Bad Advertisement? Are you a Christian? Online Store: | PREVIOUS SECTION - NEXT SECTION - HELP But if the soul of birds is to be esteemed divine because future events are predicted by them, why should we not rather maintain, that when omens4049
“For the very last time, now, will they sup here.”4050
This slave, then, was divine, while the great Ulysses, the friend of Homer’s Pallas Athene, was not divine, but understanding the words spoken by this “divine” grinder of corn as an omen, rejoiced, as the poet says:— “The divine Ulysses rejoiced at the omen.”4051
Observe, now, as the birds are possessed of a divine soul, and are capable of perceiving God, or, as Celsus says, the gods, it is clear that when we men also sneeze, we do so in consequence of a kind of divinity that is within us, and which imparts a prophetic power to our soul. For this belief is testified by many witnesses, and therefore the poet also says:— “And while he prayed, he sneezed.”4052
“Perceiv’st thou not that at every word my son did sneeze?”4053
|