Sibyl

In the Antiquity, the sibyls were large “priestesses”, often Hermaphrodite S, to which one allotted capacities medium screw, inter alia because of their anatomical “characteristics”, considered then as a divine intervention.

The sibyl in Antiquity

Héraclides, downward of the union of the Lydie Omphale (Aristodème) and of the Dorien Héraclès, one supposed them charged by the gods to transmit their Oracle S to the men and in particular to the powerful ones. They made it in an enigmatic language allowing of many interpretations, which put them safe from any later dispute.

This practice, as well as the ambiguity of their appearance, gave the sibylline qualifier of “ ” that one allots to writings or obscure words, enigmatic, mysterious, whose direction is hidden.

The sibyl appears the human being raised in a supernatural dimension, allowing him to communicate with the divine one and to deliver of it the messages, such had, the prophet, the echo of oracles, the instrument of the revelation. The sibyls were regarded as emanations of divine wisdom, as old women as the world, and agents of the primitive revelation: they would be for this reason the symbol even of the revelation. Also one did not fail to bring the number closer to the twelve sibyls to that of the twelve Apôtre S and to paint or carve their effigies in church S.

Its Mythe was undoubtedly born in Asia Mineure, by the means of the Chaman S in the neighborhoods of the Black Sea and the the current Caucasus, at the Cimmériens, being transmitted thereafter by the intermédaire Hittites Greek, Phéniciens, , then Romains with the liking of the commercial exchanges and invasions. Their civilizations granted like today an important place to the supposed characters being equipped with capacities divinatoires: Prophet S, Pythea S, and oracle S…

The sibyls (of which the Greek etymological root Sibylla ( Prophétesse ) would come from the Sanskrit Shramana ( to be enlightened ) always existing in language toungouse to indicate the Chaman S, are supposed to also have a capacity of prediction. Contrary to the Pythea which was attached to the temple of Delphes, they were independent and lived an itinerant existence. The listed first was probably the Sibyl Érythrée, originating in minor Asia.

Twelve sibyls

At the first century before JC, one counts twelve, that is to say:

  • the sibyl of the city disappeared from Erythrée, on the Ionian coast .
  • the sibyl of Tibur (today Tivoli where one still sees his temple).
  • the sibyl of Hellespont.
  • the sibyl Phrygie (of Anatolia).
  • the Persian sibyl .
  • the sibyl Libyque.
  • the sibyl Cimmérien, born at the edge of the Black Sea.
  • the sibyl Delphique.
  • the Samienne sibyl (of the island of Samos).
  • the sibyl Clutched, deformation probable of Aegypta.
  • the sibyl of Marpessos (close to Troy). It was expressed, according to Héraclite, “of a delirious mouth, without smiling, ornaments, make-ups and its voice arriving beyond thousand years thanks to the god”. It returned its oracles in the form of enigmas and registered them on sheets.
  • the sibyl of Cumes (close to Naples). The legend says that Apollon had once offered to the sibyl Démophilé, of Cumes, which she would like in exchange of her love. It accepted the gift and asked as many years of life than a heap of dust contained grains; and there were thousand grains. Unfortunately, it had omitted to also ask perpetual youth, and, having refused its love with the god thereafter, it became increasingly old. Finally it remained suspended in a bottle with the ceiling of its cellar, very recroquevillée, and when children asked him what it wished, it said simply: “I want to die” .
Virgile describes the descent of Enée to the Enfer S accompanied by the sibyl of Cumes; she had shown him where to gather the Rameau of gold, in wood on the edges of the Lac of Averne, branch which was to enable him to penetrate in the kingdom of Hadès.

Another of the sibyls of Cumes remained celebrates, Aristodemos it Malasio, to have been the queen founder, in 478 front J-C. city of Néapolis meaning new city, which became Naples, Cumes taking the name of meaning Paléopolis consequently, old city.

Divination among Romans

The Romans, however more circumspect than the Greeks with respect to the divinatory art, piously preserved in the temple of Jupiter capitolin the “ Sibylline Livres ”, which would have been sold in strange circumstances by the Sibylle of Cumes with Tarquin the Superb one, at

The Sibylle of Cumes went near Tarquin the Superb one, the last king of Rome, with nine oracular books, and asked him an enormous amount of it. He made fun of her and returned it; it burned three of the books, and offered to him the six remainders for the same amount. Tarquin always refusing to pay, it burned three others of them, and offered the last three to him, always at the same price. This time Tarquin consulted a council of priests, the Augure S, which deplored the loss of the six books and advised to him to buy those which remained.

These books, entrusted to the guard of two particular priests called Duumvirs , were consulted in the great calamities, but there needed a Décret Sénat to be recourse; and it was defended with the Duumvirs to let them see with anybody under penalty of death.

They did not contain expiatory prophecies, but remedies to apply when occur of the “wonders”, extraordinary events particularly dreaded by the Romans. Actually the text of the sibylline Books was of a darkness such as centuries later, Cicéron, not very inclined to credulity will say that one could draw from them what one wanted with the liking of the circumstances.

After the fire of the Capitole (-81), several missions were sent in the countries supposed to lodge sibyls, in order to reconstitute the lost works. Controlled and expurgés by Auguste and Tibère, they finally were destroyed by Christian fanatics a few centuries later, in the year 406, under the emperor Honorius (395 - 423), because of the prediction charging to the latter the destruction of humanity.

Sibyls, " prophètes" of Christ

In parallel, circulate in the Mediterranean, as of, a series of books known under the name of Sibylline Oracles, of which some arrived to us via copies dating Des. These books, twelve, include/understand ancient oracles, Christian oracles Juif S and writings .

The Fathers of the Church will not be unaware of these obscure texts. With their continuation and for a long time, the Christian authors will seek, with more or less happiness, to see in vaticinations of the Sibyls of the marks without ambiguity of waiting of the Messiah Saver by the pagan world.

Thus it is in the 8th book of the Oracle S Sybillins that one finds worms, allotted to the Sibylle of Érythrée, announcing the second advent of the Christ the day of the Last Judgment. However, Virgile, which lived with was made also the echo of this prophecy in these famous worms of its “ Bucoliques ”: “ to come Here the last times predicted by the sibyl from Cumes, and again the order which was at the beginning of the centuries. Here to return the Virgin and here the golden age. Here what will descend from the top of the skies a new race. Pure and luminous Diane, protects this child who will be born and closing the iron age on all the ground the generation of the century of gold will ressuscitera”

The first Christians little by little will seize the sibyl and will integrate this prophecy in their religious literature. Eusèbe de Césarée (towards 340) collects the worms of the Sibyl Érythrée, follow-up of Saint Augustin one century later, in “ the City of God ”. He then offers of it a particular version, translated very roughly of the Greek, including/understanding 27 worms, that is to say 3x3x3, symbol of the Trinité. It starts as follows: Iudicii signum: tellus sudore madescet (the sign of the judgment: the ground will flood sweat…). This version saint-augustienne presents a Acrostiche (together of worms whose initial letters, read in the vertical direction, constitute a name or a sentence): Jesus Christus dei filius servator the crux . It is in particular quoted in a sermon of the Middle Ages aiming at convincing the incroyants, read the day before Christmas. One calls upon there in turn characters of the Ancien and New Testament, then pagan figures: Virgile, Nabuchodonosor, and the Érythrée Sibyl.

In the same way, a manuscript of the 12th century reports that the emperor Auguste (63 av. J.C to 14 a. J.C.) having questioned the Sibyl of Tibur to know if there would be a man larger than him, a virgin appeared to him then in a great splendor on the furnace bridge of the temple of Junon, holding in his arms a child, and a voice coming from the sky saying to him: “ Here the virgin which will design the saver of the world ”, then, “ this one is the dear girl of God ”.

Musical versions of the Iudicii signum were found in manuscripts of the monasteries Saint-Martial of Limoges (9th and 10th century) and Saint-Oyan (13th century). This explains the mention in the “ Dies irae ” of the sibyl and whom it is reproduced in Saint-Pierre of Rome on the fresco of Michel-Angel.

After the Council of Thirty (1568), a new breviary puts an end to these representations of the Sibyl. Certain areas preserved a tradition to see a dressed up sibyl singing the night of Christmas to the XVIII E, even, with Majorque, until our days.

Appearance of the sibyls in the Christian Iconography

The Sibyls, appear in the art of the Christian Occident about the 12th century, to flower from 15th when one redécouvre Antiquity, as a work allotted to Jean testifies some to Paris which was copied between 1474 and 1477 heading the Christian Faith proven by the authority of pagan the , where it is known as: “of the virgins full with the spirit of God, whom one called Sibylles, announced the Saver in Greece, in Italy, in minor Asia: Virgile, educated by their books, sang the mysterious child who was going to change the face of the world. ”

The Christian thought which had collected the prophecies visionaries of the people of Israel preserved in the Old Testament extended it thus, but to a lesser extent, with the pagan people via the Sibyls. The iconography will propose opposite the twelve prophets, the twelve Sibyls, associating the twelve apostles sometimes with it, in a preoccupation with a harmony where the visual one comes to relay the direction of a major religious symbolic system.

For the artists of the Middle Ages, the Sibyl became the deep symbol of waiting of the Nice ones; a place was reserved to him with the gate of the cathedrals, and the mysterious one inspired haunted a long time still the imagination of the poets.

The diffusion in Europe of the troop of the Twelve Sibyls is done at the 15th century, starting from the work of Dominican Italian Filippo Barbieri published in 1481. In France, the sibyls will benefit from the interest of the large Parisian printers which decorate the Books of hours of images everywhere.

Since then, paintings, sculptures polychrome, painted tapestries, enamels, testify to the influence of the character of the Sibyl on the Western religious art. The Sibyls of Érythrée, Tibur and Cumes are most frequently represented. Some examples:

Frescos

  • Vault Sixtine of Michel Angel, where the large features of the platonism are found: the Christian revelation supplements the pagan meditation harmoniously, and is not opposed to it. Thus on the vault, the prophets of the Old Testament are correlated exactly with the Sibyls: never one had placed, with as much audacity, with equality of size and dignity, the made Revelation with wire of Israel with the divination of the old paganism.

    • Sybille of the church Santa Maria della Pace (Rome). Raphaël, 1514

Tables

Stained glasses

  • Cathedral of Auch. Gers, 16th century
The cathedral of Auch offers an astonishing whole of stained glasses of XVIe century associating the twelve prophets to the twelve sibyls. One finds these same characters in the carved stalls of the chorus.

Tapestry

  • Auguste and the Sibyl . Antwerp, 16th century (preserved at the Museum of the Middle Ages of Cluny).

Painted enamels

Statue ttes polychrome

  • Statuettes of the 16th century, originating in Champagne, preserved at the Museum of Louvre and the museum of Écouen, and representing sibyls Persian, Phrygian, lybic and Agrippa.

Music

“ Dies iræ, dies illa
Solvet sœclum in favilla
Tests David cum Sibylla. ”
“Day of anger, this
day will dissolve the world in dust
pilot David and the Sibyl. ”

  • the Compositeur Maurice Ohana also found to him its inspiration on the side of the Greek Prophétesses: “ Sibyl, for Soprano, percussion and Bands ” (1968), and “ three prophecies of the Sibyl ”, drawn from the opera Célestine (1989), for Soprano, Mezzo-soprano, Piano and percussion.

  • the Italian neo-classic group Ataraxia * in particular its singer Francesca Nicoli asserts the influence of the sybilles " We feel sybilles, mediums of the History and of the Time which is our Mother and our Father and use us to reveal some their many voices. "

Photography

Literature

  • In its seventh letter with Héloîse, Abélard (1079/1142) written: " Weigh all the words of the Sibyl: what a summarized clearly and complete of what the Christian faith must believe of Jesus-Christ! She forgot anything, neither her divinity, neither her humanity, nor her arrival for the two judgments; the first in which he was wrongfully condemned to the torments of passion, the second in whom he will come in his majesty to judge the world according to the laws of justice. It mentions and of its descent into Hell and the glory of resurrection; and in that, it high with the tops of the Prophets, which do I say? with the top of the evangelists themselves, which descent into Hell, do not say almost rien."

  • In its work " From Dei" will go; , Of the anger of God, Lactance towards 320 after Jesus-Christ, to prove the existence of divine anger, written: " There were many sibyls, good number of very great authors brought back it: among the Greeks, Aristonicus and Apollodore d' Erythrée; among ours, Varron and Fenestella. All, they recall that the sibyl of Erythrée was most remarkable and more connue" (Lactance 23,1).

  • Text of Nicolas of Damas on the death of Crésus: “Kyrus was touched treatment which prepared for Crésus; but them (soldiers) Persian insisted that this prince was delivered to fire, and they hastened to draw up vast to him to rough-hew, where they made go up with him, fourteen of the principal lords of its court. Kyrus, them to dissuade, made them read an oracle of the sibyl ; they claimed that it was controuvé and they lit to rough-hew it” (new Research on the old story by c.f. Volney, page 40, Paris, Parmantier, 1825.)

  • Poem of Malherbe " Sibylles" On the festival of alliances of France and Spain. These festivals were celebrated in the month of April 1612.

  • Uprooted wings

  • In a posthumous work entitled the End of Satan, Victor Hugo puts in scene a Sibyl " of Achlab" dialoguing with Jesus himself.

  • Pascal Quignard published in September 2006 in Galileo one entitled book Requiem where " shade of Sibylle" play a great part. This work is a work of collaboration with the French type-setter Thierry Lancino which writes the music (2006-2008) of it.

Random links:Kinase | Newbie | Institute of the public records | Götz Otto | Khurdak | Fond_du_Lac_County,_le_Wisconsin