Lines 217-250 of the eighth Sibylline oracle are an acrostic Christological poem based on “Jesus Christ, Son of God, Savior, Cross.” The poem’s theme is eschatology, and much is drawn from the Old Testament (the heavens will roll up, Isaiah 34:4, for example.) The oracle connects Jesus with the Old Testament messiah figure. It concludes with a statement: “This is our God, now proclaimed in acrostics, the king, the immortal savior who suffered for us.”
The second Christological poem (251-336) includes many references to the life of Christ: feeding the 5000 in line 275; “your king comes on a foal of a donkey;” the passion in 280-284; “the veil of the Temple will be rent and in midday, there will be the dark monstrous night for three hours” (305-306). Jesus goes to Hades announcing hope for all (perhaps a hint of the “harrowing of hell,” 1 Peter 3:19). The resurrection of Jesus is clear, “and then, returning from the dead, he will come to light, first of the resurrection, showing a beginning to the elect” (313). An eschatological fragment follows this in 337-358. The catastrophic signs found elsewhere in the Sibyllines reappear.
A lengthy speech by God himself condemns idolatry (359-428). This poem has a consistent theme of God as creator and the offense of man worshiping creation. God has, for example, “formed eyes and ears, seeing and hearing” (368) and knows every thought. “Abandoning the Creator, they worshiped licentiousness. All have gifts from me but give them to useless things, and they think all these things useful, like my honors making burnt offerings at meals, as to their own dead.” Similar to Romans 1:18f, humans have abandoned their creator in pursuit of sexual sin 381.
The hymn to God appearing in lines 429-455 is similar to pagan thinking about God (OTP 1:427, note t2). God is “Self-begotten, undefiled, everlasting, eternal” (429). Like the Jewish use of Greek mythology in the early Sibyls or the Christian use of Gnosticism in the seventh Sibyl, this writer/compiler has drawn on Greco-Roman philosophy to describe God.
The poem concerning the incarnation in 456-479 reflects fairly advanced theology, and the Virgin Mary is featured prominently. The archangel Gabriel tells Mary, “‘Receive God, Virgin, in your immaculate bosom.’ Thus speaking, he breathed in the grace of God, even to one who was always a maiden.” (461-462). It is possible it was appended at a later date when Mary became more critical in Catholic theology.
The final paragraph on ethics closed the book (480-500). The Christian reader is admonished never to “approach the sanctuaries of temples nor to pour libations to statues nor to honor them with prayers” (487-489) nor “to defile the light of the sky with smoke from burnt offerings” (494). Perhaps this exhortation to abstain from sacrifice reflects a period when Christians were not yet fully depaganized, making sacrifices to appear loyal to civic cults.
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