The Chaldeans, according to Berosus, held that the world is periodically destroyed by deluges and conflagrations. They believed that the deluges were caused by the conjunction of the planets in Capricorn, and the conflagrations by conjunction in Cancer. The Chaldean philosophers had also their Annus Magnus or great year, at the end of which the present terrestrial and cosmical order would terminate by fire and afterwards be renewed.
The ancient Scythians believed that the world undergoes revolution both by fire and by water. The Egyptians believed that the earth would flourish through the interval expressed by the Annus Magnus or great year, a cycle, as with the Chaldeans, composed of revolutions of the sun and moon, and terminating when they returned together to the same sign whence they set out. At the end of each cycle the earth was supposed to be destroyed by fire or water, and to be renovated for the abode of man. The Hindoo cosmogony taught the doctrine of secular catastrophes and renovations. Water is then introduced, over which moves Brahma, the creator. Brahma then causes dry land to appear and vivifies the earth in succession with plants, animals and man, then he sleeps 4320 millions of years—a day for Brahma, and then the earth is destroyed by fire. The fire is finally quenched by rain which falls a hundred years and inundates heaven and earth. The breath of Vishnu next becomes a strong wind by which the clouds are dispersed, and Deity in the form of Brahma awakes from his serpent couch on the deep and renews the world, and sleeps again another day. The power of Brahma is thus outlined by Emerson:
“If the red slayer thinks he slays,
Or if the slain thinks he is slain,
They know not well the subtle ways
I keep, and pass, and turn again.
“Far or forgot, to me is near,
Shadow and sunshine are the same;
The vanished gods to me appear,
And one to me are shame and fame.
“They reckon ill who leave me out.
When me they fly I am the wings;
I am the doubter and the doubt,
And I the hymn the Brahman sings.
“The strong god pines for my abode,
And pine in vain the sacred seven;
But thou, meek lover of the good,
Find me and turn thy back on heaven.”
The Jews also hold a prophecy that the world was to endure 2000 years before the flood, 2000 under the law and 2000 under the Messiah, and then to be destroyed by water, and a large part of the Christian world accepts the same today.
Orpheus and Menander, early Greek poets who lived in the twilight of Greek civilization, reproduce the myth of the Annus Magnus, and teach that the earth is to be destroyed at the completion of the cycle. In the Sybilline books, 1300 years before our era, this faith is shadowed and the world is destined to endure ten ages, the first of which is the Golden Age. After a renovation by fire the Golden Age will return, when, according to Virgil, the serpent will perish; the earth will produce her crops spontaneously; the kid will no longer fear the lion; the grape will be borne upon the thorn-bush, and scarlet and yellow and royal purple will become the native colors of the woolly fleece:
“Ipsæ lacte domum referent distenta capellæ
Ubera; nec magnos netuent armenta leones.
Ipsa tibi blandos fundent cunabula flores;
Occidet et serpens, et fallax herba veneni
Occidet; Assyrium vulgo nascetur amomum.
* * * * *
Molli paulatim flavescet campus arista,
Incultisque rubens pendebit sentibus uva,
Et duræ quercus sudabunt roscida mella.”
According to Winchell, the Stoics got the same doctrine from the Phoenicians, and in speaking of the restoration after the conflagration, use the same term we find in the Scriptures, though written many hundred years earlier. Chrysippus calls it “Apocatastasis”—restitution—as St. Peter does in the Acts. Marcus Antoninus several times calls it “Palingenesia”—regeneration—as our Savior does in Matthew, and Paul in his epistle to Titus. The Pythagoreans, who taught the transmigration of souls, had the same ideas regarding the revolutions as had the Stoics. Plato taught the same, and Aristotle alone of all the ancient philosophers, taught the immortality of the soul and a continuance of the present order of things.