Some of the fathers of the Church attributed to them supernatural power; and the Italian painters, acting under the patronage of the Roman Church, honoured the four Sibyls as participators in a knowledge of the Divine counsels. Ambrose[[558]] allows that they were inspired, but by the spirit of evil. Jerome[[559]] believes that this power was given to them by God as a reward for virginity; and Augustine[[560]] thinks that they predicted many truths concerning Jesus Christ. Justin[[561]] adopts a legend which would account for the similarity between the Sibylline oracles and Hebrew prophecy. He says that the Cumæan Sibyl, celebrated by Virgil, was born at Babylon, and was the daughter of Berosus, the Chaldean historian.
If Virgil, in the fourth eclogue, correctly paraphrased the Sibylline poems, two parallelisms between them and the prophecies of Isaiah are remarkably striking:[[562]]—
Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna;
Jam nova progenies cœlo demittitur alto—
Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri,
Irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras—
Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem.—v. 6.
Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son.—Is. vii. 14.
Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.—Is. ix. 7.
At tibi prima, puer, nullo munuscula cultu,