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The great difference of words and verses which appears even in the same passages of the Sibylline oracles, as they are cited by different Fathers, shews that the collections of these poems varied much, and that every librarian thrust in what he thought proper, and what he had picked up here and there from any dunghill.

Amongst the defenders of the Sibylline oracles was Isaac Vossius, who wrote a book on that subject, a learned book, for he could write no other: but as to judgment, you must not seek it there. Credimus, says he, omnes istos libros (Apocryphos) a Judeis fuisse com→ positos, DEO IMPELLENTE IPSORUM MENTES ad significandum gentibus Christi adventum. Infinita itaque illi edidere volumina; partim sub Patriarcharum et Prophetarum suorum nominibus, quales fuere libri qui olim lecti fuere sub nominibus Adami, Enochi, Abrahami, Moysis, Elice, Esaice, et Jeremice; partim vero sub nominibus illorum, quorum magna apud gentiles esset existimatio, veluti Hystaspis, Mercuri Trismegisti, Zoroastris, Sibyllarum, Orphei, Phocylide, et complurium aliorum. De Sibyl. Or. c. 7. It must be owned to have been a generous proceeding in Vossius, to take the weaker side on several occasions, and to be an advocate for those who stood most in need of assistance, in which charitable behaviour he has been, and will be imitated, for this sort of charity also never faileth: but for inventing and maintaining paradoxes, he never had an equal, except Father Harduin.

Virgil's fourth Eclogue was written, as Bishop Chandler, and Mr Masson have observed, when Pollio was consul, and the design of it was to compliment Augustus, or Cæsar Octavianus, as he was then called, and to foretell the birth of a son whom his

wife Scribonia should bear, who was then with child: but it proved a daughter, and the infamous Julia. See Chandler's Def. of Christ. and Vindicat. and at the end, a Dissertation of Masson.

Ultima Cumci venit jam carminis cetas.

Ultima means here postrema, and prima, the fifth and last in order, and the first, that is, the returning golden age.

isque parentem

Te, Saturne, refert; tu sanguinis ultimus auctor.

En. vii. 48. Venit means is come: it is contrary to the genius of the Latin tongue to interpret it abit. Collins follows Fabricius in giving this latter sense to the verb: it is pity he did not follow him in many other points, where he would have found him a good guide. Věnit in the present tense is, it is coming; tent in the præterperfect, it is come, unless when it stands for an aorist, for, and means, it came. Fuit indeed often denotes what was, and is not. Fuimus Troes, fuit Ilium: for, to avoid saying that a man was dead, the Romans said fuit, by an euphemismus.

Cumcum carmen, cannot be the poem of Hesiod, for Virgil calls him Ascreum senem, and his poems Ascrum carnem. It must be, as Servius interprets

it, Carmen Sibyllinum.

Hence we may suppose, that in Virgil's time there were said to be Sibylline oracles, which mentioned the return of the golden age, and a renovation of happy days but whether these oracles were forged by a Jew, or by a Pagan, or whether the substance of them were stollen from the holy Scriptures, or whether Virgil borrowed any of his ideas and expressions from these oracles, is a matter of doubt and uncertainty. It can

not

not be denied, that there is a great resemblance between Virgil's Eclogue and the sacred prophecies. See Bp. Chandler's Def. p. 10, &c.

Virgil's fourth Eclogue is a continued prophecy, and he must be supposed, for the sake of the decorum, to have acquired this foresight one way or other, elsc the poem would appear ridiculous. He gives no intimation that he was himself inspired, I speak of prophetic, not of poetic inspiration; and father Hesiod was no predicter of future events, so that from him he could not pretend to learn it. Whence then could he feign to have it, but from old oracles, from the Cumæum carmen? If he had set up on this occasion for a prophet, he would have spoiled his compliment; it was better to represent himself as only an interpreter of ancient prophecies, which he adorned with the graces of Latin poesy: this gave the Eclogue an air of importance and authority.

He pronounces that the golden age should commence under Augustus, and at the birth of his son, and should be brought to perfection when the young hero should arrive to manhood, and when his father (as the reader was left to suppose) was returned to heaven, and become one of the celestial gods.

Virgil has touched upon the same subject in other places; let us compare them together.

He declares, Georg. i. 24. that Augustus, when he should leave the earth, would become a god, one of the Dü majorum gentium.

Tuque adeo, quem mox quæ sint habitura deorum
Concilia, incertum est; &c.

And 503.

Jampridem nobis cæli te regia, Cæsar,
Invidet.

He

He intimates, ver. 500, that Augustus should restore peace and happiness, and that he was intended

-everso succurrere sæclo.

Again in the vi. Eneis, the Siby, the Cumaan virgin, and prophetess, leads Æneas to Elysium, where he learns that Augustus should arise and bring with him the golden age, 792.

Hic vir, hic est, tibi quem promitti sæpius audis :
Augustus Cæsar, Divi genus: aurea condet
Sæcula qui rursus Latio.

Promitti, that is, foretold by the gods and their pro phets.

And again, 799.

Hujus in adventum jam nunc et Caspia regna
Responsis horrent divúm-

My inference from these things is, that Virgil by Cumaum Carmen meant a Sibylline oracle, but I say not that he took any thing thence, besides a renovation and a golden age.

Virgil certainly paid no sincere regard to the Sibyl, and to her predictions. The Epicurean philosophy, in his days, had debauched the wits and the polite world, and he, as well as his friend Horace, was infected with it; but Virgil saw plainly that the atheistical system would make a poor figure in heroic poetry, and therefore has introduced it sparingly and obliquely. They who deny this Epicureism are persons with whom it would be a folly to dispute.

Not only the Sibylline oracles are to be rejected, but there is reason to suspect the Orphic verses, and also some few of the fragments of ancient poets produced by the fathers, to have been forged or interpolated by Jews or Christians. Such are the Orphic verses cited by Justin. Cohort.. § 15, and by others;

Φθέγξομαι

φθέγξομαι οἷς θέμις ἐςὶ-10.

Cudworth declared his doubts concerning them, Intell. Syst. p. 300. See also Le Clerc Hist. Eccl. p. 692. Les Peres, au moins Clement Alexandrin, savoient bien que l'on avoit attribué plusieurs choses à Orphée, qui n'en étoient point, et l'on a sujet de doubter qu'ils crussent bien assurément que le passage de l'unité de Dieu fût de lui. Ils ont pu le citer, contre ceux qui pouvoient croire qu'il en étoit effectivement, par un rai- ́ sonnement, dont les Philosophes même se servent, faute de plus propres à persuader ceux, à qui ils ont à faire, et dont ils disent; valeat quantum poterit valere. Le Clerc, Bibl. Chois. xxvii. 438.

In Eusebius Præp. Evang. xiii. 13. these orphic verses are to be found, as they were produced by Aristobulus.

An Oracle of Apollo cited by Justin, Cohort. § xi. and by Porphyry, in Eusebius Præp. Evang. ix. 10.

says;

Μόνοι Χαλδαίοι σοφίην λάχον, ἤδ ̓ ἄρ ̓ Ἑβραῖοι,
Αὐτογένεθλον ἀνακλα (εβαζόμενοι Θεὸν ἁγνῶς.
Chaldæo Hebræoque unis sapientia cessit,

Qui casto æternum venerantur Numen honore. Here the Pagans and Porphyry were the dupes, who took this for a sacred oracle. Justin and Eusebius seem to use it as an argumentum ad hominem. Justin reads Θεὸν αὐτὸν.

Some have suspected, but without sufficient reason, this book of Porphyry to be forged. See a Dissertation in Le Clerc, Bibl. Chois. xiii. 178. which well deserves to be perused. The author, whom I take to have been Le Clerc himself, acts the part of a Moderator between Fontenelle, or Van Dale, and their antagonist, and upon the whole is most inclined to side

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