CHAPTER XI.

THE SIBYLLINE BOOKS.

It is impossible to say precisely what the Sibylline Books contained, but there seems to be every reason for believing that they contained prophecies, scattered throughout the Gentile world, even in its darkest ages, of the coming of some such person as our Saviour, about the time when he appeared upon earth. Celsus charged the Christians of his time with interpolating these books; but Origen challenged him to support the accusation by specific instances of fraud, and maintained that the most ancient copies had the passages to which Celsus objected. "Besides," as Bishop Horsley observes,

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some of the earlier fathers, as, for instance, Justin Martyr and Clemens Alexandrinus, who rested some of their arguments in defence of Christianity on the authority of the Sibylline Books, lived before the age of pious frauds, as they have been called, and while these very books were extant, so that they might have been easily confuted by their heathen adversaries, had they alleged as quotations any predictions which appeared not in the authentic copies." And, with respect to heathen writers, it would have been unsafe for them to have given direct quotations from these oracular writ

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ings, in violation of a law by which the publication of any part of them was made a capital offence. From the general argument, however, of the book, and the purport of particular prophecies which have transpired, it is very evident that it could have been no forgery of heathen priestcraft; for this reason, that it was exceedingly unfavourable to that system of superstition which it was the great concern and interest of the heathen priesthood to propagate and support. This, too, was the probable reason for the Roman Senate's committing the book to the custody of two of the Augural College, and for keeping it from the inspection of the vulgar by the severest laws. Still it appears, that in a dispute, which was keenly agitated at Rome, between the friends of Julius Cæsar, and the leaders of the republican party, a member of the Augural College, in order to prepare the way to Cæsar's assumption of the title of a king, which alone was wanting to his ambition, let the secret out. He produced a prophecy from the Cumaan Sibyl, of a king who was to arise at this time, whose monarchy was to be universal, and whose government would be necessary and essential to the happiness of the world. Now, who so likely to be this king as Cæsar? The republican party accordingly took the alarm; and Cicero, at that time its chief support, was called forth to oppose the stratagem of the dictator's faction. He denied not that a prophecy to this effect was actually contained in the Sibylline Books, to which, as a member of the Augural College, he had free access; but he

was too shrewd to apply it to Cæsar, and he therefore strove to set it aside, by attempting to throw discredit on the Sibylline prophecies generally; suggesting, in conclusion, that it would be well to adhere to the prudent practice of their ancestors, of keeping the Sibyl in religious privacy-" for," he says, "these writings are indeed rather calculated to extinguish than to propagate superstition."

In his 2d Book of Divination, speaking of the books of the Sibyls, Cicero says, "Cum antistibus agamus, et quidvis potius ex illis libris, quam regem proferant; quem Romæ post hæc nec dii, nec homines esse patientur." Let us be on our guard against the priests, and rather let them bring forth any thing out of their books than a king, whom neither gods nor men will suffer henceforward at Rome.

It has often been noticed as an ample justification of the obscurity of prophecy, that clearer predictions of coming events would infallibly lead to attempts to frustrate their accomplishment; and the admonitions of Cicero to his republican friends, together with the bloody decree of the Roman Senate recorded by Suetonius,* are altogether in point; for although that decree

* What Suetonius, in his Life of Augustus, c. 94, says of this prediction of the Sibyl, is, that it so terrified the Roman Senate, that they made a decree to destroy all children born in that year. "Ne quis illo anno educaretur." But, he further adds, that those senators,

was not, like the cruel commands of Pharaoh and of Herod, for a sufficient reason, carried into effect, yet the motive in which it originated was the same. God has endowed man with freedom of will; but it were impiety to suppose that He forces him to do a wicked thing.

If the Jews had known that the crucifixion of Christ had been foretold by himself, would they not have had recourse to some other mode of putting him to death? Would they not rather have stoned him, as they did St. Stephen? For that was the death appointed by the law for blasphemy. And in fact they several times attempted to stone Christ, because he said, "I am the Son of God,"—John, viii. 59, and x. 31, 32, 33. Whereas crucifixion was a sentence of the Roman law, under which the Jews, that the prophecy might be fulfilled, unknowingly contrived that our Saviour should suffer. Yet he told them enough to let them see, after they had done the deed, what he meant by saying, John, viii. 28, “When ye have lift up the Son of Man, then shall ye know that I am He. And

whose wives happened at that time to be with child, each hoping that he might be the fortunate person, took care that the decree of the Senate should not be deposited in the treasury. "Eos qui gravidas

uxores haberent, quod ad se quisque spem traheret, curasse ne senatus consultum ad ærarium deferretur." By this means the execution of the decree was prevented.

xii. 32, 33-" And I, if I he lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying what death he should die."

Then again, the piercing his side with a spear was no part of the Roman sentence of execution, but happened, seemingly, by mere accident. For the crucifixion having taken place on the day of proparation for the Sabbath, "that the bodies might not remain upon the Cross on the Sabbath day," the Jews besought Pilate, that their legs might be broken, lest they should escape when taken down. Accordingly the legs of the thieves were broken, for they were yet alive; but our Saviour's legs were not broken, because " they saw that he was dead already." Yet to make sure of this, one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, so that "neither was there a bone of Him broken," whilst, in his completion of another prophecy, “they looked on Him whom they had pierced." And did not the soldiers "cast lots upon his vesture?" And the chief priests upbraided him almost in the very words of Ps. xxii. "He trusted in God that he would deliver him; let him deliver him if he will have him."* Would the Jews have given Judas exactly thirty pieces of silver? Or would they have bought the potter's field, if they had known how to interpret the prophetic words of Zachariah ?-xi. 12, 13.

* Compare Matthew, xxvii. 39, &c.