Berossus – DESTRUCTION BY FIRE

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Berossus – DESTRUCTION BY FIRE

This passage occurs in Seneca, it is also quoted in Carl Muller’s, Fragmenta Historicorum Graecbrum.

The opposite idea to the destruction by a great flood is the destruction of the world by fire. No mention of such an idea has yet been found in any original Babylonian or Assyrian text, but there is evidence that such a doctrine did prevail among the Babylonians. Seneca quotes Berossus as having made an allusion to this, and the passage is so important that it is here reproduced. There seems good reason also for supposing that this Babylonian idea may have passed over to the Hebrews. The matter is not quite certain, but the following passages may be echoes of these Babylonian idea.

Berossus who interpreted Bel, says that this will
happen through the course of the stars, and affirms it to

this extent that he appoints times for the conflagration
and for the deluge. He argues that the earthly things
will be burned, when all the stars, which now have
diverse courses, shall come together in Cancer, so that
placed in one position a straight line might pass through
all. On the other hand, there will be a flood when the
same stars come together in Capricorn. The former is
the summer solstice, the latter the winter solstice — signs
of great moment, for in them are the chief changes of
the year.