a prophet and diviner of the city of Pe- thor, on 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 Scripture, 2 Pet. ii. 16, designates him a prophet; and this by some has been thought decisive of the point; although it is expressly stated that he "loved the wages of unrighteousness," and was "rebuked for his iniquity" by "the dumb ass," which "forbade the madness of the prophet." As to what passed between him and his ass, when the latter was miraculously enabled to accost its master and rebuke him, commentators are divided in opinion; some doubting whether the fact really and literally happened as Moses relates it, and others thinking it an allegory only, or the mere imagination or vision of Balaam. Philo, in his Life of Moses, passes over this wonderful incident in silence; and Maimonides pretends that it happened to Balaam in a prophetic vision only. But St Peter (ubi supra) speaks of this fact as literal and certain, and so most 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 had talked with a reasonable person. Le Clerc thinks that Balaam might probably have imbibed the doctrine of transmigration of souls, which was certainly very common in the East; and on this account he might probably be the less astonished at hearing a brute speak. Gregory of Nyssa seems to think that the ass did not utter any word articulately or distinctly, but that, having brayed as usual, the diviner, whose practice it had been to draw presages from the cries of beasts and singing of birds, comprehended easily the ass's meaning by its noise; Moses designing to ridicule this superstitious art of augurs and soothsayers, as if the ass had really spoken in words articulate.