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RELIGIOUS ENCYCLOPEDIA

apologetic the prediction of the Antichrist Beliar is prominent. The "Assyrian prince" who persecuted the Jews can scarcely be any other than Odenatus, king of Palmyra, against whom the predictions of book xiii. are directed, who also in the Apocalypse of Elias appears as the chief Antichrist opposed to Judaism. This places the redaction of books i.-ii. in the second half of the third century. But iii. 6392 is related to ii. 167 sqq., and the editor of book ii. and writer of iii. 63 sqq. must have been the same person or have belonged to the same environment; the widow of iii. 77--78 must be Zenobia of Palmyra, who reigned after Odenatus. To this same environment belongs book viii., which is a conglomerate of pieces of varied character. Lines 1-216 are early, before the death of Marcus Aurelius, the last part much edited, however; 217-250 is an acrostic (on the Greek lesous Chreistos theou kuios soter stauros), and is followed by a Christological section 251-323, and this by a medley, the whole st le of which recalls the editor of books i- ii., whole series of lines being repeated from the one in the other, especially as dealing with the destruction of the world by fire, the purification by the same means, etc. If the editors of these parts are not the same, their methods and the time in which they worked were close together. Possibly this editor wrote viii. 169-177. The editor of books i.-ii., the author of iii. 63-92, and the compiler of book viii. in its present form are (is) to be placed in the time of Odenatus and Zenobia or immediately after Zenobia's death.

A second group of connected pieces is composed of books iv., v., and the oldest part of book viii., and in situation this group builds around book iv., which is Jewish. The fact that temple and sacrificial offerings are past (lines 27-28) is explained by the

fact that after the fall of the Temple 8. Books the Jews soon lost the idea of sacrifice. iv., v., viii. In consequence of the fall of Jerusalem,

the writer hates Rome and Italy, and must have written soon after 79 A.D., and looks for the return of Nero for revenge on Rome, thus giving the earliest testimony for the Nero saga. In 49-114 the compiler has used an older and probably Greek oracle-97-98 is attested by Strabo. The ten families (ut sup.) reappear here, and this section may be pre-Christian. Toward the end the burning of the world reappears, with the resurrection of the dead. Book v. is difficult, though critics agree that the basis is Jewish, while there is question as to its origin from one hand. The section 1-51, a tedious and uninteresting enumeration of the Roman emperors till Hadrian , by its character demands a different authorship from the rest. Three sections, 137-178, 214-285, 361-446, seem to be closely related to each other, and present three themes-the returning Nero, threats against Rome, and the New Jerusalem. A fourth section is found in 93-110, the subject of which is also Nero and his return. These all seem to have arisen out of prac t the same situation, and the author's anger against Rome is roused by his experience in the destruction of the Temple, while he looks f Jerusalem Sibyl

who was influenced also by the heathen oracles which he has embodied; he lived within a generation after the fall of Jerusalem. Out of a similar situation (or the same) arose Rev. xvii.-xviii., xxi. In the rest of book v. are sayings which betray the Egyptian type. Especially characteristic is the section 4.84-510, which undoubtedly points to the Jewish temple in Leontopolis (see LEONTOPOLIB); the conception in this part, that a great temple is in the future to be built in Egypt, is intelligible when it is remembered that the Leontopolis temple stood until 'r3 A.D. An Egyptian Jew expected its reconstruction, and its destruction in the last period before the great judgment. Whether the remaining pieces, to be characterized broadly as Egyptian, are by the author of the Nero pieces is not to be decided categorically; he may have been the first to incorporate them in a work, and he may have imitated the older portions. The book looks like the work of one redactor, begun in the reign of Marcus Aurelius, with interpolations by a Christian. In this same connection belongs viii.l-216, dealing with the returning Nero, the author of which was a Christian who wrote near the end of Marcus Aurelius' reign and took into his work a number of older sayings, though the form has in some cases been considerably changed.

Books vd. and vii. belong together. Both are by Christian authors, bat their type is apocryphal or heretical. Book vi. is anti-Jewish, is written in praise of the Son of God, is adoptionistic, and stresses the baptism of Jesus. Its date is doubtful, but it may have been known to the editor of books i.-ii. The author of book vii. was

g. Books probably born a Jew, wrote in imitavi., vii., xi.- tion of earlier sibylline writers, and

ziv. where he is independent is quite in teresting (e.g., 64-95, 118-162). His Christology is heretical in color, but he adheres to the logos type of Christology; he may have been a Jewish-Christian Gnostic, and possibly wrote c. 150 A.D. Books xi.-xiv. have a certain unity. Book xi. is the oldest, Jewish in origin, and has been regarded as edited in the third Christian century, though that seems too late as his work would have little meaning for that time. He pictures the age of Cleopatra and the end of the Egy ptian kingdom, but his prophecies are worthless; more likely he belongs to Augustan times. Book xii., picturing in quiet narrative the Roman emperors from Augustus to Alexander Severus, can not have emanated from a Christian, but must be by a Jew, loyal to the empire, not orthodox, but cosmopolitan, living after Alexander

Severus. As an oriental regarding the empire, he is often interesting in his vy~ws. But lines 28-34 must have been adapted by '!'Christian who dealt with the birth of Christ. Book xiii., starting in where xii. leaves off, is exceedingly interesting. It carries on the story from Alexander Severus to Gallienus. Pos sibly recognizable forms are Gordian L, and IIL,

Philip the Arabian and his son, Gallius, X m;hus

llJmilianus, Aurelian, and Gallienus. Odenatus is the savior who is born of the sun, and is the lion who

or a New slays the Persian shepherd and the Roman usurpers. with its new Temple. The varying char- It has been suspected that the interpolator of book

aster bf the picture of Nero now human now ghostly, xii. is the editor of xiii.; in that case he worked over may come from the changing moods of the author, ; x'-xii. with his own collection. In this time

origi-