The Sibyl · a new plain-English translation from the original language
If working diligently at the reading of Greek writings
produces great benefit for those who accomplish it, since it can make
those who labor over these things widely learned,
much more so with the divine writings, since they concern God and the things
that procure benefit for the soul--it is fitting that right-thinking men
devote themselves always to these, gaining a twofold profit from them,
being able to benefit both themselves and their readers.
For these reasons it seemed good to me also to take the so-called Sibylline
oracles, found scattered about, and their reading and understanding
confused, and to set them out into a single connected order
and harmony of discourse, so that they might be easily surveyed by readers
and thereby confer upon them the benefit that comes from them,
disclosing not a few things necessary and useful
and at the same time making the undertaking richer and more varied.
For indeed they make plain, quite clearly, concerning the Father and the Son and the Holy
Spirit, the divine and life-giving Trinity,
and concerning the incarnate dispensation of the Lord and God
and our Savior Jesus Christ--I mean the birth from a virgin,
untainted, and the healings accomplished by him,
likewise his life-giving suffering and his rising from the dead
on the third day, and the judgment that is to come, and
the recompense for all we have done in this life; besides
these things, what is disclosed in the Mosaic writings and the books
of the prophets concerning the creation of the world and the
forming of man and his fall from paradise, and again
his refashioning, they set forth distinctly; concerning things that have happened, or
perhaps are yet to happen, they foretell in various ways; and simply put,
they are able to benefit their readers not a little.
Now 'Sibyl' is a Roman word meaning, when interpreted, 'prophetess,' or
'seer'; whence all female seers came to be called by this one name.
Sibyls, then, as many have written, arose at different
times and places, ten in number. The first, then, was the Chaldean,
that is, the Persian, called by her proper name Sambethe, of the
lineage of Noah, most blessed among men, who is reported to have foretold
the affairs of Alexander the Macedonian; Nicanor, who wrote
the life of Alexander, mentions her; the second was the Libyan, whom
Euripides mentioned in the preface to the Lamia; the third of these was the Delphic one,
born at Delphi, of whom Chrysippus spoke in his book concerning
divinity; the fourth was the Italian, in Cimmeria of Italy, whose
son was Evander, who founded in Rome the shrine of Pan called
the Lupercal; the fifth was the Erythraean, who also foretold
the Trojan War, of whom Apollodorus the Erythraean
gives sure testimony; the sixth was the Samian, called by her proper name Phyto,
of whom Eratosthenes wrote; the seventh was the Cumaean, called
Amalthea, also Herophile, and by some Taraxandra; but Virgil
calls the Cumaean Deiphobe, daughter of Glaucus; the eighth was the Helles-
pontine, born in the village of Marmessus near the little town of Gergis,
which was once a district of the Troad, in the times of Solon
and Cyrus, according to what Heraclides of Pontus recorded; ninth, the Phrygian;
tenth, the Tiburtine, called Abunaea (i.e. Albunea).