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CHAP. XIX. That the Letter, written by L. Domitius Aurelianus to the Senate, gives no Credit to the Sibylline Writings.
NOr can we, lastly, derive any recommendation of the eight Books of these false Oracles, which have been preserved even to our Times, from the Letter, which the Emperour Aurelian, engaged in the Marcomannick War, writ to the Senate, in the year of Christ, two hundred and seventy one; saying, a I cannot but wonder, (Holy Fathers) you have been so long time in doubt, whether the Books of the Sibyls should be opened; as if you were to treat in some Christian Church, and not in the Temple of all the gods. For, though Cardinal b Baronius (who writes Valerian for Aurelian) infers thence; That it was not safe for the Christians, to read, and search into the Sibylline Books: as if that Prohibition, which had been made five hundred and fourscore years before our Saviour, had concerned them more, then others; and that the Church had ever had an inclination to look into such Ordures: Yet is it most certain, that Aurelian meant not the eight Books we now have against Idolatry; but those, which the Quindecem-viri had in their Custody, under the Base of Apollo Palatinus, in favour of Idolatry; and that there is a thousand times more reason, to conclude from his Letter, what c M. Petavius, the Jesuit, hath very well observed, to wit, That the Christians had an horrour for the reading of such prophane Books in their Churches, where they permitted not the read∣ing even of the Apocryphal Books, excluded out of the Canon of the Bible; as the Councel of d Laodicea hath since expresly decreed The Emperour says then,
That the Delay of the Senate had been excu∣sable in an Assembly of Christians; who could not have touched Books that taught Idolatry, but with an extreme remorse, and would have thought it an intolerable pollution of the Purity of the Church to introduce those execrable Monuments into it: but, that there should no such scruple arise in the minds of an Assembly, consisting of persons, wholly devoted to the Worship of the gods, and met toge∣ther in their common Temple.Accordingly Cardinal Baronius, as it were, came to himself, and to perswade us, that no good could be ex∣pected from the Sibylline Oracles, acknowledges, e That the Hea∣thenish Priests, being greater Enemies then all others, under a feigned pretence of Religion, bad out of them taken occasion to raise the Persecution against the Christians. Which they could not have done, had they expresly taught matters of Piety. And certainly this is remarkable, let there be as much search, as may be, made in what Histories relate of the Consultations, which Rome from time to time held about them, it will be found; that she never had any recourse thereto, but the Consequence was some new Abomination. For, if the Dispute was of Sacrificing, after some extraordinary manner, to the Infernal gods, and instituting Solemn Games to them; if about sending for the Mother of the gods from Pes∣sinus