258 POPULAR BELIEFS. 



said that the Kings of Portugal, Emanucl and John III., went so far as to 

 scud several expeditions to India and Abyssinia, to see whether these wonders 

 really existed. According to certain savants rather less credulous, the fiction 

 of Prester John had its origin in the actual existence of a Nestorian leader, 

 named Johannes Presbyter, who in the twelfth century founded a powerful 

 empire in Tartary. 



It was by a natural transition that to the Wandering Jew and Prester John 

 came to be attached the personality of the Antichrist who, since the year 

 1000, had always been expected, and whose long-delayed appearance was to 

 be a prelude to the end of the world. " At the end of a thousand years," 

 said St. John, " Satan will leave his prison and seduce the peoples which are 

 at the four corners of the earth." Basing their arguments upon this 

 prophecy, which they interpreted the wrong way, several early theologians had 

 announced that the millennium would mark the accomplishment of the times. 

 When that date arrived the early Christians at once prepared to appear before 

 God, renouncing all their property, which they gave to the churches and 

 monasteries, and suspending as useless the cultivation of the land and all 

 industrial and commercial pursuits. The year thousand, which was expected 

 to be the last of the world, was marked by manys threatening signs in heaven 

 and earth by eclipses,- comets, famine, and overflowing of rivers. A contem- 

 porary writer has left us a terrible picture of the desolation which then 

 prevailed throughout the entire West. The whole talk was of terrible miracles 

 and unheard-of prodigies. Upon the eve of the day when the year thousand 

 was on the point of completion, the whole population crowded to the 

 churches, weeping and praying, waiting in dread expectation for the sound 

 of the seven trumpets and the coming of the Antichrist (Fig. 187). But the 

 sun rose as usual, none of the stars fell, and Nature's laws continued their 

 course. Nevertheless, it was believed that this was only a short respite which 

 God had granted to the world in order that sinners might be converted, and 

 the days, weeks, and months were anxiously counted. It was not until many 

 years afterwards that men's minds were reassured. Even after this the end 

 of the world was from time to time announced and expected, and the coming 

 of Antichrist was believed to be imminent, whenever civil or foreign warfare, 

 famine, epidemics, or moral disorder in society seemed to call him to the 

 earth. In 1600, more especially, it was rumoured that he had at length 

 been born ; at Babylon, according to one report ; near Paris, according to 



