This paper analyses the prophetic methodology and symbolic structure of Nostradamus’s Les Prophéties, focusing on the interrelationship between inspiration, astrology, and poetic expression. Taking as its point of departure the “two principal causes” (astrology and spiritual revelation) stated by Nostradamus himself in the Preface, it demonstrates that his prophecies were constructed not as mere oracular utterances born of divine frenzy, nor as purely astrological forecasts, but as a poetic synthesis of both. In particular, through an examination of the nature of inspiration grounded in the melancholic temperament and its critical reception, its relation to the Delphic oracle and sixteenth-century occultism, and the poetic reconstructions found in Centuries I, quatrains 1 and 2, the study elucidates how Nostradamus transformed the will of God into words. Furthermore, it interprets the often-debated date “the year 3797,” cited as the “limit” of prophecy, not as a simple chronological designation but as a symbolic marker rooted in a cyclical conception of time. By focusing on the intersection of the sixteenth-century worldview and prophecy as symbolic poetry, this paper offers a reappraisal of the poetic and theological order constructed in Nostradamus’s prophetic verse. 

§1. Introduction: Inspiration and Astrology in the Prophecies of Nostradamus 

§2. Divine Inspiration and the Melancholic Temperament: The Mediation of Astrology and Prophecy

§3. Oracular Structure in the Quatrains: Sources and Symbolic Reconfiguration of Prophecy

§4. Temporal Structure and the Symbolic Limit in Prophecy

§5. Reference

Report:re_L0017e, 2025/08/06　Full Text Access End :2025/09/06

Reference:

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