“Typological Hermeneutics and Apocalyptic Time: A Case Study of the Medieval Greek Last Vision of the Prophet Daniel.” In Όψεις του Βυζαντινού Χρόνου. Πρακτικά Διεθνούς Συνεδρίου, Αθήνα, 29–30 Μαΐου 2015, ed. Elenē G. Saradē, et al., 180–194. Kalamata: Χριστιανικό και Βυζαντινό Μουσείο, 2018
Medieval prophetic writings consist of various standard literary elements, such as motifs, oracles, canonical citations as well as scriptural exegesis. The latter not seldom serves to support the apocalyptist’s universal history, which is generally presented in a typological framework. Typologies are literary devices that pair long-gone Old and New Testament events and characters with more recent, contemporary counterparts. In this paper it is argued that typologies (biblical as well as extra-biblical) form an essential compositional method in medieval Greek apocalypticism. Moreover, this study investigates what kind of time perception apocalyptic typologies are prone to convey. The Last Vision of the Prophet Daniel has been chosen as the primary source of this study. This prophecy is a pseudonymous, historical apocalypse that can be viewed as a typical representative of medieval Greek apocalypticism. The paper consists of three parts: First, the Pseudo-Danielic prophecy is introduced with regard to its date, content and influence. Second, its most significant typological models are identified and briefly discussed. Third, a number of inferences are drawn from the foregoing analysis, which characterize the Byzantine perception of apocalyptic time.
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The Byzantine Apocalyptic Tradition 