Et seni decies a partu Virginis almæ,
Tunc Antichristus nascetur demone plenus.[53]
This Theory was derived from the famous 1260 Days of Prophecy[54], taking Days for Years, and computing from the Commencement of the common Christian Era. But when the Year 1260 passed away and the Prophecy was not fulfilled, the Followers of Joachim attempted to correct the Hypothesis of their Master, and many of them (as for Example the Beguins[55], who adopted the Speculations of Peter John de Oliva,) took hold of the 1335 Days of Daniel, and from them fixed upon the Year 1335, as the Date of Antichrist’s Destruction. The Editor has not had Access to any of the Remains of Peter John’s Writings, but he is informed by a learned Friend, in whose Accuracy he has the fullest Confidence, that Peter John, in his Tractatus de Antichristo[56], has fixed upon the Year 1356, as the Year of the Revelation, not the Destruction, of Antichrist, by adding 96, the supposed Date of the Apocalypse, to 1260. Joachim, however, in greater Conformity with Scripture, made the Termination of the 1260 Days, (or Years, as he considered them,) the Period of the End, not of the Beginning of Antichrist. Our Author’s Theory[57], supported by a Cabbalistic Computation from the Letters of the Alphabet, which the Editor has not been able to discover elsewhere, makes the Year 1400 the Era of the Revelation of Antichrist; and Walter Brute[58], in 1390, appears to have put forward a Conclusion not very dissimilar, although maintained on different Grounds. His Argument was drawn from the Joachitic Theory of the prophetic Days taken for Years, and from the Supposition that the 1335 Days of Daniel commenced at the Desolation of the Temple under Adrian.
On the whole then it is unquestionable, that Wycliffe had before him some spurious Productions of Beguinism, circulated under the Name of the Abbot Joachim, but which could not possibly have been derived from the genuine Writings of that Enthusiast. None of these spurious Books, so far as the Editor’s limited Means of Research have enabled him to ascertain, have been preserved in our Libraries, or are noticed by the Authors who treat of the Doctrines of Joachim and his Successors.
It is evident from p. xxxi, that the Tract before us was composed in or after the Year 1356, the fatal Year of the Revelation of Antichrist, according to the Followers of Peter John.
[Ibid.] line 9.
þe seuynty & nyne chapitre.
The Passage quoted is taken from the ninetieth Psalm, as it is numbered in the Latin Vulgate, (ninety-first in our English Version.) The Editor is not aware of any Reason why this Psalm should be referred to as “the seventy and ninth Chapter,” and he is, therefore, constrained to assume, that there is here a Mistake of the Transcriber, who, perhaps, had before him numeral Letters or Figures, which he read erroneously. The Words referred to are to be found in Verses 5 and 6. Non timebis a timore nocturno. A sagitta volante in die, a negotio perambulante in tenebris: ab incursu, et dæmonio meridiano.