The Tiburtine Sybil & Imperial Prophecy
MadMonarchist
In the old days of Christendom, one could mention the Tiburtine Sybil
and the prophecies regarding the Roman emperors and many people,
certainly educated people, would know immediately what was being talked
about. Today that is certainly not the case and so some background
information must be provided as, aside from experts in this particular
field or, perhaps, art history aficionados, no average person will know
what this is all about.
First of all, we have the figure of the Sybil.
The sybils were women who acted as oracles, usually associated with a
particular holy site in pagan times. The custom originated in ancient
Greece but soon spread to Italy, Asia Minor and other areas. The Oracle
of Delphi is probably the most well known example of a sybil. These
women were often sought out for prophecy and divine guidance as it were
by powerful people. In the time of the Roman Empire one of the most
prominent was the Tiburtine Sybil, known as such because she resided at
the town of Tibur, an old Etruscan town, which is today the Italian city
of Tivoli. Many stories grew out of this particular sybil later on
among Christians concerning the Roman emperors.
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| Emperor Augustus & the Tiburtine Sybil |
One thing to clarify at the outset was that the sybils were, obviously,
not Christian religious figures but were associated with paganism.
However, once upon a time, this did not cause Christians to discount
stories about their prophecies. They knew from their Bible stories that
the pagan priests of Pharaoh were able to perform seemingly miraculous
deeds or that the witch of Endor had been able to summon up the spirit
of Samuel for King Saul, for example. It was taken for granted that
people who were not worshippers of the Christian God could still possess
amazing gifts and that God could use such people for His own purposes.
Later examples of such things might include the Native American shamans
who, according to various stories, made prophecies about the coming of
the Spanish or had visions of the Blessed Virgin to prepare them to
receive the Gospel when Christian missionaries later arrived. There was
also, it must be said, an effort by the Christians of the “Ages of
Faith” to look back at classical history and to incorporate it into
their new, Christian, world view. The story of Pope St Gregory the
Great, momentarily resurrecting the Roman Emperor Trajan in order to
baptize him, is an example of this. Virtually everyone discounts this
story now but it reflects the wish of people to see so great a man, such
a revered emperor, saved from eternal damnation for not having been a
Christian.
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| Emperor Augustus & the Tiburtine Sybil |
The first recorded instance of the Tiburtine Sybil crossing paths with a
Roman emperor came in the time of Augustus Caesar. The story goes that
Emperor Augustus approached the Tiburtine Sybil, Albunea, at the Temple
of Vesta to ask if he should be worshipped as a god. This meeting was
once a very common thing to see depicted in art. An Archbishop, Jacobus
de Voragine, later recorded this story, stating that it had been handed
down to him by Pope Innocent III, that Augustus met the Sybil and that
the Sybil revealed to him one who would come after him, greater than he,
and showed him a vision of the birth of Christ, referring to the
Blessed Virgin as “the Altar of Heaven” where a church was later built
and dedicated as such. According to Virgil, the Cumaean Sibyl also made
such a prophecy about the birth of Christ and stories such as these,
which became widespread, explain why the sybils were included in
Renaissance works of art, such as by Michelangelo, alongside Old
Testament prophets in foretelling the coming of the Christian era. These
would also coincide with other stories, once popular, about the early
Roman emperors taking a “hands off” approach to Christ. Stories
circulated, for example, that Emperor Tiberius, who did not exactly have
a reputation for kindness, ordered that Christians not be persecuted or
accused and even talked of including Jesus Christ in the pantheon of
Roman gods.
If such stories were true, the prophecies of the Tiburtine Sybil to
Emperor Augustus might help explain why such an attitude was taken or
why someone like St Paul would prefer to put his fate in the hands of
the Emperor Nero rather than his own Jewish countrymen of the Sanhedrin.
There were actually a great many such accounts of miraculous events and
Christian prophecies concerning the pagan Roman emperors before the
more famous events after the Battle of the Milvian Bridge and the
baptism of Emperor Constantine the Great. There was the story of Pope St
Clement I being a cousin of the Emperor Diocletian (in all likelihood
he was a freedman who had been in his employ), Emperor Antoninus Pius
condemning any illegal attacks on the Christian community, the dramatic
story of Emperor Marcus Aurelius and the “Thundering Legion” or his son
Emperor Commodus having a Christian mistress which is often pointed to
as a reason for this fairly irascible Caesar refraining from persecuting
Christians. She is also credited with influencing Emperor Commodus to
release Pope St Calixtus I from prison. A revelation, passed down the
imperial line, originating in a pagan source that they would not
question, would be a possible explanation for such behavior.
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| Emperor Constans |
However, other than foretelling Emperor Augustus of the birth of Christ,
the most famous prophecy of this sort from the Tiburtine Sybil
concerning an apocalyptic vision about a certain Emperor Constans. This
prophecy foretold of a Greek king who would rise to become “king of the
Romans and the Greeks” or, in other words, the Roman Emperor of East and
West alike again, who would be very tall, very handsome, very wealthy,
will destroy the enemies of Christianity, end all pagan worship, convert
the Jews and defeat the massive, mysterious powers of Gog and Magog,
after which he will retire to the Holy City of Jerusalem, abdicate his
throne and hand the empire over to God. At that point, the Sybil
describes what we would recognize as the rise of the Anti-Christ, coming
from the tribe of Dan, who will win the people over by miraculous acts,
who will destroy the Roman Empire and only then reveal himself as the
agent of evil from the Temple of Jerusalem. This, of course, is very
similar to other prophecies concerning “the Final Emperor” or the “Great
Catholic Monarch” who will lead a last revival of Christian power
before the end of the world.
An interesting point in the prophecy of the Tiburtine Sybil is that this
monarch is named as Emperor Constans and that the prophecy was made, as
near as we can tell, around the year 380 AD, a few decades after Rome
had already had the reign of the historic Emperor Constans, the son of
the Christian Emperor Constantine the Great, who came to the throne in
337 and ruled until he was assassinated in 350. If we were to be
skeptical and presume that the Sibyl was trying to tailor her message
for the audience, or that the story was invented later to appeal to
Christian sensibilities, naming this future Christian hero after Emperor
Constans would not make much sense. He was not known for being a
terribly nice man or a terribly good emperor, though he too was part of a
prophecy of his own concerning his grandmother, the Christian Empress
St Helena. The prophecy said he would die in the arms of his grandmother
and when he was assassinated it was after being cornered in a military
post named Fort Helena.
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| Emperor Tiberius |
So, what is the point of all this? I will be the first to admit it is
largely just an act of indulgence on my part since I am interested in
this sort of stuff. As with anything of this nature, some people will be
inclined to believe and others will be inclined to disbelieve it and
there really isn’t anything that anyone can say to prove either side
right or wrong. I will say, at the very least, the existence of these
stories and that they were passed on for so long reveals something to us
about the people and the faith of Christendom. Sources of revelation
were not rejected for being pagan, the people of the time recognizing
that God can use anyone to participate in His plan. It shows also the
centrality of the Roman Empire and the Roman emperors in the hearts of
minds of Christian people and how central that Roman imperial tradition
was to Christendom itself. The Christians of the late Roman Empire, even
with all that was going on around them, did not cease to believe that
their ‘realm’ on earth was something special, that Christianity had
sprang up in that empire was no accident and that the Roman Empire was
something that others would strive to bring back, that they hoped
ultimately would come back, with all Christian, European peoples united
under one divinely ordained Caesar.
