Hermas (est 80-140A.D.)

Hermas or otherwise known as Hermes of Philippopolis is believed to have lived somewhere around 80-140A.D. He is believed to have once been a slave that was brought to Greece, however at some point in his life he started to walk the life of a prophet. The main source for information about Hermas is a book called The Good Shepherd which has three sections; the first contains five visions, the second contains twelve mandates and the last contains ten parables. He is also mentioned in other places, for example he is mentioned by Paul in Romans16:14, and it is also suggested that he is the brother of Pius the bishop of Rome.

In the visions he is visited at various points by a woman, twice while making the journey to Cumae where he says:

“I had walked a little, I fell asleep; and the spirit caught me away”

At first he mistakes the woman for a sibyl who has been sent to give him messages from God, yet in his second vision he is told that it is not a sibyl but that the woman symbolises the Church of God. As the story of the visions develop, it is made clear that Hermes is a man of simplicity and innocence who keeps himself away from lusts. When he sees visions he describes it as being carried away or his hair would stand on end. He also mentions that he would spend a lot of time in prayer and fasting and meditating.

In the section of mandates, this time Hermas is visited by the Good Shepherd who gives him twelve mandates or commandments, each one is long and very detailed, yet they can be simplified for example believers should fear God but not the devil and the spirits and prophets are to be tried by their works and so on.

My favorite of the parables from the last section of the book is the one that says these times are like the winter and you cannot tell by the empty trees which are dry and which are not, if it was summer you would see some have fruit and some are barren, and so it is with the righteous and the sinner as their worlds have become so intwined that you cannot tell them apart.

The Erythraean Sibyls (est1300-150 B.C.?)

The first Erythraean Sibyl is said to have been the daughter of a sheperd. She lived in Erythrae, Ionia (Asia Minor), on the Aegean Sea, and is often confused with the Cumaean Sibyl (St. Augustine, in his "City of God," speaks of this).

What makes this woman important to Christians is her prediction of Christ, given in the form of an acrostic poem which formed the words, 'Ihsous Xristos Qeou uios spthr, which means, "Jesus Christ the Son of God, the Saviour." And in some ways she was remembered through her dipiction in a floor mosaic in the Cathedral of Siena and in a painting by Michelangelo. It is said that she also predicted the Trojan War (est1200 B.C.) saying that Troy would be destroyed and that Homer (est 850 B.C) would write falsely. It is also said that she prophesied Alexander the Great's(est 300 B.C.) divine parentage.

However it seems that Erthrae may have become a permanent base for a succession of Sibyls, as the daughter of Berossus (est 300 B.C.) became one, Berossus was a scholar and an astrologist who, according to Vitruvius de Architectura, is said to have moved in later like to the island of Kos to set up a school of Astrology. Further evidence to this idea is that Appollodorus (est180 B.C.) still references a Sibyl of Erthrae many years later. Therefore I am referencing to them here in the plural and to have existed from 1300-150 B.C.

Upon further examination of other documents(incl the Suidas), it appears that the Erythraean Sibyl (the original) spent the greater part of her life on the Greek Island of Samos and became known as the Samian Sibyl, or Phyto (meaning 'wandering'). It is possible that she originally settled in Erthrae and set up a base for other sibyls before moving to Samos to spend the rest of her life there, or maybe she originated from the island itself and just traveled to Erthrae at some point in her life. The Samian Sibyl is recorded as existing during the building of the city of Byzantium (around 600B.C.??)

Cumaean Sibyl (est1500-500 B.C.)

The Cumaean Sibyl lived in Cumae (now Cuma) which was the first Greek colony founded in Italy, which is about twenty miles from Naples. Her home was a grotto under the ground which can still be seen to this day in a volcanic region where vapours would issue from the ground.

Her existence is recorded from two main sources, the first is from the manuscript Aeneid by Virgil where he writes about the mysterious woman;

“Arriv'd at Cumae, when you view the flood
Of black Avernus, and the sounding wood,
The mad prophetic Sibyl you shall find,
Dark in a cave, and on a rock reclin'd.
She sings the fates, and, in her frantic fits”

Also during his visit, she took him on a tour of the underworld where he questioned her about her existence, asking if she was an immortal goddess, to which she answered that she was not a goddess and she was mortal yet she had been granted a long life, yet the long life was not that of eternal youth but one where her body will fade until all that is left is her voice, living for a thousand years.

In other manuscripts it is recorded that she went to king Tarquin with nine books that contained the destiny of his kingdom and the world, they were called the Sibylline Books, the king refused and the sibyl burned three books in a fire, when he refused the second time she burned three more, but the king eventually bought the last three books for 300 coins. The books are recorded to have been destroyed in a fire in 83 B.C. This led to the Roman Emperor demanding that the collection to be reformed from other copies which became the Sibylline Oracles.

It is possible that this is the Sibyl in which Naevius spoke about in his books about the Punic War, yet he called her the Cimmerian Sibyl or Carmentis as he recorded the same place near Lake Avernus in Italy as being the place where she resided.