VISIBLE ESCHATOLOGY
IN THE SIBYLLINE ORACLES
Helen Van Noorden
Girton College, Cambridge
ENOCH SEMINAR
05.06.23
Traditions of astral conflict or displacement
The stars… contend with one another for precedence, and those which are the greater claim to be attended by the lesser stars as their guards.
Philo De Somnis 2.114
This highway of the holy planets,
that crosses the zones with its slanting track,
Sign-Bearer, guide of the lengthy years, 38
will see the fallen stars as it falls.
This Ram, that before spring weather is kind
restores sails to the balmy Zephyr,
will fall headlong into the waves
over which it carried the frightened Helle.
This Bull, that displays the Hyades
on his gleaming horn, will drag down with him
the Twins, and the claws of the curving Crab.
Hercules’ Lion, blazing with fiery
heat, will fall once more from heaven;
the Virgin will fall to the earth she left,
the weights of the even-handed Scales will fall
and drag sharp Scorpion down with them….
Seneca Thyestes 844-59
Even so, when the framework of the world is dissolved and the final hour, closing so many ages, reverts to primeval chaos, then [all the constellations will clash in confusion,] the fiery stars will drop into the sea, and earth, refusing to spread her shores out flat, will shake off the ocean; the moon will move in opposition to her brother, and claim to rule the day, disdaining to drive her chariot along her slanting orbit; and the whole distracted fabric of the shattered firmament will overthrow its laws.
Lucan Pharsalia 1.73-80
Saecula tot mundi suprema coegerit hora,
Antiquum repetens iterum chaos, [omnia1 mixtis
75Sidera sideribus concurrent] ignea pontum
Astra petent, tellus extendere littora nolet
Excutietque fretum, fratri contraria Phoebe
Ibit et obliquum bigas agitare per orbem
Indignata diem poscet sibi, totaque discors
80Machina divolsi turbabit foedera mundi.
Zodiac mosaic in fifth century CE synagogue at Sepphoris: image from S. K. Gribbetz (2020) Time and Difference in Rabbinic Judaism, p.193
Hexameter narratives of cosmic battles
With a long arm he grasped the Charioteer, and flogged the back of hailstorming Aigoceros; he dragged the two Fishes out of the sky and cast them into the sea; he buffeted the Ram, that midnipple star of Olympos, who balances with equal pin day and darkness over the fiery orb of his spring-time neighbour. With trailing feet Typhoeus mounted close to the clouds: spreading abroad the far-scattered host of his arms, he shadowed the bright radiance of the unclouded sky by darting forth his tangled army of snakes. One of them ran up right through the rim of the polar circuit and skipt upon the backbone of the heavenly Serpent, hissing his mortal challenge. One made for Cepheus’s daughter, and with starry fingers twisting a ring as close as the other, enchained Andromeda, bound already, with a second bond aslant under her bands. Another, a horned serpent, entwined about the forked horns of the Bull’s horned head of shape like his own, and dangled coiling over the Bull’s brow, tormenting with open jaws the Hyades opposite ranged like a crescent moon. Poison-spitting tangles of serpents in a bunch girdled the Ox-drover.
Nonnus Dionysiaca 1.178-198
Typhoeus from Hesiod to Nonnus
Aratean inheritance?
Andromeda’s head sets: the cloudy south brings against her the great menace of the Monster, but Cepheus himself, confronting it in the north, waves it back with his mighty hand
Also Ph. 645-49, 653-58.
Heightened into private battles: Manilius Astronomica 2.402-31, 537ff;
whatever constellations shine, constructed in human form, they remain hateful to and overcome by the beast signs. Nevertheless toward their own minds do singular signs depart and bear private wars against their uncommon enemies.
Nonnus Dionysiaca 38.354-71
Rolling up heaven and constellations?