the ancient fathers. I am well persuaded that many of them were deceived,* and that the verses which they produce as prophecies of Christ found in the Sibylline books, and which contain rather a minute detail of the miraculous circumstances of our Saviour's life than general predictions of his advent and his office, were scandalous forgeries. And God forbid that I should endeavour to restore the credit of an imposture that hath been long since exploded. At the same time I must observe, that though this censure be just as applied to the later fathers, yet the tes

*It is remarkable, however, that Celsus charged the Christians of his time with interpolating the Sibylline books. Origen challenges him to support the accusation by specific instances of the fraud, and insinuates that the most ancient copies of those books had the passages which Celsus esteemed insertions of the Christians. Contra CELSUM, p. 368, 369. E.

timony of the earlier, of Justin Martyr in particular, and of Clemens Alexandrinus, seems deserving of more credit: Not so much for the great learning and piety of those venerable writers, for with all this they were very capable of giving too easy credit to what might seem to serve their cause; but because they lived before the age of pious frauds, as they were called, commenced, and while the Sibylline books were extant; so that they might easily have been confuted by the heathens, had they alleged as quotations from those books forged predictions which appeared not in the authentic copies. Of their evidence however I shall not avail myself; for I would build my assertion on none but the most solid ground. I shall therefore take my idea of the contents of these books entirely from the testimony of heathen writers. At least I shall make no

use of any assertion even of the earliest fathers; much less shall I credit any of the quotations of the later, except so far as I find them supported by the most unquestionable heathen evidence.

Among heathen writers, I believe, it would be in vain to seek for any quotations of particular passages from the Sibylline oracles. They never made any. For, to produce the words of the Sibylline text, would have been dangerous violation of a law, by which the publication of any part of these writings was made a capital offence. We have however such representations of the general argument of the book, and of the general purport of particular prophecies, as afford a strong presumption in favour of the opinion we have advanced, that it was composed of adulterated fragments of the patriarchal prophecies and records, and that put it out

of doubt, that of much of the prophetic part the Messiah was the specific subject.

From the general argument of the book as it is represented by heathen writers, it is very evident that it could be no forgery of heathen priestcraft; for this reason, that it was exceedingly unfavourable to that system of idolatrous superstition, which it was the great concern and interest of the heathen priesthood to propagate and support; and this was probably the true reason that the Roman Senate committed the book to the custody of two of the Augural College, and kept it from the inspection of the vulgar by the severest laws. Now this extraordinary fact, that it was little for the interests of idolatry that the contents of the Cumaan oracles should be divulged, we learn from a dispute which was keenly agitated at Rome, between the friends of Julius Cæsar and the leader of

the republican party; in the course of which a member of the Augural College in the heat of argument let the secret out. Julius Cæsar, you know, attained the height of his power within a few years before our Saviour's birth: little was wanting to his greatness but the title of a king of which he was ambitious. The difficulty was to bring the Senate to confer it; for, without their sanction it was unsafe to assume it. One of his adherents thought of an expedient not unlikely to succeed. He produced a prophecy from the Cumæan Sibyl of a king who was to arise at this time, whose monarchy was to be universal, and whose government would be necessary and essential to the happiness of the world. The artful statesman knew, that if he could once create a general persuasion upon the credit of this prophecy, that universal monarchy was to be established, and