Ekpyrosis
Ekpyrosis (to ancient Greek ἐκπύρωσις , burnout ' ) in the designated philosophy a fire destruction or the conflagration as complementary terminus to water downfall of Kataklysmos ; This end of the world can be followed by a new beginning, the Palingenesis .
Concept history
It is agreed that the idea of the fiery end of the world is very old. Where exactly the roots are, however, there is no clarity. In particular, the connection between the so-called Great Year and Ekpyrosis seems to be old. Bartel Leendert van der Waerden argues convincingly for a Babylonian origin of the concept of a large world cycle determined by special constellations. Seneca quotes a Babylonian priest and astronomer:
- Berossos , the interpreter of Bel , says that this is effected by the course of the stars; he even claims that the star's course determines the time of a fire disaster and a flood. For a fire will rage on the earth when all the stars, which are now moving in different orbits, come together in Cancer , i.e. H. when they stand under the same place, so that a straight line can pass through all of their places; but an inundation is imminent when the host of the same stars in Capricorn come together. The former causes the summer turn , the latter the winter turn . These signs have the greatest power when the turning points of the year take place in the transformation of the cosmos.
As far as the element of fire at the end of the world is concerned, van der Waerden thinks that he will not find it among the Babylonians or the Greeks, but instead in ancient Iran. The great importance of fire in Zoroastrianism is well known, and a purifying fire at the end of the world and the Last Judgment appears in the scriptures, for example in the Middle Persian Bundahishn :
- Thereupon the metals in the mountains and hills will become liquid through the fire Armustine and will be like a river on earth. Then all people will go into the liquid metal and be purified. To those who are pious it will seem as if they were walking in warm milk; whoever is godless will feel as if he were walking in liquid metal in the world.
From there these ideas seem to have found their way into the West, because something very similar appears in scripts as diverse as the oracles of the Sibyl , in the Gnostic script Pistis Sophia , among the Stoics and in some apocryphal apocalypses , e.g. B. Isaac's will .
As the first of the Greek philosophers, Heraclitus is said to have spoken of an ekpyrosis. But that is doubted today, especially since the following famous quote on the fire doctrine of Heraclitus seems to proclaim an eternal world:
- κόσμον τόνδε, τὸν αὐτὸν ἁπάντων, οὔτε τις θεῶν οὔτε ἀνθρώπων ἐποίησεν, ἀλλ 'ἦν ἀεὶ καὶ ἔστιν καὶ ἔσται πῦρ ἀείζωον, ἁπτόμενον μέτρα καὶ ἀποσβεννύμενον μέτρα
- This world, the same of all, was created neither by a god nor by a human being, but it was always, is always and will be his ever-living fire, kindling according to measure and going out according to measure.
See also
literature
- Bartel Leendert van der Waerden: The great year and the eternal return. In: Hermes, Vol. 80, No. 2 (1952), pp. 129-155
Individual evidence
- ↑ Seneca Quaestiones naturales 3.29, quoted from van der Waerden, p. 140
- ↑ Bundahischn 31 digitized
- ↑ Sibylline Oracle II 253
- ↑ van der Waerden The Great Year p. 132
- ↑ Heraklit fragment B 30 quoted in Clemens von Alexandria Stromateis 5.104f