The end of the world

Posterity has not been kind to "Libro de las profecias", a curious work written or edited by Christopher Columbus in 1501-1502, with some later additions. "Wallowing in a theological stupor", "mental hallucinations", "a possessed and hallucinating being" and even "quite mad" are some of the scholarly invectives directed at the man and his work. Or rather at the supposedly broken man who penned "The Book of Prophecies", since nobody seems to doubt the sanity of Columbus when he set sails for the Indies, against the advice of the entire scientific community, and ended up on a somewhat extended Caribbean holiday...

The secular-modern world wants its heroes to be secular, too. Thus, Newton's interest in alchemy, astrology and Bible prophecy (really no big deal) was considered quite a scandal when "discovered" by Keynes in the 1930's. In an intellectual climate where not even W B Yeats is allowed to be occult, it's hardly surprising that the apocalyptic speculations of the great discoverer Cristóbal Colón should have been swept under the rug. Don't get me wrong, Columbus' religious views were crackpot, but why is it easier to come to terms with his colonial conquests than with his Bible studies? An interesting question! Perhaps we still want our colonial conquests (medium rare), even after we have gotten rid of our Bibles...

This volume, published by the University of Florida, contain the original Latin text of "Libro de las profecias", an English translation, and extensive commentaries by scholars Delno West and August Kling. The actual "Book of Prophecies" is surprisingly uninteresting, being to a large extent an undigested compilation of excerpts from the Vulgate. At some point, somebody removed Columbus' extensive quotations of Joachim of Fiore and the pseudo-Joachimite literature, perhaps because they were deemed too controversial. The missing pages have never been recovered. However, the editors do allow for a more mundane explanation: outright theft. Apparently, Spanish libraries during the 16th and 17th centuries weren't exactly in mint condition!

One thing is patently clear: Columbus did have some pretty high ideas about himself and the importance of his Westward mission. On his third journey, he claimed to have discovered the Garden of Eden (actually Venezuela) and he assumed that the fabled gold mines of Solomon were just a few landfalls away. With the gold from the New World, Columbus would aid king Ferdinand of Spain ("the new David") to launch a crusade and recapture Jerusalem. In a letter to the Borgia Pope, Alexander VI, Columbus even offers to lead the crusade himself. In Jerusalem, the Temple would be rebuilt in anticipation of the Second Coming of Christ, which Columbus calculated would take place 150 years into the future (i.e. around AD 1650). Thus, Columbus left the New World to inaugurate the end of the world...

The Bible prophecies that fascinated Columbus the most are about "the islands in the sea" and the need to evangelize the entire world before the Second Advent. He believed that Tarshish was an island, and identified it with Ophir and Cethim. By discovering previously unknown lands and converting their inhabitants, the Admiral of the Ocean Sea had set the prophetic clock ticking. He regarded himself as a kind of John the Baptist, making the paths straight for Ferdinand, whose role as the new David made him a quasi-Messianic figure. Columbus further believed that the Holy Ghost had granted him a special gift of illumination and discernment, with the help of which he could glean the true meaning of the Scriptures, and that Ferdinand and Isabella had supported him due to Providence.

It's interesting to note that Columbus was inspired by the Spiritual Franciscans, Joachim of Fiore and the pseudo-Joachimite literature. At least in official circles, this was "fringey" even by the standards of the day. The idea that the redemption of Zion would come from Spain was taken from a prophecy wrongly attributed to Joachim, while the specific elevation of Ferdinand into a latter day David came from a certain Merlin, a contemporary of Columbus himself.

The editors of this volume constantly emphasize how pious and religious Columbus must have been. Personally, I got the impression that the great sea-fearer was a kook. But then, he was hardly the first - nor the last - apocalyptic prophet, and hardly the only one during the Renaissance. In a sense perhaps unanticipated by himself, Columbus *did* inaugurate an "apocalypse" of sorts. The destruction of the American "Indians" really was the end of a world...