Tyndale Bulletin 48.2 (1997) 329-344.

HISTORICAL CRISIS AND COSMIC CRISIS

IN MARK 13 AND LUCAN’S CIVIL WAR
Edward Adams

Summary
This article suggests that the association of the fall of Jerusalem and the
consummation of the age in Mark 13 finds a parallel in the linkage of the collapse
of the Roman Republic and the collapse of the cosmos in Lucan’s Civil War. Both
texts, it is proposed, link a historical catastrophe with the end of the world/age in
broadly similar ways.

I. Introduction
Of the many thorny exegetical issues in Mark 13, the problem of the
link between the destruction of the temple and the end of the
world/age is surely the most perplexing. The link is established in the
disciples’ question of Mark 13:4. In response to Jesus’ prediction of
the destruction of the temple (13:2), the disciples ask, ‘when will this
(tau'ta) be, and what will be the sign that all these things (tau'ta
pavnta) are about to be accomplished?’. A close connection is here
presupposed between the fall of the temple and the city, which took
place in 70 C.E., and the end of the age. The disciples, as Mark casts
them, assume that the temple’s destruction is ‘part of a complex of
events leading to the End’1 (cf. Matthew’s formulation of the
question: ‘when will this be, and what will be the sign of your coming
and of the end of the age?’ Mt. 24:4). In the discourse that follows,
which constitutes Jesus’ reply to this two-part question, that
connection is not disavowed. Statements (apparently) relating to the
fall of Jerusalem are interlinked with statements (apparently) relating

1C.E.B. Cranfield, The Gospel according to Saint Mark (Cambridge: CUP, 1959)
393.
330 TYNDALE BULLETIN 48.2 (1997)

to the final consummation. Mark thus leaves it open for his readers to
infer that as one of the ‘last things’, the promised destruction of
Jerusalem would lead more or less directly to the coming of the Son
of man with its attendant cosmic upheaval and the consummation of
the age (Mk. 13:24-26).2
Of course, the end of the world did not follow the collapse of
Jerusalem in 70 C.E. Thus, as it has turned out, these events, on the
face of it, have been tied together mistakenly.
A solution to the problem has recently been offered by N.T.
Wright in his monumental work Jesus and the Victory of God. Wright
takes the view that the whole of Mark 13 (and its parallels) is about
the fall of Jerusalem.3 The disciples in their question to Jesus, he
argues, were associating the destruction of Jerusalem predicted by
Jesus not with the end of the space-time universe, a notion that would
have been completely foreign to them, but with ‘the end of Israel’s
period of mourning and exile and the beginning of her freedom and
vindication’.4 Jesus in his reply confirms this connection: the
forthcoming fall of Jerusalem would indeed signal the end of exile
and the beginning of a new order. The discourse has specific and
exclusive reference to Jerusalem’s destruction. There is nothing in it
which has to do with the end of the world as this is usually conceived
by New Testament scholars. The picture of cosmic upheaval in 13:24-
25 takes up language used in the Old Testament with reference to the
destruction of Babylon (Is. 14:4, 12-15; 34:3-4; cf. Ezk. 32:5-8; Joel

2On the assumption that Mark was writing just before 70 C.E. For the view that
Mark’s Gospel is to be dated just after the fall of Jerusalem, see M.D. Hooker,
The Gospel according to St Mark (London: A & C Black, 1991) 8.
3N.T. Wright, Jesus and the Victory of God: Christian Origins and the Question
of God, Volume Two (London: SPCK, 1996) 339-68. While certain details of
Wright’s approach to Mark 13 are innovative, the broad outline of interpretation
he adopts is a long and well-established one; see G.R. Beasley-Murray, Jesus and
the Future: An Examination of the Criticism of the Eschatological Discourse,
Mark 13 with Special Reference to the Little Apocalypse Theory (London:
Macmillan, 1954) 167-71.
4Idem, 346.
ADAMS: Mark 13 and Lucan’s Civil War 331

2:10-11, 30-32; 3:14-15) and re-applies it to Jerusalem.5 It no more

suggests a literal cosmic catastrophe than Isaiah’s prophecy did. The
coming of the Son of man spoken of in 13:26 refers not to a future
return of Jesus but to ‘the defeat of the enemies of the true people of
god [sic.], and the vindication of the true people themselves’, along
with their representative.6 Jesus’ predictions in Mark 13, on this
understanding, were completely fulfilled in the events of 66-70 C.E.
This reading of Mark 13 has the following points among its
merits. It does not have to assume that the disciples, as portrayed by
Mark (and Matthew) misunderstand the relation between the collapse
of Jerusalem and the end of the present age. It provides a consistent
account of the events referred to in Mark 13 without having to resort
to dual or multiple fulfillments, shortened perspectives, time shifts,
time gaps and the like. It does full justice to the claim of Mark 13:30
that, ‘this generation will not pass away until all these have taken
place [emphases mine]’. And, it saves Mark and Jesus from the
embarrassing charge that they were proved wrong when the world did
not end as they expected when Jerusalem fell.
Wright’s approach, however, is not without its difficulties. In
the first place, his interpretation of the Old Testament prophecies
lying behind Mark 13:24-25 assumes the conclusions he wishes to
reach for the Marcan text7 (that the language of cosmic catastrophe
and ultimate divine intervention employed by the Old Testament
prophets had sole and intended reference to socio-political events
within these writers’ own horizons; that these prophecies were
fulfilled without reservation when the specific historical disasters
occurred; that Jewish readers of these texts would have known that
the grandiose cosmic language used by the prophets symbolised only

5Idem, 354-58.
6Idem, 362.
7M. Casey (Son of Man: The Interpretation and Influence of Daniel 7 [London:
SPCK, 1979] 174) makes this criticism of R.T. France, Jesus and the Old
Testament: His Application of the Old Testament to Himself and His Mission
(London: Tyndale, 1971) 227-39, who takes a similar (but not identical) line on
Mark 13 to Wright.
332 TYNDALE BULLETIN 48.2 (1997)

socio-political change). These assumptions are by no means as

obvious as Wright suggests.
Second, if the phrase ‘the coming of the Son of man’ is not a
reference to a future parousia of Jesus and Jesus did not himself speak
of his own return, as Wright seems to suggest,8 whence did this
cardinal New Testament belief arise? Did it have no foundation in the
logia of Jesus? At the very least, Wright’s point of view would seem
to introduce a sharp disjunction between the eschatological teaching
of Jesus and that of Paul.
Third, the problem of the perceived nearness of the end is of
course present in other parts of the New Testament. Again, to relieve
Mark 13 of the difficulty, it would seem, is only to increase the
distance between the outlook of Jesus and that of the earliest church.
The latter two points are objections which Wright will certainly have
foreseen and will no doubt address in the course of his larger project.9
Judgement on his hypothesis must thus, to some extent, be reserved.
As things stand at present, the most satisfactory solution
(though by no means a wholly satisfactory solution) to the problem of
the close conjunction of the destruction of the temple and the end of
the world/age in Mark 13, it seems to me, remains the view that, from
Mark’s perspective, these are distinct (and distinctly different) events
which are eschatologically related but not (or at least, not necessarily)
temporally linked.10 Within Mark’s symbol system and narrative
world, the destruction of Jerusalem and the consummation of the
world/age are connected in principle. The events are viewed by Mark
as conceptually and sequentially linked, irrespective of how close to
or distant from each other on the line of time they turn out to lie.

8At least, this is what I understand Wright to be saying. See, e.g., Wright, Jesus,
341-42, 345, 360-67, 632, 659-61.
9A very brief stab at answering these issues is made in his The New Testament
and the People of God: Christian Origins and the Question of God, Volume One
(London: SPCK, 1991) 459-64. One looks forward to further and fuller
clarification.
10The time references in the discourse notwithstanding. The ambiguity of the
temporal notes is highlighted by T.D. Geddert, Watchwords: Mark 13 in Markan
Eschatology (JSNTSS 26; Sheffield: JSOT, 1989) 223-58.
ADAMS: Mark 13 and Lucan’s Civil War 333

Advocates of this style of interpretation (which has many

variations and nuances) sometimes draw a parallel with Old
Testament prophecy. It is a characteristic of Old Testament prophecy,
so it is argued, that events, which in reality are far apart, are brought
together and placed in close succession. Jesus and Mark simply reflect
this ‘prophetic perspective’.11
In this article, I want to suggest that an analogue to Mark’s
linkage of the fall of Jerusalem with the end of the world/age may be
found in a Graeco-Roman text written in the same decade as Mark’s
Gospel and circulating in the same city where Mark may have
composed his work.12 Like Mark 13, Lucan’s Civil War closely
associates a great socio-political catastrophe with the end of the
world/age. For Lucan, the historical crisis is the collapse of the
Roman Republic.

II. Lucan: Life and Work13

Marcus Annaeus Lucanus (39-65 C.E.) was born in Cordoba, Spain.
His father was a wealthy Roman knight and his uncles were the
philosopher Seneca and the proconsul Gallio (the Gallio of Acts 18).
Lucan was brought up and educated in Rome. Receiving the standard
education of the elite, Lucan studied both rhetoric and philosophy. He
studied philosophy under Cornutus who, like Seneca, was one of the
leading representatives of Roman Stoicism of the time. In his early
twenties, he went to Athens to continue his studies but was soon
recalled by Nero to Rome and admitted into the close circle of the

11On ‘prophetic perspective’ and its difficulties, see Beasley-Murray, Jesus and
the Future, 131-41, and Geddert, Watchwords, 231-35.
12On the insecure assumption that the Gospel, as early church tradition suggests,
was written in Rome.
13For fuller details, see the biographical notes in the introductory sections of the
following translations: Lucan, Pharsalia/The Civil War (trans. D. Little; Dunedin:
University of Otago, 1989) 1-5; Lucan, Civil War: Translated with Introduction
and Notes (trans. S.H. Braund; Oxford: OUP, 1992) xii-xiv; Lucan’s Civil War
(trans. P.F. Widdows; Bloomington/ Indianapolis: Indiana University, 1988), xi-
xii. The main primary source for Lucan’s life is Suetonius, Life of Lucan (in his
Lives of the Poets). What follows in the next two paragraphs of the main text of
this article is summarised from the above.
334 TYNDALE BULLETIN 48.2 (1997)

emperor. At the first Neronian Games in 60 C.E., Lucan won a poetic

competition. The emperor made Lucan augor and quaestor, and for a
while greatly admired his poetic abilities. At around 62 or 63 C.E.,
Lucan published three books of his epic, the Civil War. Nero’s favour
toward Lucan, however, was short-lived. The emperor’s admiration
soon turned to enmity as, so it would seem, he became increasingly
jealous of Lucan’s poetic successes. In 64 C.E., Nero banned Lucan
from giving public readings of his poetry and from appearing in the
law courts. At the beginning of 65 C.E., a disillusioned Lucan joined
the conspiracy of Piso to assassinate Nero. The plot was uncovered
and the conspirators and those connected with them were either
executed or compelled to take their own lives. Despite his pleas,
Lucan was forced to commit suicide (as were his father and his
uncles, Seneca and Gallio). He was 25 years old.
Despite his short life, Lucan wrote prolifically, though the
majority of his writings are lost. The ten books of the epic poem on
the Civil War, the most substantial of his writings to have survived,
were his major work.14 It remains incomplete, the most probable
explanation for which is that it was interrupted by his untimely death.

III. Lucan’s Civil War

The Civil War recounts the events of the war between Caesar and
Pompey that brought the Roman Republic to an end. The epic begins
with Caesar’s crossing of the river Rubicon into Italy in 49 B.C.E. It
leads up to and includes the fateful and decisive battle of Pharsalus in
48 B.C.E. where Caesar defeated Pompey. It breaks off abruptly with
Caesar at war in Egypt. Lucan probably intended to continue his

14The work has survived with alternative titles, De bello civili and the Parsalia.
For discussion as to which is original, see F.M. Ahl, Lucan: An Introduction
(Ithaca: Cornell University, 1976) 326-32; Braund, Civil War, xxxviii-xxxix.
ADAMS: Mark 13 and Lucan’s Civil War 335

narrative at least until the suicide of Cato following the battle of

Thapsus in 46 B.C.E.15
Lucan was dependent on existing historical sources for his
narrative, particularly Livy’s (now lost) account of the war and
Caesar’s own description of events. It was not Lucan’s intention,
though, to write a straightforward historical report. Following the
conventions of an epic poem, Lucan felt free to use his imagination
and depart from his sources where necessary, omitting and recasting
some historical incidents and completely inventing others.16
The civil war is narrated as a complete disaster for Rome and
Italy. It led to the destruction of the Republic and the loss of political
freedom for the people. Caesar, the main character in the poem, is the
man most responsible for the calamity. He is vilified and demonised
by Lucan throughout. Widdows comments: ‘On him Lucan lavishes a
marvellous extravagance of hatred, mitigated only by touches of
grudging admiration for his demoniac energy’.17 Lucan writes with a
strong sympathy for the Republic and a hatred of tyranny.18
Lucan, reflecting Roman sensibilities, also writes with a
strong repugnance of civil war.19 Civil war is more destructive and
serious than any other kind of conflict because it divides a society and
breaks civil bonds. What is worse, civil war involves a breach of
family ties.20 Kin opposes kin (Civ. War 1:4).21 Thus, civil warfare is
a heinous and detestable sin, the worst of all crimes (Civ. War 2:286).

15On the intended scope of the work, see Braund, Civil War, xxxvii-xxxviii.
16Braund, Civil War, xx. Most notable among his innovations is his placing of
Cicero in Pompey’s camp on the eve of the battle of Pharsalus. Cicero missed the
battle due to illness (Plutarch, Cicero, 39).
17Widdows, Civil War, xix.
18Though his political outlook rests uneasily with his enthusiastic praise for Nero
at the start of the poem.
19M. Lapidge, ‘Lucan’s Imagery of Cosmic Dissolution’, Hermes 107 (1979)
344-70, 359; Little, Civil War, 20.
20Caesar and Pompey were related through marriage.
21We can thus imagine the reaction of Roman readers to the words of Mk. 13:12.
336 TYNDALE BULLETIN 48.2 (1997)

IV. Lucan’s Stoicism

Lucan’s thinking was clearly shaped by Stoicism, a philosophy which
was highly popular at the time in Rome. As well as his tutor Cornutus,
he was no doubt also strongly influenced by his uncle, Seneca.
Lucan’s work shows definite familiarity with Seneca’s On Benefits
and Natural Questions.22
Lucan’s Stoicism is prominent throughout the poem.23 It is
seen, for example, in his setting aside of the epic convention of
attributing human actions and affairs to the intervention of the gods:
the customary divine machinations are replaced by the concepts of
Fate and Fortune. It is visible in his characterisation of Cato, who is
presented as the archetypal Stoic wise man.24 And it is evident in his
cosmology.25
Lucan holds to the Stoic doctrine of cosmic conflagration or
ekpurosis.26 The theory adopts a cyclic view of the universe. A world-
cycle begins and ends in a conflagration (ekpurosis) when the
universe is at a state of absolute fire. A new cycle begins when the
primal fire cools to air, then moisture and then the elements of which
the world is composed. A world-cycle ends when the cosmos returns
to its original fiery state.
The doctrine is expressed by Lucan at the beginning of Book
Two of his epic, where he reflects on how it is that human beings
have foreknowledge of coming calamities (Civ. War 2:1-15).27 Either
portents of disaster are mere coincidence, or (as he believes) all events
are causally linked.

Perhaps when the Creator first took up his shapeless realm of raw
matter after the conflagration had died down, he fixed causes for
eternity, binding himself too by his all-controlling law, and with

22Lapidge, ‘Lucan’s Imagery’, 357; M.P.O. Morford, The Poet Lucan: Studies in
Rhetorical Epic (Oxford: OUP, 1967) 37-50.
23Braund, Civil War, xxiii-xxv.
24Little, Civil War, 39-47.
25See M. Lapidge, ‘Stoic Cosmology and Romans Literature, First to Third
Centuries A.D.’, ANRW 36.3 (1989) 1379-429, 1405-09.
26On which see D.E. Hahm, The Origins of Stoic Cosmology (Columbus: Ohio
State University, 1976) 185-99.
27See Lapidge, ‘Stoic Cosmology’, 1407.
ADAMS: Mark 13 and Lucan’s Civil War 337

the immovable boundary of destiny arranged the universe to

introduce prescribed ages (2:7-10).28

When the new universe is formed after the conflagration subsides, a

chain of causes is programmed into it. It is this causal linkage of
events which makes foreknowledge possible.
As we will see, Lucan makes reference or allusion to the
destruction of the world at the end of the cosmic cycle at various
points in his narrative. Lucan’s understanding and depiction of the
cosmic disaster is substantially derived from Seneca. According to
Seneca, the great disaster may be caused by either conflagration or
deluge.29 This is thus a watery ekpurosis (if this is not a contradiction
in terms) as well as a fiery one.

V. The Collapse of Rome and

the Collapse of the Cosmos
There are four places in the Civil War where the destruction of Rome
is directly and explicitly associated with the end of the universe. The
first passage is 1:67-80, at the outset of poem. Having announced his
topic and praised Nero, Lucan is led to reflect on the causes of the
events he is about to describe (1:67-182), to ask ‘what drove a
maddened people to war...what cast out peace from the world?’ (1:68-
9). He considers various causes including: the concentration of power
in three individuals (the first triumvirate, Caesar, Pompey and
Crassus), rivalry between Caesar and Pompey and the moral
corruption of the Roman people by prosperity. The first and main
cause, though, is fate. It was the ‘envious chain of destiny’ which
determined that Rome should collapse. The same force will one day
cause the universe to dissolve. Lucan writes:

So, when the final hour brings to an end the long ages of the
universe, its structure dissolved, reverting to primeval chaos, then

28The translation followed throughout is that of Braund. I have also followed

Braund’s line numbering.
29Seneca, Natural Questions 3.28.7.
338 TYNDALE BULLETIN 48.2 (1997)

fiery stars will plunge into the sea, the earth will be unwilling to
stretch flat her shores, and will shake the water off, Phoebe will
confront her brother and for herself demand the day, resentful of
driving her chariot along its slanting orbit, and the whole
discordant mechanism of universe torn apart will disrupt its own
laws (1:72-80).30

And so it is that ‘Mighty structures collapse on to themselves’ (1:81).

The collapse of all great things, including Rome and the universe
itself, is determined.
Lucan thus establishes at the beginning of his poem a close
connection between the fall of Rome (as he views the end of the
Republic) and the end of the world. The shattering of peace when the
Republic fell is analogous to the break-up of the universe and its
return to chaos at conflagration. The linkage of course serves to make
a dramatic point. Lucan could hardly have chosen a more powerful
and evocative image with which to convey the calamitous nature of
the historical event. The juxtaposition, though, is no superficial one. It
is deeply rooted in the conceptual world of the Civil War.
In Lucan’s Stoically-informed narrative universe,31 the two
disasters are connected on three levels. They are connected, firstly, on
the level of the chain of fate which binds together every event in the
universe. This is the most basic level of linkage, one that posits no
specific relation between the two events. They are associated simply
because they are part of a continuum of interconnected occurrences.
They are linked, secondly, as ‘Mighty structures’. As such they fall
prey to a particular operation of fate, the process by which all great
edifices come to eventual ruin. The third, and perhaps most
significant, level of linkage is that of the inherent, causal connection
between the social order and the cosmic order.32 In Stoic thought, the
social order is reflective of the cosmic order and vice versa. Since
these spheres are inextricably bound together, disruption of societal
order entails the disruption of the whole cosmos. For Lucan, there is

30On the cosmological details, see Lapidge, ‘Stoic Cosmology’, 360-62.

31Lucan is not presenting a conventional Stoic picture of the world, but (for
poetic reasons) a somewhat distorted version of it.
32Lapidge, ‘Lucan’s Imagery’, 358-60.
ADAMS: Mark 13 and Lucan’s Civil War 339

thus a causal relation between the complete collapse of society and

government in the civil war and the collapse of the cosmos at
ekpurosis. In Lucan’s presentation, therefore, the fall of Rome is not
only comparable to the dissolution of the cosmos, the latter is, in some
sense, the concomitant and direct consequence of the former.33
The second place were the events are set in parallel is toward
the end of Book One (1:639-72). Caesar has crossed the Rubicon into
Italy. The senate has flown from Rome. Portents of disaster occur
alarming the people. The astrologer Nigidius Figulus attempts to
interpret the omens in the sky.34 The message is clear: ‘imminent
destruction is planned for Rome and humankind’ (2:644-45). Figulus
speculates on what kind of disaster is planned. Is it to be destruction
by water, a cataclysm to rival Deucalion’s flood (651-54)? Is it to be a
setting ablaze of the world in cosmic conflagration (655-59)? No,
what the signs in the sky portend is that ‘war’s frenzy is upon us’,
when ‘the power of the sword shall overthrow legality by might, and
impious crime shall bear the name of heroism, and this madness shall
extend for many a year’ (1:666-69).
In this passage, as Masters points out, the civil war is
presented not just as a disaster on a par with cosmic catastrophe. The
cosmic disaster is depicted as ‘an alternative preferable to civil war’.35
The fall of Rome is likened to the dissolution of the cosmos
again at 2:289. With civil war imminent, and the world ‘tottering’
(2:248), Cato is approached by his nephew Brutus. Brutus advises
Cato against opposing Caesar and taking part in a war which
constitutes the most detestable of crimes. Cato acknowledges that
civil warfare is indeed the greatest of crimes. Yet, he continues:

33Lapidge, ‘Lucan’s Imagery’, 359.

34It has been argued that Lucan is here reporting an actual prophecy made by
Figulus at the time; see R.J. Getty, ‘The Astrology of P. Nigidius Figulus’,
Classical Quarterly 35 (1941) 17-22.
35J. Masters, Poetry and Civil War in Lucan’s Bellum Civile (Cambridge
Classical Studies; Cambridge: CUP, 1992) 65.
340 TYNDALE BULLETIN 48.2 (1997)

Who would wish to watch the stars and universe collapsing, free
from fear himself to fold his arms and keep them still when ether
rushes from on high and earth shudders beneath the weight of the
condensing universe? (2:289-92)

Not even a strict Stoic like Cato can fail be stirred in the face of so
great an impending disaster: ‘Keep far away this shame, O gods, that
Rome should fall and by her fall rouse up the Dahae and the Getae—
and I remain unmoved’ (2:295-97).
The comparison is made for the fourth and final time at
7:134-8, at a climactic point in the epic. In Book Seven, Lucan
describes the build-up to the battle of Pharsalus, the battle itself and
the immediate aftermath. The battle of Pharsalus decided the outcome
of the civil war. Effectively, it was the point at which the Republic
ceased to be.
The opposing armies converge for battle. With his army
poised for combat and restless for action to begin, Pompey gives his
consent for the battle to go ahead (7:123). Those eager for warfare go
wild with excitement. Many, however, grow pale with the
apprehension of death and of coming disaster, knowing ‘that the day
has come which will establish the destiny of human life forever, that
the battle will decide what Rome will be’ (7:131-33). Though each
man is aware of his own personal danger, his own fate counts as little
in comparison with the fate of the whole universe. For

Who would fear for himself if he saw the shore inundated by the
deep, or sea-water on the mountain tops, and ether falling toward
the earth, and the sun hurled down widespread destruction?
(7:135-38)

Again the doom of Rome is compared to the dissolution of the

cosmos. It is difficult to know what Lucan’s intention is here. Is he
depicting the soldiers as actually believing the end of the world to be
imminent? Or, Is he rather indicating that the fear which the men now
feel at the approach of the great battle to decide the fate of Rome is
similar to that which they would feel were the cosmos about to
dissolve. The same ambiguity is present in 2:289-92, in the speech of
ADAMS: Mark 13 and Lucan’s Civil War 341

Cato. Such an ambivalence only underlines how tightly tied the

historical disaster is to the cosmic disaster.

VI. Other References and Allusions

to Cosmic Collapse
There are several other passages in Lucan’s Civil War where the great
cosmic catastrophe is described or alluded to. These references and
echoes serve to keep alive in his readers’ minds the parallel between
the civil war and the end of the cosmos.36
An allusion is made in 4:48-120. It occurs at a key point in
the story. Pompey’s and Caesar’s armies are about to meet for the first
time. With the encounter soon to take place, a tremendous flood
intervenes, overrunning Caesar’s camp. The flood is no ordinary one
but is of almost universal proportions. As Morford has shown,
Lucan’s description of the deluge draws heavily on Seneca’s account
of the destruction of the world by water in Natural Questions 3:27-
30.37 By playing on Seneca’s imagery of cosmic catastrophe, Lucan
suggests that the flood is an anticipation of the final cataclysm. Such a
foreshadowing is for Lucan an apposite precursor to the first
engagement of the civil war.
In Book Five, in which Lucan narrates Appius’ consultation
of the Delphic oracle, the priestess Phemonoe, inspired by Apollo, is
given a knowledge of all the events of time, past and future, including
the end of the world (5:181).
Later in Book Five, at 5:560-653, a storm scene provides
another occasion for the utilisation of the imagery of cosmic
destruction. Caesar sets out with Amyclas to sail across the Adriatic.
As soon as they set sail, a storm rises. Amyclas urges Caesar to return
to shore. Caesar, convinced that the danger would yield to him, insists
they sail on. Winds converge from all directions. The seas, carried by
the gales, give up their usual positions. The waves, it seems, tower to
the stars. Cosmic collapse seems at hand.

36So Lapidge, ‘Lucan’s Imagery’, 359.

37Morford, The Poet Lucan, 45-47.
342 TYNDALE BULLETIN 48.2 (1997)

Then the gods’ dome quakes, the lofty sky thunders, and the
heavens suffer with their structure strained. Nature dreaded chaos;
it seems the elements have burst their harmonious checks and
night again returns to mix the dead with gods. Their one hope of
safety is that not yet have they perished in the world’s collapse so
great (5:632-37).

The final reference to the end of the world in the Civil War occurs
after the account of the battle of Pharsalus. When the battle finally
ends, Caesar adds to his list of crimes by denying burial or funeral
pyre to the dead. But, Lucan remarks, it matters little whether the
corpses disintegrate by natural decay or by pyre, since

These people, Caesar, if not consumed by fire now, will be

consumed together with earth, together with the waters of the sea.
A shared funeral pyre which will mingle stars with dead men’s
bones awaits the universe (7:812-15).

VII. Lucan and Mark 13: Comparison and Conclusion

Lucan’s Civil War juxtaposes (what is for the writer) a socio-political
catastrophe, the fall of the Roman Republic, with the cosmic calamity
that will end the world. The ruin of the Republic foreshadows the
inevitable cosmic ruin. From Book One to Book Seven, Lucan
portrays the events of the civil war, culminating in the horrific battle
at Pharsalus, as the disintegration of a mighty structure. The
references and allusions to cosmic dissolution at various stages in the
narrative serve to depict Rome on its ‘hurtling course toward
destruction’38 as the mirror image of the universe in its death-throes.
Several observations can be made about Lucan’s linkage of
the two disastrous events. Firstly, the association unequivocally
establishes the end of the Republic as a disaster of cataclysmic
proportions. This is Lucan’s personal viewpoint (it is certainly not one

38Braund, Civil War, xlviii.

ADAMS: Mark 13 and Lucan’s Civil War 343

shared by Virgil). For him, the fall of the Roman Republic was a
tragedy of the greatest depth.
Secondly, the linkage clearly does not amount to an equation
and identification of these events, as if to imply that the dreaded
cosmic collapse actually took place at the time of the civil war, and is
thus no more to be feared. As 7:632-37 makes clear, cosmic
dissolution remains a fixed future (and probably, as for most Stoics, a
far off) event for Lucan. The fated conflagration was anticipated in
the fall of the Republic and was evoked by the events of the civil war,
but in no sense was it fulfilled then. The events are strongly related,
but they remain distinct and separate.
Thirdly, the doom of the Republic and the end of the world
are causally and sequentially linked, but not chronologically related.
To some of the characters in the epic, the cosmic disaster may have
seemed imminent as the events of the war unfolded, but from Lucan’s
point of view, it is the inevitability of the end, not the timing of it
which is the key issue (after all, a century had passed between the
civil war and Lucan’s narration of it). The Roman Republic is the last
but one of the ‘mighty structures’ fated to fall. The next in line in the
chain of fate is the cosmos itself. When the final cataclysm will
happen is neither here nor there for Lucan. What is crucial is that it
will happen.
On each of these points, Lucan’s association of these events,
it seems to me, provides a parallel to Mark’s linkage of the ruin of
Jerusalem with the coming of the Son of man and the end of the
world/age.
For Mark, the connection invests the socio-political event of
the fall of Jerusalem, predicted by Jesus, with cosmological and
eschatological importance. This is no small point. The analogy marks
the event which occurred in 70 C.E. as one of momentous
(unparalleled?) theological significance.
Secondly, for Mark as for Lucan, the linkage does not imply
that the two great events are one and the same thing. Readers are not
expected to infer that the fall of Jerusalem is the parousia of the Son
of man and the consummation of the age. The fall of Jerusalem is of a
piece with the end-time denouement, but it is not identical to it.
344 TYNDALE BULLETIN 48.2 (1997)

Thirdly, for Mark as for Lucan, the collocation is not (or not
necessarily) a temporal one. The disciples, as portrayed by Mark, may
have thought of Jerusalem’s destruction and the end of the world/age
as closely related in time (as Cato and Pompey’s soldiers, as depicted
by Lucan, may have thought that the collapse of the cosmos would
immediately follow the fall of Rome). The discourse itself, though,
does not presume a chronological connection between the two. What
is indicated is rather a causal link within a nexus of end-time
occurrences. A time gap separating the events is not precluded.39
There are, of course, undeniable differences between Lucan
and Mark (differences in narrative world, philosophical/ theological
outlook, subject matter, chosen genre, etc.). These cannot and should
not be underplayed. Both writers, however, share a ancient mindset
which can bring together in close relation events distant in time and
can see inherent connections between historical events and cosmic
occurrences. That such connections appear odd and perplexing to us
serves only to underline how far removed our modern western world-
views are from ancient ones.40

39Many interpreters see a gap between 13:23 and 13:24; e.g., H. Anderson, The
Gospel of Mark (New Century Bible; London: Marshall, Morgan and Scott, 1976)
298; Hooker, Mark, 318; W.L. Lane, The Gospel According to Mark (NICNT;
Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1974) 474.
40I would like to thank Dr. Douglas Campbell of King’s College, London, for his
comments on an earlier draft of this article.