conflagratio

The noun conflagratio , firstly attested in the third book of Seneca’s Naturales quaestiones , is sometimes used as a synonym for incendium ; however, it evokes more frequently the universal conflagration, a process which – in the Stoic perspective – ends a cosmic cycle and initiates palingenesis. Christian authors use this image in relation to the events that will occur during the Last Judgement. Moreover, it is often associated with the memory of the biblical flood ( diluuium ), which, as both a source of destruction and renewal, serves as the only possible comparison for the awaited conflagratio .