There is no need to spend time in criticising the details of such a story, which is merely an attempt to find a venerable origin for a Roman practice ; for it is certain that the Roman govern- ment had such books of Sib. oracles, which they from time to time augmented or retrenched by various editorial processes. What is important to remember is—(i.) that these oracles were for the most part, perhaps wholly, in Greek; (ii.) that they were in hexameter verse, probably with the literary devices of alphabetic and acrostic writing ; (iii.) that they were concerned inter alia with the fortunes of the world at large and of the empire, the ages of the universe, and the collapse and rejuvenescence thereof. The first of these points, and, in part, the second, may best be illustrated by references to an actual oracle which has come down to us, preserved by Phlegon, de Mirabil. c. 10, apparently from a Roman writer, Sextus Carminius, and dated in the year A.V.C. 629 (=B.c. 124). It relates to the birth of a hermaphrodite, which the oracle alludes to in the words—
kat Tol more @ynul yuvaixa *Avdpbyuvov rékecOat exovTd wep’ dpoeva mavra Nyrlayat 0’ boa Ondvrepar palvovor yuvaixes.
Obviously, the oracle was made to suit the portent, and it was composed in hexameters. At this time, then, we know the method-of formation of the oracles, and that the collection was subject to accretion or modification. They were written, as all later oracles and books of oracles, in the religious metre and language of Homer. Moreover, on ex- amination it will be found that the oracle is acrostic, and apparently based upon an earlier acrostic which has been used, which was itself metrical. The books were therefore treated as sortes by the augurs, but handled with freedom in secret so as to adjust the prophecies to the needs of the time. That they contained some scheme of the ages of the world and of the droxardoracis rdvrwy, is clear from Virgil’s
‘ Ultima Cumeei venit iam carminis etas ; Magnus ab integro seeclorum nascitur ordo.’ (clog. iv. 4),
and a number of similar considerations.
All of these features are abundantly illustrated in the Jewish and Christian Sib. books. It was necessary that they should be if the world was to swallow the literary deception that was being practised upon it.
SIBYLLINE ORACLES 67
It must not be supposed that such a, gigantic and long-continued fraud could have been carried on without meeting with criticism from a people as acute and polished as the Greeks. While it is certain that almost all the Fathers of the Church were firm believers in the inspiration of the Sibyls (for we need not doubt the honesty of Justin and Clement, of Tertullian, of Lactantius, and a host of others, though it is equally clear that the deceived must have been near of Lin to the deceivers), it was not possible that such keen wits as Lucian and Celsus should come under the spell. They saw at once that the Christians were making oracles to suit their own propaganda, and were quick to proclaim the fact; and Lucian, in particular, himself turned Sibyllist in order to tell in mock heroics the fortunes of Peregrinus and of Alexander of Abonoteichos. This extant criticism and ridi- cule must have been widely extended. We can trace from the successive Sibyllists themselves the objections which they had to meet. One, of necessity, was the dependence of the Sibyl upon Homer, for Sibyllism is closely related to Centoism, and borrows lines and expressions freely from Homer. It was necessary, therefore, for the assumed Sibyl to explain that the borrowing was really on the side of that thief Homer. Accord- ingly, the Sibyl herself attacks the supposed later poet in the following lines—
kal Tes Yevdoypddos mpéoBus Bpords éooera aris Wevddrarpis* dice. 5¢ pdos év drjow énow
. - . Tew yap éuay péTpwv Te KpaThoer.
(Orac. Sib. iii. 419 ff.) ;
and this judgment is endorsed by Tatian, who in his tract Against the Greeks, § 41, maintains the superior date of the Sibyl to Homer. A closer examination, however, of the oracles reveals that Homer is not the only writer pilfered; there isa constant coincidence with fragments of Orphic hymns, which would certainly be much more pro- nounced if we were not limited in our comparison to the few fragments that have been conserved of this branch of literature. Now, it is worth noticin
that Clement of Alexandria (the best read of al the early Fathers in the matter of Greek literature) expressly declares that the Sibyl is earlier than Orpheus; while, to quote another author of nearly the same date, Tertullian will have it that the Sibylis older than all other literature (cf. Tert. adv. Nationes, ii. 12). It is clear from these testimonies that there had been from the first a critical dispute over the antiquity of the supposed Sibylline verses; at all events, the anti-Homeric strain in the Sibyl which we have quoted above occurs in verses which Alexandre assigns to the time of Antoninus Pius, and the writers who endorse the sentiment belong very nearly to the same period. And before this time there must have been an active Sibylline propaganda carried on by the early Christians, most of whom were deceived and some of them deceivers.
Something of a similar kind to this contest between Homer and the Sibyl and Orpheus and the Sibyl for priority, appears to have taken place at a later date in regard to Virgil. We have alread pointed out that the acquaintance of Virgil with Sibylline oracles may be assumed. It does not follow that these oracles have anything to do with the extant collection ; rather they seem to be the Roman collection, which Virgil must have known by report, and perhaps by actual study of published or unpublished portions. Now it has been shown by Dechent (Ueber das erste, zweite und elfte Buch der Sib. Weissugungen, 1873) that the eleventh book of the Oracles has coincidences of language with Virgil. The Sibyl describes, for example,