temple of Jupiter Capitolinus by order of the senate (Poisardus de Sibyllis, p. 275.)

From these Sibyls proceed the Sibyllinic Books, which were consulted in later times, not only in sickness but in affairs of state, and which were regarded in Rome as the keepers of human destinies, and honoured accordingly. Their origin is as wholly unknown as the history of the oracles. Their number was great, but at the same time uncertain, since only one, the Erythräic, signed her books with her name. They are, moreover, of two kinds,—namely, the books of the elder Sibyls, that is, of the Grecian and earlier Roman times; and the later, which are said to be much falsified and full of interpolations. Of the latter there are said yet to remain eight books in the Greek and Latin languages. Those which were preserved in Rome were a collection of various Sibyls and oracles, whch had been brought together from different places and times, since, according to Lactantius (Divin. instit. lib. i. c. 6) every Sibyl had her own book; or if she had it not, yet her vaticinations were taken down by others who surrounded and counselled with her. These books contained, for the most part, in the most mysterious language and symbolic phrases-sometimes, however, in words as clear-the unfoldings of the future. At first they were permitted only to be read by descendants of Apollo, but later by the priests, until certain persons were appointed in Rome to take charge of them, and in cases of difficulty to answer inquiries from them.

The history of the manner in which these books came to Rome, and what was their fortune there, is as follows:-A little, old, and unknown woman came to Tarquin, the king, at Rome, with a number of books. According to some writers she had nine of them; according to Pliny only three. It was believed that this ancient matron was the Cumæan Sibyl herself, and that she offered them to the king for three hundred gold pieces. The king laughed at so high a price; but the old woman threw three of them into the fire, and then asked whether the king would give the same price for the remaining six. The king thought she was mad. She immediately threw three more into the fire, and asked him, for the last time, whether he would yet give the same price for the remaining three. Tarquin was startled at this strange

firmness, and gave her the price. The woman vanished, and was never seen again. The king now committed these three books to two men (duumviris) for their careful preservation and consultation, by which Rome was so often afterwards helped in her need, and had not unfrequently her fortunes stated beforehand. Two hundred and thirteen years afterwards, ten more were appointed to their guardianship (decemviri). Sulla added five more (quindecimviri). These watched the books, and gave no answers out of them except on command of the senate, which only happened on the appearance of extraordinary prodigies, on the occurrence of some public misfortune, or when affairs of extreme importance were in agitation.

According to the historians Livy, Suetonius, and Tacitus, these books were preserved in the capitol, which, however, was soon afterwards burnt down. But the books were saved, and carried to the temple of Apollo Palatinus, which also was afterwards burnt down. The books of the Cumæan Sibyl were preserved in profound secresy, and these, they say, were by no means burnt, being kept in a stone chest which was buried in the earth. Dionysius of Halicarnassus (Antiq. Rom. i. 4) says: "These books remained uninjured in a subterranean cave of the capitol in a stone chest till the Marsian war. After they, in whatever manner it might be, were lost or destroyed, Augustus sent three ambassadors, P. Gabinus, M. Otacillius, and L. Valerius, to Asia, Africa, and Italy, but especially to the Erythræan Sibyl, to collect everything which could possibly be obtained of the Sibylline oracles, for they valued them as the Palladium of the empire.

From this it may have proceeded that the books became much enlarged, and probably very full of false interpolations. Their number, according to Tacitus and Suetonius, was so great, and their contents so falsified, that Augustus is said to have burnt about two thousand of them, and only, after a close investigation, retained eight of the smallest. According to others, the collection of Augustus was itself burnt under Julian. In the meantime, it appears, from a careful inquiry, that the Cumaan books were not lost under Augustus; since in the first place they are said to have been in many hands, as Varro testifies; and secondly, as they

were rescued in good time at the burning of the temple of Apollo Palatinus. Flavius Vopiscus (in Aureliano, lib. xxiii.) says:"If there had not been timely assistance at the fire, the Cumæan books would have perished. Augustus is said to have ordered these books to be transcribed, because the characters in which they were written could not be read without difficulty ("jussu Augusti transcripti a pontificibus quia characteres exsolescebant.") According to the inquiries of Crasset, they were first burnt after the time of Constantine the Great in the year 339 A.D. by one Stilikon, who introduced the Goths into the country, and destroyed the Sibylline books beforehand, that no aid might be obtained from them.

The abodes of the Sibyls were for the most part remote and quiet places, especially caves, as was the case with the Oracles in Greece; and in Boeotia, which abounded with such caves and dens, according to Plutarch, the chief oracles were found. Near Cumæ, the whole country was volcanic; steaming water, and vapour of sulphur, made them often inaccessible to the wanderer. The vapours ascending from the Grotto del Cane and the Avernian Lake were of so fatal a nature that even birds approaching fell dead out of the air. "If it were now the question, as it frequently has been, whether the whole story of the Sibyls and Oracles is not fabulous, it may be answered that there is no subject on the truth of which the testimony of all historians, poets, and philosophers, is so completely agreed. For the rest, the Sibyls, like the Oracles and our mesmeric sleepers, made known their visions, now in metaphors and hints, now by writing and words, for they prophesied, says Servius (Servius ad Maronis verba: Tribus modis futura prædicit, aut voce, aut scriptura, aut signis, horrendas canit ambages antroque remugit obscuris vera involvensMaro.)"

Besides the philosophers and historians, Grecian and Roman, as Plato, Aristotle, Strabo, Ælian, Pausanias, Apollodorus, Lucian, Homer, Aristides, Plutarch, Varro, Cicero, Diodorus, Tacitus, Suetonius, Livy, Florus, Valerius, Dionysius of Halicarnassus, Pliny, Virgil, Ovid, Juvenal, etc., they are the Fathers of the Church who most eminently maintained the truth of the Oracles and the

testimony of the Sibyls. The holy fathers have often not only brought forward the evidence of the Oracles to convince the unbelieving, because these, ages beforehand, announced the advent of Christ. The Sibyls were to the heathens what the prophets were to the Jews. Their books contained especially the mysteries of religion, on which account they were strictly forbidden by the Emperors, in the first ages of Christianity, to be read. St. Justin complains loudly against this prohibition, in his defence, since he produced the oracles to confound the incredulous. As the early Christians disregarded this prohibition, and only the more addicted themselves to the reading of them, they were, therefore, denominated Sibyllines (Origenes contra Celsum, lib. vii.)

Amongst the Fathers of the Church who most celebrated the oracles stand pre-eminent the Pope Clemens, Justin Martyr, Athenagoras, Theophilus of Antioch, Eusebius, Lactantius, Clemens of Alexandria, St. Ambrose, Jerome, Augustin, and Isidor of Seville, who all supported the truth of Christianity by the evidence of the Sibyls. One remarkable place is found in Justin (Admonitorum ad Græcos) which describes admirably the somnambulic condition of Sibyls :"Res multas et magnas recte et vere dicunt, nihil eorum, quæ dicunt, intelligentes. Sibyllæ enim haudquaquam sicuti poetis etiam postquam poemata scripsere, facultas fuit, corrigendi atque expolienda responsa sua, sed in ipso afflatus tempore sortes illæ suas explebat et evanescente instinctu ipso simul quoque dictorum memoria evanuit."

Onuphrius, who wrote a book, also spoke of them in a later century, as did also Sextus of Sienna, P. Canisius, Salmeron, and others. How generally received and sacred with them was the voice of the Sibyls, is still attested to us in the mass for the dead, where it says-" According to the testimony of David and of the Sibyls, the last day of wrath will termi nate with fire."

"Dies iræ, dies illa,

Solvet seclum in favilla,
Teste David cum Sibylla."

That the Oracles in the prophesying also announced the coming of Christ, is proved by many places to be found

scattered through the writers we have mentioned. We will bere quote some from both heathens and Christians :

Cicero, who lived seventy years before Christ, seems to corroborate these prognostications of the coming of Christ by the Sibyls, where he says-" If we attend to the rhymes of the Sibyls, they tell us-' He whom we hold to be the true king, we must also style king, in order to become happy. And if these things are contained in those books, to what man and to what times do they apply?'" (Cicero de divination. lib. ii. c. 110.) Virgil, the prince of poets, forty years before Christ sings (Virgil, Eclog. iv.) :

That is," A new race is sent down to us from heaven, the last of the ages sung by the Cumaan Sibyl, etc. Therefore, chaste Lucina, be gracious to this boy who shall be born, through whom the iron age shall cease, and the golden one shall be brought into the world."

Tacitus (lib. xi.) says-"Pluribus persuasio inerat antiquis, eo ipso tempore fore, ut valesceret oriens, profectique Judæa potirentur." Suetonius (in Vespasiano) and Livy were enemies of the Christians; yet they speak of a very ancient prophecy, that a man born in Judæa should become master of the whole world. One of the most furious enemies of the Christians, the Emperor Aurelian, forbade the books of the Sibyls to be read under the severest penalties. But as he did not see his way clear in the Markoman war, he wrote to the senate a letter, in which he said "I wonder, holy fathers, that it is so long delayed to open the Sibylline books, as if they belonged only to the Church of the Christians, and not to the temple of all the gods."

St. Augustin is probably to be regarded as the most especial defender of the Sibylline books amongst the fathers (De civitate Dei, lib. xviii. c. 23.) In the very commencement of his work he speaks of the Sibyls, and quotes sevenand-twenty verses of the Erythræan Sibyl, which foretold the