Kings from the Sun: Usages of an Eastern title in the Sibylline Oracles and related material

Abstract

The title “King from the Sun”—in the sense of a deliverance royal figure that will come from the Sun—appears repeatedly within apocalyptic literature throughout varied historic periods, albeit in slightly different depictions. We shall consider for this analysis how coming “from the Sun” and “from the East” are not synonymous and how the personalities, so to speak, of these anointed kings in the sources differ from one another. The present article examines and compares the usage and significance of the title in the Sibylline Oracles (Sib. Or. 3.652-656 and Sib. Or. 13.147-171) and in other oracular texts from the Hellenistic and the Roman periods (the Oracle of the Potter, which is Egyptian and Apoc. El. (C) 2.44-46, which is not a Sib. Or. passage). This parallel is drawn not only due to the fact that we are dealing with different primary materials, but also because in each case a different referent is intended—the “King from the Sun” is a different savior in each of the texts examined.