Bishop Lowth even supposed that the Sibylline predictions derived their origin from a Greek version of Messianic prophecies.[556] A belief in the inspiration of the Sibyls prevailed in the early ages of Christianity, and the Emperor Constantine in one of his orations[557] quotes from them, and paraphrases Virgil’s Pollio as an evidence to the truths of the Gospel. Some of the fathers of the Church attributed to them supernatural power; and the Italian painters, acting under the patronage of the Roman Church, honoured the four Sibyls as participators in a knowledge of the Divine counsels. Ambrose[558] allows that they were inspired, but by the spirit of evil. Jerome[559] believes that this power was given to them by God as a reward for virginity; and Augustine[560] thinks that they predicted many truths concerning Jesus Christ. Justin[561] adopts a legend which would account for the similarity between the Sibylline oracles and Hebrew prophecy. He says that the Cumæan Sibyl, celebrated by Virgil, was born at Babylon, and was the daughter of Berosus, the Chaldean historian. If Virgil, in the fourth eclogue, correctly paraphrased the Sibylline poems, two parallelisms between them and the prophecies of Isaiah are remarkably striking:[562]— Jam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna; Jam nova progenies cœlo demittitur alto— Te duce, si qua manent sceleris vestigia nostri, Irrita perpetua solvent formidine terras— Pacatumque reget patriis virtutibus orbem.—v. 6. Behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son.—Is. vii. 14. Of the increase of his government and peace there shall be no end, upon the throne of David, and upon his kingdom, to order it, and to establish it with judgment and with justice from henceforth even for ever.—Is. ix. 7. At tibi prima, puer, nullo munuscula cultu, Errantes hederas passim cum baccare tellus, Mixtaque ridenti colocasia fundet acantho.—v. 18. The wilderness and the solitary place shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice, and blossom as the rose.—Is. xxxv. 1. Many theories have been proposed respecting the child to whom allusion is made in this eclogue, not one of which was satisfactory to Gibbon;[563] but the following is adopted by Heyne as the most probable. The peace of Brundisium was cemented by the marriage between Antony and Cæsar’s half-sister Octavia. She was the widow of Marcellus, and appeared likely to give birth to a posthumous child. To this child yet unborn, the poet applies all the blessings promised by the Sibylline oracles, and predicts that, under his auspices, the peace and prosperity already inaugurated shall be confirmed.