38. SeeJn 11:49-51.
Book XII 489 afraid to take Mary as your wife, and again: Take the childandgo into Egypt (Mt
Some unusual cases ofdivination
22, 45. And so l do not believe that a human being's spirit is ever taken up by a good spirit to see images of this kind unless they signify something. When however the cause of the human spirit fixing its attention upon them more expressly is in the body, it is not to be supposed that they always signify some thing; but the times they are significant are when they are breathed by a spirit by way ofdemonstration into someone who is asleep or suffering something else in the body which alienates from the senses of the flesh.
We also know that thoughts can be inserted by some hidden prompter into people's minds when they are awake and not afflicted with any disease or mentally disturbed, thoughts that will prove prophetic when uttered; and this not only when the person has something else in mind, like Caiaphas the high priest, who prophesied when he did not have the slightest intention of so doing,38 but also when they deliberately undertake to say something by way of divination.
46. There were, for example, some young men who for ajoke, to pull people' s legs, pretended while in a staging post for travelers that they were astrologers, though they scarcely knew one of the twelve signs of the zodiac from another. When they noticed the innkeeper's astonishment at the things they were saying, and heard him swear they were absolutely true, they boldly proceeded to say more; and he vouched for it all, his astonishment knowing no bounds. Finally he asked them about the welfare of his son, whom he was eager to see after a long absence, and he was anxious about what might have happened to him to delay his return home so much beyond the expected time of his arrival.
Now they did not care if the truth would out after their departure, provided at least that they could make the man happy there and then; so they answered, since they would soon be on their way, that he was safe and sound and drawing near, and was going to arrive that very day on which they were saying this. They had no fear, you see, that when the day passed without this happening the man would follow them the next day to complain. Why say more? While they were still getting ready to depart, lo and behold the lad suddenly came in as they were still standing around.
47. Again, there was another youth dancing before a concert, in a place where there were many idols set up throughout some festival of the pagans; he was not possessed by any spirit, but was parodying the possessed in a mock imitation, with the full knowledge of those standing around and watching. lt was the custom, you see, when the sacrifices were finished and the dervishes had done
38. SeeJn 11:49-51.