Tales from the End of Times

In the final episode of the series Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides returns to the Sibylline oracles, this time in the company of Dr Ashley Bacchi, author of the award-winning book Uncovering Jewish Creativity in Book III of the Sibylline Oracles: Gender, Intertextuality, and Politics (Brill, 2020). The focus this time is on the Alexandrian Jewish community of the Hellenistic period and their adaptation of the ancient Greek Sibyl in response to contemporary cultural agendas. Keen to showcase their cultural pedigree, Alexandrian Jews put forward their own version of Sibyl, a prophetess who challenged the male-dominated Jewish prophetic tradition as much as Homer! Written in Homeric (hexa)meter, this female voice of authority antagonized the poetic and prophetic superiority of the Greeks, lending support to powerful Hellenistic Queens who proved to be notably effective agents of peace and prosperity, far more than their male equivalents.

In this episode, Peter Edwell and Bronwen Neil from Macquarie University discuss a range of issues connected to ancient Christian views of the end of the world and especially on the idea of the Anti-Christ. In recent times the world has witnessed a number of upheavals and predictions of calamities about to descend upon it, and in the Roman, post-Roman and Byzantine worlds, the same types of events were of concern to many. For Christians of this period interpretations were made of political, military, meteorological and geological upheavals to indicate the impending end of the world and the return of Jesus Christ. This was particularly connected to interpreting the events described in the last book of the Bible: Revelation. The appearance of the Anti-Christ was an important feature of the eschatological timeline identified in Revelation and many were keen to establish who the anti-Christ might be at various times. While the anti-Christ is an important feature of our discussion, we also deal with the Whore of Babylon, the Apocalypse and the Number of the Beast - 666.

In this episode, Dr Matt O’Farrell explores the Armenian Apocalyptic Tradition with Professor Zara Pogossian, expert in Medieval Armenian history and leader of the Armenia Entangled ERC project based at the University of Florence. The interview sketches a fascinating picture of late antiquity Armenia where Christianity provided the impetus for the invention of the Armenian alphabet, and witnessed the rise of Armenia as an important cultural centre for the dissemination of Christianity further to the east. Professor Pogossian draws attention to the interweaving of religious and political traditions in late antique Armenia which inspired numerous apocalyptic texts and shaped the Armenian national identity to this day. Eager to defend the newly-introduced Christian notions of leadership in their war against the Sasanian Persians, the Armenians relate stories such as the Vision of Sahak, composed around 500, but also the Daredevils of Sassoun (also known as the National Epic), which dates from the 8th to the 10th century.

In the third episode of our series, Prof. David Konstan presents his latest book on The Origin of Sin, comparing ancient Jewish and Christian concepts of sin with Greco-Roman ideas of error (Greek hamartia or Latin peccatum). In conversation with A/Prof. Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides, they compare the story of Prometheus with that of Adam and Eve, and also of Jesus as saviors of mankind, and they look at the conception of original sin, which led to man’s exclusion from the Garden of Eden. They also discuss the concepts of punishment, repentance, and forgiveness, and the role they play in Christian eschatology. Prof. Konstan argues that, in the Hebrew Bible, sin consists in the violation of the Covenant and turning to foreign gods, and so is specific to the Israelites. He examines further how the Gospels transformed this concept, and emphasized rather the lack of faith in Jesus as the Son of God as the basis of the Christian conception of sin.

In the second episode of our series Macquarie University doctoral student Jack Hanrahan-Shirley interviews Dr Andras Kraft of the University of Vienna. Jack researches heresies in the Byzantine Empire, especially the Bogomils. Andras is a well-known researcher of Byzantine Apocalypticism. Thus, we are transferred in the eastern Roman Empire from the end of the third century onwards for a fascinating discussion of how the end of the world was used by the emperors to pose as God’s representatives on earth and by the Church to defend its ever-growing power over the state: in this context, emperors could be salvific or Satan’s agents but the Church was there to forever propagate God’s providence and explain the role of evil in the world. Bad emperors were often portrayed as heretics or supporters of heretics, while heresies themselves were seen as symptoms of the crisis that emperors could face with guidance from God’s foundational institution. This episode is about powerful, ambitious agents engaged in a dangerous game of negotiating paradise or hell for the people! Stay tuned!

In Episode 1, Eva Anagnostou-Laoutides and Peter Edwell discuss the Sibylline Oracles. The oracles take their name from Sibyl, an ancient Greek prophetess who predicted the advent of Alexander the Great, of the Roman Emperor Augustus, and of Constantine, the first Christian emperor. Like the famous oracle of Delphi, the Sibyl prophesized in a state of frenzy. Through Cumae, the first Greek colony in Italy, the tradition was introduced in Rome. Enriched by Jewish apocalyptic traditions, the oracles were rewritten many times and achieved wide circulation in the Christian period. Eva and Peter recap the development of the Sibylline tradition and the character of the extant Sibylline Oracles and discuss how powerful individuals and groups in antiquity employed them as a tool for rewriting history.