' If toil spent on reading Greek books .yields rich profit to those who labour at it, inasmuch as it has the power of making scholars of those who toil thus, it is far more titling for tlie rightminded to devote themselves at all times to the divine scriptures, inasnuich as they treat of God and of what issues in spiritual profit ; this yields a twofold gain, for people can there- by profit themselves and also those whom they come across. Hence it was that I myself resolved to take the oracles which are called Sibylline, and which are to be found here and there, read in confusion and indisunctly understood, and to publish them in connected and orderly form, so that they may be readily grasped by the reader and yield him their profit (for they cont^iin no small amount of what is essential and useful), thus reTidoring the study of them at once more rich and varied. P'or they impart clear information about the Father, Son, and Holy Siiirit, the divine and life-imparting trinity, as well as about the incarnation of our Lord and God and Saviour Jesus Christ, about his birth from a pure virgin, about the cures per- formed by him, likewise about his life-giving Passion and his resurrection from the dead on the third day, about the judgment to come and the recompense for what we all have done in this life. Besides, they treat clearly of what is disclosed in the writings of Moses and the books of the prophets about the creation of the world, the formation of man, the expulsion from paradise, and the re-forming ; * they foretell what has taken place, and perhaps what is to take place, in various ways. In a word, they can be of no small service to those who come across them.
" Sibyl " is a Roman term, meaning prophetess or seer ; hence female seers were called by this single name. There were Sibyls, as many writers tell us, in different ages and localities, to the number of ten ; first, the Chaldiean or Persian, whose proper name was Sambethe, belonging to the race of the most blessed Noah, and said to have foretold the events connected with Alexander the Macedonian ; she is mentioned by Nicanor the biographer of Alexander. Second, the Libyan sibyl, men- tioned by Euripides in the prologue to the Lamia. Third, the Delphic, born at Delphi, of whom Chrysippus speaks in his book upon the deity (divination?). Fourth, the Italian sibyl of Cimmeria in Italy, the mother of Evander, who founded the shrine of Pan in Rome called the Lupercal. Fifth, the Ery- thrsan sibyl, who predicted the Trojan war; Apollodorus the Erythrsean vouches for her. Sixth, the Samian sibyl, whose proper name was Phyto ; Eratostlienes has written of her. Seventh, the Cumasan sibyl called Amalthea and also Herophile, by some Taraxandra ; Vergil [^■En. vi. 36J calls the Cuinrean sibyl Deiphobe, the daughter of Glaucus. Eighth, the Helles- pontine sibyl, born at the village of Marpessus near the town of Gergition, in the district of the Troad, during the days of Solon and Cyrus, as Heraclides Ponticus writes. Ninth, the Phrygian, and tenth, the Tiburtine sibyl, called Albunea.f
The story goes that the Cum:ean sibyl brought nine books of her own oracles to Tarquinius Priscus, who was then king of the Roman State, asking three hundred pounds for them. As she was treated with contempt and not even asked what their contents were, she committed three of them to the flames. On her next visit to the king, she brought the six books and de- manded the same price for them, but was treated with disdain, and burned other three. Following this up with a third visit, she brought the remaining three and asked the same price for them, declaring that if she did not get it she would burn them also. Then the king — so the story goes — read them, and in astonishment gave her a hundred pounds for them and de- manded the rest of the books ; she reported that she had none equivalent to what had been burnt and that no such oracles were attainable apart from ecstasy, but that certain persons in various towns and localities had received oracles which they judged essential and profitable, and that a collection of these should be made. This was done speedily. What God had given in secret did not escape notice. The books of all the sibyls were deposited in the Capitol in ancient Rome, those of the sibyl of Cumae being kept secret and not communicated to the people, as they announced rather specifically anddistinctly what was to happen in Italy ; the other books were made known to all. The predictions of the Erythrsan sibyl have the local name prefixed to them, whereas the others have no indication of their origin, but lie mixed up together. Now Firmianus,! a philosopher of no small repute and a
* avanKdaetiK;, the ' new ' creation in contrast to TrAotrews, which has just been used.
t This paragraph is practically a reproduction of Varro's account, which Lactantius(Z)/y. Iiist. i. 6) had preserved.
t He means, of course, the great Christian apologist, L. Caelius Firmianus Lactantius. Some idea of our author's
priest of the aforesaid Capitol, opened his eyes to Christ, our eternal light, and in his writings set forth what had been said by the eibyls about the unspeakably Glory, and thereby refuted with effect the folly of the Greek error. His powerful explana- tion was in the Ausonian tongue, whereas the Sibylline verses were in the Greek language. Lest this should be deemed in- credible, I shall bring forward the following evidence from the man who has just been mentioned.* (Since the SibylHnea current among us are despised as common by tliose who under- stand Greek topics — what is uncommon being only counted of any value— and since people are the slower to believe in them as the lines do not all observe the accurate laws of metre, this latter is not the fault of the prophetess but of those who took them down, either because they could not keep up with the rush of what was said, or because they were uneducated ;t as for the prophetess, her memory of what she had said ceased with the period of ecstasy. This was what Plat/O J had in mind when he wrote that many important things were acfomj>Iished by those who did not know what they were sajing.) '* So 1 sliall quote as much as possible from the oracles brought to Rome by the envoys. The following was written of the supreme God :