Lactantius, Divine Institutes 6

Let us now turn to the divine testimonies. First, however, I will bring forward one figure who resembles the divine — on account of his immense antiquity and because the man I shall name was reckoned among the gods. In Cicero, the pontiff U. Cotta, arguing against the Stoics about religion and the variety of opinions concerning the gods, attempts, after the manner of the Academics, to render everything uncertain. He says there were five Mercuries; having enumerated four in order, he identifies the fifth as the one by whom Argus was slain, and adds that on this account he fled to Egypt and gave laws and letters to the Egyptians. The Egyptians call him Thoyth, from whom the first month of their year — that is, September — took its name. This same figure founded a city that is still called in Greek the City of Mercury, and the Pheneatae worship him religiously. Although he was a man, he was the most ancient and the most thoroughly instructed in every kind of learning, so that his knowledge of many matters and arts earned him the surname Trismegistus. He wrote many books pertaining to the knowledge of divine things, in which he asserts the majesty of the highest and singular God and addresses him by the same names we use for the Lord and Father. And lest anyone seek his name, he declared it to be anonymous — because it does not need the property of a name, owing to its very unity. His words are these: "O the one God; one, indeed, is the one who does not need a name, and he is anonymous." Therefore God does not have a name, because he is alone; nor is a proper title needed, except when a multitude demands distinction so that each person may be designated by his own mark and appellation. But for God, since he is always one, "God" is his proper name.

It remains to produce testimonies that are far more certain, drawn from the sacred and Sibylline poems. For perhaps those against whom we contend do not think poets should be believed, as if they invent empty fictions; nor philosophers, since they could have erred, being themselves men. M. Varro — than whom no one more learned ever lived, not even among the Greeks — in his books on divine matters addressed to C. Caesar the pontifex maximus, when discussing the quindecimvirs, says that the Sibylline books were not the work of a single Sibyl, but were called by one name, "Sibylline," because all women 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 the Aeolians called the gods not "Osouc" but "theos," and counsel not "boule" but "boulian." Hence the Sibyl was said to be, as it were, "theoboulia" — the counsel of God. Moreover, there were ten Sibyls, and Varro enumerates them all under the authors who wrote about each. The first was the Persian Sibyl, mentioned by Nicanor, who wrote the deeds of Alexander of Macedon. The second was the Libyan Sibyl, whom Euripides recalls in the prologue to the Lamia. The third was the Delphic Sibyl, of whom Chrysippus speaks in his book on divination. The fourth was the Cimmerian Sibyl in Italy, named by Naevius in his books on the Punic War and by Piso in his annals. The fifth was the Erythraean Sibyl, whom Apollodorus of Erythrae affirms was his fellow citizen; she prophesied to the Greeks sailing for Troy that Troy would perish and that Homer would write falsehoods. The sixth was the Samian Sibyl, about whom Eratosthenes writes in the ancient annals of the Samians that her writings were found. The seventh was the Cumaean Sibyl, named Amalthea, also called Herophile or Demophile by others. She brought nine books to King Tarquin the Elder and asked three hundred philippeos for them; the king scorned the price and mocked the woman's madness. Whereupon she burned three of the books and demanded the same price for the remaining six. Tarquin, thinking her even more insane, was moved when she burned three more and persisted at the same price, and he bought the remaining three for three hundred gold pieces. Afterwards their number was increased when the Capitol was rebuilt, and books were brought to Rome from all cities, Italian and Greek, especially from Erythrae, under the name of whatever Sibyl they were. The eighth was the Hellespontine Sibyl, born in the Troad, in the village of Marmessus near the city of Gergithus; Heraclides of Pontus writes that she lived in the times of Solon and Cyrus. The ninth was the Phrygian Sibyl, who prophesied at Ancyra. The tenth was the Tiburtine Sibyl, named Albunea, worshiped as a goddess at Tibur near the banks of the river Anio; her image is said to have been found in the whirlpool holding a book in her hand. The poems of all these 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 inscribed with the name "Sibyl," they are believed to be the work of a single Sibyl; they are confused and cannot be discerned or assigned to each one, except for the Erythraean, who inserted her true name into her poem and declared beforehand that she would be called Erythraean, though she was born in Babylon. We too will call the Sibyl "confused" wherever we must use their testimonies. All these Sibyls, therefore, proclaim one God — especially the Erythraean, who is more famous and more highly regarded among the others. Fenestella, a most diligent writer on the fifteen men, says that when the Capitol was restored, the consul C. Curio reported to the senate that envoys should be sent to Erythrae to bring back the poems of the Sibyl that had been discovered. Accordingly P. Gabinius, M. Otacilius, and L. Valerius were sent; they brought to Rome about a thousand verses transcribed from private collections. Varro also said the same thing above. In these verses, then, that the envoys brought to Rome, we find these testimonies concerning one God: "One God, who alone rules, immense, unbegotten." That this one is the only supreme God, who made the heaven and distinguished it with lights: "But God alone is one, most high, who made the heaven, the sun, and the stars, and the moon, and the fruitful earth, and the waters of the sea." He testifies that he alone ought to be worshiped, since he alone is the builder of the world and the artificer of all things, whether of those of which it consists or those that are in it: "Honor the one who is the only ruler of the world." "Who alone is from eternity and to eternity." Likewise, another Sibyl, whoever she is, when she says she brings the voice of God to men, speaks thus: