Sibylline Oracle

The Sibylline oracles (Latin Oracula Sibyllina ) are a collection of supposedly prophetic writings compiled in the 6th century, based on Jewish, Christian and pagan sources from 150 BC. Dating back to 300 AD. They are not identical to the Roman Sibylline Books .

Content and origin of the collection

Books I-II and XI-XIV

Books I-II and XI-XIV have a Jewish basis, but are heavily revised in a Christian way.

Book III

According to the majority of researchers, Book III is the oldest item in the collection and is of purely Jewish origin. The main pieces can be dated to the second century BC.

Book IV

The book in its present form was created in the eighties of the first century from the pen of a Jewish author. In verses 116 and 125f. there are references to the destruction of the Jerusalem temple (70 AD); verses 130-136 allude to the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79. In verses 49-101, the author has probably included a passage of pagan origin from the third century BC, in which world history is divided into four world empires with a total of ten generations.

Book V

Book V offers quite different and little interrelated oracles. In its main pieces it was created around 100 AD. It contains a list of the Roman emperors from Caesar to Hadrian, who are designated with symbolic numbers (→ Gematria ) or initials. It also contains prophecies against peoples or cities, especially against Egypt and Rome, and tells of a messianic figure. It ends with a section about the war between individual stars, which is shaped by astrological ideas.

Books VI-X

Books VI-VIII are of purely Christian origin; Books IX and X only repeat material from the other books and are therefore missing from the text editions.

Valuation as a historical source

Despite their revisions, the books of the Sibylline Oracle can be used as a source of cultural information, for the interpretation of the understanding of religion and for the interpretation of political events at the time of their creation in the oriental provinces of the Roman Empire .

Late antique and medieval versions

Christian authors since late antiquity viewed the sibyls as prophets . In the Middle Ages, the oracle scripts were widely used in numerous versions. The important lines of tradition of the Sibylline Oracle were:

• The Tiburtine Sibyl (Latin Sibylla Tiburtina ) goes back to a Greek model and originated in southern Italy in the 11th century. More than 130 manuscripts in Latin have survived from this collection alone; 30 of them date from before 1200. There were also numerous translations into Greek, Ethiopian and Arabic. In this way this Sibyl contributes significantly to the eschatological expectation of the Emperor of Peace , which was widely cherished in the Western Middle Ages , and whose coming it is predicted.
• The Eritrean Sibyl (lat. Sibylla Eritrea ), also based on a Greek model and was already known to the church father Augustine , who mentions it in De civitate Dei 18:23. This collection has also been widespread since the 12th century. A long version revised by the Franciscans (around 1240) is used as a means of political propaganda against Emperor Friedrich II .
• Less than the previous ones were the Cuman Sibyl (lat. Sibylla Cumana ) and
• the Sami Sibyl or Delphic Sibyl (Latin Sibylla Samia / Delphica ) received. Joachim von Fiore wrote a commentary on the latter collection of oracles .

expenditure

Wikisource: The books III-V in the translation by Friedrich Blass  - sources and full texts

• Charles Alexandre: Chrēsmoi Sibylliakoi, Ed. altera ex priore ampliore contracta, integra tamen et passim aucta, multisque locis retractata. Didot, Paris 1869. On Archive.org
• Jörg-Dieter Gauger : Sibylline prophecies. Greek-German. On the basis of the edition by A. Kurfeß ed. and re-translated. Artemis & Winkler, Düsseldorf / Zurich 1998, ISBN 3-7608-1701-7 .
• Johannes Geffcken : The Oracula Sibyllina , GCS 8, Leipzig 1902.
• Helmut Merkel: Sibyllines. In: Jewish writings from the Hellenistic-Roman period. Sibylline V / 8. Gütersloh 1998, ISBN 3-579-03958-X .
• Friedrich Blass : The Sibyllines. In: Emil Kautzsch (Ed.): The Apocrypha and Pseudepigraphen of the Old Testament. Mohr (Siebeck) Tübingen 1900, Vol. 2, pp. 177-217.

literature

• Ferdinand Hahn: Early Jewish and early Christian apocalyptic. Neukirchen-Vluyn 1998, ISBN 3-7887-1667-3 , pp. 90f.
• Jane L. Lightfoot: The Sibylline Oracles. With Introduction, Translation, and Commentary on the First and Second Books. Oxford 2007, ISBN 978-0-19-921546-1 .
• Liliana Rosso Ubigli: Sibyllines. In: Theological Real Encyclopedia . 31, Berlin 2000, pp. 240-245.
• Alois Rzach : Sibyls, Sibylline oracles. In: Paulys Realencyclopadie der classischen Antiquity Science (RE). Volume II A, 2, Stuttgart 1923, Sp. 2073-2183.
• Olaf Waßmuth: Sibylline oracles 1-2. Studies and Commentary. Brill, Leiden / Boston 2011, ISBN 978-90-04-17593-8 . (Ancient Judaism and Early Christianity 76)

Remarks

1. ^ Hahn, Apokalyptik, 91.
2. ↑ Merkel, Sibyllinen 1059-1064.
3. ↑ "The assumption that Book IV is [...] of Christian origin has now finally been given up" (Rosso Ubigli 241).
4. ↑ Merkel, Sibyllinen 1064f.
5. ↑ Merkel, Sibyllinen 1066f. Rosso Ubigli (243) names the period from 80 to 130 AD.
6. ↑ Book V, 12-51.
7. ↑ As in the New Testament Revelation of John we also find here the designation of Rome with the symbolic name of Babylon . Cf. V, 159 and ( Rev 18.2  EU ) and others.
8. ^ Hahn, Apokalyptik, 91.
9. ↑ Merkel, Sibyllinen, 1046.
10. ↑ cf. z. Caption Hartmann: Oriental self-confidence in the 13th Sibylline Oracle. In: Michael Blömer u. a. (Ed.): Local Identity in the Roman Middle East (Oriens et Occidens). Steiner, Stuttgart 2009, ISBN 978-3-515-09377-4 , pp. 75-98.