t 'The pseudo-oracular,' as K. \V. H. Myers puts it, 'is a style which has in all ages been cultivated with success' {Uelknica'i, London. 18;»8, p. 411).
§ A good stxitement of the problem is to be found in Har- nack's Gcschicfite der aftchrintiicheii Litterafur, i. i. (Leipzig, 1893]8tilfl., II. i. [do., 1897] 581 f., ii. (do., 1904) 184 f.
480
SIBYLLINE ORACLES
SIBYLLINE UEACLES
When I was in that town, I saw a spot where I was shown a huge basilica cut out of a single block — an extiaonliiiary and most marvellous object. According to those who had the local tradition from their fathers, it was there that she used to put forth her oracles. In the middle of the basilica I was shown three openings cut out of the same block, in which, when lilled with water, she was said to have bathed ; after which she would resume her robe, retire to the inner shrine of the basilica (still cut out of the same block), and in the middle of the chamber, seated on a high platform and throne, put forth her oracles.' He then argues that Plato must have had this Sibyl in his mind when he described in the Phcec/rus ('2-441}) and the Meno (99C) the phenomena of prophetic frenzy or rapture, since the Sibyl did not recollect afterwards what she had said during her uncon- scious ecstasies.* This Christian author also shares the view of Pausanias (see above) about the parentage of the Sibyl ; but for our immediate purpose it is more relevant to note his appeal to lier teaching on morality and monotheism. The appeal is by no means characteristic of him alone. It represents a widespread attitude, and from it there developed a Christian Sibylline literature. Christians, especially Christian apologists of the 2nd cent, like Theophilus of Antloch and Clement of Alexandria, were content to upbraid the de- generate and immoral paganism of the age by holding up the purer conceptions of the ancient Sibyl, but others were attracted to the predictions and threats of the Sibylline prophecies, which seemed so analogous to the apocalyptic tracts of the Church. It was the latter interest that first started the independent composition of Sibylline verses by Christians, probably on quite a small scale. Cel.sus, e.g., taunts Christians on two grounds, in this connexion ; they were 'Sibyllists,' he urged, with their belief in the existence of a prophetic Sibyl and their appeal to her oracular authority (Orig. c. Cels. v. 61), and they dared to interpolate these ancient sources with impious lines of their own (vii. 53 : nSv 5i ■7rapeyypd<peiv //.ip €ls ret ^K€LVT]s TToXXix Kttt ^\(i<TipTjp.a iiKTi bvvaude). It was not difficult to slip in a Christian line or alter a phrase, any more than in the case of the apoca- lypses of Judaism. Then came the full-blown production of such oracles by writers of the Cliuich, partly to justify the ways of Providence, partly to enforce Christian predictions and threats, partly even to disseminate Christian doctrines. Once the fabrication of Sihyllina started, it went on from modest interpretations of a line or two to fresh pieces. The sustaining force in the composition of such oracles was drawn from the popular passion, in several Christian circles, for their pagan and .Jewish prototypes. The ingenuity of Sibylline composers and the credulity of many simple Chris- tians combined to produce our present collection.
One remarkable proof of the prestige gained by the Sibylline oracles of paganism in certain corners of the Church during the '2nd cent, is afforded by an incidental allusion in Clement of Alexandria, which proves that some Pauline apocryphon claimed the authority of the Apostle for the Divine testi- mony of these primeval predictions. In the sixth book of the Stromata (ch. 5), arguing that the Greeks had some knowledge of the true God, Clement declares :
* From the Hellenic discipline and also from the legal [i.e. the Jewish] discipline, those who accept faith are gathered into the one race of the saved People — not that the three peoples are separated chronoloo:ically, but that they are dis- ciplined in different covenants of the one Lord [and instructed?] by the word of the one Lord. As it was God's will to save the
* In the Sibylline oracles, the Sibyl is passive or reluctant under the influence of inspiration. This tallied with some Jewish and Christian conceptions of prophetic inspiration.
Jews by giving them prophets, 80 he raised up the most notable of the Greeks themselves to be prophets in their own tongue, as they were able to receive the divine bounty, and thus separ- ated tiieni from the vulgar crowd. This will be clear from The Preaching of Peter and also from the words of the .Apostle Paul : " Take the Greek books, read the Sibyl, see how the unity of God and the course of the future are shown there. Take and read Hystaspes, and you will find the Son of God far more lumin- ously and plainly described, and how many kings will array themselves against the Christ, hating him and those who bear his name, his faithful ones, his patience and his coming." '
Unfortunately Clement does not name this Pauline document, and nothing corresponding to his quota- tion has turned up yet in any surviving fragments of the Acta Pauli. But the Alexandrian apolo- gist's attitude brings out one distinctive feature in the Christian Sibylllria. For all their common appeal to the pagan Sibyl or Sibyls, there was one difference between the procedure of the Jewish Sibyllinists and the Christian. The former often took pains to construct a Sibjd of their own ; she spoke (ireek, and spoke to Greeks, but she was of Hebrew birth. She repudiates her sisters of Erythne and Cumse. ' Mortals throughout Hellas will call me foreign, sprung from Er3thra', and shameless ; some will say I am the Sibyl whose mother was Circe and whose father was Gnostos, a raving maniac. But when all these things come to pass, then you will remember me, and none will then call me mad, but the prophetess of mighty God ' (iii. 813-818 ; cf. iv. 1-23). The Sibyl, like Cassandra, has to prophesj' to an incredulous generation. But she is of Hebrew origin, or at any rate of Babylonian. Traditions vary on her birth ; in some quarters she appears to have been connected with Noah (iii. 827, ' I was his daughter-in-law '), but it was at any rate essential to safeguard the origin of one who not only denounced idolatry but glorilied the Jewish people, and there was a tendency to identify her, in one or other of her Oriental forms, with Hebrew story. The Christian Sibyllinists, on the other hand, took over the pagan Sibyl or Sibyls. Their theory of Divine inspiration working in the past outside Israel — an outcome of the finer conception of the Logos, as held by the apologists — enabled tliem to dispense with the construction of a new figure. It would have been much more difficult for them, in any case, to produce a Sibyl for them- selves than it had been for the Hellenistic Jews of an earlier age.* The Christian Sibyl is therefore a voice rather than a figure ; she is rarely so dramatic and definite as the Jewish Sibyl, except when she is made to repent of her pagan vices (see below).