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proper seat, and, in short, from all the visible apparatus of the place, whether physical or sacred.
The prophetic woman too in Brandchidæ, whether she holds in her hand a wand,[1] which was at first received from some God, and becomes filled with a divine splendour, or whether seated on an axis, she predicts future events, or dips her feet or the border of her garment in the water, or receives the God by imbibing the vapour of the water; by all these she becomes adapted to partake externally[2] of the God.
But the multitude of sacrifices, the sacred law of the whole sanctimony, and such other things as are performed in a divine manner, prior to the prophetic inspiration, viz. the baths of the prophetess, her fasting for three whole days, her retiring into the adyta, and there receiving a divine light, and rejoicing for a considerable time—all these evince that the God is entreated by prayer to approach, that
- ↑ It was usual for those who prophesied to carry a wand. Tiresias had a sceptre, and Abaris an arrow. The Scholiast on Nicander says, that the Egyptian and Scythian magi, and also many of those in Europe, prophesied with wands. And Eustathius on the Odyssey, p. 1657, observes, "that there is a certain magic in divine wands," esse in ραβδοις θειοις τινα μαγειαν.
- ↑ That is, to partake of an illumination, which has no σχεσις, or habitude, to any thing material.
