Word: pythias
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...Delphi's prosperous temple. There she was clothed in a bridal robe, learned to get along with the temple snakes, eat the sacred laurel and become the ecstatic "bride" of the god who emanated from the cleft of a rock in the depth of the earth. As a Pythia she was alone, a social outcast, feared and avoided by the plain people of Delphi. She was totally filled with the love of her dark, subterranean god, and yet at times she was rebellious. "For what else was there," she asked sullenly, "in this dirty world to love...
...tells the Wanderer her story, and when it is done her witless godchild (or was it a goat-child?) has disappeared. The outcast Pythia and the outcast Jew follow his footprints up the mountainside. They grow fainter and fainter, finally disappear altogether. Then she knows. "The father has fetched him home...
Signs & Wonders. Those adept at deciphering the message in a parable will be happy to wrest their own truth from The Sibyl. The supporting cast of human symbols is not hard to identify: there are the Pythia's pious, humble parents; the lowly, kindly oracle servant ("little friend of god and man"); the mean old spy who cares nothing for god but only for his temple. These are, for good or ill, like unto other men. But the Pythia and the Wanderer are set apart because they have been touched by God; he works on them not merely "signs...
...between this and another world. They were sincere in the divinity of the oracle, and they had perfect faith that the communications which they received through the lips of the priestess came from a god whose powers of prophecy were unlimited. The communications received through the lips of the Pythia undoubtedly contained much of truth and falsity mixed together; but they were, nevertheless, of ten times marvels of common sense and good advice, and to the people of that age it is no wonder that they appeared to come direct from a deity. It was not only from the near...
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