Abstract
Alsted’s main work of chronology is not a systematic treatise but an historical commonplace book. Astrology and Neoplatonic speculation produces an optimism regarding the terrestrial future which falls short of millenarianism. It might therefore seem inevitable that the key to the emergence of millenarianism in Alsted’s thought should be found in the third of the three volumes reflected in his ‘Speculum mundi’: the volume of biblical prophecy. Millenarianism strictly speaking is defined with respect to the interpretation of certain verses in the twentieth chapter of Revelation. More generally, the fundamental principle of sola scriptura demanded that all Protestant theological doctrines be founded directly on the text of scripture. Given the bibliocentrism of Alsted’s Puritan contemporaries and the intimate association of millenarianism and biblical fundamentalism in more recent times, students of English eschatology have expressed little hesitation in deriving the emergence of millenarianism from the long tradition of historical interpretation of the Apocalypse reaching back to the Reformation. The principal narrative treatment of the English apocalyptic tradition claims this explicitly. The new enthusiasm’ for the doctrine of millenarianism, it states, ‘was built on the foundations of the historical apocalyptic tradition as it had developed on the continent.’ In the case of Alsted in particular, his interpretation of ecclesiastical history ‘was to form the basis of his defence of millenarianism’, and the two computations underlying his dating of the outset of the millennium in 1694, we are told, were those mainstays of the English apocalyptic tradition, the seven seals, seven trumpets and seven vials of Revelation and the final verses of the Book of Daniel.1
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References
Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition, pp. 206–7, 210, 211, 248–9. Cf. Ball, A Great Expectation, pp. 67–80, esp. p. 80; Bauckham, Tudor Apocalyptic, pp. 221 – 4, 227.
“Thesaurus chronologiae (1624), p. 47, fols. Aa3r”v; (1628), pp. 142–3, 147–9; Diatribe, (1627), pp. 29–31 (= Beloved City, p. 13). Other such outlines include Praecognita theologica (1614), ii. 117–18, 507–8, 534–5, 651–2; cf. also ii. 519–28; (1623), pp. 248–9, 599–600, 729–30; and Triumphus Bibliorum (1625), pp. 493–5, 467–8.
Theologia prophetica, exhibens I. rhetoricam ecclesiasticam, in qua proponitur ars concionarteli, et illustratur promptuario concionum locupletissimo. II Politicam ecclesiasticam (Herborn, 1622), ‘Condones in Apocalypsin’, pp. 842–63 and ‘Summaria Apocalypseos’, p. 901; see esp. pp. 842–3, 848–52, 858–9.
Trifolium propheticum, id est Canticum canticorum Salomonis, prophetia Danielis, Apocalypsis Johannis sic explicata, ut series textûs, et series temporis prophetici è regione positae lucem menti, et consolationem cordi ingérant (Herborn, 1640). Although the work was published posthumously, the preface is signed ‘Alba Julia 4. Kalendas Septembris. M D C XXXIII’, and several indications in the text (e.g., p. 2181) indicate that it was finished in the same year.
Cf. Ball, A Great Expectation, pp. 239–42.
Cf. below, eh. 6 n. 58 and eh. 7 n. 16.
Trifolium propheticum, Traefatio’, fol.)(2r: 4Quae omnia ex commentario nostro uberiùs intelliges, in quo fere nobis proposuimus Thomam Brigthmannum [sic], ita ut seriem temporis prophetici quantum ad summam rei ex ipsius commentario in Canticum secuti simus; et in Daniele nonnulla, quae ad cap. 11 inde à v.36 usque ad finem libri tradidit, hue transtulerimus; in Apocalypsi denique majorem quidem partem seriei propheticae ex Grasero filio, illustrationem vero textûs ex commentario Brigthmanni, hauserimus.’ The three works mentioned are as follows: Thomas Brightman, Commentarius in Cantica canticorum Salomonis .... Adjecta est ejusdem . . . ultimae et difficillimae partis prophet iae Danie I is, à ver. 36. cap. 11. ad fine m cap. 12. sese diffundentis, explicatio (Basle, 1614); and id., Apocalypsis Apocalypseos. Id est, Apocalypsis D. loannis analysi et scholiis illustrata (Frankfurt am Main, 1609). For Graserus, see note 18 below. More precisely, the identification of the first three seals and the two beasts of chapter thirteen are taken over from Brightman; the last four seals, all seven trumpets, and the first two vials from Graserus; while the final five vials are provided with new dates by Alsted himself. See Trifolium, pp. 246–53, 59, 62–6, 71, 78, 80, 84, 93–4, 115, 117, 118–9, 120, 121.
Hans Preuss, Die Vorstellung vom Antichrist im späteren Mittelalter, bei Luther und in der konfessionellen Polemik (Leipzig, 1906), pp. 53, 194–5, 234–6; Froom, Prophetic Faith, ii. 277, 317, 331, 344, 348, 358, 401, 519, 536, 611, 629; John M. Headley, Luther’s View of Church History (New Haven and London, 1963), pp. 192–4; Ball, A Great Expectation, pp. 84, 134, 139; Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition, pp. 26, 158, 169.
Alsted, Praecognita theologica (1614), ii. 521, 535; (1623), pp. 598, 612, 729; Theologia catechetica (1616), p. 354; Cursus, i. 2831.3, 2850, 3015.4 (= Ency, p. 1991.b.-2.a.3, 1997.Ò, 2060.a.4); Theologia polemica (1622), pp. 849, 850, 857; Thesaurus chronologiae (1624), pp. 77, 148, 155–6, 253, 329; (1628), pp. 182–2, 282, 287–8, 392, 487; Paratala theologica (1626), pp. 415, 443; Diatribe, pp. 20, 21, 30 and table ‘Ad pag. 29’ (= Beloved City, pp. 7, 11, 13); Regulae theologicae (Hanau, 1628), p. 134; Trifolium propheticum, pp. 156,253, 62–3, 71, 181–3; Prodromus religionis triumphantis, p. 519.
This identification is also found in the Paratala theologica, pp. 251–4.
Trifolium propheticum, Teroratio in Apocalypsim’, p. 2179: ‘Ubi ingenue fateor, me, ubi potui, secutum esse Brigthmannum [sic], et ideo nonulla, quae antehac scripsi de epochis hujusmodi propheticis, necesse habuisse retractarem.’
Alsted treats these in Cursus, i. 2321.7, 2613.2, and Ency, pp. 1426.a-b.2, where he draws on the following sources: Jean Bodin, De republica libri sex (3rd ed., Frankfurt am Main, 1593), pp. 612–61;
Caspar Peucer, Commentarius de praecipuis divinationum generibus (Frankfurt am Main, 1593), pp. 30fT, esp. 34, 35; Elias Reusner, Hortulus historico-politicus coronas sex, cura et studio Abrahami de la Faye (Herborn, 1618), pp. 56–9 et seqq.
Cursus, i. 2321.7 (cf. i. 2613.2 and Ency., p. 1426.a.2): ‘Constituit autem Deus certas periodos, quae rebus pub. sint fatales, ferme duas, videi, annum 500. et 700. Magno enim exemplorum consensu observatum est, 70. septimanas Danielis (quae recensentur cap. 9.) insignem mutationem rebuspubl. attulisse. Tot enim anni numerantur à ducatu Mosis ad regnum Saulis: à soluta captivitate Babylonicâ ad Christi mortem: ab Ezra, qui politiam Judaicam instauravit, usque ad Vespasianum, qui totam destruxit.’
Cursus, i. 2831–2.3 (= Ency., pp. 191.b-2.a.3): ‘Periodi Ecclesiae N.T. sunt quatuor. Prima est à Christo Domino, usque ad annum 600, tempore Phocae. Secunda est inde à Phocâ, usque ad annum 1056, tempore Henrici IV. Tertia est inde ab Henrico IV usque ad annum 1519, tempore Caroli V. Quarta est à Carolo V. ad nostram aetatem. Ex his periodis prima superat anno 500. secunda et tertia quàm proxime accedunt. Nimirum ut regnis mundi fatalis ista periodus est constituta à Deo: sic etiam politiae Ecclesiae in his terris militantis. Ea enim inde ab ascensione Christi, quingentorum annorum periodo, vel circumactâ, vel imminente mutationem fatalem sustinuit, et novam quasi faciam induit’.
Cursus, i. 3002 (= Ency., pp. 2055.b-6.a): ‘Atque in hoc excidio [templi Hierosolymitani in annum 69 Dionysianum] desinunt 70 Septimanae Danielis e. 9. ut patet ex collatione Matth. 24.V.J5. et Luc. 21.V.20. Sic itaque politia Mosaica funditùs est deleta, ut regnum Christi inter gentes posset feliciùs condì. Et hinc ineipiunt Septem fatales periodi N.T. quas indicat Johannes in Apocalypsi per tubas. Habent autem singulae periodi seu tubae quinque Jubilaeos, qui confìciunt annos 245. Ex his periodis prima est ab excidio templi usque ad Constantinum, et complectitur decern illas famosas persecutiones: secunda ad Manometern, quae Imperii occidentalis destructionem denotat: tertia ad Carolum M. quae Mahometanorum incredibiles successus denotat: quarta ad Hildebrandum seu Gregorium VII. quae portendit acmiw regni Papistici: quinta ad regnum Ottomannicum, notans direptione Orientis: sexta ad Lutherum seu reformationem Ecclesiae: septem ad fìnem mundi.’ Note this futher expression of the amillennial expectation of an imminent end of the world.
Napier, Schone und lang gewünschte Außlegung der Offenbarung Johannis, .... nach den Frantzösischen, Englischen unnd Schottischen Exemplaren, dritter Edition jetzund auch unserem geliebten Teutschen Verstand übergeben (Frankfurt am Main, 1615). The earlier editions referred to are Edinburgh, 1593; London, 1594, 1611; and La Rochelle, 1602, 1603, 1605, 1607. The translator is identified as Wolfgang Mayer (Meyer), a Basle ecclesiastic who represented the city at the Synod of Dort (Matrikel der Universität Basel, ed. Wachernagel, iii. 413). See esp. the sixth proposition, pp. 10–14, and pp. 18, 23–33, which considers the likely period of the end of the world. On Napier’s exposition, see Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition, pp. 132–49; Christianson, Reformers and Babylon, pp. 97–100; Ball, A Great Expectation, pp. 80–82; R. G. Clouse, ‘John Napier and Apocalyptic Thought’, Sixteenth Century Journal, 5 (1974), 101–14;
Arthur Williamson, Scottish National Consciousness in the Age of James VI (Edinburgh, 1979), esp. pp. 21–30.
A preference explicitly stated in the Diatribe, pp. 256–7 (= Beloved City, p. 75): Teneatur breviter haec Maxima: Divina Apocalypsis inde ab excessu Johannis usque ad finem secuii distincte figurat statum ecclesiae, ipsiusque secula per sigilla, tubas, phialas, et sequentes visiones, ita ut haec omnia pulcherrimo ordine sibi invicem succédant, non autem unum idemque per varias visiones repraesentetur.’
Cunradus Graserus, jr., Isagoges historicae pars prima, quae vocatur prophetica et res ab exordio mundi ad fìnem templi Salomonici per 3360 annos gestas reducit and Isagoges historicae pars secunda, quae dicitur exotica et historiam quatuor monarchiarum ac concurrentium rerum inde ab excidio templi Salomonici usque ad Ferdinandi I. imperium . . . alligai (Thorn, 1623).
Trifolium propheticum, p. 23, isagoge in Apocalypsim’: ‘Et certe non ineptè prophetiae singulorum sive sigillorum, sive tubarum, sive phialarum, singulorum LXX. Ecclesiae annorum historia successivo ordine numerata respondet. Quibus verbis Graserus non solum Brigthmanni sententiam confirmat, sed etiam aliquid novi, de LXX. videlicet septimanis Danielis, hoc est, de fatali periodo, observat.’
Ency., p. 1426.b.2: ‘Quarta causa est conjunctio planetarum, inprimis magna ilia, quae fit in trigono igneo.’
Cf. Cursus, i. 2322.7: ‘Non praecisè urgendus est articulus anni 500. vel 700. quia Deus saepenumero prorogat istum terminum pro sua immensa misericordia: saepe etiam eundem terminum anticipat ob scelera mortalium.’
Graserus fixed the times of the first three seals as 120, 190, and 260 and the final five vials as 1200, 1300, 1346, 1350, and 1492. Alsted substituted Brightman’s dates for the former three and departed radically from Graserus pattern in the latter five to incorporate the millennium into this system.
The same applies to Alsted’s interpretation of Revelations ch. 21–22. His early works, until after the Diatribe, consistently interpret this vision of the New Jerusalem as an intimation of eternal blessedness: Praecognita theologica (1614), ii. 616; Theologia prophetica (1622), pp. 860–63; Compendium theologicum (1624), pp. 76–7, 300; Diatribe (1627), p. 31 (= Beloved City, p. 13). He first applies this vision to the church during the millennium in a briefpassage in the Encyclopaedia, p. 1615.a.3; the Prodromus, pp. 521, 1037, repeatedly refers to Brightman in support of this interpretation; and the Trifolium propheticum, ii. 159–75, develops the idea fully on Brightman’s model.
The same argument applies with even greater clarity to Johannes Piscator (see chapter 6.i) for the still more surprising reason that his path-breaking commentary on the Apocalypse is very largely ahistorical in approach. In his interpretation, only the first seal and the final three vials seem to have any specific historical locus. All the others are interpreted, with admirable consistency, as representing the physical persecution of the pious and the spiritual and psychological miseries which befall the impious in consequence of sin and disregard of the Gospel during the entire time between the birth of Christ and the fall of Antichrist. See for instance Piscator, In Apocalypsin commenarius, fol.):(rv, pp. 57–9, 85–7, 150–2, 157–9; Comm. N.T., pp. 1503, 1525, 1533–4, 1553, 1555.
Trifolium propheticum, isagoge in Apocalypsim’, p. 23: ‘Sic itaque Brigthmannus, et Graserus veram clavem, et filum Ariadnes, quod in hoc libro enarrando sequamur, nobis ostenderunt. Et hoc proinde, quoad licet, sequemur. Dico, quoad licet. Sunt enim nonnulla, ubi ab istis recedere cogimur: quòd sententiam illam, quam in Thesauro Chronologiae antehac publicavimus, quantum ad summam rei attinet, nulli posumus mutare.’
Daniel 12:6,7, 11–12.
Cursus, i. 1170 (not in Ency.) ‘Septimana prophetica; quae est systema septem annorum. . . . Dies propheticus est annus solaris, vel lunaris. . . . Prions significations exemplum èst Apoc. 11. vers. 3. et Dan. 12.’ Cf. Paratitla theologica, p. 131.a. Ball provides a clear discussion of the common assumptions underlying the historical interpretation of apocalyptic prophecy in A Great Expectation, pp. 67–72.
Luther, Von den Juden und ihren Lügen (1543); in Luther, Werke: Kritische Gesamtausgabe (58 vols., Weimar, 1883–1948), liii. 492–500, esp. p. 492: ‘Erstlich is man darin gantz und gar eins, das diese siebenzig Wochen nicht Tagewochen, sondern Jarwochen sind,.. . . Zum andern ist man des auch eins, das solche siebenzig Wochen sind völendet gewest, da Jerusalem zustöret ist von den Römern.’ Cf. Headly, Luther’s View of Church History, p. 138.
Scaliger, De emendatione temporum opus (Frankfurt am Main, 1592), pp. 281–90. Cf. Grafton, Scaliger, ii. 306. Scaliger actually dated the end of Daniel’s seventy weeks from the beginning of the war which resulted in the destruction of the Second Temple; but, as Alsted notes, ‘Discrimen est dimidiae tantum septimanae’: Cursus, i. 2974.6 (= Ency., p. 2101.b. 17; cf. 2046.b-7.a.6). Mede on the other hand dated it half a week after the sack of Jerusalem with the complete dissolution of the Jewish state: see his Three Treatises upon some obscure passages in Daniel (1663), in Works, iii. 697–709. It is worth noting here that, while others favoured a slightly different date for the destruction of the Second Temple, and still others dated the end of Daniel’s seventy weeks (from which these final numbers begin) from the Resurrection, none of this would have altered the basic logic of Alsted’s calculation. Even from this earlier date his calculation would have placed the beginning of millennium in the near but not imminent future: AD 34+ 1290+ 1335 – 1000 = AD 1659.
Villanova: Bernard McGinn, Visions of the End: Apocalyptic Traditions in the Middle Ages (New York, 1979), p. 224. Johannes de Rupescissa, Liber secretorum eventum, ed. and trans. R. E. Lerner and C. Morerod-Fattebert (Fribourg, 1994), pp. 57–8, 144–5. Wimbledon: Foxe, Acts and Monuments (London, 1563), p. 181 .b; cf. Firth, Apocalyptic Tradition, p. 83. WolfT (Wolphius), Chronologia sive de tempore et eius mutationibus ecclesiasticis tractat io theologica libris duobus comprehensa (Zürich, 1585), pp. 100, 119–20, 145–6. Alsted cites Wolff on this point in the Trifolium propheticum, p. 166. Mede curiously dated the beginning of this period from Antiochus: Works, iii. 717–24.
On Stifel, see H.-U. Hoffmann, Luther und die Johannes-Apokalypse (Tübingen, 1982), pp. 530–49; Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis, pp. 187–202;
Werner Jentsch, ‘Michael Stifel. Mathematiker und Mitstreiter Martin Luthers’, Esslinger Studien, 28 (1989), 25–50.
Diatribe, p. 263–4 (translation from Beloved City, p. 78, slightly revised). Cf. Compendium theologicum, p. 383; Thesaurus chronologiae (1628), p. 484; Regulae theologicae, p. 198; and also Theologia catechetica, pp. 353–4; Theologia scholastica didactica, pp. 841–2.
Thesaurus chronologiae (1624), p. 325.i; (1628), p. 482.i: ‘Nam cùm Deus numeros quosdam in historiis et prophetiis verbi sui expresserit, ingratitudinis et negligentiae fuerit, illos non expendere in timore Domini.’
Thesaurus chronologiae (1628), p. 482.iii: ‘Caput 12. Danielis debet nobis esse cynosura in explicatione numerorum propheticorum.’
Thesaurus chronologiae (1624), pp. 49–54. Of the ten prophecies treated here, nos. i-m deal with Daniel’s seventy weeks, which end with the destruction of the second Temple; nos. iv-v, and x deal with the calculation itself; and nos. vi, vii-ix all help specify the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries as a great turning point in the history of the church. On no. vii see below, pp. 116–17. Several more prophecies and a summary of the Apocalypse are added in 1628 (pp. 143–50).
Praecognita theologica (1614), ii. 518–19, 527, 535; Triumphus Bibliorum (1625), pp. 468, 493–95; Paratala theologica (1626), p. 431; Diatribe (1627), pp. 30, 204–6, 222 (= Beloved City, pp. 13, 49–50, 57); Thesaurus chronologiae (1628), pp. 7, 45, 146–9, 482–3, 484; Encyclopaedia (1630), pp. 2071.Ò.3, 2096.a.2; Trifolium propheticum (1633/1640), esp. pp. 166–7; also pp. 41,254, 112, 115, 147, 159, 171, 180ff.
Cf. Thesaurus chronologiae (1624), pp. 53–4, 324.7, 325.iv, 482.7 with (1628) pp. 482.iii, 483.iv, 484.9.
Triple Presage, p. 13 (= Nuncius propheticus, pp. 43–4): . . Alsted the Standard-bearer of the millenaries of our age appointeth the yeare of Grace, 1694. . . . Others say it is most uncertaine, whose judgement I hold to bee the most certaine.’ Cf. Beloved City, p. XX (fol. 3A2V); Mede, ‘Remains on Some Passages in the Apocalypse’, Works, iii. 602–3.
Robert Baillie, A Dissuasive from the Errours of the Time (London, 1645), p. 224.
In addition to the examples below, the famous Pietist millenarian, Johann Wilhelm Petersen, seems to have published a pamphlet on Alsted’s prediction in 1694 which I have not traced: see Petersen, Nubes testium veritatis de regno Christi glorioso in septima tuba futuro restantium (3 vols., Frankfurt, 1696), iii. 2175: ‘Adducit in ilio scripto, Mûlhusae Typis Paulinianis An. 1694. impreso, Johannis Henrici Alstedii de ilio anno conjecturam, cui de me (qui quotidie melior fieri cupio) subsequentia ponit.’
In general, see DNB xii. 1315–16; The Victoria History of the Counties of England: Buckinghampshire, vol. i, ed. William Page (Haymarket, 1905), 225–6; Christopher Hill, ‘John Mason and the End of the World’, in Puritanism and Revolution (London, 1958), pp. 323–36; Schwartz, French Prophets, pp. 43–5.
The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. Beer, (6 vols., Oxford, 1955), v. 117–8 (24/6 Apr. 1694). Evelyn’s copy of the Encyclopaedia (British Library sign. Eve.c.6) has considerable marginalia in the section on chronology (pp. 1983–2105).
Henry Maurice, An Impartial Account of Mr. John Mason of Water-Stratford, and His Sentiments (London, 1695), pp. 30–31, 41–3. Maurice specifies pp. 146, 148, 484 of the Thesaurus, which correspond to the editions of 1628 and following.
Oswald Seidensticker, Bilder aus der deutsch-pennsylvanischen Geschichte (New York, 1885), pp. 85–102, esp. p. 97. Julius Fiedrich Sachse, The German Pietists of Provincial Pennsylvania (Philadelphia, 1895) is devoted primarily to the group: see esp. pp. 11–48, 65–83, 109–138, 219–50, 460–72. Cf. also Dictionary of American Biography, x. (London and New York, 1933), 312–13; Martin Brecht, ‘Chiliasmus in Württemberg im 17. Jahrhundert’, in Brecht, de Boor and Deppermann (eds.), Chiliasmus in Deutschland und England, pp. 25–49, here pp. 41, 43, 49, which list further literature.
The final paragraph on Alsted’s millenaranism appears first in Bayle, Dictionnaire historique et critique (3rd. ed., Rotterdam, 1720), i. 165: ‘Il prétendit que ce regne commencerait l’an 1694. Nous savons très-certainement qu’il s’est trompé.’
Jean Pierre Nicéron, Memoires pour servir a l’histoire des hommes illustres dans la republique des lettres (43 vols., Paris, 1727–45), xli. 309: ‘On a eu le temps de se convaincre de la fausseté de son Système’. Nicéron is in turn quoted in the Dictionnaire d’histoire et de géographie ecclésiastique, ii. (Paris, 1914), 774. Bibliothèque sacrée ou dictionnaire universel des sciences ecclésiastiques, par les révérends pères Richard et Giraud, Dominicans (2nd ed., Paris, 1822), ii. 45: ‘On voit par l’événement quel cas on doit faire de cet prétendu prophète’. Blekastad quotes Bayle’s quip in Comenius, p. 33.
Praecognita theologica (1614), ii. 508; (1623), ii. 599, 600 (quoted above, eh. 1 n. 60).
Praecognita theologica (1614), ii. 525–8, including the three arguments from Osiander discussed above, ch. 1 .ii.
Praecognita theologica (1614), ii. 519. The key text is reproduced below, pp. 103–4. By the ‘tota Apocalypse©s ratio’ he appears to mean the general apocalyptic series of Daniel and Revelation, discussed on ii. 511–18, 521–24 (cf. also p. 526 no. 4). This interpretation of the ‘times’ recurs in the Paratala theologica (1626), p. 431.a-b and is retained even after Alsted conclusively adopts millenarianism: see Thesaurus chronologiae (1628), p. 146.
Cf. Praecognita theologica, ii. 535, where the last entry on Alsted’s ‘Synopsis chronologiae Novi Testamenti’ is as follows: ‘1694 Hie est terminus praedictus a Daniel cap. 12.’
The fullest biography of Egli is J. Wälli, ‘Raphael Egli (1559–1622)’, Zürcher Taschenbuch, n.F. 28 (1905), 154–92. A valuable synopsis is contained in Hannes Reimann, Die Einführung des Kirchengesangs in der Zürcher Kirche nach der Reformation (Zürich, 1959), pp. 50–68. For the most recent treatment, see Bruce T. Moran, The Alchemical World of the German Court, pp. 40–49; and id., ‘Alchemy, Prophecy, and the Rosicrucians: Raphael Eglinus and Mystical Currents of the early Seventeenth Century’, in Piyo Rattansi and Antonio Clericuzio (eds), Alchemy and Chemistry in the 16th and 17th Centuries (Dordrecht, Boston and London, 1994), pp. 103–19. Egli and his relations with Alsted are treated in detail in Hotson, Alsted, esp. pp. 59–64,97–100.
Abraham van Stolk, Atlas van Stolk: Katalogus der historie-, spot- en zinneprenten betrekkelijk de geschiedenis van Nederland (11 vols, in 10, Amsterdam, 1895–1931), nos. 893–4.
Ananias Jeraucurius, Explicatio characterum qui inventi fuerunt in lateribus duorum halecum quae fuerunt capta: unum in Dania alterum in Norvvegia, 21. Nouemb. anno Domini 1587 quae iudicium Dei in superbos mundi et eorum caput Antichristum praenunciant ([n. pi.] 1588).
Helisaeus Roeslin, Gründliche, Warhajftige unnd rechtmessige Erklerung, der Char actern und Buchstaben, so uff dem in Norwegen gefangnen Hering gestanden (n.pl., 1588). Cf. Âkerman, Rose Cross over the Baltic, pp. 116–17; Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis, pp. 171–2; and above ch. 3 n. 9.
A first edition, presumably discussing only two fish, is noted in Hans Jacob Leu, Allgemeines Helvetisches, Eydgenößisches, oder Schweitzerisches Lexicon, vi. (Zürich, 1752), 224–8: Prophet ica halieutica nova ad Danie lis et S. Apocalypeos calculum chronographicum revocata (Zürich, 1587).
Antipas Francus, Divinorum characterum halecum duarum, in littore Nortwegico, anno 1587 captarum vera Lectio ab omnibus hucusque ignorata. Nec non prophetica explicatio, anno quidem superiore scripta, nunc primùm vero in lucem ed. in qua praecipua fere omnia praedicuntur, quae ad annum usque 1628. in toto orbe terrarum futura sunt ([n.pl.] 1591).
For an example of the latter, see the reproduction in Th. H. Lunsingh Scheurleer, fcUn Amphithéâtre d’anatomie moraliée’, Lunsingh Scheurleer and Guillaume H. M. Posthumus Meyjes (eds.), Leiden University in the Seventeenth Century: an Exchange of Learning (Leiden, 1975), pp, 217–77, here p. 239.
See note 61 below.
Egli, Prophetia halieutica nova et admiranda (Zürich, 1598); repr. as Coniecturae halieuticae novae et admirandae (Frankfurt am Main, 1611). Heinrich Corrodi, Kritische Geschichte des Chiliasmus (3 vols., Frankfurt and Leipzig, 1781–3), vol. 3, pt. 1, pp. 50–59 describes this pamphlet (by his fellow Züricher) at some length.
Faulhaber, Vernufftiger Creaturen Weissagungen, Das ist: Beschreibung eines Wunder Hirschs, auch etlicher Heringen und Fisch, ungewöhnlicher Signaturen und Characteren, so underschidlicher Orten gefangen, und den höchsten Potentaten zugeschickt worden (Augsburg, 1632). On him, see ADB vi. 581–3; Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis, pp. 199–201, 222, 309 n. 44; Ivo Schneider, Johannes Faulhaber (1580–1635). Rechenmeister in einer Welt des Umbruchs (Basle, 1993); Johannes Faulhaber 1580–1635. Eine Blütezeit der mathematischen Wissenschaften in Ulm (Ulm, 1995).
Egli, Prophetia halieutica (1598), fol. Clr“v; cf. the summary on fol. E2r”v. This calculation is also the basis of the exegesis contained in Egli’s Expressa et solida totius Apocalypsis Dominicae epilysis, published and republished in close conjunction with it (Zürich, 1600; Hanau, 1611). Elements of the calculation, together with further supporting arguments and a still more explicit rejection of millenarianism are found, for instance, on pp. 358, 475–7, 480, 485–8, 494–5 of the second edition. Alsted alludes to this commentary in the Compendium theologicum (1624), p. 83 and the Trifolium propheticum, p. 25 (cf. Egli, Apocalypsis epilysis, 1611, fol. ***2V); but the verbatim echoes noted above show that the immediate source of Alsted’s knowledge of this argument was the Prophetica halieutica, which he nowhere mentions. In the parallel texts above, italics indicate the phrases from Egli transcribed into Alsted’s text.
Cf. Cursus, i. 3037; Ency, pp. 713.Ò.3, 2067.b.2, 2190; the over one hundred items c. 1618–20 directly relating to it (Zinner, nos. 4621–4821 passim); Stillman Drake and C. D. O’Malley (eds.), The Controversy on the Comets of 1618 (Philadelphia, 1960); Barnes, Prophecy and Gnosis, pp. 168, 172–4, 178, 339; Tabitta van Nouhuys, The Age of Two-Faced Janus: the Comets of 1577 and 1618 and the Decline of the Aristotelian World View in the Netherlands (Leiden, Boston and Cologne, 1998). Alsted cites Erycius Puteanus, De cometa anni 1618 nova mundi spectaculo libri duo Paradoxologia (Cologne, 1619), lib. 1, pp. 32–3.
Thesaurus chronologiae (1624), p. 336; (1628), p. 493: ‘1618. Nemo est, qui non observaverit hujus anni cometam, de quo multi multa scripserunt. Praesagium ipsius jam eheu est in manibus nostris.’ It is noted in Cursus, i. 3037 and Ency., pp. 713.b.3, 2067.b.2, 2190.
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Hotson, H. (2000). Volumen biblicus seu propheticus: prophetic numerology. In: Paradise Postponed. Archives Internationales D’histoire des Idées / International Archives of the History of Ideas, vol 172. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-015-9494-3_4
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