# Failed prophecies of the end of the world - AD 0-1199 Numerous people have tried to predict the end of the world with elaborate timetables. Most date-setters don't realize [humanity has a pretty unreliable record of time](datetime.md). Priests usually kept the days, and many of them would alter the dates to fit [political purposes](power-types.md). A few failings from 100 B.C. to 2000 A.D.: - 46 B.C. was 445 days long. - There was no year 0 B.C. - The Catholic Church switched from Julian Years to Gregorian in 1582, which cancels a leap day about every 100 years, and the Protestants only switched a long time later. All of these are here for your benefit to understand how much humanity has failed at [predicting](imagination-badpredictions.md) the end. - If a prophet predicts the future, and is wrong, they're not a good prophet. - [Deuteronomy 18:21-22](https://biblehub.com/deuteronomy/18.htm) - Jesus emphasizes that nobody knows [when he's coming back](jesus-returns.md), not even himself. - [Matthew 24:36](https://biblehub.com/matthew/24-36.htm) - [Mark 13:32](https://biblehub.com/mark/13-32.htm) - Anyone who makes more claims of predicting the future is about as accurate as anyone here. 44 - Theudas declared himself the Messiah, taking 400 people with him into the desert. He was 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 they had missed Jesus coming back ([1 Thessalonians 5:1-3](https://biblehub.com/1_thessalonians/5.htm)). 66-70 - Simon bar Giora of the Essene sect of Jewish ascetics predicted the return of Zion with the Jewish revolt against the Roman Empire. 80 - Ben Zakkai died at about 80 and expected the Messiah around the time of his death. 100-200 - Rabbi Eliezer Ben Hyrcanus thought the days of the Messiah would last 40 years. Before Bar Kochba the Messiah's 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 of the Roman Empire. 365 - Hilary of Portiers predicted the end of the world would happen that year. 375-400 - Martin of Tours stated that the end would happen before 400 and that the Antichrist had already been born. 381 - Tichonus, a writer of the 4th century, predicted the return of Christ. 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 indicated there were still two centuries left. 400 - Rabbi Dosa said, based on Genesis 15:13, the Messiah would come at the end of 400 years. 435 - Rabbi Judah ha-Nasi believed the Messiah would come 365 years after the Temple's destruction in 70 470 - Rabbi Hanina, thought the Messiah would come 400 years after the Temple Destruction. 500 - Sextus Julius Africanus, 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. - Hippolytus and Lactantius said 500 would be the time for the second coming of Christ. 793 - Beatus of Liebana preached the second coming of Christ and the end of the world on April 6, 793 to thousands of people. 799-806 - Gregory of Tours calculated the end of the world would be between 799 and 806 800 - Sextus Julius Africanus revises the day of Doomsday to 800. 848 - Thiota declared that the end of the world would be that year. 950 - Acrostic on the end of the world, the predecessor of Celano's "Dies Irae," found in a message from Aniane. - "Treatise on the Antichrist" by Adso of Montier-en-Der, c. 950, a response to various crises at mid-century that provoked widespread apocalyptic disquiet, and rapidly became a central text in the European eschatological literature. 950-980 - Letter on the Hungarians that speaks of widespread apocalyptic reactions among the population. 964 - "Dum saeculum transit finis mundi appropinquat..." - As the saeculum century passes, the end of the world approaches. 965 - Abbo hears a preacher in Paris announcing the unleashing of the Antichrist for 1000 AD and the Last Judgment shortly afterward. 968 - Panic in German Emperor Otto I's army at an eclipse the soldiers took to portend the end of the world. 968-969 - 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, the release of demons) occurred. 969 or 980 - The widespread apocalyptic expectation in Lotharingia at the coincidence of the Annunciation and the Crucifixion, against which Abbo writes a letter. 979 - Abbo corrects his date. 983-984 - Abbo re-dates the year 1000 four years into the past (true AD 1000 = Dionysus' 979) using new apocalyptic beliefs as the basis of his calculations. 987-991 - The last Carolingian dynasty falls, the final hindrance to the arrival of Antichrist according to Adso, and the capture of the last potential ruler occurs. Southern charters begin to date AD, with Christ reigning, a traditional formula with an interregnum with apocalyptic antecedents. 989, August - Halley's Comet appears. 989-1000 - The first wave of peace councils in the South. 990s - Mention of apocalyptic beliefs leading to a violent seizure of church property at St. Hilaire. 990s-1010s - Preaching of Aelfric and Wulfistan, filled with images of the Last Judgment, explicitly linked at points to the year 1000 and the unleashing of Antichrist. 992-995 - A coincidence of the 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 the north at dawn like the sun, rumor among many that three suns, three moons, and stars were fighting, indicating massive mortality and famine. - Good Friday coincided with the Feast of the Annunciation; this had long been believed to be the event that would bring forth the Antichrist, and thus the end-times, within three years. 994-1000 - Outbreaks of sacer ignis throughout France, associated in Limoges with the Peace of God. 994-995 - Various signs (including a monstrous child), famines, plagues, and mortality in Saxony, referred to as the biblical "tria iudicia pessima". 994-996 - "Concerning the end of the world, as a youth I heard a sermon in 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 angels and the Apocalypse and the book of Daniel." 994-999 - Otto III engages in an elaborate program of Imperial Roman Renovation that, from the apocalyptic scenario, would reaffirm the existence of the "barrier" to Antichrist, particularly crucial given the demise of the last of the Carolingians in the previous decade. In this, he recapitulated many of Charlemagne's responses to the coming of the year 6000. 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 January 1, 1000. - None of the Bible's important events transpired at that time. - The magical number 1000 was primarily the sole reason for the expectation. - Otto returns to Aachen, where he exhumes Charlemagne's body on Pentecost of the year 1000. - An outbreak of heresies in France, Italy, and south-west Mediterranean that Glaber interprets as the unleashing of Satan according to Revelations. - 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. - References to 1000 taken from Sigebert in later medieval chroniclers. - During December 999, 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. 1002 - Speculation that the end of the world would come thirteen and a half years after Halley's Comet in December 1002. 1003 - According to Glaber, Europe covers itself in the white mantle of Churches. 1003 - Dionysus Exiguus predicts the end of the world. 1004 - Prediction of the end of the world 1000 years after the virgin birth of Christ. 1005-1006 - Terrible famine throughout Europe that is associated with apocalyptic portents in several texts. 1006 - New star sighted in the heavens (supernova in May 1006) - A chaplain of the Emperor converts to Judaism. 1009 - Rain of blood; the sun turns red and fails to shine for three days; plague and death follow. 1009-1010 - Destruction in Jerusalem of the Holy Sepulcher by the chiliastic Moslem caliph Al-Hakim, apocalyptic reaction in the West, including violent anti-Jewish outbursts. 1010 - Brythfird commentaries note that the 1000 years of the Apocalypse are completed according to human calculations, therefore supporting Augustine's allegorical reading. 1011-1012 - Apocalyptic vision of monk at St-Vaast recorded by Richard of Saint-Vanne. 1012-1014 - Various prodigies and natural disasters provoked the expulsion of the Jews from Mainz and led some to believe that the world was "returning to its original chaos". 1018 - Pre-dawn panic and trampling at St. Martial followed by an outbreak of heresy throughout the south, considered agents of Antichrist by Ademar of Chabannes. - Heribert the monk reports a heresy from the Perigord, apocalyptic tone to the letter. 1022 - Burning of heretics at Orléans, described in several texts in apocalyptic tones. ~1024 - Letter from heaven calling for Peace Councils circulates throughout Northern France. 1025 - Radulphus Glaber begins a world history that, under the guidance of William of Volpiano, explicitly makes the year 1000 the focal point. - Adémar de Chabannes begins a world history whose major theme from 1010 on is apocalyptic signs and prodigies. 1026-1027 - Large collective pilgrimage to Jerusalem, led by Richard of St. Vaast. 1028 - Rain of blood on the Aquitanian shore provokes letters from William V to Robert, Robert to Gauzlin of Bourges and Fulbert of Chartres on their opinion. 1029-1032 - Ademar of Chabannes produces some 500 folios of historical fiction in which apocalyptic themes play a major role. 1030-1033 - Terrible famine throughout France. 1030-1046 - Mention of heresies throughout Christendom (Italy, Gaul, Greece, Hungary) by Gerard, bishop of Csanád, where similar anti-ecclesiastical phenomena are associated with Revelation 20:7. 1031-1033 - Wave of peace councils throughout France, starting in Aquitaine, associated with millennium of Passion by Glaber IV. 1033 - Prodigies, eclipse, massive earthquake etc. leads to penitential procession in Jouarre-Rebais, dated millennium of the Passion. - This year was sighted as the beginning of the millennium because it marked 1000 years since Christ's crucifixion. - Mass pilgrimage to Jerusalem noted in Ademar and Glaber who associated it with apocalyptic expectation. 1033-1036 - Deacon of Orleans leaves for Jerusalem on pilgrimage out of apocalyptic expectations. 1114 - Sigebert of Gembloux predicts the end of the world on this day. 1186 - The "Letter of Toledo" warned everyone to hide in the caves and mountains. The world would be destroyed and only a few would be spared. This was based on the alignments of planets. [Next page](imagination-failedprophecies-2.md)