Bishop Christianos Ageda's Prophecy
Well it's been a very long time since we last had a Prophecy of Interest here at the American Inquisition, so I figured I should rectify that.
~
Tonight's prophecy comes from Bishop Christianos Ageda, a twelfth century figure about whom not a great deal is known. Despite this, I think his prophecy is interesting and worth going over. Here it is, in full:
In the 20th century there will be wars and fury that will last a long time; whole provinces shall be emptied of their inhabitants and kingdoms shall be thrown into confusion. In many places the land shall be left untilled and there shall be great slaughters of the upper class. The right hand of the world shall fear the left and the north shall prevail over the south.
As is traditional with prophecies, parts of it are vague enough that they are rather open to interpretation. This one is not, however, too vague to be totally inapplicable, unlike some prophecies which I've covered in the past.
Anyway, time to go over this part by part.
In the 20th century there wil be wars and fury that will last a long time...
Well, I daresay the good bishop is pretty safe on this part. World Wars I and II both come to mind, as well as the Vietnam, Korean and Cold Wars, to mention just those wars which America was involved in. Given their length, the world wars and the Cold War seem to be the most applicable here. On the other hand, although the 20th century stands out as a particularly bloody century, it's generally a safe prediction to make that a particular century will have a lot of wars in it (especially if it's eight centuries away...). On a related note, I'm throwing my hat into the "prophet" ring and declaring that I think the 28th century is going to be one of a lot of strife.
...whole provinces shall be empited of their inhabitants...
Ah, something more substantive. This is definitely applicable to the 20th century, although in a few different ways. This part presumably refers back to the wars and is a consequence thereof, although this is unclear in the English translation. At any rate, Hitler's deportation of millions of Jews and Catholics to his concentration camps certainly qualifies here, as do Stalin's mass purges and the genocides of places like Rwanda. So far so good with the bishop.
...kingdoms shall be thrown into confusion.
We can take this both as referring to kingdoms in the real sense and in the abstract. In the 12th century they didn't have many governments that weren't kingdoms (only the trading republics like Genoa and Venice come to mind), so it would still be within the realm of prophetic interpretation to say that this could refer simply to governments and be still valid.
I'm not sure we need to do that, though. The 20th century definitely saw the "throwing into confusion" of a number of kingdoms. The Austro-Hungarian Empire met an unfortunate end at American hands at the close of the first world war and was summarily dismantled. The British Empire saw the stripping of all remaining *real* power from the monarchy and Spain, although it saw the restoration of their monarchs after Franco's death, experienced a dreadful civil war. We might even look to China for this part, as its government was ruthlessly supplanted by the evil Communist forces of Mao Zedong and his ilk and it can no longer be properly called a kingdom.
In many places the land shall be left untilled and there shall be great slaughters of the upper class.
The former part of this naturally goes hand-in-hand with the prevalence of lots of wars and destruction and so isn't really a big deal, as far as prophetic interpretation is concerned. The second part is more specific and of more interest, since "great slaughters of the upper class" do not necessarily characterize most conflicts.
These "great slaughters" did, however, occur in the 20th century, with somewhat startling regularity. Following the unfortunate decolonization of many parts of the world (parts that, I should note, are currently largely war-torn and poverty stricken...), the former ruling class, although still wealthy, no longer wielded the kind of power necessary to keep peace and order in their lands. Subsequently, the natives thought it would be a jolly good idea to have an uprising and slaughter them all, which they then proceeded to do.
Even more than this, however, we see the systematic and deliberate decimation of the upper classes in communist China and Russia, where the inane economic and political doctines of Marx were put into action and everyone with money was hunted down and killed. It is thus quite safe to say that this part of the prophecy was more than fulfilled.
The right hand of the world shall fear the left and the north shall prevail over the south.
Ah, what would a prophecy be without a good ole-fashioned ambiguous part? It wouldn't be a prophecy, that's what. (In related news, I am continuing my prophecy from earlier and predicting that, in the 28th century, the upper shall defeat the lower and the small shall overcome the weak.)
Anyway, because these parts of prophecies are traditionally so vague, this means we can interpret them in a variety of ways that suit us. As the left hand is traditionally the "sinister" one, I think we can take this to mean that the forces of evil shall be feared by the forces of righteousness, an interpretation which is sufficiently vague to cover myself but still within the realm of possible meaning. At any rate, we can apply this to the Cold War, wherein the forces of the right hand (America) feared the forces of the left hand (Russia), because they thought the commies were crazy enough to nuke the US and kill us all (this is known as the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction).
The north overcoming the south is less open to interpretation, since it refers to directions which are considerably less ambiguous than "hands" but which are sufficiently vague enough to mean just about anything. Here, I think we can apply this to China- during the conflict between the nationalist and communist Chinese forces, the communists took over the region of Manchuria, which is in the north. The nationalists still controlled the vast majority of the country (the south), but ended up being defeated by the communists (then they fled to Taiwan). This is a fairly good fulfillment, I think, without too much stretching to make it fit.
Well, I think that's all for now. Bishop Ageda's prophecy is quite interesting, although it is the kind of prophecy which can only really be understood in retrospect. Such is the way of most prophecies, however. Tomorrow: something different.
~
Our Lady, Seat of Widsom, pray for us.
~
Tonight's prophecy comes from Bishop Christianos Ageda, a twelfth century figure about whom not a great deal is known. Despite this, I think his prophecy is interesting and worth going over. Here it is, in full:
In the 20th century there will be wars and fury that will last a long time; whole provinces shall be emptied of their inhabitants and kingdoms shall be thrown into confusion. In many places the land shall be left untilled and there shall be great slaughters of the upper class. The right hand of the world shall fear the left and the north shall prevail over the south.
As is traditional with prophecies, parts of it are vague enough that they are rather open to interpretation. This one is not, however, too vague to be totally inapplicable, unlike some prophecies which I've covered in the past.
Anyway, time to go over this part by part.
In the 20th century there wil be wars and fury that will last a long time...
Well, I daresay the good bishop is pretty safe on this part. World Wars I and II both come to mind, as well as the Vietnam, Korean and Cold Wars, to mention just those wars which America was involved in. Given their length, the world wars and the Cold War seem to be the most applicable here. On the other hand, although the 20th century stands out as a particularly bloody century, it's generally a safe prediction to make that a particular century will have a lot of wars in it (especially if it's eight centuries away...). On a related note, I'm throwing my hat into the "prophet" ring and declaring that I think the 28th century is going to be one of a lot of strife.
...whole provinces shall be empited of their inhabitants...
Ah, something more substantive. This is definitely applicable to the 20th century, although in a few different ways. This part presumably refers back to the wars and is a consequence thereof, although this is unclear in the English translation. At any rate, Hitler's deportation of millions of Jews and Catholics to his concentration camps certainly qualifies here, as do Stalin's mass purges and the genocides of places like Rwanda. So far so good with the bishop.
...kingdoms shall be thrown into confusion.
We can take this both as referring to kingdoms in the real sense and in the abstract. In the 12th century they didn't have many governments that weren't kingdoms (only the trading republics like Genoa and Venice come to mind), so it would still be within the realm of prophetic interpretation to say that this could refer simply to governments and be still valid.
I'm not sure we need to do that, though. The 20th century definitely saw the "throwing into confusion" of a number of kingdoms. The Austro-Hungarian Empire met an unfortunate end at American hands at the close of the first world war and was summarily dismantled. The British Empire saw the stripping of all remaining *real* power from the monarchy and Spain, although it saw the restoration of their monarchs after Franco's death, experienced a dreadful civil war. We might even look to China for this part, as its government was ruthlessly supplanted by the evil Communist forces of Mao Zedong and his ilk and it can no longer be properly called a kingdom.
In many places the land shall be left untilled and there shall be great slaughters of the upper class.
The former part of this naturally goes hand-in-hand with the prevalence of lots of wars and destruction and so isn't really a big deal, as far as prophetic interpretation is concerned. The second part is more specific and of more interest, since "great slaughters of the upper class" do not necessarily characterize most conflicts.
These "great slaughters" did, however, occur in the 20th century, with somewhat startling regularity. Following the unfortunate decolonization of many parts of the world (parts that, I should note, are currently largely war-torn and poverty stricken...), the former ruling class, although still wealthy, no longer wielded the kind of power necessary to keep peace and order in their lands. Subsequently, the natives thought it would be a jolly good idea to have an uprising and slaughter them all, which they then proceeded to do.
Even more than this, however, we see the systematic and deliberate decimation of the upper classes in communist China and Russia, where the inane economic and political doctines of Marx were put into action and everyone with money was hunted down and killed. It is thus quite safe to say that this part of the prophecy was more than fulfilled.
The right hand of the world shall fear the left and the north shall prevail over the south.
Ah, what would a prophecy be without a good ole-fashioned ambiguous part? It wouldn't be a prophecy, that's what. (In related news, I am continuing my prophecy from earlier and predicting that, in the 28th century, the upper shall defeat the lower and the small shall overcome the weak.)
Anyway, because these parts of prophecies are traditionally so vague, this means we can interpret them in a variety of ways that suit us. As the left hand is traditionally the "sinister" one, I think we can take this to mean that the forces of evil shall be feared by the forces of righteousness, an interpretation which is sufficiently vague to cover myself but still within the realm of possible meaning. At any rate, we can apply this to the Cold War, wherein the forces of the right hand (America) feared the forces of the left hand (Russia), because they thought the commies were crazy enough to nuke the US and kill us all (this is known as the doctrine of Mutually Assured Destruction).
The north overcoming the south is less open to interpretation, since it refers to directions which are considerably less ambiguous than "hands" but which are sufficiently vague enough to mean just about anything. Here, I think we can apply this to China- during the conflict between the nationalist and communist Chinese forces, the communists took over the region of Manchuria, which is in the north. The nationalists still controlled the vast majority of the country (the south), but ended up being defeated by the communists (then they fled to Taiwan). This is a fairly good fulfillment, I think, without too much stretching to make it fit.
Well, I think that's all for now. Bishop Ageda's prophecy is quite interesting, although it is the kind of prophecy which can only really be understood in retrospect. Such is the way of most prophecies, however. Tomorrow: something different.
~
Our Lady, Seat of Widsom, pray for us.
posted by Jason | Wednesday, April 05, 2006
2 Comments:
"The small shall overcome the weak"?
Perhaps the right hand of the world signifies the literal eastern side of the globe, the Middle East and Asia. They have had cause to fear the 'left' or western powers often in the 20th century. Likewise with the north, with America and Europe prevailing over the southern hemisphere.
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