That the whole dread scene was fore-ordained and could take place only by the will of the Almighty, alters nothing in the character of the woman with the familiar spirit. It is a clear case of necromancy, or conjuring up of the spirits of departed persons, such as has been practised among men from time immemorial. Among the chosen people of God persons were found from the beginning of their history who had familiar spirits, and Moses already fulminates his severest anathemas against these wizards (Lev. xx. 27). They appear under various aspects, as charmers, as consulters of familiar spirits, as wizards, or as necromancers (Deut. xviii. 11); they are charged with passing their children through the fire, with observing times (astrologers); with using enchantments; or they are said in a general way to "use witchcraft" (II. Chron. xxxiii. 6). That other nations were not less familiar with the art of evoking spirits, we see, for instance, in the "Odyssey," which mentions numerous cases of such intercourse with another world, and speaks of necromancers as forming a kind of close guild. In the "Persius" of Æschylus the spirit of Darius, father of Xerxes, is called up and foretells all the misfortunes that are to befall poor Queen Atossa. The greatest among the stern Romans could not entirely shake off the belief in such magic, in spite of the matter-of-fact tendencies of the Roman mind, and the vast superiority of their intelligence. A Cato and a Sylla, a Cæsar and a Vespasian, all admitted, with clear unfailing perception, the small grains of truth that lay concealed among the mass of rubbish then called magic. Even Christian theology has never absolutely denied the existence of such extraordinary powers over the spirits of the departed, although it has consistently attributed them to diabolic influences.