The Woman in the Wilderness the Further Development of Christian Apocalypticism

1 The Woman in the Wilderness The Further Development of Christian Apocalypticism I am the Alpha and Omega, the first and the last, the beginning and the end. — The Revelation of John, 22:13 Pope Urban II stood before an extraordinary assemblage of high Church officials and French nobles at Clermont in 1095 to implore them to come to the aid of Constantinople, beleaguered by a Seljuk Turkish army, and then liberate the holy city of Jerusalem from Muslim rule. “[A] race from the kingdom of the Persians, an accursed race, a race wholly alienated from God” has long occupied the spiritual seat of Christendom, slaughtering God’s chil- dren “by pillage and fire,” he reminded them in stark, ominous tones. They have taken many survivors into doleful slavery “into their own country” and “have either destroyed the churches of God or appropriated them for the rites of their own religion.” In language that was pointedly both apocalyptic and millenarian, Urban rallied the French nobles, who reportedly cried out, “God wills it! God wills it” as he promised that the Christian recovery of Jerusalem would mark the advent of the Millennium. While the French nobility was likely more motivated by the prospect of conquering “a land flowing with milk and honey,” commoners and peasants throughout Western Europe took the eschatological significance of what became the First Crusade to their hearts. With bloodthirsty zeal the crusading armies harried and massacred Rhineland German Jews on their way to Constantinople in 1096, some of the Christians doubtless taking literally the prediction in Revelation 19 that all who did not follow Christ would be “slain by the sword.” This notion further inspired them in the war against the Muslim population of Palestine as they carved out the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem by 1099, and embarked upon subsequent crusades that have come to characterize the history of medieval A Dream of the Judgment Day. John Howard Smith, Oxford University Press (2021). © Oxford University Press. DOI: 10.1093/ oso/ 9780197533741.003.0002 The Woman in the Wilderness 13 Europe. The laity, and not a few of the nobility, believed that their endeavors had been predicted in the Book of Revelation, and would inaugurate the Millennium and Christ’s second coming.1 Medieval and early modern Christianity wrestled uncomfortably with Christianity’s fundamentally chiliastic nature. Just as second- and third- century Christians strove successfully to dissociate their religion from its radical Jewish roots in order to cultivate legitimacy, so did theologians of subsequent centuries strive to downplay lurid apocalypticism in favor of vague millennialism. Although the focus of the Christian life was always meditation upon the words and deeds of Jesus Christ, and while priests and theologians urged people not to waste time in expectation of the Second Coming, the magnetic imagery of the Book of Revelation inexorably gripped the popular imagination. The sometimes baffling language of the Bible, -par ticularly the prophetic texts, demanded interpretation. But for the common people, the imagery of seven- headed beasts, Christ’s glorious return armed for the final battle with Satan, and descriptions of so many signs presaging the dawning of the Latter Day are too compelling to relegate to the back of one’s mind. Some theologians could not resist the lure of apocalyptic analysis, and many laypeople yearned to witness the events of Revelation, while others sought to play leading roles in bringing them on. • • • Patristic and Medieval Apocalypticism By the close of the third century and the beginning of the fourth, Christian writers had shifted from the composition of gospels and apocalypses to the production of exegetical and apologetic works as they compiled the canonical Bible, and a leader among these early patristic authors was Lucius Lactantius (c. 250–c. 325) of Cirta in North Africa. A professor of rhetoric in Nicomedia, he enjoyed the patronage of the Emperor Diocletian, but the official persecution of Christians led to his becoming critical of the impe- rial government, and eventually his conversion to Christianity around the year 300. Resigning his post, he attracted the notice of the future Emperor Constantine, who became his patron and appointed him as tutor to his son. Lactantius garnered fame among his peers and those who came after him as the “Christian Cicero,” but he was soon overshadowed by the later “fathers” 14 A Dream of the Judgment Day of the Church who solidified Christian theology and compiled the biblical canon. His most significant work was Divinae Institutiones (c. 303– 311), a standard Christian apologetic that is more noteworthy for its establishing the logical basis of civil law in Judeo-Christian morality and ethics than for its millenarian content. However, Lactantius argued that John of Patmos had been made privy to the actual events of the Apocalypse, and looked forward to the inevitable coming of a literal Millennium, prior to which Christian rulers are behooved to govern with justice and piety, which will achieve perfection in the Millennium. But his younger contemporaries and intellectual descendants were obviously uncomfortable with eschatological ruminations.2 Prior to the compilation of the canonical Bible, the earliest theologians wrangled not just with an array of apocalyptic texts, but with dozens of pur- ported gospels written by authors claiming to have been Jesus’s original dis- ciples. The bulk of Christian apocalyptic texts appearing throughout the first and second centuries tended to retread Daniel, Ezekiel, and John, and the lattermost was singled out by the second- century theologian Irenaeus of Smyrna (c. 130– c. 202) for analysis in his four-volume Against Heresies (c. 180). Concerning the bizarre imagery and fantastical predictions in the Book of Revelation, Irenaeus ultimately concluded that the book can only be interpreted in allegorical terms. Another problem was the apparent anti- Roman bias of these texts, which made sense given the anti-Christian preju- dice of the Roman government in the first century. However, as Christianity grew in the second and third centuries, the hostility to Rome posed a significant challenge to its gaining acceptance and respectability. Thus a growing number of patristic interpreters argued against its being included in the burgeoning Christian canon, but its wide popularity led Origen of Alexandria (c. 184– c. 253) to argue for its inclusion so long as it was interpreted purely as allegory.3 Biblical prophecies were the means by which God conveyed vital infor- mation to humanity about the nature of the cosmos, including the track of future events leading to the Second Coming, the Last Judgment, and the end of the world. A growing chorus of theologians warned future exegetes, though, to avoid the trap of scouring Revelation and the other apocalyptic books for specific signs and clues to the actual date for the End. Thus was apocalypticism’s importance to the cultivation of a Christian life gradu- ally de- emphasized. The best and most convincing argument on this point came from Augustine of Hippo (354–430), who commented frankly upon The Woman in the Wilderness 15 his struggle to interpret the Book of Revelation. Thus strongly inclined to circumspection in matters of prophecy, at the Synod of Hippo (393) and the Synod of Carthage (397) he asserted that the Revelation may be included in the canonical New Testament only if it is read allegorically rather than literally, thus following Irenaeus and Origen. Biblical exegetes must not, he warned, “fall into a panic over present happenings as if they were the ultimate and extreme of all things” so that “we may not be laughed at by those who have read of more and worse things in the history of the world.” Authentic prophecy, he insisted, had ceased with the close of the apostolic age, and the best that any Christian might do is focus upon his or her spiritual development, since the End will come whenever it does. Going further, he contended in De divination daemonum (c. 407) and more fulsomely in De civitate Dei (426) that from the present era onward, any “gift” of prophecy was conferred upon human beings by Satan rather than by God. Divination through the analysis of prophetic texts was little different from the various means of au- gury employed by astrology, the interpretation of birds in flight, the feeding of sacred chickens, and the reading of bird entrails still popular throughout the Mediterranean world. The Book of Revelation came to be included in the New Testament as an intriguing conclusion to the Bible, with which most theologians and preachers were loath to engage.4 Despite Augustine’s admonitions, apocalypticism did not die out as Christianity rose to greater heights of acceptance in the fourth century and eventually replaced Rome as a cultural touchstone following the collapse of the western empire in the 450s. Fascination with the Book of Revelation maintained its hold upon the Christian imagination, and several leading theologians tried their hand at interpretation. Most tended to follow an es- tablished consensus that the text is best understood as spiritual allegory, though hints at future events seemed clearly to be present. One focus of at- tention was upon the Book of Daniel’s description of four kingdoms in the prophet’s interpretation of Nebuchadnezzar’s dream (Dan. 2:36– 44) and his vision of the four beasts (Dan. 7), which were equated to the succession of the Babylonian, Persian, Greek, and Roman empires. The fifth and final kingdom would be that of Christ in the Millennium. However, efforts to match cur- rent or recently past events to John’s predictions, or divining the identity of the Antichrist, were discouraged by the Church. Nevertheless, by the eighth century, the ever-ascending power of the Church led theologians to see the prophetic texts as presaging the rise and ultimate triumph of Christianity.

Load more