american-holocaust

186 AMERICAN HOLOCAUSTleashed-and then suddenly the Son of Man would appear: he would overcomeSatan, judge mankind, and bring an end to history. Others had whatis generally thought to be a more optimistic view: before reaching the finalgrand conclusion, they claimed, there would be a long reign of peace, justice,abundance, and bliss; the Jews would be converted, while the heathenswould be either converted or annihilated; and, in certain versions ofthe prophecy, this Messianic Age of Gold would be ushered in by a LastWorld Emperor-a human saviour-who would prepare the way for thefinal cataclysmic but glorious struggle between Good and Evil, whereuponhistory would end with the triumphant Second Coming.Among the innumerable forecasters of the end of time who adopted avariation that combined elements of both versions of the prophecy was thetwelfth-century Calabrian abbot Joachim of Fiore. Joachim's ideas becamemuch more influential than most, however, largely because they wereadopted and transmitted by the Spiritual branch of the Church's FranciscanOrder during the thirteenth through the fifteenth century. He and hisfollowers made calculations from evidence contained in Scriptural texts,calculations purporting to show that the sequence of events leading to theend of time would soon be-or perhaps already was-appearing. As wordof these predictions spread, the most fundamental affairs of both Churchand state were affected. And there had been no previous time in humanhistory when ideas were able to circulate further or more rapidly, for itwas in the late 1430s that Johann Gutenberg developed the technique ofprinting with movable type cast in molds. It has been estimated that asmany as 20 million books-and an incalculable number of pamphlets andtracts-were produced and distributed in Europe between just 1450 and1500.11 4The fifteenth century in Italy was especially marked by presentimentsthat the end was near, as Marjorie Reeves has shown in exhaustive detail,with "general anxiety . . . building up to a peak in the 1480s and 1490s."Since at least the middle of the century, the streets of Florence, Rome,Milan, Siena, and other Italian cities-including Genoa, where Columbuswas born and spent his youth-had been filled with wandering prophets,while popular tracts were being published and distributed by the tens ofthousands, and "astrological prognostications were sweeping" the country."The significant point to grasp," Reeves demonstrates, "is that we arenot dealing here with two opposed viewpoints or groups-optimistic humanistshailing the Age of Gold on the one hand, ana medieval-style prophetsand astrologers proclaiming 'Woe!' on the other." Rather, "forebodingand great hope lived side by side in the same people. . . . Thus the Joachimistmarriage of woe and exaltation exactly fitted the mood of latefifteenth-century Italy, where the concept of a humanist Age of Goldhad to be brought into relation with the ingrained expectation of Antichrist."115