A treatise of the sibyls so highly celebrated, as well by the antient heathens, as the holy fathers of the church : giving an accompt of the names, and number of the sibyls, of their qualities, the form and matter of their verses : as also of the books now extant under their names, and the errours crept into Christian religion, from the impostures contained therein, particularly, concerning the state of the just, and unjust after death / written originally by David Blondel ; Englished by J.D.

CHAP. XXVI. Consequences following upon the common Sentiment of the Fathers concerning Enthusiasm.

FRom all the precedent Testimonies it follows; First, That there never was any Body deprived of their Understanding, by the efficaci∣ousness of any celestial Inspiration.

Secondly, That whoever says, he is compelled, transported, and alienated in spirit, does, by that very allegation, discover, that he is not moved by the Holy Spirit.

Thirdly, That the Sibyls, who (by the Confession of all Antiquity) were Mad, during the time of their Enthusiasm, were Women, not one∣ly Heathens; but possessed with Evil Spirits.

Fourthly, That the name of Sibyl having never been used, but to denote Persons of that condition, could never have been appropriated to any of the Holy women mentioned in Scripture. So that, as a Glycas, who bestowed it on the Queen of Sheba, did, in so doing, treat her very unworthily: so b Onuphrius, writing, That Deborah, the Wife of Lapi∣doth, an Hebrew-woman, mentioned in the fourth Chapter of Judges, might be the most antient of all the Sibyls, and that there might be added to her Miriam, the Sister of Moses, and Aaron, as may be read in Exodus, and, lastly, Huldah, the Wife of Shallum, of whom are read many things in 2 Chron. 34. under Josias, King of Judah••; not onely contradicts himself, in that, to the pre∣judice of his Supposition concerning Moses's Sister; whom he places among the Sibyls, he conceives Debora, who was not born, till one hun∣dred, fourscore, and one years, after the Death of Miriam, was the most antient of them all but hath also (for want of reflection) put a notori∣ous Affront upon those Devout and Religious Ladies, in comparing them to Possessed Persons, and Sorceresses; such as were all those, whom the Heathens put into the qualification of Sibyls, because of their Transpor∣tation, which they believed to have been Divine.

Fifthly, That the Authour of the eight Books, entituled the Sibylline (upon this very account, that he brags of having pronounced his Oracles with alienation of spirit, by violence; and not knowing what he said) hath dis∣claimed the quality of Prophet; which he would have usurped, and de∣served: we should apply to his Fantastick Imaginations the Judgment, which St. Epiphanius made of those of Montanus; c Those are the Dis∣courses of an Ecstatick, and one, who comprehends not what he says; but shews another Character, then the Character of the Holy Spirit, who spoke by the Prophets.

Sixthly, That, if the pretension of the foresaid bold Forger argued him guilty of the greatest Impudence imaginable, that of the Authour of the Predication of St. Paul, which refers the Heathens, to the Sibyl, and Hystaspes, was yet more unworthy, and more sacrilegious.

Seventhly, That St. Justin, who maintains the Transportation of the

Cumaean Sibyl, and attributes to her the Verses he had extracted out of the eight Supposititious Books, under the name of Noah's Daughter-in-law, went upon a most false ground, and such, as was contrary to the perswa∣sion of the whole Church, and to the form of Disputation between the Orthodox, and the Montanists, and such Fanaticks.

Eighthly, That the same St. Justin, and Clemens Alexandrinus after his Example, having taken occasion to celebrate the Counterfeit Sibyl, as a Prophetess; and to recommend Hystaspes, as inspired of God, from their having found somewhat to their commendation in the pretended Predication of St. Paul, have injured their own Reputation, by contract∣ing an over-confident familiarity with Apocryphal Writings. For, though their Learning, and the Rank they held in the Church, exempted them from the rigour of the Prohibition, made since by St. Cyril to his Ca∣techumen, saying to her; d Read not any thing of the Apocryphal Books; yet had they as great reason, as St. Hierome, to cry out; e Let us hear no more of the fond imaginations of Apocryphal Authours; and to conceive the same Horrour thereof, as he would have raised in Laeta, and his little Disciple, Pacatula; giving them this remarkable Advertisement; f Let her beware of all the Apocryphal Books; and, if at any time she have an inclination to read them, not for the truth of the Tenets, but out of a reverence for the Signs [which are observed therein] let her know, that they are not of those, under whose Names they go, and that many evil things are crept into them, and that it is the Work of a great Prudence to seek Gold amongst Dirt, &c. Let her Delight be in the spirits of those, in whose Writings the purity of Faith is unquestionable; and let her read the others so, as to judg of them rather, then follow them. If the examination of Books of doubtfull Autho∣rity was recommended to a simple Maid, how much more should it have been the care of those Great men; for whom Christianity hath a venera∣tion, as its chiefest Doctours? And, if the most inconsiderable among the Laity should be armed with Precautions in reading, how much more re∣quisite was it, that the Guids of the Church should read things with at∣tention, and vigilance? But, the desire of profiting out of all things, of taking advantages every where, of forcing Truth even out of the mouth of Falshood, and to become like Torrents, whose violence carries away what ever they meet with, hath made many of the Fathers, that nothing might escape the greediness of their Memory, neglect the best occasi∣ons they could have had to make Discoveries of their Judgment; and not onely endeavour to draw to themselves all the apprehensions of the Heathen, as well solid, as ill-grounded (as those great Rivers, which con∣tain in their Chanels Golden Sand, and Dirt, mixed together) but also triumph in that kind of employment, wherein there must sometimes be foul Play; as if it had been lawfull for them to say with Aeneas, in Virgil,

—g Dolus, an Virtus, quis in hoste requirat?

Thence came it to pass; that St. Hierome, carried away with the violent Stream of this strange Prejudice, made no difficulty to alledg for his Discharge, that the Fathers h were forced to speak, not according to their own Opinion, but to say what was necessary against what the Gentiles maintained; and that St. Paul, himself, grasped at all he touched; that he turned his Back, to gain the better; that he pretended a Flight, that he might

Kill; that the Testimonies, he made use of, speak one thing in their proper Places, and another in his Epistles; that there are some captive Examples, which fight not at all in the Books, whence they are taken, yet serve him to get the Victory: as if ever the Apostle of God had, by his own Example, autho∣rised the Licentiousness either of wresting the Scripture; or stealing, for Truth sake, a shamefull, and basely-obtained, Victory, by a dissimula∣tion of his own sentiment; or of thinking all means indifferent, nay com∣mendable, so it tended to the prejudice of Errour; or of seeking (ac∣cording to the Maxim of Anaxagoras) all things in all things, and setting up (to play the expert Merchant, acording to what is recommended to Christians, by the Authour of the Constitutions, i as from the Apostles) an open Bank in Religion. But it is not given to all to thrive in this Spiritual Truckage, and (with Virgil, who boasted he gathered Gold out of En∣nius's Dung) to finde the Gold of Christianity in the common-Sewers of Apocryphal Writings.

Notes

• a

  Annal. part. 2.
• b

  I. ib. De Sibyllis.
• c

  Haeres. 48. cap. 4.
• d

  Catech. 5.
• e

  In Isai. lib. 17. cap. 64.
• f

  Epist. 7.
• g

  Aeneid. lib. 2.
• h

  Apol. ad Pammach. pro libris Advers. Jovin.
• i

  Lib. 2. cap. 36.