The studies included in this volume are based on lectures given at the Philosophy School of the University of Crete in the autumn of 1993. The subject of the lectures was prophetic and divinatory speech in its various manifestations in the Jewish, Greek, and Roman worlds. These inquiries continued, in a way, two earlier research cycles with related themes.

The first resulted in the volume "The Future: The Anxiety of Prediction in the Early Christian Centuries," published by Kardamitsa, Athens 1990, and the second produced the volume: "The Vision of a Dream: The Use of Dreams in Greek and Roman Antiquity," University Press of Crete, Heraklion 1993. Like the earlier volumes, the "Sacred Speeches" do not provide complete answers and do not attempt to close the discussion.

They cover a wide range of topics in the form of examples and aspire to trace certain passages that await their future researchers. Prophetic speech, by its nature, is inexhaustible.

Dimitris Kirtatas