did in appearance; well made in all the outline of his limbs; and his reign will be ended in a hundred and twelve years. In his days there will be great riches, and the earth will yield its fruit in abundance, so that a bushel of wheat shall be sold for one penny, a measure of wine for one penny, a measure of oil for one penny. And he will be king, keeping the scripture before his eyes; and the king of the Greeks and Romans will claim all the kingdoms of Christendom for his own. He will lay waste all the cities and islands of the rebels, and will destroy all the temples of the idols; and will invite all the heathen to baptism, and the cross of Jesus Christ will be erected throughout all temples. Then Egypt will pass through Ethiopia to submit to God. But they who do not adore the cross of Jesus Christ shall be punished by the sword. And when a hundred and seventy years are fulfilled, the Jews will be converted to Jesus, and his sepulchre will be glorious in the eyes of all men, In those days, Judah will be saved, and Israel will dwell fearlessly. CH. XVI.-Continuation of the Sibyl's prophecy-Of Antichrist-The different Sibyls. In that time shall arise a prince of the tribe of Dan, who shall be called Antichrist; he will be the son of Perdition, and the teacher of error, the fulness of wickedness; who will subvert the world, and will do prodigies and great miracles by false pretences, and will delude many by false pretences, and magic art. So that he will appear to send fire from heaven, and the years will be diminished like months, and months like weeks, and days like hours. Then too there will arise foul nations from the north (which Alexander hemmed in), and Gog and Magog. These are the twenty-two kings whose number is like the sand of the sea. But when the king of the Romans comes, having collected an army, he will subdue them and crush them to their utter destruction. And after that, he will come to Jerusalem, and having there laid down the crown from off his head, and all his kingly ap parel, he will leave his kingdom to God the Father and to Christ his Son. But during his reign, two most illustrious men will come forth, Elias and Enoch, to announce the arrival of the Lord Christ; and Antichrist will slay them, and after three days they will be raised again by the Lord. Then there shall be a B.C. 1000. THE DIFFERENT SIBYLS. 77 great persecution, such as never was before, and shall not be afterwards. The Lord will shorten those days for his elect's sake, and in the virtue of the Lord, Antichrist will be slain on Mount Olivet, by Michael the Archangel. When the Sibyl had prophesied these and many other future events to the Romans, as signs by which the Lord might be known to be coming to judge the world, she proceeded in her prophecy, saying:— Judgment shall make the earth to drip with sweat. E ternal God shall then from heav'n descend- D im shall all the sunbeams be, and lost the stars; E ach mountain with the plain shall levelled be. S eas shall their billows check, the earth shall melt; I mpetuous trumpets a sad note shall pour, Old earth shall gape, and hell's wide gulf display, Under the Lord's dread glance all kings shall stand Round that great throne which with dread lightnings beams. These things were spoken of the nativity, passion, resurrection, and second coming of Christ; and are found to have in Greek in their first letters the words ̓Ιησοῦς Χρίστος υἷος Σωτὴς, which is also seen when they are translated into English, except that the propriety of the Greek letters could not be so exactly observed. Generally speaking, all female prophetesses are called Sibyls in the Greek language, for the word dòs in the Æolic dialect means God; and the Bouλn is the Greek for mind or intention; so that the name means the mind of God. And so they were called Sibyls because they were interpreters of the will of God. And as we call all men who prophecy prophets or seers, so every woman who prophecies is called a Sibyl. And by credible authors there are said to have been ten sibyls. The first of whom came from the Persians; the second was an African; the third was a Delphian, born in the temple of the Delphian Apollo; she it was who predicted the Roman wars. The fourth was the Cumaan Sibyl, in Italy. The fifth was an Erythræan, by name Eriphile, and born in Babylon; and she it was who prophesied to the Greeks when they were engaged in the expedition against Troy, that Troy would fall, and that Homer would write lies. The sixth was a Samian, who was called Femonote. The seventh was a Cumaan, called Amalthea. The eighth was a native of the Hellespont, born in the Trojan territory, and it is related that she lived in the time of Solon and Cyrus. The ninth was Phrygian, who prophesied at Ancyra. The tenth a native of Tibur, named Albunea. There are verses of all of these prophetesses extant, in which they are most evidently proved to have written about God and Christ, and the heathen. But the Erythrean is said to have been more celebrated than the rest, and she, in Greek, was also called a native of Tibur, as has been previously mentioned. And some relate that she prophesied at the time when Rome is proved to have first began to flourish; when Ahaz, or, as some say, when Hezekiah, who succeeded him, reigned in Judea. And she wrote some prophecies manifestly relating to Christ, as has been already mentioned. And a most illustrious man, and most acute interpreter, Flaccianus, has shown some verses of hers in a Greek manuscript, the first letters of which make up the words ̓Ιησοῦς Χρίστος υἱος Earng, which, in English, is Jesus Christ, the Son of God the Saviour; and these verses, the first letters of which give the sense, some one, namely, Saint Augustine, has translated in Latin verses, which are still extant. And besides all these, they say that there was another Sibyl, who adored and worshipped the wood of the cross, which was for a long time despised by all men, and trampled on and looked disdainfully on in Jesusalem. HERE ENDS THE FOURTH AGE OF THE WORLD; consisting, according to the Hebrews, of four hundred and seventy-three years; according to the seventy translators of the Bible, of four hundred and eighty-four. BOOK V. THE FIFTH AGE OF THE WORLD BEGINS IN THE NINTH YEAR OF NEBUCHADNEZZAR, KING OF BABYLON, WHO LIVED AFTER THIS OVERTHROW TWENTY-FIVE YEARS. B.C. 696-4. ACCOUNT OF BABYLON-KINGS OF BABYLON-JERUSALEM IS CH. I.-Babylon, its situation, &c.-Croesus-Belshazzar— Cyrus-The rebuilding of the temple of Jerusalem-The restoration of Babylon-The successors of Cyrus- Nehemiah. AFTER the destruction of the temple of the Lord, in the manner already spoken of, and the carrying away at the same time of the people of the Jews to Babylon, they remained there seventy years, at the end of which, Jeremiah had prophesied that the captivity of the Jews would be terminated. During which time there reigned over Persia, after Nebuchadnezzar, four kings, to wit, Evilmerodach, Labosardach, Egesar, and Belshazzar, nor had the Jews any hope of escaping from Babylon, which at that time was the strongest and richest, and highest of all cities. In its circuit was four hundred and eighty-six furlongs. And it was built in a plain, and in the likeness of a camp, arranged with walls of equal length, so as . to form a square. And the width of those walls was fifty cubits; and their highest was four times as great as their width, and on the face of the walls were a hundred brazen gates. And through the middle of the city ran the river Euphrates, and outside the walls was a fosse of great width, like a river, completing the entire circuit of the city. The citadel, which commanded the city from within, is that tower, which was began to be built after the flood of Nimrod, a most famous giant, being in height five thousand one hundred and seventy-four paces. And its width is well known to be four thousand paces. There were besides, other houses in the city, consisting of eight towers piled one upon the other, so as to be of a wonderful height, so that it seemed incredible that such a city could ever be destroyed by human valour. Croesus, the king of Lydia, had come thither, a king of great renown for his riches, in order to assist the Babylonians, with many other kings and princes. And when Belshazzar had completed the seventeenth year of his reign, thinking the prophecy of Jeremiah a vain one, in which he had prophesied that after the seventieth year the captivity of the Jews should be terminated, he caused the sacred vessels of the temple of the Lord to be displayed on his own table, and contrary to all divine and human law, he drank out of them. But Cyrus, the grandson of king Astyages, being instigated by a divine oracle, exacted punishment for this wickedness. Cyrus had been educated among the Persians, and when he grew up, having collected a powerful band of Persians he proclaimed war against his grandfather, and, having come to a battle with him, he routed his army, and took Astyages himself prisoner. But he took nothing from him but the kingdom, therefore Cyrus transferred that dignity from the Medes to the Persians, and he subjugated Syria and Scythia; and when he had done this he then besieged Babylon; and so Cyrus, according to the prophecy of Isaiah, the prophet who had predicted that these things would hereafter come to pass, put to flight the king and his defeated army, and entered the city. And when he began to arrange the affairs of the city, he relaxed the captivity of the Jews and permitted nearly fifty thousand men to return to Judæa, restoring to them the gold and silver vessels of the temple of the Lord, which were five thousand and forty in number. He also commanded Josedech |