Ekpyrosis

Ekpyrosis (. Ἐκπύροσις to AltGr, " burnout " ) called in philosophy a fire loss or the conflagration as complementary terminus to water sinking of Kataklysmos; this doomsday, a new beginning, the Palingenesis follow.

Conceptual history

It is agreed that the idea of ​​the fiery end of the world is very old. Where exactly are the roots, but also there is no clarity. In particular, the combination of the so-called Great Year with the Ekpyrosis seems to be old. Bartel Leendert van der Waerden argues convincingly for a Babylonian origin of the concept of a special constellations determined by major world cycle. Seneca cites a Babylonian priests and astronomers:

As to the element of fire in the end of the world, so says van der Waerden, however, neither the Babylonians nor the Greeks, but in ancient Iran find it to be. The importance of fire in Zoroastrianism is known and a purifying fire at the end of the world and the Last Judgment appears in the scriptures, for example, in Middle Persian Bundahischn:

From there, these ideas seem to have found their way to the West, because very similar appears in such diverse journals as the oracles of the Sibyl, in the Gnostic Pistis Sophia font, with the Stoics, and in some apocryphal apocalypses, such as the Testament of Isaac.

The first of the Greek philosopher Heraclitus is said to have spoken of a Ekpyrosis. This is but doubted today, especially as the following famous quote for fire - doctrine of Heraclitus seems rather to proclaim an eternally existing world: