The Sibylline Oracles

Traditions

Greek and Roman mysteries Jewish scripture and tradition Christian scripture and mysticism

Role in the tradition

Primary source Written from inside the tradition: scripture, revelation, a grimoire, a manifesto or a practical treatise.

Public attention

Major Wikipedia has an article about it in 23 languages.

• Terry's translation ↗ sacred-texts.com checked against the Internet Archive's copy of January 01, 2026, because the site refuses scripts · archived copy

The Sibylline Oracles are a collection of oracular utterances written in Greek hexameters ascribed to the Sibyls, prophetesses who uttered divine revelations in a frenzied state. Fourteen books and eight fragments of Sibylline Oracles survive, in an edition of the 6th or 7th century AD. They are not to be confused with the original Sibylline Books of the ancient Etruscans and Romans which were burned by order of the Roman general Flavius Stilicho in the 4th century AD. Instead, the text is an "odd pastiche" of Hellenistic and Roman mythology interspersed with Jewish, Gnostic and early Christian writings and thinly veiled references to historical figures such as Alexander the Great and Cleopatra, as well as many allusions to the events of the later Roman Empire, often portraying Rome in a negative light.

From the Wikipedia article Sibylline Oracles, revision 1366387914, under CC BY-SA 4.0. Wikidata Q740092: “collection of oracular utterances in Greek hexameter, containing Hellenistic/Roman mythology with Jewish, Gnostic and Christian stories”.