Letter S

S.

SOLOMON, king of Jerusalem — besides those three books which are placed in the first order of the sacred canon (namely Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, [and] the book of Canticles), and two psalms (that is, the seventy-second and the hundred twenty-seventh), and besides the book of Wisdom (which is numbered among the canonical volumes of the second order) — published a well-nigh infinite number of books, ¹ of which the [ones] written below are cited in the sacred letters:

משלי Mishle, that is, three thousand books of Parables — concerning which, at the close of the book of Ecclesiastes, Solomon himself speaks thus: ² AND whereas Ecclesiastes was most wise, he taught the people, and declared the [things] he had done; and, searching out, he composed many parables: he sought profitable words, and wrote most upright discourses, and full of truth. Which is more amply explained in the third volume of Kings, in these words: ³ GOD gave to Solomon wisdom, and understanding exceeding much, and largeness of heart as the sand that is on the sea shore: and the wisdom of Solomon surpassed the wisdom of all the men of the East, and of the Egyptians; and he was wiser than all men, &c.; and he spoke three thousand parables, &c. Which words the author of the book of Hebrew Questions (whether that were Jerome, or some other) explains, saying that this work of three thousand parables is the book of Proverbs, ⁴ in which there are pesuchim [verses] — namely, nine hundred and fifteen verses — wherein three thousand parables are contained. But Josephus, in the eighth [book] of the Antiquities, expounding this place otherwise, ⁵ writes that Solomon made three thousand books of parables and similitudes; which the Rabbis of the Jews hand down to have been burned, in the devastation of the holy city, together with the books of the law, by Nabuzardan, prefect of the soldiery of the Chaldaeans, and afterward could not be repaired by Esdras.

Solomon likewise wrote ⁶ שירים Hashirim — that is, five thousand Canticles, or Songs, ⁷ as the same third [book] of Kings testifies — or (as Josephus expounds) five thousand books of Songs; of which one book only, which is inscribed שיר השירים Shir hashirim, that is, THE SONG OF SONGS, remained, the rest being consumed in the burning of Jerusalem.

He published also ⁸ דברי הטבע Dibre hatteva, that is, [the discourses] of the words of nature — or a huge work of Natural disputations, filled with an admirable wisdom of all things — which the third book of Kings recalls, at the place already cited, in this manner: ⁹ SOLOMON disputed concerning trees, from the cedar which is in Lebanon unto the hyssop which comes out of the wall; and he discoursed of beasts, and of fowls, and of creeping things, and of fishes — that is (as Jerome says) of their force, natures, and habits, and at what time they are born, and why not all [things] are born in every land. Which work was burned up in the same fire with the rest of the books. Georgius Cedrenus, in the compendium of histories, relates ¹⁰ that the Greek iatrosophists [physician-sages] filched the matter and the arguments of the art of Medicine out of this work — which indeed Hezekiah, king of Jerusalem, took away out of the midst [suppressed], offended (as the same author writes) by the negligence of the Jewish people, who, seeking the remedies of diseases from these writings, neglected to demand the healing of them from God.

He wrote also ¹¹ מכתב היכל Michtav hechal, that is, the Writing of the temple, or a Description of the temple of Jerusalem — in which, after the imitation of his father David, he most copiously set forth an exemplar of the temple to be built, showing the form, the site, the measure, and the price of the several parts of the temple; and likewise explaining the dispositions, and the several offices of the Priests, Levites, Doorkeepers, Singers, and the other ministers, which were to be performed in the temple. Of this work the second book of the sacred Annals makes mention. ¹² Rabanus judges this book to be the same as that which the first [book] of the Annals records David to have written on the same subject; ¹³ but the second book of the Annals gainsays [it], distinguishing the one from the other in these words: ¹⁴ PREPARE yourselves by [your] houses and kindred your kindreds in the divisions of each, as it is [written] בכתב bi-chethav, that is, in the writing of David, king of Israel, and במכתב be-michtav, that is, in the writing of Solomon, his son — but both perished in the destruction of the city.

There was also published by him a Prayer to God for the dedication of the temple, which he himself — on bended knees before the altar, and with hands lifted up to heaven — offered to God, saying: O LORD God of Israel, &c. — which [things] are written in the whole sixth chapter of the second [book] of Paralipomenon.

There is also cited, in the third book of Kings, chapter eleven, ¹⁵ ספר דברי שלמה Sepher divre Shelomo, that is, the book of the words of Solomon: in which he himself — or, as others think, the Prophet Ozai [Iddo] — wrote the life and all the deeds of Solomon; which book the Chaldaeans burned together with the other sacred scriptures.

AND these are the writings of Solomon of which mention is made in the sacred letters; beyond which he is reported to have written also certain others, concerning which [these things are noted]:

Of PRAYERS, or Incantations, for soothing sicknesses, one book — of which Josephus makes mention in the eighth book of the Antiquities.

Of EXORCISMS, or Conjurations, for driving away evil demons, one book. Concerning these Josephus, in the eighth book of the Antiquities, writes thus: GOD granted also to Solomon that he should learn thoroughly the art against demons, for the utility of men, and the cures of these [diseases]; whence also he instituted incantations by which sicknesses are wont to be mitigated: he found out also the manner of the bindings by which the demons, [once] bound, do not return again after they have been driven off. And this cure is discerned to prevail much among us even to this day. For I saw a certain Eleazar, of our nation, in the presence of Vespasian and his sons, and the Tribunes, and the rest of the army, curing those who were vexed by demons. Now the manner of the medicine was of this kind. He put to the nostrils of him who was vexed by the demon a ring having under [its] seal a root shown by Solomon: then he drew out the demon through the nostrils of the [man] smelling [it]; and suddenly the man fell down. Afterward he adjured him [the demon], casting against [it] the adjurations of Solomon, that it should not return again unto him — that is, the Songs which he composed, [now] to be said over him. But, wishing to satisfy and to prove to the bystanders that he had this virtue [power], Eleazar would place before them either a cup or a basin full of water, and would command the demon that, going out from the man, it should overturn these, and give to the beholders a sign that it had left the man. Which being done, the wisdom of Solomon became known to all. Thus Josephus. Origen, in the 35th tractate on Matthew, indicating that in his own age there were not lacking [those] who out of these books adjured demons, writes thus: TO ADJURE demons is a Jewish [practice]; and if at any time such a thing is done by our [people], it is like to that whereby the demons are wont to be adjured by the adjurations written by Solomon. But those very [persons] who use those adjurations sometimes use books not even fitly composed; and with certain [adjurations] taken even from the Hebrew, they adjure demons.

THERE ARE COMMEMORATED also, among the ancient authors of approved credit, the riddling Letters of Solomon to Hiram, king of the Tyrians, ¹⁶ and of Hiram to Solomon: concerning which Josephus, in the first volume against Apion, writes in this manner: HIRAM, king of the Tyrians, was a friend to our king Solomon; but it was chiefly the love of wisdom that had procured [their] friendship. For they used to send to each other problems to be solved; and in these Solomon was the better, and appeared the wiser. Even to this day there are kept among the Tyrians many letters, which they wrote to one another. And that I may not [seem to] feign concerning the letters of the Tyrians, I will bring forward as witness Dius, who is approved as most trustworthy in the histories of the Phoenicians. He, then, in the histories of the Phoenicians, writes thus: THEY say that king Solomon sent to king Hiram riddles, and demanded [some] from him — it being added that whosoever could not solve [them] should pay a sum of money to the one who did solve [them]: and that Hiram, having confessed that he could not solve the proposed questions, ¹⁷ was fined in much money; then, that a certain Abdemon, a Tyrian man, solved the proposed questions, and himself proposed others, which, if Solomon did not solve them, he should in turn confer much money on king Hiram. Thus Josephus; to whom Theophilus, sixth bishop of Antioch, in the third book to Autolycus, subscribes in well-nigh the same words.

THERE IS reported also another book of Solomon, inscribed WISDOM, ¹⁸ diverse from that which we have in the Canon: concerning which John Pico [della Mirandola], in the preface of his Heptaplus, left [it] thus written: THERE IS extant among the Hebrews a book of that Solomon surnamed the most wise, whose title is WISDOM — not that which is now in [our] hands, the work of Philo, but another, composed in the more secret tongue which they call the Jerusalem [tongue]; in which the man [Solomon], the interpreter of the nature of things (as is thought), confesses that he received all the doctrine of that book out of the inner recesses of the Mosaic law.

THERE IS also numbered, in the Decree of Gelasius the Pontiff, among the condemned writings, a certain book most falsely ascribed to Solomon, which is entitled THE LITTLE KEY of Solomon — ¹⁹ which we once saw carried about by certain impostors, containing a kind of prodigious and maleficent superstition.

LIKEWISE also another book, called THE CONTRADICTION OF SOLOMON, ²⁰ is enumerated in the same Decree of Gelasius, which it has not yet befallen me to see.

Cecco d’Ascoli [Ciccus Asculanus] often alleges, in [his] commentaries on the Sphere, a certain book of Solomon On the Shadows of the Ideas, ²¹ in which, under [that] name, the appellations, significations, and definitions of the axes of the poles, of the circles, and of the other parts of the Astronomical Sphere, are transferred to the explaining of the mysteries of magical impiety.

THE SAMARITAN PENTATEUCH, which of old was in use among the Samaritans, contained the five books of Moses written in the Hebrew tongue, but with letter-shapes and points plainly diverse ²² from these characters which the Jews now use — [characters] found out by Esdras after the taking of Jerusalem; although, before its destruction, the characters of the Samaritans and of the Hebrews (as Jerome testifies in the preface of Kings) were the same. Jerome frequently makes mention of this Pentateuch, ²³ admonishing that some [things] out of it have crept into our Vulgate edition: such as that [reading] in the book of Genesis, ²⁴ LET US GO FORTH ABROAD — which is not had in the Hebrew.

SAMUEL the Ephraite, the Prophet, wrote ספר משפט המלוכה Sepher Mishpat ha-Meluchah; for which the Seventy translated βιβλίον τῆς δικαιώματος τῆς βασιλείας, that is, the Book of the justification, or of the Jewish kingdom, or of the Law of the kingdom: ²⁵ in which the Prophet, after he had appointed Saul the first king of the Hebrews, wrote the institution of the royal polity, and certain laws by which the helm of the kingdom should be handled with such moderation that neither should the King exercise tyranny over the people, nor the people, out of their own caprice, despise the commands of the King. And he laid up the volume, [placing] it in the Ark of the covenant, for the perpetual instruction of the kingdom. Mention is made of this book in the first volume of Kings, chapter ten, in these words: ²⁶ AND Samuel spoke to the people the law of the Kingdom, and wrote it in a book, and laid it up before the Lord. He wrote also ²⁷ concerning the earlier deeds of David of Jerusalem one book, of which, at the end of the former book of Paralipomenon, it is thus read: ²⁸ NOW the acts of David the king, the first and the last, are written in the book of Samuel the Seer, and in the book of Nathan the Prophet, and in the volume of Gad the Seer. This book Rabbi Moses Kimhi says to be the former part of the volume which by us is [reckoned] under the name of the First [book] of Kings, but by the Hebrews is reckoned, under the title of Samuel, among the scriptures of the old testament; and he asserts the same Samuel to have been the writer of the book of Judges and of Ruth.

SHEMAIAH THE NEHELAMITE — שמעיה הנחלמי Shemaiah ha-Nehelami, or Semeias the Nehelamite — a false prophet, ²⁹ and sent by his own [authority], unbidden of God (being of the number of those who were led away into Babylon together with the impious king Joakim), wrote — as though in the name of God — to Sophonias [Zephaniah] the Pontiff, and to the whole senate and people of Jerusalem, an accusatory book against Jeremiah the Prophet, ³⁰ charging him that (seized by a raving and malignant spirit) he had filled the whole multitude of the transmigrants [exiles] with despair, by a letter sent to them, in which he had foretold, as [it were] out of the words of God, that their captivity in Babylon would be long. And accordingly he urgently demanded that [Jeremiah] be cast into prison, and be punished after the manner of the forefathers. But this lying Shemaiah died not long after, a captive in Babylon together with his whole family — God so willing it, who had announced this very punishment to him, for the office of prophecy rashly usurped, through the mouth of Jeremiah the Prophet.

SHEMAIAH — שמעיה Shemaiah, or Semeias — a most holy prophet of the Lord, a Jew by race, ³¹ who, going to Rehoboam king of Judah at Jerusalem in the fifth year of his reign, foretold to him by the command of God the plundering of the temple and of the city — soon to be done — by Shishak [Sesac], king of Egypt; [and] published concerning the life and deeds of Rehoboam king of Judah one book, of which, in the second volume of the sacred annals, chapter 12, it is thus written: ³² NOW the works of Rehoboam, the first and the last, are written in the books of Shemaiah the Prophet, and of Addo [Iddo] the Seer, and diligently expounded.

Under the name of THE SCRIBES, which is so often inculcated in the Gospel, ³³ some think there is signified a kind of men to whom alone, among the Jews, there was the power of writing out the sacred books of the divine law, lest they should be depraved by being written according to the caprice and pleasure of anyone. For Augustine also, in the first book On the Lord’s sermon on the mount, relates ³⁴ that it was lawful for none among the Hebrews to write the sacred letters, except for the Scribes alone, because they professed a wisdom more excellent than the rest. There are [those] who hand down that the Scribes were the chief men, and of the highest authority, and most wise, whose office it was that — as of old among the Romans, in doubtful matters, answers were sought out of the volumes of the Sibyls through the haruspices — so these, [being] consulted concerning hard and perplexed matters, should answer out of the sacred books and the oracles of the prophets: ³⁵ whom Matthew reports that Herod also consulted, at the coming of the Magi, concerning the birth of the Messiah. ³⁶ Epiphanius, in the first book of the Panarion, relates that they were expositors of the divine scripture, ³⁷ and thence obtained the name of Scribes; and that they were wont to interpret the scriptures according to four expositions: ³⁸ of which the first was called [that] of Moses the Prophet; the second, of Achiba [Akiba]; the third, of Ammani, or Ida; the fourth, of the sons of Asamonaeus [the Hasmonaeans].

SENNACHERIB, or Sancherib, king of the Assyrians, ³⁹ when he had besieged Hezekiah, king of the Jews, within the walls of the city of Jerusalem with a most powerful army, sent to him a letter, in which he called him a fool, because — relying on the empty hope of his God — he thought that he could escape the servitude of him [Sennacherib] who had utterly subdued so many nations; and he threatened destruction to all, unless of their own accord, the gates being thrown open, they should receive the army into the city. This letter, having read [it] secretly, Hezekiah went up into the temple, and, spreading it out before the Lord, commended his own safety and that of the City to Him with many supplications. To be observed ⁴⁰ in this place is the prudence of the king, who read the blasphemies of the letters to no one, lest he should diminish the faith in the divine promises among his [people], dismayed by fear; but laid [them] open to God alone, whom he knew to be the protector of the people. With the same counsel the same King asked, through his ambassadors, Rabshakeh, the leader of the Syrian army, that he would not speak in the Jewish [tongue], fearing lest he should stir up a tumult of the people by his speech: for the people, hearing Rabshakeh purposely upbraiding the King (because he had destroyed the high places and altars which the forefathers had erected in honor of God), might in a little moment waver. But when Rabshakeh, understanding well enough what Hezekiah feared, went on to speak in Hebrew with an even greater voice and much more vehemently, it was commanded that no one should answer. By which example we are admonished ⁴¹ that the books, writings, sermons, and colloquies of heretics are not to be heard; ⁴² and that if we be compelled to hear their blasphemies even with unwilling ears, we ought not to give them an answer, nor to dispute with them. For they are swine and dogs, before whom pearls ought not to be cast; and this is against those who say that all books are to be read indiscriminately, boasting that [saying] of Paul, ⁴³ PROVE all things: hold fast that which is good; and likewise that saying of Dionysius of Alexandria, out of the sixth [book] of the ecclesiastical history, and of Jerome in the epistle to Minervius and Alexander: to whom we have abundantly answered in the sixth book, in the censures on the first epistle to the Corinthians, chapter fifteen.

SETH, the son of Adam — seven books. These (as Epiphanius attests in the first [book] of the Panarion) the Gnostic heretics — [those] who were called Sethians, and [those] Archontici — fashioned under the name of that Seth, ⁴⁴ adding to them also seven other books, which they call ⁴⁵ ALIENS [Alienigenae], from the name of the seven sons of Seth, who among them were called Aliens [Allogeneis]. But they took, as I judge, the occasion of this fabrication from that which Josephus relates in the first book of the Antiquities — namely, that the sons of Seth devised ⁴⁶ the sidereal science for the knowledge of celestial things; and, since they knew that Adam had foretold two universal destructions of things (the one by fire, the other by flood), fearing lest their inventions should perish before they were thoroughly known, they raised up two pillars, and inscribed their inventions on each; that, if it should befall the brick [pillar] to be destroyed by the flood, the stone one, surviving, ⁴⁷ might afford to men the means of learning [them]. And that [pillar] which had been built of stone, Josephus relates to have existed, in his own times, still in Asia.

The author of the Unfinished Work on Matthew, expounding that [saying] of Matthew, chapter 2, ⁴⁸ WE HAVE SEEN his star in the East, makes mention of a certain writing of Seth concerning the star to appear at the rising [birth] of the Messiah, in these words: I HAVE HEARD certain [men] relating concerning a certain writing — though not certain, yet not destroying faith, but rather delighting [it] — [namely] that there was a certain nation situated in the very beginning of the East, beside the Ocean, among whom there was carried about a certain writing, inscribed with the name of Seth, concerning this star that was to appear, and the gifts of this kind to be offered to Christ; which [writing] was held handed down through the generations of studious men, the fathers relating [it] to their sons, &c.

THE ORACLES OF THE SIBYLS. Paul the Apostle (as Clement, in the sixth book of the Stromata, is witness) exhorts his [people] to the reading of the Sibylline volumes, ⁴⁹ saying thus in a certain recondite writing: TAKE the Greek books, and acknowledge the Sibyls, how they signify one God, and the [things] that are to come; and you shall find in them the Son of God more clearly and more openly written. Incited by this exhortation of Paul (whatever it be), I have received certain [things] concerning the names, the fatherland, and the writings of the Sibyls from various authors, especially Christian, which I shall here insert. The Sibyls were all women, prophetesses full of God, ⁵⁰ flourishing in perpetual virginity, foreknowers and interpreters of future things — so named by the ancients because they announced the counsels of the gods: for βίος [signifies] god [θεόν], and βουλήν [signifies] counsel, in the Aeolic kind of speech. And whereas they brought forth oracles of future [things] in diverse kinds of verse, they foretold also many [things] concerning our Savior Christ, and the redemption of the human race, and committed [them] also to letters with such certainty and clarity of foreknowledge, ⁵¹ that they seem to have written past [events] rather than future. These — according to the opinion of M. Varro, who in the books of divine matters, to C. Caesar the Pontifex Maximus, discoursed copiously concerning the Sibyls — Lactantius (in the first book against the gentiles) and Jerome (in the first [book] against Jovinian) report to have been ten ⁵² in number; whose surnames from [their] fatherland are these: ⁵³ the Cumaean, the Cumanan, the Persian, the Hellespontic, the Libyan, the Samian, the Delphic, the Phrygian, the Tiburtine, the Erythraean. But the [things] which I have gathered concerning each separately, according to the order of the mysteries of human salvation foretold by them, here follow.

THE CUMAEAN SIBYL took [her] surname from Cumae, a city in Campania of Italy, ⁵⁴ in which she published oracles. Of her, among the heathen, Naevius (in the books of the Punic War) and Piso (in the annals) make mention; among ours, Lactantius (in the book cited a little before), and Justin Martyr in the Hortatory Address to the Gentiles — in which [work], speaking of this Sibyl’s race, fatherland, and oracles, he thus addresses the nations: THAT you may in part learn the worship of God, it will easily be furnished to you from the ancient Cumaean Sibyl, ⁵⁵ teaching you by some inspiration through oracles, which forsooth seem very near to the doctrine of the prophets. And they assert that she set out from Babylon, and was the daughter of that Berosus who wrote the Chaldaic history: who, when she had withdrawn into a certain part of Campania, there prophesied in the city named Cumae, which is six thousand paces distant from Baiae — in which place warm baths are frequented. We ourselves saw, when we had been in the city, the place where a very great basilica had been built, ⁵⁶ a work of one polished stone, exceedingly great and worthy of all admiration: there they affirm that she poured forth oracles — [they] who received these [things] from their forefathers as [it were their] native tradition. And they showed us, in the midst of the basilica, three vessels made of the same stone, in which, [being] filled with water, she was washed; and, having received [her] robe, she would proceed into the innermost part of the same Basilica, built of the same polished stone: in the middle whereof she would ascend a lofty tribunal and throne, and thence render oracles. And of this Sibyl, as a soothsayer, both many others, and especially Plato, make mention in the Phaedo: ⁵⁷ who seems to me, when he had lighted upon her oracles, to have esteemed soothsayers [to be] divine — inasmuch as he had seen those [things] fulfilled which she had long before foretold. Wherefore, in the dialogue which is entitled MENO, admiring the singers of the oracles, he praised them in these words: RIGHTLY, then, may we call those, whom we now name soothsayers, divine. ⁵⁸ For not in vain do we call these divine, and inspired by a divine power, and possessed by God — since they truly foretell both great and many [things], [while yet] ignorant of the [things] which they utter. Clearly and manifestly he looked to the oracles of the Sibyl: for she had not, as poets do, the power of correcting and polishing, with metrical diligence, what she had written; but she published [them] at the time of the afflatus, in which they looked to the prediction; and this [afflatus] ceasing, the memory of them likewise ceased. And this was the cause why the measure of the Sibylline verses was not kept. For we ourselves, while we were at Cumae, learned this very thing from those who had recounted these [things], and who also showed [us] where she had prophesied, and a little vessel likewise made of bronze, where her relics were kept. ⁵⁹ And among many other [things] they related this — which they had heard from their forefathers — that those who received the oracles, being for the most part unlearned, deviated in many places from the reckoning of the meter; and this cause they assign, why many of her verses lack the due measure: ⁶⁰ namely, both because the Sibyl, [once] destitute of the afflatus itself, did not remember what she had before poured forth, and because the notaries, through unskillfulness and rudeness, fell away from the reckoning of the meter. Therefore, O gentile men, assent to this old and most ancient Sibyl, whose volumes it befalls to be kept in the whole world, [and] who, inspired from on high, will instruct you by oracles that those who are called [gods] are not gods. And concerning the coming of our Savior Jesus Christ, and concerning all those [things] which He was to do, she manifestly declares — the knowledge of which, [being] in some sort necessary for you, she fore-exercising for the prophecies of holy men. Thus far Justin, concerning the Cumaean Sibyl. Of whom Augustine makes mention, oracle by oracle, in the begun exposition of the epistle to the Romans, in these words: ⁶¹ THERE WERE prophets also among the gentiles, in whom likewise some things are found which they sang concerning Christ — as is also said concerning the Sibyl; which I would not easily believe, but that a certain [poet], the most noble in the Roman tongue, before he uttered those [things] concerning the renewal of the age which seem well enough to accord and agree with the kingdom of our Lord, set before [them] the verse, saying: NOW is come the last age of the Cumaean song. And that the Cumaean song is Sibylline, no one will doubt. Thus Augustine. Before whom Eusebius, in the fourth book On the life of Constantine, ⁶² expounded that same verse of Virgil in the same manner. There is extant, in the collectanea of Stratonicus, bishop of Cumae ⁶³ (out of which we have gathered well-nigh all the oracles subjoined), the Greek verses of this Sibyl concerning the highest tranquillity of the times [that was to be] at the coming of Christ — not wholly unlike those which Maro [Virgil] translated out of the Cumaean oracles, but most like to those which Isaiah prophesied concerning the peace-bringing coming of the Messiah. And they are these:

ὅταν ἀπ’ οὐρανοῦ θεὸς πέμψῃ βασιλῆα, τῷ γὰρ παγγενέτειρα βροτοῖς δώσει τὸν ἄριστον καρπὸν ἀπόδρεψιν, σῖτον, οἶνον, ἐλαίου· αὐτὰρ ἀπ’ οὐρανόθεν μέλιτος γλυκεροῦ πότον ἡδὺν νάματα, καὶ ῥήξει γλυκερὰ λευκοῖο γάλακτος. πλήρεις δ’ ἔσονται πόλεις ἀγαθῶν, καὶ πίονες ἀγροί· ἔσσοντ’ οὐδὲ μάχαιρα κατὰ χθονὸς, οὐδὲ κυδοιμός· ἀλλ’ ἄμιν εἰράνη μεγάλη κατὰ γαῖαν ἅπασαν. ἐν δὲ λύκοι τε καὶ ἄρνες ἐν οὔρεσιν ἄμμιξ ἔδονται χόρτον, παρδάλεις τ’ ἐρίφοις ἅμα βοσκήσονται· ἄρκτοι σὺν μόσχοις νομάδες ἀλισθήσονται, σαρκοβόρος τε λέων ἄχυρον φάγετ’ ὡς βοῦς· καὶ βρετέεσσι δράκοντες ἅμα σφίσι κοιμήσονται· καὶ οὐκ ἀδικήσουσιν, χεὶρ γὰρ κυρίου ἔσετ’ ἐπ’ αὐτούς.

which may be rendered thus:

When God shall send down a king from high Olympus, Then shall the all-bearing earth render to sick mortals Inexhaustible fruits of corn, of wine, and of oil; Then shall the sweet cups of heaven pour forth honey, And streams pleasant with snowy milk shall burst forth; The towns shall be full of good things, and the rich fields shall flourish: Nor shall the earth fear swords, nor the tumults of war: But high peace shall flower in all lands: And the lambs with the wolves shall crop the grass upon the mountains; And the leopards, mingled together, shall feed with the kids; The bears shall dwell with the calves, following the herds; And the carnivorous lion shall eat at the manger, like the ox; With children shall the serpents take [their] sleep by night, Nor shall they harm [them]: for the hand of the Lord shall cover them.

AMMIANUS Marcellinus, in his history, relates that the Sibylline verses were given to the flames ⁶⁴ by the Emperor Julian the Apostate, at the city of Aenus.

THE CUMANA SIBYL — born and brought up at Cumae, which is a city of the province of Ionia — is named Amalthea, and Erophile, and Demophile. ⁶⁵ She is said to have written many books of divinations; concerning which Lactantius, on the testimony of Varro, relates that she brought nine [books] to king Tarquinius Priscus, and demanded for them three hundred Philippei [gold pieces]; and that the king, scorning the greatness of the price, mocked the madness of the woman; but she, in the king’s sight, burned three, and demanded the same price for the rest — [so that] Tarquin thought the woman much more mad. She, three others being again burned, when she persisted in the same price, [it is said] that the king was moved, and bought the remaining [three] for three hundred gold pieces. Solinus said that her sepulchre is to be seen in Sicily. There is reported [to be] a Greek prophecy of hers concerning the incarnation of the Son of God, and His most holy name, in these words:

Δὴ τότε καὶ μεγάλοιο θεοῦ παῖς ἀνθρώποισι ἥξει σαρκοφόρος θνητοῖς ὁμοιούμενος ἐν γῇ. τέσσαρα φωνήεντα φέρει, τὰ δ’ ἄφωνα ἐν αὐτῷ δισσῶν ἀγγέλων· ἀριθμοῦ δ’ ὅλον ἐξονομήνω· ὀκτὼ γὰρ μονάδας, τόσας δεκάδας ἐπὶ τούτοις, ἠδὲ ἑκατοντάδας ὀκτὼ, ἀπιστοτέροις ἀνθρώποις οὔνομα δηλώσει· σὺ δ’ ἐνὶ φρεσὶ σῇ συννόησον.

that is,

Then shall come to mortals, upon the very mortals On earth, [one] born like [them], of the almighty Father, Clothed in a body: four vowels He bears, and two consonants of double kind; But I will teach what is the whole sum of the number. For eight units, and as many tens upon these, And eight hundreds, shall the name declare To faithless men: but do thou hold [it] in mind. ^{66 67}

The reckoning of the letters of the name of Jesus, gathered by the Sibyl in these verses, Bede more clearly explains in the first book of the commentaries on Luke — the number seventy being added, which is lacking in the Sibylline verse. Now he speaks in this manner: OF THIS most sacred name IESUS, not only the etymology, but the very number also which is comprehended in [its] letters, breathes forth the perpetual mysteries of our salvation. For with six letters, among the Greeks, it was written ΙΗΣΟΥΣ — namely Ι, and Η, and Σ, and Ο, and Υ, and Σ — whose numbers are 10, and 8, and 200, and 70, and 400, and 200, which together make 888; which number indeed rejoices in the figure of the resurrection. For the eighth number, in the sacred letters, befits the glory of the resurrection: because the Lord rose on the eighth day (that is, after the seventh, [the day] of the Sabbath); and we ourselves, after the six ages of this world, and the seventh — the sabbath of souls, which now meanwhile is passed in another life — shall rise, as it were, at the eighth time.

THE PERSIAN SIBYL was from Persia: ⁶⁸ of whom (on the testimony of Lactantius) Nicanor, who wrote the deeds of Alexander the Great, made mention. There is had of hers, concerning the preaching and baptism of the forerunner of Christ [John the Baptist], an oracle of this kind:

ἀλλ’ ὁπόταν φωνή τ’ ἐρημαίης διὰ χώρης ἥξει, ἀπαγγέλλουσα βροτοῖς, καὶ πᾶσι βοήσει εὐθείας ἀτραποὺς ποιήσειν, ἠδ’ ἀπορῖψαι ἐκ κραδίης κακίας, καὶ ὕδασι φωτίζεσθε.

that is,

Then also a certain voice shall come through the deserts of the places, A messenger, whereby it may cry to all wretched mortals That they make straight the paths, and purge [their] souls From vices, and cleanse [their] bodies with pure waters.

THE HELLESPONTIC SIBYL, born in the Trojan territory, ⁶⁹ in the village of Marmissa near the town Gergitium — whom Heraclides Ponticus writes to have been in the times of Cyrus — among many other oracles left this divination concerning the doctrine of Christ:

αὐτὸς πληρώσει δὲ θεοῦ νόμον, οὐ καταλύσει ἀντίτυπον μίμημα φέρων, καὶ πάντα διδάξει.

that is,

He shall fulfill the Law of God, [and] not violate [it], Bearing a most-like image [of the Father], and shall teach all things.

THE LIBYAN SIBYL, ⁷⁰ whom Euripides recalls in the prologue of the Lamia, brought forth this prophecy of the miracles of Christ:

καὶ τότε δὴ νοσεροὺς ἰήσεται, ἠδ’ ἐπιμώμους πάντας, ὅσοι τούτῳ πίστιν ἐνὶ ποιήσονται· βλέψουσιν δὲ τυφλοί, ἀτὰρ βαδίσουσί τε χωλοί, κωφοί τ’ εἰσαΐσουσι, λαλήσουσ’ οὐ λαλέοντες· δαίμονας ἐξελάσει, νεκρῶν δ’ ἐπανάστασιν ἕξει.

that is,

He indeed shall heal those pressed by diseases, and all The hurt, as many as put their trust in him; and the blind shall see: The lame shall walk: to the deaf it shall be granted to hear: To the dumb it shall be given to form unwonted speech: He shall drive out demons: those oppressed by death shall rise again.

THE SAMIAN SIBYL — of whom Eratosthenes writes that he found the memory in the ancient annals of the Samians — was called by the name Pitho; ⁷¹ in whose verses there is had this oracle concerning Christ entering into Jerusalem, mounted on an ass:

χαῖρε ἁγνὴ θύγατερ Σιών, καὶ πολλὰ παθοῦσα· αὐτός σου βασιλεὺς ἐπιβὰς ἐπὶ πῶλον εἰσάγει, πρᾷος πᾶσι φανεὶς, ἵνα ζυγὸν ὅνπερ ὑπῆμεν, ξύλον δυσβάστακτον ἐπ’ αὐχένι κάμνον, ἄρῃ.

that is,

Hail, chaste daughter Sion, and maiden that hast suffered much: Behold, thy own King enters to thee, mounted on an ass, Gentle in the sight of all, that he may take from thee the yokes, Insufferable to thee, which thou bearest with subdued neck.

THE DELPHIC SIBYL — of whom Chrysippus speaks in the book which he composed On Divination — is thought to have been born at Delphi, by name Anthemis, ⁷² and lived before the destruction of Troy; several of whose verses some have believed Homer to have inserted into his own work. There is extant her prophecy concerning the Passion of Christ, in this manner:

καὶ τότε δὴ κολάφους καὶ πτύσματα φαρμακόεντα, Ἰσραὴλ δώσει μυσαροῖς ἐνὶ χείλεσι τούτῳ· εἰς δὲ τὸ βρῶμα χολήν, καὶ εἰς πότον ὄξος ἄκρατον.

that is,

Israel shall dash upon him buffets, and wicked spittings With [their] defiled lips; and shall set before [him] Food of gall, and for drink harsh vinegar.

THE PHRYGIAN SIBYL, who prophesied at Ancyra, ⁷³ sang the death of Christ in these verses:

ναοῦ σχισθῇ τὸ καταπέτασμα, καὶ ἤματι μέσῳ νὺξ ἔσται σκοτόεσσα πελώριος ἐν τρισὶν ὥραις· καὶ θανάτου μοῖραν τελέσει τρίτον ἦμαρ ὑπνώσας.

that is,

The veil of the temple shall be rent, and in the midst of the day A dark, wondrous night shall press [the world] for three hours; and, having slept a three-day sleep, he shall accomplish the lot of death.

THE TIBURTINE SIBYL, from Tibur, an Italian city, by name Albunea ⁷⁴ — whom the Tiburtines of old worshipped as a goddess by the banks of the river Anio, in whose eddies they had found her image, holding a book in [her] hand — foretold the resurrection and assumption of Christ in this manner:

αὐτὰρ ἐπὴν ἔλθῃ τρισὶν ἤμασιν ἐς φάος αὖθις, καὶ δείξει θνητοῖσιν ὕπνον, καὶ πάντα διδάξει, ἐν νεφέλαις ἐπιβὰς, εἰς οὐρανοῦ οἶκον ὁδεύσῃ.

that is,

But after he shall have come again to the light on the third day, and shown to mortals [the meaning of his] sleep, and taught all things, mounted upon the clouds he shall journey to the house of heaven.

THE ERYTHRAEAN SIBYL, whom blessed Clement, the first Pope, recalls in the epistle to the Corinthians, ⁷⁵ was from Erythrae, a city of Ionia. Apollodorus the Erythraean affirms that she was his fellow-citizen, and that she prophesied to the Greeks, [as they were] making for Ilium, that Troy would be [besieged and] would perish, and that Homer would write lies. Fenestella, a most diligent author, writes that C. Curio the Consul, when the Capitol was restored, referred [a motion] to the senate, that legates should be sent to seek out and carry to Rome the verses of this Sibyl; and that accordingly P. Gabinius, M. Octacilius, [and] L. Valerius were sent, who carried to Rome about a thousand ⁷⁶ verses copied out from private persons. Constantine the Great Augustus, in the oration which Eusebius appended to the books On the life of Constantine published by him, recites an oracle of this Sibyl concerning the coming of Christ to the Judgment, ⁷⁷ composed in acrostic verses in such wise that in the initial letters of the verses these words may be read: ΙΗΣΟΥΣ ΧΡΕΙΣΤΟΣ ΘΕΟΥ ΥΙΟΣ ΣΩΤΗΡ — that is, JESUS CHRIST, THE SON OF GOD, THE SAVIOR. ⁷⁸ And the same Emperor asserts that M. T. Cicero, when he had lighted upon this Sibylline acrostic, moved by the artifice of the poem, ⁷⁹ rendered it into Latin for Latin ears, and reckoned it among his other lucubrations. Augustine, in the eighteenth book On the City of God, chapter 23, affirms ⁸⁰ that he himself read the same acrostic in a Greek codex of the Erythraean Sibyl, which Flaccianus, proconsul of Africa, showed to him. Now the Greek verses are twenty-seven, namely:

ΙΔΡΩΣΕΙ δὲ χθὼν κρίσεως σημεῖον ὅτ’ ἔσται, Ηξει δ’ οὐρανόθεν βασιλεὺς αἰῶσιν ὁ μέλλων, Σάρκα παρὼν πᾶσαν κρῖναι καὶ κόσμον ἅπαντα, Ὄψονται δὲ θεὸν μέροπες πιστοὶ καὶ ἄπιστοι, Ὕψιστον μετὰ τῶν ἁγίων ἐπὶ τέρμα χρόνοιο, Σαρκοφόρων ἀνθρώπων ψυχὰς βήματι κρίνων. ΧΕΡΣΟΣ ὅταν ποτὲ κόσμος ὅλος, καὶ ἄκανθα γενῆται, Ῥίψουσιν δ’ εἴδωλα βροτοὶ, καὶ πάντα: Ἐκκαύσει δὲ τὸ πῦρ γῆν, οὐρανὸν, ἠδὲ θάλασσαν Ἰχνεῦον· φλέξει δὲ πύλας εἱρκτῆς ἀΐδαο· Σάρξ τότε πᾶσα βροτῶν ἐπελευθέριον φάος ἥξει Τῶν ἁγίων· ἀνόμους δὲ τὸ πῦρ αἰῶσιν ἐλέγξει. Ὁππόσα τις πράξας ἔλαθεν, τότε πάντα λαλήσει

which may be rendered (the initials of the verses spelling Jesus Christ [Son] of God, Savior):

The earth shall sweat, when the sign of judgment shall be; A king shall come from heaven, [he] who is to be unto the ages, Present to judge all flesh and the whole world. And mortals shall see God — the faithful and the faithless — The Most High, with the saints, at the end of time, Judging at [his] tribunal the souls of flesh-bearing men. When at length the whole world shall [lie] waste and [full of] thorns, Mortals shall cast away [their] idols and all [their wealth]: The fire, searching [them] out, shall burn up earth, heaven, and sea, and shall burn the gates of the prison of Hades: Then shall all the flesh of [holy] mortals come to the free light Of the saints; but the fire shall convict the lawless unto the ages. Whatsoever anyone has done in secret, then shall he tell it all —

> στήθεα γὰρ ζοφόεντα θεὸς φωστῆρσιν ἀνοίξει.

ΘΡΗΝΟΣ δ’ ἐκ πάντων ἥξει, καὶ βρυγμὸς ὀδόντων. ἐκλάμψει δὲ φάος, σέλας ἠελίοιο καὶ ἄστρων, οὐρανὸν εἱλίξει, μήνης δέ τε φέγγος ὀλεῖται. ὑψώσει δὲ φάραγγας, ὀλεῖ δ’ ὑψώματα βουνῶν. ΥΨΟΣ δ’ οὐκέτι λυγρὸν ἐν ἀνθρώποισι φανεῖται. ἶσά τ’ ὄρη πεδίοις ἔσται, καὶ πᾶσα θάλασσα οὐκέτι πλοῦν ἕξει· γῆ γὰρ φρυχθεῖσα κεραυνῷ σὺν πηγαῖς ποταμοὶ δεινὰ καχλάζοντες λείψουσιν. ΣΑΛΠΙΓΞ δ’ οὐρανόθεν φωνὴν πολύθρηνον ἀφήσει. ὠρύουσα μύσος μελέων, καὶ πήματα κόσμου, ταρτάρεον δὲ χάος τότε δείξει γαῖα χανοῦσα· ἥξουσιν δ’ ἐπὶ βῆμα θεοῦ βασιλῆες ἅπαντες· Ῥεύσει δ’ οὐρανόθεν ποταμὸς πυρὸς ἠδέ τε θεῖον.

Which [verses], ill rendered in Augustine, may — the capital letters being again restored — be translated thus (the initials of the verses spelling IESVS CHRISTVS, DEI FILIVS, SERVATOR — Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior):

In sign of Judgment the earth shall grow moist with sweat, And the eternal King shall descend from the highest heaven, Namely, that he may judge all flesh and the whole world: Whence both the faithful and the faithless shall see God, The Most High, sitting with the saints at the end of the age, In bodily [form], to judge the souls of men. Then, of old, The world shall bristle all over with dense thickets [of thorns]; Men shall cast away [their] idols and their stored-up treasures; And fire shall burn up the lands, and heaven, and sea, And shall burn the gates of the narrow prison of Orcus [Hell]. And all the flesh of the saints, restored to freedom, shall then Seek again the light: [but] the flame shall ever torment the wicked; And whatever anyone has sinned in secret, he shall tell it all, And God shall lay open to the light the closed breasts [of hearts]. Teeth shall gnash, laments shall thicken on every side, And the light shall fail; and darkness shall enwrap the sun And the shining stars; then the Moon’s splendor shall pass away. The valleys shall be raised up, the steep ridges brought low; And nothing lofty shall any more hinder mortals. The long keel shall not cleave the deep; the very fields Shall be leveled with the mountains; for the earth, scorched by lightning, And the dry fountains and rivers together, shall gape [be dried]; And the trumpet shall sound with a mournful blast from the starry regions. Mourning the crime of fools, and the sorrows of the world, The earth, yawning open, shall disclose chaos and Tartarus; And all kings shall be set before the throne of the deity; And a wave, flowing from heaven, fiery, mingled with sulphur, Shall mark all men with a most-notable sign. At that time The wood [the Cross] — through the lovely token of faith, [Christ’s] fall set against the world, yet the life of the pious — Shall cleanse, by [re]sprinkling, the slain from the twelvefold fountain.

There is reported, besides, a divinatory Epistle of hers to the Greeks [as they were] making for Ilium, translated into Latin, whose beginning is: YOU INQUIRE of me, O most illustrious throng of the Danaï.

Besides these, there are named many other Sibyls also — the Sardian, the Rhodian, the Sicilian, and very many more — whom Ambrose, in the commentaries on the first [epistle] to the Corinthians, judges to have been seized by an evil and wicked spirit. ⁸¹ But Aristotle, in the thirtieth section of the Problems, ⁸² declares that these same [women] — driven by the heat of black bile, kindled about the seat of the mind — were agitated. Cornelius Tacitus writes that Augustus, since in his times many vain [verses] were displayed under the name of the Sibyls, commanded that the verses be sought out at Samos, Erythrae, Ilium, [and] Africa, and through the Italian colonies, and brought within a set day to the prefect of the city; and that the judgment and censure of the fifteen men [quindecimviri] be applied; and that it should not be lawful to keep [them] privately ⁸³ — which had already been provided for by the forefathers. These verses, after four hundred years, Stilicho, father-in-law of the emperor Honorius — being about to stir up a sedition against his son-in-law on such an occasion — took care ⁸⁴ utterly to abolish. Which deed Rutilius Claudius did not pass over in silence, saying:

Not only did the traitor, ranging with Getic arms, ravage [Italy]; before [that], he burned the Sibylline oracles of aid.

Nevertheless, in recent years there have come forth out of Germany eight books of Sibylline verses, printed ⁸⁵ in Greek and Latin, in which well-nigh all the oracles set down above are had. The beginning of the work is:

εἷς θεὸς μόνος, ὃς ἀρχὴ ὑπερμεγέθης ἀγένητος. One God alone, who reigns, greatest, unbegotten.

Theophilus, sixth bishop of Antioch, in the second book to Autolycus, recites from an unnamed Sibyl ⁸⁶ about eighty verses, some of which are extant in these books somewhat diverse, but others are not extant.

THE BOOK OF THE SEVEN SEALS John, in the Revelations, mystically described ⁸⁷ in this manner: AND I saw in the right hand of him that sat upon the throne a book written within and without, sealed with seven seals; and I saw a strong angel, proclaiming with a loud voice: Who is worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof? And no one was able, neither in heaven, nor on earth, nor under the earth, to open the book; and I wept much, because no one was found worthy to open the book, nor to look on it. And one of the elders said to me: Weep not: behold, the lion of the tribe of Judah, the root of David, has prevailed to open the book, and to loose the seven seals thereof. And I saw, and behold, in the midst of the throne, and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing as it were slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of God, sent into all the earth. And he came, and took the book from the right hand of him that sat on the throne; and when he had opened the book, the four living creatures and the four-and-twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, saying: Worthy art thou, O Lord, to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, &c. And this is John’s vision Of the Book of the seven seals; in which — lest I detain the reader too long over its several words — I will briefly note six points only, ⁸⁸ whereof the whole series of the vision consists: namely, What is the [one] sitting on the throne; what the four living creatures; what the four-and-twenty Elders; what the Lion, the same being the Lamb that opens the book; what the Book sealed with seals; [and] what the seven Seals.

1. THE [ONE] SITTING ON THE THRONE is God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, sitting on the throne of his kingdom, which is ⁸⁹ the Church.

2. THE FOUR LIVING CREATURES not all authors expound in the same way. Origen and Gregory Nazianzen think [them] to be the four powers, or affections, of the rational soul: ⁹⁰ namely, [that] Man is the power of reason, the Lion the irascible power, the Calf the concupiscible power, [and] the Eagle the conscience set over the rest — which by Paul [is called] the spirit ⁹¹ of man. AMBROSE, in the third book On virgins, says that the four [creatures] signify the moral virtues: ⁹² namely the Lion, Fortitude; the Calf, Justice; the Eagle, Temperance; the Man, Prudence. ARETHAS, bishop of Caesarea, [understands] four excellent divine virtues (whatever they are) which designate the power of God about the world, [that world being] constituted of four elements. THEODORET, four created virtues which God set over the four elements — out of which the universe subsists, and which preserve it. POLYCHRONIUS, four Angels set over the four parts of the world. JEROME, the four evangelists — of whom Matthew is designated by the Man, Mark by the Lion, Luke by the Calf, John by the Eagle. AUGUSTINE, [likewise] the four Evangelists, but by another reckoning ⁹³ — that is, Matthew in the Lion, Mark in the Man, Luke in the Calf, John in the Eagle. ANDREAS, likewise bishop of Caesarea, [understands] the four Evangelists, but otherwise: the Lion, on account of [his] eminent fortitude above the rest, signifies John; the Calf, Luke; the Eagle, Mark; the Man, Matthew. CATINA the Syrian, in the exposition of the first vision of Ezekiel (where these four living creatures are placed), refers the Man to all Israel, the Lion to the royal scepter of the Jews, the Calf to the sacerdotal and levitical tribe, the Eagle to the vengeance and retribution of God upon Israel. RUPERT, Abbot of Deutz [Tuitiensis], expounds, by the four living creatures, the four chief mysteries of Christ ⁹⁴ which a Christian may not be ignorant of — that is, the Incarnation, Passion, Resurrection, [and] Ascension. GALERIDUS understands all the prelates of the Church; for a prelate shows himself a Lion ⁹⁵ in terribly correcting faults, an Ox in strenuously handling earthly [matters], a Man in kindly compassionating men, an Eagle in loftily soaring aloft and subtly contemplating divine [things]. LYRA [Nicholas of Lyra] adapts the four living creatures to the four patriarchal churches: ⁹⁶ namely the Lion to Jerusalem, the Ox to Antioch, the Man to Alexandria, the Eagle to Constantinople. RABBI DAVID [Kimhi] thinks that the four Monarchies — of the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans — are adumbrated ⁹⁷ by the four living creatures seen by Ezekiel. RABBI SOLOMON [Rashi] hands down that four angels, set over the four monarchies, are signified by the four living creatures of Ezekiel. JUSTIN Martyr, in the book of Questions against the Gentiles, question 44, relates that the four living creatures shown to Ezekiel were but one living creature ⁹⁸ endowed with a fourfold face — namely of a man, an ox, a lion, and an eagle — and that it designated the future change of the power of king Nebuchadnezzar: ⁹⁹ whom Daniel narrates to have been thus, after the elation of his pride, humbled by God and in a manner transformed into a beast — so that his hairs grew like a lion’s mane, his nails were curved like an eagle’s talons, and he himself ate grass like an ox; and then, after [his] penance, a mild human heart and mind was restored to him by God. God also willed (as it seems to the same Martyr), by this vision, to raise up the captive people into the hope of recovering [their] liberty, showing to it the change of the Babylonian kingdom by the conjunction of a tame and a wild animal, and likewise of a heavy and a light [one] in one and the same creature. For a tame creature is the Man, a wild [one] the Lion; heavy, [yet] light and winged, is the Eagle. By these [figures], therefore, he showed that the kingdom was to be changed from the wild empire of Nebuchadnezzar into the mild empire of Cyrus; but by these [others], that the heaviness of captivity was to be turned into a light and unencumbered liberty. For the Ox bears the yoke, but the Eagle is free of the yoke. This same thing the wheel within the wheel announced: for of these [wheels], the one adumbrated the leading-away of the Jews into captivity, the other [their] leading-back into [their] homeland.

3. THE FOUR-AND-TWENTY ELDERS, according to Ambrose, are the twenty-four books of the old testament; ¹⁰⁰ according to Augustine, the whole body [and] number of the prophets; according to Rupert, twelve earlier and [twelve] later Judges of the Church of God. The earlier ¹⁰¹ are they who, before the kingdom of the Hebrews, presided over the people of God — namely from Othniel to Samuel. But the later Judges, who presided after Christ, ¹⁰² are the twelve Apostles. According to Galeridus they are the twenty-four patriarchs of the church — namely twelve of the old church (that is, the twelve sons of Jacob), ¹⁰³ and the twelve Apostles, patriarchs of the new Church of Christ. ¹⁰⁴ According to Lyra, [they are] all bishops and Pastors of particular churches; according to Ambrose, all the Doctors of the Church.

4. THE LION, THE SAME BEING ALSO THE LAMB (as it were slain, having seven horns and seven eyes), is Christ: ¹⁰⁵ who, as in his Passion he was a lamb dumb before the shearer, and opened not his mouth, so — that same Passion being consummated — soon, like a lion’s whelp (which Jacob foreshowed in his son [Judah]), ascending to the prey, he spoiled hell; and, resting and reclining in the sepulchre like a Lion, he ground down even death itself with a great roar. Now he has seven eyes and seven horns — that is, all the fullness of the illuminating and strengthening Spirit; for the eyes signify light, the horn strength; ¹⁰⁶ and he is as it were slain, because — although after his resurrection from the dead he lives forever, no more to die — yet he keeps the signs of his death ¹⁰⁷ (that is, the places of the nails in [his] hands and feet, and the place of the lance in [his] side) for the everlasting memory of our redemption.

5. THE BOOK WRITTEN WITHIN AND WITHOUT is (as Arethas says) the incomprehensible memory of God, which both the prophet David and Moses foresignified — the one, when he said, ¹⁰⁸ In your book all shall be written; the other, when he says, ¹⁰⁹ Either forgive them this trespass, or, if you do not, blot me out of your book which you have written. Moreover, that it is written within and without [means] this: that those, forsooth, are said to be written within, who are of Jerusalem, as it were worshippers of God; but without — that is, on the back and on the worse [inferior] side — those who are of the gentiles. THOMAS [Aquinas] says: the book is the divine knowledge, or the knowledge of God concerning the [things] which God has disposed to do; whence also it is placed in the right hand, because by the right hand we work. It is written within, as regards the knowledge of God, to whom the whole book is fully known; without, inasmuch as the disposition of the divine order, to be fulfilled at the appointed time, is revealed to men. AUGUSTINE [says]: the Book is all the divine scripture, digested into two Testaments. Written within, in the old testament, in which the obscure mysteries of our redemption are contained; ¹¹⁰ without, in the new, openly explained — or, Without, according to the historical understanding, [and] Within, according to the mystical and spiritual sense.

6. THE SEVEN SEALS, as Augustine attests, signify the most obscure fullness of the mysteries lying hidden in the divine scripture; for the number seven, in the scriptures, denotes the last completion ¹¹¹ of that thing whereof we speak. Arethas says the seven Seals demonstrate the varieties of days and successions of times which befall in this transitory world, whose articles and moments no one, save God alone, can exactly know. Or, as Augustine again — writing to Maximinus — says, the seven seals are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit, of which it is read in Isaiah, chapter 11: ¹¹² THE spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him: the spirit of wisdom and of understanding, the spirit of counsel and of fortitude, the spirit of knowledge and of piety; and shall fill him with the spirit of fear. THOMAS [Aquinas] says the septenary number of the seals is the enclosure of the divine knowledge, shutting up in itself seven secrets pertaining to the state of the Church, which are opened to John; and they are these. The first is of the white horse, which signifies the company of preachers ¹¹³ coursing about in the primitive church. The second is of the red horse, which portends the persecution of tyrants. ¹¹⁴ The third, of the black horse, which is a type of the heretics. ¹¹⁵ The fourth, of the pale horse, in which is shown the multitude of false brethren ¹¹⁶ and hypocrites. The fifth, of the souls of the martyrs resting under the altar of God — which designates the consolation to be present to the elect in tribulation. The sixth, of the darkening of the Moon, which figures the persecution of Antichrist. The seventh, of the silence of half an hour, which hints at the peace of the church after the death of Antichrist — but [a peace] to last a little while. PRIMASIUS says the seven seals are the seven wholesome modes ¹¹⁷ of the sacred utterances of the divine scripture — that is: the Indicative, as in Micah, ¹¹⁸ I will show you what is good; the Pronunciative, as in Isaiah, ¹¹⁹ I am the first and I am the last, and beside me there is no God; the Imperative, as in the same prophet, ¹²⁰ Cry, cease not; the Optative, as again in Isaiah, ¹²¹ Would that you had attended to my commandments; the Conjunctive, as in Jeremiah, ¹²² If you will not hear my voice; the Infinitive, as in the same [prophet], ¹²³ To know and understand me, that I am the Lord; the Impersonal, as in the Psalm, ¹²⁴ Who shall declare the powers of the Lord? THEODORUS says the seven seals signify the seven regular forms of sacred understanding. ¹²⁵ The first is the text of the history. The second, allegory. The third, the commixture of both, of history as well as of allegory. The fourth is of the immutable essence of the divine Trinity — [showing] when it is insinuated into the sacred oracles properly, [and] when tropically. The fifth is of parables, in which, while one thing is said, another is spiritually signified. The sixth is of the twofold coming of the Savior — lest the first be understood for the second, or the second for the first. The seventh is of the twin precepts, both of the life to be led and of [the life] to be signified. GREGORY says the seven seals are the seven mysteries of human redemption — ¹²⁶ namely the Incarnation, the Nativity, the Passion, the Descent to hell, the Resurrection, the Ascension, [and] the Coming to judgment. ISIDORE says the seven seals are the seven modes of speaking in the scriptures: ¹²⁷ that is, the Historical, Tropical, Allegorical, Anagogical, Figurative, Absolute, [and] Parabolic. RUPERT asserts that they are the seven spirits by which the divine scripture was inspired. LYRA says the seven seals are the seven states of the Church ¹²⁸ from the ascension of Christ to the judgment. The first state, shown by the white horse, signifies the time under the Emperor Caius. The second, by the red horse, the persecution of Nero. The third, by the black horse, the times of Vespasian and Titus. The fourth, in the pale horse, the persecution of Domitian. The fifth, the persecution under Trajan even to Diocletian. The sixth, the state of the church under Diocletian. The seventh, the battles of the Church against heretics — which times follow [those] of Constantine.

THE SEALED BOOK, in Hebrew ספר החתום Sepher hachatum, signifies the volume of the whole divine scripture, whose understanding is sealed up to the unbelieving and to those lacking the spirit of God, and altogether hidden — the prophet saying, ¹²⁹ UNLESS YOU BELIEVE, YOU SHALL NOT UNDERSTAND. Of which book Isaiah, speaking to the Jews (to be blinded in future ages), says: ¹³⁰ THE Lord has mingled for you a spirit of deep sleep; he shall shut your eyes — the prophets and your princes, who see visions, shall he cover. And the vision of all shall be to you as the words of a sealed Book, which, when they shall give it to one that knows letters, he shall say, Read this; and he shall answer, I cannot, for it is sealed. And the book shall be given to one that knows not letters, and it shall be said to him, Read; and he shall answer, I know not letters. By which words Isaiah foretold that the prophetic visions, and the whole divine scripture, would be closed to the Jews ¹³¹ on account of their perfidy and ingratitude, and that they would be utterly blinded, so that reading they should not understand what they read. Whence Paul rightly says of them, to the Corinthians: ¹³² EVEN unto this present day the selfsame veil, in the reading of the old Testament, remains unrevealed (which is made void in Christ); but even to this present day, when Moses is read, the veil is laid upon their heart: but when they shall be converted to God, the veil shall be taken away. For no one is able — as John says — neither in heaven, nor on earth, nor under the earth, ¹³³ by the powers of his own wit, to cut away the veil of this book, which by its own nature is sealed, and shut up with the seals of inaccessible mysteries; nor can anyone open the book except that seven-horned and seven-eyed Lamb ¹³⁴ — to whom the four living creatures and the four-and-twenty elders, falling down, acclaim: WORTHY art thou, O Lord, to take the book, and to open the seals thereof, because thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God in thy blood. This Lamb is Christ, who, after his resurrection (as Luke says), ¹³⁵ opened to his disciples the sense, that they might understand the scriptures, and through them unlocked the understanding of them to the holy and catholic Doctors. Now God willed his scriptures (as Augustine says) to be sealed and closed chiefly for three causes: ¹³⁶ first, to avoid loathing [contempt]. For such is the condition of men, that things by their own nature open, and everywhere obvious, or easily investigated, they loathe and despise; ¹³⁷ but things covered and hidden, they more desire; and, [being] desired, [they] more ardently seek out; and, [being] found, the more sweetly taste [them]. As, therefore, God has set many [things] in the divine books in the most open light, that from them we might be fed and drive away hunger, so he has wrapped many [things] in most useful obscurities, ¹³⁸ that in these — without any loathing or satiety — we may exercise the acuteness of [our] wit. Secondly, that obscurity may conduce to a greater elucidation of the truth, while the explanations of many hidden meanings are drawn forth into the light — and one [expositor] thus, and another again thus most truly, veraciously explains what had been obscure; and, on occasion of inquiring into the proposed difficulty, he attains also the truth of other matters which he was not seeking. Thirdly, to repress the temerity of human wit, and to tame its pride by labor; ¹³⁹ so that, while the swelling and puffed-up mind of man presumes that it can penetrate the abstruse recesses of the divine letters, at length, despairing, it may be forced to cry out, together with that Ethiopian Eunuch: ¹⁴⁰ How can I understand these things, unless someone show me?

SILVANUS — whom some hand down to be called Silas by Luke in the Acts of the Apostles ¹⁴¹ — is thought to have been, together with Paul, the author of the two epistles to the Thessalonians, ¹⁴² because in their prefaces the name of Silvanus is joined with the name of Paul. But Photius, bishop of Constantinople, asserts that each [epistle] was elaborated by Paul alone, ¹⁴³ but communicated and ascribed to Silvanus, as to a fellow-minister, out of apostolic modesty. Peter the apostle makes mention of this Silvanus at the close of [his] former epistle, saying: ¹⁴⁴ By Silvanus, a faithful brother, I have written to you in few [words]. The Synopsis of Dorotheus the Martyr relates that he was bishop of Thessalonica.

SIMON Magus the Samaritan ¹⁴⁵ — [his] father Antonius, [his] mother Rachel, from a village which was called Triton — [was] baptized by Philip the deacon (as is read in the Acts of the Apostles), ¹⁴⁶ [and] wished to buy with money from the holy Apostles [the power] that by the imposition of his hand also the Holy Spirit might be given. This [man], when he had come to Rome under Claudius Caesar — using the help of a demon assisting him — so bewitched the Romans by magic arts ¹⁴⁷ that he was decreed a god by them, and honored with a statue on the island of Aesculapius (set between the two bridges of the Tiber), having also a title written in Latin letters: TO SIMON THE HOLY GOD. Now he wrote volumes of prodigious impiety, seedbeds of all heresies, ¹⁴⁸ in which he taught that he himself was the great power of God, whom the Greeks called Jove; but that his consort was that ancient Helen, on account of whom the Trojans and Greeks came to battle; and that Homer wrote allegorically about her whatsoever things are had in the Iliad. He also handed down the practice of a detestable filthiness — of using women indifferently; he denied that God made the world, and likewise [denied] the resurrection of the flesh; he said also that he himself was Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and that in the person of the Father he had appeared in the time of Tiberius, and had suffered in appearance [putatively]; then that afterward he had descended in fiery tongues upon the apostles, in the person of the Holy Spirit; but that Christ had neither come, nor suffered anything from the Jews. He died at Rome, cast down from a great height by the prayer of Peter, ¹⁴⁹ when he had challenged that same Peter into a contest of miracles. His writings are condemned by Gelasius, in the fifteenth distinction, enumerated in the first place among the works of the heretics.

THE ASSUMPTION OF THE PROPHET SOPHONIAS [Zephaniah] the Synopsis of Athanasius reviews among the impious writings.

SOSTHENES — one of the seventy disciples of our Savior, a Jew by nation, ruler of the synagogue of the Corinthians — suffered many [things] for the cause of the gospel before the proconsul Gallio, ¹⁵⁰ as Luke relates in the Acts. This [man] is reported to have composed, together with Paul, that epistle which is the former one, to the Corinthians, ¹⁵¹ because the Apostle, in the salutation of the same epistle, joins him to himself no otherwise than as [one] writing and greeting [with him]. But Photius, bishop of Constantinople, thinks that it proceeded and was dictated from the very spirit and wit of Paul alone; ¹⁵² but that the Apostle easily attributed what was his own to Sosthenes, that he might make his epistle firmer and more acceptable to the Corinthians, among whom the name of Sosthenes the ruler of the synagogue was celebrated, and [his] authority greatly venerable. The Synopsis of Dorotheus shows that he was bishop of Colophon. ¹⁵³

THE WRITING OF THE SPARTANS — in which it was written that the Jews and the Spartans are brethren, and that both descended from the race of Abraham ¹⁵⁴ — is cited in 1 Maccabees 12. Darius, king of the Lacedaemonians, makes mention of this writing in a certain epistle to Onias, pontiff of the Jews; a copy of which, taken from the twelfth book of the Antiquities of the Jews of Josephus, chapter 5, is had above, in [the entry] Darius.

Under the name of THE SPIRIT, THE PARACLETE, all the works of Manes the Persian (or Manichaeus) are inscribed by the Manichaeans — ¹⁵⁵ whom his disciples believed to be [that Paraclete], and taught that he was that Paraclete Spirit promised by Christ in the Gospel. Now among the Manichaeans, under the title of the Paraclete Spirit, [these] more notable volumes, which follow, were had:

Of GOSPELS, one book.

Of MYSTERIES, two-and-twenty books, published in the Syriac tongue according to the number and order of the Syriac letters.

Of the GREAT TREASURE, one book.

Of the LITTLE TREASURE, one book.

Of SUMMARIES, one book.

ON FAITH, a book, whose beginning is: There was God, and Matter, light and darkness, good and evil, &c.

TO THE CHURCH of the faithful, one Epistle, which is called [the Epistle] Of the Foundation, whose beginning is: Manichaeus, Apostle of Jesus Christ, by the providence of God the Father. These are wholesome words, from a perennial and living fountain, &c. And it is had in Augustine, together with its confutation, in the sixth Tome.

TO MARCELLUS, [his] beloved son, one Epistle, whose beginning is: Manichaeus, apostle of Jesus Christ — and all the saints and virgins who are with me — to Marcellus, [his] beloved son: grace, mercy, and peace from God the Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, &c. And it is had in Epiphanius, book 2 against the heresies, whence we have taken these [things].

VICTOR, Bishop of Vita [Vtitensis], in the second book of the African persecution, has committed to memory that the Manichaeans, out of reverence for their teacher, were wont to carry this writing on the skin of [their] thigh: ¹⁵⁶ MANICHAEUS, DISCIPLE OF CHRIST JESUS.

STEPHEN. The Apocalypse of STEPHEN the Protomartyr (who was one of the seven deacons of the apostles) — [in truth that] of Manichaeus the heretic, as Serapion is witness — [certain heretics] held in esteem. ¹⁵⁷ This Pope Gelasius forbade to Christians under the interdict of anathema, Distinction 15.

THE LYING STYLUS OF THE SCRIBES ¹⁵⁸ is cited in Jeremiah in these words: ¹⁵⁹ TRULY the lying stylus of the scribes has wrought falsehood — עט שקר סופרים Het seeker sophrim, that is, the lying stylus of the scribes. For which the seventy interpreters translated: εἰς μάτην ἐγενήθη σχοῖνος ψευδὴς γραμματεῦσιν — that is, In vain was the false measuring-line made for the scribes. Origen interprets by this Stylus the lying traditions of the scribes and of the doctors of the law — especially those which they had proposed concerning oblations to be offered to the priests and the temple beyond the divine command, commuting the penalty of any most grievous crime whatsoever into oblations appointed at their own discretion. Which Jeremiah, a little above, reproving, was saying: ¹⁶⁰ TRUST not in lying words, saying, The temple of the Lord, the temple of the Lord it is. Prochetus, in the first book of the Victory against the Hebrews, thinks that Jeremiah, by the lying Stylus of the Scribes, wished prophetically to foretell ¹⁶¹ a certain correction of the divine volumes — which in the Talmudic books is very frequently recalled, called תיקון סופרים Tikkun Sophrim, that is, the Correction of the Scribes — according to which the Scribes, not long after the return from Babylon, changed certain [things] in the books of the law and the prophets: now distinguishing the scripture by certain points, now adding other [things] in the margins, which — in place of those which were written in the text — might, for civility’s and modesty’s sake, be read more honorably and more decently: as, for To lie with a concubine, [they put] to sleep with her; and for Dung, [they put] excrement. For which cause sometimes also, erasing that which had been written by the prophet, they replaced [it], in the place of that, with what they themselves had judged more [suited] to the decorum of Scripture. Whence it came about that in many places a sense much diverse from the prophet’s meaning — and even often contrary and false — emerged. See more fully of this below, book 8, heresy two.