What Are the Sibylline Oracles?

The Sibylline Oracles are a collection of prophecies attributed to ecstatic Greek prophets called sibyls. Although they emerged from a pagan tradition and are composed in Greek hexameter, the classical meter for epic poetry, the extant oracles are Jewish and Christian compositions. The text was redacted by a Byzantine Christian editor around the seventh century CE but includes a layer of Egyptian Jewish origin dating to the second century BCE. The oracles are by and large historical apocalypses, concerned with the periodization of history and the coming of the eschatological age.