Sibylline Oracles

Historical printed page 380

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS. Βοοκ III, Lines 63-102 (63) From the stock of Sebaste Beliar shall come in later time (64) and shall traise} the mountain heights and raise the sea, (65) the great fiery sun and the bright moon, (66) and he shall raise up the dead and shall perform many signs (67) for men: but they shall not be effective in him. (68) Nay, but he deceives mortals, and many shall he deceive, (69) Hebrews faithful and elect and lawless too, and other (70) men who have never yet listened to the word of God. (71) But at whatsoever time the threatened vengeance of the Almighty God draws near, (72) and fiery energy comes through the swelling surge to earth, (73) and burns up Beliar and the overweening men, (74) even all who have put their trust in him, (75) then the world shall be under the dominion of a woman’s hands (76) obeying her every behest. (77) Then when a widow shall reign over the whole world (78) and cast both gold and silver into the godlike deep, (79) and the brass and iron of shortlived man (80) cast into the sea, then the elements of the world one and all (81) shall be widowed, what time God Whose dwelling is in the sky (82) shall roll up the heaven as a book is rolled. (83) And the whole firmament in its varied forms shall fall on the divine earth (84) and on the sea: and then shall flow a ceaseless cataract of raging fire, (85) and shall burn land and sea, (86) and the firmament of heaven and the stars and creation itself (87) it shall cast into one molten mass and clean dissolve. (88) Then no more shall there be the luminaries’ twinkling orbs, (89) no night, no dawn, no constant days of care, (90) no spring, no summer, no winter nor autumn. (91) And then the judge- ment of the Mighty God shall come into the midst (g2) of the mighty aeon, when all these things shall come to pass. (93) O for the watery tracks and all the dry land, (94) when the sun arises which never sets again. (95) All shall obey him as he ascends again upon the world, (96) for as much as he first fashioned them, and his might. (97) But whensoever the threatened vengeance of the Mighty God is brought to pass, (98) that vengeance with which once he threatened mortals when they made a tower (99) in the Assyrian land—Now all were of one tongue (100) and they desired to ascend into the starry heaven. (101) But straightway the Eternal laid great stress (102) upon the blasts: then the winds dashed down the great 63-92. The coming and destruction of Beliar. In P. this section is introduced with the following words: ‘ After this she proceeds in her discourse about the deceiving devil, the Antichrist, and speaks as follows.’ 63. Sebaste is Samaria, and the reference is probably to Simon Magus regarded as Belial or the Antichrist. But ‘the stock of Sebaste’ may refer to the Emperors (Augusti), and, if so, Beliar is Nero represented as returning. So R. H. Charles (Asc. /sa. p. Ixviii). 64. raise. The use of the verb στήσει is difficult. Possibly it alters its meaning from ‘ bring down’ in this line to ‘raise up’ in ]. 66. Or in 1. 64 we might read στρώσει. 67. In Acts of Peter with Simon xxviii ff. Simon Magus resuscitates a dead body, but only in appearance. When he departs the charm vanishes, and it is St. Peter who actually performs the miracle. The unreality of the miracles is alluded to in Ps. Hippol. xxiii. 106. 14. ; 70. The reading of ᾧ οὔπω Θεοῦ λόγον need not necessarily be altered. 71. The idea that the world would be destroyed by fire appears among the Romans as a Stoic doctrine. Probably it was derived from Heraclitus. Among the Jews it was possibly suggested by Oriental influences. 75. For the idea of the dominion of a woman cf. viii. 200. It has been suggested that Cleopatra is intended, transformed into a demoniacal personage. Bousset sees a recollection of the mythical Sea Monster, originally regarded as feminine. 79. the brass too and iron. Kai χαλκόν re σίδηρον. Emend with Wilamowitz into σὺν χαλκῷ τε σίδηρον. 81. be widowed. Probably, as Blass suggests, ‘ bereft of living things’. 82. Cf. Isa, xxxiv 4; Ps. cii. 26; Apoc. vi. 14, and frequently in later literature, e.g. Armenian Apoc. of Daniel, 240. 13 (cf. Bousset-Keane in Antichrist Legend, p. 242). 84. cataract οὗ... fire. Cf. Secrets of Enoch x. 3. 86. stars, σήματα, a conjectural emendation for ἤματα. 89. The cessation of seasons is paralleled in Secrets of Enoch xxxiii. 2; cf. also 4 Ezra vii and Sib. ii. 325. go. winter. There is no need to alter the MS. reading χειμών to χειμῶν᾽, 92. the mighty aeon (αἰὼν μέγας) was originally a Stoic conception. 93-6. The lines are usually regarded as Christian, but there is nothing distinctively Christian in them. The reference to the sun probably goes back to Malachi iv. 1, 2. It is possible, indeed, that Justin is referring to these lines in Cohort. ad Graec. 38, and if so he understood them to be Christian in interpretation. But that does not prove that they are of Christian origin. 96. fashioned (ἐπήγνυε) for MSS. ‘knew’ (ἐπέγνω). 97-294. A long section from the Erythraean Sibyl beginning with twelve lines adapted from the Babylonian Sibyl. The passage is widely quoted or alluded to: cf. Euseb. i. 23,24, who quotes from Alexander Polyhistor (fl. 80-40 B.C.) ; Josephus, Amz. i. 4. 3. Eusebius preserves also notices in Abydenus and Eupolemus (cf. Praep. Ev. ix. 14, xvii). Lact. Div. /nst. i. 6 explicitly refers the section to the Erythraean Sibyl, but a notice in the Schodza on Plato, Phaedr. 244 B ascribes the account of the tower and the giants to the Hebrew Sibyl. 100. There appears to be some confusion of the story in Genesis with the legend of the giants piling Pelion on Ossa. Homer, Od. xi. 304 ff.: Virg. Georg. i. 280 ff. 102. The wind is not mentioned in Genesis, but the allusion occurs in Jubilees x. 26; Josephus, «4712. i. 4. 3; Epiph. Adv. Haer. i. 1. 5. 380