Oracle

Hellenic religion

• Oracle appears in Hellenic religion.

  The Greek oracle is a speaking institution. Pausanias’s Delphi is the type-site for this seed, not the only house of the word.

  from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

  appears in · sourced · documented

• Oracle is associated with Knowledge.

  An oracle claims to give knowledge on a god’s behalf. The claim is institutional, not a proof that the future is known.

  from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

  associated with · partially sourced · documented

• Prophecy is associated with Oracle.

  An oracle is one institutional form of prophecy. The word should not be stretched until every omen is an oracle.

  from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

  associated with · partially sourced · documented

• Divination is connected to Oracle.

  Oracle names a speaking house of answers. Divination is the broader craft. Delphi is one overlap, not the definition.

  from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

  connected to · partially sourced · documented

• Delphi is associated with Oracle.

  The oracle of Apollo at Delphi is the site’s most famous institution. The word oracle here has a Greek address.

  from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

  associated with · sourced · documented

• Apollo is associated with Oracle.

  The Pythia answers in Apollo’s name. That is a Greek civic institution, not Ifá and not a raven’s cry.

  from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

  associated with · sourced · documented

Roman religion

• Oracle appears in Roman religion.

  Virgil’s Aeneid seats oracles among the Sibyl of Cumae, Delian Apollo, and Faunus’s voice. A named oracle in that epic, not omen as silent sign alone and not a psychic dump.

  from Virgil · Aeneid, 19 BCE (unfinished at the poet’s death)

  appears in · sourced · documented

Egyptian religion

• Oracle appears in Egyptian religion.

  Herodotus seats Egyptian and Ammon oracle consultation among Egyptian sacred speech beside Greek Delphi. A named oracle in that ethnography, not oracle-hellenic already held and not delphi as the place keep-apart already walked.

  from Herodotus · Histories, c. 440s BCE

  appears in · sourced · documented

Chinese tradition

• Oracle appears in Chinese tradition.

  Wilhelm’s Yijing is consulted as an oracle of changing situations. A named oracle in that classic’s consultation speech, not Delphi and not omen as the sign-word alone.

  from Richard Wilhelm / Cary F. Baynes (translation) · I Ching (Yijing), Wilhelm 1924; Baynes English 1950

  appears in · sourced · documented

Yoruba Ifá

• Yoruba Ifá is connected to Oracle.

  English often calls Ifá an oracle. The comparison is a translation convenience; Ifá is a verse-and-lot system with a babaláwo, not a Pythia on a tripod.

  from William Bascom · Ifa Divination, 1969

  connected to · sourced · culturally specific

European folklore

• Brazen Head is historically related to Oracle.

  Brewer’s Dictionary of Phrase and Fable seats the Brazen Head among legendary talking heads — Friar Bacon’s head that spoke “Time is / Time was / Time’s past,” Albertus Magnus’s broken head, and the omniscient brazen head of Ferragus that told past, present, or to come. A named Brazen Head in that oracular automaton speech, not a bare brass sculpture dump.

  from Ebenezer Cobham Brewer · Dictionary of Phrase and Fable, 1870 (and later PD editions)

  historically related to · sourced · documented