• M. Friedlander exaggerates the significance of the Sibyllina for apocalyptic prophecy.but there was a distinct affinity between both forma of Jewish propaganda (Die relifjiosen flf.urfiinigen innerhalb des Judentums iiii Zeitalter jesu, Berlin, 1906, p. 289 f.).
t K.fj. in V. 276 f., and especially in iv. 152 f., when impiety, bloodshed, and vice are rampant, men know 'that God is no longer gentle and gracious, but giiashiiijr his teeth in anger and destroying the whole race of men together with a huge conflagra- tion. O wretched mortals, do not drive Go<i to all sorta of wrath, but give up swords, shrieks, murder, and violence, wash your whole body in ever-running streams, stretch your hands to heaven, ask pardon for your past deeds ; God will grant repentance'
SibijUina eschatological oven when they are more hopeful about the heathen ; for in contrast to the misers' of jiagans the Mi-ssianic bliss of Israel is depicted, partly to encourage the disconsolate Jews of the period, but partly also to act as a tempting promise to outsiders (e.g. v. 492 f.). It is to the Go<l who can bestow such happiness, not to vain idols, that worship ought to be paid. Thus, in iii. 624 f., after depicting the prosperity of Israel on the new earth— i.e. the new order ol things under the later Maccabees — the oracle proceeds to bid the deceitful man turn and make intercession to God, oilcring him sacrifices and honouring him with good behaviour: 'it may be that the immortal God will have mercy on thee.' 15ut in most eases the oracles are oppressed by the sense that things have gone too far. Their environment was dark. What the Sibyl generally has in mind, it must be rejieated, is not so much the philosophers of Hella.s as the practical propaganda which followed in the wake of the Seleucid kings (e.g. iii. 732 f), with its contemptuous indifference to all that a Jew valued in monotheism and even in morals. This is one of the main threads running through the woof of the.se three Jewish books of Sibyllina, the desire to warn at any rate and win if possible contemporar-y Hellenism. As the latter hope waned, the Sibyl s testimony hardened into denunciation and doom.
In the sixth book we are back on Christian ground, more thoroughly Christian than any we have yet crossed. At the same time, there is not a single allusion to the Sibyl. The book is simplj' a short hymn, which has been taken to represent a theology akin to some of the nncanoni- cal gospels and to have originated in more or less heretical circles of the 2nd cent. Church. ' Hereti- cal,' in this connexion, is a question-begging epithet, however, as Harnack points out ; 'eccen- tric ' would suit the contents uetter. The piece need not be earlier than the ."ird cent., though 2nd cent, parallels are not awanting. The only help in determining its relative date is furnished by the fact that it is quoted by Lactantius, but there are no historical references to enable us to say how much earlier than the beginning of the 4th cent. its composition is to be placed. It is the briefe.st of the extant Sibylline books, and may therefore be translated in full. The present writer appends a fairly literal version, in order to bring out the peculiar theology of the piece :
* 1 hail from the heart the Immortal's great Son, renowned in
song, who was granted the throne to possess, by the Father most
High, ere yet he was bom ; whereupon in the Ilesh granted him he appeared and bathed in the streams of the river of Jordan that moves with grey tread on as it rolls it^ waters. Avoiding the lire,* he first shall behold the sweet .Spirit of God, borne on the white shining wings of the liove. A Blossom pure shall bloom, and springs stiall gush ; to men shall he show the Ways, shall sliow the paths of heaven, and give to all instruction in tales of wisdom. He shall come for judgment and smite the disobedient People, extolling the praiseworthy race of the Father in heaven. He shall tread on the waves, shall free mankind from diseases, shall cause the dead to arise, shall banish many a sorrow : from a single wallet t shall bre.id in abundance issue for men, when David's house puts forth its Plant ; and in his hand the whole world lies, the earth, the sky, the sea. He shall flash upon the earth, as when at his first appearance they two saw hini,t who had been born each from the side of
the other. And this shall be when earth rejoices in hope of the Child. But for thee alone, O land of Sodom, § evil woes are in store ; for thou, thou didst not know thy God, insensate one, when he came to be seen of men ; nay, with thorns for a crown thou crownedst him, and for his drink despitefully didst mix the dreadful gaU — hence come thine evil woes.
* The tradition which appears in some of the uncanonical gospels (see vol. i. p. 494).
t Mt 141". Lactantius seems to have read n-^p>7«, but the MSS reading pi^iK ('root') would connect with the following line and yield a good, though slightly different, sense.