ELEVENTH SIBYL SIBILLA HELLESPONTICA She was born in the Trojan camp, in a place called Marmesso, about the year 3450, in the time of Cyrus, the first King of Persia, 551 years before the birth of Christ Our Lord. Of her we have the following prophecy "De excelso cœlorum habitaculo prospexit Deus humiles suos, et nascetur, in diebus novissimis, de Virgine Hebræ, in cunabulis terræ." Canisio, in Beata Virgine, quotes those verses in praise of Mary most holy, which she wrote, and which are as follows: "Dum meditor, quondam, vidi decorare puellam, She also said that Christ Our Redeemer would not come on earth to undo the law, but to fulfil it, which is what that same Lord said in St Matthew. She is depicted with an aged countenance, coarsely dressed, with a handkerchief rolled around her throat and cheeks, in one hand a book of her prophecies, and in the other a sheaf of ears of corn, to signify that there should be born in the world He who was to be the living Bread and true food of the Soul. TWELFTH SIBYL SIBILLA ERITHREA Some call her Babylonica, and that she came from Babylon. Others name her Heriphile; but the common opinion is that she was of the city of Ponia, in the province of Asia Minor. There are more accounts of this Sibyl than of any other, and to her is ascribed all the verses of the other Sibyls. It is also said that there were two Sibyls of the same name, one ancient and the other modern. The ancient one, authors make out, was the daughter-in-law of Noah, called Athenais: it has been already said that none of the Sibyls were married, and that all were virgins. This one was not daughter-in-law to Noah, as it is stated, for she lived before the destruction of Troy, and spoke and treated of its ruin, and the falsehoods of Homer. This was about the year 2815. Of none of the other Sibyls have we so many verses and sayings as of Erithrea. She spoke much about the rigorous final Judgment, the Sequence which we have in the Mass of the Dead which says "Teste David cum Sibylla," is understood to mean Erithrea. There are likewise some of her verses which treat of the Judgment, the first letters of which compose the words Jesus Christus Dei Filius Servator, referred to by St Augustin, St Antoninus of Florence, and Thomas Bozio, and the treatises on the Sibyls mentioned above, and others. To her is commonly ascribed the following prophecy :— “In ultima ætate humiliabitur Deus, et humanabitur proles divina, iungetur humanitati divinitas, jacebit in solio Agnus et officio puellari educabitur Deus et Homo." St Augustine, in the book we have mentioned, quotes from Lactantius Firmianus the sayings of the Sibyl that refer to Christ Our Lord, which he writes in Romanee, and is as follows: "He will fall into iniquitous and infidel hands, these will give God blows with sacrilegious hands, and they will cast from their loathsome mouths poisoned spittle; He will offer them His Sacred |