Sibylline Oracles

Historical printed page 368

THE SIBYLLINE ORACHEES INTRODUCTION δι. SIBYLLINE ORACLES IN GENERAL. THE collection of verses known as the Sibylline Oracles was originally comprised in fifteen books and various fragments. Three books (ix, x and xv) are entirely missing, and there are gaps in some of those that remain, but with a total of some 4,240 lines their bulk is still very considerable. The greater part of this collection, however, is late and of comparatively little intrinsic worth, and the present study deals only with those of the fragments which are preserved in Theophilus ad Autolycum, and together form a kind of prelude or Proem, and with the earlier books iii, iv and v. But it will be necessary to give some preliminary sketch of the problem presented by the Sibylline literature in general. It is a common feature of early peoples to look for oracular utterances of divine or quasi-divine inspiration from the mouth of old women, such as are represented by the witch of Endor in the Old Testament, the Pythian priestess among the Greeks, and, possibly, the nymph Egeria among the Romans; and it added immensely to the prestige of such utterances if they were ambiguous or difficult to understand. It was from a common feeling such as this that the Sibylline Oracles took their rise, but they are pre-eminent among all similar literature in the authority which they wielded and the fascination which they exercised over the minds of men. Their power they owed chiefly to their claim to remote antiquity, and to the obscurity in which they were always wrapped. Of Greek origin, and written principally, if not exclusively, in Greek, it was at Rome where they were chiefly venerated and had the most direct influence. In times of special difficulty they were frequently consulted, apparently with satisfactory result. There can be little doubt that the ingenuity of the custodians of the Sibylline rolls supplied sometimes a suitable response to the question under discussion. A brief account of these oracles among the Romans is given below, but it is not with them that we have to deal. They have nearly all perished, and have left little more than a name and a history behind. But their great interest lies in the fact that the success which they achieved in their day led Jews and, later, Christians, seeking to defend or propagate their faith, to compose or adapt verses which they put forth under the name and authority of the ancient mysterious prophetesses known as the Sibyls, and in which lessons of monotheism and the like were put forth as the real teaching of the inspired teachers of the most hoar antiquity. With the morality of such a proceeding we have not here to deal: it is closely bound up with the question of the ancient idea of copyright, which was, as is obvious, radically different from ours. But of the success of this method of proselytising there can be little doubt, and indeed most Christian writers down to the time of Augustine accept without question the genuineness of these verses. The Sibylline Oracles, therefore, which we possess are a compilation of old and new oracles worked up by Jewish or Christian authors who lived at various times between c. 160 B.C. and the fifth century, or even later, A.D. Their chief interest for us lies in (i) their date and interpretation, (ii) their relation to other apocalyptic literature, (iii) the side-lights thrown on history. The above brief sketch must now be somewhat amplified, in order to explain the peculiar authority exercised by this form of oracle over Pagan, Jewish and Christian thought alike. And it will be necessary to go into a little more detail as to the Sibyl herself and the history of the Sibylline literature. §2. THE SIBYL. The name ‘ Sibyl’ first attracts attention. It has been maintained by some scholars (especially by R. H. Klausen in Aeneas und die Penaten) that the word is not a proper name but implies a sound issuing from a subterranean oracle, conveyed either by the rustling of the wind, as in the case of the oaks of Dodona, or by the splash of water. But there seems to be little justification for this, and it is better to follow the universal testimony of antiquity in regarding Σίβυλλα as a proper name. Nor 368