Christian Sibyllines (1st cent.-250 AD) 3 Questions on Holy Spirit & Dove Ritual (Solved)

[rakovsky]

"Christian Sibyllines" are poems, likely written by a Christian author, in the genre of oracles by pagan prophetesses (or "sibyls"). The Christian Sibyllines were written in Greek, probably in 80 AD - 250 AD.

You can read the 14 Books or Volumes of the Sibylline Oracles, translated by Milton Terry (1899), along with 7 fragments found in Lactantius and Theophilus of Antioch, here: The Sibylline Oracles Index

(Question 1: Solved) Is there a theological problem in suggesting that pagan nonChristians had the Holy Spirit working in them?

The original Lutheran and Calvinist understanding of nonChristian humanity, as I understand it, was that non-Christians were in a "totally depraved", graceless state, incapable of any real spiritual goodness on their own.

It's true that in the Old Testament, the pagan prophet Balaam had authentic divine prophecies, presumably due to the Holy Spirit's inspiration. But otherwise, the general model for the Holy Spirit's work in man is that either the Spirit entered into the Old Testament prophets, or else Christians since the New Testament period have both undergone baptism and received the Holy Spirit in connection with their entering the faith community.

So it's interesting that some Church fathers treated the pagan sibyls as if they were inspired by the Holy Spirit:

They quoted passages from these oracles to pagans as proof that even their own sacred books prophesied of Christ. The Sibyl's prophecies thus began to be seen by many Christians as having been inspired, at least in part, by the Holy Spirit, and they were later quoted by some early Christian apologists and fathers, including St. Augustine ("City of God," 18.23). Following this ancient tradition, she most famously appears in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel murals beside prophets of the Old Testament.

SOURCE: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/765612802/Christians-saw-ancient-femaleoracles-as-divine.html

Theophilus, the 2nd century bishop of Antioch, quoted the Sibylline Oracle as saying that God put His Spirit in everything and made His Spirit the leader of all people:

Ye mortal men and fleshly, who are naught,
How quickly are ye puffed up, seeing not
The end of life! Do ye not tremble now
And fear God, him who watches over you,
The one who is most high, the one who knows,
The all-observant witness of all things,
All-nourishing Creator, who has put
In all things his sweet Spirit and has made
Him leader of all mortals?

(Question 2: Solved) Is there a direct connection in Tradition between (A) the Sibyl's prediction of believers performing a ritual of releasing a dove in remembrance of Christ's baptism and (B) the Jerusalem Patriarchate's yearly ritual of releasing a dove at Epiphany?

William Deane writes that the Sibylline Oracles hardly adds anything to the canonical gospels' story of Jesus, except

the story of the fire kindled in Jordan when our Lord was baptized, a legend which is also mentioned by Justin Martyr (Dial.88), and (though under a different tradition) in the Ebionite Gospel. Justin writes: "When Jesus came to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, and descended into the water, both a fire was kindled in the Jordan, and when He came up out of the water the apostles of our Christ recorded that the Holy Spirit as a dove lighted upon Him." The Sibyl, as we saw above, thus alludes to the same event: "When, in the flesh which was given Him, He came forth, having bathed in the stream of the river Jordan, which rolls, sweeping on its waves with grey foot, He, escaping from the fire, first shall see the sweet Spirit of God coming upon Him with the white wings of a dove."
SOURCE: https://biblehub.com/library/deane/pseudepigrapha

Deane writes that Book VII of the Christian Sibylline Oracles describes "sacred rites (vers.76 ff.) which shall obtain in Messiah's time", and he quotes the following passage's instructions about releasing a dove:

Thou shalt offer sacrifice to the great immortal God, not melting with fire the grain of incense, nor slaying with the knife the shaggy lamb; but, in company with all who share thy blood, taking woodland birds, thou shalt pray and let them fly, turning thine eyes to heaven, and thou shalt pour water in libation into the pure fire with these words: O Father, as the Father begat Thee, the Word, I send forth this bird, the swift messenger of my words, with holy water besprinkling Thy baptism through which from the fire Thou didst appear.

Charlesworth translates the passage this way:

You shall sacrifice to the immortal great noble God, not by melting a lump of incense in fire or striking a shaggy ram with a sacrificial knife, but with all who bear your blood, by taking a wild dove,* praying, and sending it off, while gazing to heaven. You shall pour a libation of water on pure fire, crying out as follows: 'As the father begot you, the Word, so** I have dispatched a bird, a word which is swift reporter of words, sprinkling with holy waters your baptism, through which you were revealed out of fire..." Charlesworth's footnotes: *The origins and extent of this ritual remain enigmatic.

Deane claims that "the ceremony, consisting in letting a bird fly to convey prayer to heaven... is a remnant of Judaism unknown to any Christian community. The allusion also to the fire in the Jordan at Christ's baptism is evident." (SOURCE: The Sibylline Oracles.)
In fact, this ceremony in Book VII of the Sibyllines reminds me of how the Church of Jerusalem releases a dove at Epiphany at the Jordan River, like in this photo below.

(Question 3: See below) What do you think of Justin Martyr's description of prophecying? How does it compare with the Biblical method of prophecy-making? Was Biblical prophecy composed in an ecstatic, frenzied, automatic, volitionless, or involuntary way, such that the Lord's Spirit directly used the prophets to create the writings? Or did the prophets carefully think out and deliberately draft their writings? Did both methods occur?

The pre-Christian writer Cicero (1st c. BC) took the view that the Sibyl's writings were not really in the form of frenzied, ecstatic utterances, because they used Acrostics. He thought that for a writer to compose Acrostics, the writer required careful thinking that would have conflicted with a state of ecstatic frenzy.
(Cicero "used the acrostic form of the Sibylline verses to disprove the assertion that the Sibyl spoke in ecstatic frenzy; acrostics, as he observed, are not the product of a frenzied intellect, pouring out impromptu inspiration." SOURCE: Sibylline Oracles - Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Bible Dictionary)

In contrast, Justin Martyr might have viewed the Sibyl as uttering her prophecies while in a state of ecstatic frenzy, because the Study Light page on the Sibylline Oracle says that Justin Martyr

argues that Plato must have had this Sibyl [the Roman one at Cumae, Italy] in his mind when he described in the Phaedrus (244B) and the Meno (99C) the phenomena of prophetic frenzy or rapture, since the Sibyl did not recollect afterwards what she had said during her unconscious ecstasies. [Note: In the Sibylline oracles, the Sibyl is passive or reluctant under the influence of inspiration. This tallied with some Jewish and Christian conceptions of prophetic inspiration...]
SOURCE: Sibylline Oracles - Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Bible Dictionary

In Book III, the Sibyl explains how she gets and makes her prophecies:

[I say] these things to you, having left the long Babylonian walls of Assyria, frenzied, a fire sent to Greece, prophesing the disclosures of God to all mortals, so that I prophesy divine riddles to men. ... But when everything comes to pass, then you will remember me and no longer will anyone say that I am crazy, I who am a prophetess of the great God. ... God put all of the future in my mind so that I prophesy both future and former things and tell them to mortals. ... all the latter things have been revealed, so let all these things from my mouth be accounted true.

The implication seems to be that God puts ideas in some prophets' heads and this is the origin of their prophecies. They are in a frenzy and have ideas in their heads about the future and the ideas are their prophecies when they speak them.

Justin Martyr wrote:

And Plato, when he read her oracles, seems to me to have regarded the reciters of oracles as divinely inspired. For he saw that the things which had been spoken of old by her were actually fulfilled; and therefore in the dialogue with Meno [1. Plato, Meno, 99.], expressing admiration and eulogy of the prophets for their sayings, he has thus written: "We might truly name as divine those whom we call prophets. Not least should we say that they are divine and profoundly inspired and possessed of God when they truly speak of many and great matters, knowing nothing of the things of which they speak; "clearly and obviously referring to the oracles of the Sibyl. For she was unlike the poets, who after the writing of their poems have power to correct and polish, especially the accuracy of the meters, but at the time of her inspiration she was filled with the matters of her prophecy, and when the spell of inspiration ceased her memory of the things spoken also ceased. This accordingly is the reason why all the meters of the verses of the Sibyl have not been preserved. For we ourselves, being in the city, learned from the guides who showed us the places in which she uttered her oracles that there was also a vessel made of bronze in which they said her remains were preserved. And besides all other things which they narrated, they also told us this, as having heard it from their forefathers, that they who received the oracles at that time, being without education, often utterly missed the accuracy of the meters, and this they said was the reason for the want of meter in some of the verses, the prophetess after the ceasing of her possession and her inspiration having no remembrance of what she had said, and the writers having failed for want of education to preserve the accuracy of the meters. Therefore it is evident that Plato said this about the reciters of oracles in reference to the oracles of the Sibyl; for he thus said: "When they truly speak of many and great matters, knowing nothing of the things of which they speak."

Appendices

 

[ArmyMatt]

1. working in them? no. the indwelling and God working from within occurs at baptism, but that doesn't mean the Spirit wasn't at work throughout their lives or that He didn't inspire them.

2. maybe, I dunno. you'd have to ask a Jerusalem Patriarchate historian.

 

[rakovsky]

Dear Matt, Thanks for your replies. It sounds like for Question 1, you are saying that the Spirit could be at work in the pagan prophets' lives and could inspire them, but would not dwell in them.

Also, I added a new Question, 3, above that relates to this.

 

[ArmyMatt]

Dear Matt, Thanks for your replies. It sounds like for Question 1, you are saying that the Spirit could be at work in the pagan prophets' lives and could inspire them, but would not dwell in them.

Also, I added a new Question, 3, above that relates to this.

question 1, yes, that is what I am saying.

question 3, even when the Spirit guides a prophet, even in a state of ecstasy, the prophets still had their autonomy.

 

[rakovsky]

Fr. Matthew,
To clarify about Question 1, what might one say is the distinction between the Holy Spirit's relationship to each of the three groups below?:

1. Pagan non-Christians (eg. the Prophet Balaam and the Sibylline Oracles if the Oracles made Christian prophecies)
2. Old Testament prophets like Samuel, David, and Isaiah
3. Pious, faithful, baptised Christians

For instance, did the Holy Spirit "inspire" all three groups to make prophecies and work in them successfully to achieve the prophecies, yet only continuously dwell in only the 2nd or 3rd group?

For Group 1 (pagans), the Jewish Encyclopedia says, referring to a rabbinical commentary on Numbers 20:

Among the pagans Balaam, from being a mere interpreter of dreams, rose to be a magician and then a possessor of the Holy Spirit (Num. R. xx. 7). But the Holy Spirit did not appear to him except at night, all pagan prophets being in possession of their gift only then (ib. xx. 12).

The Netivyah Bible Instruction Ministry page on Parashat Balak says about Balaam:

If we read between the lines, we understand that he was one of the greatest prophets in the Torah. He was filled with the spirit of God. This parasha shows us that Balaam spoke with God on a regular basis.

In "An Ancient Pagan Prophecy of Christ?", William Hamblin writes that many Christians saw the Sibyllines to be at least partly inspired by the Holy Spirit:

Other early Christians, however, interpreted some of the Sibylline oracles as inspired prophecies of the coming of Christ, especially Virgil’s fourth “Eclogue,” which was thought to have been a poetic prophecy based on a Sibylline oracle. The Christians quoted passages from these oracles to their pagan rivals as proof that even the pagans’ own sacred books prophesied of Christ.

The Sibylline oracles thus began to be seen by many Christians as having been, at least in part, inspired by the Holy Spirit, and they were quoted by many early Christian apologists and church fathers, including Augustine.
https://www.deseret.com/2014/1/25/20533684/an-ancient-pagan-prophecy-of-christ

Regarding Group 2, in Psalm 51, David prayed: “Create in me a clean heart, O God, and put a right spirit within me.” and "Cast me not away from Your presence; take not Your Holy Spirit from me." This implies to me that David might have been asking for God's Spirit to be or stay in him.

 

[ArmyMatt]

group 1: maybe.
group 2: had inspiration through the prophets and the Law.
group 3: possess the indwelling of the Spirit.

 

[rakovsky]

Do you think that Psalm 51 makes it sound like David also had the indwelling because it talks about God's Spirit being "within" him?

The article "Did the Holy Spirit come upon or fill the Old Testament saints?" says:

The first time we are told the Holy Spirit was involved with a person occurs when He enables Bezalel to be a skilled craftsman for the tabernacle (Exodus 31:3).

• I have filled him with the Spirit of God in wisdom, in understanding, in knowledge, and in all kinds of craftsmanship . . . Exodus 31:3 (NASB)

Did the Holy Spirit come upon or fill the Old Testament saints? | NeverThirsty

The article claims that the Spirit did not permanently dwell in the OT prophets because David in Psalm 51 pleaded that God not take the Spirit from him, implying that it was not necessarily permanent. The article also points to Ezekiel 2:2 &3:24, where the Spirit is in Ezekiel:

2. And the spirit entered into me when he spake unto me, and set me upon my feet, that I heard him that spake unto me.
...
24. Then the spirit entered into me, and set me upon my feet, and spake with me, and said unto me, Go, shut thyself within thine house.

The article concludes that the difference between the OT and NT relations with the Holy Spirit is that it's only in the NT that the Holy Spirit "dwells" in the believer. But for me, it sounds like in the OT the Spirit had been "dwelling" in some prophets because it was "in" them.
Like the article above, Wikipedia's article on the Holy Spirit in Judaism describes the Holy Spirit "resting on" Old Testament prophets:

According to Job 28:25, the Holy Spirit rested upon the Prophets in varying degrees, some prophesying to the extent of one book only, and others filling two books.[22] Nor did it rest upon them continually, but only for a time. ... In Biblical times the Holy Spirit was widespread, resting on those who, according to the Bible, displayed a propitious activity; thus it rested on Eber and (according to Joshua 2:16) even on Rahab.

Ellicott's commentary on John 3:34 ("For he whom God has sent speaks the words of God: for God gives not the Spirit by measure to him.") says that the Spirit dwelt in the OT prophets but only to a limited extent:

The words “by measure,” in the sense of limitation, are frequent in the classical and rabbinical writings. The Rabbis seem to have applied the phrase to prophets and teachers, saying that the Spirit dwelt in the prophets only in a certain measure. Comp. 2Kings 2:9, where Elisha prays for “a double portion,” or, more exactly, a portion of two—the portion of the first-born son (Deuteronomy 21:17)—of the spirit of Elijah. The same thought meets us in St. Paul (himself a pupil of Gamaliel), who speaks of “the self-same Spirit dividing to every man severally as He will” (see 1Corinthians 12:4-12). The opposite of this thought, then, is before us here. God gives in this case not as in others. The Son who cometh from above is above all. There is no gift of prophet, or of teacher, which is not given to Him. He has the fulness of the spiritual gifts which in part are given to men, and He speaks the very words of God.

Gill's Exposition on this verse, John 3:34, notes:

"Says R. Joden bar R. Simeon, even the waters which descend from above are not given, but, "in measure".--Says R. Acha, even the Holy Spirit, which dwells upon the prophets, does not dwell, but "in weight".''

Regarding "dwelling" vs. not "dwelling", my impression from these quotes is not that the Holy Spirit wasn't necessarily staying/dwelling/resting in the OT prophets, but that it was in them to only a limited extent and temporarily so, such that it could leave them, whereas in Christianity, it is in them permanently and in fullness.

If by "dwelling" in the prophets vs. not "dwelling" in them you meant that it didn't stay in them permanently, it would make sense for me to agree. Otherwise, how do you explain "dwelling" vs. just being "in" and resting on the prophets?

 

[ArmyMatt]

the indwelling in the OT wasn't the fullness of the indwelling like in the NT.

 

[rakovsky]

For Question #2, I am surprised that despite searching online, I wasn't able to find out about the history of the tradition of releasing a dove at Epiphany/Theophany at the Jordan. What I found was just news references in the last, say, 20 years, about it happening, like this brief note:

At the end of services a dove is traditionally released.
The Great Blessing of Water at the Jordan River

Danny Herman writes:

At the Site the Patriarch waved palm fronds, sprinkled some water on the cheering crowds, and released several doves, echoing the account of the Baptism of Jesus at the site: “As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” (Mat. 3:16-17).

i.e. the release of the doves is connected with Jesus seeing the Spirit descending like a dove in Mat. 3.

The Russian article by Archmandrite Aleksey says the same kind of thing, that the doves symbolize glad tidings of the Holy Spirit and of God's grace:

Когда Господь выходил из воды Иорданской, то отверзлись небеса, и был услышан голос Бога Отца: « Сей есть Сын Мой возлюбленный, в Котором Мое благоволение» (Мф. 3, 17), и Дух в виде голубя явился над водами. Здесь мы видим явление Святой Троицы: Бога Отца – в гласе, Бога Сына – в водах Иорданских и Бога Духа – в виде голубя.

И по сей день в Иерусалимской Церкви существует обычай: в то время, когда Патриарх освящает воду в реке Иордане на месте, где крестился Спаситель, выпускают голубей, специально для этого приготовленных. И голуби, взлетевшие в небо, являются символами радостной вести о Духе Святом, о благодати Божией, которая пришла в мир.

This one says that the doves are a symbol of the descent of the Holy Spirit:

Тут же выпускается пара голубей как символ сошествия Святого Духа.
В Крещение на реке Иордан ежегодно происходит чудо... - Воскресен ...

This was basically all that I found, so I don't know what to make of this silence. Like if it is only a modern or recent ritual to release the doves.

 

[rakovsky]

the indwelling in the OT wasn't the fullness of the indwelling like in the NT.

OK. That is a good answer.

 

[rakovsky]

For Question 3 above, one difference that I see is that the Israelite prophets were not, AFAIK, in a frenzied state when they made their prophecies, nor did they immediately forget or become unaware of what they said. Nor does it turn out on closer inspection that Justin Martyr is saying this about the Israelite prophets.

But sometimes Biblical prophecy has been considered "ecstatic". I would have to check, but I think maybe the apostles at Pentecost could be considered such an example.

Still, I am considering whether any of the OT prophets were speaking in a kind of volitionless or automatic way as if they were directly transferring or communicating God's words.

 

[ArmyMatt]

no, it was never volitionless. they were directly communicating God's words, but they did so freely.

 

[rakovsky]

For Question #2 (about the dove release in the Oracle and the Jerusalem Patriarch's doves), it looks like there is an Orthodox tradition of releasing doves at Epiphany, but I don't know how far back it goes or its direct origins.

The Armenian historian Giragos mentions the dove releasing ceremony among Greeks in 1023 at Epiphany:

During the last period of the Bagratid Dynasty, the Emperor Basil of Byzantium invited Catholicos Bedros to take part in the religious ceremony of Blessing of Water which was to take place on January 6, 1023 in the stream that followed through Drabizon. ...
The Armenian historian Lastivertsi wrote, “With the pouring of the sacramental oil into the water by the patriarch a ray of light suddenly sprang from the sprinkler into the water …”
Historian Vartan wrote, “A marvelous sign occurred. Light shone from the hand of the patriarch and from the consecrated oil, to the fascination of the observers, and the faith of the Armenians was much reinforced …”
...
On that occasion an interesting additional event occurred when the Greek churchmen were conducting services. When they were sprinkling the Holy Chrism into the waters a dove was released. According to expectation, the dove, after a short flight, was to return and remain at the consecrated waters. However, unexpectedly, and eagle swooped in from afar, seized the dove and carried it off. “Suddenly an eagle swooped in, seized it, and left, much to the shame of all the Greeks who begrudgingly praised the faith of the Armenians …” (Historian Giragos).

Feast of the Nativity & Theophany of Our Lord Jesus Christ – St. Thomas Armenian Apostolic Church

The article above mentions a ritual of Greeks and Armenians releasing a dove again in 1211.

A Russian article says, "На Богоявление (Крещение Господне) на Руси было принято выпускать голубей – в знак Божественной благодати, снизошедшей на Христа.", ie. that at Theophany in "Rus" there was a tradition of releasing doves. (Почему на свадьбе выпускают голубей) As I understand it, Rus typically refers to the Eastern Slavic lands (eg. Ukraine and Russia) before the time of the Tsars (16th century).

The Tampa Bay Times has this article about a 113 annual Epiphany celebration that includes releasing a dove in Tarpon Springs:

Her family has released Epiphany doves for years. Now it's her turn.
The 113th annual celebration of the Baptism of Jesus Christ is expected to draw thousands to Tarpon Springs.

Her family has released Epiphany doves for years. Now it's her turn.

"A man was the dove bearer for the first 14 years of Epiphany in Tarpon Springs, but since 1935, the honor traditionally has gone to a young woman in the choir."
Carrying on an Epiphany tradition

In 2016, the city of Izmir repeated a tradition of consecrating the waters that had stopped in 1922 because of the population exchange between Turkey and Greece. The article mentions that a dove was released as part of tradition:

Священник также по традиции выпустил голубя.

In the book Steelton, Michael Barton and Simon J. Bronner describe a 1934 ceremony by immigrants to Pennsylvania:

Macedonian-Bulgarian Church members diving for the cross, 1934. Members of the Macedonian-Bugarian Orthodox Church in Steelton gather at the Susquehanna River bank for a ceremony on the Feast of the Epiphany, January 19, which commemmorates the baptism of Christ in the Jordan River. Volunteers dive into the icy waters to retrieve a metal cross thrown by David Nakoff. Upon the cross's rescue, four doves would be released into the air.

In the 1969 book Folklore, R.M. Dawkins writes: "At Epiphany a priest goes in procession to a spring, river, cistern, or to the sea, and immerses a cross three times. At the same time a white dove is released."

The article "Epiphany in Greece" claims that this is a Greek tradition too:

The tradition is that

 a priest, surrounded by brave young men and boys, throws a cross into the sea, either from the harbour or from a boat at sea; the minute the cross leaves the priest’s hand, the divers jump into the freezing water to catch the cross. The lucky one who finds and returns the cross is blessed by the priest. As the cross is victoriously brought back, the priest releases a white dove, as a symbol of the holy spirit. 
This tradition is carried out to commemorate the baptism of Christ and to bless the waters.
https://demo.athenscentre.gr/epiphany-in-greece/

Still, I was not able to find mention of releasing doves at Epiphany before 1023.

I have a strong sense that these traditions are somehow related because the Oracles were so strong in early and medieval Christianity - the Sibyls are even painted on the Vatican walls as medieval/Renaissance art, and because in 20th century records the release of doves at Epiphany is so common in the Orthodox tradition.

 

[rakovsky]

no, it was never volitionless. they were directly communicating God's words, but they did so freely.

For Question 3 (Was Biblical prophecy composed in an... automatic, volitionless, or involuntary way?) It sounds like you are saying that the communication was direct, like when Isaiah talks about God opening his ear, but that it was not volitionless or involuntary, ie. that God did not overwhelmingly force the prophet to speak as if the prophet lacked any choice to stop speaking.
I am not sure if this is what I am trying to ask about when I say "involuntary". I am thinking of a scenario where the force of God's power comes on the believing loyal prophet so strongly that the prophet just says directly the same thing that comes into him. The prophet submits his will to God and then God directly uses him to say out loud the words that God puts in the believer's mental ears. Maybe it is like when Jesus said "Not my will but thine be done" in His prayer. Or like a Church father referred to the Holy Spirit playing the apostles like a flute. The loyal prophet is so loyal that when the words come onto him, his will is not resisting God, but rather he allows his own will to be overwhelmed by God's will.

Calvin had his theory of "Irresistible Grace", whereby God's Election and Grace were so overwhelming that the Elect had no real choice in the matter. But Calvin's Irresistible Grace is not Orthodox doctrine, since in Orthodoxy the Elected believer does have a choice in whether to accept God's Grace.

So in asking about the prophecy being involuntary or volitionless, maybe I am thinking of a scenario where the Divine Power is so strong that the prophet who accepts it essentially does not apply his own will to the performance. His own will becomes moot as his just accepts God's.

I don't know if this is correct or how to formulate this.

One thing that brings the question up for me is that I know that there is something like a debate or discussion about how prophecy works. Sometimes it must work where God acts upon a person's mental reasoning and the person cooperates with God and reasons out prophecies. But there seems to be a second, different perception of prophetic speech that is not frenzied like the Sibyl, but seems to be maybe like a medium or robot or computer where God directly speaks through the believer. And if we are talking about a situation comparable to a medium or computer, this does not seem to involve the speakers' will. I guess that a medium could "turn off" the messaging in the middle of a medium session, but it seems like they would sometimes be described as having involuntary or volitionless performances. In the case of modern Charismatics, they seem to be in some state where they act in ways that don't seem to come from their own conscious choicemaking. Some Charismatics have seemed to others to be in something like a hypnotized state, and I don't know if that could be considered a voluntary or involuntary state with voluntary/involuntary actions.

Maybe sometimes this is also ecstatic. I don't think that the apostles were "frenzied" at Pentecost, but there seems to be a perception that some of them or other saints went into an ecstatic state, like when Paul says that he knew someone who went to the 3rd heaven, and doesn't know if this was in the flesh or not.

 

[ArmyMatt]

yes, the prophet freely totally follows what God is telling him to say

 

[rakovsky]

I am trying to think of a good analogy of what I mean by involuntary. A person could agree to undergo hypnosis, and then in their hypnotized state the hypnotizer could tell them to do things like walk into a wall or jump off a table. It is not clear to me whether such actions when instructed in the hypnotized state would be voluntary because I have heard different things about whether a hypnotized person would do things that the person would seriously object to if they were not hypnotized. I don't know if the person would rightly be considered will less or volition less. The person is assenting to what the hypnotizer tells them to do and then carrying out the actions like walking into a wall that certainly a conscious person would not normally do of their Own free will.

The hypnotized person is carrying out some actions in a trance state, and I'm not sure that the person would be acting voluntarily in such a state. In a religious context this could be like modern Pentecostals who do things besides just speaking in tongues that a normal person not normally do with their own free will.

 

[ArmyMatt]

the prophets were never in a trance where their will was overridden.

 

[rakovsky]

For Question 3, Martti Nissinen writes in "Prophecy and Ecstasy" that some prophets had trances and ecstasy, since their behavior different from normal waking state behavior and they had things like an altered grasp of reality. He also says that Saul had a "prophetic frenzy" (yitnabbĕ’û), although noting that it isn't clear if the Bible endorses his frenzy:

The words trance and ecstasy, the meanings of which largely overlap in scholarly language, refer to “forms of behavior deviating from what is normal in the wakeful state and possessing specific cultural significance, typical features being an altered grasp of reality and the self-concept, with the intensity of change ranging from slight modifications to a complete loss of consciousness.”
...
Attempts to make a distinction between the “sober” ecstasy of the biblical prophets and the more frantic, or “orgiastic,” ecstasy elsewhere are arbitrary at best.74 Different types of ecstasy can certainly be recognized and differences between biblical and other accounts can be shown, but no general dividing line between biblical and extrabiblical prophets can be drawn in this respect.
Many prophets of Yahweh, in fact, engage in ecstatic behavior in the Hebrew Bible, making spirit journeys and seeing heavenly things (2 Kgs 5:26; 6:17; Ezek 3:12–15; 8; 11; 37:1–14; 40–8; cf. Paul in 2 Cor. 12:1–5). Just like in the Near East, presence in the divine council—hardly typical of the regular state of mind—or at least knowledge of its decisions is required of a true prophet in several biblical texts (1 Kgs 22:19–23; Isa. 6; Jer. 23:16–22; Amos 3:7).
...
Later on, when Saul sends his men to Ramah to look for David who has escaped Saul’s aggression, they encounter a band of prophets led by Samuel, falling into a prophetic frenzy (yitnabbĕ’û) with them. The same happens to two further commandos sent by Saul, until he himself goes to Ramah and the spirit of God comes upon him and he, once again, “prophesies” before Samuel, strips off his clothes and lies naked all that day and the following night (1 Sam. 19:19–24). The verb hitnabbē’ does not seem to imply any kind of transmission of divine words, but is used for Saul’s ecstatic comportment,84 which is nevertheless enough for the audience to identify Saul among the prophets. ... While the editors of the Deuteronomistic History incorporate an account of such prophets in their composition without hesitation, it may be debated to what extent Saul’s frantic behavior and his association with the prophetic groups reflects an appreciation of such activity, or rather instigates the prelude of his ultimate failure.

Prophecy and Ecstasy - Oxford Scholarship

Nissinen quotes Philo's description of prophecy to show it as one of ecstatic direct prophecy from God, but then says that early Christian writers later got away from the concept of ecstasy in prophecy:

Philo of Alexandria, on the other hand, describes his work in unequivocally ecstatic terms. Philo writes:

• A prophet possessed by God (theophorētos) will suddenly appear and give prophetic oracles (prophēteusei). Nothing of what he says will be his own, for he that is truly under the control of divine inspiration has no power of apprehension when he speaks but serves as the channel for the insistent words of another’s prompting (dieleusetai kathaper hypoballontos heterou). For prophets (p.190) are the interpreters (hermēneis) of God, who makes full use of their organs of speech to set forth what he wills.

In another context, Philo says that a prophet “has no utterance of his own, but all his utterance came from elsewhere, the echoes of another’s voice.” The human light is replaced by God’s light, “ecstasy (ekstasis) and divine possession (entheos) and madness (mania) fall upon us,” and only when the divine spirit departs does the human mind return to its tenancy.97 This title only befits the wise, such as Noah, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, and Philo explains even his own writing happening under the influence of divine possession (hypo katokhēs entheou), which makes him filled with “corybantic frenzy” (korybantia) so that he becomes unconscious of anything, even of the lines written by himself.
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However, the ecstatic component of prophecy seems to have become a problem for some early Christian writers who saw it happening in a religious environment they deemed as heretic or pagan. For instance, for Origen and Lactantius, a true biblical or Christian prophet was strictly controlled and non-ecstatic even under divine inspiration.

The Jewish "Chabad" article "What is Prophecy" claims:

Much like uncontrolled ESP or psychic powers, prophecy would manifest itself suddenly, without any warning signals or preparation on the part of the prophet. What happened was that G‑d chose a person to speak to and through — not the other way around.
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Like the transmission of a high-megawatt signal to a low-wattage instrument, prophecy would often overload the mental equipment of the receiver. Prophecy frequently caused fainting, temporary insanity, involuntary muscular spasms and seizures. Some prophets were capable of receiving the signal in their sleep, having extremely enigmatic, riddle-like dreams which they would decode upon awakening.
What is Prophecy?

But it doesn't cite anything to back up the claim.

James Smith writes in The Biblical Doctrine of Inspiration,

Several of the early fathers used the analogy of performing on a musical instrument to describe inspiration. Justin Martyr (103-165) says that the Spirit 'acted on just men as a plectrum on a harp or lyre.' Athenagoras (133-190) said that inspired men 'uttered that which was wrought in them, the Spirit using them as its instruments, as a flute player might play a flute.'

If a person under inspiration by God to make declarations works like a musical instrument being played by a performer to make notes, it doesn't seem as if the person's own will is involved, since a musical instrument like a flute doesn't use a will in making notes.

According to Joshua Van Oven in his book A Manual of Judaism, detailed in a conversation between a Rabbi and his pupil, commenting on Principle VII of the XIII Principles of Judaism, in contrast to Moses,

the communication of prophecy to all others was either through the intermediation of an angel, a dream, a trance, or vision; as with Elijah, Elisha, Nathan, &c., or the unexpected and involuntary impulse of prophecy poured out by an inspiration of which they were not apprized, and which they did not intend, as with Balaam; but with Moses, the divine afflatus was like an oral communication, readily and blandly conveyed.

Unfortunately, I am still having trouble pinning down explicitly or definitively in scripture or patristics whether the prophet's will was involved in the prophecies or whether the messages were automatic.

 

[ArmyMatt]

the Prophet's will is always involved, since we are always free. even if we are plucked like an instrument, since God doesn't force us, we say yes to every pluck.

 

[rakovsky]

the Prophet's will is always involved, since we are always free.

I am trying to think how to explain better what I mean by involuntary, volitionless, automatic.
There are saints who pray the Jesus Prayer constantly, and they do it so much that they wake up praying it. They probably are even praying it when they are dreaming.
They started doing it deliberately and planned to do it constantly, and they do it so much it becomes perhaps automatic. So when they started, their decision and actions were deliberate, but after time it becomes so habitual that it's maybe automatic.

Maybe another example of this kind of behavior is if a person is in a warzone, they instantly hit the ground for safety and cover when they hear an explosion. So a year later when they are in a non-combat zone back in their homeland and hear something loud that sounds like explosion, they duck or hit the ground. It's become automatic for them. They forgot that they are now in a safe zone and their reaction takes over without them thinking things through.

I don't know if either of these examples really works.