What does “Elijah is coming” mean in Ulysses?
“Elijah is coming” is the headline of a religious flyer, a “throwaway”, handed to Bloom in Episode 8. He crumples it and throws it into the Liffey, and it floats through Wandering Rocks. In Circe, Elijah himself appears. In the Bible, the prophet's return announces the end of the world.
Edited by Aidan O'Leary · Last updated 30 October 2026
Where it appears
Several episodes. The flyer Bloom reads on O'Connell Street.
Elijah is coming. Dr John Alexander Dowie restorer of the church in Zion is coming.
What it means in plain English
Dowie was a real American evangelist. Bloom thinks it is a “paying game”.
The floating flyer marks time and place across the city in Wandering Rocks.
Literary context
In Cyclops, Bloom is carried up to heaven like Elijah in a chariot.
References
- Ulysses, Episodes 8, 10, 12 and 15
- 2 Kings 2; Malachi 4:5
- Don Gifford with Robert J. Seidman, Ulysses Annotated (revised edition, 1988)
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Questions readers ask
Who was Dowie?
John Alexander Dowie, a faith healer who founded Zion, Illinois.
Related terms
Throwaway
Throwaway is the outsider horse that wins the Ascot Gold Cup on 16 June 1904, at 20 to 1. Bloom innocently tells Bantam Lyons he was going to “throw away” his newspaper; Lyons takes it as a tip. When Throwaway wins, the pub assumes Bloom won money and is hiding it.
Father Conmee
Father John Conmee is a real Jesuit priest, superior of the Jesuit house on Gardiner Street in 1904. Episode 10 opens with him setting out to walk to Artane, greeting parishioners, noticing everything and thinking pleasant, worldly thoughts.
Agendath Netaim
Agendath Netaim was a planters' company advertising plots of land in Ottoman Palestine to be planted with orange groves and olives. Bloom reads its leaflet in the butcher's shop in Episode 4. It stirs dreams of a Jewish homeland, then a vision of a dead land.