THE SIBYL
In 325 A.D. there was a council gathering of about 250 Christian "bishops" from communities around Asia Minor for purpose of organizing into one body the foundling movement called "Christians." The council was held at the town of Nicaea, southeast of Constantinople. The first Christian emperor, Constantine, opened the council with an oration. The following material is an excerpt from Constantine's Oration, where he regards a famous prophetess at Delphi, called "The Sibyl," who lived several hundred years prior. She was the famous "Oracle of Delphi" at the Temple of Apollo. Beneath the temple there was a sort of cave in which stood a tall three-legged stool. The prophetess, here it is Daphne, sat on the stool and prophesied, often in response to questions from emperors from distant lands who knew of her reputation. Virgil, in The Aenid, and Cicero also include references to this famous prophetess in their writings. Emperor Constantine speaks:
"My desire, however, is to derive even from foreign sources a testimony to the Divine nature of Christ. For on such testimony it is evident that even those who blaspheme his name must acknowledge that he is God, and the Son of God if indeed they will accredit the words of those whose sentiments coincided with their own. The Erythraean Sibyl, then, who herself assures us that she lived in the sixth generation after the flood, was a priestess of Apollo, who wore the sacred fellet in imitation of the God she served, who guarded also the tripod encompassed with the serpent's folds, and returned prophetic answers to those who approached her shrine; having been devoted by the folly of her parents to this service, a service productive of nothing good or noble, but only of indecent fury, such as we find recorded in the case of Daphne. {Daphne was a priestess at Delphi, called "The Sibyl" because of the wildness of her looks and expressions when she delivered oracles}
"On one occasion, however, having rushed into the sanctuary of her vain superstition, she became really filled with inspiration from above, and declared in prophetic verses the future purposes of God; plainly indicating the advent of Jesus by the initial letters of these verses, forming an acrostic in these words: "Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, Cross. The verses themselves are as follows:
Judgment! Earth's oozing pores shall mark the day; (volcanoes erupting)
Earth's heavenly King his glories shall display: (Jesus appears)
Unnumbered multitudes their God shall own; (Adamites and Israelites)
Shall see their Judge, with mingled joy and fear,
Crowned with his saints, in human form appear. (Jesus appears as Man)
How vain while desolate earth's glories lie,
Riches, and pomp, and man's idolatry!
In that dread hour, when Nature's fiery doom (volcanoes)
Startles the slumbering tenants of the tomb, (dead in Christ arise)
Trembling all flesh shall stand; each secret wile,
Sins long forgotten, thoughts of guilt and guile,
Open beneath God's searching light shall lie:
No refuge then, but hopeless agony.
O'er heaven's expanse shall gathering shades of night
From earth, sun, stars, and moon, withdraw their light. (volcanic ash fills the skies)
God's arm shall crush each mountain's towering pride; (mountains sink)
On ocean's plain no more shall navies ride. (tidal waves & storms destroy ships)
Dried at the source, no river's rushing sound (no rivers flow)
Shall soothe, no fountain slake the parched ground.
Around, afar, shall roll the trumpet's blast, (thunders & winds roar)
Voice of wrath long delayed, revealed at last. (God's wrath)
In speechless awe, while earth's foundations groan, (earthquakes, tectonic plates shift)
On judgment's seat earth's kings their God shall own.
Uplifted then in majesty divine,
Radiant with light, behold Salvation's Sign!
Cross of that Lord, who, once for sinners given, (foretelling of the cross)
Reviled by man, now owned by earth and heaven, (Jesus despised & rejected)
O'er every land extends his iron sway.
Such is the name these mystic lines display;
Savior, eternal king, who bears our sins away.
Behold, a new heaven-born race appears. (Israel reborn)
... The voice of Cuma's oracle is heard again.
Now is the world's grand cycle begun once more from old; (another 25,000 year cycle begins)
Justice, the Virgin, comes and the Saturn kingdom again." (Libra, Virgo, & Capricorn ahead)
It is important to understand that someone translated Constantine's oration into English from the Greek and exercised some license in order to make poetry of it, and to make the acrostic work in English.
The acrostic that Constantine refers to before he quotes the prophecy indicates that five lines of the prophecy began with Greek letters I-X-TH-U-S. The word itself means "fish." The letters were often used by early Greek-speaking Christians to stand for Jesus Christ, God's Son, Savior. The fish became the symbol for the early Christian movement. Jesus lived at the very beginning of the age of Pisces (fish), thus the fish symbol is important to His inauguration of this "generation." Jesus lived at the end of the age of Aries (lamb) and fulfilled ancient prophecies that the "Lamb of God" would come at the end of that age. Not only relevant to the end of Aries and beginning of Pisces, Jesus gave His prophecy of events which would occur at the end of the age/generation of Pisces: "this generation will not pass away until these things be fulfilled." Matthew 24 happens to include some of the same general things which the above Oracle predicts.
The Roman Catholic church through the middle-ages made frequent reference to the Sibylline Oracle, especially in its Requiems. The Dies Irae is a powerful part of a Requiem as it warns of the great day of judgment: "A day of wrath, that day. It will dissolve the world into glowing ashes, as attested by David together with the Sibyl."
So, even though the prophetess at Delphi had a bad reputation and was reprobate by many accounts, it was all the more meaningful that such a meaningful prediction should come for a Christian movement that would not begin for several more centuries after she lived.
ROGER HATHAWAY, MAY 1994
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