7/09/2012

July 9: Geronimo Mendieta, and the concept of the "Last World Emperor"

Geronimo de Mendieta died on July 9, 1604. He was a Franciscan missionary, working in Mexico and South America, who believed that native Americans were the lost tribes of Israel and that King Philip II of Spain was the "Last World Emperor".

The concept of a Last World Emperor may be unfamiliar today, but it was a popular notion dating to the early Middle Ages (its first use has been traced to the 7th-century "Apocalypse of Pseudo-Methodius"). Although a normal human, the Last World Emperor was expected to reunite the Roman Empire and oppose the rising forces of Satan on Earth. These events would prepare for the appearance of the Antichrist and his defeat by the returned Jesus.