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. V. The recommendation of the Writing, pretended to be Sibylline, attri∣buted by Clemens Alexandrinus to St. Paul, examined.

TO qualifie, with more ease, the reproach consequent to so unwor∣thy an attempt, and in some sort, to save his reputation that was guilty of it, there are many, who (as it were out of a certain emulation) alledge that St. Paul himself recommended the reading of the Sibyls, and, to justifie their assertion, bring in Clemens Alexandrinus, speaking in these terms: Besides, the preaching of St. Peter, the Apostle, St. Paul * 1.1 will declare the same, saying, take also the Greek books, acknoweledge the Si∣byl, how she discovers one onely God, and the things that are to come; and taking Hystaspes, read, and you will find the Son of God much more manifestly and openly described. But I shall not stick to presume their pardon, though I affirm they heap evil upon evil. For if it be blame-worthy for a man (as St. Justin did) to subscribe a piece of forgery which he was not able to discover, how odious must needs be the malice of that false witness, who (to deceive Clemens Alexandrinus, and other Christians) would needs

maintain the supposititiousness of the Sibylline writings, by a worse Im∣posture, and feign that St. Paul himself had brought them into credit by his recommendation? If souls perfectly vertuous cannot without dif∣ficulty endure that Encomiums of chastity should be bestow'd on com∣mon Prostitutes, who among such as are truly Christian, will be able to suffer comparisons to be made between the Prophets of God, and per∣sons in the depth of an extravagant melancholy, between their celesti∣all Oracles and the disorder'd resueries of the other, and that the Proje∣ctor of so base a cheat should presume to give it the greater reputation, produce the Apostle as a complice of his sacrilegious insolence? And yet there are those who would, that, out of this vessel of election, should come the words alledged by Clemens; and whereas there cannot any such thing be found in his Epistles, they imagine them spoken by him in his popular Sermons, as if it were possible, that he, who sacrificed his life * 1.2 in a glorious martyrdom, in the 65. year of our Lord, should give his ap∣probation to a piece full of errors, and forg'd since the year 137. as it were out of a design, by that recommendation, to oppose the Autho∣rity, as well of the old Testament, and the Son of God himself, as his own preaching and the most excellent of his Epistles. For if, among the Heathens, the Sibyl and Hystaspes, have not onely declared one God, and manifested the things to come, but also describ'd the Son of God after a manner more clear and convincing, with what credit could David have written, It is in Jury that God is known; God sheweth his words unto Jacob, his Statutes * 1.3 and his Judgements unto Israel. He hath not dealt so with other nations; and as for his judgements, they have not known them? Or, how comes it that the Saviour of the World hath decided the case on the behalf of the Jews, saying, Salvation is of the Jews? And upon what ground doth St. * 1.4 Paul make this precise Declaration to the Lycaonians; God in times past, suffered all nations to walk in their own wayes: and speaking to the Atheni∣ans, (the most refin'd people of all the Europaeans) call the times pre∣ceding the publication of the Gospel, The times of ignorance; and main∣tain * 1.5 in his Epistle to the Romans the advantage of the Jew, to be much every way; chiefly, because that unto them were committed the Oracles of God: Again, * 1.6 that to the Israelites pertaineth the glory and the covenant, and the giving of * 1.7 the Law, and the service of God, and the promises; and put other nations, in comparison of them, into a qualification of such as are no people, and a * 1.8 nation voyd of understanding? Certainly, if the Gentiles (according to the pretended presupposition of St. Paul, in Clemens Alexandrinus) have been depositaries of the Oracles of God more clear and manifest then the Prophets, they neither have, nor ought to have granted, that God hath not shewen them his Ordinances and Judgements, and that on the Jews behalf (over whom they were notoriously advantag'd) the advantage was much every way. For since, before the Incarnation of the Messias, they had, in their hands, the illuminating predications of the Sibyls, which fur∣nish'd them with historicall descriptions of what in the Propheticall Writings, is but aenigmatically proposed, their time was not a time of ignorance, but of light and knowledge, more distinct then that of the Jews, and it must have been false, that God was only known in Jury; since that we do not esteem ignorant, at least comparatively to another, him who

in the same matter of fact, knowes as much, if not more, then the most knowing, and that these propositions are formally contradictory: the advantage is of the Jews, and the advantage is not of the Jews. Again, the advantage of the Jews over the Gentiles consists, having the Oracles of God committed to them; and, the Oracles of God committed to the Gentiles by the means of the Sibyls, are more clear and manifest then those of the Jews.

From all which I must needs inferr, that, it being impossible, a person sound in his intellectuals, should at the same time, hold both parts of the same contradiction, and there being yet a greater impossibility, that such as are inspir'd from God, should be guilty of such a miscarriage; St. Paul did not onely not say what is attributed to him in Clemens Alex∣andrinus, but could not have said it. And thereupon I shall desire the prudent Reader, to take four things into his consideration:

1. That he who hath presum'd to borrow his name, to gain the greater credit to his fond imaginations, does, by the generall descripti∣on he hath given us of what is contain'd in the pretended Sibylline pre∣dictions, saying, they declare one onely God, discover things to come, and the Son of God, clearly shew, that he alludeth to those very books, which are now extant of them, and consequently, that his work was hatch'd after that, entitled the Sibylline, and must needs be later then the year of our Lord, 137.

2. That, with Justin and Clemens, he acknowledges but one Sibyl, who manifested one onely God, which shews, it were to little purpose to look for different Authors for the eight books that are come to our times.

3. That the most clear and remarkable descriptions of the Son of God, pal∣pably relate to the designation as well of the four vowels and two con∣sonants, which make up the Greek name 〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉〈 in non-Latin alphabet 〉, as the number precisely arising thence; as also the Acrostick of the eighth book, wherein we have consecutively the names of Jesus Christ, Son of God, Saviour, and Cross, with the Paraphrase on the greatest part of the history of the Gospel.

4. That the more express and historicall these descriptions are, the more apparent it is that they are supposititious, and written after the event, the Spirit of God having never thought it convenient to pro∣pose things to come otherwise then aenigmatically, and under the veil of severall figures, and there being no instance but onely of one person, whose proper name it hath express'd in its Oracles, that is to say, Cyrus, twice nam'd by Isaiah, 175. years before he was possess'd of the Mo∣narchy * 1.9 of the Universe.

Clemens might soon have observ'd this, if, to compass his design, he had made it as much his business to exercise his judgement, as exhaust his memory; but having resolv'd to make use of Heathens and Here∣ticks against themselves, so to undeceive them all, without taking heed himself of being surpriz'd, he, as well as others, is fallen into the snare, and the cloud of witnesses, he had to produce, suffer'd him not to see the bad marks which some of them carried in their very faces. According∣ly do we find, That this vast Wit, whom nothing escap'd, and who thought to make his advantages of all, and take away (as sometimes Israel did) all the treasures of Aegypt, after he had with a miraculous ostentation laid down the Depositions of 250. Heathen Authors, as well

Philosophers, as Historians and Poets, and given quarter to the most execrable Heretiques, such as Basilides, Carpacrates, Julius Cassianus, Epiphanes, Heracleon, Hermogenes, Isidorus, Marcion, Prodicus, Tatian, Va∣lentin; &c. and opened his brest to Apocryphall pieces; that is to say, the Prophesies of Enoch, Cham, Abacuc, Esdras, Parchor, and Sophony, the book of the Assumption of Moses, the Gospels of the Aegyptians and He∣brews, the Sermons of St. Peter, and St. Paul, the Traditions of St. Mat∣thias, the Epistle of St. Barnabas, the Pastor of Hermas; Brother to Pope Pius the first, (a piece which dazled the eyes of St. Irenaeus, and many others) hath also given credit to the counterfeit Sibyll, whose discourse he thought so much the more authentick, the more directly it contri∣buted to his design.

Notes

• * 1.1

  Strom. lib. 6. p. 136.
• * 1.2

  Baron. Appar. 19. Sixt. Sen. Bibl lib. 2. Possevin. Ap∣par. & Bib. Sel. lib. 2. c. 71. Lib. 17. c 20.
• * 1.3

  Psal. 147. 19, 20.
• * 1.4

  Joh. 4. 22. Acts 14. 16.
• * 1.5

  Acts 17. 30.
• * 1.6

  Rom. 3. 1, 2.
• * 1.7

  Rom. 9 4.
• * 1.8

  Rom. 10. 19.
• * 1.9

  Isai. 44. 28. and 45. 1.