concept

Prophecy

Beliefs & concepts · Words

The claim that a sign, utterance, or vision can speak of what has not yet happened — a human practice, not a single cosmic law.

Also known as augury

Hellenic religion

  • Prophecy appears in Delphi.

    Delphi was famous for Apollo’s oracle. Prophecy here is a seated, civic, expensive answer, not Ifá and not a raven’s cry.

    from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

    appears in · sourced · documented

  • Prophecy is associated with Oracle.

    An oracle is one institutional form of prophecy. The word should not be stretched until every omen is an oracle.

    from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

    associated with · partially sourced · documented

  • Apollo is associated with Prophecy.

    Delphic answers are one famous Greek form of prophecy. The seat, the cost, and the god are local.

    from Pausanias · Description of Greece, c. 150–180 CE

    associated with · sourced · documented

  • Prophecy is connected to Divination.

    Divination is the craft of asking; prophecy is often the name for the answer. They meet without being identical.

    connected to · interpretive · documented

  • Prophecy is associated with Fate.

    An answer about what will happen assumes something is already tending that way. How tightly fate binds is a local argument.

    associated with · interpretive · culturally specific

  • Prophecy is connected to Omen.

    An omen can be treated as a prophecy that arrived without being asked. Delphi’s asked answer is another institution.

    connected to · interpretive · culturally specific

  • Omen is connected to Prophecy.

    An omen is a happening read as a sign; prophecy is often the name for what the sign is said to mean. They meet without being identical.

    connected to · interpretive · documented

Roman religion

  • Prophecy appears in Roman religion.

    Virgil’s Aeneid gives the Cumaean Sibyl a prophetic office before she guides Aeneas below. That is Roman epic prophecy, not Delphi’s civic oracle and not Virgilian fate-talk alone.

    from Virgil · Aeneid, 19 BCE (unfinished at the poet’s death)

    appears in · sourced · documented

European folklore

  • Raven is associated with Prophecy.

    In various European folk beliefs a raven’s appearance or cry can be read as an omen, often of death. That is a different meeting from the Norse pairing with Odin, and should not be folded into it.

    associated with · interpretive · culturally specific

  • Owl is associated with Prophecy.

    Some European folk beliefs treat an owl’s cry as a death-omen. That is not Athena’s bird and not a universal night-wisdom.

    associated with · interpretive · culturally specific

Norse tradition

  • Odin is associated with Prophecy.

    Snorri’s frame includes questions about the world’s course and ending. Odin’s hunger for news is not the same as a Greek oracle’s seated answer.

    from Snorri Sturluson · Gylfaginning, c. 1220

    associated with · partially sourced · documented

Mesopotamian tradition

  • Eclipse is associated with Prophecy.

    Mesopotamian omen series treat lunar and solar eclipses as signs that can be read for king and land. That is a cuneiform technical literature, not Ptolemy’s natal craft.

    associated with · interpretive · culturally specific

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