Python

PYTHON. The Grecians gave to Apollo the Surname of Pythius, because he killed the Serpent Python; and as Apollo was regarded as the God of Divination and of Oracles, ‘twas said that those that had the Gift of foretelling future Events, were filled with the Spirit of Python. The Septuagint and Vulgate have often used this Expression, to signify Fortune-tellers, Magicians, Ventriloquists, or such as spoke out of their Bellies. Among all these sort of People were much Knavery, Imagination, and often diabolical Operations. Under Penalty of Death God had forbid his People to consult this kind of Wizards. Saul had drove them out and destroyed them, throughout all the Land of Israel, and yet after this had the Weakness to have recourse to a Sorceress. Moses ordered them to be stoned, that were possessed by the Spirit of Python, or had a familiar Spirit. The Kings of Judah that forsook the Lord, such as Manasseh, increased the Number of Wizards; and the pious Kings, such as Josiah, rooted them out of their Country. When St. Paul in the City of Philippi in Macedonia, found a Pagan Servant-Maid that was possess’d by a Spirit of Python, and who brought great Gain to her Masters by Fortune-telling, he drove out this evil Spirit, and delivered the Maid from it; but this so provoked her Masters, that they raised a Tumult against him on this account.

The Hebrew Word Ob or Oboth, which the Vulgate translates by Python, signifies also a Bottle or Vessel of Leather, wherein Liquors were put. Perhaps this Name was given to Wizards, because at the times that they were in their Fits of Enthusiasm, whether real or feigned, they¹ swell’d and became big as a Bottle, and they were heard to bring out their Words as it were from the Bottom of their Stomach; from whence the Latins called them Ventriloqui, and the Greeks, Engastrimythoi; that is, People that speak out of their Bellies. Isaiah Isai. xxix. 4.says, that Jerusalem being afflicted and brought low, shall speak as it were out of the hollow of the Earth, as a Pythoness. She shall groan, and bring out her Words, as from the Bottom of a Cave.

In the Article of Samuel, it shall be inquired, whether the Witch of Endor caus’d this holy Man really to appear to Saul, or whether it was only an Illusion on his Part, and a mere Forgery on hers.

Diodor. Sicul. l. 16.Diodorus Siculus relates, that at Delphos there was a certain Pit, from whence a Vapour proceeded that disturbed the Understanding. A Shepherd having observed, that whatever came near it and looked into it, presently fell a dancing, and cry’d out in a manner different from what was usual to them; he had a mind to go near it himself, and having look’d into it, he was seized with a kind of Enthusiasm, which made him foretel future Things. At the Report of this Miracle, great Numbers had a mind to look into this Pit, and were all seized with this Spirit of Prophecy. But as several of them were violently agitated by this Vapour, and fell down the Precipice, they thought convenient to pitch upon one Woman only to be a Prophetess, and to exercise alone the Function of giving out Oracles. And for fear that she might fall into the Hole, as well as

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