Does Sibylline Book VIII, Lines 650-670, oppose the Old Testament animal sacrifices? (SOLVED)

[rakovsky]

Does Book VIII, Lines 650-663, oppose the Old Testament sacrifices of animals, which were part of the Day of Atonement in Judaism? Or does the passage only oppose sacrificing animals as part of certain banned pagan rituals? (Yes to the second Question. See Resolution #2 Below)

J.J. Collins translates Lines 650-663 of the Christian Sibylline Oracles as:

We are never to approach the sanctuaries of temples
nor to pour libations to statues nor to honor them with prayers,
nor with delightful scents of flowers
nor with gleams of lamps,
nor even to embellish them with offerings,
nor with breaths of incense sending up a flame on altars
nor with libations from the sacrifice of bulls, rejoicing in gore, to send blood from the slaughter of sheep as propitiatory offerings for earthly penalty;
nor to defile the light of the sky with smoke from burnt offerings and polluted breezes from a fire that burns flesh.

"Libations from the sacrifices of bulls" must refer to pagan sacrifices. That statement must be forbidding sending blood from sheep slaughter as an atonement offering with these libations from bulls' sacrifice. So this statement must be specifically forbidding pagan sacrifices.
The next, underlined, line though just plainly bans burnt offerings and flesh-burning fires. It sounds like this next statement is banning all burnt sacrifices, whereas the Old Testament sacrifices did involve burnt offerings. One time in the Book of Acts, the Church in Jerusalem instructed Paul to perform a Nazirite sacrifice, which I think may have involved a burnt offering. So Jewish Christians were sometimes attending the Temple and its rituals, as Acts and early Church fathers record. I don't know whether Judaism still includes some burnt offerings, although it is rarer due to the Temple's destruction. So on one hand, it seems that this might be going against even the Old Testament-style Jewish sacrifices.

On the other hand, there are some reasons why there might not be a conflict:
(1) the beginning of the passage is saying what not to do in pagan temples. The context seems possibly to be a ban on involvement in pagan temple rituals. But still, when I look at the text carefully, my reading is that the underlined sentence is banning burnt offerings in general, not just those done in the Temple.

The same issue shows up in Lines 505-520 (below), where God complains about burn offerings on "altars", which could have in mind pagan altars, since the Jews only had the altar in Jerusalem:

All have gifts from me but give them to useless things,
and they think all these things useful, like my honors,
making burnt offerings at meals, as to their own dead.
For they burn flesh and, sacrificing bones full of marrow on altars,
they pour blood to demons and light lamps for me, the giver of light.

(2) The passage was probably written after the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD. J.J. Collins' section on Book VIII's dating in his translation of the text suggests that it was written in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD, well after the destruction. I don't know if Judaism practiced burnt offerings after the Temple's destruction, but if not, then the conflict with the Oracle's prohibition on it becomes a moot point in practice. That is, it would be a ban on something that would have included what the Jews weren't doing anymore anyway. But I would have to check up on the ongoing status of burnt offerings to tell.

(3) The passage could be talking about what specifically the Christians of the Christian Church do in their Christian rituals; Christian rituals lacked burnt offerings. In "Scenting Salvation", Susan Ashbrook Harvey makes this point when she quotes this passage in the Sibylline Oracle and then makes the following commentary:

Sacrificial critiques allowed Christian apologists to justify Christian ritual practice with its culturally discordant lack of animal or incense offerings, and to claim philosophical superiority in the process.The argument about the self-sufficiency of the divine explained Christian abstention from traditional sacrifice, an abstention which had come about by happenstance rather than conscious choice, as already noted. Still, as the philosophical critique of sacrifice pervaded religious writings, Christians used it to render their practices deliberate and distinct.

Irenaeus wrote, “God did not seek sacrifices and holocausts, but faith, and obedience, and righteousness.” Clement expressed this in more explicitly philosophical terms, “It is for this reason [the self-sufficiency of God] that we [Christians] fitly refrain from making any sacrifice to God, who has provided all things for all, being himself in need of nothing.” The position was argued most vehemently, and most effectively, with the assistance of olfactory imagery to signify what philosophers had identified as the intrinsic distortions of traditional sacrifice.

But still, you could say that not only were Christians not burning offerings in their rituals, they were, as a rule, meant by the Sibyl not to participate in burn offerings, including the Temple's in Jerusalem.

(4) Book VIII, Lines 332-335 (below) suggest that God can find sacrifices acceptable when they are accompanied by intelligent hymns.

Honor him and keep him in your heart and love him from your soul and bear his name. Set aside the former [customs ~Charlesworth] and wash from his blood, for he is not propitiated by your laments or prayers. Since he is imperishable he pays no attention to perishable sacrifices except when intelligent mouths bring forth a hymn.

This brings to mind the rationale in the end of Psalm 51:

16. For thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: thou delightest not in burnt offering.
17. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.
18. Do good in thy good pleasure unto Zion: build thou the walls of Jerusalem.
19. Then shalt thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon thine altar.

Verse 16 suggests that God doesn't want burnt offerings, but then verse 19 clears up the issue by saying that God will be pleased with burnt offerings once the sacrificers are contrite.
So my takeaway from Lines 332-335 could be that God is okay with perishable sacrifices when the intelligent mouths sing a hymn. So perishable sacrifices per se are not necessarily forbidden. But still, this does not specify that burnt offerings are okay.

 

[HTacianas]

Does Book VIII, Lines 650-663, oppose the Old Testament sacrifices of animals, which were part of the Day of Atonement in Judaism? Or does the passage only oppose sacrificing animals as part of certain banned pagan rituals?

J.J. Collins translates Lines 650-663 of the Christian Sibylline Oracles as:

"Libations from the sacrifices of bulls" must refer to pagan sacrifices. That statement must be forbidding sending blood from sheep slaughter as an atonement offering with these libations from bulls' sacrifice. So this statement must be specifically forbidding pagan sacrifices.
The next, underlined, line though just plainly bans burnt offerings and flesh-burning fires. It sounds like this next statement is banning all burnt sacrifices, whereas the Old Testament sacrifices did involve burnt offerings. One time in the Book of Acts, the Church in Jerusalem instructed Paul to perform a Nazirite sacrifice, which I think may have involved a burnt offering. So Jewish Christians were sometimes attending the Temple and its rituals, as Acts and early Church fathers record. I don't know whether Judaism still includes some burnt offerings, although it is rarer due to the Temple's destruction. So on one hand, it seems that this might be going against even the Old Testament-style Jewish sacrifices.

On the other hand, there are some reasons why there might not be a conflict:
(1) the beginning of the passage is saying what not to do in pagan temples. The context seems possibly to be a ban on involvement in pagan temple rituals. But still, when I look at the text carefully, my reading is that the underlined sentence is banning burnt offerings in general, not just those done in the Temple.

The same issue shows up in Lines 505-520 (below), where God complains about burn offerings on "altars", which could have in mind pagan altars, since the Jews only had the altar in Jerusalem:

(2) The passage was probably written after the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD. J.J. Collins' section on Book VIII's dating in his translation of the text suggests that it was written in the 2nd-3rd centuries AD, well after the destruction. I don't know if Judaism practiced burnt offerings after the Temple's destruction, but if not, then the conflict with the Oracle's prohibition on it becomes a moot point in practice. That is, it would be a ban on something that would have included what the Jews weren't doing anymore anyway. But I would have to check up on the ongoing status of burnt offerings to tell.

(3) The passage could be talking about what specifically the Christians of the Christian Church do in their Christian rituals; Christian rituals lacked burnt offerings. In "Scenting Salvation", Susan Ashbrook Harvey makes this point when she quotes this passage in the Sibylline Oracle and then makes the following commentary:

But still, you could say that not only were Christians not burning offerings in their rituals, they were, as a rule, meant by the Sibyl not to participate in burn offerings, including the Temple's in Jerusalem.

(4) Book VIII, Lines 332-335 (below) suggest that God can find sacrifices acceptable when they are accompanied by intelligent hymns.
This brings to mind the rationale in the end of Psalm 51:
Verse 16 suggests that God doesn't want burnt offerings, but then verse 19 clears up the issue by saying that God will be pleased with burnt offerings once the sacrificers are contrite.
So my takeaway from Lines 332-335 could be that God is okay with perishable sacrifices when the intelligent mouths sing a hymn. So perishable sacrifices per se are not necessarily forbidden. But still, this does not specify that burnt offerings are okay.

That is in all likelihood an example of gnosticism in the Sibylline Oracles. Some gnostic groups opposed animal sacrifice because they were opposed to killing animals. They were the ones Paul warned against:

1Ti 4:3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats...

Their teachings are also found in the gospel of the Ebionites. A quote from it includes:

'I came to destroy the sacrifices, and if ye cease not from sacrificing, the wrath of God will not cease from you'

 

[rakovsky]

I checked up on potential resolution #2 above, and it turns out that in post-Temple Judaism, the burnt offering, the Olah, was discontinued. A practical reason for this was that the Olah was performed by burning the sacrifice on the altar in Jerusalem's Temple, which was destroyed in 70 AD. In his book The End of Days, Gershom Gorenberg writes that the rabbinical leader Ben Zakkai ruled that the ram's horn could be blown on Rosh Hashanah outside the Temple.

He did not say the same of sacrifices. His successors instituted prayers that took the place of burnt offerings, in part by praying for the Temple's restoration.

De Facto at the time when the Oracle was written, burnt offerings were just done by pagans, not by Jews. So it is practically directed at banning pagan burnt offerings. The Christian author certainly doesn't mean that back in the Old Testament period when the Oracle purports to be written that even the Jews were not supposed to burn offerings. If one wanted to get that detailed into the nitty-gritty of the Oracle, one could point out that Lines 650-663 say what "we" are not to do, and that of course the Sibyl was a gentile and her most immediate audience in that OT period would have been gentiles too.

 

[rakovsky]

That is in all likelihood an example of gnosticism in the Sibylline Oracles. Some gnostic groups opposed animal sacrifice because they were opposed to killing animals. They were the ones Paul warned against:

1Ti 4:3 Forbidding to marry, and commanding to abstain from meats...

Their teachings are also found in the gospel of the Ebionites. A quote from it includes:

'I came to destroy the sacrifices, and if ye cease not from sacrificing, the wrath of God will not cease from you'

Thanks for writing in, but this is not really anti-sacrifice Gnosticism. It does not ban all sacrifices, just pagan burnt offerings and using sheep sacrifices together with pagan blood libations. I say "pagan" because in this post-Temple period, there were no more Jewish burnt offerings, and the Jews never accepted blood libations.
In fact, as I mentioned earlier, Lines 332-335 suggest that God can find perishable sacrifices acceptable when they are accompanied by intelligent hymns, which brings to mind the end of Psalm 51, wherein there is a condition put on whether sacrifices are pleasing.

By comparison, the Ebionites' opposition to sacrifices was really based on their vegetarianism, in my opinion, not on Gnostic theology. I say this because I have read other, more clearly vegetarianist statements by the Ebionites, and because the Ebionites otherwise tended to uphold obedience to the Torah.

 

[HTacianas]

Thanks for writing in, but this is not really anti-sacrifice Gnosticism. It does not ban all sacrifices, just pagan burnt offerings and using sheep sacrifices together with pagan blood libations. I say "pagan" because in this post-Temple period, there were no more Jewish burnt offerings, and the Jews never accepted blood libations.
In fact, as I mentioned earlier, Lines 332-335 suggest that God can find perishable sacrifices acceptable when they are accompanied by intelligent hymns, which brings to mind the end of Psalm 51, wherein there is a condition put on whether sacrifices are pleasing.

By comparison, the Ebionites' opposition to sacrifices was really based on their vegetarianism, in my opinion, not on Gnostic theology. I say this because I have read other, more clearly vegetarianist statements by the Ebionites, and because the Ebionites otherwise tended to uphold obedience to the Torah.

I went and read this over and I think I have an answer for you.

650 Not ever are we suffered to approach
The inmost sanctuary of the temples,
Nor pour libations to carved images,
Nor honor them with prayers, nor with the smells
Much-pleasing of flowers, nor with light of lamps,

Line 650 is a general prohibition against the idolatries of the writer's time. Temples, images, "libations", prayers are all trapping of pagan ceremonies. I'm guessing that the "smells" the writer mentions has to do with incense.

655 Nor yet with shining votive offerings
Adorn them, nor with smoke of frankincense
That sends forth flame of altars; nor do thou,
Adding unto the sacrifice of bulls
And taking pleasure in defilement send

The bulls and defilement in bold above are in fact pagan rituals. Many of the ancient pagan religions offered sacrifice to some idol or another and then held a banquet to feast on the meat of the sacrifice. It was followed by ritual sexual activity including orgies. It was condemned in the Revelation:

Rev 2:14 “But I have a few things against you, because you have there those who hold the doctrine of Balaam, who taught Balak to put a stumbling block before the children of Israel, to eat things sacrificed to idols, and to commit sexual immorality.

And again:

Rev 2:20 “Nevertheless I have a few things against you, because you allow that woman Jezebel, who calls herself a prophetess, to teach and seduce My servants to commit sexual immorality and eat things sacrificed to idols.

As to this:

660 Blood of sheep-slaughtering outrage, thus to give
Ransom for penalty beneath the earth;
Nor by the smoke of flesh-consuming pyre
And odors foul pollute the light of heaven;
But joyful with pure minds and cheerful soul,

The giving of a ransom "for penalty beneath the earth" I'm not sure what to make of. I don't know if it is a ransom for souls held beneath the earth or if it means offering a sacrifice literally beneath the earth. I know that Mithraists of ancient Rome held their ceremonies in caves beneath the earth but they were only known to sacrifice a bull during their rituals. It could mean some other religion that sacrificed sheep.

 

[ArmyMatt]

it seems to me this isn't a ban on OT animal sacrifices per say, but rather the way the pagans did it. the Jews were very sober and serious when they made their offerings.

 

[AMM]

What are the Sibylline books, anyway?

 

[rakovsky]

What are the Sibylline books, anyway?

They are the prophecies of "sibyls", Greek oracle prophetesses, like the Oracle at Delphi, in the centuries Before Christ.
The Christian Sibylline Books that we have in full today, like Book VIII above have prophecies about Christianity. Modern scholars usually believe that at least some of these writings, like the part from Book VIII that I quoted, were not really written before Christ, but were actually written some time in the 1st-4th centuries AD by Christians who wanted to make the Books look like pagan oracles predicting Christianity.

 

[rakovsky]

As to this:

660 Blood of sheep-slaughtering outrage, thus to give
Ransom for penalty beneath the earth;
Nor by the smoke of flesh-consuming pyre
And odors foul pollute the light of heaven;
But joyful with pure minds and cheerful soul,

The giving of a ransom "for penalty beneath the earth" I'm not sure what to make of. I don't know if it is a ransom for souls held beneath the earth or if it means offering a sacrifice literally beneath the earth. I know that Mithraists of ancient Rome held their ceremonies in caves beneath the earth but they were only known to sacrifice a bull during their rituals. It could mean some other religion that sacrificed sheep.

HTacianas, You are quoting from Milton Terry's late 19th century translation which deliberately focused on getting the words to match poetic "meter". Collins'/Charlesworth's 21st century translation is more precise, and it has:

nor with libations from the sacrifice of bulls, rejoicing in gore, to send blood from the slaughter of sheep as propitiatory offerings for earthly penalty;
nor to defile the light of the sky with smoke from burnt offerings and polluted breezes from a fire that burns flesh.

In Greek mythology, the souls of people normally went under the earth to Hades, although some righteous people went to Mount Olympus to live with the Gods. Sheol in the Old Testament is often compared to a "Pit". So "ransom for penalty under the earth" or "propitiatory offerings" refer to animal sacrifices performed as substitutionary atonement, like in the Yom Kippur ritual of Judaism, which included burnt offerings.
I don't know offhand if pagans had atonement sacrifices like the Jews did, but it seems like the kind of thing that pagans would do too.

Blood "Libations" were strictly pagan rituals, as Jews rejected blood consumption in the Torah.
"Burnt offerings" were part of both pagan and Jewish Temple rituals, but the Jews stopped them when their Temple was destroyed.