheard of — an Emperor blamed himself for having caused an eclipse of the sun through his own errors of government.
In time, emperors, ministers, and generals became more and more demanding. Astronomers were expected to give them precise dates for waging victorious campaigns and for solemn ceremonies. Private life, too, fell under the sway of the stars. Astronomy became pure astrology. Still, the Chinese were not, by and large, suited to the profession of astrology. Unlike the Babylonians who were analysts and searched for precise answers to even the most complex questions, the Chinese were more given to S3nnthesis, and tried to explain too much from too little. Every constellation has its protector, its beasts, its musical scale, its number, its own taste and its smell, for all nature was pre- ordained harmony. This idea may be very poetic but it does not lend itself to concrete prophecy.
This need to put all one's eggs in one basket led to the inven- tion of the Chinese magic disc, Lo King, a kind of universal horoscope. The disc was divided into six circles showing the star symbols and a host of "associated" facts. With the help of this instrument, which continued to be used in China until fairly recently, a man's future and after-life could be foretold with great ease. Marco Polo tells how the Chinese used this magic disc in the thirteenth century to establish a suitable date for cremating leading court officials. Whenever a great ruler died, the magic disc would be consulted as to the constellations and planets which governed the hour of his birth, and if these planets did not happen to be "in the ascendant" just then, the corpse was left unburied for weeks and sometimes for up to six months. It is easy to see how much this macabre type of astrology must have contributed to the spread of epidemics (Plate VIII). 1 Rudolf Thiel: Und es war Licht (Hamburg 1956), p. 29.
SHORT HISTORY OF THE ART OF PROPHECY 63
Old Testament Prophets
The only people which resolutely and on principle refused to be influenced by Chaldean prophecy belonged to a small and young state founded after a hard struggle by a group of Semitic nomads in the fertile strip between the Mediterranean and the Syrian desert. They were a very headstrong people, preferring their new country to that of their ancestor Abraham, who according to their own tradition, had come from Mesopotamia. Though their myths and laws largely corresponded to those of the Babylonians, they had a characteristic religion which set them apart from all their neighbours ; they had but one God who was particularly kindly disposed towards them, and spoke direct to their religious leaders and prophets. This God, Jehovah, revealed himself in three ways: in dreams, in visions, and in miraculous signs. Inspired dreams and visions often referred to the distant future rather than to specific dates, while signs and miracles were thought devoid of all prophetic character. They came direct from Jehovah as a token of his omnipotence or occasionally to lend greater authority to the words of one or other of his prophets — ■ as in the story of Moses and the burning bush. All endogenous, subjective prophets must first overcome popular disbelief, since in the absence of established prophetic practices like hepatoscopy or astrology, it is difficult to distinguish true prophets from false.
The Old Testament illustrates this point most strikingly in the story of the dispute between Micaiah, the outsider, and the four hundred established prophets who advised King Ahab to wage war against the Syrians.^ In the final analysis, it is pro- phetic fulfilment which proves the worth of a prophet, but fulfil- ment may be a long way off, and the true — but pessimistic — prophet may have to linger in gaol until events vindicate him, or sometimes die a martyr's death.
The decline of the Jewish prophetic movement was due not so much to a lack of inspiration, as to a lack of divine signs and miracles. Their struggle against superstition and magic, finally spelt the prophets' own doom. Those who cannot produce miracles from time to time are rarely believed by the people.
Although Jewish, like Babylonian, prophecy was a special 1 1 Kings 22.
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vocation, and for centuries even a tightly organised "closed shop",^ the prophets did little else than make political predictions of the kind commonly made by modern statesmen and their advisers. They were never given to making exact predictions associating certain social events with, say, an eclipse of the moon, as the Babylonians did, and usually preferred to speculate about general moral or religious questions. The Jewish prophets were moralists and politicians whose main task it was to keep their people's faith alive. For this very reason they frowned upon alien prophets whose sayings were generally bound up with native polytheistic beliefs.
True, astrology and even prophecy from the intestines of animals or from the flight of birds was not necessarily associated with polytheism, since Jehovah himself could conceivably reveal the future in a like manner, but in fact these methods of prophecy had become part and parcel of polytheism, and were the stock in trade of idolatrous prophets who were anathema to pious Jews. Moreover, the Jews bore a political grudge against Babylon, the capital of their largest and most powerful neighbour. Hence everything out of Babylon was sinful and evil. In fact, the first Jewish state, and with it the Old Testament prophetic movement, came to an end in Babylonian captivity (ca. 400 b.c). The place of the Nabi, the prophet, was usurped by the Rabbi, the sage, whose task it was to explain Jehovah's past revelations. New revelations were no longer believed, and all those who continued to prophesy were derided as common swindlers who deserved no better than death. ^
But despite these severe measures against Chaldean prophecy,^ and finally against prophecy as such, the prophetic movement was never completely eradicated amongst the Jews. The Old Testament is full of stories of how Jews from all walks of life continued to explore the future by forbidden means. The most striking account is the story of King Saul and the woman at En- dor who consulted the spirits on his behalf. Now, no Jew was allowed to consult the spirits, and Saul, who knew this, had vainly consulted Jehovah first. But Jehovah had ignored him and failed to send him either dreams or signs, or to speak to him
^ Alfred Guillaume: Prophdtie et Divination chez les Similes, p. 136.
2 Zechariah 13, 3.
^ Deuteronomy 18, 12.