16 Wisconsin Academy of Sciences, Arts, and Letters. 
tart reminder to the Jews that the testimony already adduced should 
be ample, the preacher adds utterances from the Gentiles, Virgil 79 
and Nebuchadnezzar, and finally 80 a prophetic passage in hexa¬ 
meters from the Erythraean Sibyl. 81 After elucidating the Chris¬ 
tian acrostic of the Sibylline verses, the speaker darts at the hostile 
Jews a concluding shaft of scorn. 
Viewed as a literary production the lectio is particularly note¬ 
worthy for its energetic dramatic style. The direct denunciations 
of the Jews are presented in effective, though artificial, antitheses; 
and the verbal playfulness of some passages, however strained it 
may appear, contributes at least a certain vivacity. 82 The monot¬ 
ony immanent in the formula of repeated summonses and responses 
is somewhat mitigated through variety in the elucidating narratives 
accompanying the responses. The circumstance that the prophets 
are not summoned in chronological order does not seriously impair 
the organization of the composition. 83 
79 For information concerning the famous line from Virgil, see J. B. Mayor, 
W. W. Fowler, and R. S. Conway, Virgil’s Messianic Eclogue, London, 1907. 
80 It will be observed that the last seven witnesses (Simeon, Zacharias, Eliza¬ 
beth, John, Virgil, Nebuchadnezzar, and Sibyl) are not summoned after the 
formula (Die, Ysaia; Die et tu, Iheremia; Die, sancte Danihel; etc.) employed 
for the six preceding. The actual presence of Simeon, Zacharias, and Elizabeth, 
John, Nebuchadnezzar, and the Sibyl may be understood as suggested in various 
utterances of the preacher, such as the following: Symeonem . . . intro - 
ducamj Illi etiam parentes Ioannis, Zacharias et Elisabeth, . . . dicant; O 
fidelis testis; In dubium hoc ueniat, nisi alios ex gentibus idoneos testes pluraque 
dicentes in medio introducam. I find in the text nothing that could possibly 
imply the actual presence of Virgil. 
81 These prophetic verses.are quoted by St. Augustine in his Be Civitate Bei 
(Lib. xviii, cap. 23. See Migne, Pat. Ldt., Vol. XLI, col. 579—581). Their ap¬ 
pearance throughout the middle ages is frequent. See F. Neri, Le Tradizioni 
italiene della Sibilla, in Studi Medievali (ed. Novati and Renier), Vol. IV 
(1912-13), pp. 220-221; Notices et Extraits des Manuscrits de la Bibliotheque 
Nationale, Vol. XXXII, Part II, Paris, 1888, pp. 101-102 ; F. Kampers, Bie 
Sibylle von Tibur und Vergil, in Historisches Jahrbuch, Vol. XXIX (1908), 
pp. 3, 244; Chevalier, Repertorium Hymnologicum, No. 9876 ; La Piana, 
pp. 308-309. 
82 See Sepet, p. 9. 
83 See Petit de Julleville, Vol. I, p. 35. 
