Eschatos in Jewish, Hellenistic, and Early Christian Texts

Stefano De Feo explores how ancient Jewish, Christian, and Graeco-Roman traditions used the lexeme ἔσχατος. By tracing this key Greek word across diverse sources, the author offers a fresh look at how ideas of ‘the end’ are shaped – or not – by the vocabulary that eventually became eponymous for eschatology.

Stefano De Feo offers the first comprehensive investigation of the Greek lexeme ἔσχατος in Jewish, Christian, and Graeco-Roman sources from the 3rd cent. BCE to the 1st cent. CE. He examines how this term functions within diverse philosophical and religious traditions and asks which uses may be described legitimately as “eschatological.” The author maintains that the scholarly confusion regarding the use of the category of eschatology can be reduced significantly through a broad analysis of the lexeme ἔσχατος, the very lexeme from which the modern term “eschatology” is derived. Methodologically, the author adopts a historical-critical approach integrated with insights from modern semantics. Each occurrence of the lexeme is interpreted within its literary, argumentative, and historical context, thereby avoiding the “word-concept fallacy,” the retrojection of later theological categories, and the assumption that the presence of a word necessarily signals a concept. The analysis is both diachronic and comparative: it follows the development of the lexeme across the Greek translation of the Hebrew Scriptures, Jewish apocalyptic literature, Stoic philosophical writings, Hellenistic and Roman Jewish authors, the writings of the early Christian communities, and selected pagan authors (such as, for example, Dio Chrysostom and Plutarch). By tracing the uses of ἔσχατος across several centuries and traditions, De Feo demonstrates that the “time of the end” is not reducible to a chronological endpoint but constitutes a theological and philosophical category. He thereby provides a new foundation for the interpretation of eschatological language.

INTRODUCTION
1. THE RATIONALE OF THE STUDY
2. STATE OF CURRENT RESEARCH
3. METHODOLOGICAL CAVEATS
4. RELEVANCE OF THE ANALYSIS
5. OUTLINE OF THE STUDY
PART 1. THE USE OF THE LEXEME ἜΣΧΑΤΟΣ IN THE HELLENISTIC PERIOD
1. TRANSLATION AS CREATION OF MEANINGS? THE USE OF THE LEXEME ἜΣΧΑΤΟΣ IN THE SEPTUAGINT
1.1. Between Jewish and Christian Traditions
1.2. From the Hebrew Vorlage to the LXX
1.3. The Equivalents of the Lexeme Ἔσχατος in the Hebrew Bible
1.4. The Use of the Lexeme Ἔσχατος with No Equivalent in the Hebrew Bible
1.5. A Diachronic Overview of the Occurrences of the Lexeme Ἔσχατος in the Septuagint
1.6. The Septuagint Connection Between the Lexeme Ἔσχατος and the Noun Ἡμέρα
1.7. Final Observations
2. THE USE OF THE LEXEME ἜΣΧΑΤΟΣ IN THE APOCALYPTIC TRADITIONS
2.1. The Book of Enoch or 1 Enoch
2.2. The Book of Jubilees
2.3. The Testaments of the Twelve Patriarchs
2.4. The Testament of Job
2.5. The Sibylline Oracles
2.6. Final Observations
3. THE USE OF THE LEXEME ἜΣΧΑΤΟΣ IN THE HELLENISTIC PHILOSOPHICAL TRADITIONS
3.1. Between 'Teleology' and 'Eschatology': The Stoics
3.2. The Peculiar Meanings of the Lexeme Ἔσχατος in the Stoic Tradition
3.3. Final Observations
PART 2. THE USE OF THE LEXEME ἜΣΧΑΤΟΣ IN THE EARLY ROMAN IMPERIAL PERIOD
4. NO TIME FOR ESCHATOLOGY: THE USE OF ἜΣΧΑΤΟΣ IN PHILO AND JOSEPHUS
4.1. Philo of Alexandria
4.2. Josephus
4.3. Final Observations
5. THE USE OF ἜΣΧΑΤΟΣ IN THE NEW TESTAMENT
5.1. Forging Eschatological Language: The Lexeme Ἔσχατος in Paul's Letters
5.2. The Lexeme Ἔσχατος in Connection with Temporal Terms Within the New Testament
5.3. The Space of Eschatology
6. THE USE OF THE LEXEME ἜΣΧΑΤΟΣ IN EARLY CHRISTIAN TEXTS PRIOR TO THE APOLOGISTS
6.1. Didache (or The Doctrine of the Twelve Apostles)
6.2. The Ascension of Isaiah
6.3. The Epistle of Barnabas
6.4. The First and Second Letter of Clement
6.5. The Epistles of Ignatius of Antioch
6.6. The Shepherd of Hermas
6.7. Final Observations
7. THE USE OF ἜΣΧΑΤΟΣ IN THE PAGAN-RELIGIOUS TRADITIONS (1ST CENT. CE)
7.1. Dio Chrysostom
7.2. Plutarch
7.3. The Roman Stoics
7.4. Final Observations
CONCLUDING REMARKS

• By (author) Stefano De Feo