The Last Judgment
(Note: This is part 3 of a 4-part articles series: Read Part 1: Failed Predictions of Jesus' Second Coming: The Early Christian Thessalonians in End-Time Excitement
Read Part 2: Failed Predictions of Jesus Christ's Second Coming: Montanists and the Ecumenical Council (100-1000 A.D.) )
After the widespread Judgment Day hysteria towards the end of the first millennium A.D. in Europe, the second period of great social turmoil was in the 1300s when the Black Death hit Europe from the East. It would be impossible to express in words the massive panic that spread through Europe while the Black Death swept across the continent in waves during the 1300s and 1400s killing close to 40% of the entire population. If any incident of disease plague in history would be identified with one of the apocalyptic horsemen of the Book of Revelation it was the Black Death that struck Europe in the 1300s.
Whole families, whole villages and towns were wiped out and, in panic, people dispersed to the countryside in the hope of escaping the epidemic, but only succeeded in spreading it over even wider areas. Parents abandoned their sick children in the fear of contagion, likewise children their parents. The cemeteries soon ran out of space. Shallow mass graves were dug and half-decomposed corpses dumped hastily, and soon nobody even bothered. Rather, bodies would be left where they had fallen while everyone scrambled to flee to areas considered free of the epidemic; but death followed close at the heels of the fleeing masses.
Prophets of doom flourished in the confusion. First, it was the Jews, Europe's favorite scape-goats, who had maliciously poisoned the wells, then it was the witches, the second favorite scape-goats in medieval Europe; then finally, it became understood that God was punishing the people for their sins. Flagellant brotherhoods took on a new life, swelled rapidly in membership as repentant people aspired to new heights in the art of religious self-mortification. Many were flogged to death in excessive penitent zeal, others roamed the countryside distractedly, naked in cold weather and many froze to death over cold winter nights. Others borrowing their methodology from the prophet Ezekiel lay on a side of their bodies on sharp stones for days till their skins went gangrenous. And when all failed to appease the wrath of God in heaven, Judgment Day prophets began setting dates for the end of the world: 1346, 1347,1348,1360,1365, 1387, 1396, 1400, 1417, 1418…nobody asked why the date continued shifting.
Soon after the Black Death ended in 1502, Christopher Columbus, basing his mathematical calculations on St. Augustine's popular opinion that the end of the world will come in the seventh millennium after creation, and citing the concurrence of famous and authoritative theologians like Cardinal Pierre d'Ally, set the end of the world at 1657. Then came also Nostradamus, a medical practitioner from St. Remy, France (born 1503) who abandoned his medical profession to become chief astrologer to the superstitious Catherine de Medici. He predicted the world's end for the year 1999 A.D.: "In the year 1999 and seven months, from the sky will come the great king of Terror…"
Though Nostradamus was an astrologer rather than a Christian Millennialist, many, including Christians, take his predictions seriously and claim that he correctly foretold great events in history, like the great fire of London, Hitler, the assassination of Kennedy and the two world wars.
Read Part 4: Failed Predictions of Jesus' Coming: Seventh Day Adventists and the Jehovah's Witnesses
JohnThomas Didymus is the author of "Confessions of God: The Gospel According to St. JohnThomas Didymus" (Read a Free Three Chapters Excerpt)
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