''vāticinium ex ēventū'' (, "prophecy from the event") or ''post eventum'' ("after the event") is a technical
theological
Theology is the systematic study of the nature of the divine and, more broadly, of religious belief. It is taught as an academic discipline, typically in universities and seminaries. It occupies itself with the unique content of analyzing th ...
or
historiographical term referring to a
prophecy
In religion, a prophecy is a message that has been communicated to a person (typically called a '' prophet'') by a supernatural entity. Prophecies are a feature of many cultures and belief systems and usually contain divine will or law, or pre ...
written after the author already had information about the events being "foretold". The text is written so as to appear that the prophecy had taken place before the event, when in fact it was written after the events supposedly predicted. ''Vaticinium ex eventu'' is a form of
hindsight bias. The concept is similar to
postdiction
Postdiction involves explanation after the fact.
In skepticism, it is considered an effect of hindsight bias that explains claimed predictions of significant events such as plane crashes and natural disasters. In religious contexts, theologian ...
.
Examples
In religious writings
The Babylonian "
Marduk
Marduk (Cuneiform: dAMAR.UTU; Sumerian: ''amar utu.k'' "calf of the sun; solar calf"; ) was a god from ancient Mesopotamia and patron deity of the city of Babylon. When Babylon became the political center of the Euphrates valley in the time o ...
Prophecy", a text describing the travels of the Marduk idol from
Babylon, "prophesies" of the statue’s seizure during the sack of the city by
Mursilis I in 1531 BC,
Assyria
Assyria (Neo-Assyrian cuneiform: , romanized: ''māt Aššur''; syc, ܐܬܘܪ, ʾāthor) was a major ancient Mesopotamian civilization which existed as a city-state at times controlling regional territories in the indigenous lands of the As ...
, when
Tukulti-Ninurta I overthrew
Kashtiliash IV
Kaštiliašu IV was the twenty-eighth Kassite king of Babylon and the kingdom contemporarily known as Kar-Duniaš, c. 1232–1225 BC (short chronology). He succeeded Šagarakti-Šuriaš, who could have been his father, ruled for eight years,King ...
in 1225 BC and took the idol to
Assur
Aššur (; Sumerian: AN.ŠAR2KI, Assyrian cuneiform: ''Aš-šurKI'', "City of God Aššur"; syr, ܐܫܘܪ ''Āšūr''; Old Persian ''Aθur'', fa, آشور: ''Āšūr''; he, אַשּׁוּר, ', ar, اشور), also known as Ashur and Qal'at ...
, and
Elam, when
Kudur-Nahhunte ransacked the city and pilfered the statue around 1160 BC. A copy was found in the House of the Exorcist at Assur, whose contents date from 713–612 BC and is closely related thematically to another ''vaticinium ex eventu'' text called the Shulgi prophecy, which probably followed it in a sequence of tablets. Both compositions present a favorable view of Assyria.
The
Book of Daniel
The Book of Daniel is a 2nd-century BC biblical apocalypse with a 6th century BC setting. Ostensibly "an account of the activities and visions of Daniel, a noble Jew exiled at Babylon", it combines a prophecy of history with an eschatology ...
utilizes ''vaticinium ex eventu'', by its seeming foreknowledge of events from Alexander's conquest up to the persecution of Antiochus IV in the summer of 164 BCE. The stories of the first half are legendary in origin, and the visions of the second the product of anonymous authors in the
Maccabean
The Maccabees (), also spelled Machabees ( he, מַכַּבִּים, or , ; la, Machabaei or ; grc, Μακκαβαῖοι, ), were a group of Jewish rebel warriors who took control of Judea, which at the time was part of the Seleucid Empire ...
period (2nd century BCE). Its inclusion in
Ketuvim (Writings) rather than
Nevi'im
Nevi'im (; he, נְבִיאִים ''Nəvīʾīm'', Tiberian: ''Năḇīʾīm,'' "Prophets", literally "spokespersons") is the second major division of the Hebrew Bible (the '' Tanakh''), lying between the Torah (instruction) and Ketuvim (w ...
(Prophets) was likely because it appeared after the canon for those books had closed, and the dominant view among Jews and scholars is that Daniel is not in any case a prophetic book but an
apocalypse
Apocalypse () is a literary genre in which a supernatural being reveals cosmic mysteries or the future to a human intermediary. The means of mediation include dreams, visions and heavenly journeys, and they typically feature symbolic imager ...
.
Statements attributed to
Jesus
Jesus, likely from he, יֵשׁוּעַ, translit=Yēšūaʿ, label=Hebrew/Aramaic ( AD 30 or 33), also referred to as Jesus Christ or Jesus of Nazareth (among other names and titles), was a first-century Jewish preacher and religiou ...
in the
Gospels that foretell the destruction of Jerusalem (e.g., Mark 13:14, Luke 21:20) and its temple are considered to be examples of ''vaticinia ex eventu'' by the great majority of
Biblical scholars
Biblical studies is the academic application of a set of diverse academic discipline, disciplines to the study of the Bible (the Old Testament and New Testament).''Introduction to Biblical Studies, Second Edition'' by Steve Moyise (Oct 27, 2004 ...
(with regard to
the siege of Jerusalem in AD 70, in which the
Second Temple was destroyed).
However, there are some scholars who only see the verses from Luke as constituting a ''vaticinium ex eventu'' (and those of Mark not),
while a few even go as far as to deny that the verses from Luke refer to the destruction of the temple in AD 70.
Secular
*The Ancient world saw the technique of ''vaticinium ex eventu'' used by a wide variety of figures, from
Pindar
Pindar (; grc-gre, Πίνδαρος , ; la, Pindarus; ) was an Ancient Greek lyric poet from Thebes. Of the canonical nine lyric poets of ancient Greece, his work is the best preserved. Quintilian wrote, "Of the nine lyric poets, Pindar i ...
and
Herodotus
Herodotus ( ; grc, , }; BC) was an ancient Greek historian and geographer from the Greek city of Halicarnassus, part of the Persian Empire (now Bodrum, Turkey) and a later citizen of Thurii in modern Calabria ( Italy). He is known for ...
to
Horace
Quintus Horatius Flaccus (; 8 December 65 – 27 November 8 BC), known in the English-speaking world as Horace (), was the leading Roman lyric poet during the time of Augustus (also known as Octavian). The rhetorician Quintilian regarded his ...
and
Virgil
Publius Vergilius Maro (; traditional dates 15 October 7021 September 19 BC), usually called Virgil or Vergil ( ) in English, was an ancient Roman poet of the Augustan period. He composed three of the most famous poems in Latin literature: t ...
.
*The ''
Divine Comedy
The ''Divine Comedy'' ( it, Divina Commedia ) is an Italian narrative poem by Dante Alighieri, begun 1308 and completed in around 1321, shortly before the author's death. It is widely considered the pre-eminent work in Italian literature a ...
'' by
Dante Alighieri
Dante Alighieri (; – 14 September 1321), probably baptized Durante di Alighiero degli Alighieri and often referred to as Dante (, ), was an Italian poet, writer and philosopher. His '' Divine Comedy'', originally called (modern Italian: ...
includes a number of such prophecies of Dante's own exile from Florence.
*In ''
Jerusalem Delivered'',
Torquato Tasso
Torquato Tasso ( , also , ; 11 March 154425 April 1595) was an Italian poet of the 16th century, known for his 1591 poem ''Gerusalemme liberata'' ( Jerusalem Delivered), in which he depicts a highly imaginative version of the combats between ...
uses the ''vaticinium ex eventu'' trope in presaging the discovery of America by
Christopher Columbus
Christopher Columbus
* lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo
* es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón
* pt, Cristóvão Colombo
* ca, Cristòfor (or )
* la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...
: "Un uom de la Liguria avrà ardimento / a l'incognito corso esporsi in prima"
*References in the late correspondence of
Virginia Woolf to "how I love this savage medieval water
..and myself so eliminated" are sometimes taken as presaging her suicide by drowning a few months later: the danger of ''vaticinium ex eventu'' has however also been observed.
[Olivia Laing, ''To the River'' (2011) pp. 195-8]
See also
Notes
References
''Vaticinium ex eventu'' (or ''post eventum'')Dictionary of the Bible
* {{Cite book
, last = Collins
, first = John J.
, author-link = John J. Collins
, chapter = Current Issues in the Study of Daniel
, editor1-last = Collins
, editor1-first = John J.
, editor2-last = Flint
, editor2-first = Peter W.
, editor3-last = VanEpps
, editor3-first = Cameron
, title = The Book of Daniel: Composition and Reception
, year = 2002
, publisher = BRILL
, chapter-url = https://books.google.com/books?id=oAVPfTe_wkYC&pg=PA2
, isbn = 978-9004116757
Prophecy
Latin religious words and phrases
Cognitive biases
Biblical criticism
Historicity of the Bible