empt to explain how the Sibyl came by her
knowledge, unless he means us to infer that she was divinely
illuminated. This theory has been supported by learned men, and would be
warranted if the eight books of Sibylline oracles, still extant in Greek
verse, were anterior to the Christian era; for since they often go
beyond the Old Testament predictions in historic precision, the insight
into futurity could not have been gathered exclusively from the
Scripture prophets. But the existing oracles, says Jortin, "are without
any one exception, mere impostures. They abound with phrases, words,
facts, and passages taken from the Septuagint and the New Testament, and
are a remarkable specimen of astonishing impudence, and miserable
poetry."[4] Still there remains the circumstance of the parallelism
between parts of Isaiah and the Eclogue which Virgil based upon the
Sibylline verses. It is easy to account for the coincidence. The
original Sibylline books were accidentally burnt B. C. 83. A few years
later the senate employed agents to glean together from Italy, Greece,
Sicily and Africa a body of prophecies to replace the oracles which had
perished. The collection was from private as well as public sources, and
a vast number of the same or similar predictions were in the hands of
individuals at Rome. The Jews were located everywhere; they abounded in
Rome itself; they were animated by the expectation that the reign of the
Messiah was approaching; their prophetic records were incomparable for
poetic beauty, sublimity, and variety; the language of the Septuagint
was well understood by lettered pagans, and was even the language of the
new Sibylline oracles, which were embodied in Greek verse. When all
these things are considered, it would be strange if the persons employed
to pick up prophecies had not come across notions, which had either been
derived from personal intercourse with Jews, or from their sacred books.
Although the entire world had been sunk in stupid apathy, and not a
single heathen had been attracted by curiosity to turn his attention to
Hebrew literature and beliefs, it was yet inevitable that a crude
conception should get abroad of the leading idea which fermented in the
mind of the ubiquitous Jew, and nothing was more likely than that it
should be put into Sibylline verse when Roman agents were searching far
and wide for oracles, and inviting contributions from every quarter.

Pope's Messiah first appeared in the Sp