Raptus

The Latin Raptus has some specific meanings not fully captured by its English equivalent "rapture", which currently has accrued among certain Christian millennarian sects additional connotations of End Times transport of redeemed Christians, which are treated at Rapture.

Raptus has two connotations derived from its classical origins, one spiritual and poetical, the inspired vision granted to a prophet (Ezekiel, Daniel) or to a poet stemming from his invocation of the Muses (Hesiod, Virgil) or in apocalyptic literature to a writer combining both natures, such as the author of Revelationthe other possessive and physical (raptus virginum Sabinarum). As the Sabine virgins were raped and abducted so the poet was abducted by the source of his inspiration transported. This article treats both senses.

Spiritual and rhetorical raptus

The sense of ecstasy transport, or exaltation that are described in modern days as an out-of-body experience, and the trance that medical usage has adopted to describe epileptic seizures were described by classical poets and analyzed by the literary critic we call Longinus in his essay On the Sublime.

Raptus as abduction

In social life and reflected in the Roman law, the Roman concept of raptus was quite different from the modern definition of rape. In Rome, raptus meant "carrying off by force;" it was a crime of property and included thefts of all kinds. If violence was at times a necessary component of this crime, sexual intercourse was not. So the "rapes" of mythology, which art historian Susan Brownmiller denotes "heroic rapes", are better translated as "abductions" and the abductee as a form of cultural property.