aruspices]. Gesenius and Rosenmiiller agree in deriving this word from 71), to divide, cut up, etc.; but differ in the application of the idea—the former making it mean the heavens divided into astrolo gical sections, of which he gives a diagram in his Comment. on Isaiah, iii. 555 ; the latter (Schul. in Daniel, II. cc.) supposing it to refer to the division and inspection of the entrails of victims by arus pkes : both these kinds of divination have been described above. Winer (Realw.-b. s. vv. Sterne,' Sternkunde') refers to Josephus (Bell. yud. vi. for astronomical portents such as the Gozrin would interpret (see also St. August. De Doctr. Christ. ii. 32, etc.) St. Jerome in his Commentary in lee., defends his own version, Aruspices, by the authority of Symmachus. The Sept. and Theodotion trans late the word as if it were a proper noun, like wit,m, XaXacat.
We have at last exhausted the long vocabu lary of the terms of divination mentioned in the O. T. and N. T., with the exception of the phrases which occur in Hosea iv. 12. These will suitably bring up the rear of our catalogue. (to.) The verse runs—' My, people aslc counsel at their stocks' (or wood }Nr:7+ 153.1n) ; And their staff cleclareth unto them' (Tr jpn). Those who hold that two separate prognostications are here referred to, generally make the former a consultation of wooden idols, or teraphim, which has been already treated under 2 b (see Rosenmiiller and Pocock, in lee.) Jeremiah reproaches the Jews for ` saying to a stock (p) my Father' (ii.
27) ; and Habakkuk, `Woe unto him that saith to the wood (11./) awake' (ii. 19). But Pocock (on Hosea iv. 12) gives reasons for supposing that only one sort of superstition is meant in this verse—such as the Greeks called divination by staves or rods. Many kinds of this are on record, Maimonides (Procept. neg. 31) mentions the prac tice of ' taking a staff and striking the ground with it, and making hoKrid noises, Aile the diviners would stand in a reverie, intently looking on the ground, till they became like men struck with epi leptic fits ;—when reduced to this phrenzy they would utter their prophecy.' The learned Rabbi says he saw such a case himself in Barbary. Chas kuni (quoted by Drusius on Deut. xviii. to) adduces another method by which `the diviner measures his staff with his finger or his hand : one time he says I will go; another time, I will not go ; then if it happens at the end of the staff to he, I will not go, he goes not.' Rabbi Moses Mikkotzi (in Pocock, /. c.) mentions a divination by a piece of stick, peeled on one side, which, thrown afar out of the hand, decided a doubt, according as the peeled or unpeeled side fell uppermost. Tacitus
(Germ. x.) describes a similar prognostication among the Germans. Theophylact, after Cyril. on this passage of Hosea, mentions the use of two rods, set upright, with enchantments and muttering of verses. The rods,' says he, ' falling through the influence of demons, suggested answers to in quirers, according as they fell to the right or to the left, forward or backward.' Staves were some times carried about as the shrines of deities delu brunz fiestem decorticatum, says Festus. Tibullus (I. eleg. xi. 15) refers to these lignei Dii,' and says Sed patrii servate Lares ; aluistis et iidem, Cursarem vestros cunt terser ante pules.
Neu pudeat prisco vas esse e stipite fitctos Sic veteris sedes incoluistis avi.' In allusion to the same superstition, Clement of Alexander, Strom. i. 151, mentions certain tubes as the shrines of deities, elopas io--rCorres of raXaLoi rarroos Ws iccbtoptarct TOO 0 COO (comp. Euseb. Prop. Evang. i. 9). We mentioned, under Talismans, the concealment of treasure by divination ; by other processes of the same were treasures discoverid. Sir J. Chardin says it is common in India for diviners to accompany conquerors, to point out where treasures may be found ; and he adduces a case at Surat ; when Siragi went thither, he made his soothsayers use divining rods, struck on the ground, or on walls, etc. Harmer (ii. 282) sup poses a reference to such a practice may be implied in Is. xlv. 3 (see St. Chrysostom, Opera [ed. Bened.], vol. xi. pp. 518, 8z4). Sir J. F. Davis, lot, mentions a Chinese `mode of divination by certain pieces of wood, in shape the longitudinal sec tions of a flattish oval. These are thrown by pairs, and as they turn up, a judgment is formed of a future event by consulting the interpretation afforded by a Sibylline volume, hung up in the nearest temple.' Captain Burton, in his Eastern Africa, mentions some not dissimilar practices of divination ; nor are these fooleries of faith,' as he calls them, un known among ourselves. Even now, as the writer is credibly informed, miners in the south-west of England walk with their dowsing stick in hand over suspected spots ; a motion of this divining rod is in their view an infallible sign of a lode. Rudolf Salchlin has written a treatise on this curious subject ; idolomantia et Rhabilamantia anti christiana, sive Dissertatio histarico - theologia ad Hos. iv. 12 (Berne, 1715). A good deal of infor mation may he obtained in Jacobi Lydii Syntag. Sacr. de re Militari, C. 3 (Ugolini, Thes. xxvii. 142-146), and in Del Rio, Disquis. Magic., lib. iv., cap. 2, qutest. 3, sect. 1, sub fin.; sect. 3, sub init.