CHAPTER THREE GOG, MAGOG and the LATTER-DAY EMPEROR I Judaeo-Christian Eschatology Eschatology Provided Another Opening for Fabu

CHAPTER THREE

GOG, MAGOG AND THE LATTER-DAY EMPEROR

I

Judaeo-Christian Eschatology

Eschatology provided another opening for fabula in the historical world view of the Middle Ages, and a rather unusual one. Neither the ancient Greeks nor the Romans were greatly interested in the end of the world and the future portion of human history leading up to that end. Likewise, after the Middle Ages, the historians of the Renaissance period showed little taste for the final events lying veiled in the future. They even tended to avoid writing universal chronicles. Finally, from the seventeenth century onward, doomsday was definitely considered to fall outside the scope of history. By contrast, the concept of universal history was popular in the Middle Ages and frequently led medieval chroniclers to pursue their investigation as far as the end of the world. It is peculiar to the Judaeo-Christian tradition of late Antiquity that the apocalypse was almost from the start an integral part of the historical concept — a place it would hold trium• phantly throughout the Middle Ages in Jewish, Christian and Islamic literature. The development of apocalypticism is attributed to the Jews of a "Messianic" age straddling the birth of Christ by about three centuries on either side. Whether the first impulses were carried forward from the earlier Jewish tradition or borrowed from the Iranians is a question that need not concern us. There is, however, an important difference between the Jewish apocalyptic thinkers of the Messianic period and their Christian heirs in the Middle Ages. Medieval apocalypticism tended to be aligned to historical thinking and was generally receptive to the fabula aspects of medieval historiography, whereas the preceding Jewish apocalypticists were primarily gnostics, motivated by a thirst for universal knowledge rather than a pragmatic desire to GOG, MAGOG AND THE LATTER-DAY EMPEROR 119 connect specific events in the present and the past.1 Unlike the Old- Testament prophets, who had eagerly looked forward to a final and grandiose phase of Israel's national history, the Jewish apocalyptic writers inclined toward a gnostic dualism that defied linear chronology. The aeon of the final events was separated from the aeon of past and current events, not by any measure of time, but by a metaphysical space. The advent of Christianity reversed this development. In large measure the Christian apocalyptic writers effected a return to the pragmatism of prophecy. While eschatology is present in the canon of both the Jewish Bible and the Islamic Koran, it holds a privileged position in the Christian New Testament, mostly thanks to Matthew 24-25 and Revelation. Not only were the authors of the Christian Middle Ages always mindful of biblical precedent, they were also inspired by it to new flights of fancy. To begin with, however, the eschatological sections of the New Testament stimulated sound reasoning rather than wild speculation. Christ himself, according to Matthew's account, had used sober terms, when he instructed his disciples privately about the last times. Revelation, on the other hand, described the final days of the world and of time in breathtaking images and allegories. Initially, at least, they proved too powerful and compelling to invite imitation. So the medieval reader was challenged at first to comprehend that rich symbolism in terms of facts and events. No one could doubt that Revelation, fantastic as it seemed, was a factual account of future events; the Word of God could not be other than truthful. The eschatological sections of the New Testament could draw inspiration from the Old. The historical interpretation of eschatological mysteries must have been popular among the Jews of the Messianic period. It was greatly encouraged by the Book of Daniel (composed c.165 B.C.), the only major writing in the Jewish canon that is extensively eschatological. At the climax of the apocalyptic events, the role of the Messianic saviour is assigned to Michael, "one of the chief princes" and "the great captain." This Michael, who unlike the later Christian archangel is not as yet visibly endowed with metaphysical characteristics, must be taken to be a historical figure of the future. His intervention is preceded by other events at first described in terms of mysteries, but subsequently identified with the iniquitous rule of the

1 Apokalyptiky ed. Klaus Koch and Johann Michael Schmidt, Wege der Forschung vol. 365 (Darmstadt 1982) 2Iff. and passim. In general also Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End. Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (New York 1979).