Attempting to foresee the future poses a unique set of problems for a society that is Christian or in the process of becoming so. This is not only because Christianity saw the unfolding of history, on both a personal and a collective level, as having been set in motion by God, with all the attendant consequences for free will and predestination that so preoccupied patristic writers. It was also problematic because it forced Christian thinkers to formulate their reaction to inherited perspectives about prognostication from Judaism and from the pagan cultures Christianity was poised to replace. The aim of Christian Divination in Late Antiquity is to investigate this tension and the various techniques that emerged in Christian milieus to see into the future and access hidden knowledge more generally. The degree to which methods of divination were beholden to Jewish and pagan practices is an important thread in the book....
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