The theme of divination and prophecy is one of the topics that best allow analysis of the meeting
and confrontation of the new Christian message and Greco-Roman civilization. In the earliest
Apologetics there was already criticism of pagan prophesying, and this remained present with
greater or lesser intensity throughout the life of the genre. The particular religious and spiritual
context of the second century was favourable to the existence of oracles with a theological content,
concerning the destiny of the soul, divine worship, the nature and characteristics of divinity and
similar topics, a long way from the traditional consultations about material life.
