"Christian Sibyllines" are poems, likely written by a Christian author, in the genre of oracles by pagan prophetesses (or "sibyls"). The Christian Sibyllines were written in Greek, probably in 80 AD - 250 AD.
You can read the 14 Books or Volumes of the Sibylline Oracles, translated by Milton Terry (1899), along with 7 fragments found in Lactantius and Theophilus of Antioch, here: The Sibylline Oracles Index
(Question 1: Solved) Is there a theological problem in suggesting that pagan nonChristians had the Holy Spirit working in them?
The original Lutheran and Calvinist understanding of nonChristian humanity, as I understand it, was that non-Christians were in a "totally depraved", graceless state, incapable of any real spiritual goodness on their own.
It's true that in the Old Testament, the pagan prophet Balaam had authentic divine prophecies, presumably due to the Holy Spirit's inspiration. But otherwise, the general model for the Holy Spirit's work in man is that either the Spirit entered into the Old Testament prophets, or else Christians since the New Testament period have both undergone baptism and received the Holy Spirit in connection with their entering the faith community.
So it's interesting that some Church fathers treated the pagan sibyls as if they were inspired by the Holy Spirit:
Theophilus, the 2nd century bishop of Antioch, quoted the Sibylline Oracle as saying that God put His Spirit in everything and made His Spirit the leader of all people:
(Question 2: Solved) Is there a direct connection in Tradition between (A) the Sibyl's prediction of believers performing a ritual of releasing a dove in remembrance of Christ's baptism and (B) the Jerusalem Patriarchate's yearly ritual of releasing a dove at Epiphany?
William Deane writes that the Sibylline Oracles hardly adds anything to the canonical gospels' story of Jesus, except
In fact, this ceremony in Book VII of the Sibyllines reminds me of how the Church of Jerusalem releases a dove at Epiphany at the Jordan River, like in this photo below.
(Question 3: See below) What do you think of Justin Martyr's description of prophecying? How does it compare with the Biblical method of prophecy-making? Was Biblical prophecy composed in an ecstatic, frenzied, automatic, volitionless, or involuntary way, such that the Lord's Spirit directly used the prophets to create the writings? Or did the prophets carefully think out and deliberately draft their writings? Did both methods occur?
The pre-Christian writer Cicero (1st c. BC) took the view that the Sibyl's writings were not really in the form of frenzied, ecstatic utterances, because they used Acrostics. He thought that for a writer to compose Acrostics, the writer required careful thinking that would have conflicted with a state of ecstatic frenzy.
(Cicero "used the acrostic form of the Sibylline verses to disprove the assertion that the Sibyl spoke in ecstatic frenzy; acrostics, as he observed, are not the product of a frenzied intellect, pouring out impromptu inspiration." SOURCE: Sibylline Oracles - Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Bible Dictionary)
In contrast, Justin Martyr might have viewed the Sibyl as uttering her prophecies while in a state of ecstatic frenzy, because the Study Light page on the Sibylline Oracle says that Justin Martyr
Justin Martyr wrote:
You can read the 14 Books or Volumes of the Sibylline Oracles, translated by Milton Terry (1899), along with 7 fragments found in Lactantius and Theophilus of Antioch, here: The Sibylline Oracles Index
(Question 1: Solved) Is there a theological problem in suggesting that pagan nonChristians had the Holy Spirit working in them?
The original Lutheran and Calvinist understanding of nonChristian humanity, as I understand it, was that non-Christians were in a "totally depraved", graceless state, incapable of any real spiritual goodness on their own.
It's true that in the Old Testament, the pagan prophet Balaam had authentic divine prophecies, presumably due to the Holy Spirit's inspiration. But otherwise, the general model for the Holy Spirit's work in man is that either the Spirit entered into the Old Testament prophets, or else Christians since the New Testament period have both undergone baptism and received the Holy Spirit in connection with their entering the faith community.
So it's interesting that some Church fathers treated the pagan sibyls as if they were inspired by the Holy Spirit:
SOURCE: https://www.deseretnews.com/article/765612802/Christians-saw-ancient-femaleoracles-as-divine.htmlThey quoted passages from these oracles to pagans as proof that even their own sacred books prophesied of Christ. The Sibyl's prophecies thus began to be seen by many Christians as having been inspired, at least in part, by the Holy Spirit, and they were later quoted by some early Christian apologists and fathers, including St. Augustine ("City of God," 18.23). Following this ancient tradition, she most famously appears in Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel murals beside prophets of the Old Testament.
Theophilus, the 2nd century bishop of Antioch, quoted the Sibylline Oracle as saying that God put His Spirit in everything and made His Spirit the leader of all people:
Ye mortal men and fleshly, who are naught,
How quickly are ye puffed up, seeing not
The end of life! Do ye not tremble now
And fear God, him who watches over you,
The one who is most high, the one who knows,
The all-observant witness of all things,
All-nourishing Creator, who has put
In all things his sweet Spirit and has made
Him leader of all mortals?
(Question 2: Solved) Is there a direct connection in Tradition between (A) the Sibyl's prediction of believers performing a ritual of releasing a dove in remembrance of Christ's baptism and (B) the Jerusalem Patriarchate's yearly ritual of releasing a dove at Epiphany?
William Deane writes that the Sibylline Oracles hardly adds anything to the canonical gospels' story of Jesus, except
Deane writes that Book VII of the Christian Sibylline Oracles describes "sacred rites (vers.76 ff.) which shall obtain in Messiah's time", and he quotes the following passage's instructions about releasing a dove:the story of the fire kindled in Jordan when our Lord was baptized, a legend which is also mentioned by Justin Martyr (Dial.88), and (though under a different tradition) in the Ebionite Gospel. Justin writes: "When Jesus came to the river Jordan, where John was baptizing, and descended into the water, both a fire was kindled in the Jordan, and when He came up out of the water the apostles of our Christ recorded that the Holy Spirit as a dove lighted upon Him." The Sibyl, as we saw above, thus alludes to the same event: "When, in the flesh which was given Him, He came forth, having bathed in the stream of the river Jordan, which rolls, sweeping on its waves with grey foot, He, escaping from the fire, first shall see the sweet Spirit of God coming upon Him with the white wings of a dove."
SOURCE: https://biblehub.com/library/deane/pseudepigrapha
Charlesworth translates the passage this way:Thou shalt offer sacrifice to the great immortal God, not melting with fire the grain of incense, nor slaying with the knife the shaggy lamb; but, in company with all who share thy blood, taking woodland birds, thou shalt pray and let them fly, turning thine eyes to heaven, and thou shalt pour water in libation into the pure fire with these words: O Father, as the Father begat Thee, the Word, I send forth this bird, the swift messenger of my words, with holy water besprinkling Thy baptism through which from the fire Thou didst appear.
Deane claims that "the ceremony, consisting in letting a bird fly to convey prayer to heaven... is a remnant of Judaism unknown to any Christian community. The allusion also to the fire in the Jordan at Christ's baptism is evident." (SOURCE: The Sibylline Oracles.)You shall sacrifice to the immortal great noble God, not by melting a lump of incense in fire or striking a shaggy ram with a sacrificial knife, but with all who bear your blood, by taking a wild dove,* praying, and sending it off, while gazing to heaven. You shall pour a libation of water on pure fire, crying out as follows: 'As the father begot you, the Word, so** I have dispatched a bird, a word which is swift reporter of words, sprinkling with holy waters your baptism, through which you were revealed out of fire..." Charlesworth's footnotes: *The origins and extent of this ritual remain enigmatic.
In fact, this ceremony in Book VII of the Sibyllines reminds me of how the Church of Jerusalem releases a dove at Epiphany at the Jordan River, like in this photo below.
(Question 3: See below) What do you think of Justin Martyr's description of prophecying? How does it compare with the Biblical method of prophecy-making? Was Biblical prophecy composed in an ecstatic, frenzied, automatic, volitionless, or involuntary way, such that the Lord's Spirit directly used the prophets to create the writings? Or did the prophets carefully think out and deliberately draft their writings? Did both methods occur?
The pre-Christian writer Cicero (1st c. BC) took the view that the Sibyl's writings were not really in the form of frenzied, ecstatic utterances, because they used Acrostics. He thought that for a writer to compose Acrostics, the writer required careful thinking that would have conflicted with a state of ecstatic frenzy.
(Cicero "used the acrostic form of the Sibylline verses to disprove the assertion that the Sibyl spoke in ecstatic frenzy; acrostics, as he observed, are not the product of a frenzied intellect, pouring out impromptu inspiration." SOURCE: Sibylline Oracles - Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Bible Dictionary)
In contrast, Justin Martyr might have viewed the Sibyl as uttering her prophecies while in a state of ecstatic frenzy, because the Study Light page on the Sibylline Oracle says that Justin Martyr
In Book III, the Sibyl explains how she gets and makes her prophecies:argues that Plato must have had this Sibyl [the Roman one at Cumae, Italy] in his mind when he described in the Phaedrus (244B) and the Meno (99C) the phenomena of prophetic frenzy or rapture, since the Sibyl did not recollect afterwards what she had said during her unconscious ecstasies. [Note: In the Sibylline oracles, the Sibyl is passive or reluctant under the influence of inspiration. This tallied with some Jewish and Christian conceptions of prophetic inspiration...]
SOURCE: Sibylline Oracles - Hastings' Dictionary of the New Testament - Bible Dictionary
The implication seems to be that God puts ideas in some prophets' heads and this is the origin of their prophecies. They are in a frenzy and have ideas in their heads about the future and the ideas are their prophecies when they speak them.[I say] these things to you, having left the long Babylonian walls of Assyria, frenzied, a fire sent to Greece, prophesing the disclosures of God to all mortals, so that I prophesy divine riddles to men. ... But when everything comes to pass, then you will remember me and no longer will anyone say that I am crazy, I who am a prophetess of the great God. ... God put all of the future in my mind so that I prophesy both future and former things and tell them to mortals. ... all the latter things have been revealed, so let all these things from my mouth be accounted true.
Justin Martyr wrote:
And Plato, when he read her oracles, seems to me to have regarded the reciters of oracles as divinely inspired. For he saw that the things which had been spoken of old by her were actually fulfilled; and therefore in the dialogue with Meno [1. Plato, Meno, 99.], expressing admiration and eulogy of the prophets for their sayings, he has thus written: "We might truly name as divine those whom we call prophets. Not least should we say that they are divine and profoundly inspired and possessed of God when they truly speak of many and great matters, knowing nothing of the things of which they speak; "clearly and obviously referring to the oracles of the Sibyl. For she was unlike the poets, who after the writing of their poems have power to correct and polish, especially the accuracy of the meters, but at the time of her inspiration she was filled with the matters of her prophecy, and when the spell of inspiration ceased her memory of the things spoken also ceased. This accordingly is the reason why all the meters of the verses of the Sibyl have not been preserved. For we ourselves, being in the city, learned from the guides who showed us the places in which she uttered her oracles that there was also a vessel made of bronze in which they said her remains were preserved. And besides all other things which they narrated, they also told us this, as having heard it from their forefathers, that they who received the oracles at that time, being without education, often utterly missed the accuracy of the meters, and this they said was the reason for the want of meter in some of the verses, the prophetess after the ceasing of her possession and her inspiration having no remembrance of what she had said, and the writers having failed for want of education to preserve the accuracy of the meters. Therefore it is evident that Plato said this about the reciters of oracles in reference to the oracles of the Sibyl; for he thus said: "When they truly speak of many and great matters, knowing nothing of the things of which they speak."
Appendices
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