wrought unlawful deeds aforetime I Saviour, do thou save me
from my torment-ors, a shameless woman, who has done immodestly. Lo, 1 beseech thee, let me cease a little from my sonjif, O holy giver of manna, king of a great kingdom.*
The long third book, on the otlier hand, is almost entirely a .Jewish compilation, with oracles dating from the 'Jnd and tlie 1st centuries it.C. Originally it had 1034 verses instead of the extant 829. No book of our collection is so important for the study of this Jewish propaganda in its eschato- logical aspects, and none presents sucli dithcultiea to the literary analyst. It is plain that a Christian has threaded in lines here and there, e.g. 776 (if vlov is read for vaov or oIkov — vibv yap KoKiovat ^porol ficydXoLO diOio) ; it is by no means so plain that longer sections like 46-6ii and 63-92 are of Christian origin, although the latter, with its striking de- scription of Beliar (Simon Magus ?) wiio comes from Sebaste (Samaria?) and of the catastrophes at the end of the world, does not have a Jewish ring about it. Apart from the possible exception of these passages, the motley oracles of the book are all pre-Christian; this is almost the sole result which stands out clearly amid the various literary analyses. The fourth book is distinctly Jewish, and is commonly dated c. A.D. 80, since the eruption of Vesuvius in A.D. 79 (130-136) is regarded as a punishment for the Roman treatment of Juda?a, and is to be followed by an Eastern attack on Rome, headed by Nero, from beyond the Euphrates. It is a short, lieterogeneous book, and is quoted by Justin and Clement of Alexandria, as well as by Lactantius. Its antipathy (27 fl.) to any visible temple and to material sacritices has been taken by some critics to mark a type of Judaism different from that of bks. iii. and v. — either Essenism or some 'allied though independent' phase (cf. Light- foot's Colossians and PhUemo}}, new ed., London, 1879, p. 96 f.) ; but these allusions may be to pagan cults, and even the stress laid on grace before food (24 f.) does not stamp the oracle as Essenic. The fifth book is larger and stretches further down, tliough the contents are still predominantly Jewisli, and even Egyptian, to judge from the curious reference of approval to the temple of Onias (501-511). It is a medley of denunciations, woes, and predictions, tlie latest of which are not earlier than Hadrian's reign (46 ff.) and possibly* as late as that of Marcus Aurelius. But these Jewish oracles of the first two Christian centuries owe their present form to some Christian editor of the latter century. The first Christian to quote from them is Clement of Alexandria. Here and theie, but not often, we can detect a Christian patcli, as at 256-259 :
' But then shall a unique Man come from heaven, who sprea^ls out his hands on the Wood t of rich fruit, the best of the Hebrews, who one day shall stay J the sun, with fair words issuing from pure lips.'
Another touch, which possibly is late, is the abrupt (293 ff ) prediction of ruin for the temple of Artemis at Ephesus, whicli is to be overwhelmed by an earthquake and to sink into the sea, to the bitter grief of the Ephesians.
Substantially, however, these three books are Jewish in texture. At their best, they voice the
* If line 51, which speaks of Hadrian's three successors, belongs to the previous oracle (1-50), and is not an interpolation.
t I.e. the Cross (see below, on bk. vi.) ; Ignatius (ad Smyrn. i. 2) had already called Christians ' the fruit ' of the Cross.
t The meaning is obscure, partly because the reading varies. K. Buresch and GefTcken read ar^tTei for the crr^<T€(t') of the MSS ; either the miracle of Joshua is to be repeated in the last days (cf. Lact. Div. Inst. vii. 26. 2: 'et statuet deus solem ") or Jesus is in some way identified with Joshua (owing lo the Greek equivalent 'I>jctovs ; cf. He 4**). Hirsch, however, recalls the Midrash Tanhumah on Ex 1718, according to which Moses stopped the sun and moon when he stretched out his hands at the tattle with the Amalekites. This would tally with the Sibylline point of view in viii. 251 (see below).
SIBYLLINE ORACLES
SIBYLLINE ORACLES
485
Iiiglu'st pro|iaganda of Hellenistic Judaism between the 2iul cent. B.C. and the 2nd cent. A.D., when many, in K^pt e.specially, were conscious of their vocation (ct., e.g., in. 19.i, ol irdyTtaai ^poroifft ^iov KadodrjyoL iaoi'Tai = lio 2^^, oSijybv ri'^Xajr) to he a source of liglit and leading to the Gentiles. These primitive 6i6///imfir of J udai.sm are neitlier cosmo- politan nor proselytizing ; this is one of their dis- tinctive features. Thej- are ' national and nomistic,' as Krauss observes, ' in so far as they'are Jewish. Kven the Messianic time is inconccivahle without the Temple, sacrificial worKliip, and the Law. Des|iite tins, the pagan Greeks are nowhere urged to obser\e the Law ; they are asked merely to lead moral lives and to recognize the one God. Altliough the Sihj-1 addresses all peoples, the Syrians, Britons, Ciauls, and the nations of the Isles, slie especially exhorts the people of Hellas, knowing that it will he well witli all the human race if this people with its grand culture will com- bine its own virtues with the pure religion of Judaism' {JE xi. SiC). The latter conviction underlay the Hellenistic propaganda. It was Greece which had been primarily responsible for the development of idolatry in tlie great Koman world, and Greece must regain her lost monotheism if the mass of men were to ab.'indon polytheism and return to the original worship of the one God. The conversion of Greece (cf. iii. 545 fl.) was the hope of these Sibyllinists. Hence the aptness of their appeal through the stammering, inspired lips of a Sibyl who spoke from the far mists of pre- Homeric antiquitj". The appeal, it must be remembered, was not to the ' intellectuals.' The Sibyllina were popular literature, not esoteric essays. They were couched in the language of impressive, popular address, midway between the hymn and the apocalypse,* and like the latter aimed their shafts at the common heart of men. Naturally, the shafts were winged with threats as well as with promises and argument. And de- nunciations of idolatry and polytheism as naturally led to eschatological predictions. If the average apocalypse could be called a tract for bad times, the Sibylline oracle was usuallj' a tract for bad people, for nations who had deliberately devoted theuiselves to idolatry and vice, or outraged the Jewish people. The last words of bk. v. are : ' the heaven remained starless.' And that is character- istic of the oracles. These Sibyllinists wrote on the sound principle that some people really need not argument but sufl'ering, if they are ever to be brought to their senses. A starless sky hangs over them. In the Jewish Sibyllhia (cf. P. Volz, Judische Eschatologie, Tiibingen, 1903, pp. 46-50, etc.) particularly, though bj'no means exclusively, impatient threats of doom abound ; sometimes it is final, though sometimes it is intended to act as a salutary historical reminder of the pains and penalties which are incurred by all who defy the laws of Israel's God.t The Sibyl will reason with Hellas, e.g., but she will also .shower threats of calamity on her. Her oracles are charged with lightning as well as with light. It is this pre- occujiation with a moralistic view of history which repeatedly tends to make the interest of the