ГАДАТЕЛИ

Do not voluntarily decide to resort to fortune-telling, but if you were attracted to it by others, then do not agree. When a war broke out or some calamity befell, it was the custom to ask fortune-tellers about the future. Human nature always desires, seeks and makes careful efforts to know the invisible, especially wants to know in advance about its misfortunes, so as not to fall into confusion as a result of the unexpected. So, listen to what he [Isaiah] says: I, he says, foretold you in advance the signs and wonders that would happen, so that you would not need other predictions, even if you were attracted and deceived. Therefore, if you listen to the advice of others, then you will be unworthy of God’s favor and mercy, you who are preparing disasters for yourselves. What consolation will you, O man, receive from exorcists when disasters befall you? If for the sake of lost wealth you spend other money by asking soothsayers, then what good will it do you if you find good things? Along with your wealth, you will be taken into slavery, you will destroy your soul, and no one will help you. But it must be said what a fortuneteller is: he is an evil demon who speaks from the womb of women and with this strange action tries to make the false credible; he speaks not naturally, but from the stomach, and by this he plunges ignorant people into amazement, showing that he speaks the truth... Aquila calls them augurs and those who make a voice; Symmachus - soothsayers who whisper and hiss; Theodotion - squeaky soothsayers, that is, similar to chickens. But it seems to me that necromancy is also meant here and that with this strange voice the devil plunges people into amazement, as other translators have explained. Demons usually chirp and make the voices of birds - what the LXX commentators called vanity (kenologia) - in order to affirm lies from everywhere with unusual cries. Although the demon has the art of convincing [people] that he can summon the souls of the dead, we assert that the soul, after leaving their body, enters a certain dwelling and remains there - it cannot leave there. The demon tries to show that she not only lives in the bones [of dead people], but walks here and there, wandering in vain, that she is not subject to any authority, not even to divine providence, and will not be subject to any punishment for the crimes she has committed. Thus, he does what many believe that after death souls constantly wander. But these are fables of children and old women, and beware of believing them when you are attracted by such fictions. The sorceress (of Endor) once, by God's permission, showed Samuel to Saul in order to depict the resurrection for him, although it was not a resurrection, and so that on the basis of this he would believe that God is the Lord of the living and the dead. Although the one he saw was not Samuel, he did not dare turn him away from God. Those who say or do this are far from God, just like Saul, who was punished. Having retreated from God, he questioned the soothsayer, and this did not bring him any benefit, but he was subject to the most severe punishment: his evil death came ahead of time. Look how he ridicules them: “Do they ask,” he says, “the dead about the living?” (Isa. 8:19). He calls either demons or the dead themselves dead. And this is more than enough to discover a lie. If the living do not know anything, then all the more should this be said about the dead and buried in the earth, who do not even know what we know (4). You might be interested in: