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The Sibylline Oracles: Translated From the Greek Into English Blank Verse
Excerpt from The Sibylline Oracles: Translated From the Greek Into English Blank Verse
It must be remembered that the Greek text of these books has come down to us in a very corrupt state, mutilated in a number of places, and notable for its imperfect meters. Many of the geographical and historical allusions are obscure and uncertain, and the several books contain numerous rep etitions. For the convenience of the critical reader the corresponding lines of the Greek text are indicated at the foot of each page of the translation, and in the notes refer emees are furnished to the places in the writings of the Christian fathers and other ancient authors where the Sibyl is quoted, or where similar sentiments occur. It is hoped that our Introduction and foot-notes will also supply the information which readers in general will desire; but it should be observed that there are many passages which all the learning and ingenuity of scholars have hitherto failed to make clear.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
It must be remembered that the Greek text of these books has come down to us in a very corrupt state, mutilated in a number of places, and notable for its imperfect meters. Many of the geographical and historical allusions are obscure and uncertain, and the several books contain numerous rep etitions. For the convenience of the critical reader the corresponding lines of the Greek text are indicated at the foot of each page of the translation, and in the notes refer emees are furnished to the places in the writings of the Christian fathers and other ancient authors where the Sibyl is quoted, or where similar sentiments occur. It is hoped that our Introduction and foot-notes will also supply the information which readers in general will desire; but it should be observed that there are many passages which all the learning and ingenuity of scholars have hitherto failed to make clear.
About the Publisher
Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com
This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.
273 pages, Hardcover
First published June 1, 1999
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
August 2, 2019
In Emperor Augustus’ Gestae - written in his own hand and easily available online - he says one of his highest achievements was preserving the line of the Vesta(l) virgin priestess seers’ religious order extending back into ancient times.
Rutulius Namatianus - sometimes called the last Roman - said Nero may have killed his mother but Stilichio in his day working with Alaric the chthonic skeptic killed man’s “eternal mother” by letting them burn the primary text on all the great ages of beings that the Vestal Virgin Seers - *whom he shows are none other than the Cybil’s* - used to prophecy from. Such, he says, they did; using it to see the patterns of all past - and so, repeating future thereby.
Translators of these Cybelline [a tip of that hat here to Emperor Julian initiated into the Chaldean Oracles he says, calling them also Cybelline] writings like to trash talk them saying they are mere vagueries of funny little frothing at the mouth apocalyptic exoteric Christians.
I must admit maybe half seems to be added in that is of such nature. Yet behind and at root of this writing, though beat up, is something that appears too ancient Greco-Roman to me to be even an exoteric Christian Apologist quoting Greek and Roman sources; I have read about all early Christian exoteric and esoteric sources so I can say this fairly affirmatively. It seems there is in it a good bit, before bastardized, of a true Cybil’s Traditio, something actually from of old, even if such school began to blend some with the early Christians - even exo-Christian’s pufferies too - fairly early on.
In my opinion, however foolish one thinks all the great detail one finds in the work “St Paul in Britain” the author was definitely on to something showing the houses Paul was living in in Rome in his day show, by all names, to be that of the Vesta Virgin Sybil seers mentioned in secular roman sources by those same family names then too.
So there was crossover then, but they were their own schools. Yet their works were included in early christian canons before the orthoquacks straight jacketed all that was good out of primordial eclectic Christianity and the Syballine Oracles were removed from the various Church’s canons. One finds them in early Church Canons.
Now there were twelve central Sybil’s, central female seers, extending back to before the 2nd Millenium that this esoteric school or order of virgin women extends out from and I could name all 12 of them but that is another story. One is said to be the daughter of Berossus.
What is important is to realize this is one of the last works we have of the Romans inner cultic schools of consciousness, besides about 14 others, which speak in fairly great detail and linear order of the great ages of deep epochal history going back to the beginnings of beinghood many millions of years ago (see my notes on Hesiod’s chronology as enumerated by Plutarch as to how long ago each of their ages were listed as being, mathematically based on the codes Plutarch provides to descry Hesiod).
I have found few other writings which speak so clearly on - not only all the houses of previous beings mentioned in all world’s myth in correct order (true “anthropology”) - but also all 5 houses of man-form from his beginning to now in fairly dense detail
[by the way, Chinese Lore on early man/Suirin records they had 5 houses, Hesiod speaks of the 5 houses briefly of man so far, Lady Hahn speaks in great massive detail on the 5 and somehow Tolkien stumbled upon them and all his similitudes are quite detailed mere regurgitations concerning ancient accounts of them in addition to houses of others before and during them. He added so very little the more one discovers about these 5 mesoteric periods which he also shows as 5 houses, so far, for man form - I reveal what they are per he in other reviews of mine].
So this is an immensely, revolutional, evolutional and important verifying work probably only 50 people among several billion on earth right now have read or understood correctly. Hopefully one day it will be better respected.
I highly recommend it.
To reiterate here though, cause this is easily missed:
Like Apollodorus, Hesiod, Pindar, Strabo, Hyginus, Blavatsky, Tolkien in detailed point for point similitude throughout all his Back History (in HME, Lost Tales and the Silmarillion), Gurdjieff in his own peculiar A&E verbage, the Hopi Elders per Waters, Evola, the Vishnu Purana and innumerable other ancient culture’s writings (including the Zoroastrians’ Zend Avesta, the Navajo’s Legends and the Maya accounts in the Popol Vuh and Chilam Balam); this book of the Syballine Oracles shows all that they do but sometimes clearer as to the early more gnostic Christians and more Palatine Romans accounts of the same; namely:
***that there were four being worlds before present man form and 5 houses of man so far, of which we are in the 5th ending.***
Who can teach you of this in the 21st century, let alone: speaks of it, let alone: even knows of it?
Almost no one.
It is very rare and valuable self knowledge as a human on earth here for us to know about our own existence in more than some vague, academic and merely ephemeral and speculative way;
and unknown to almost all now, though once universally known.
[Here is a more pure earlier version of it almost 2 centuries before this present edition here - though not containing as much:
https://archive.org/details/sibylline...
]
Rutulius Namatianus - sometimes called the last Roman - said Nero may have killed his mother but Stilichio in his day working with Alaric the chthonic skeptic killed man’s “eternal mother” by letting them burn the primary text on all the great ages of beings that the Vestal Virgin Seers - *whom he shows are none other than the Cybil’s* - used to prophecy from. Such, he says, they did; using it to see the patterns of all past - and so, repeating future thereby.
Translators of these Cybelline [a tip of that hat here to Emperor Julian initiated into the Chaldean Oracles he says, calling them also Cybelline] writings like to trash talk them saying they are mere vagueries of funny little frothing at the mouth apocalyptic exoteric Christians.
I must admit maybe half seems to be added in that is of such nature. Yet behind and at root of this writing, though beat up, is something that appears too ancient Greco-Roman to me to be even an exoteric Christian Apologist quoting Greek and Roman sources; I have read about all early Christian exoteric and esoteric sources so I can say this fairly affirmatively. It seems there is in it a good bit, before bastardized, of a true Cybil’s Traditio, something actually from of old, even if such school began to blend some with the early Christians - even exo-Christian’s pufferies too - fairly early on.
In my opinion, however foolish one thinks all the great detail one finds in the work “St Paul in Britain” the author was definitely on to something showing the houses Paul was living in in Rome in his day show, by all names, to be that of the Vesta Virgin Sybil seers mentioned in secular roman sources by those same family names then too.
So there was crossover then, but they were their own schools. Yet their works were included in early christian canons before the orthoquacks straight jacketed all that was good out of primordial eclectic Christianity and the Syballine Oracles were removed from the various Church’s canons. One finds them in early Church Canons.
Now there were twelve central Sybil’s, central female seers, extending back to before the 2nd Millenium that this esoteric school or order of virgin women extends out from and I could name all 12 of them but that is another story. One is said to be the daughter of Berossus.
What is important is to realize this is one of the last works we have of the Romans inner cultic schools of consciousness, besides about 14 others, which speak in fairly great detail and linear order of the great ages of deep epochal history going back to the beginnings of beinghood many millions of years ago (see my notes on Hesiod’s chronology as enumerated by Plutarch as to how long ago each of their ages were listed as being, mathematically based on the codes Plutarch provides to descry Hesiod).
I have found few other writings which speak so clearly on - not only all the houses of previous beings mentioned in all world’s myth in correct order (true “anthropology”) - but also all 5 houses of man-form from his beginning to now in fairly dense detail
[by the way, Chinese Lore on early man/Suirin records they had 5 houses, Hesiod speaks of the 5 houses briefly of man so far, Lady Hahn speaks in great massive detail on the 5 and somehow Tolkien stumbled upon them and all his similitudes are quite detailed mere regurgitations concerning ancient accounts of them in addition to houses of others before and during them. He added so very little the more one discovers about these 5 mesoteric periods which he also shows as 5 houses, so far, for man form - I reveal what they are per he in other reviews of mine].
So this is an immensely, revolutional, evolutional and important verifying work probably only 50 people among several billion on earth right now have read or understood correctly. Hopefully one day it will be better respected.
I highly recommend it.
To reiterate here though, cause this is easily missed:
Like Apollodorus, Hesiod, Pindar, Strabo, Hyginus, Blavatsky, Tolkien in detailed point for point similitude throughout all his Back History (in HME, Lost Tales and the Silmarillion), Gurdjieff in his own peculiar A&E verbage, the Hopi Elders per Waters, Evola, the Vishnu Purana and innumerable other ancient culture’s writings (including the Zoroastrians’ Zend Avesta, the Navajo’s Legends and the Maya accounts in the Popol Vuh and Chilam Balam); this book of the Syballine Oracles shows all that they do but sometimes clearer as to the early more gnostic Christians and more Palatine Romans accounts of the same; namely:
***that there were four being worlds before present man form and 5 houses of man so far, of which we are in the 5th ending.***
Who can teach you of this in the 21st century, let alone: speaks of it, let alone: even knows of it?
Almost no one.
It is very rare and valuable self knowledge as a human on earth here for us to know about our own existence in more than some vague, academic and merely ephemeral and speculative way;
and unknown to almost all now, though once universally known.
[Here is a more pure earlier version of it almost 2 centuries before this present edition here - though not containing as much:
https://archive.org/details/sibylline...
]
October 3, 2021
This ancient work consisting of fourteen books poses itself as a set of prophecies about world history and the fate of mankind. Parts were very interesting to me; others not so much, especially as the work gets to be rather repetitive and at times obscure. Not all the books survive and not all that do survive do so in complete form. The books, most scholars believe, were written over centuries by different writers with different agendas. Thus, some sections seem to be Christian in orientation, some pagan, and some Jewish--many merge aspects and views from these various traditions. It's interesting to read the differing views on the end of time as they develop within the books, though the varying writers makes for many inconsistencies in such views; because we don't know for certain who wrote what and when, unfortunately, tracing the development of thought within the collection is to some extent necessarily and unfortunately speculative. The translation itself that I read, available online here (https://www.sacred-texts.com/cla/sib/), was well done--with useful notes and the materials placed into polished blank verse.
July 25, 2021
This is a very impressive, poetic arrangement and translation of the Oracles. Terry’s critical remarks are exceptional, too. Any serious student can tell that he was immensely passionate and well-read in every detail of this literature available to him.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews