June 26: The magic numbers 1260 and 1335 (or, a time, times, and half a time)

Benedictus Aretius was a sixteenth-century logician and theologian in Bern, Switzerland. Reasoning that Jesus' Second Coming would fall 1260 years after Constantine the Great's establishment of Christianity as the state religion of Rome, he speculated that 1572 would be the final year of earthly history. (This may sound arbitrary, and it is, but a duration of 1260 days - often interpreted "spiritually" as years - is a number that was given prominence in the Book of Daniel.)

Aretius himself lived to publish his principal work, "Problems of Theology", in 1573, and died the year following.


Kitten Week continues at Today's Date in Apocalypse History with this picture of a plump one with a strange gait:

Post-Script: A conversation in the facebook comments, about the apocalyptic meaning of the number 1260, led to this pedantic (but informative!) blurt --

 

Daniel 12 says that "A time, times, and half a time" - also 1290 days, it says - and 1335 days - indeed, it says that all three of these lengths of time - are the length of time that will elapse after the "Abomination of Desolation" is set up in the temple in Jerusalem. Thereupon a whole series of apocalyptic things happens, including the coming of the son of man (a phrase eagerly attached to Jesus by early Christians to connect him with Hebrew prophecies).
 
Great. But what in the world does any of that mean?

Back up. The Book of Daniel purports to have been written while Nebuchadnezzar and his Babylonian Empire had conquered Israel (beginning 582 BCE). Actually the book was written a couple hundred years later, after the Babylonians had been conquered by the Persians and the Persians had been conquered by Alexander the Great. Why the anachronistic misdirection? You might compare it to the way American slaves used the Exodus story to speak in code about their struggle for freedom. Similarly, while the Jews were oppressed by the Greek kings Alexander left behind, they projected their stories backward onto an earlier oppressor in order to be discreet and spare their skins. (We see the same thing in Revelation, where John keeps talking about Babylon whenever he means the Roman Empire. John borrows a lot more than that from Daniel, too, but it's another story.)

Anyway, the bad thing those Greek kings after Alexander were doing, was forcibly Hellenizing Jews in Jerusalem, requiring breaking of dietary laws, sabbath work, and so on. Worst of all, they put up a statue of Zeus in the Temple - and this is the thing referred to in veiled language in Daniel as "the Abomination of Desolation" (you know, like, an abomination that causes God to desolate or abandon us). So: the apocalyptic prediction in Daniel is that after this Hellenic defilement of the temple, the end was going to be coming in - "a time, times, and half a time", which most interpreters agree was a weird way of saying three and a half years. (It's from here that you get the commonplace that the reign of the Antichrist on Earth will last three and a half years.)

Now if you reckon three and a half years by the solar calendar, you can arrive at 1290 days; if by adding it up as 42 months, 1335 days. Why Daniel wants to pass on that 45-day discrepancy to us, by calling out these durations separately, is hard to know. Some early Christian commentators called the difference between the two "the refreshment of the saints", a kind of a mid-apocalypse respite where the resurrected faithful get to enjoy a nice time on the Earth again. But in any case, the numbers 1290 and 1335, whether counted as years or as days, have given date-setting apocalypse hounds plenty to work with in pointing to any square on the calendar that they like.

June 25: The Omen

On this day in 1976, the original film version of "The Omen" was released to theaters, which depicted the birth and childhood of the Antichrist.


And it's now Kitten Week at Today's Date in Apocalypse History, so here is a picture of three kittens:

June 24: A Very Impressive Table from Bernard McGinn's Book "Antichrist"

June 23: A Socialite Keeps a Spare Horse for Jesus - And, No, We're Not *That* Japanese Apocalyptic Group

Lady Hester Stanhope died on this date in 1839. An English orientalist, she moved to Lebanon in 1810 in order to be nearby as Christ returned, whom she had been told by a fortune teller that she would marry. Throughout her life, Lady Stanhope maintained an extra horse in her stable for the Messiah to use whenever he arrived.

The Comte Saint-Simon (see May 19) proposed to Stanhope so that they could jointly reign as a Messianic married couple. Apparently she didn't think he had what it took to be Messiah, and turned him down. In her earlier years before moving to the middle east, Stanhope was a prominent socialite, often entertaining for her uncle, the prime minister of England.


***

On June 23, 1978, Sukyo Mahikari was registered in Japan as a religion. Currently boasting one million members, the religion teaches the primacy of Japanese culture, and the achievement of peace through the use of light energy. While denying charges of anti-semitism and connections with the terroristic group Aum Shinrikyo, the group announced in 2000 that, "mankind might be annihilated by the baptism of fire."


***

And lastly, today is the start of Kitten Week here at Today's Date in Apocalypse History, so here is a picture of a kitten:

 

June 22: The Second-Longest Apocalypse

Queen Elizabeth I assumed the throne of England on June 22, 1558. This was not apocalyptic. But as the inauguration of the Elizabethan era, today's date is the best one available to note an anonymous pamphlet widely circulated around that time: "On the Ende of This World and the Second Coming of Christ: A Comfortable and Most Necessarie Discourse for These Miserable and Dangerous Dayes".

A distinguishing feature of this publication is the fact that it has the second-longest title of any doomsday tract (at least known of by me - see June 12 for the other one).

June 21: Why won't the Messiah leave London's Pakistani Community?

Share International is a new-age movement founded by the Glasgow-born mystic Benjamin Creme. Creme's group announced that the the Maitreya, or World Teacher, or Messiah - who had been living in London's Pakistani community since 1977 - would reveal himself publicly on this date in 1982. The announcement was made a few weeks in advance by ads placed in 17 major world newspapers announcing, "The Christ is now here!"

Creme believes that Maitreya - an eternal teacher/savior drawn from Buddhist and Theosophical ideas - is the spiritual essence which entered Jesus 2000 years ago, and retreated afterward to an abode in the Himalayas. Maitreya, who is a normal but apparently immortal man, descended from the Himalayas in 1977 to take an airplane to England, where he has been living in the Brick Lane neighborhood of London ever since.

In the 1982 ad, Creme claimed Maitreya would reveal himself on international television on June 21. In the 30 years since that date, Creme has since proposed in the course of 14 books and through Share International's magazine that the Maitreya - still living with London's Pakistainis - would reveal himself in 1997, and then 2010. Creme actually claimed Maitreya had granted a U.S. television interview in January 2010, but declined to reveal just which interview or interviewee this had been.

Proof that Maitreya truly is in London includes the prevalence of crop circles near him in England - as well as the worldwide fall of Communism, for which Maitreya was responsible.

Share International has offices in London, Amsterdam, Tokyo, and Los Angeles.

June 19: Heads up!

On June 19, 2004, the asteroid 99942 Apophis was discovered. At first it appeared that this body’s orbit through the solar system could bring it into collision with Earth in 2029. Happily, further observations have ruled this out. The asteroid’s January 9, 2013 flyby will allow even more precise calculations of its future “orbital resonance” with Earth.

June 18: Lacunza en barranca

On June 18, 1801, the Jesuit priest Manuel Lacunza was found dead in a ditch near Bologna, where he had lived in exile since the 1767 expulsion of the Jesuits from the Spanish Empire (Lacunza was born, educated, and ordained in Chile). He had lived in reclusive study for years, and was presumed to have died of natural causes while on a walk.

Lacunza had completed a book titled The Coming of the Messiah in Glory and Majesty, which was widely printed in Spain, France, England, and Mexico after his death despite being placed on the Index of Prohibited Books. Lacunza's book claimed that Church corruption and apostasy would lead to the Second Coming.

June 15: Wat Tyler's Rebellion

On June 15, 1381, Wat Tyler's Rebellion ended in England when Tyler was suddenly killed by King Richard II's advisers during a field parley between their two standing armies. Although Tyler's peasant uprising was tens of thousands strong, the unexpected death of their leader sent the untrained men into a rout.

In the months that had led up to the standoff, Tyler's rabble was likened to the apocalyptic forces of Gog and Magog from Ezekiel and Revelation. Among the many who denounced the marchers as agents of the Antichrist was Geoffrey Chaucer's friend and fellow poet John Gower.

The uprising's main grievance had been against a regressive poll tax.

June 13: A Matched Pair of Antichrists: and Liquor, Quintessential Cure-All

Alchemist and Spiritual Franciscan Jean de Roquetaillade (AKA John of Rupescissa) died sometime in 1366. His Handbook in Tribulation predicted that a pair of Antichrists would emerge in the east and west in 1365 and 70, punishing the world for the sins of the Church in preparation for an earthly Millennium.

The dualism in John’s prediction could have reflected tensions in the Church between Rome and France. For
most of the 14^th century the papacy was under the control of a succession of French popes, and had been removed from the Vatican to Avignon. Indeed, in 1378 – not so long after the time John predicted for two Antichrists – the Papal Schism began, in which competing popes claimed legitimacy from both cities. (The schism finally ended in 1417 with the permanent return of the papacy to Rome.) John himself lived at Avignon from 1349, after going there to plead his case before Pope Clement VI after a period of imprisonment for the strenuousness of his attacks against Church abuses. It was there that he did most of his writing, including the Handbook in Tribulation.

John’s work in alchemy led him to the first distillation of a pure solute of ethanol, which he termed aqua vitae or quinta essential, and touted as a panacea.

June 12: A Very, Very Long Judgment Day

Christian author Arthur E. Ware published, in 1930, the very lengthily-titled The hour of Translation: A Declaration from the Word of God Proving from the State of Things Amongst Men that the Translation of the Redeemed of Earth Composing the True Church of Jesus Christ, Our Lord, is Immediately Imminent.

In keeping with his predictions in the book, Ware affirmed that the Tribulation would begin on May 12, 1933 in an interview a week before that date with the London Daily Express.

June 10: Beasts of the land and sea, and Wigglesworth's "Doom"

--In 1329, "Spiritual Franciscan" Ubertino da Casale died. His 1305 "Tree of the Crucified Life of Jesus" claimed that the "beasts of the land and sea" in Revelation were Popes Boniface VIII and Benedict XI.

--In 1705, Michael Wigglesworth died. His 1662 poem "The Day of Doom, or a Poetical Description of the Great and Last Judgment - a Doggerel Epitome of Calvinistic Theology", was an enormous hit in Puritan New England, selling thousands of copies and going on to be widely memorized by children alongside catechism.

June 9: The Beast 666 Identified; A Talking Head Misspeaks

The Emperor Nero died today in 68 CE, by suicide, while fleeing from conspirators. He could not bring himself to perform the act, and ordered a servant to handle the knife. Nero, beyond any reasonable doubt, truly was "the Beast 666" of the Book of Revelation, as referred to in code.

That code is gematria, a kabbalistic study in which words are understood for their numeric value (in Hebrew, the letters of the alphabet double as numbers). The Hebrew transliteration nrwn qsr, or NERON CAESAR, adds to 666 (note that Hebrew also contains no vowels). The second "N" in NERON is an acceptable but unnecessary part of the styling, and this lends further solidity to the case that Nero was "the Beast" - since early, variant texts of Revelation also gave 616 as the number of the beast (the letter "nun" in Hebrew gematria is also the number 50).

No Roman sources mention Jesus or Christianity in any way until around 115 CE. But around that time (115 CE), Tacitus' Histories stated that Nero had blamed Christians for the great fire in Rome in 64. Although it's believed Nero may have had the fire set himself to make room for an extension of his palace, it was Christians who were tortured and executed as punishment for the destruction. Thus, as the first Roman Emperor known to persecute Christians, Nero made his way into the allegorically coded anti-Roman tract known as the Revelation of John of Patmos.

--In 1994, John Hinkle predicted on the Trinity Broadcasting Network that a shattering cataclysm, perhaps a tsunami, would originate in the Pacific Ocean on this date.

June 8: Mohammed, George Sand's Hussite novel

Two dates:

The prophet Mohammed died on this date in 632 CE. A misbelief circulating in Europe - propagated by an unnamed Spanish mystic - held that Mohammed had died in 666. From this it was inferred that he had been the Antichrist, and his passing from earth spelled the imminent return of Christ.

George Sand - the literary pseudonym of Amantine Dupin - died this day in 1876. Messianic themes, mingled with proto-Communist sympathies, appeared in her novels "Consuelo" (1842) and its sequel "The Countess of Rudolstadt", both about the Hussite wars (see May 30, also July 6 forthcoming).

June 6: K/T and 6/6/6

Two dates for June 6:

--In 1980, "Science" Magazine published a paper called "Extraterrestrial Cause for the Cretaceous-Tertiary Extinction" by Luis and Walter Alvarez. Through analysis of worldwide iridium deposits, they identified the Chicxulub asteroid impact in the Gulf of Mexico 65 million years ago as the cause of the Cretaceous-Tertiary ("K/T") extinction event - in which 75% of all living species were lost over the following 10,000 years.

--In 2006, a remake of the film "The Omen" was released, originally written by David Seltzer in 1976 about the birth and childhood of the Antichrist. The date could be styled 6/6/6, but this was a day that perhaps occasioned less apocalyptic nervousness than it did marketing opportunism.

A new Slayer album originally scheduled for release on this same date was delayed.

June 5: Gullible Gipper

Ronald Reagan died on this date in 2004. Though he made a number of remarks during his career suggesting a millennialist outlook, perhaps Reagan's clearest was at a Sacramento fundraising dinner in September 1971. He was quoted saying: "Armageddon isn't far off. Everything's falling into place. It can't be long now."

June 4: An insane asylum is not enough to hold back doomsday

Richard Brothers was a London preacher who convinced a substantial part of the population that cataclysms would wrack the world on June 4, 1795, destroying the city in the process. Nervous authorities tried to squelch public hysteria by imprisoning Brothers in an insane asylum. When the date arrived, large crowds nonetheless fled to the countryside seeking safety.

June 3: Pope John XXIII and UFOs

In 1961, a report circulated that Pope John XXIII had been having visions of doomsday - beginning with Libyan nuclear terrorism in a European city, continuing with visitations by UFOs made of flaming steel, and concluding with Christ's reappearance over New York in the year 2000.

The truth of the report was denied by the Vatican. Pope John XXIII died on this date in 1963.

June 1: Justin Martyr, the Beguines, and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

Three dates of note for the first day of June:

--Today is the feast date of the early church father Justin Martyr, beheaded by the urban prefect in Rome in 165. Justin stressed the link between Daniel's prophecies and Christianity by identifying "the son of man" (Daniel 7) with Jesus. Justin was also an early proponent of the largely extra-Biblical concept of the Antichrist.

--Marguerite Porete was burned at the stake in Paris this day in 1310. A member of the persecuted lay order of Beguines, her mystical book "Mirror of the Simple Soul" was condemned for heresy. Preferring a direct, personal relationship with God, elements of the Beguine movement had identified the organized church with Antichrist. However, there may also have been a political dimension to Porete's persecution, occurring four years before Philip The Fair of France would also burn key members of the Knights Templar at the stake in Paris.

--The "Doomsday Clock" was introduced this month in 1947 by the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists. The clock symbolizes the immanency of nuclear disaster by a minute-hand's proximity to midnight. Over time the count has ranged from 17 minutes (1991) to 2 (1953). The current Executive Director of the "Bulletin", Kennette Benedict, has claimed the current odds of an act of nuclear terrorism occurring in the next 15 years are at least 50%.

May 31: Eliphas Levi

Eliphas Levi, writing under his birth name of Alphonse-Louis Constant, published "The Bible of Liberty" in France in 1848. In it he appraised the Book of Revelation through a triumphal lens of utopian socialism, seeing its predictions of a Second Coming and New Jerusalem as having a political dimension, as well as spiritual. The book was considered radical, and resulted in a brief prison sentence.

Later, under the Hebraicized moniker "Eliphas Levi", Constant went on to focus more on Kabbalah, the occult, and Satanism. He died this day in 1875.