a prophet and diviner of the city of Pethor upon the Euphrates, whose practices with Balak king of the Moabites are recorded in the book of Numbers, chap. xxii. It is a question much debated among divines, whether Balaam was a true prophet of God, or no more than a magician or fortune-teller. The Jews indeed are generally of opinion, that he was a busy and pretending astrologer, who, observing when men were under a bad aspect of the stars, pronounced a curse upon them; which sometimes coming to pass, gained him in some neighbouring nation a reputation in his way. Several of the ancient fathers suppose him to be no more than a common footloose, who undertook to tell future events, and discover secrets, and by no very justifiable arts. Origen will needs have it, that he was no prophet, but only one of the devil's sorcerers, and that of him he went to inquire; but that God was pleased to prevent him and put what answers he pleased into his mouth. It cannot be denied, however, that the scripture expressly calls him a prophet (Pet. ii. 5.); and therefore some later writers have imagined that he had once been a good man and true prophet, till loving the wages of iniquity, and profiting the honour of his office to covetousness, he apostatized from God, and betaking himself to idolatrous practices, fell under the delusion of the devil, of whom he learnt all his magical enchantments, though at this juncture, when the preservation of his people was concerned, it might be consistent with God's wisdom to appear to him, and vouchsafe his revelations. As to what passed between him and his ass, when that animal was miraculously enabled to speak to its master; commentators are divided in their opinions concerning this fact, whether it really and literally happened as Moses relates it; or whether it be an allegory only, or the mere imagination or vision of Balaam. This indeed is so wonderful an instance, that several of the Jewish doctors, who upon other occasions are fond enough of miracles, seem as if they would hardly be induced to attest to this. Philo, in his Life of Moses, passes it over in silence; and Maimonides pretends that it happened to Balaam in a prophetic vision only. But St Peter (2 Pet. ii. 16.) speaks of this fact as literal and certain, and so all interpreters explain it. St Austin, who understands it exactly according to the letter, finds nothing in the whole account more surprising than the stupidity of Balaam, who heard his ass speak to him, and answered it as if he talked with a reasonable person. He is of opinion, that this diviner was accustomed to prodigies like this, or that he was strangely blinded by his avarice, not to be lopped by an event of so extraordinary a nature. Le Clerc thinks, that Balaam might probably have imbibed the doctrine of transmigration of souls, souls, which was certainly very common in the east; and from thence he might be the less affronted at hearing a brute speak. And Dr Patrick thinks, that Balaam was in such a rage and fury at the supposed perversion of his beast, crushing his foot, that for the present he could think of nothing else; though the conciseness of Moses's relation, who must be presumed to have omitted many circumstances, which if rightly known would dispel this and many more difficulties that may be imagined in this transaction, does certainly furnish us with a better and more satisfactory answer. St Austin is of opinion, that God had not given the ass a reasonable soul; but permitted it to pronounce certain words, in order to reprove the prophet's covetousness. Gregory of Nyssa seems to think that the ass did not utter any word articulate or distinctly; but that, having brayed as usual, the diviner, whose practice it had been to draw prefigurations from the cries of beasts and singing of birds, comprehended easily the ass's meaning by its noise; Moses, desiring to ridicule this superstitious art of augurs and soothsayers, as if the ass really spoke in words articulate.

We must own, says Calmet, that this is a miraculous fact related by an inspired writer, whose authority we are not allowed to call in question in the least particular; but we should study such ways of explaining it as are most conformable to reason, and most proper to solve the difficulties of it, without attacking the truth of the history. Now it is very possible for God to make an ass speak articulate; it is indeed miraculous, and above the ordinary faculty of this animal, but not against the laws of nature.