A FUNNY THING HAPPENED ON THE WAY TO DOOMSDAY

As predictions go, calling for the end of the world is the biggie. And, of course, it’s happened several times over the last several centuries.

John of Toledo, an astrologer, predicted in 1179 that when all the planets (including the sun) that were then known were in Libra – KAPOW! – End of Days! Depending on which calendar John used, the end would have either been September 23, 1186 or October 3, 1186 at 4:15 in the afternoon GMT.

John’s prediction, written up in a pamphlet, spread far and wide and in Constantinople, the Byzantine Emperor had his windows walled up while the Archbishop of Canterbury ordered a day of atonement.

Both dates came and went and the world remained.

Seventy-four years later, Joaquim of Flore in Northamptonshire, England, pronounced 1260 as the “exact” date that the world would cease to be. Joaquim got his fifteen minutes of fame which ended when the world didn’t.

The years 1532 and 1533 were slap happy with End of Days predictions. First, in 1532, Frederick Nausea, a bishop in Vienna, declared that the end was here after receiving a series of bizarre reports. Let’s see, there were bloody crosses in the sky along with a comet, black bread falling from the heavens (not manna, apparently) and three suns and a burning castle also were spotted in the sky. Not surprising, Freddie was pretty disturbed by those reports, but when he heard that an eight-year-old girl in Rome had breasts spurting warm water, well, hell’s bells that was clearly a sign of the End of Days and he announced as much to the masses. Perhaps he would have been better off looking for someone smoking a little Maui-Wowie rather than declaring the end of the world..

In 1533, Anabaptist Melchior Hoffmann, who had already declared Strasbourg, France as the New Jerusalem, declared that the world would end in flames that year and that while mighty and somewhat vicious angels burned the world, 144,000 people would be allowed to live. Predictably, the rich and powerful freaked out. Rent records were destroyed, debts forgiven, and fortunes and properties given to the poor. Of what use such thing would be when the world was burning seems not to have mattered and, let’s face it, the poor were happy as clams to get what they could.

Needless to say, 1533 came and went and there was no great conflagration. However, Hoffman was supported by a fellow named Matthysz who declared that Hoffman’s Doomsday had been delayed – what? it missed a connecting flight? – and the promised End of Days would occur in the following February. In anticipation, scores of people flocked to Amsterdam to get themselves baptized to hedge their bets against Doomsday.

A real cautionary takle came that same year when Michael Stifel, a Bible student and mathematician, determined that October 3, 1533 at eight in the morning was, indeed, the End of Days. His reckoning came after studying the Book of Revelations. He announced said Doomsday to the good citizens of Lochau, the German village in which he lived, and when October 3 came and went without the world ending, the villagers were so grateful they dragged Mike outside, flogged the bejesus out of him and made sure he’d never work again in their village at as ecclesiastic.