The Real History of the End of the World (6 page)

 

 

 

 

W
hen Lucretius, a pagan Roman, wrote the words in the epigraph in the first century c.e., he was simply repeating common speculations about how the world had ended many times before, only to be remade by the gods, and how humans had to begin all over again, basically reinventing the wheel. Lucretius took this to its logical conclusion.

He wasn't alone in this among the people of his time. Even though no one knew that they were living on the cusp of the first millennium of the Common Era, there was definitely something apocalyptic in the air at the time. In Judea, the revolt of the Maccabees in 168-164 B.C.E., which had given conservative Jews hope, turned out to be a temporary victory. Over the next one hundred years, power in Judea passed back and forth between the Jewish Hasmonean kings and the Persian Selucids. Finally in 64 B.C.E., the two warring parties went to the Roman general Pompey for mediation. Not a smart move.

Soon after, Judea became a Roman colony.

Well before this happened, a group of strict Jews with a strong apocalyptic bent escaped the whole situation to form a community in the desert. Two thousand years later, the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, left by these Essenes, gave an expanded look at how deep their feeling was that they were facing the end of the world.

The Essenes were mentioned in the works of Philo, Josephus, and Hippolytus, but what they thought of themselves and the world weren't known until the twentieth century. They had apparently removed themselves from mainstream Judaism in about 140 B.C.E., when a Hasmonean king, not of the priestly caste, named himself high priest in Jerusalem.
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The group survived until they were destroyed by the Romans in the Jewish War of 68 C.E., making them one of the longest-surviving apocalyptic communities. Like later such communities, they had a core group who, in this case, lived in the desert and a number of urban supporters who visited them and brought provisions.
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Their writings include some of the oldest known copies of books of the Bible, many with commentaries that reveal that the Essenes were positive that they were living in the end times. One document is the halakhic letter, which was written mainly to point out the differences between the Essenes and the priests in Jerusalem. After listing these, the letter tells the recipients that “we recognize that some of the blessings and curses which are written in the Book of Moses have come to pass and that this is the End of Days.”
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Almost everything that has been found in the Dead Sea Scrolls is either messianic or apocalyptic. The Essenes expected at least two messiahs: a priest and a king. But they expected to do their part in the upcoming battle at the end as well. The War Scroll is a history before the fact that tells the world what is going to happen. At the appointed time the (Essene) Sons of Light will go to war with the
kittim
or Sons of Darkness. The war will last nearly forty years, and its progression is given in detail, along with which families will fight and against whom. There are also several passages detailing the trumpets, standards, and weapons, with instructions as to what should be written on each one. God and Israel will triumph eventually over Satan and everyone else.

It seems that the Romans attacked the Essenes before they had finished writing all the posters or inscribing all the weapons. The battle led by the Messiah seems to have happened only in the scrolls.

The Romans, like Lucretius, were also feeling apocalyptic at that time. The Republic had suddenly become a dictatorship, then an empire. While their conquest of the known world would continue, there would also be civil war. Romans increasingly became involved in “mystery” religions, in which only the initiates knew all the rituals and dogma that promised to explain the turmoil occurring in their society.

In the first centuries of Christianity there were numbers of apocalypses flying about. While Daniel and Revelation were the only ones to make the Bible, the others were read widely, as the next section will discuss.

These are the seven signs before the ending of this world. There
shall be in all the earth famine and great pestilence and much
distress: then shall all men be led captive among all nations and
shall fall by the edge of the sword.

—Apocalypse of Thomas (fourth century C.E.)
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T
he very first Christians knew when the world would end—immediately, if not sooner. They expected the swift return of Jesus along with the establishment of a heaven on earth for the faithful. The belief is most strongly stated in the Gospel of Mark, thought to be the earliest of the four, “the sun will be darkened and the moon will not give its light and the stars will be falling from heaven and the powers in the heavens will be shaken. Then they will see ‘the Son of Man coming in clouds' with great power and glory. He will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven” (Mark 13:24-27). Thus the concept of the end of the world was built into the religion.

Before the end of the first century, evangelists such as Paul were reminding the fledgling Christian communities: “I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worth comparing with the glory about to be revealed to us” (Romans 8:18). In his first letter to the Thessalonians, Paul makes it clear that the Second Coming will be soon. “[T]he dead in Christ will rise first. Then we who are alive, who are left, will be caught up in the clouds together with them to meet the Lord in the air; and so we will be with the Lord forever” (1 Thessalonians 4:16-17).
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The fundamental belief that Jesus was the Messiah, and that he would return at the impending end time was the essential dogma that set Christianity apart from Judaism. But from the beginning, there was also confusion. At first, many Jews who followed Jesus were convinced that he was the Messiah of the Tanakh who would physically lead an army to defeat the Roman Empire and establish a kingdom on earth that would be governed according to Mosaic Law. Others were convinced that Jesus' kingdom would be in heaven and, as Paul said, all believers, living and dead, would be taken bodily to the skies and life everlasting.

These two views of the Parousia
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have existed within Christianity throughout its history. They have been expressed in different ways but ultimately derive from the earliest days of the religion. And throughout time, some have merged the two beliefs to assume that, at the Second Coming, Jesus would descend to lead a real army.
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But even by the time of Paul, in the late first century, people were beginning to think that they needed a back-up plan in case the Second Coming took a bit longer than they had thought. Most of Paul's letters are on how to conduct a Christian life while waiting for the end. The admonition to those “living in idleness” (2 Thessalonians 3:11) may well be a reminder to Christians who felt that there was no reason to work since the final days were at hand.

So, from the beginning, Christianity was being pulled in two directions. There were those who believed that Christ would return soon so that there was no need to earn a living, marry, or save. There were even those who courted martyrdom in order to ensure a direct route to heaven without waiting for the Second Coming.
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Ignatius, the third bishop of Antioch, who was reported to be a disciple of the Apostle John, was eager to be killed for the faith. “Let fire and the cross; let the crowds of wild beasts; let tearings, breakings, and dislocations of bones; let cutting off of members; let shatterings of the whole body; and let all the dreadful torments of the devil come upon me: only let me attain to Jesus Christ.”
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Ignatius got his wish. When the Emperor Trajan came to Antioch, he obligingly ordered the bishop to be bound and sent to Rome to be fed to the beasts. On the way, Ignatius seemed to have considered the journey a triumphal procession. He must not have been guarded very closely, for at Smyrna, he dropped in to see his old friend Polycarp (who would also be happily martyred). He then wandered about the Near East, seeing other friends and writing to churches he couldn't get to. He hoped to have a sightseeing jaunt at Puteoli, where Saint Paul had been, but a storm, not the Roman soldiers, made it impossible to land. When he finally reached Rome, he almost missed out on his execution because the games had nearly ended. But he hurried and was thrown to the wild beasts in the amphitheater, just as he desired.
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Sometime later, Origen of Alexandria (c. 180- c. 250) was heart-broken because he didn't get to be a martyr. When his father was arrested and sentenced to death, Origen was determined to join him. His mother was having none of that. When her tears and pleading didn't work, she hid his clothes and forbade him to leave the house.
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It seems to have strained relations between them for some time.

Like Origen's mother, most Christians were willing to let martyrdom find them, if it had to. And, despite the often repeated verse “But about the day or hour, no one knows, neither the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32), people still wanted to find the exact date for the end. Why buy more grain than you need to? They looked for the signs listed in Mark (13:9-24): war, persecution, earthquakes, and false messiahs. None of these were hard to find, and this kept the apocalyptic enthusiasm burning.

Added to the words of Jesus in the Gospels of the New Testament, there were many apocalyptic books and letters, some attributed to the Apostles, which were also circulating at the time. The contents of neither the New Testament nor the Tanakh had been decided in the first three centuries after Christ. Therefore, many of these works were felt to be genuine and were read by Christians and Jews as authoritative predictions of the end. The second book of Esdras (or Ezra) was probably rewritten in the middle of the first century from a Hebrew or Aramaic original, to which the author added Christian elements.
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With its references to the coming of the “Son of Man,” it was considered useful for Christians who wished to prove that Jesus had been predicted by the Jews. But, in the end, the book was not accepted as canonical by either religion.

Most of Esdras is a Socratic dialogue between Ezra and the angel Uriel. Ezra wants to know why people were made, why there is evil in the world, and why the good are punished along with the bad. Uriel answers with some really quite lovely parables and analogies before they get to the end of the world and the Last Judgment. Before he can find out about the end, Ezra is instructed to pray and fast for several days, the better to receive the vision.

Ezra must have read Daniel because after days of fasting he sees “an eagle, with twelve feather-covered wings and three heads.”
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The eagle gains and loses wings, which talk, and then he has a confrontation with a lion and loses. Fortunately, Uriel is on hand to explain that the eagle represents the emperors to come and the lion is the Messiah who will defeat them. Ezra has more, rather repetitive, visions of destruction that frighten him. Uriel calms him by telling him that the righteous will be spared. “For behold, in a little while, wickedness will be removed from the earth and uprightness will reign over us.”
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Ezra keeps pushing for a date, but the angel refuses to give one, only cautioning Ezra to be prepared.

Two early apocalypses that are definitely Christian are the Apocalypse of Peter and the
Shepherd of Hermas
. The Apocalypse of Peter is from at least 150 C.E. It was considered by several early Church Fathers, such as Clement of Alexandria, to be a true vision by Saint Peter.
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It reinforces the idea of the Antichrist. “Many shall come in my name, saying ‘I am the Christ.' Believe them not. . . . For the coming of the Son of God shall not be plain . . . so will I come upon the clouds of heaven with a great host in my majesty” (Peter 1:14-16).
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Although Peter asks him exactly when this will be, Jesus doesn't tell him, preferring to dwell on the Last Judgment.

In the first list of books considered authentic, known as the Muratorian Fragment, which was composed in the second half of the second century, the Apocalypse of Peter is considered suspect, but not definitely out. St. Jerome wrote, “We receive only the apocalypses of John and Peter, although some of us are not willing that the latter be read in church.”
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Even though it was eventually discarded as not having been written by Peter, the book continued to be read and copied for several centuries and was among those found in the Nag Hammadi library discovered in Egypt in the twentieth century.

An apocryphal Apocalypse that was popular for several centuries was that of Paul. This was rather like a spin off from Paul's second letter to the Corinthians, in which he says, “I know a person in Christ who fourteen years ago was caught up to the third heaven” (2 Corinthians 12:2). Paul doesn't say what the man, presumably Paul himself, saw there because God told him not to. This didn't stop the author of the apocalypse (not Paul) from imagining it. This book dwells mainly on the torment of the damned, always a good topic, and the rewards to the faithful. It shows elements from Revelation as well as the Apocalypse of Peter and others. It has been dated to the mid-fourth century. Although it was well known that the book was not written by Saint Paul, there was nothing in it that offended orthodoxy, so it was allowed to circulate. Some believe that Dante used passages from it or the Apocalypse of Peter in the
Inferno
.
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