Date of Award

2025

Degree Type

Restricted to Claremont Colleges Dissertation

Degree Name

Religion, PhD

Program

School of Arts and Humanities

Advisor/Supervisor/Committee Chair

Tammi J Schneider

Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member

Gary Gilbert

Dissertation or Thesis Committee Member

Khan y Ruqayya

Terms of Use & License Information

Terms of Use for work posted in Scholarship@Claremont.

Rights Information

© 2025 James W Yuile

Keywords

Apocalyptic literature, Apocalypticism, Christian authors, Plato, Greco-Roman authors

Subject Categories

Biblical Studies | Religion

Abstract

On the one hand, this study advances our knowledge of Greco-Roman influences upon early Christian apocalypticism, thus laying a foundation for new intertextual studies. On the other hand, this study bridges apocalypticism research towards certain Greek and Latin authors, thereby creating new pathways of investigation for classicists. To achieve these aims, I make five critical contributions: (1) I argue that the roots of apocalypticism studies led to terms which remain confusingly and unnecessarily entangled with the narrow genre of biblical apocalypse. Consequently, scholars rarely consider any non-biblical influences for early Christian apocalypticism. (2) To move beyond the aforementioned impasse, I outline a definition of apocalypticism and apocalyptic literature which is set apart from the apocalypse genre. By combining the works of prominent scholars of apocalypticism and by purposefully avoiding any novel classifications, I preemptively disarm any accusation of moving goals posts when I later claim that certain Greco-Roman texts fit the same definition of apocalypticism. (3) Equipped with the aforementioned definition, much of this study examines Hesiodic, Platonic, and Virgilian texts, as example cases, to demonstrate apocalypticism among even the most high-profile Greco-Roman authors. Thus, I lay the groundwork for new scholarly lines of inquiry on the apocalypticism of these and potentially other Greco-Roman authors. (4) Along the way, I make a case for two historical vectors by which Hesiodic, Platonic, and Virgilian intertexts influenced early Christian authors: education and immediate cultural environments. The texts of Hesiod, Plato, and Virgil permeated pedagogy at all levels as well as the dominant cultures in all corners of the Hellenistic and then imperial worlds. The earliest Christians existed in, and moved through, these same worlds and their writings, all composed in Greek, show numerous signs of formal education. (5) As a final matter, this study offers tentative comparisons which juxtapose the apocalypticism of Hesiod, Plato, and Virgil with other Greco-Roman authors and early Christian authors.

ISBN

9798263305819

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