Was an ancient method of divination, performed by means of rods or staves. St. Jerome mentions this kind of divination in his Commentary on Hosea, chap. vi. 12.; where the prophet says, in the name of God: _My people ask counsel at their stocks; and their staff declareth unto them_: which passage that father understands of the Grecian _Rhabdomancy_. The same is met with again in Ezekiel, xxi. 21, 22. where the prophet says: _For the king of Babylon stood at the parting of the way_, at the head of the two ways, to use divination; he made his arrows bright; or, as St. Jerome renders it, _he mixed his arrows; he consulted with images; he looked in the liver_. If it be the same kind of divination that is alluded to in these two passages, _Rhabdomancy_ must be the same kind of superstition with Belomancy. These two, in fact, are generally confounded. The Septuagint themselves translate ‏חצים‎ of Ezekiel, by ῥαβδος, a rod; though in strictness it signifies an arrow. So much however is certain, that the instruments of divination mentioned by Hosea are different from those of Ezekiel. In the former it is ‏עצו‎ _etso_, ‏מקלו‎ _maklo_, his wood, his staff: in the latter ‏חצים‎ _hhitism_, arrows. Though it is possible they might use rods or arrows indifferently; or the military men might use arrows and the rest rods. By the laws of the Frisones, it appears that the ancient inhabitants of Germany practised Rhabdomancy. The Scythians were likewise acquainted with the use of it: and Herodotus observes, _lib._ vi. that the women among the Alani sought and gathered together fine straight wands or rods, and used them for the same superstitious purposes. Among the various other kinds of divination, not here mentioned, may be enumerated: _Chiromancy_, performed with keys; _Alphitomancy_ or _Aleuromancy_, by flour; _Keraunoscopia_, by the consideration of thunder; _Alectromancy_, by cocks; _Lithomancy_, by stones; _Eychnomancy_, by lamps; _Ooscopy_, by eggs; _Lecanomancy_, by a basin of water; _Palpitatim_, _Salisatio_, παλμος, by the pulsation or motion of some member, &c. &c. &c. All these kinds of divination have been condemned by the fathers of the Church, and Councils, as supposing some compact with the devil. Fludd has written several treatises on divination, and its different species; and Cicero has two books of the divination of the ancients, in which he confutes the whole system. Cardan also, in his 4th Book de Sapientia, describes every species of them. ORACLE. The word oracle admits, under this head, of two significations: first, it is intended to express an answer, usually couched in very dark and ambiguous terms, supposed to be given by demons of old, either by the mouths of their idols, or by those of their priests, to those who consulted them on things to come. The PYTHIAN[36] was always in a rage when she gave oracles.