CHAP. XVII. That Pausanias hath not written any thing, which may give credit to the Books, mis-named the Sibylline.
NOr is there any more reason, we should take the Discourse of a Pausanias, who says, The Isle of the Rhodians hath been much shaken; so that the Oracle of the Sibyl, which had been given concerning Rhodes, is come to pass, for any confirmation of what the pretended Sibyl had writ in two several places, b The greatest unhappiness, that may be, shall happen to the Rhodians. For he speaks of the Earth-quake, which happened in that Isle, almost two Ages before, under Augustus; soon after which Tiberius had in a manner raised it again, through his c con∣tinual Residence therein, from the year of Rome 748. to the year 755. (upon which account it is, that the Epigram of Antiphilus calls him its Restorer;) and the pretended Sibyl d threatens it with a Ruin, to come at the end of the World; when Rome, having accom∣plished its Period, nine hundred fourty and eight years, shall be so de∣stroyed by Nero, returned from Persia, that it shall become 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, that is to say, a street, Delos shall be no more, and Samos be turned into an Heap of Sand. Which may serve to justifie the mistake of Tertullian; who, thrusting into his Book De Pallio these last words, dis-joynted from the Precedent and Consequent, applies them to that Desolation of those Isles, which reached to his Time; saying, Of the Isles, Delos no longer is; Samos is become Sand; and the Sibyl is no Lier: whereas he should neces∣sarily have concluded; That she had lyed, in referring to the end of the World, and of Rome, what had happened long before; as also, that all the eight Books, in three whereof the Mis-fortune of that Isle was recapitulated in the same Terms, were (contrary to the Opinion, since embraced by Lactantius) the Draught of one and the same hand.