Chapter 23.—Of the Erythræan Sibyl, Who is Known to Have Sung Many Things About Christ More Plainly Than the Other Sibyls.1119    The Sibylline Oracles are a collection of prophecies and religious teachings in Greek hexameter under the assumed authority and inspiration of a Sibyl, i.e., a female prophet.  They are partly of heathen, partly of Jewish-Christian origin.  They were used by the fathers against the heathen as genuine prophecies without critical discrimination, and they appear also in the famous Dies iræ alongside with David as witnesses of the future judgment (“teste David cum Sibylla.”)  They were edited by Alexander, Paris, 2d. ed. 1869, and by Friedlieb (in Greek and German), Leipzig, 1852.  Comp. Ewald:  Ueber Entstehung, Inhalt und Werth der sibyll.  Bücher, 1858, and Schürer, Geschichte der jüd.  Volkes im Zeitalter Jesu (Leipzig, 1885), ii. § 33, pp. 700 sqq., Engl. transl. (Hist. of the Jews in the times of Jesus.  Edinburgh and New York, 1886), vol. iii. 271 sqq.—P.S.]

Some say the Erythræan sibyl prophesied at this time.  Now Varro declares there were many sibyls, and not merely one.  This sibyl of Erythræ certainly wrote some things concerning Christ which are quite manifest, and we first read them in the Latin tongue in verses of bad Latin, and unrhythmical, through the unskillfulness, as we afterwards learned, of some interpreter unknown to me.  For Flaccianus, a very famous man, who was also a proconsul, a man of most ready eloquence and much learning, when we were speaking about Christ, produced a Greek manuscript, saying that it was the prophecies of the Erythræan sibyl, in which he pointed out a certain passage which had the initial letters of the lines so arranged that these words could be read in them:  ᾽Ιησοῦς Χριστος Θεοῦ υιὸς σωτηρ, which means, “Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour.”  And these verses, of which the initial letters yield that meaning, contain what follows as translated by some one into Latin in good rhythm:

Ι            Judgment shall moisten the earth with the sweat of its standard,

Η   Ever enduring, behold the King shall come through the ages,

Σ    Sent to be here in the flesh, and Judge at the last of the world.

Ο   O God, the believing and faithless alike shall behold Thee

Υ   Uplifted with saints, when at last the ages are ended.

Σ    Seated before Him are souls in the flesh for His judgment.

Χ   Hid in thick vapors, the while desolate lieth the earth.

Ρ            Rejected by men are the idols and long hidden treasures;

Ε    Earth is consumed by the fire, and it searcheth the ocean and heaven;

Ι     Issuing forth, it destroyeth the terrible portals of hell.

Σ    Saints in their body and soul freedom and light shall inherit;

Τ    Those who are guilty shall burn in fire and brimstone for ever.

Ο   Occult actions revealing, each one shall publish his secrets;

Σ    Secrets of every man’s heart God shall reveal in the light.

Θ   Then shall be weeping and wailing, yea, and gnashing of teeth;

Ε            Eclipsed is the sun, and silenced the stars in their chorus.

Ο   Over and gone is the splendor of moonlight, melted the heaven,

Υ   Uplifted by Him are the valleys, and cast down the mountains.

Υ   Utterly gone among men are distinctions of lofty and lowly.

Ι     Into the plains rush the hills, the skies and oceans are mingled.

Ο   Oh, what an end of all things! earth broken in pieces shall perish;

Σ   .   .   .   .    Swelling together at once shall the waters and flames flow in rivers.

Σ            Sounding the archangel’s trumpet shall peal down from heaven,

Ω   Over the wicked who groan in their guilt and their manifold sorrows.

Τ            Trembling, the earth shall be opened, revealing chaos and hell.

Η   Every king before God shall stand in that day to be judged.

Ρ    Rivers of fire and brimstone shall fall from the heavens.

In these Latin verses the meaning of the Greek is correctly given, although not in the exact order of the lines as connected with the initial letters; for in three of them, the fifth, eighteenth, and nineteenth, where the Greek letter Υ occurs, Latin words could not be found beginning with the corresponding letter, and yielding a suitable meaning.  So that, if we note down together the initial letters of all the lines in our Latin translation except those three in which we retain the letter Υ in the proper place, they will express in five Greek words this meaning, “Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour.”  And the verses are twenty-seven, which is the cube of three.  For three times three are nine; and nine itself, if tripled, so as to rise from the superficial square to the cube, comes to twenty-seven.  But if you join the initial letters of these five Greek words, ᾽Ιησοῦς Χριστος Θεοῦ υἰὸς σωτήρ, which mean, “Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour,” they will make the word ἰχδὺς, that is, “fish,” in which word Christ is mystically understood, because He was able to live, that is, to exist, without sin in the abyss of this mortality as in the depth of waters.1120    [Hence the fish was a favorite symbol of the ancient Christians.  See Schaff, Church Hist. (revised ed.), vol. ii. 279 sq.—P.S.]

But this sibyl, whether she is the Erythræan, or, as some rather believe, the Cumæan, in her whole poem, of which this is a very small portion, not only has nothing that can relate to the worship of the false or feigned gods, but rather speaks against them and their worshippers in such a way that we might even think she ought to be reckoned among those who belong to the city of God.  Lactantius also inserted in his work the prophecies about Christ of a certain sibyl, he does not say which.  But I have thought fit to combine in a single extract, which may seem long, what he has set down in many short quotations.  She says, “Afterward He shall come into the injurious hands of the unbelieving, and they will give God buffets with profane hands, and with impure mouth will spit out envenomed spittle; but He will with simplicity yield His holy back to stripes.  And He will hold His peace when struck with the fist, that no one may find out what word, or whence, He comes to speak to hell; and He shall be crowned with a crown of thorns.  And they gave Him gall for meat, and vinegar for His thirst:  they will spread this table of inhospitality.  For thou thyself, being foolish, hast not understood thy God, deluding the minds of mortals, but hast both crowned Him with thorns and mingled for Him bitter gall.  But the veil of the temple shall be rent; and at midday it shall be darker than night for three hours.  And He shall die the death, taking sleep for three days; and then returning from hell, He first shall come to the light, the beginning of the resurrection being shown to the recalled.”  Lactantius made use of these sibylline testimonies, introducing them bit by bit in the course of his discussion as the things he intended to prove seemed to require, and we have set them down in one connected series, uninterrupted by comment, only taking care to mark them by capitals, if only the transcribers do not neglect to preserve them hereafter.  Some writers, indeed, say that the Erythræan sibyl was not in the time of Romulus, but of the Trojan war.

CAPUT XXIII. De Sibylla Erythraea, quae inter alias Sibyllas cognoscitur de Christo evidentia multa cecinisse.

1. Eodem tempore nonnulli Sibyllam Erythraeam vaticinatam ferunt. Sibyllas autem Varro prodidit plures fuisse, non unam . Haec sane Erythraea Sibylla quaedam de Christo manifesta conscripsit: quod etiam nos prius in latina lingua versibus male latinis et non stantibus legimus, per nescio cujus interpretis imperitiam, sicut post cognovimus. Nam vir clarissimus Flaccianus, qui etiam proconsul fuit, homo facillimae facundiae, multaeque doctrinae, cum de Christo colloqueremur, graecum nobis codicem protulit, carmina esse dicens Sibyllae Erythraeae, ubi ostendit quodam loco in capitibus versuum ordinem litterarum ita se habentem, ut haec in eo verba legerentur, Ἰησοῦς Χρειστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτὴρ: quod est latine, Jesus Christus Dei Filius Salvator. Hi autem versus quorum primae litterae istum sensum, quem diximus, reddunt, sicut eos quidam latinis et stantibus versibus est interpretatus, hoc continent: ΙJudicii signum tellus sudore madescet. ΗE coelo Rex adveniet per saecla futurus: ΣScilicet in carne praesens ut judicet orbem. ΟUnde Deum cernent incredulus atque fidelis [5] ΥCelsum cum sanctis, aevi jam termino in ipso. ΣSic animae cum carne aderunt, quas judicat ipse: ΧCum jacet incultus densis in vepribus orbis. ΡRejicient simulacra viri, cunctam quoque gazam: ΕExuret terras ignis, pontumque polumque [10] ΙInquirens, tetri portas effringet Averni ΣSanctorum sed enim cunctae lux libera carni ΤTradetur, sontes aeterna flamma cremabit. ΟOccultos actus retegens, tunc quisque loquetur ΣSecreta, atque Deus reserabit pectora luci. [15] ΘTunc erit et luctus, stridebunt dentibus omnes. ΕEripitur solis jubar, et chorus interit astris. ΟVolvetur coelum, lunaris splendor obibit. ΥDejiciet colles, valles extollet ab imo. ΥNon erit in rebus hominum sublime vel altum. [20] ΙJam aequantur campis montes, et caerula ponti ΟOmnia cessabunt, tellus confracta peribit. ΣSic pariter fontes torrentur, fluminaque igni. ΣSed tuba tum sonitum tristem demittet ab alto ΩOrbe, gemens facinus miserum variosque labores: [25] ΤTartareumque chaos monstrabit terra dehiscens. ΗEt coram hic Domino reges sistentur ad unum ΡRecidet e coelis ignisque et sulphuris amnis.In his latinis versibus de graeco utcumque translatis, ibi non potuit ille sensus occurrere, qui fit cum litterae, quae sunt in eorum capitibus, connectuntur, ubi 0580 Υ littera in graeco posita est; quia non potuerunt verba latina inveniri, quae ab eadem littera inciperent, et sententiae convenirent. Hi autem sunt versus tres, quintus et octavus decimus et nonus decimus. Denique si litteras quae sunt in capitibus omnium versuum connectentes, horum trium quae scriptae sunt non legamus, sed pro eis Υ litteram, tanquam in eisdem locis ipsa sit posita, recordemur, exprimitur in quinque verbis, Jesus Christus Dei Filius Salvator; sed cum graece hoc dicitur, non latine. Et sunt versus viginti et septem, qui numerus quadratum ternarium solidum reddit. Tria enim ter ducta fiunt novem: et ipsa novem si ter ducantur, ut ex lato in altum figura consurgat, ad viginti septem perveniunt. Horum autem graecorum quinque verborum, quae sunt, Ἰησους Χρειστὸς Θεοῦ Υἱὸς Σωτερ, quod est latine, Jesus Christus Dei Filius Salvator, si primas litteras jungas, erit Ἰχθύς, id est Piscis, in quo nomine mystice intelligitur Christus, eo quod in hujus mortalitatis abysso velut in aquarum profunditate vivus, hoc est sine peccato, esse potuerit.

2. Haec autem Sybilla sive Erythraea, sive, ut quidam magis credunt, Cumaea, ita nihil habet in toto carmine suo, cujus exigua ista particula est, quod ad deorum falsorum sive factorum cultum pertineat; quin imo ita etiam contra eos et contra cultores eorum loquitur, ut in eorum numero deputanda videatur, qui pertinent ad civitatem Dei. Inserit etiam Lactantius operi suo quaedam de Christo vaticinia Sibyllae, quamvis non exprimat cujus. Sed quae ipse singillatim posuit, ego arbitratus sum conjuncta esse ponenda, tanquam unum sit prolixum, quae ille plura commemoravit et brevia. In manus iniquas, inquit, infidelium postea veniet: dabunt autem Deo alapas manibus incestis, et impurato ore exspuent venenatos sputus: dabit vero ad verbera simpliciter sanctum dorsum . Et colaphos accipiens tacebit, ne quis agnoscat, quod verbum, vel unde venit ut inferis loquatur, et corona spinea coronetur . Ad cibum autem fel, et ad sitim acetum dederunt: inhospitalitatis hanc monstrabunt mensam . Ipsa enim incipiens tuum Deum non intellexisti, ludentem mortalium mentibus; sed spinis coronasti, et horridum fel miscuisti . Templi vero 0581 velum scindetur: et medio die nox erit tenebrosa nimis in tribus horis . Et morte morietur tribus diebus somno suscepto: et tunc ab inferis regressus ad lucem veniet primus, resurrectionis principio revocatis ostenso . Ista Lactantius carptim per intervalla disputationis suae, sicut ea poscere videbantur, quae probare intenderat, adhibuit testimonia Sibyllina, quae nos nihil interponentes, sed in unam seriem connexa ponentes, solis capitibus, si tamen scriptores deinceps ea servare non negligant, distinguenda curavimus. Nonnulli sane Erythraeam Sibyllam, non Romuli, sed belli Trojani tempore fuisse scripserunt.