DowrgiWell, we could consider that the word prophet comes from Greek, prophetes, and meant something more on the lines of a spokesperson or wise one, it didn’t necessarily mean one who foretold the future as it seems to have come to mean today. In the Bible, the Greek word was used to translate the Hebrew word for a soothsayer, that is to say one who speaks the truth, again, it doesn’t necessarily imply foretelling the future. It’s more like saying it how it is. Interestingly, the Latin word, vates, seems to be derived from/related to a Celtic source, Irish faith for a poet and the Welsh gwawd, which in turn takes us back to an intriguing web of etymologies and derivations that are of interest to anyone studying Celtic cultures. The name of the Vatican apparently derives from an Etruscan word that passed into Latin and, subsequently, Italian and meant to prophesy, so the Vatican Hill – Mons Vaticanus – is the “hill of prophesy”.
Bennathow
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