Sibylline oracles

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The Sibylline Oracles (or pseudo-Sibylline Oracles) are a collection of twelve books, written in Greek hexameters, of various prophecies ascribed to different Sibyls. The surviving Sibylline Oracles are not the famous Sibylline Books of Roman history, which have been lost, but a collection of utterances dated to the middle of the second century BC at the earliest, and at the latest, to the fifth century AD.

The Pseudo-Sibyllines are a gold mine for students of Classical mythology and early first millennium Jewish, Gnostic and Christian beliefs. Notable are apocalyptic passages scattered throughout which at times seem like a first draft of John's Book of Revelation. In one instance they have a Christian code-phrase in successive first letters on each line (an 'acrostic').

They were composed partly by Alexandrian Jews and revised and enriched by Christian editors, who added similar texts, all in the interests of their respective religions; and in part they refer to events of the later Roman Empire, often portraying Rome in a decidedly negative light.

The Sibylline oracles are an odd pastiche of Hellenistic and Roman pagan mythology, including Homer and Hesiod; Jewish legends such as the Garden of Eden, Noah and the Tower of Babel; thinly veiled references to historical figures such as Alexander the Great and Cleopatra, as well as a long list of Roman emperors; and last but not least, Gnostic and early Christian homilies and eschatological writings, all in no particular order.

They may include some fragments or remnants of the earlier Sibylline Books kept in Temples in Rome, but this is dubious. The original books in Rome were destroyed by fire in 83 BC, were recreated in 76 BC by envoys sent by the Roman Senate throughout the antique world, and existed until AD 405, but little is known of their contents.

Athenagoras of Athens, writing A Plea for the Christians to Marcus Aurelius in ca. AD 176, quoted a section of the extant Oracles verbatim, in the midst of a lengthy series of classical and pagan references including Homer and Hesiod, and stated several times that all these works should already be familiar to the Roman Emperor.

The sibyls and the so-called Sibylline oracles were also often referred to by other early Church fathers; Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch (ca. 180), Clement of Alexandria (ca. 200), Lactantius (ca. 305), and Augustine (ca. 400), all knew various versions of the pseudo-Sibylline collections, quoted them or referred to them in paraphrase, and were unreluctant to Christianize them, by as simple means as inserting "Son of God" into a passage, as Lactantius:

"The Erythraean Sibyl" in the beginning of her song, which she commenced by the help of the Most High God, proclaims the Son of God as leader and commander of all in these verses:
All-nourishing Creator, who in all
Sweet breath implanted, and made God the guide of all."

Some fragmentary verses that have been left out of the collections that survive, are only known because they were quoted by a Church Father. Justin Martyr (ca. 150), if he is truly the author of the Hortatory Address to the Greeks, gives such a circumstantial account of the Cumaean sibyl that the Address is quoted here at the Cumaean sibyl's entry. The Catholic Encyclopedia states, "Through the decline and disappearance of paganism, however, interest in them gradually diminished and they ceased to be widely read or circulated, though they were known and used during the Middle Ages in both the East and the West." A student may find echoes of their imagery and style in much early medieval literature, nevertheless.

These books, in spite of their pagan content, have sometimes been described as part of the Pseudepigrapha. They do not appear in the canonical lists of any Church.

Large collections of these Jewish and Christian oracles are still in existence. When they were recovered in the 16th century, their initial publication caused a sensation among scholars. In 1545 Xystus Betuleius (Sixt Birck of Augsburg) published at Basel an edition of eight books of oracles with a preface dating from perhaps the sixth century AD, and the next year a version set in Latin verse appeared. Better manuscripts were used by Johannes Opsopoeus (Johannes Koch), whose edition appeared at Paris in 1596. The next edition was that in Gallandi's Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum (Venice, 1765, 1788). In 1817 Angelo Mai edited a further book, from a manuscript in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana at Milan (Codex Ambrosianus) and later he discovered four more books, in the Vatican Library, none of which were continuations of the eight previously printed, but an independent collection. These are numbered XI to XIV in later editions. Several fragments of oracles taken from the works of Theophilus and Lactantius, printed in the later editions, show that even more Sibylline oracles formerly existed. In the course of the 19th century, better texts also became available for the parts previously published.

The so-called Sibylline oracles are couched in classical hexameter verses. The contents are of the most varied character and for the most part contain references to peoples, kingdoms, cities, rulers, temples, etc. It is futile to attempt to read any order into their plan or any connected theme. The Catholic Encyclopedia suggests that

"their present arrangement represents the caprice of different owners or collectors who brought them together from various sources... Though there are occasionally verses which are truly poetical and sublime, the general character of the Sibylline Oracles is mediocre. The order in which the books are enumerated does not represent their relative antiquity, nor has the most searching criticism been able accurately to determine how much is Christian and how much Jewish."
"Book IV is generally considered to embody the oldest portions of the oracles, and while many of the older critics saw in it elements which were considered to be Christian, it is now looked on as completely Jewish. Book V has given rise to many divergent opinions, some claiming it as Jewish, others as the work of a Christian Jew, and others as being largely interpolated by a Christian. It contains so little that can be considered Christian that it can safely be set down as Jewish. Books VI and VII are admittedly of Christian origin. Some authors (Mendelssohn, Alexandre, Geffcken) describe Book VI as an heretical hymn, but this contention has no evidence in its favour. It dates most probably from the third century. Books I and II are regarded as a Christian revision of a Jewish original. Book VIII offers peculiar difficulties; the first 216 verses are most likely the work of a second century Jew, while the latter part (verses 217-500) beginning with an acrostic on the symbolical Christian word Icthus is undoubtedly Christian, and dates most probably from the third century. In the form in which they are now found the other four books are probably the work of Christian authors. Books XII and XIII are from the same pen, XII being a revision of a Jewish original. Book XI might have been written either by a Christian or a Jew in the third century, and Book XIV of the same doubtful provenance dates from the fourth century. The general conclusion is that Books VI, VII, and XIII and the latter part of Book VIII are wholly Christian. Books I, II, XI, XII, XIII, and XIV received their present form from a Christian. The peculiar Christian circle in which these compositions originated cannot be determined, neither can it be asserted what motive prompted their composition except as a means of Christian propaganda."

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