The fiiiscellaneous contents of bk. viii., from which Lactantius has quoted largely, are distin- guished by an unusual antipathy to the tyranny and avarice * of the Koman Empire. The ordinary view is that 1-216 are in the main Jewish, the rest Christi.an. A general blend of woes. Messianic prophecies, incongruous separate oracles, and historical allusions characterizes the former. The denunciation of Rome in 1-13S and the prediction of her downfall must be dated not earlier than the burial of Hadrian (52-64) in A.D. 139. The bitter- ness of the allusions to Hadrian, which contrasts so remarkably with the tone of bks. v. and xii. to that Emperor, points to a Jew rather than to a Christian as the author of the piece ; and if the piece is homogeneous, in spite of some lacunae in the extant text, it must have originally been the work of a provincial t Jew, exasperated by Had- rian's suppression of the Palestinian rebellion, and by the 'Judaicus fiscus,' as that unpopular tax was levied and collected. Lines 139-216 are hetero- geneous, partly taken from earlier books (e.g. 169 f. from iii. 49 f.), but never betraying any de- cisive trace of Christian authorship. J
The case is altered when we pass from line 216 to 217 ; then and thenceforth we are on Christian soil of the 3rd century. Indeed four MSS print 217-500 as part of a ' ninth ' book ; they have no relation to the fragments of the preceding oracle, and it is owing to a blunder of the first editor, in all likelihood, or of some scribe, that these two disparate sections have been yoked together. § The outstanding feature of this part of the book is the famous opening acrostic on the name of IHCOYC XPEICTOC 0EOY YIOC CHTHP, which, in a Latin translation, is actually cited by Augustine (in the Civ. Dei, xviii. 23) as a genuine prophecy of Christ which had fallen from the lips of the Erythraean Sibyl. In Constantine's Orat. ad .^anctorttm coettim (18) the acrostic is quoted with the addition 1| of CTAYPOC, and this is the fortn in the Sibylline oracles. It is next to impos- sible to reproduce, without extreme awkwardness, in a translation the artificial structme of the lines,
* As in iv. 145 f. ('to Asia there shall come the great wealth which Rome once stole and jilaced in her rich treasury ; twice as much, aye and more, shall she restore to Asia ') and even in iii. 350 f. ('For all the money received by Rome from tributary Asia, Asia shall receive three times as much from Rome, and pay Ijack to her the horrid insolence '). We may overhear the same note in Commodian's Carmen Apoloqeticum, 889 f. (' tolla- tur imperium, quod fuit inique repletum, quod pertributa mala diu macerabat omnes').
t Yet the (Cumjean ?) Sibyl seems to be prophesjing in Rome
(icaTa TrroAiv, 3).
t The end of Rome is predicted (189 f.) tor A.D. 195, in con- nexion with the return of Nero from the East.
§ .\Iexandre assigned viii. 217 f. and the introductory Theo- philus fragments to a Christian who wrote in the first quarter of the 2nd century.
II The addition is superfluous when a double acrostic is made out of the initial letters of each word, i.e. IX0YC, 'Fish,' the favourite early Christian symbol.
SIBYLLINE ORACLES
Sl]iYLLli\E ORACLES
487
but the following version is an attempt to preserve the acrostic feature which is the outstanding char- acteristic of the Greek original. The present writer has rhymed the translation, in order to make it less prosaic :
* Judgment is come, the earth shall sweat in fear ; Eternal, the King: leaves the heavenly sphere, Sentence to pass on all the world of men. On God the just and unjiist shall look then. Uplifted 'mid his saints, when time is done ; Souls, mortal souls, he judges from his throne. Changing to drj- land and to thorns tlio wide Round earth, till men their idols* fling aside. Earth, sky and sea the flame shall hurn, and dash Into the gates of llell with slmlturing crash ; Saints in the flesh shall shine in liberty. The lawless fire devours eternally. Of secret deeds the tale shall then be told. Since God tlie heart's dim corners shall unfold. Then shall all wail and gnash their teeth, at strange Eclipse of sun, dropping of stars, and change Of heaven, the moonlight lost, while here below Up rise the valleys, down the mountains go ; Under the sky no lofty peak shall soar Inhuman, hill and plain shall he no more, Or sea to fare upon ; the scorched land. Springs, rippling rivers, perish by the brand. Sounding from heaven, the trumpet peals a blast Of wrath and woe upon the evil cast. The earth is opened and hell's pit laid bare. Each and all stand before God's royal chair. Rivers of fiery sulphur t flood the air. Sign of all this, a vivid seal, shall he The cross among the faithful joyfully, A hindrance to the world, but life and light Unending J to elect souls washed aright ; Rod of the shepherd, shall it rule in iron might. Our God is shown in the acrostic thus. Saviour, immortal King, who died for us.
This acrostic was composed partly to lend an air of authenticity to the Cliristian Hibyllina. The