Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum, section 17

Plutarch, De defectu oraculorum, section 17

The Greek historian Plutarch recounts a visit to Delphi and a dialogue about the disappearance of prophecy from once famous oracles. This section is an anecdote about a ship sailing in the Ionian Sea. A voice on the island of Paxi calls the ship's pilot by name and commands, "When you come opposite to Palodes, announce that Great Pan is dead." The pilot, Thamus, was summoned by the Emperor Tiberius, who commissioned an inquiry. Via Charles Haywood on X. Josh Centers replied to Haywood, "It was widely reported in the ancient world that the old pagan rituals stopped working after the resurrection. Christ overthrew the pagan gods and trampled down death by death." The death and resurrection of Christ occurred during the reign of Tiberius (AD 14 - AD 37).

John Milton's poem, "On the Morning of Christ's Nativity," concludes with a description of the downfall of Satan and the old pagan gods at the birth of Jesus:

And then at last our bliss
Full and perfect is,
But now begins; for from this happy day
Th'old Dragon under ground,
In straiter limits bound,
Not half so far casts his usurped sway,
And, wrath to see his kingdom fail,
Swinges the scaly horror of his folded tail.

The Oracles are dumb;
No voice or hideous hum
Runs through the arched roof in words deceiving.
Apollo from his shrine
Can no more divine,
With hollow shriek the steep of Delphos leaving.
No nightly trance or breathed spell
Inspires the pale-ey'd priest from the prophetic cell.