HEPATOSCOPY AND ASTROLOGY IN BABYLONIA AND 



ASSYRIA. 



By morris JASTROW, Jr. 



(Read December 4, 1908.) 



In any general study of the subject of divination we must dis- 

 tinguish between two fonns which for want of a better designation 

 we may distinguish as vohintary and invokmtary. Under voluntary 

 divination is meant the act of deliberately seeking out some object 

 or means through which one may hope to pierce the unknown future, 

 hidden from the ordinary gaze. The placing of marked arrows 

 before the image of a deity, and according to the ones drawn by lot, 

 to determine what the god may have in mind or what his pleasure 

 may be is an illustration of voluntary divination as practiced among 

 the ancient Arabs.^ Sending out birds selected for the purpose and 

 noting the direction and manner of their flight^ may be instanced as 

 another procedure of direct divination. Among the Babylonians 

 and Assyrians, the common method of voluntary divination was 

 the examination of the liver of the sacrificial animal — invariably 

 for this purpose a sheep — and, according to signs noted in the 

 various parts of that organ, to diagnose the intentions of the gods 

 as the arbiters of human fate and as the powers presiding over all 

 occurrences on earth. 



Involuntary divination, on the other hand, rests on the interpre- 

 tation of all manner of signs and phenomena that without being 

 sought out force themselves on our notice. Preeminent among such 

 signs is the observation of the phenomena of the heavens, primarily 

 the movements and aspects of the sun, moon and planets with the 

 gradual extension to the observation of clouds, of constellations and 

 of single particularly prominent stars — as practiced by the cultural 



^ Wellhausen, " Reste Arabischen Heidenthums," p. 126. 

 " Wissowa, " Religion der Romer," p. 457, note 3. 



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