John Amos Comenius: Inciting the Millennium through Educational Reform

Comenius is considered by many scholars to be the father of modern education, a title that he has thoroughly earned. His ideas about universal education for all children foreshadowed modern pedagogical developments, and he dedicated more than forty years of his life to reforming education and society. The question guiding this research was: Why was Comenius so dedicated to reform efforts, and why were his ideas about education so peculiar for his time? Through a review of existing scholarship and Comenius’ own writing, namely the Labyrinth, Didactic, and the Orbis Pictus, it became clear that Comenius was inspired by the millenarian ideology prevalent during the fifteenth through the seventeenth centuries in Europe as well as the effects that the turbulence of the seventeenth century had on his own life. These factors also led Comenius to believe that educational reform was the key to unlocking Pansophy, which would incite the Millennium, the golden age of peace and prosperity that would precede the second coming of Christ and the final judgement of God.

Ἀποκάλυψισ en ἀποκαλύπτω as wederkomswoorde in die Nuwe Testament

Ἀποκάλυψισ and ἀποκαλύπτω as words denoting the second coming in the New Testament. Several Greek words are used in the New Testament to denote the second coming of Christ. None of these words can be translated as ‘second coming’. Two of these words are ἀποκάλυψις and ἀποκαλύπτω. This article departed from the viewpoint that God has a telos [purpose] for revealing that Jesus is coming again. Questions arise whether these words, denoting the second coming, can be treated as exact synonyms or whether there are differences in nuance in the meaning of these words. This article is a step in the process to answer these questions. A word study of the concepts ἀποκάλυψις and ἀποκαλύπτω was done and it was investigated how these terms for the second coming of Christ are used in the New Testament. Furthermore, the telos of the revelation regarding the ἀποκάλυψις of Christ in the relevant chapters of Scripture was determined. This is a question that is seldom addressed. For the word study, diachronic and synchronic methods were used. The development of ἀποκάλυψις and ἀποκαλύπτω into suitable words for denoting the second coming was thus tracked from the Old to the New Testament. For the determination of the use of ἀποκάλυψις and ἀποκαλύπτω in the New Testament, as well as for the determination of the telos of the revelation regarding the second coming, exegesis was conducted in the revelation-historical tradition. The result was an original definition of the meaning of ἀποκάλυψις and ἀποκαλύπτω as used in various contexts: ‘It is the triune God’s final revelation of himself in Jesus Christ at his second coming, in glory, in order to fully reveal, fulfil and realise his Word, his master plan, his covenant and his promises and to be in eternal fellowship with his children.’ The telos for the revelation of the ἀποκάλυψις of Christ was determined as warning believers to be prepared, encouraging and comforting them in afflictions and suffering. A theological definition of the meaning of ἀποκάλυψις provides a handy tool for exegetes. Foreknowledge of the telos of the revelation regarding the ἀποκάλυψις could guide exegetes in their endeavours.Contribution: An original theological definition of the meaning of ἀποκάλυψις and ἀποκαλύπτω was provided and the telos of the revelation regarding ἀποκάλυψις and ἀποκαλύπτω was determined as warning believers to be prepared, encouraging and comforting them in afflictions and suffering.

The Spiritual Globe

The Renaissance recovery of Ptolemy’s Geography may have laid the foundations for a scientific cartography, but the new interest in maps, which provided an increasingly sophisticated orientation to the unknown, also opened up a new prophetic space. And the growing knowledge of the globe would engage the religious imagination of many, as salvation moved to a planetary scale and fostered a long-standing desire to bring the entire world and all its peoples under one faith. As a result, spiritual desires themselves contributed to the expansion of cartography. This article traces this emerging apocalyptic cartography not only in Christian but also in Jewish and Islamic contexts. For each tradition, the ultimate goal, deeply felt in the early modern period, was the realization of a Beautiful Ending: the Second Coming of Jesus for the Christians, the arrival of the Messiah for the Jews, and the return of the Mahdi for the Muslims. But, while each tradition drew on similar apocalyptic visions of the End, their dreams of unity were ultimately exclusive. The ideal of the spiritual globe not only united, it also divided the world.

On Mending the Peace of the World: Sir Francis Bacon’s Apocalyptic Irenicism

This essay is about irenicism and science, i.e. about the interrelationship between the quest for peace on earth and the quest for knowledge about the world. Both are global aspirations, the former focused on achieving concord among rival peoples and ideologies, nations, and religions; the latter on comprehending the earth and the heavens and the way the things in them are made. Sir Francis Bacon (1561–1626), Viscount St. Alban and sometime Lord Chancellor of England, who, citing in Latin the Biblical prophecy in Daniel 12:4 – “Many shall go to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased” – linked together the increase of geographical knowledge in his own day with the prospect for new discoveries in all fields of learning. For Bacon, the advancement of all branches knowledge, fated to come together in the same age, would in time bring religious unity and with it this-worldly peace, thereby paving the way for the fulfillment of the apocalyptical prophecy in the Book of Daniel, which in Christian discourse was interpreted to mean the Second Coming of Christ. This essay explores Bacon’s discussions of his aims and the methods he advocated as addressed the consequences of “discovery” for mending world back to its wholeness.

The Apocalyptic Image of the Beast in William Blake’s ‘The Tyger’ and W.B. Yeats’ ‘The Second Coming’

The monstrous image created by William Blake in ‘The Tyger’ left the world wrapped in an apocalyptic vision that creates an epiphany of unknown Romantic potentials symbolised in ‘The Tyger’. The apocalyptic vision, deeply rooted in Christian religion, develops into an ominous harbinger of the destruction of the modern world portrayed in W.B. Yeats’ ‘The Second Coming’. The image of the beast marks the difference between two ages, one with strong potentials and the other with fear and resident evil unexplained. I argue that the apocalyptic theory in Christianity has an impact on the development of the image of the beast in both poems, an impact that highlights man’s retreat from Nature into the modern world which may fall apart because of beastly practices.

Eusebius of Caesarea, the Roman Empire, and the Fulfillment of Biblical Prophecy: Reassessing Byzantine Imperial Eschatology in the Age of Constantine

Modern scholarship often attributes to Eusebius of Caesarea (d. circa 340 AD) the view that God's heavenly kingdom had become manifest in the Roman Empire of Constantine the Great. Consequently, Eusebius is deemed significant in the development of Christian eschatological thought as the supposed formulator of a new “realized eschatology” for the Christian Roman Empire. Similarly, he is considered the originator of so-called “Byzantine imperial eschatology”—that is, eschatology designed to justify the existing imperial order under the emperors in Constantinople. Scholars advancing these claims most frequently cite a line from Eusebius's Tricennial Oration in which he identified the accession of the sons of Constantine with the prophesied kingdom of the saints in the Book of Daniel. Further supposed evidence has been adduced in his other writings, especially his Life of Constantine. This article argues that this common interpretation of Eusebius's eschatology is mistaken and has resulted from treating a few passages in isolation while overlooking their rhetorical context. It demonstrates instead that Eusebius adhered to a conventional Christian eschatology centered on the future kingdom of heaven that would accompany the second coming of Christ and further suggests that the concept of “Byzantine imperial eschatology” should be reconsidered.