Apocalypse now? : the ambiguous eschatology of Gregory of Tours

Title: Apocalypse now? : the ambiguous eschatology of Gregory of Tours
Author: Choda, Kamil
Source document: Graeco-Latina Brunensia. 2015, vol. 20, iss. 1, pp. [47]-58
Extent
[47]-58
  • ISSN
    1803-7402 (print)
    2336-4424 (online)
Type: Article
Language
License: Not specified license
 

Notice: These citations are automatically created and might not follow citation rules properly.

Abstract(s)
Gregory of Tours has, over the past few decades, become one of the most extensively studied authors of the Late Antiquity. Notwithstanding the progress achieved in the study of his historiographical work, his attitude towards eschatology has not yet been adequately addressed. Gregory refutes the arguments of his contemporaries who believe that the world is coming to an end, though he himself appears to question his own anti-apocalyptic attitude by registering the signs he understands as foretelling the coming apocalypse. Those apparently contradictory notions can be reconciled by the study of the way his Historiae are structured. Gregory, writing at the end of the sixth century, begins his narrative with the creation of the world and the fall of Adam and Eve. However, his work lacks any ending that is comparable with the divine act of creation it begins with. He settles this issue in a later part of his work by stressing the signs of the apocalypse that he is perfectly aware will not come soon. Thus, somehow artificially, he gives his narrative the Creation– Apocalypse frame which the contemporary Frankish history he describes could not provide him with.
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