The Sibylline Oracles (sometimes called the "pseudo-Sibylline Oracles") are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in a frenzied state. Fourteen books and eight fragments of Sibylline Oracles survive. These are not considered to be identical to the original Sibylline Books of Roman mythology, which have been lost, but a collection of utterances that were composed or edited under various circumstances, between perhaps the middle of the 2nd century BC and the 5th century AD.
The Sibylline Oracles are a valuable source for information about Classical mythology and early first millennium Gnostic, Jewish and Christian beliefs. Some apocalyptic passages scattered throughout seem to adumbrate themes of John's Book of Revelation and other Apocalyptic literature. In places the oracles have also undergone extensive editing, re-writing, and redaction, as they came to be exploited in wider circles.
One passage has an acrostic, spelling out a Christian code-phrase with the first letters of successive lines.
Read more about Sibylline Oracles: Introduction, Sources For The Sibylline Texts, History of The Texts, Contents
Famous quotes containing the word oracles:
“In excited conversation we have glimpses of the universe, hints of power native to the soul, far-darting lights and shadows of an Andes landscape, such as we can hardly attain in lone meditation. Here are oracles sometimes profusely given, to which the memory goes back in barren hours.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)