To be brief, the city of Rome was rounded, like another Babylon, and as it were the daughter of the former Babylon, by which God was pleased to conquer the whole world, and subdue it far and wide by bringing it into one fellowship of government and laws.For there were already powerful and brave peoples and nations trained to arms, who did not easily yield, and whose subjugation necessarily involved great danger and destruction as well as great and horrible labor.For when the Assyrian kingdom subdued almost all Asia, although this was done by fighting, yet the wars could not be very fierce or difficult, because the nations were as yet untrained to resist, and neither so many nor so great as afterward; forasmuch as, after that greatest and indeed universal flood, when only eight men escaped in Noah's ark, not much more than a thousand years had passed when Ninus subdued all Asia with the exception of India.But Rome did not with the same quickness and facility wholly subdue all those nations of the east and west which we see brought under the Roman empire, because, in its gradual increase, in whatever direction it was extended, it found them strong and warlike.At the time when Rome was rounded, then, the people of Israel had been in the land of promise seven hundred and eighteen years.Of these years twenty-seven belong to Joshua the son of Nun, and after that three hundred and twenty-nine to the period of the judges.But from the time when the kings began to reign there, three hundred and sixty-two years had passed.And at that time there was a king in Judah called Ahaz, or, as others compute, Hezekiah his successor, the best and most pious king, who it is admitted reigned in the times of Romulus.And in that part of the Hebrew nation called Israel, Hoshea had begun to reign.
CHAP.23.--OF THE ERYTHRAEAN SIBYL, WHO IS KNOWN TO HAVE SUNG MANY THINGSABOUT
CHRIST MORE PLAINLY THAN THE OTHER SIBYLS.(1)Some say the Erythraean sibyl prophesied at this time.Now Varro declares there were many sibyls, and not merely one.This sibyl of Erythrae certainly wrote some things concerning Christ which are quite manifest, and we first read them in the Latin tongue in verses of bad Latin, and unrhythmical, through the unskillfulness, as we afterwards learned, of some interpreter unknown to me.For Flaccianus, a very famous man, who was also a proconsul, a man of most ready eloquence and much learning, when we were speaking about Christ, produced a Greek manuscript, saying that it was the prophecies of the Erythraean sibyl, in which he pointed out a certain passage which had the initial letters of the lines so arranged that these words could be read in them: 'I<greek>hsous</greek> X<greek>ristos</greek>
<greek>Qeou</greek> <greek>uios</greek>
<greek>spthr</greek>, which means, "Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour." And these verses, of which the initial letters yield that meaning, contain what follows as translated by some one into Latin in good rhythm:
I Judgment shall moisten the earth with the sweat of its standard, H Ever enduring, behold the King shall come through the ages, <greek>S</greek> Sent to be here in the flesh, and Judge at the last of the world.
<greek>o</greek> O God, the believing and faithless alike shall behold Thee <greek>U</greek> Uplifted with saints, when at last the ages are ended.<greek>S</greek> Seated before Him are souls in the flesh for His judgment <greek>c</greek> Hid in thick vapors, the while desolate lieth the earth.P Rejected by men are the idols and long hidden treasures; E Earth is consumed by the fire, and it searcheth the ocean and heaven; I Issuing forth, it destroyeth the terrible portals of hell.<greek>S</greek> Saints in their body and soul ******* and light shall inherit: T Those who are guilty shall burn in fire and brimstone for ever.<greek>o</greek> Occult actions revealing, each one shall publish his secrets; <greek>S</greek> Secrets of every man's heart God shall reveal in the light.
<greek>Q</greek> Then shall be weeping and wailing, yea, and gnashing of teeth; E Eclipsed is the sun, and silenced the stars in their chorus.<greek>o</greek> Over and gone is the splendor of moonlight, melted the heaven, <greek>g</greek> Uplifted by Him are the valleys, and east down the mountains.
<greek>o</greek> Utterly gone among men are distinctions of lofty and lowly.I Into the plains rush the hills, the skies and oceans are mingled.<greek>o</greek> Oh, what an end of all things! earth broken in pieces shall perish; <greek>S</greek> Swelling together at once shall the waters and flames flow in rivers.
<greek>S</greek> Sounding the archangel's trumpet shall peal down from heaven, <greek>W</greek> Over the wicked who groan in their guilt and their manifold sorrows.T Trembling, the earth shall be opened, revealing chaos and hell.H Every king before God shall stand in that day to be judged.P Rivers of fire and brimstone shall fall from the heavens.
In these Latin verses the meaning of the Greek is correctly given, although not in the exact order of the lines as connected with the initial letters; for in three of them, the fifth, eighteenth, and nineteenth, where the Greek letter <greek>g</greek> occurs, Latin words could not be found beginning with the corresponding letter, and yielding a suitable meaning.So that, if we note down together the initial letters of all the lines in our Latin translation except those three in which we retain the letter T in the proper place, they will express in five Greek words this meaning, "Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour." And the verses are twenty-seven, which is the cube of three.For three times three are nine; and nine itself, if tripled, so as to rise from the superficial square to the cube, comes to twenty-seven.But if you join the initial letters of these five Greek words, 'I<greek>hsous</greek> <greek>cristos</greek> <greek>Qeou</greek>
