Sibylline Oracles - History of The Texts

History of The Texts

Large collections of these Jewish and Christian oracles are still in existence. When they were recovered in the 16th century, their initial publication caused a sensation among scholars. In 1545 Xystus Betuleius (Sixt Birck of Augsburg) published at Basel an edition of eight books of oracles with a preface dating from perhaps the 6th century AD, and the next year a version set in Latin verse appeared. Better manuscripts were used by Johannes Opsopaeus, whose edition appeared at Paris in 1599. Later editions include those by Servaas Galle (Servatius: Amsterdam 1689) and by Andrea Gallandi in his Bibliotheca Veterum Patrum (Venice, 1765, 1788). In 1817 Angelo Mai edited a further book, from a manuscript in the Biblioteca Ambrosiana at Milan (Codex Ambrosianus) and later he discovered four more books, in the Vatican Library, none of which were continuations of the eight previously printed, but an independent collection. These are numbered XI to XIV in later editions. Several fragments of oracles taken from the works of Theophilus and Lactantius, printed in the later editions, show that even more Sibylline oracles formerly existed. In the course of the 19th century, better texts also became available for the parts previously published.