SIBYLLINE ORACLES, a collection of Apocalyptic writ ings, composed in imitation of the heathen Sibylline books by the Jews and, at a later date, by the Christians in their efforts to win the heathen world to their faith. The fact that they copied the form in which the heathen revelations were conveyed (Greek hexameter verses) and the Homeric language is evidence of a degree of external Hellenization, which is an important fact in the history of post-exile Judaism.
Book III. contains Jewish oracles relative to the Golden Age established by Roman supremacy in the East about the middle of the 2nd century B.C. (especially 175-181 : cf. I. Macc. viii. 1-16). The evacuation of Egypt by Antiochus Epiphanes at the bidding of the Roman ambassadors suits the warning addressed to "Greece" (lines 732-740) against overweening ambition and any attempt upon the Holy City, which is somewhat strangely en forced by the famous Greek oracle, "Let Camarina be, 'tis best unstirred." Older than these are the Babylonian oracle and the Persian (381-387). A later Jewish oracle (46-62) refers to the wars of the second Triumvirate of Rome, and the whole compilation seems to come from a Christian redactor.
Book IV. is a definite attack upon the heathen Sibyl (the Jews and Christians did not attempt to pass off their "forgeries" as genuine) as the mouthpiece of Apollo by a Jew who speaks for the Great God and yet uses a Greek review (49-114) of ancient history from the Assyrian empire. There are references to the
legendary escape of Nero to Parthia (119-124) and the destruc tion of Jerusalem in A.D. 70 (13o-136).
Book V. contains a more developed form of the myth of Nero redivivus in which a panegyric on him (137-141) has been brought up to date by some Jew or Christian, and eulogies of Hadrian and his successors (48-51) side by side with the legend of the miserable death of Titus in quittance of his destruction of Jerusalem (411-413) which probably represents the hope of the zealots who survived it.
The remaining books appear to be Christian (some heretical) and to belong to the 2nd and 3rd centuries.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.-Lanchester in Charles, Apocrypha and Pseudepi grapha vol. ii. (1913) ; an English trans. with notes by H. N. Bate in the S.P.C.K. Translations of Early Documents (1918) ; Schiirer, Geschichte des judischen Volkes, iii. 555-592, who gives full bibliog raphy. (J. H. A. H. ; W. 0. E. 0.)