The Real History of the End of the World (8 page)

This beast “is and was and is to come” (Revelation 17:8), an angel explains to John. The seven heads are seven kings: “five have fallen, one is living and one is yet to come: and when he comes he must only remain a little while” (Revelation 17:9-10). The ten horns are more kings to come who, with the beast, will make war on the Lamb but, don't worry, they lose (Revelation 17:14).

Babylon falls once more, possibly for the last time. All the wicked kings and greedy merchants grieve but there is rejoicing in heaven. The Lamb is married, and the elect are invited to the wedding supper.

No, that's not the end, but we are getting close. The champion of God appears on a white horse, carrying his sword in his mouth, which I'm certain is a metaphor for something. He and his angels defeat the kings of the earth who have by now gathered at Armageddon. The beast and his false prophet (the other beast) are thrown into a lake of sulfur (Revelation 19:11-20).

The dragon, who has apparently been watching the destruction without participating, like a good instigator, is bound by an angel and thrown into the bottomless pit for a thousand years, “so that he would deceive the nations no more, until the thousand years were ended. After that he must be let out for a little while” (Revelation 20:3).
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The thousand years pass quickly, since everyone is happy, and that's no fun to write about.

Finally the good times end, and Satan is released from his prison to have one more try at corrupting the good Christians. They must be the only ones around to corrupt because all the unbelievers were done away with before the beginning of the millennium. He finds some backsliders, and together they attack the city of the faithful. But fire comes down from heaven, destroying the armies, and the dragon now joins his friends in the lake of burning sulfur for eternal torment (Revelation 20:7).

Now it is time for the Last Judgment. The Book of Life is opened, and everyone who has ever lived, except the 144,000, who are exempt, is judged. The wicked are thrown into the burning lake with Hades and Death, who have no more reason to exist.

John is shown the glories of heaven and the New Jerusalem. Instead of the number of the beast, the saved will have the name of God on their foreheads. The angel guide tells John that he has to tell his servants “what must soon take place” (Revelation 22:6). And Christ adds, “See, I am coming soon! Blessed is the one who keeps the words of the prophecy of this book ” (Revelation 22:7).

John ends by assuring his readers that this was a true vision and that the angel told him, “Do not seal up the words of the prophecy of this book, for the time is near” (Revelation 22:10). This implies that John's book may be the one Daniel wasn't to open. The time wasn't right until after the coming of Christ.

At the very end of Revelation, John warns that anyone who adds or subtracts from what he wrote will lose their share in the tree of life (Revelation 22:18-19). My feeling is that John could have used a good editor to add and subtract at least a bit.

By the mid-second century, John's Revelation was known at least in the eastern Mediterranean. However, it was only one of many such visions and revealings attributed to various Apostles.

Even at the time of the Council of Nicaea, the first major gathering of bishops and leaders of the Church, Revelation was not included among the books chosen for the New Testament. The first ecumenical council that included it was at Carthage in 451.
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For many years after that, there was still debate on whether the book had been written by John the Evangelist. Dionysius pointed out that the Greek language of Revelation is “barbarous,” totally unlike the elegant language of John's Gospel. Even after it was generally accepted that the apostle John wasn't the author, most Christians accepted it as having been divinely inspired.

By that time, it really didn't matter because the story was already part of the Christian tradition along with popular but apocryphal tales like that of the veil of Veronica or the childhood miracles of Jesus. There are so many vivid images of the days of destruction. They remind Christians of what they avoid by staying true to the faith. After all, even if she wasn't created by John, the Whore of Babylon is just too wonderful a character to give up.

 

 

 

 

F
or centuries, China's state religion was Confucianism, which is more a guide to living a good and balanced life in harmony with others than a fire-and-brimstone religion. But along with Confucianism the belief in the more mystical religion of Daoism was just as strong, especially among the ordinary people outside the nobility. And it is through this strain that the idea of the end of the world entered Chinese popular belief.

The founder of Daoism was the legendary Lao'zi (Old Philosopher), who may have lived in the seventh century B.C.E. His teachings were refined and organized by
Zhuang'zi
(philosopher
Zhuang,
also spelled
Chang
) in about the fourth century B.C.E. There are many forms of Daoism, but the one most influential on millennial movements in China is the
Huang-lo
(Yellow Emperor). This movement tends to be more religious and mystical than the more philosophical strain of Daoism.
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Daoism is not at base a millennial religion, as Christianity is. However, there are elements in it that allow for the formation of apocalyptic and messianic beliefs. This is evident in the first Daoist “church” founded by Zhang Daoling, following a vision he had about 142 C.E. He called it the Way of the Celestial Masters. At this point the Han Dynasty, which had ruled for four hundred years, was waning. It would be another four hundred years before China was again united under the Tang Dynasty (618-906).
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In the last days of the Han, a millennial and revolutionary group began what was known as the Yellow Turbans, from the identifying headgear they wore. Yellow was a significant color in Chinese cosmology, and it was chosen to contrast with the Han red. It also symbolized the mythical ideal Yellow Emperor.
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Their slogan was “The blue heaven has died and the yellow heaven is about to be established.”
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The official name of the sect was the
Taiping Dao
(The Way of Great Peace).

The Yellow Turbans may have been part of or influenced by the Celestial Masters. Many of the texts used by the masters contain prophesies of the destruction of the world, ending the present cycle. They also predicted the date for the end according to the sixty-year repeating Chinese calendar. The
Lingbao
(numinous treasure) texts opted for either 382 or 442 C.E. They also promised the return to earth of Li Hong (Lao'zi) to protect and save the “seed people,” believers who would repopulate the world.
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The Yellow Turbans consisted of two main groups, east and west. The group in the east was led by three brothers of the Zhang family. The eldest, Jue, was considered the Lord of Heaven; the middle brother, Liang, Lord of Earth; and the youngest, Pao, Lord of Man. Thus they “presented themselves to the people as symbolic embodiments of heaven, earth and man, the all-embracing triad.”
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This was in line with the Chinese three-part conception of the cosmos.

Some historians have viewed the Yellow Turban rebellion as purely a political uprising. Certainly the desire to unseat the current ruler was important, and it was rumored that the palace eunuchs, who made up the administrative branch of the government, may have encouraged the movement.
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But the records of the Yellow Turban sect stress its Daoist and messianic nature. The Yellow Emperor that they hoped for was associated with Lao'zi, who was expected to take on human form and appear to help defeat the Han emperor.
^cs

Amitabha with Two Attending Bodhisattvas.
China, Song dynasty, 12th to 13th century. Hanging scroll, ink and color on silk, 133.5 x 79.3 cm.
The Cleveland Museum of Art. Leonard C. Hanna, Jr., Fund, 1974.35

They also pointed out that the
Lingbao
predicted natural disasters to precede the coming of the next age. The Yellow Turban leaders began preaching in around 173 C.E., a year of widespread epidemics. In 175, there was massive flooding, destroying homes and ruining crops. The next few years brought drought and more sickness.
^ct
The peasants, especially in eastern China, were beaten down and dispossessed. They were more than ready for a new age to come and the signs were very convincing.

The leaders of the Yellow Turbans calculated from the Daoist texts that 184, the beginning of the next sixty-year cycle, would be the time for the present world to end. They quoted from a pseudo Lao'zi, speaking through the newly written
Classic of the Transformations,
“Come quickly and join me . . . and you will be saved from danger . . . the people are suffering and illness is at its extreme. The starving are everywhere. I will change destiny. I will shake the reign of the Han . . . I have manifested myself many times for the sake of salvation.”
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By this time there were tens of thousands of people ready to help bring about the Age of Peace. With the help of some of the palace eunuchs, they set the date for the uprising as the fifth day of the third month, which corresponds to April 4, 184. The plan was to attack the emperor's palace from within and without. But the winter before the attack, the movement was betrayed. The palace sympathizers were executed and Zhang Jue escaped in a frantic cross-country ride, during which he and his lieutenants urged their followers to rise up and attack local officials.
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An army was raised, and it took some time for the imperial forces to put down the rebellion. All three of the Zhang brothers died in the fighting or were executed. For several years afterward, there were sporadic attempts to revive the Yellow Turbans, with little success.

While the followers of the Zhang brothers did not enter a true new age, the rebellion did help bring down the Han Dynasty. In their desire to change the heavens, the Yellow Turban followers rejected the authority of the Confucian system. They also seemed to have rejected the standard idea of the worthlessness of women. Titles and authority within the organization were held equally by men and women.
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By evicting the Confucian civil authorities and destroying their homes as well as Confucian temples, the Yellow Turbans cleared the way for a more progressive regime.
^cx

Although Lao'zi did not descend from Heaven to save the Chinese, the belief that he would remained in popular religion. When Buddhism entered China, that religion was syncretized with the mystical side of Daoism in order to retain that millennial hope.

For some persons, like venomous reptiles, crawled over Asia and
Phrygia, boasting that Montanus was the Paraclete, and that
the women that followed him, Priscilla and Maximilla, were
prophetesses of Montanus.

—Eusebius,
History of the Church,
book V, chapter XIV

 

 

 

 

T
he charismatic, apocalyptic preacher Montanus was born in Phrygia, now in central Turkey, sometime in the early second century. The sect he founded was one of the earliest apocalyptic groups, and it managed to cover most of the beliefs and practices of all of the Christian apocalyptic movements that came after.

Of course, the first Christians all assumed this world was about to end. They didn't need the book of Revelation to tell them that; it was in the essence of the religion. But most of them continued in their normal lives all the same, at least between persecutions. However, some Christians felt the need to be more proactive about bringing about the Second Coming. The Montanists filled that need.

Montanus might have been a priest in one of the pagan cults before converting to Christianity.
^cy
There is debate on which cult, and no one really knows, but later writers, from the fourth century writer Epiphanias on, have had fun speculating. Some have thought it was that of the god Apollo, who was associated with the Oracle at Delphi.

This association may be due to the prophetic nature of Montanus' sect. They called themselves the New Prophecy. Montanus believed that he had been filled with the Paraclete, or Holy Spirit, who was giving him instructions on the coming Apocalypse and how to prepare for it. He was joined by two women, Priscilla and Maximilla, who were also prophets.
^cz
Most of what we know about the sect was written by those who were opposed to it, so the information has to be taken with a grain of salt.