The only exception to this may be found in the pages of that second-rate Bunyan of the 2nd cent., Hennas. He makes his hero receive a book of revelations from an old woman, whom he takes to be the Sibyl. But he is told in a vision that it is the Church ; the Church is old, because she was created first of all things (Vis. i.-ii.). This would be all the more dramatic if the setting of the vision were Cumse.f Whether Hermas added this graphic touch or not, he certainly took over the figure of the aged Sibyl and re-shaped it as the Church, in order to suggest a medium for moral precepts and eschatological predictions. It is one of the daring touches in this religious romance, but later writers of the Church went on another line when they appropriated the Sibyl. They
* The traits remained the same ; (ft) the .Sibyl was a woman ; (6) her inspiration was ecstatic and frenzied ; (c) she spoke in hexameters, the ordinary metrical mould for religious oracles (Plutarch, De Pyth. Orac. 9, says she was nourished by the Muses on Helicon) ; and id) she was very old. The last point was sharpened for Jews and Christians, if the Sibyl was already in the far past, when Heracleitus heard of her towards the end of the Gth cent. B.C., how nmch more remote she would be to Hellenistic Judaism and early Christianity !
t 'I was on my way,' says Hermas, ec? xiu/uis (IMSS); most editors alter this to ei? Koujuaj.
SIBYLLINE ORACLES
SIBYLLINE ORACLES
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jirefened to leave lier in the far mists of (!iecl< antiquity as an int'i>ntr<)vei'til)le witness to Ooit's presence and [luriiose amiin^' the nations of ])re- Christian iiayanisni. From that coi^n of vantage she pours out reproof and threatenin;;. She has little or no dramatic role of an independent kind, till wo turn aside to some corners of Iv^-yptian Cliristianity.* where, as we saw at the heginniu},' of this article, apocalyptic fantasy set her amon^' the final opponents of Antichrist, amonj; the four witnesses to Clnist who herald His overthrow of death and evil. A conception of this kind could %rise only in a popular Christianity which was face to face with sterner exi^'encies than those of the a"e of Hermas ; but it reiirescnted the normal ("Tiristian attitude to the Sibyl as little as did Hermas. Wliat the Church valued primarily in the Sibyl was her rhapsodies, not any actions or sult'erin^s. She was a voice in the wiklerness, and it was to the oracles which she was suppose<l to have voiced that Christians turned forconhrmation of their hopes and beliefs.
A number of prominent early Christian Fathers ignore the Sibyl, but none of those who mention or quote her feel any need of defendinf,' this pro- cedure. The ordinary assumption is that she is a reliable prophetess of the truth, and that her predictions of Clirist and Christianity are as authentic in their own way as the prophecies of the OT. Tertulliant voices the general opinion when he calls her ' uerl uera nates.' The first indication of any real t scepticism on the part of Christians occurs in the 4th cent, oration of Con- stantine, ad Satict. coctiim (18 f.). Though the speaker quotes the Sibylline oracles as a telling proof, from paganism, of the Divine origin and nature of Christ, he feels obliged to give reasons for the faith that is in him : the reasons are M'eaker than the faith, but the signiHcant thing is that evidently he could not count upon an unquestion- ing acceptance of the oracles as inspired by God in pre-Christian Greece. He argues in this way :
'The Erythraean Sibyl, who declares that she lived in the sixth generation after tlie flood, § was a priestess of Apollo ; she wore the sacred tillet in imitation of him whom she served, and guarded the tripod round which the serpent coiled ; she answered those who consulted her, as her parents in their folly had devoted her to this service — a service which produced not solemn results but unseemly passions, such as are told of Daphne. However, she once swept into the shrine of that obnoxious superstition and, really filled this time with the Divine inspiration, foretold in words the Divine plan for the future, plainly disclosing the story of the descent of Jesus by the initial letters of the lines — which form an acrostic' He proceeds to quote the acrostic (see below), adding : 'Obviously a divine impulse inspired tlie maiden to foretell this. For my part. I consider ber blessed who was thus chosen bj' the Saviour to be a prophetess of his gracious thought for us. But many people are sceptical ; they allow that the Erythrtean bibyl was a seer, but they suspect that it was someone belonging to our religion, not unacquainted with the art of poetry, who composed these lines ; they think they are a forgery and that they are alleged to be oracles of the Sibyl because the.v contain salutary moral precepts which curb sensuous indulgence and promote a sober, orderly life. It is impossible, however, to mistake the real facts of the case, for our own members have been at pains to calculate the time with care, so that no one need suspect this poem was written after the arrival and the condemnation (Kddo&ov Kttl Kpiaiv) of Christ or that the current view of their previous composition by the Sibyl is inaccurate.'