It's Advent; I'm a Christian clergyman.This time of year we clergy consult books that help with Bible passages concerning the birth of the Christ. So I was surprised to find in a book I had long had a translation and analysis of Virgil's Fourth Eclogue. The book is a 1977 commentary by the Roman Catholic New Testament scholar, Raymond E. Brown. It is entitled "The Birth of the Messiah." The material is in "Appendix IX" on page 565.
Though this list has gone over the Christian implications of the Fourth Eclogue before, Father Brown's implications are worthy of reflection. His first implication is that the Fourth Eclogue set the stage for the later birth accounts of Christ. It prepared the way. It was a bridge between the two worlds of Jewish and Roman culture. His second implication is that the Fourth Eclogue seems to support the idea that the Old Testament, or at least parts of it, were known among the Roman intelligentsia. E.g., Isaiah 7-11. This may have come about for the following reason. Father Brown says, the "Sibylline Oracles which had been kept in the temple of Jupiter Capitolinus in Rome were destroyed by fire in 83-82 B.C. The ensuing search for Sibylline Oracles to replace the originals drew upon private collections from a wide area (Erythrae in Greece, Sicily, Africa, Troy, Samos, etc.) and brought in prophecies of a Semitic origin." It's Advent. I just thought I would pass this on. James C. Wiersum ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866] ----------------------------------------------------------------------- To leave the Mantovano mailing list at any time, do NOT hit reply. Instead, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with the message "unsubscribe mantovano" in the body (omitting the quotation marks). You can also unsubscribe at http://virgil.org/mantovano/mantovano.htm#unsub
