La figura del profeta Elia nei testi apocrifi

Abstract

The representations that portray Elijah as a main actor generally concern the most famous episodes of his life: the sacrifice on Mount Carmel, the appearance of the cloud that announces the end of the drought, the encounter with the angel in the desert, the visit to the widow of Zarephath, the ascension in the fiery chariot. Rarely have artists focused on the fight that the prophet, along with Enoch, will  have to have with the Antichrist in the last days of human civilization before the Last Judgment. The few examples known to us of  works on this subject are in debt of course first of all to the Apocalypse of St. John. However, there are also other texts related to the  apocryphal apocalyptic literature, from which artists and patrons may have drawn information and suggestions. This study aims to  review the main apocryphal literary sources in an attempt to contextualize these particular iconographic subjects within the vast and  varied corpus of traditions linked to the prophet Elijah.