44: Theudas declared himself the Messiah, taking 400 people with him into the desert. T beheaded by Roman soldiers. Josephus records this.
53: Even before all the books of the Bible were written, there was talk that Christ's return had already taken place. The Thessalonians panicked on Paul, when they heard a rumor that the day of the Lord was at hand, and they had missed the rapture.
80: Ben Zakkai died about 80, and expected the Messiah about the time of his death
100-200: Rabbi Eliezer ben Hyrcanus (1-2 Cent) thought the days of the Messiah would last 40 years. Before Bar Kochba the Mess. age was short; longer afterward
130: Rabbi Jose, the Galilean, a contemporary of Hyrcanus and Azariah, thought the Messiah would come in three generations (60 years), after the destruction; namely 130 (Luther Martin, Date Setters, Guardian of Truth, Sept. 15, 1994)
381: Return of Christ; Tichonus a writer of the 4th Cent (Luther Martin, Date Setters, Guardian of Truth, Sept. 15, 1994)
400: Hippolytus "calculated that 5,500 years separated Adam and Christ and that the life of the world was 6,000 six full 'days' of years until the seventh the day of rest." His calculations in 234 indicted there were still two centuries left. (from A History of the End of the World, Rubinsky and Wiseman, 1982)
Rabbi Dosa (2-3rd Century) said the Messiah would come at the end of 400 years. This was based (?) on Gen. 15:13 (Luther Martin, Date Setters, Guardian of Truth, Sept. 15, 1994)
435: Messiah comes; Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi (135-220) believed Messiah would come 365 years after Temple destroyed in 70 (Luther Martin, Date Setters, Guardian of Truth, Sept. 15, 1994)
470:
Messiah would come; Rabbi Hanina (3rd C), though Messiah would come 400 years after Temple Destruction. (Luther Martin, Date Setters, Guardian of Truth, Sept. 15, 1994)
500: A Roman priest and theologian in the second and third centuries, predicted Christ would return in A.D. 500, based on the dimensions of Noah's ark.
Return of Christ; Hyppolytus (170-236) and Lactantius (250-330) said 500 would be the time for the second coming of Christ (Luther Martin, Date Setters, Guardian of Truth, Sept. 15, 1994)
950: Acrostic on the end of the world, predecessor of Celano's "Dies irae," found in a ms. from Aniane (second half of the tenth century, ed. Paulin Blanc,"Nouvelle Prose sur le Dernier Jour, Composée avec chant noté, vers l'An Mille..." Mémoires de la Société Archéologique de Montpellier, 2 (1850), 451-509, second copy located by Michel Huglo: BN lat. 1928 f.178, Fécamp c.1040).
"Treatise on the Antichrist" by Adso of Montier-en-Der, c.950, a response to a variety of crises at mid-century that provoked widespread apocalyptic disquiet, and rapidly become a central text in the European eschatological literature (ed. by Verhelst, CCSL, Cont. med. aeui 40; study in the context of 1000, by Verhelst, "Adso van Montier-en-Der en de angst voor het jaar Duizend," Tijdschrift voor Geschiedenis, 90 (1977), 1-10); and C. Carozzi, La fin des temps: Terreurs et prophéties au Moyen Age (Paris: Stock, 1982), pp.186-94. See below # .
Letter on the Hungarians that speaks of widespread apocalyptic reactions among the population, Ac primum dicendum opinionem quae innumeros tam in vestra quam in nostra regione persuasit frivolam esse et nihil veri in se habere, qua putatur Deo odibilis gens Hungrorum esse Gog et Magog ceteraeque gentes quae cum eis describuntur... Dicunt enim nunc esse novissimum saeculi tempus finemque imminere mundi, et idcirco Gog et Magog esse Hungros, qui numquam antea auditi sunt, sed modo, in novissimo temporum apparuerunt. R.B.C. Huygens, "Un témoin" [n.11], p.231, lines 94-106; letter from the bishop of Auxerre to the bishop of Verdun (commentary by Huygens, p.236f). Dated variously early tenth century, or, according to Huygens, to second half of the tenth ("Un témoin de la crainte de l'an 1000: La lettre sur les Hongrois," Latomus, 15 (1956), 224-38); considered the background of Adso's treatise (see below #3).
In A.D. 950 Adso of Montier-en-Der wrote a "Treatise on the Antichrist" which was a response to a number of mid-century crises that had provoked widespread alarm and fear of an end-time apocalypse.(5) Five years later, Abbo of Fleury heard a preacher in Paris who announced that the Antichrist would be unleashed in the year 1000 and that the Last Judgment would soon follow.(6) At about the same time a panic occurred in the German army of Emperor Otto I because of a solar eclipse that the soldiers mistook as a sign of the end of the world.(7) And when the last Carolingian dynasty fell with the death of King Louis V in 987, many saw this event as a precursor to the arrival of the Antichrist. King Otto II of Germany had Charlemagne's body exhumed on Pentecost in the year 1000 supposedly in order to forestall the apocalypse. Both Halley's comet in A.D. 989 and a super nova in A.D. 1006 were interpreted as signs of the end. About the same time, the Moslem caliph, Al Hakim, destroyed the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem prompting apocalyptic fear in the west as well as violent anti-Jewish outbursts.(
964: "Dum saeculum transit finis mundi appropinquat..." [As the saeculum (century?) passes, the end of the world approaches.] Cartulaire de Saint-Jouin-de-Marnes, pp.1, 11, 17.
965: Abbo hears a preacher in Paris announcing the unleashing of Antichrist for 1000 AD and the Last Judgment for shortly thereafter (see below # 7, 17).
968: Panic in Otto's army at an eclipse the soldiers took to portend the end of the world (Gesta episcoporum Leodensium, MGH SS IX, p.202)
Annalists note in the margin of Easter tables: mille anni a nativitate Christi, based on a "misreading" of the base year in the Easter Tables as Anno passionis. Three years earlier unusual events with apocalyptic tonality (fire from heaven, release of demons) occur. (Annales de Saint Florent de Saumur, et de Vendôme, Halphen Recueil d'annales angevines, p.58 n.2, 116 n.6.) Note that, in typical capstone style, Halphen does not include the note, with its millennial consciousness in the text of his edition, nor even in a footnote to that year, but appended to a footnote for another year, and explained away as a mistake.
widespread apocalyptic expectation in Lotharingia at the coincidence of the Annunciation and the Crucifixion agaist which Abbo writes a letter.
979: Igneae acies visae sunt in caelo per totam noctem 5 Kalendas Novembris. Hoc anno complentur mille anni a nativitate Christi, secundum veritatem evangelii, qui secundum cyclum Dionisii anno abhinc 21 finiuntur; sicque in anno domincae passionis veritati evangelicae contraitur. Sigebert of Gembloux, Chronicon universale c.1114, PL 160 c.194 (here using Abbo's correction of the date AD; see next item).
983-4: Abbo redates the year 1000 four years into the past (true AD 1000 = Dionysus' 979) using the apocalyptic beliefs above (#7, see also #17) as the basis of his calculations.
987-91: The last Carolingian dynasty (the final hindrance to the arrival of Antichrist according to Adso) falls; the capture of the last potential ruler occurs under most dastardly cirumstances. Southern charters begin to date AD, with Christ reigning, a traditional interregnal formula with apocalyptic antecedants (Kantarowicz, The King's Two Bodies, p. ).
987-91: Halley's Comet appears, cited in Annales divionenses, MGH SS V, p. ; and Annales Quedlinburgenses MGH SS III, p.68; Thietmar of Mersebourg, Chronicon IV, 10; (also Glaber III, 3? acc. to France, p.110-11, and n.4, but see below under 1006, #29); P. Moore and J. Mason, The Return of Halley's Comet (Cambridge, 1984), p.46)
First wave of peace councils in the South (see below).
990: mention of apocalyptic beliefs leading to violent seizure of church property at St. Hilaire.
Preaching of Aelfric and Wulfistan, filled with images of Last Judgment, explicity linked at points to the year 1000 and the unleashing of Antichrist (Gatch, Milton McC., Preaching and Theology in Anglo-Saxon England: Aelfric and Wulfstan (Toronto, U. Press, 1977).
992: Coincidence of Crucifixion and Annunciation; Nouaillé begins its charters for the next decade with "Appropinquante finem mundi..."; Adso, an old man, leaves on a one-way pilgrimage to Jerusalem; German chronicles report light from north at dawn like the sun, rumor among many that 3 suns, 3 moons and stars were fighting, indicating heavy mortality and famine (Thietmar IV, 19; An. Quedl. ad an. 993, MGH SS III, 69; Annales Augustani, ibid. p.124).
994: Outbreaks of sacer ignis throughout France, associated in Limoges with the Peace of God.
various signs (including a monstrous child), famines, plagues and mortality in Saxony, referred to as the biblical "tria iudicia pessima" (Annales Quedlinburgenses, MGH SS, III p.94; also Thietmar IV, 17; Annales Augustani, MGH SS III, 124).
De fine quoque mundi coram populo sermonem in Ecclesia Parisiorum adolescentulus audivi, quod statim finito mille annorum numero Antichristus adveniret, et non longo post tempore universale iudicium succederet: cui praedicationi ex Evangeliis ac Apocalypsi et libro Danielis, qua potui virtute, resistiti. Denique et errorem qui de fine mundi inolevit abbas meus beatae memoriae Richardus sagaci animo propulit, post quam litteras a Lothariensibus accepit, quibus me respondere iussit; Nam fama pene totum mundum impleverat, quod, quando Annuntiatio Dominica in Parasceve contigisset absque ullo scrupulo finis saeculi esset. De initio etiam Adventus qui ante Nativitatem Domini per singulos annos agitur, aliquando error gravissimus extitit, aliis inchoantibus post v. Kalendas Decembris aliis ante, cum numquam plus quatuor ebdomadas, saltem unam diem Adventus habeat; cumque de huiusmodi diversitate soleant contempiones in Ecclesia crescere, concilio determinandum est, ut omnes qui in ea viviumus unum sapiamuis quod vestra industria CONCEDAT qui nos unanimes VULT HABERE IN DOMO SUA." Abbo of Fleury, Apologeticus ad hugonem et rodbertum reges francorum, London, BM 10972, f.22v; PL 139 c.471-2; dated before 996 by Vidier (p.105- 7); 994-5 by Mostert (p.48-51). Concerning the end of the world, as a youth (adolescentulus) I heard a sermon in a [the?] church in Paris that as soon as the number of a thousand years should come, the Antichrist would come, and not long thereafter, the Last Judgment would follow; which preaching I resisted with all my strength from the Evangels and the Apocalypse and the book of Daniel.
Otto III engages in elaborate program of renovatio imperii romani that, from the apocalyptic scenario, would reaffirm the existence of the "barrier" to Antichrist, particulary important given the demise of the last of the Carolingians in the previous decade (see above # 3, 9). In this he recapitulated many of Charlemagne's responses to the coming of the year 6000 (see below # 14, 17).
999: "Iste fuit Girbertus, tempore cuius inpletus est annus millesimus ab incarnatione Domini." Annales Pragenses ad an. 999, MGH SS III, 120.
1000: This year goes down as one of the most pronounced states of hysteria over the return of Christ. All members of society seemed affected by the prediction that Jesus was coming back on Jan 1, 1000 AD. There really weren't any of the events required by the Bible transpiring at that time. The magical number 1000 was primarily the sole reason for the expectation. During December 999 AD, everyone was on their best behavior; worldly goods were sold and given to the poor, swarms of pilgrims headed east to meet the Lord at Jerusalem, buildings went unrepaired, crops were left unplanted, and criminals were set free from jails. The year 999 AD turned into 1000 AD and nothing happened.
Annales Elnonenses, ad an. 1000; MGH SS V, p.12; contemporary hand; noted in mid-11th century by the Annales Laubienses and Leodinienses, MGH SS 5, 18. Anno dominicae incarnationis 1000, ind. 13. epacta 12. concurrente 1. termino pascali 9. Kal. Apr. 4 Kal Apr. feria 6, celebrantibvus christicolis sacrosanctae passionis ac redemtionis illius misterium, terraemotus magnus factus est, non ita ut pepe accidere solet, vento in benas terrae condito, ubi concava terrarum viscera his motibus subiacent veluti venti capacia; sed generali et vasto tremore totius obrbis magnitudo passim contremuit, ut cunctis fieret manifestum, quod ore veritatis fuerat ante promissum. His namque et aliis signis quae praenuntiata fuerunt opere completis, hinc iam fit nostra spes certior omni visu, de his quae restant ordine complendis.
Otto returns to Aachen where he exumes Charlemagne's body on Pentecost of the year 1000.
Gerbert/Sylvester and Otto III carry out an unusual procession on August 15, 1000: "In assumptione sancte Mariae nocte quando tabula portatur" (Bamberger manuscript from 1067 published in Giesebrecht, Geschichte der Deutchen Kaiserzeit II, Documents; also see Lausser, Gerbert, p.325; Molinier II, Mabillon II, 226, 334; Histoire littéraire XIII, 600;
Outbreak of heresies in France, Italy, south-west Mediterranean that Glaber interprets as the unleashing of Satan according to Revelations (Historiarum, II, 22-23; ed. France, p.88-93).
All the references, still poorly known, from computist texts that privilege the year 1000, which, coming in the middle of a 19 year cycle (988 1006) should neither begin nor end any Easter table: cf. Vat.reg.lat.1127 f.10v, from 920 to "MILLE"; St. Gall 902, 817-999; St. Gall 387, 1001-1129.
"Tertio Ottone imperante. Millesimus annus supercrescens statute computationis numerum, secundum illud quod legitur scriptum: Millesimus exsuperat et transcendit omnia annus." Annales Hildesheimenses III, Préface (MGH SS III, ), written c.1040.
"Interea millesimus ab incarnatione Domini annus feliciter impletus est et hic est annus archiepiscopi 12." Adam of Bremen, Gesta Hammaburgensis ecclesiae pontificum (II, xl; MGH SS 7.320) late eleventh century.3
"Data mense augusto, regnante Rotberto rege, anni ab Incarnatione Domni nostri Jesu Christi usque in presentem diem mille et I." (Charter of Saint- Hilaire of Poitiers, ed. Redet, #67, p.76).
references to 1000 taken from Sigebert in later medieval chroniclers: see the collection in Bouquet, Historiens des Gaules de de la France, 10.xcix, 28de, 28de,197b, 205b, 217c, 271c, 282a, 290b, 291a, 299c, 319b.
Five reasons why 1000AD was not a significant date:
1. People did not even know the date -- peasants had no notion of chronological time, elites used a variety of systems and even those using AD disagreed.
2. There are no theological reasons for 1000 to have eschatological significance.
3. There is almost no surviving evidence of any apocalyptic terrors from the period.
4. The little that survives is not directly related to 1000, but to dates such as 968, 1010 and 1033.
5. Therefore we should not be surprised to find 1000 was a "year like any other" in which the normal train of medieval life -- wars, councils, ploughing, and praying -- went on in uninterrupted flow.
The utter absence of documentation attesting to apocalyptic beliefs and movements is, in this view, decisive proof. How can one possibly argue that a whole generation is obsessed with something about which they do not talk? by Richard Landes
Dopo il 1000 diventa una tempesta di date di fini del mondo, mi son rotto
