' He shall fulfil, he sh.ill not destroy, God's law, bringing the original pattern, and shall teach all things. To hiui shall the priests t bring offerings of gold, myrrh and
incense. . . . But when a voice sounds through the desert, bidding all mortals loudly
to make straight paths and cast evils from their heart and be enli<rhtened by baptism in the waters,? every one, that being born from above they no more may swerve from the right in the leasts . . . then mortals shall have a sign suddenly, when the Fair Stone comes guarded from Egypt's land, |]
whereat the people of the Hebrews will stumble, but the nations will muster under his guidance."
Then follows a note of His miracles similar to that of bk. viii. (see below).
The second book is predominantly eschato- logical, as might be expected, since the Sibyl now comes to the closing generations of mankind. One of the characteristics of this literature is its stress upon a purpose in history ; sin is to be punished
* According to Bousset, the Christian editor of bk. viii., the author of iii. 63-92, and the editor of i.-ii. all wrote in the 3rd cent., under Odenathus. This would follow necessarily, if the widow of iii. 77 f. were Zenobia, not Cleopatra, and if the As- syrian whom the twelve tribes return from the E-a-st to punish (li. 167 f.) were Odenathus. Bleek relegated i.-ii. to the ."ith cent, (middle). Ewald to the 4th, Alexandre to the :ird, and Friedlieb to the 2nd.
t Such aa, e.fj., we hear in the oracle of iii. 55 f., where the bitter irony of denunciation overjjowers the speaker. ' Woe is me, alas ! when shall that Day arrive, the judgment of the im- mortal fiod, the great King? Meantime, o ye cities, get founded, get all adorned with temples, race-courses, market-places, statues of gold and silver, and stone, so that ye may come to the bitt'-r I'ay ! For come it will, whenever the smell of brini- Btone pervades all men.*
J Mt 2". § iiSiurc 'P.uTifeireai ; cf. below (p. 487).
II Cf. Mt 215, 1 p 27f.
by God, amid sore suffering, and the iiunishment implies not only the overthrow of impious States on earth, but a linal judgment of liod, to which all leads up. The second book starts with a brief, gliMiniy description of the woes that vex earth in the tenth generation, when Home is shattered by a visilnlion from heaven. Then earth is peaceful and frail ful for the pious, free from the curse of [irivate (iroperly and Imperial tyranny. At this point, the Sibjilinist dramatically describes the contest for the virtuous rewards of immortality, over which Christ presides (34 f.) — a section which is furl her marked by the incori)oration of a long moralistic* ]ja.ssage (56-148) from pseudo-l'hocy- lides. The oracle then returns to tlie woeful last days, the misfortunes of the Jews, and the Last Judgment. The Christian accretions are probably from various hands, but none of them necessarily implies an early date. Lines 163f. may be a quota- tion from the Gospel of tlir. Efftjfilirnix (cf. vol. i. p. 405), but wliat Clement (Slroni. iii. 6. 45) cites from the latter is cmly a parallel to the .Sibylline allusion. The reference to the intercession of the \'ugin Mary (312) is not so primitive as the remarks of Irenanis (v. 19), and the earliest parallel to the divine lists of struggle for the prizes of bliss occurs in Tertullian's treatise Ad Miirt. 3. Whatever may have been the period of the fragments that constitute the nucleus of the book, the Christian touches need not be assigned to a date much, if at all, earlier than the end of the 2nd cent., and they may well be later. No early Father quotes from them. They are marked by a weird, grim power, if we can speak of ' power' in connexion with the Christian Sil>ylllna at all, either in edilication or in literary quality. The apocalyjilic element is strong, coloured by tinges familiar (c.jr. 165 f.= Mf24-^'-) to us from current apocalyptic treatises, but often with an individuality of its own.
It is in this book (15 f.) that we first meet the fauKms Sibylline doctrine of the ten ages of the world (cf. ERE i. 200, and A. Rzach's paper in Wiener Studicn, xxxiv. [1012] 114-122), which had been current in the pagan SihiiUinn already (cf. Servius on Verg. Edng. iv. 4). It recurs in iii. lOSf., in a separate form, the tenth generation being the generation of the Titans which is reckoned as the tenth from the Flood (the passage quoted by Tertullian, see above, p. 481). liut here and in viii. 190 f. it is eschatological, the tenth generation being tlie last. In iv. 47-H7 the tenth generation seems to mark the downfall of the Persian Empire at the hands of Alexander, and the generations are reckoned from the Flood, whereas in i. 1-198, whicli appears to be the prelude to ii. 15 f., the generations are reckoned from Adara, the fifth generation being that of the Giants.
One of the most characteristic passages is the eschatological delineation in 238 f. :
* When Sabaoth, Adonai, thundering on high raises the dead, setting a term to their fates, and 8eat~s himself on the heavenly throne and places the great