999 CE Many European Christian scholars predicted the end of the world on the final day of this year. Not surprisingly, there are numerous tales of apocalyptic anxiety centering on the year 1000. For instance, tradition maintains that a parousia panic visited Europe in the years and months before this date. However, historians and religious scholars differ on which stories are authentic, whether such paranoia was actually more acute at this time than at any other, and whether or not the peasantry and working classes even knew what year it was. The Church, however, being fully in charge of things like calendars and who got to read them, made certain that as the date neared, Christian soldiers marched onward and directly over a few Northern European pagans. Led by the intrepid Pope Sylvester, the inspired purpose of this mission of military mercy was to subtly influence the philosophical views of the heathens and convert them all to Christianity, by force if possible, before Christ’s return at the millennium. All the while, a few particularly dedicated and light-headed believers surrendered their possessions to the Church in confident expectation of the end. Strangely, when Jesus’ appearance deviated from the schedule, the church overlooked the return all the nice things they had received. Many donors were troubled and even irritated by this turn of events. They felt much better, however, when the Church responded by burning a few of them at the stake. Some people just cannot abide criticism.
1666 CE - 1666 scared the bejesus out of Londoners. No wonder, with such an inauspicious number attached to a year that saw a plague epidemic slay 100,000, punctuated by the Great Fire of London. Unfortunately, Lloyd’s was still just a little coffee shop , and could do nothing to secure the replacement costs, let alone the jangled nerves of London’s property holders.
Nevertheless, the real apocalyptic action was occurring in Asia amongst Jews of the Ottoman Empire. It seems that an animated and charismatic Jewish Kabalistic leader by the unlikely moniker of Shabbetai Tzevi, declared himself to be the Messiah-in-the-Box in 1648, due to pop out and bitch slap Satan in 1666, prior to a millennial party of his own invention. Friends and family were invited, which convinced a surprisingly large assembly of Ottoman Jews to believe him. Leading an army of his followers into Constantinople, he managed to sufficiently annoy the religious powers on two continents that he was excommunicated in Jerusalem in 1665, and promptly incarcerated on his arrival in the Eastern Star the following year. Unimpressed with his divine credentials, the Sultan offered him a choice: death by torture and the removal of his rather large head, or a government job and the abandonment of his messianic aspirations. Showing remarkable clarity of thought for a fellow with his head simultaneously in the clouds and in the dark, he converted to Islam, much to the dismay of his followers. After all, thousands of these Shabbetai-revering Jews had abandoned their possessions and professions to follow Tzevi to Jerusalem and see him usher in the Millennium with them at his side - a backstage pass to Heaven! Thousands of miles from home in the opposite direction, they then learn that their messiah had been renamed Mehmed Efendi, and made the Sultan's personal Islamic doorman. Just to prove that sound reasoning need have nothing at all to do with religious movements, however, the nucleus of his followers returned home and founded a sect of Judaism known as Shabbetaianism, which would reach its peak in the 18th century. After that, they lost faith, or what? Oy. |
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