According to these beliefs, which had dawned in the childhood of races, the gift of prophecy is bestowed on virgins alone. It is the heritage of a Cassandra or a Velleda. It was said that Sibyls had prophesied the coming of Jesus Christ. In the Church they were considered the first witnesses of Christ among the Gentiles, and they were venerated as the august sisters of the prophets of Israel. The _Dies Irae_ mentions one of them in the same breath with King David himself. By what pious frauds their fame for prophecy was established, we cannot tell any more than Jean Gerson or Gerard Machet. With the doctors of the fifteenth century we must look upon these virgins as speaking the word of truth to the nations, who venerated but did not understand them. Such was the ancient tradition of the Christian Church. The most ancient fathers of the Church, Justin, Origen, Clement of Alexandria, frequently made use of the Sibylline oracles; and the heathen were at a loss for a reply when Lactantius confronted them with these prophetesses of the nations. Trusting in the word of Varro, Saint Jerome firmly believed in their existence. Into _The City of God_ Saint Augustine introduces the Erythrean Sibyl, who, he says, faithfully foretold the Life of the Saviour. As early as the thirteenth century, these virgins of old had their places in cathedrals by the side of patriarchs and prophets. But it was not until the fifteenth century that multitudes of them were represented; sculptured on church porches, carved on choir stalls, painted on chapel walls or glass windows. Each one has her distinctive attribute. The Persian holds the lantern and the Libyan the torch, which illuminated the darkness of the Gentiles. The Agrippine, the European, and Erythrean are armed with the sword; the Phrygian bears the Paschal cross; the Hellespontine presents a rose tree in flower; the others display the visible signs of the mystery they foretell: the Cumaean a manger; the Delphian, the Samian, the Tiburtine, the Cimmerian a crown of thorns, a sceptre of reeds, scourges, a cross.[775] [Footnote 775: Jean Philippe de Lignan, Rome, 1481 (not paginated), leaf 10 and the following. For the comparison of Jeanne d'Arc to the ancient Sibyl, see the Clerk of Spire, _Sibylla Francica_, in the _Trial_, vol. iii, p. 422. Christine de Pisano in the _Trial_, vol. v, p. 12. Lanery d'Arc, _Memoires et consultations en faveur de Jeanne d'Arc_, pp. 8-10. Barbier de Montault, _Iconographie des Sibylles_, in the _Revue de l'art chretien_, xiii-xiv (1869-1870). Barraud, _Notice sur les attributs avec lesquelles on represente les Sibylles aux XV'e et XVI'e siecles_, in the _Bulletin archeologique de la Commission historique des arts mon._, vol. iv (1848). Cf. Morosini, vol. iv, supplement xiv, p. 319.]