68° SIBYLLINE ORACLES the flight of Aineas from Troy in ll. 144 ff., which begin—
dipger © éx yevens re kal aiwaros ’Accapdxoro mais KhuTOs Hpwwv, Kparepds Te Kal AAKuLos av np,
which may be compared with
‘Romulus, Assaraci quem sanguinis Ilia mater Educet’ (Virg. 4/n. vi. 779).
After describing the person and fortunes of Aineas, the writer proceeds to explain that her verses will be stolen by a later poet, much in the same language as we noted in Bk. iii. for Homer—
kat Tis mpéoBus dvip copes tocerar abris dordds
Tolow emotor Noyous wérpos éméeoor KpaThoas* abros yap, mpwrioros euas BiBAous dvamdwoet kal Kpvwer wera Tatra,
But here we must, in view of the coincidences in language between the Sibyl and the #neid, under- stand Virgil and not Homer as the supposed thief. Obviously, the Sibyllist, who is so anxious to be prior to Virgil, must have written a good while after Virgil, as is also shown by the reference to Virgil as hiding the oracles. Alexandre refers this part of the oracles to the year A.D. 267; and it is interesting to observe that, not long after that date, the emperor Constantine in his oration to the Nicene Fathers invokes the authority of the Sibyl, and suggests the dependence of Virgil upon her writings, quoting Virgil for convenience in a Greek rendering. It is reasonable, therefore, to suppose that the question of relative priority between Virgil and the Sibyl belongs to this period of time.
It is to be noted, however, that the earliest of all the books of oracles does not seem to have encoun- tered any such hostile reception. Parts of what is now edited as the third book, Il. 97-294, 491-fin., are assigned by Alexandre to the year 166 B.c. It is not decided whether the production of these verses was due to some active inquiry which was being made at the time after extant oracles, which search might easily have led to the fabrication of them by some learned Alexandrian Jew, or whether it is only one more example, to be added to many belonging to this time, of the transference of the text of the LXX into Gr. verse. Whatever may be the reason, it is certain that the versified story of the destruction of the tower of Babel, with the poetic expansion that it was accomplished by the agency of mighty winds, was accepted as a fresh historical authority by contemporaries (Abydenus, Polyhistor, and, following them, Josephus), and as confirming the accuracy of the biblical record from which it is derived, by Clement of Alexandria and Eusebius. So that it does not appear that the earliest Jewish portions of the Sibylline books one the same hostility as those which are
ater and definitely Christian. They appear to have met with an unquestioning acceptance.
It will be convenient to set down here the dates which have been assigned to the extant books. Our first scheme is that of Alexandre, whose Hacursus ad Sibyllinos Libros is the store- house of material for all who wish to have a thorough knowledge of the subject. According to him—
Bk. iii. ll. 97-294 and 489-fin. is a Jewish work, written in Egypt in the year 166 or 165 8.0.
Bk. iv., the oldest of the Christian Sibyllines, was written in Asia in the Ist cent. a.p. under Titus or Domitian.
The Procmium to the collection (a fragment preserved by Theophilus of Antioch) and Bk, viii. ll. 217-429, are probably by the same Christian hand, and written in the beginning of the 2nd cent. under Trajan or Hadrian.
Bk, viii. 11. 1-217, written by a Christian of a millenarian type, in Egypt in the reign of Antoninus Pius.
Bk, iii. ll. 295-488 and Bk. v. are Judwo-Christian, and were written in Egypt in the reign of Antoninus Pius.
Bks. vi. and vii. are Christian (? heretical), and written in the reign of Alexander Severus, about A.p. 234,
SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH
Bk. viii. ll. 430-fin., by Christian hands in the middle of the 3rd cent. : é me
Bks. i. ii. and iii. I. 1-96, by Christian hands, in Asia in the middle of the 3rd cent. 4 i
Bks. xi. xii. xiii. xiv., Judeo-Christian, written in Egypt about the year 267 A.D.
With this scheme of Alexandre may be compared that pro- pounded by Ewald. According to Ewald (Abhandlung uber Entstehung Inhalt und Werth der Sib. Biicher, Gottingen, 1858) we have—
Bk. iii. Il. 97-828, about B.o, 124.
Bk. iv., about A.D. 80.
Bk. v. ll. 52-530, about A.D. 80,
Bks. v. ll. 1-51, vi. vii., in A.D. 138.
Bk, viii. ll. 1-360, about A.D. 211. ree
[Bk. viii. Il. 8361-500, Ewald declares to be non-Sibylline.]
Bks. i. ii. iii. Il. 1-96, about a.p. 300.
Bks. xi. xii. xiii. xiv., much later: Ewald imagines references to the emperor Odenatus and to the rise of Islam !
Further discussions of dates of the whole or parts of the different books may be found in Friedlieb, Orac. Sibyll. (Leipzig, 1852), or Bleek (Theol. Zeitschrift, Berlin, 1819), or Dechent (see above). The different judgments arrived at by these writers would probably be rectified by a closer study of the whole body of Sibylline literature. So far, the best guide is Alexandre, whose Hacursus is a monument of patiently accumulated facts.
EDITIONS OF THE SIBYLLINE ORACLES.—The first published por- tion of the Sibyllines was the famous acrostic, "Incovs Xpicres, Ozov vids, Swr4p, which was printed by Aldus.’ The first ed. was due to Xystus Betuleus (Sixtus Birken) at Basel in 1545. It con- tained the first eight books. The second (Lat.) ed. was issued from the same printing-house (John Oporinus) in the following year, The third (Gr.-Lat.) appeared at Basel in 1555. The fourth ed. (that of Opsopcwus = Koch) appeared at Paris in 1599, three years after the death of the editor. In 1817 the collection was expanded by Cardinal Mai’s discovery of the Books xi.—xiv., which were printed first in his Scriptorum vet. nova collectio, vol. iii. pt. 3. Of more modern edd. the ones in common use are those of Friedlieb (Leipzig, 1852), Alexandre (Paris, 1860), and Rzach. Of these, the last, published at Prague in 1891, is by far the best for the text; it contains no excursus, but has a brief critical preface, and a most valuable appendix exhibiting the dependence of the Sibyllines on Homer, Hesiod, the Orphic hymns, etc. With the text of Rzach and the excursus of Alexandre, the student can find out almost all that is known of the Sibyllines. Itis necessary to add a final caution with regard to the quotation of the books. There is a fluctuation in their numbering on the part of the editors, due to the imperfection of the series. The last four books, for example, are numbered ix. x. xi. and xii. by Friedlieb.