The Sibylline Oracles

The Sibylline Oracles are a collection of prophecies in Greek hexameters, spoken in the name of the Sibyls, the inspired prophetesses of the pagan world. They were not written by the Sibyls of tradition but by anonymous Jewish and, later, Christian authors, who borrowed the old prophetic voice to announce the fall of empires, the judgment of the nations and the end of the world. The oldest parts belong to Hellenistic Jewish circles, probably in Egypt, around the second century BC; later books were added and reworked by Jewish and Christian hands down to about the fifth century AD.

Twelve books survive in the medieval manuscripts, and the collection was long known only in part. Milton S. Terry’s blank-verse translation of 1890, given here in full, numbers them I–VIII and IX–XII, with the manuscript numbers of the last four (XI–XIV) in parentheses.