Lactantius, Divine Institutes 6

Now we turn to the divine testimonies, but first I must produce one witness who resembles them both in his great antiquity and in the fact that he was elevated from humanity to divinity. In Cicero's work, the pontiff U. Cotta argues against the Stoics on the subject of religion and the variety of opinions about the gods; adopting the Academic method of making everything uncertain, he declares that there were five Mercurys. After listing four in order, he identifies the fifth as the one who killed Argus, fled to Egypt, and gave the Egyptians their laws and letters. The Egyptians call him Thoyth, and from him their first month—September—took its name. He also founded a city still called in Greek the City of Mercury, and the Pheneatae worship him devoutly. Though he was a man, he was the most ancient and thoroughly versed in every kind of learning, so that his knowledge of many arts and sciences earned him the surname Trismegistus. He wrote many books on the knowledge of divine things, in which he asserts the majesty of the highest and singular God, calling him by the very names we use for the Lord and Father. Lest anyone ask for his name, he said it is anonymous, because it does not require the property of a name, owing to its very unity. His words are: "O the one God; one, indeed, is the one who does not need a name." Therefore God has no name, because he is alone, nor is a proper title needed, except when a multitude demands a distinction so that each person may be designated by a unique mark and appellation. But for God, because he is always one, the proper name is God.

It remains to bring forward testimonies from the sacred and prophetic poems, which are far more certain. Perhaps those against whom we argue do not think poets should be trusted, as if they invent vain things, nor philosophers, since they could have erred, being men themselves. Marcus Varro, than whom no one more learned ever lived—not even among the Greeks—in his books on divine matters addressed to Gaius Caesar the pontifex maximus, when speaking of the quindecimvirs, says the Sibylline books were not the work of one Sibyl, but are called by the single name "Sibylline" because all female prophets were called Sibyls by the ancients, either from the name of one Delphid or from the announcing of the counsels of the gods. For they called the gods not Osouc but theos, and counsel not boulēn but boulēn, in the Aeolic dialect. Thus the Sibyl is said to be, as it were, theoboulē. Moreover, there were ten Sibyls in number, and he enumerated them all under the authors who wrote about each. The first was from Persia, mentioned by Nicanor, who wrote the deeds of Alexander of Macedon; the second was Libyssa, whom Euripides recalls in the prologue of the Lamia; the third was Delphid, of whom Chrysippus speaks in his book on divination; the fourth was the Cimmerian in Italy, named by Naevius in his books on the Punic War and by Piso in his annals; the fifth was the Erythraean, whom Apollodorus of Erythrae affirms was his fellow citizen, and who prophesied to the Greeks sailing for Ilium that Troy would fall and that Homer would write falsehoods; the sixth was the Samian, of whom Eratosthenes writes in the ancient annals of the Samians; the seventh was the Cumaean, named Amalthea, also called Herophile or Demophile by others, who brought nine books to King Tarquinius Priscus and demanded three hundred philippeos for them. The king despised the magnitude of the price and ridiculed the woman's insanity; she burned three of them in his sight and asked the same price for the remaining six. Tarquinius thought her even more insane; but when she persevered at the same price after burning three more, he was moved and bought the surviving books for three hundred gold pieces. Their number was later increased when the Capitol was rebuilt, for they were collected and brought to Rome from all cities, Italian and Greek, and especially from Erythrae, under the name of whatever Sibyl they were. The eighth was the Hellespontian, born in the Troad, in the village of Marmesso near the city of Gergithium, whom Heraclides of Pontus places in the time of Solon and Cyrus; the ninth was the Phrygian, who prophesied at Ancyra; the tenth was the Tiburtine, named Albunea, worshiped as a goddess at Tibur near the banks of the Anio, whose image is said to have been found in the whirlpool holding a book in her hand. The poems of all the Sibyls are both worn and preserved, except those of the Cumaean, whose books the Romans keep hidden, and it is not lawful for anyone but the quindecimvirs to inspect them. There are individual books for each Sibyl, but because they are all inscribed with the name of the Sibyls, they are believed to be the work of one, and are confused, nor can they be distinguished and assigned to each—except for the Erythraean, who inserted her true name into the poem and proclaimed herself the Erythraean, though she was born in Babylon. Even so, we will speak of the Sibyl indistinctly whenever we must use their testimonies.

All these Sibyls proclaim one God, especially the Erythraean, who is the most famous and noble among them. The diligent writer Fenestella, in his account of the quindecimvirs, says that when the Capitol was restored, the consul Gaius Curio reported to the senate that legates should be sent to Erythrae to recover the Sibyl's poems and bring them to Rome. Accordingly Publius Gabinius, Marcus Otacilius, and Lucius Valerius were dispatched; they brought back about a thousand verses copied from private collections. Varro confirms this above. In these verses which the legates brought to Rome, the testimonies concerning one God are these: "One God, who alone rules, immense, unbegotten." This is the only highest God, who made heaven and distinguished it with lights: "But God alone is one, most high, who made heaven, the sun, and the stars, the moon, the fruitful earth, and the waters of the sea." Since he alone is the builder of the world and the artisan of all things, whether those that constitute it or those within it, he testifies that he alone must be worshiped: "Honor the one who is the only ruler of the world." He alone is from eternity and to eternity. Likewise another Sibyl, whoever she may be, when she declared that she was bringing the voice of God to men, said: "For I am the only God, and there is no other God." I would now produce the testimonies of the other Sibyls, were these not sufficient and were I not reserving those for more opportune places. But since we defend the cause of truth against those who, straying from the truth, serve false religions, what kind of proof ought we to employ against them more than to convict them by the testimonies of their own gods?