Nebuchadnezzar's Dream: The Crusades, Apocalyptic Prophecy, and the End of History by Jay Rubenstein

Author:Jay Rubenstein [Rubenstein, Jay]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: history, Europe, General, Military, Medieval, Religion, Christianity
ISBN: 9780190274207
Google: bdB2DwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Published: 2019-11-15T00:31:02.688551+00:00

Gerhoh’s Apocalyptic Vision of History

In developing his own historical models, Gerhoh drew inspiration especially from Bernard of Clairvaux, with whom he had discussed face-to-face the politics of reform.50 Bernard, as described earlier, divided church history into four periods, onto which he grafted a number of images, notably the four horsemen of the Apocalypse and the reference in the Gospel to the fourth hour of the watch. The defining events of these four periods are: the martyrs of the early church; the later battle against heresy; the long era of peace that concealed sinful business conducted in the shadows; and the appearance of Antichrist, the noonday demon, who would usher in the Last Judgment and the end of days. Bernard, as we have seen, wavered on the question of whether he was living through the Last Days, but by the end of his life, especially in the aftermath of the Second Crusade, an imminent apocalypse seemed more likely than not.

Gerhoh tinkered with similar models throughout his life.51 In the Investigation of Antichrist, written in 1162, he applied Bernard’s thought, with some minor revision, to the history of the Temple in Jerusalem. Its initial construction corresponded to the work of the early church. David, who began it, is a type of Christ, and Solomon, who completed it, is a type of the Holy Spirit.52

The Temple’s destruction under Nebuchadnezzar corresponded to the second age, of persecution and martyrdom. Gerhoh draws particular inspiration from Daniel 3, where the three Hebrew men, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, are forced into a fiery furnace for refusing to worship a gold statue of Nebuchadnezzar. (Nebuchadnezzar had apparently learned the wrong lesson from his earlier dream, where Daniel compared his reign to a statue’s splendid golden head.) The Babylonian king was a type of Roman emperor. His persecution of Jewish wise men made him a forerunner of Nero, killer of Christians.53 Still, Nebuchadnezzar was a pliant symbol. His friendship with Daniel made him forerunner to the Emperor Constantine. In this reading, Daniel was a type of Pope Sylvester, who legendarily cured Constantine of leprosy in the baptismal font. In gratitude, Constantine invested Sylvester with the city of Rome and gave him authority over all bishops and princes of the world, an idea immortalized in the Middle Ages’ most famous forgery, the Donation of Constantine. Likewise, in Gerhoh’s imagination, Nebuchadnezzar and Daniel divvied up earthly and spiritual responsibilities amicably, setting an example for political and spiritual harmony that Christian Europe seldom achieved.54

The rebuilding of the Temple under Cyrus of Persia in Gerhoh’s system points to the outbreaks of heresy in the third age. Heretics began their malicious work under Constantine’s immediate successors, his son Constantius and later Julian the Apostate (r. 361–63 ce). This connection to heresy grew not out of the Temple itself (though Gerhoh spent considerable time meditating on why the Second Temple was only half as tall as the original). Rather, the Israelites faced a series of obstacles and enemies, described in the book of Nehemiah, most notably Sanballat the Samaritan, Tobias the Ammonite, and Geshem the Arab.

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