*insert R.E.M. song title here*

With the end of the world quickly approaching, and all eyes turned to John Cusack to help us escape our crumbling cities, I thought it would be interesting to learn something about other predictions made concerning all things doomsday.


Saint Hippolytus of Rome

Hippolytus lived in the 3rd century, and is considered to be the first antipope (men who claimed to be the rightful papal successor in opposition to the elected pope). He was later reconciled to the Church, and died a martyr.

This eccentric saint did some nifty work with numbers to determine that the anti-Christ would come on the scene at 500 AD. The ingredients to his formula included the 6 days of creation (each supposed to equal one thousand years) and the dimensions of the Ark of the Covenant.

The turn of the millennium (version 1.0)

Remember all the fuss over Y2K? There was also a lot of panic centering around the calender for the year 1000. I guess it was for the simple reason that the first millennium was coming to an end; it seemed Biblically significant somehow. Things got worked up into quite a froth I take it, as some people unloaded all their earthly possessions (not wanting to try the camel through the eye of a needle trick), some stopped working, some despaired and committed suicide, and others roamed the countryside in bands of flagellants.

There is an account, written by Frederick Marten, of Pope Sylvester II holding one last mass for a huddled congregation in St. Peter's Basilica, Rome; though take it with more than a grain of salt since it was written hundreds of years after the occasion.

Though his face was pale as death with excitement, he did not move nor did his hands tremble. The midnight mass had been said, and a deathly silence fell. The audience waited. Pope Sylvester said not a word. He seemed lost in prayer, his hands raised to the sky. The clock kept on ticking. A long sigh came from the people, but nothing happened. Like children afraid of the dark, all those in the church lay with their faces to the ground, and did not venture to look up. The sweat of terror ran from many an icy brow, and knees and feet which had fallen asleep lost all feeling. Then, suddenly the clock stopped ticking! Among the congregation the beginning of a scream of terror began to form in many a throat. And, stricken dead by fear, several bodies dropped heavily on the stone floor.

 After the new year came and went, some revised the prediction to 1033 to account for the year of Jesus' death.

The Letter of Toledo

In 1184 a letter came to be widely circulated which forecast unimaginable destruction and terror beginning in September of 1186. The letter was supposed to have been written and sent by astrologers to Pope Clement III, and the evidence for the apocalypse was a conjunction of planets. The advice given to people who wished to increase their chances of survival was to abandon their homes and head for the mountains. When the dreaded day finally came and went there were, of course, some readjustments made to the prediction, but those failed to materialize as well.

Millerism and the Great Disappointment

William Miller was a farmer and Baptist preacher who had a particular interest in the prophesies found in the Book of Daniel. He concluded from his studies that the Second Coming of Christ was set to happen in his lifetime, somewhere between March 1843 and March 1844 (21 years after making the prediction). When March 1844 passed without event the math was revisited and a new date determined: October 22, 1844. Of course, that day passed as well, and disappointment spread throughout the Millerites. One poor chap wrote:

I waited all Tuesday [October 22] and dear Jesus did not come;– I waited all the forenoon of Wednesday, and was well in body as I ever was, but after 12 o’clock I began to feel faint, and before dark I needed someone to help me up to my chamber, as my natural strength was leaving me very fast, and I lay prostrate for 2 days without any pain– sick with disappointment

Nostradamus and the King of Terror

The year 1999, seventh month,
From the sky will come a great King of Terror.
To bring back to life the great King of the Mongols,
Before and after Mars to reign by good luck.

Pretty obscure stuff, and easy to retrofit, as has been done. The great thing about Nostradamus' predictions is that they are one size fits all. Still, the feeling I get from the language and from the date, being so close to the turn of the millennium, is that he had something in mind more unnerving than anything that actually happened in 1999. 

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I could go on and on, but I realized part way into this that my endurance was flagging. There are seemingly hundreds of prophecies like this; even Christopher Columbus and Isaac Newton took their turns (the former thought 1656 would see the world ended, and the latter thought 1948). I was looking forward to getting to Harold Camping, but after spending so much time reading about this stuff, I found the exercise to be more depressing than interesting. 

Now the 21st of December approaches and the world is going to end because an ancient civilization's calender turns over. You may have heard about Nibiru, a lost planet supposedly discovered by ancient Sumerians. It is heading right for us, apparently, and the American and Russian governments are keeping the truth from us. Of course, somehow it gets forgotten that government agencies are not the only ones capable are scanning the night sky, that amateur astronomers are able to detect supernovae and even planets outside of our solar system. But, anyway, what is most interesting about Nibiru is that it was supposed to impact us in 2003, and then the prediction was revised and tied in with the Mayan's calender. And if I learned anything from this it is that revised predictions are no more successful than the original. 

Godspeed, Cusack, Godspeed: