Page:A history of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages, volume 3.djvu/104

 88 THE SPIRITUAL FRANCISCANS. During the interval there would be a succession of the direst calam- ities. From 1360 to 1365 the worms of the earth would arise and destroy all beasts and birds ; tempest and deluge and earthquake, famine and pestilence and war would sweep away the wicked ; in 1365 Antichrist would come, and such multitudes would apostatize that but few faithful would be left. His reign would be short, and in 1370 a pope canonically elected would bring mankind to Christianity, after which all cardinals would be chosen from the Greek Church. During these tribulations the Franciscans would be nearly exterminated, in punishment for their relaxation of the Rule, but the survivors would be reformed and the Order would fill the earth, innumerable as the stars of heaven ; in fact, two Franciscans of the most abject poverty were to be the Elias and Enoch who would conduct the Church through that disastrous time. Meanwhile he advised that ample store should be made in mountain caves of beans and honey, salt meats, and dried fruits by those who desired to live through the convulsions of nature and soci- ety. After the death of Antichrist would come the Millennium ; for seven hundred years, or until about a.d. 2000, mankind would be virtuous and happy, but then would come a decline : existing vices, especially among the clergy, would be revived, preparatory to the advent of Gog and Magog, to be followed by the final Antichrist. It shows the sensitiveness of the hierarchy that this harmless nympholepsy was deemed worthy of severe repression.* The influence of the Everlasting Gospel was not yet wholty exhausted. I have alluded above to Thomas of Apulia, who in 1388 insisted on preaching to the Parisians that the reign of the Holy Ghost had commenced, and that he was the divinely com- missioned envoy sent to announce it, when his mission was hu- manely cut short by confining him as a madman. Singularly identical in all but the result was the career of Nicholas of Buldes- dorf, who, about 1445, proclaimed that God had commanded him to announce that the time of the New Testament had passed away, as that of the Old had done ; that the Third Era and Seventh Age of the world had come, under the reign of the Holy Ghost, when man would be restored to the state of primal innocence ; and that he was the Son of God deputed to spread the glad tidings. To
 * Fascic. Rer. Expetend. et Fugiend. II. 494-508.