SIBYLLINE ORACLES. A lengthy collec tion of Greek hexameters, pseudonymously as cribed to the Oriental Sibyl. These writings be long to an extensive literature first produced by the ,Iews, whom the early Christians soon followed with the intention of proving that the pagan oracles or the ancient poets had borne wit ness to the superiority of the true religion of Israel or of Christ, or had prophesied the coin ing of the Kingdom of God. But few fragments of such literature have survived outside of these Sibylline Oracles. but these obfained a prestige in the early Roman Empire and in the Christian Much that has insured their preservation.
These oracles are a wild chaos of barbarous hexameters, and made up of disjointed sections, which are again full of interpolations. so that their present structure reveals the manner of the origin of the collection. Any one might add or insert his own lines, and they would lie as readily accepted by the credulous public as were the verses he imitated. Through the older por tions there breathes a fine spirit of monotheism and a trenchant scorn for the vices of heathen ism. The collection is divided into fourteen books, of which the eighth. ninth, and fifteenth are now lost. The book containing the oldest fragments is the third. Through its abundant though veiled references to contemporary his tory (set forth as prophecy), the oldest sections clearly belong to the Maceabean period. and may lie dated about B.C. 140. Other sections belong to the last pre-Christian century. The fourth book is now generally attributed to a Jewish writer. in the last quarter of the first century A.D. The fifth is mostly Jewish (according to some Jewish Christian), with Christian interpolations, and contains material as late as Hadrian's reign.
One Christian passage refers to Jesus as "the noble man who came from heaven, who stretched forth his hands on the fruitful cross, the best of the Hebrews." Books vi., vii.„ viii., are considered to be of Christian origin; they maintain the polemic against paganism, give a picture of the persecutions, and paint apocalyptic visions. The remaining books are mostly Christian. It has been thought that Vergil in his Fourth Eclogue. where he congratulates Poll in on the birth of a son and refers to the Cumwan Sibyl. had some passage of this Jewish literature in mind. This pseudepigraphie propaganda was carried on ad ?museum, and produced intense ridicule on the part, of the heathen critics; CoIsus, Origen's op ponent, calls the Christians Sibyllists. But the argument was continued, and Lactantius in the fourth century still relies on the Sibyl. For modern editions of the text, consult.: Alexandre (Paris, 1841) ; Friedlieb (Leipzig, 1852) ; lizach (Vienna, I891); Geffcken (Leipzig, 1902). An English translation is given in Terry, Sibylline Oracles (New York, 1890) ; the more important fragments are given in German, in Kautzsch, ..tpokryphea 'and Pseudepiyraphcn, (Leipzig, 1900). For literature and general treatment, consult: Schiirer, History of the Jewish. People in the Time of Jesus Christ (Eng. trans., Edin burgh, 1886-90) ; llarnack, Gcschichte der all ehristlichea Litteratur (Leipzig, 1893) ; Geffeken, Komposition, and Entstehungszeit des Orwellla (ib., 1902).