Sibylline Oracles

Historical printed page 370

THE SIBYLLINE ORACLES oracles from Sicily, Greece, and Asia Minor, and a large number were brought back (including 1,000 lines from Erythrae), from which a collection was made. After this the numbers increased so rapidly that Augustus commanded 2,000 spurious volumes to be destroyed. But with their increase in bulk their credit began to diminish, and the Emperor found it necessary to carry out a similar process of weeding. § 4. THE JEWISH SIBYLLINE VERSES, The beginning of the Maccabean revolt revived the enthusiasm of the Jews in every department of life. Among other things the missionary side of their faith aroused greater interest, and a serious attempt was made to place its claim on intellectual grounds more clearly before the world. At the same time eschatology began to exercise more and more influence on men’s minds, and the conception of a final setting aright of all apparent injustice by the direct judgement of God appealed with increasing force to the more thoughtful of the Jews. The former tendency may be illustrated by the attempt of Aristobulus, a Jew living at the court of Ptolemy VII about 160 B.c., to prove that the best literature of Greece was in reality indebted to a large extent to Jewish inspiration: the latter point by the composition of the books of Danieland Enoch. Both these tendencies combined to suggest to a cultivated Jew living in Egypt about the middle of the second century B.c., that, if he could use the authority of the ancient and revered Sibyl, he might by means of verses written in the Sibylline style gain a very much wider audience for the propagation of his faith, The example of the book of Daniel was in all probability before him, and he would recognize no moral fault in the use of such means, especially if collections of Sibylline Oracles were from time to time receiving large additions. His method was not pure invention: he took ancient oracles and pieced them together, adding passages of his own which breathed strong monotheism and the glorification of the Jewish people. It is probably to this! unknown author that we owe the greater part of the third book. His example could hardly fail to inspire imitators both among Jews and later among Christians, Nor did the feeling of the day see anything incongruous in the ancient Sibyl denouncing idolatry and singing the praises of the happy land of Judaea. Indeed the new collection of oracles achieved very considerable success. § 5. THE SIBYLLINES IN LATER HISTORY. The burning of the Capitol in 82 B.c. resulted in the complete destruction of the official collection of Sibylline Oracles. Seven years later the Senate dispatched three commissioners to Erythrae to fetch from thence any that could be discovered, and as a result of their efforts some 1000 verses were collected from that place while a considerable number were added from elsewhere. It is not improbable that the interest aroused by this search inspired the manufacture of many spurious oracles, some of which may have been of Jewish origin. From the materials thus collected a selec- tion was made by the Quindecemviri, and the accepted verses were kept in greater secrecy. Never- theless some knowledge of them was public property. Cicero (de Div. ii. 54) remarks on the art displayed in them as exemplified by their? acrostic form and throws some suspicion on their genuineness. Virgil in his famous description of the Golden Age in Eclogue iv quotes from Sib. iii. 785 ff. But the publication of oracles took away the main point of their sanctity, and we find the Emperors diligent in preserving them, as far as possible, inviolate. So Augustus instituted a search- ing inquiry into them and destroyed all except a small collection which was stored under the base of the Palatine Apollo. A further investigation was carried out on similar lines by Tiberius. In view of these facts, it is obvious that the wide knowledge of Sibylline verses among early Christian writers points to there having been many collections over and above the official collection of Rome. It is possible that the oracles rejected by the scrutiny of the Quindecemviri instead of being destroyed merely found a wider audience, being incorporated with various subsequent additions. Inasmuch as the official collection, which was finally burned by order of Stilicho in the reign of Theodosius, was, as far as we know, never published, it would appear that the verses which we possess were all preserved in private hands. There is no evidence that the Sibylline Oracles enjoyed any great popularity with later Jewish writers. Josephus (Az. i. § 4) indeed alludes to Sib. iii. 97 ff., but the early appropriation of the Sibyl by Christian writers seems to have militated against extensive Jewish use. Among the early Fathers allusions and quotations are very frequent. Hermas alludes to the Sibyl in Pastor 2, ὃ 4. Clement of Rome (cf. Justin, Resp. ad Quaest. 74) speaks of the Sibyl’s prophecy that the world should ἃ a ΤῊΣ ἀνέξεσθαι that the writer was Aristobulus himself is a tempting one and was put forward by Alexandre exc. ad Stb.). Woe only Sibylline acrostic which we possess is the Christian one in Sib. viii. 217-50, which is of considerably ater date. 379 απ νον